248 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



ever, the breakers, incessantly moving, may be seen 

 from the town, the great, long, white, foaming waves 

 rising gradually from out the distance until, to the 

 south, they strike upon the shallowest spots and spring 

 high. With the tide and an east wind the water is 

 most disturbed and dreadful, and then the unbroken 

 roar may be heard at a great distance. 



Augustin is very like a mouse-trap ; once inside, and 

 it is difficult to arrive there, one is at a loss to know 

 if he can get out and how. Ships often lie 8-14 days 

 before wind and weather admit of passing the bar. 

 On the 24th of March + I went on board a sloop, and 

 it was not until the 29th of March that we had an op- 

 portunity of leaving the harbor. Our small vessel was 

 crammed with people and cattle, luggage and house- 

 hold furniture. Our two seamen were negroes ; and 

 we carried a parcel of black women and children, 

 being sent to Providence to market. We lay at 

 anchor opposite the light-house, on Anastasia Island. 

 This is a solid, stone building, in the manner of an 

 ancient Moorish castle, with ports and battlements. 

 But of the tower the upper part is merely of wood, 

 and so decayed that it shakes with the slightest wind. 



While we waited for wind and weather I visited the 

 island several times. Along the beach there is a very 

 fine, wide, and level promenade which, in appearance 

 and nature as here, is said to extend almost the whole 

 way to Cape Florida, of which the southern point is 

 called 300 miles from Augustin. The inhabitants foot 

 it along this beach to Mattanzas, Musquetoes, Cape 

 Canaveral, wherever they please, in all commodious- 

 ness ; there is difficulty only at inlets and small streams 

 where there is no means of being set over (a planta- 



