Daily Yellowstone Journal

BEAUTIFUL INDIAN RIVER
Stream as Charming and Fair as a Summer
Dream

[Cor. Savannah News.]

How wonderfully beautiful is Indian
river! There is no other such sheet of
water in the world. No one can de-
scribe it fully, or pen or pencil portray
its innumerable charms. Nature, with
lavish hand, has spread its waters and
adorned its banks. The design of the
great Master artist is seen in the nar-
row strip of land as a great levee separ-
ating the water of the river from the
Atlantic, and in the forest upon this
levee as a great wind-break to curb the
fierce winds of the Atlantic ocean.
Properly speaking, it is not a river at
all, but an arm of the sea. Its center
is on an air-line north and south 140
miles long, while its banks curve in and
out in beautiful bays and grottos. A
few small creeks empty into it from the
west, while the water enters from the
Atlantic at five points and perhaps from
underground passages.
It is sea without its dangers, a river
without a current. It is from two to
eight miles wide. Seldom is it calm,
but is almost always in motion from the
winds. A continuous wind from the
south causes it to rise several feet to-
wards the north, and a wind from the
north causes it to rise towards the south.
From constant motion the water of this
salt river is kept pure. The winds of
winter coming from the northwest are
softened and warmed by the waters of
the upper St. John's river and the pine
forests on the west of the hummock
lands of this river, and the winds of
summer, which come almost incessantly
from the east, are tempered and cooled
by the gulf stream, making the climate
most delightful in winter and summer,
and perhaps most to be desired of any
in America.
The river is full of fish, which can be
taken by the thousand with only a cast
net. The oysters are plentiful and un-
excelled by any. I have often seen two
of these delicious bivalves fill a large
saucer. On Indian river is found not
only the best oranges in the world, but
pine apples, guavas, limes, lemons and
other tropical fruits.
This river I know to be perfectly
healthy. Being so near the Atlantic
all malaria is blown away. The country
is settled by very refined and elegant
people. Families of wealth from all
parts of North America have here their
winter homes. The time is not far dis-
tant when the banks of Indian river will
be as far-famed and noted as the banks
of the Hudson. Even now, without a
railroad and with the slow and round
about transportation of the upper St.
John's, visitors are numerous and the
country wonderfully developed. As
you sail up or down the river you are
scarcely ever out of sight of beautiful
homes, half hid in the dense shades on
either bank. Nearly all traveling and
commerce is carried on by sailboats.
Frequently a dozen white sails, in view
at the same time, add to the beauty of
the scene. Here the tired hand and
brain can find rest. The cares and
anxieties of business are forgotten in
the sport of hunting and fishing and
the charms of this truly tropical coun-
try.