IN THE SLOUGH.


sounded unnatural and strangely sonorous, resounding as though
beneath the dome of some vast cathedral.


Passing through the cypress belt, we came to the


" sloughs"


where


stream


divided


into several smaller ones.


"sloughs


" is a margin of tall grasses and shrubs of very lux-


uriant growth,


intersected by numerous small streams, and lying


between


cypresses


and the Everglades


proper.


Getting


through this we finally emerged into the Everglades-seemingly
a sea of waving green grasses, with innumerable islands of all


sizes.


But these grasses are all growing in water, clear and


limpid, with channels a few feet wide, diverging and crossing in
every direction, through which a canoe can be sailed or poled;


there was then two feet of water in the Everglades.


A brisk


breeze blowing, we unfurled the sail and went skimming along,
greatly to our satisfaction and relief, for we were quite tired after
paddling up-stream some six hours.
 It is a hard matter to convey a correct, or even an approxi-


mate idea of the region called the


"Everglades


" it is unique,


there is nothing like it anywhere else.


reach stretches a broad,


As far as the eye can


level expanse, clothed iq verdure of a


peculiarly fresh and vivid green, a rich and intense color seen


nowhere but here.


The surface is dotted


and diversified by


thousands of islets and islands, of all shapes and


sizes,


from a


few yards to many acres in extent, clothed with a .tropical luxu-


riance of trees, shrubs, and vines.


The mangrove


here gives


place to the cocoa-plum, which grows in endless profusion amid
the swamp-maple, sweet-bay, mastich, water-poplar, gum-limbo,
satin-wood, water-oak, and towering above these, clearly revealed
against the blue sky, the plume-like palmetto, while over and