Soon after entering the forests, we were met in the path by a small company of Indians, smiling and beckoning to us long before we joined them. This was a family of Talahasochte who had been out on a hunt, and were returning home loaded with barbecued meat, hides and honey. Their company consisted of the man, his wife and children, well mounted on fine horses, with a number of pack-horses. The man presently offered us a fawn-skin of honey, which we gladly accepted, and at parting I presented him with some fish hooks, sewing needles, &c.; for in my travels amongst the Indians, I always furnished myself with such useful and acceptable little articles of light carriage, for presents. We parted and before night rejoined our companion at the Long Pond.
On our return to camp in the evening, we were saluted by a party of young Indian warriors, who had pitched their camp on a green eminence near the lake, and at a small distance from our camp, under a little grove of Oaks and Palms. This company consisted of seven young Siminoles, under the conduct of a young prince or chief of Talahasochte, a town southward on the isthmus. They were all dressed and painted with singular elegance, and richly ornamented with silver plates, chains, &c. after the Siminole mode, with waving plumes of feathers on their crests. On our coming up to them, they arose and shook hands; we alighted and sat a while with them by their cheerful fire.
The young prince informed our chief that he was in pursuit of a young fellow, who had fled from the town, carrying off with him one of his favourite young wives or concubines. He said merrily, he would have the ears of both of them before he returned. He was rather above the middle stature, and the most perfect human figure I ever saw; of an amiable engaging countenance, air and deportment; free and familiar in conversation, yet retaining a becoming gracefulness and dignity. We arose, took leave of them, and crossed a little vale covered with a charming green turf, already illumined by the soft light of the full moon.
Soon after joining our companions at camp, our neighbours, the prince and his associates paid us a visit. We treated them with the best fare we had, having till this time preserved some of our spirituous liquors. They left us with perfect cordiality and cheerfulness, wishing us a good repose, and retired to their own camp. Having a band of music with them, consisting of a drum, flutes, and a rattle gourd, they entertained us during the night with their music, vocal and instrumental.
There is a languishing softness and melancholy air in the Indian convivial songs, especially of the amorous class, irresistibly moving, attractive, and exquisitely pleasing, especially in these solitary recesses, when all nature is silent.
Behold how gracious and beneficent smiles the roseate morn! Now the sun arises and fills the plains with light; his glories appear on the forests, encompassing the meadows, and gild the top of the terebinthine Pine and exalted Palms, now gently rustling by the pressure of the waking breezes: the music of the seraphic cranes resounds in the skies; in separate squadrons they sail, encircling their precincts, slowly descend beating the dense air, and alight on the green dewy verge of the expansive lake; its surface yet smoking with the grey ascending mists, which, condensed aloft in clouds of vapour, are born away by the morning breezes, and at last gradually vanish on the distant horizon. All nature awakes to life and activity.
The ground, during our progress this morning, every where about us presenting to view those funnels, sinks and wells in groups of rocks, amidst the groves, as already recited.
Near our next encampment one more conspicuous than I had elsewhere observed presenting itself, I took occasion from this favourable circumstance of observing them in all their variety of appearances. Its outer superficial margin being fifty or sixty yards over, which equally and uniformly on every side sloped downwards towards the centre: on one side of it was a considerable path-way or road leading down to the water, worn by the frequent resort of wild creatures for drink, when the waters were risen even or above the rocky bed, but at this time they were sunk many yards below the surface of the earth. We descended first to the bed of rocks, which was perforated with perpendicular tubes, exactly like a walled well, four, five, or six feet in diameter, and may be compared to cells in an honeycomb, through which appeared the water at bottom: many of these were broken or worn one into another, forming one vast well with uneven walls, consisting of projecting jams, pilasters, or buttresses and excavated semicircular niches, as if a piece were taken out of an honey-comb: the bed of rocks is from fifteen to twenty feet deep or in thickness, though not of one solid mass, but of many, generally horizontal laminæ, or strata, of various thickness, from eighteen inches to two or three feet, which admit water to weep through, trickling down, drop after drop, or chasing each other in winding little rills down to the bottom. One side of the vast cool grotto was so shattered and broken in, I thought it possible to descend down to the water at bottom; and my companion assuring me that the Indians and traders frequently go down for drink, encouraged me to make the attempt, as he agreed to accompany me.
Having provided ourselves with a long snagged sapling, called an Indian ladder, and each of us a pole, by the assistance of these we both descended safely to the bottom, which we found nearly level, and not quite covered over with water; on one side was a bed of gravel and fragments of rocks or stones, and on the other a pool of water near two feet deep, which moved with a slow current under the walls on a bed of clay and gravel.
After our return to the surface of the earth, I again ranged about the groves and grottos, examining a multitude of them. Being on the margin of one in the open forest, and observing some curious vegetable productions growing on the side of the sloping funnel towards its centre, the surface of the ground covered with grass and herbage; unapprehensive of danger, I descended precipitately towards the group of shrubs; when I was surprised and providentially stopped in my career, at the ground sounding hollow under my feet; and observing chasms through the ground, I quickly drew back, and returning again with a pole with which I beat in the earth, to my astonishment and dread appeared the mouth of a well through the rocks, and I observed the water glimmering at the bottom. Being wearied with excursions, we returned to our pleasant situation on the verge of the lawn.