FIKST IMPRESSIONS OF MIAMI 



IT is Sunday, the 19th of January. A week ago 

 I was sitting before a fire, watching the snow 

 fall outside, in winter-bound Massachusetts. 

 This forenoon I am reclining in the shade of a 

 cocoanut palm, looking across the smooth blue 

 waters of Biscayne Bay to a line of woods, I 

 know not how many miles distant, broken in the 

 midst by a narrow cut or inlet (Norris Cut, a 

 passer-by tells me it is called), through which is 

 to be seen the open Atlantic. The air is motion- 

 less, the sky cloudless, the temperature ideal. 

 " This is the day the Lord hath made," I repeat 

 to myself. He has seldom done better. 



I left Boston Monday morning, spent that 

 night and the next day in "Washington, slept in 

 St. Augustine Wednesday night, and on Thurs- 

 day took the long, all-day ride down the east 

 coast of Florida, past miles on miles of orange 

 groves and pineapple plantations, to the termi- 

 nus of the railroad, the new and flourishing city 

 of Miami. 



My visit, it must be owned, began rather in- 

 auspiciously. It was nobody's fault, of course, 



