“And the water!  Mary, you cannot imagine such water; why should it be blue on top, and green when you look down into it?  I have a little skiff of my own in which I drift, and I have been happy for hours, studying the bottom; you see every colour of the rainbow, and all as clear as in an aquarium.  I have been fishing, too, and have caught a tarpon.  That is supposed to be a great adventure, and it really is quite thrilling to feel the monstrous creature struggling with you—­though, of course, my arms soon gave out, and I had to turn him over to my husband.  This is one of the famous fishing-grounds of the world, and I am glad of that, because it will keep the men happy while I enjoy the sunshine.

“I have discovered a fascinating diversion,” she wrote, in a second letter.  “I make them take me in the launch to one of the loneliest of the keys; they go off to fish, and I have the whole day to myself, and am as happy as a child on a picnic!  I roam the beach, I take off my shoes and stockings—­there are no newspaper reporters snapping pictures.  I dare not go far in, for there are huge black creatures with dangerous stinging tails; they rush away in a cloud of sand when I approach, but the thought of stepping upon one by accident is terrifying.  However, I let the little wavelets wash round my toes, and I try to grab little fish, and I pick up lovely shells; and then I go on, and I see a huge turtle waddling to the water, and I dash up, and would stop him if I dared, and then I find his eggs—­such an adventure!

“I am the prey of strange appetites and cravings.  I have a delicious luncheon with me, but suddenly the one thing in the world I want to eat is turtle-eggs.  I have no matches with me, and I do not know how to build a fire like the Indians, so I have to hide the eggs back in the sand until to-morrow.  I hope the turtle does not move them—­and that I have not lost my craving in the meantime!

“Then I go exploring inland.  These islands were once the haunts of pirates, so I may imagine all sorts of romantic things.  What I find are lemon-trees.  I do not know if they are wild, or if the key was once cultivated; the lemons are huge in size, and nearly all skin, but the flavour is delicious.  Turtle-eggs with wild lemon-juice!  And then I go on and come to a mangrove-swamp—­dark and forbidding, a grisly place; you imagine the trees are in torment, with limbs and roots tangled like writhing serpents.  I tiptoe in a little way, and then get frightened, and run back to the beach.

“I see on the sand a mysterious little yellow creature, running like the wind; I make a dash, and get between him and his hole; and so he stands, crouching on guard, staring at me, and I at him.  He is some sort of crab, but he stands on two legs like a caricature of a man; he has two big weapons upraised for battle, and staring black eyes stuck out on long tubes.  He is an uncanny thing to look at; but then suddenly