BY EDWARD DOUBLEDaY. 



2&9 



at the tew reutaining flowers and birds ; 1 shot a woodpecker 

 that had his stomach full of the berries of Myrica ar'ifera ; I 

 had also to keep an eye to the road, which was occasionally 

 swampy, and here and there about eighteen inches deep in 

 water for a good way. One part is loose sand, up to your 

 ankles; then comes mud of the same depth; then a little bit 

 of hard road : there are a great many patches of water, some 

 of them wide, and nearly up to your knees — good clear water, 

 with sandy bottom. It was so hot, that though I walked but 

 a moderate pace, doing the eighteen miles in six hours, I 

 was wet with perspiration. I rested about half way, under a 

 huge pine, for half an hour, and thought of England ; it was 

 the 21st of December, the shortest day, and Club-meeting at 

 Bowerbank's, the house where I last met the members of the 

 Club. I knew they were talking of me. 



About an hour before sun-set, I reached St. Augustine, 

 the oldest city on the Atlantic coast of the United States. 

 I crossed a long bridge, at the end of which was a guard- 

 house; then walked on by the side of a hedge of Yucca 

 glorlosa, and entered the town by a narrow passage, between 

 a stone wall on one side, and a wooden fence on the other; 

 indeed, so narrow, that I doubt whether I should not have 

 been compelled to retreat had a cart met me. It terminated 

 in a square, open on one side to the water. On the right 

 hand was the Episcopalian church, on the left, the Catho- 

 lic; between them was the court-house, and in the centre, a 

 stone inscribed " Plaza de la Constitution." I walked on, 

 and asked a negro for Livingstone's hotel ; having reached it, 

 I with difficulty found a negro woman, who showed me to a 

 room. 



St. Augustine is, of all the towns I have seen here, the most 

 singular: narrow streets, old stone houses, with balconies or 

 latticed verandahs, all looking more or less ruinous — every 

 tenth house is absolutely in ruins, and every fifth or sixth is a 

 grog-shop. All around is sand or salt-marsh ; yet the climate 

 makes amends fpr these disagreeables. The peas are now in 

 peri'ection in the gardens ; the Palma Christis are untouched 

 by frost; lettuces, raddishes, &c. abundant; rose-trees in full 

 bloom; mocking-birds in the orange-trees: the air is damp, 

 but such a sun ! making Christmas a warm, lovely summer-day. 

 Since we have been in Florida, it has been much like the fine 



