The tropical region of the peninsula reaches from Cape Florida about two hundred miles north. The soil of the country has been pronounced by all explorers very rich, it being only covered with water in the rainy season. When the resources of this tropical region are utilized, the importance of Florida can hardly be appreciated too highly. Besides the growth of cultured fruits, the Manilla hemp is one of the indigenous products of the soil; the Indians used it in making ropes and mats, and formerly supplied the Spaniards with halters, lines, and bed-cords, at cheap rates--it was called grass-rope. The cotton-plant found here is the same as that raised on plantations, differing only in the smallness of the leaf and pod, length and fineness of the fibers--it produces two or three years without being replanted. _January_, 1841.--Colonel Harney has been on two expeditions in the Everglades; captured thirty-nine Indians; pressed into service a slave, formerly the property of Doctor Cruise, as a guide, he having been in the hands of the enemy. He conducted the colonel to a camp where the Indians were assembled, who fought, but were soon overpowered, when Colonel Harney hung ten of the warriors, Chekika among the number, who led the attack on Indian Key. _St. Augustine_, January, 1841.--An ovation was given to General Harney, after his return from the Everglade expedition, when the St. Augustine Market-house was brilliantly illumined. A large transparency bore the inscriptions, "Lieutenant-colonel W. S. Harney, Everglades!" "No more Treaties!" "Remember Caloosahatchee!" "War to the Rope!" with the device of an Indian suspended from a tree. A band of music played in the plaza, cannon were fired, together with many other loud demonstrations of joy at the prospect of peace. The few may have smiled, but the many wept in tears of blood, and wailed in sackcloth and ashes, over the long train of evils that followed the Treaty of Payne's Landing--a compact of which many had never heard until they began to suffer under the ineffectual attempts to carry it into execution. What a tale of sorrow could the poor, suffering soldiers unfold, who had to march through the saw-grass and saw-palmetto, with their serrated edges, which seized their clothes and flesh as they passed, marking their pathway with tatters and blood! In South Florida, bounded on the north by Lake Ogeechubee--the largest body of water in the State, it being fifty miles in length, and twenty in width--is a tract of country known as the Everglades, comprising an area of six hundred miles. Here dwells the remnant of a race of men which required more time to subdue, and cost the Government more money, than the Colonial war with Great Britain. They are ruled by chiefs, according to their ancient patriarchal custom, the royal line being transmitted from parent to child, as in monarchical governments.