The Rudder Grangers Abroad | Page 5

apart, hoisted sail, and were soon
speeding away.
"Good bye!" shouted the father, a genial man. "Let us know if you want
any more groceries, and we'll send them to you."
For six days from our time of starting we sailed down the Indian River.
Sometimes the banks were miles apart, and sometimes they were very
near each other; sometimes we would come upon a solitary house, or
little cluster of dwellings; and then there would be many, many miles
of wooded shore before another human habitation was to be seen.
Inland, to the west, stretched a vast expanse of lonely forest where
panthers, bears, and wild-cats prowled. To the east lay a long strip of
land, through whose tall palmettoes came the roar of the great ocean.
The blue sky sparkled over us every day; now and then we met a little
solitary craft; countless water-fowl were scattered about on the surface
of the stream; a school of mullet was usually jumping into the air; an
alligator might sometimes be seen steadily swimming across the river,
with only his nose and back exposed; and nearly always, either to the
right or to the left, going north or going south, were seven pelicans,
slowly flopping through the air.
A portion of the river, far southward, called "The Narrows," presented
a very peculiar scene. The banks were scarcely fifty feet apart, and yet
there were no banks. The river was shut in to the right by the inland
shore, and to the left by a far-reaching island, and yet there was no
inland shore, nor any island to the left. On either side were great forests
of mangrove trees, standing tiptoe on their myriad down-dropping roots,

each root midleg in the water. As far as we could see among the trees,
there was no sign of ground of any kind--nothing but a grotesque
network of roots, on which the forest stood. In this green-bordered
avenue of water, which extended nine or ten miles, the thick foliage
shut out the breeze, and our boatman was obliged to go ahead in his
little boat and tow us along.
"There are Indians out West," said Euphemia, as she sat gazing into the
mangroves, "who live on roots, but I don't believe they could live on
these. The pappooses would certainly fall through."
At Jupiter Inlet, about a hundred and fifty miles from our point of
starting, we went into camp, in which delightful condition we proposed
to remain for a week or more. There was no trouble whatever in finding
a suitable place for a camp. The spot selected was a point of land swept
by cool breezes, with a palmetto forest in the rear of it. On two sides of
the point stretched the clear waters of the river, while half a mile to the
east was Jupiter Inlet, on each side of which rolled and tumbled the surf
of the Atlantic. About a mile away was Jupiter Light-house, the only
human habitation within twenty miles. We built a palmetto hut for a
kitchen; we set up the tents in a permanent way; we constructed a little
pier for the yacht; we built a wash-stand, a table, and a bench. And then,
considering that we had actually gone into camp, we got out our
fishing-lines.
Fishing was to be the great work here. Near the Inlet, through which the
waters of the ocean poured into and out of our river, on a long, sandy
beach, we stood in line, two or three hours every day except Sunday,
and fished. Such fishing we had never imagined!--there were so many
fishes, and they were so big. The Paying Teller had never fished in his
life before he came to Florida. He had tried at St. Augustine, with but
little success. "If the sport had been to chuck fish into the river," he had
said, "that would be more in my line of business; but getting them out
of it did not seem to suit me." But here it was quite a different thing. It
was a positive delight to him, he said, to be obliged so often to pay out
his line.
One day, when tired of struggling with gamy blue-fish and powerful

cavalios (if that is the way to spell it), I wound up my line, and looked
about to see what the others were doing. The Paying Teller stood near,
on tiptoe, as usual, with his legs wide apart, his hat thrown back, his
eyes flashing over the water, and his right arm stretched far out, ready
for a jerk. Quee was farther along the beach. He had just landed a fish,
and was standing gazing meditatively upon it as it lay upon the sand.
The hook was still in its mouth, and every now