Our portage to the sea now loomed up as a laborious task. We needed at least one man to assist us, and we were fully half a day's row from the nearest cabin to the west of us, while we might look in vain to the eastward, where the uninhabited coast-line stretched away with its shining sands and shimmering waters for thirty miles to Cape San Blas. There, upon a low sand-bar, against which the waves lashed out their fury, rose a tall light-tower, the only friend of the mariner in all this desolate region. We could not look to that distant light for help, however, and were thrown entirely upon our own feeble resources. Going systematically to work, we surveyed the best route across Crooked Island, which was over the bed of an old inlet; for a hurricane, many years before, washed out a passage through the sand- spit, and for years the tide flowed in and out of the interior bay. Another hurricane afterwards repaired the breach by filling up the new inlet with sand; so Crooked Island enjoyed but a short-lived notoriety, and again became an integral part of the continent. [The portage across Crooked Island.] Our survey of the portage gave encouraging results. The Gulf of Mexico was only four hundred feet from the bay, and the shortest route was the best one; so, starting energetically, we dragged the boats by main force across Crooked Island, and launched them in the surf without disaster. We then rowed as rapidly as the rough sea would permit along the coast towards the wide opening of St. Joseph's Bay, the wooded beaches of which rose like a cloud in the soft mists of a sunny day. The bay was entered at four o'clock in the afternoon, and, being out of water, we hauled our boats high on to the beach, and searched eagerly for signs of moisture in the soil. Leaving Saddles to build a fire and prepare our evening meal, I proceeded to investigate our new domain, and soon discovered the remains of a cabin near a station, or signal-staff, of the United States Coast Survey. Men do not camp for a number of days at a time in places destitute of water; and the fact of the cabin having been built on this spot proved conclusively to me that water must be found in the vicinity. After a careful and patient search, I discovered a depression in the high sandy coast, and although the sand was perfectly dry, I thought it possible that a supply of water had been obtained here for the use of the United States Coast Survey party--the same party which had erected the cabin and planted the signal near it.