LAKES.


with occasional tracts of hammock, and the


surface is mostly flat and
very fertile in productive
an offset to these object
doubtedly the healthiest
 This lake region is
Railroad, which extends
Orlando, the county-seat
already-mentioned village
laken. In my tour of th


not very attractive to the eye, nor
quality, except by fertilizing ; but
ons lies in the fact that it is un-
portion of Florida.
penetrated by the South Florida
from Sanford on Lake Monroe to
of Orange County, and passes the
es of Maitland, Osceola, and Inter-
e State with Mr. French (Chapter


III), I have already described it at considerable length, and
it is also described in the chapter on "The Sanford Grant."
I may add that the soil directly around Orlando is probably
the best in the region.
 Farther south are numerous lakes, many of them quite
large, like Lakes Butler, Conway, Tohopekaliga, Cypress,
Kissimmee, and Marianna, all situated in the center of the
peninsula, and surrounded by a rich hammock-soil. As yet
there are scarcely any settlers in all that extensive region,
which is quite beyond the confines of civilization at this
writing. The country is mostly of a prairie-like character,
resembling portions of Illinois, excepting that the vegeta-
tion is purely tropical, including many scattered groves of
stately palmettoes.
 Lake Okechobee, still farther south, is the largest in


the State, covering
square miles, and
Everglades. The
southern extremit
elsewhere said, no
which is so shallo
other vegetation.
lake-like character


g an area of upward of six hundred
extending fairly into the region of the
"Everglades" occupy nearly the whole
y of the peninsula, and are, as I haves
t so much a marsh as an extensive lake,
w as to be overgrown with grasses and
In the rainy season, in particular, its
is clearly apparent.


 A company of Philadelphia capitalists are proposing to
drain a large portion of this Everglade region, by cutting
 7


THE INLAND


interspersed