From Lake Tohopekaliga through the tortuous water route to Lake Okeechobee, and thence by the Caloosahatchie westward to the Gulf of Mexico, is a winding channel of four hundred and sixty miles, though in a direct line the distance is but one hundred and fifty miles. Okeechobee, the word meaning the "large water," covers about twelve hundred and fifty square miles, and almost all about it are the everglades or "grass water," the shores being generally a swampy jungle. This district for many miles is a mass of waving sedge grass eight to ten feet high above the water, and inaccessible excepting through narrow, winding and generally hidden channels. In one locality a few tall lone pines stand like sentinels upon Arpeika Island, formerly the home of the bravest and most dreaded of the Seminoles, and still occupied by some of their descendants. The name of the Seminole means the "separatist" or "runaway" Indians, they having centuries ago separated from the Creeks in Georgia and gone southward into Florida. From the days of De Soto to the time of their deportation in the nineteenth century the Spanish, British, French and Americans made war with these Seminole Indians. Gradually they were pressed southward through Florida. Their final refuge was the green islands and hummocks of the everglades, and they then clung to their last homes with the tenacity of despair. The greater part of this region is an unexplored mystery; the deep silence that can be actually felt, everywhere pervades; and once lost within the labyrinth, the adventurer is doomed unless rescued. Only the Indians knew its concealed and devious paths. On Arpeika Island the Cacique of the Caribs is said to have ruled centuries ago, until forced south out of Florida by the Seminoles. It was at times a refuge for the buccaneer with his plunder and a shrine for the missionary martyr who planted the Cross and was murdered beside it. This island was the last retreat of the Seminoles in the desultory war from 1835 to 1843, when they defied the Government, which, during eight years, spent $50,000,000 upon expeditions sent against them. Then the attempt to remove all of them was abandoned, and the remnant have since rested in peace, living by hunting and a little trading with the coast settlements. The names of the noted chiefs of this great race--Osceola, Tallahassee, Tohopekaliga, Coa-coo-chee and others--are preserved in the lakes, streams and towns of Florida. Most of the deported tribe were sent to the Indian Territory. There may be three or four hundred of them still in the everglades, peaceful, it is true, yet haughty and suspicious, and sturdily rejecting all efforts to educate or civilize them. They celebrate their great feast, the "Green Corn Dance," in late June; and they have unwavering faith in the belief that the time will yet come when all their prized everglade land will be theirs again, and the glory of the past redeemed, if not in this world, then in the next