Pines are the principal trees of this part of Florida, though gnarled and mossy oaks are common. A glimpse of a sunset or the glow of a forest fire behind a group of these trees outlined against the sky forms many a beautiful picture. The pines are very picturesque too, they stand so tall, and the gray Florida moss hangs from their branches like draped garments.
A picturesque feature of the Florida woods is the numerous negro cabins made of logs. All have the same kind of mud and stick chimneys, built hardly up to the peak of the hut, so that when the thick black smoke, perhaps full of sparks, comes out of the mouth of the chimney, it curls against the under part of the projecting shingles, and then passes away. It is certainly very curious that the huts do not burn down, but it is a fact that they rarely do.
The cabins are very dirty, and passing one, you may see from two to perhaps five negro "pickaninnies" laying in the sand with a pig or two sometimes. The pigs here are commonly termed "razor-backs," because they are so small and thin that their backbones seem almost to prick through their skin. This county is named Alachua (the ch is pronounced as k), meaning in the Seminole Indian tongue "big jug," because there is a sink in an open space that is called Paine's Prairie when it is dry, and Kanapaha Lake when it is changed—after a heavy rain—into a sheet of water. The sink is so deep that no one has ever discovered the bottom.
The names of some of the places in Florida, and the flint arrow-heads which are frequently found, are all the traces that are left here of the Seminole Indians who once owned the land. Down by the coast, about fifty miles west from here, are found mounds of sand and oyster-shells, which, when dug into, reveal skeletons of Indians, and Spaniards who were killed. There is a place south of here which is historic. A great many soldiers were killed there by the Indians when asleep and off their guard. The Seminoles have been driven down into the "Everglades" of South Florida, a great swamp into the heart of which no white man has ever penetrated. Here the Indians stay, never daring to venture out to massacre in their old way, for there is no use in trying to do that now. Palmettoes grow in great abundance here. Sinks are very numerous, and so are natural wells.
There is a place called Waldo in Florida, where there is a swamp in which cedar-trees grow, and a lake in which alligators live in great numbers, and on the banks of which beautiful wild-flowers grow. The alligators lay their eggs in straw on the land, go back to the water, and visit the eggs from time to time until they hatch. Then the parents lead their young to the water, where they live. These alligators are caught for their handsome skins, of which many things are made.
Elsie Vermilye Smith (aged 12).
Arredonda, Florida.
Accompanying this most interesting letter is a wash-drawing of a negro cabin, with the too-short chimney, and the pig and pickaninnies in the foreground. It is a clever drawing. The Table is glad to print descriptive letters like this one, because everybody likes to read these interesting insights into peculiar features of other parts of the country. Will other readers send the Table equally good morsels?
It Went to Paradise Valley.
There are always hurry and confusion at the end of every session of Congress, and these are multiplied severalfold, if that be possible, when the Congress dies, by Constitutional limit, with the expiration of a President's term. In these busy hours droll things sometimes happen and witty things are said. In the Congress just expired—the extra session just called by President McKinley is of the new and not of the Congress that sat during the winter—an incident occurred that illustrates how great things often come about from small causes—a slight turn in the tide of their fortune at the right time.
A railroad company wanted a right of way through a forest reserve in the West. Senator Vest, of Missouri, opposed the grant for the reason that in the dry summer seasons forest fires would be kindled by the locomotives. The time was limited, and many important measures were to come up. A Senator sitting near the famous Missourian whispered something.
"Time presses," remarked Senator Vest, "and I am just informed that this road leads to 'Paradise Valley.' If the road helps anybody to get to Paradise, why, let it go through."
And it went.