20 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 
of Indian captivity and most frightful experience in 
the wilderness, there comes this brief account under 
the date “the 16th 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 
