FLORIDA.


pronounced by competent authority to be the best harbor


between Port Royal and Pensacola.
water, about thirty miles in length
accessible from the Gulf, and stud
beautiful tropical islands, of which
Pine, Sanibal, Captira, Lacosta, and
ity has of late begun to attract muc
all the projected railroads of the
Charlotte Harbor as a southern term


South Florida Railroad, which,
chapter, has already set out on th
the geographical, commercial, an
the place are too apparent to esc
that some locality on that noble
come a great trade and shipping
most popular winter resorts in the
the vicinity are good; and crops


 It is a grand sheet of
by ten in width, easily
lded with hundreds of
the most important are
Gasparilla. The local-
h attention, and nearly
State have fixed upon
Linus-among them the


as explained in another
e route thither. Indeed,
d climatic advantages of
ape notice, and I believe
harbor is destined to be-


g center, and on
State. All the
of everything tha


produced elsewhere in the semi-tropical portions of


I


e of the
lands in
it can be
Florida


will grow there and produce abundantly. The scenery is
beautiful, the climate is wonderfully bland and equable,
and game and fish, oysters, turtles, and the like, are found
in inexhaustible quantities. The islands, great and small,
that are so numerous on that beautiful coast, are wonder-
fully pretty, perfect gems of tropical scenery.
 Considering how numerous are the summer resorts, in-
land and seaside hotels all through the north and west,
and how few are the winter resorts-the hotels specially
for winter tourists numbering scarcely two dozen in all-
and they not in the really tropical region of the State ; and
considering how limited is the tropical region; how the
number of hotel residents, of tourists, wandering to all sec-
tions of the country, summer and winter, in search of health
and pleasure, is increasing to such a vast multitude each
:year; and that the hotel of Florida, even at highest
prices, are scarcely able to accommodate the visitors to the


-L