20 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 



of Indian captivity and most frightful experience in 

 the wilderness, there comes this brief account under 

 the date "the i6th of the ninth month, 1696" : "The 

 Town we saw from one end to the other: it is about 

 three-quarters of a Mile in Length, not regularly built, 

 the Houses not very thick; they having large orchards 

 in which are plenty of Oranges, Lemmons, Pome-Cit- 

 rons, Limes, Figs and Peaches: The Houses most 

 of them old Building; and not half of them inhab- 

 ited." 



There can be no question of the veracity of this 

 pious man's description; therefore it is very evident 

 that the settlement had not advanced. He gives an 

 interesting and grateful account of their reception by 

 the Spanish Governor, however, and tells of the 

 party being set down in his kitchen to warm them- 

 selves. Which reminds us that the Spaniards made 

 no provision for heating their dwellings; and one 

 writer who seems to have held both them and their 

 buildings in rather low estimate, says that the latter 

 were "all without glass windows or chimnies." 



Life there under the ancient regime was obviously 

 not a ceremonial existence by any means, even for the 

 Governor's own entourage. Yet when we do at last 

 find old garden plans, they bear unmistakable witness 

 to a taste at once formal and ceremonious. And they 

 hark back to the garden as it was then understood over 



