After ten days or so of fishing in the Pass we heard they were getting a good many fish at Port Myers, so we returned there, quitting our idyllic life at Captiva with much regret. It is a lovely trip by steamer between these two places. The river is thickly studded with islands of all shapes and sizes, some flat and low, covered with an impenetrable thicket of mangroves, others larger with a few houses and probably an hotel. We called at two or three of the more important ones, always finding the same scene, a dilapidated wooden pier, constructed on slender piles standing far out into the river, where most of the people gathered for the event of the day, the arrival of our boat. A queer-looking motley crowd they were, coloured people of all shades of blacks and browns and dirty yellows, languid, lazy-looking "crackers," as the native Floridians are called, with here and there a pretty girl in a sun bonnet, flirting with the lanky and very leggy young men in shirt sleeves and sombrero-like hats. All were lounging in the sun, most of them with a line, pulling up cat-fish, sea-trout, jack-fish, or sheepsheads, as fast as they put the bait in. The sea is a wondrous emerald green, and we lean over the side of the boat watching the rolling porpoises, some of which follow us for miles, and catching an occasional glimpse of an evil-looking shark, or again passing through huge shoals of stingarees, like enormous submarine birds with their flapping wing-like sides. The day wears on in warm drowsiness till at last we approach Fort Myers, and are met at the dock with eager enquiries and congratulations on our successful expedition to the Pass. By the 15th of May the weather had become very hot, and the mosquitos very bad, and all the other fishermen having already taken their departure, we felt our time had also come. It was only a few days before we left, that I caught what was supposed to be a record fish in point of length, 7-ft. 1/2-in., weight, 156-lbs. On a blazing morning we lingeringly and regretfully bade farewell to Fort Myers, where we made so many pleasant friends, and had such glorious sport, and we had a blazing ten hours passage on the _Laurence_ up to Punta Gorda, so that we hailed the evening cool with thankfulness. At Punta Gorda the big hotel was closed, and the visitors and fishermen had all fled long since, but we found a room in which to pass the short time that elapsed till the train was ready to start for Jacksonville. There we arrived after twelve hot weary hours in the cars. We waited there two nights for the boat to New York. Jacksonville is the chief town in Florida, and a most bustling and amusing place to see.