HOME OF THE ORANGE-PICKERS IN FLORIDA.—A curiosity peculiar to Florida, and the tropics generally, is the palmetto hut, an unsubstantial structure roofed and “weather-boarded” with palmetto leaves, but furnishing ample protection from sun and rain. These huts are usually built to serve as temporary abodes for orange-pickers, and are therefore generally within or near the groves. It is the custom to sell the orange crop on the trees, the purchasers being usually fruit dealers from the North. These dealers employ trained pickers, who work throughout the season, going from one grove to another until the gathering is completed. These pickers generally provide their own supplies, likewise their shelter, and the palmetto hut serves them both well and economically.
SCENE ON THE SUWANEE RIVER.
At Palatka we took boat for an excursion up the Ocklawaha River to Silver Spring and Ocala, the head of navigation on that stream. Of our many trips in the East, West and South, this proved to be the most unique, the most wonderful, the most sensationally picturesque. Ocklawaha River is at once a lagoon, a narrow lake, and a swamp, but at no place does it have the appearance of a flowing stream, for the current is scarcely perceptible. The shore-line is indicated by a profuse growth of water-vegetation and cypress knees, while at places the river is so narrow that lofty trees interlace their branches above the low smoke-stack of the boat. And what a boat! It is well adapted to the trade, and to that end is unlike any other steamer that ever sat in the water, a thing of indescribable shape, an object of surprise and curiosity. On this queer craft fifty people may ride in comfort during the day, while attention is attracted by the alligators, cranes, loons and snake-birds along the shore, but the night must be spent in vain regrets and fighting mosquitoes. No chance to get lonesome on this trip; there is too much to see in day-time and too much to do at night. But it is a novelty, an experience, a sensation worth more than the discomforts that must be endured. Along the Ocklawaha alligators are still plentiful, because shooting is not allowed from the boat, and there is no other way to approach them within gun-shot distance. The lazy monsters may be seen sunning their corrugated backs on nearly every log, and in their company huge water-snakes are often found, associated with big and little snapping-turtles, the three species forming a congenial but most repulsive family of reptilian cousinship. The water being half-stagnant is black with a vegetable dissolution, and yet so transparent that the bottom may at times be seen. But if the creatures that haunt the river are offensive, the sight is compensated by the wonder which they excite; while the dense woods that margin the shore are resonant with the carol of birds and jewelled with their brilliant plumage.
The trip is remarkably interesting, but the greatest charm that attaches to the stream is found when the boat reaches Silver Spring, the most exquisite pool that was ever rippled by dip of oar or skimmed by lap-wing. Tradition tells us that this is the marvelous rejuvenating spring of which Ponce de Leon heard fabulous tales which lured him to the dark interior of Indian-infested Florida. If his eyes ever gazed into its crystalline depths surely he must have believed that his quest for the magic fountain had been rewarded. The clearness of the water may be likened to the air itself, for at its greatest depth of eighty feet objects on the bottom may be clearly and distinctly seen, likewise the fissure through which the water pours up like a veritable fountain. A peculiarity of the spring is the prismatic colors which are reflected from any white or shiny object thrown into it. To test this curious fact I cast in a piece of broken crockery and watched with keenest interest the fragment as it sank in a zigzag motion to the bottom. No rainbow was ever so brilliant as the colors which flashed up from this piece of saucer, nor did ever jewel gleam with more scintillant beauty.
A HOME IN THE SHADES OF SOUTHERN PINES.—If Ponce de Leon and his doughty Spaniards had remained in Florida and built them homes like this, under the shades of the health-giving pines, instead of wading through swamps and morasses in quest of the fountain of youth, they might, and probably would, have lived to be hale and hearty old men. Abodes like this, in the balmy air of the Sunny South, are fountains of life within themselves, where, free from worry and the necessity of making a living, one has but little to do aside from living and growing and being happy. Such homes, with contentment, are more worthy of being sought after than the wealth of a thousand Crœsuses.