986 
Down Matanzas Way. 
St, AuGUSTINE, Fla—Matanzas way is much 
more a frequent trip than up North River, and 
one can camp anywhere along its course, and 
cross the narrow barrier which divides it from 
the Beach. 
On a fine morning in early summer, with favor- 
ing wind and tide, if you go by sailing yacht, or, 
paying no attention to either, if you go by launch, 
you bid good bye to St. Augustine from the 
Central Wharf, where there are always loungers 
énough to tell you good bye, and you sail away 
blowing a conch to warn the bridge-keeper to 
open the draw. The site of the wharf from 
which we sail is, without any doubt, one of the 
very oldest landing places on the Western con- 
tinent, and a number of dugouts, still used by 
many of the fishermen, serve to take us back to 
the primitive inhabitants of thousands. of years 
ago. For these dugouts are of the primitive type, 
the first boats made by prehistoric man, and 
to-day they ride at anchor alongside of the latest 
products of the evolution at the beginning of the 
twentieth century, of all the forms of the small 
boat propelled by all the various devices for 
controlling the forces of naphtha, steam and elec- 
tricity. And the men who sail away for a few 
days on the river and in the camp are but hark- 
ing back for a glimpse of the life of those men 
of five thousand years ago, who grounded their 
returning dugouts on the beach where the wharf 
now stands. 
The signal of the conch for the bridge-keeper 
to open the draw is answered by its swinging 
open, and after various maneuvers, wind and tide 
favoring, the draw is safely passed, and with all 
sails set, the beautiful city of St. Augustine be- 
gins to fall behind. 
On the other side of the river. on Anastasia 
Island, are seen Oglethorpe’s batteries, from which 
he vainly bombarded the fort in 1740. The light- 
house and the mast of the wireless telegraph 
station are not far away, and thus the past and 
present join hands, with the world’s history for 
more than one hundred and fifty years between. 
Soon we are opposite the mouth of the Marsh 
Creek, down which all the coquina rock was 
floated to build Fort Marion and the old town. 
At the head of the creek is still the landing made 
of the coquina itself, with the old chain, now 
nothing but rust, that held the lighters while 
loading. The quarries are not far from the land- 
ing, and will repay a visit. Indeed, it pays one 
at his leisure to follow many of these marsh 
creeks to their heads, if one has archeological 
taste, for he will often be rewarded by finding 
a shell heap, marking the dwelling place of a 
long-forgotten race. 
Next we come to Fish’s Island, a part of Anas- 
tasia where Nicholas Fish lived in revolutionary 
days, and to whom was granted almost all of 
Anastasia Island. The old house was long ago 
burned, but the driveway and remains of the 
wharf still remain. And further away the old 
family tomb, which some vandals have sought to 
destroy, and have succeeded in making a ruin. 
Before the Civil War runaway slaves found 
their hiding-places on Anastasia, and made a liv- 
ing by plaiting baskets, which were smuggled into 
the city and sold by their friends. 
We pass the mouth of the Sebastian River, and 
looking backward have a good view of the 
ancient city from the south, and can understand 
how well it was protected in the old days from 
attack by its natural position between two rivers. 
This is one of the best places along the river 
for drum fishers, and the number of dugouts we 
pass anchored shows how good the sport is just 
now. I take it that the dugout is rare now at 
any place except St. Augustine and its vicinity, 
where it is still common, and is most skillfully 
handled. The life of one of these boats is some- 
times more than forty years; some now at St. 
Augustine are said to be of that age, and this 
accounts for their popularity among the old-time 
fishermen. All the way down to Moultrie Point 
we pass these fishermen, and very often hear be- 
neath our boat the “boom,” which has given the 
fish its name, and which does, indeed, sound like 
a muffled drum beat. 
Opposite Fish’s Island, at the mouth of the 
Sebastian River, the Spanish galleys sought 
FOREST AND STREAM. 

a oe 
{June 23, 1906. 


MATANZAS FORT FROM THE NORTH, 
refuge during Oglethorpe’s bombardment of St. 
Augustine. 
Moultrie Point, at the mouth of Moultrie 
Creek, is the next point of interest. All along 
from Fish’s Island to Moultrie the fishing is good. 
Moultrie Point has long been a favorite place 
for picnics, as the wide spreading oaks and great 
variety of trees, with ground clear of under- 
growth, make it an ideal place for wood wander- 
ing. 
From Moultrie down to Matanzas Inlet the 
river is very crooked, with wide marshes and 
oyster beds, which are out of the water at low 
tide, affording plenty of food for the great blue 
heron and the white egrets, as well as many other 
variety of birds, for man is not the only biped 
that deems the oyster a most delicious morsel. 
The Bird of Plumage Law, and the at least 
partial enforcement of it, has done much to re- 
people the marshes with the graceful forms of 
the heron family. And the pictures they present 
as they stand on the shore, or gracefully float 
through the air, fix themselves in the memory. 
When we have sailed twelve miles from St. 
Augustine, we reach the Divide, or Dividings, as 
some call it, where the tide from the Matanzas 
Inlet meets the tide from the bar at St. Augus- 
tine. But the tide from Matanzas, because of the 
smaller inlet, is only able to run six miles before 
it meets the stronger flood. The crooked channel, 
just after passing the Divide, is known for a mile 

FACE OF OBSERVATION 
of its length among the navigators as the “Devil’s ° 
Elbow,” and is so crooked that none but an ex- 
perienced navigator can sail it without grounding. 
In the distance rises over the marshes the old 
fort at Matanzas on an island opposite the bar, 
erected in 1741, the year following Oglethorpe’s 
attack, as a guard in the future, for he kept a ship 
anchored off the bar all through the siege of St. 
Augustine in the summer of 1740, and on an 
island just south of that on which the fort now 
stands established. a barracks. 
And now we come to a most interesting and 
important spot, the neighborhood of the tragedy 
of the early settlement of St. Augustine, for here 
somewhere within the sphere of our vision, 
occurred in the early days of September, 1565, 
the massacre of Ribault’s men, numbering over 
400., The exact spot has never been determined, 
but as. we stand upon the old fort, our eye takes 
in the present inlet and the place of the second 
inlet, where Summer Haven now stands. A clump 
of live oaks near Summer Haven, and the only 
clump anywhere.in the vicinity would seem better 
than any other locality to fulfill the conditions of 
the story as told by the companion of Menendez. 
Across the river and directly opposite the old 
fort is known as Massacre Bluff, because several 
skeletons have been found there. Whether these 
skeletons belonged to Ribault’s men or not is an 
unanswered question. One of the skulls, showing 
a very high intellectual development, is now in 

MOUND—SHOWING ENCROACHMENT OF THE SEA, 
