336 ISLES OF SUMMER. 



At the mouth of the St. John's the breakers, foaming over 

 vast submerged sand fields, please the eye, but are strongly sug- 

 gestive of danger. The tortuous channel was said to be only six 

 weeks old. It certainly differed greatly from the one through 

 which we were j^iloted the previous year. Without the aid of 

 steam-tugs, sailing vessels must find it very difiicult and decidedly 

 dangerous to make their way along the submerged banks and 

 over the bar. The rem lins of two wrecks — -one that of a steamer 

 — which we passed, bore silent testimony to the perils which 

 navigators are here called upon to encounter. A large number 

 of pilots live at the mouth of the St. John's and study its con- 

 stant mutations. They have built up a village on i:;s left bank, 

 which bears the appropiate name of ''Pilot Town." Opposite 

 this is the village of Mayport, which is inhabited mostly by fisher- 

 men, whose fishing nets, boats and reels gave variety and interest 

 to the view. 



Soon after we entered the river, a cloudy night deprived us of 

 the pleasure we had hoped to experience in viewing for twenty- 

 five miles the St. John's below Jacksonville. "We tied up to 

 the wharf at about 8 p. m. 



The next day we took passage in the little steamboat that daily 

 makes frequent trips to ''The Home " (stopping at intermediate 

 landings) upon a beautiful bank at the junction of Arlington 

 creek and the river St. John's. We landed at St. Nicholas, and 

 for a few brief but hajjpy hours observed and tasted the sweets 

 of plantation life. A re-union with some old and highly esteemed 

 friends "refined the pure gold" of smiling, verdant, blooming 

 nature's welcome. 



. The river bank where we landed is about twenty-five feet high, 

 the top of which we reached by a winding path through a wild 

 tangle of bushes and vines, covered with verdure and adorned 

 with buds and blossoms. Once more upon the land — not in the 



