FERNANDINA. 333 
us to go up for a short distance the St. Mary’s—a river that con- 
stitutes in part the line of division between Georgia and Florida. 
We remained outside all one night, and in the early morning 
cautiously proceeded towards the city, here and there feeling our 
way with the sounding line. Nearly all the day was Goncnined 
in discharging fretenn The weather was so threatening that 
we were content to simply view the city from the upper deck. 
One colored policeman, black and dirty, was on duty at the 
wharf. He much needed a new uniform, but his “billy,” and 
the revolver that protruded conspicuously out of one of his pock- 
ets, looked as if capable of doing good service. We must con- 
fess that we were not very favorably impressed with this specimen 
of the right arm of Vlorida’s civil power. A big negro boy, who, 
in our presence horsewhipped a little one, and boldly returned 
the blows of a colored man who undertook to avenge the small 
boy’s wrongs, was allowed to escape. 
A smart, pretty white boy, only four years of age, smoked 
three cigars in the course of a few hours, and was reported to 
have received in the morning at the hands of his father—who 
had charge of the men who unloaded the freight—his morning 
glass of brandy and water! Fernandina, apparently, is a place 
of some three thousand inhabitants, white and colored. It has 
a pleasant look, resting upon a gentle elevation above its harbor. 
In leaving it, we steamed along nearly the whole line of its water 
front, and noticed that its streets seemed grass grown, being’ 
green with a low vegetable growth of some kind. As it is con- 
nected with the Gulf of Mexico by railroad, it is the center of 
considerable freighting business. St. Mary’s river, like the St. 
John’s, seeks the ocean through several channels, by which means 
a number of islands are formed—low, green savannahs, here and 
there diversified with forest growths, the trees and bushes giving 
no indications of having ever felt the noiseless, killing touch of 
