IIIE CANADIAN HOKTICDLTUKTST. 



101 



is of the past — the .striinj^e, weird, som- j 

 bre past. One cauiiot go through its | 

 now untenanted rooms, so dark and 

 dic-mal, and listen to the echoes of his j 

 own footfall as they die away among I 

 those vaulted arches, without thinking \ 

 of the time when these rooms rang i 

 with the shouts of soldieis in their 

 coarse revels, and these cells echoed 

 back the groans of the suffering and 

 the dying. 



The sea wall runs from the fort 

 southward along the front of the city. 

 It is built of stone from the island ojj- 

 posite, known as Anastasia Island, 

 and is covered with a gi-anite coping 

 four feet in width. It is the favourite 

 promenade of visitors, and on moonlit 

 evenings at this season of the year is 

 thronged. At the southern end of this 

 wall are the U. S. barracks, once, in 

 part at least, a Franciscan monastery. 



Our cut shows the eastern side of 

 the old fort, San Marco, with the tower 

 at its north-eastern angle, and its irre- 

 gular, broad sea wall, from which runs 

 the city sea wall for nearly a mile to 

 the southward. 



Having taken a survey of t'ais curi- 

 ous old city, your explorers drove out 

 to one of the commercial gardens. We 

 entered by an avenue of palmetto, in- 

 terspersed with date palms and border- 

 ed with junipers. Here we found our 

 ever-blooming roses, such as Solfaterre, 

 Niphetos, Marechal Niel, etc., which 

 we are compelled to house so carefully 

 at the approach of winter, growing in 

 the open ground all the year through. 

 They were well filled with tlowei's, but 

 lacked the luxuriance of foliage and 

 growth we ai'e accustomed to see. But 

 at this we did not wonder ; the wonder 

 was that they should grow at all in this 

 pure sand. We found growinghere large 

 numbers of amaryllis, and concluded 

 that the market for this plant must be 

 remarkably good. Here, too, was the 

 finest avenue of oleanders that one can 

 imagine. We did not learn their age, 

 but they rose to the height of ten or 

 twelve feet on either hand. In a few 

 more days the flowers just coming into 

 bloom will be open, and then this ave- 

 nue of oleanders will be a sighc to see. 

 Our inspection of the vegetable depart- 

 ment was but passing ; the plants had 



