70 SUNSHINE AND SPORT IN 



cated palate of the itinerant " drummer," but 

 holding out no attraction whatever to anyone 

 travelling for pleasure and not for pelf. I had 

 lunched there, lunched without enthusiasm and 

 driven only by the pangs of hunger to lunch at all, 

 and, while waiting for the departure of the after- 

 noon train for the South, I asked for a cup of tea. 

 The boor behind the counter curtly refused to 

 supply this, assuring me that his hotel was not an 

 eating-house. I remarked that I had gathered as 

 much from the lunch, and we all but came to words. 

 I strongly advise others in the same plight to take 

 the Toxaway train on to Asheville and put in the 

 day in a beautiful town where there are civilised 

 innkeepers to supply their needs. 



All that night, and most of the next morning, 

 we were running through the cotton-fields of South 

 Carolina and Georgia until, at length, mosquito- 

 breeding swamps and a more tropical ensemble of 

 vegetation told me in unmistakeable terms that we 

 had crossed the frontier of the last State in my 

 itinerary. Just before noon we ran into the busy 

 depot of Jacksonville, the starting point of every 

 line that taps the great winter resort of the south. 



Like so many American cities, Jacksonville is 

 the phoenix of a devastating fire. It is the fate of 

 some of the greatest cities in a land where man and 

 Nature alike are reckless to acquire grandeur and 

 beauty through resurrection from fire or earthquake. 

 The ordeal is a severe one, but both San Francisco 

 and Valparaiso will, no doubt, be greater than their 

 old selves in a few years' time, and Jacksonville is 

 twice the city it was before the westerly wind swept 

 its ashes into the ocean. 



