172 THE GULF COAST OF FLORIDA. 



trees along either side of the street, laden with their rich, 

 golden fruit, tempting you to partake thereof as freely as you 

 would drink water from the public fountain. 



The streets are macadamized, so to speak, with oyster 

 shells, reminding one of the vast quantities of this delicious 

 bivalve that are annually taken from the adjacent waters. 



The city is illuminated with gas, and water-works are now 

 in process of construction. She has seventeen churches and 

 four schoolhouses, nearly all built of brick. 



The manufacture of lumber is carried on extensively here. 

 There are six large mills in operation, some of them cutting 

 as high as 125,000 feet of lumber per day. 



There are eight large hotels, several of which are first-class 

 in every particular. The principal business streets present a 

 scene of energy and activity not excelled in any city of this 

 size in the country. Nearly all the business houses are built 

 of brick and stone,' and are furnished with all the modern 

 improvements in architecture. The stocks of goods display 

 taste and judgment in the merchants, and many of the houses 

 do a very large business. 



Having taken a hasty look about town, I boarded the 

 good steamer " Pastime," and at ten o'clock A.M. of the i6th, 

 we steamed out upon the broad and placid bosom of this, one 

 of the most sublimely beautiful streams in the world. It 

 flows from the mysterious everglades, in the southern portion 

 of the state, some of its tributaries rising near the famous 

 Lake Okeechobee, vast swamps and morasses are drained by 

 these tributaries, imparting to the water of the St. John's a rich 

 chocolate color. It is one of the few large rivers in the world 

 that flow from south to north. From Jacksonville to Palatka, 

 a distance of seventy-five miles, it has an average width of 

 two to four miles, giving it the appearance of a vast lake more 

 than of a river. Above Palatka it narrows rapidly to a 



