THE SEMINOLES OF FLORIDA 31
critics have questioned the correctness of this bit of
written history. Last winter, during the height of
the season, the Ponce de Leon guests enjoyed a
unique entertainment. A wealthy tourist made a
wager of one hundred dollars that Wild Cat never
could have made his escape through the little win-
dow in the old castle." Sergeant Brown accepted
the wager and himself performed the feat, to the
great delight of the excited spectators.
 Our soldiers fighting in an unexplored wilderness,
along the dark borders of swamp and morass, crawl-
ing many times on hands and kness through the
tangled matted underbrush, fighting these children of
the forest who knew every inch of their ground could
hope for little less than defeat. Even General
Jessup in writing to the President said: We are at-
tempting to remove the Indians when they are not in
the way of the white settlers, and when the greater
portion of the country is an unexplored wilderness,
of the interior of which we are as ignorant as of the
interior of China."
 By way of illustrating the enormity of the task the
 government had in subduing the Seminoles, it is only
 necessary to describe one of the many Indian strong-
 holds in the swamps of Florida. About ten miles
 from Kissimmee, west by south, is a cypress swamp
 made by the junction of the Davenport, Reedy and
 Bonnett creeks. It is an aquatic jungle, full of fallen
 trees, brush, vines and tangled undergrowth, all dark-
 ened by the dense shadows of the tall cypress trees.
 The surface is covered with water, which, from ap-