MANDARIN, FLA., March 6, 1872.
Magnolia is a name suggestive of beauty; and, for once, the name does
not belie the fact. The boarding-house there is about the pleasantest
winter resort in Florida. We have been passing a day and night there as
guest of some friends, and find a company of about seventy people
enjoying themselves after the usual fashions of summer watering-places.
The house is situated on a little eminence, and commands a fine sweep
of view both up and down the river. In the usual fashion of Southern
life, it is surrounded with wide verandas, where the guests pass most of
their time,--the ladies chatting, and working embroidery; the gentlemen
reading newspapers, and smoking.
The amusements are boating and fishing parties of longer or shorter
duration, rides and walks along the shore, or croquet on a fine, shady
croquet-ground in a live-oak grove back of the house.
We tried them all. First we went in a row-boat about a couple of miles
up a little creek. The shore on either side was ruffled with the green
bonnet-leaves, with here and there a golden blossom. The forest-trees,
which were large and lofty, were almost entirely of the deciduous kind,
which was just bursting into leaf; and the effect was very curious and
peculiar. One has often remarked what a misty effect the first buddings
of foliage have. Here there was a mist of many colors,--rose-colored,
pink, crimson, yellow, and vivid green, the hues of the young leaves, or
of the different tags and keys of the different species of trees. Here
and there a wild plum, sheeted in brilliant white, varied the tableau.
We rowed up to shore, drew down a branch, and filled the laps of the
ladies with sprays of white flowers. The sun beat down upon us with the
power of August; and, had it not been for the fresh breeze that blew up
from the creek, we should have found it very oppressive. We returned
just in time to rest for dinner. The dining-hall is spacious and
cheerful; and the company are seated at small tables, forming social
groups and parties. The fare was about the same as would be found in a
first-class boarding-house at the North. The house is furnished
throughout in a very agreeable style; and an invalid could nowhere in
Florida have more comforts. It is more than full, and constantly obliged
to turn away applicants; and we understand that families are now waiting
at Green Cove for places to be vacated here. We are told that it is in
contemplation, another season, to put up several cottages, to be rented
to families who will board at the hotel. At present there is connected
with the establishment one house and a cottage, where some of the guests
have their rooms; and, as the weather is so generally mild, even
invalids find no objection to walking to their meals.
The house is a respectable, good-sized, old-fashioned structure; and,
being away from the main building, is preferred by some who feel the
need of more entire quiet. Sitting on the front steps in the warm
afternoon sunshine, and looking across to the distant, hazy shores,
miles away, one could fancy one's self in Italy,--an illusion which the
great clumps of aloes, and the tall green yuccas, and the gold-fruited
orange-trees, help to carry out. Groups of ladies were seated here and
there under trees, reading, working, and chatting. We were called off by
the making-up of a croquet-party.
The croquet-ground is under the shade of a fine grove of live-oaks,
which, with their swaying drapery of white moss, form a graceful shade
and shelter. We shared the honor of gaining a victory or two under the
banner of a doctor of divinity, accustomed, we believe, to winning
laurels on quite other fields in the good city of New York. It has been
our general experience, however, that a man good for any thing else is
commonly a good croquet-player. We would notify your editor-in-chief,
that, if ever he plays a game against Dr. C----, he will find a foeman
worthy of his steel.
In the evening the whole company gathered in the parlors, made cheerful
by blazing wood-fires. There were song-singing and piano-playing,
charades and games, to pass the time withal; and all bore testimony to
the very sociable and agreeable manner in which life moved on in their
circle.
Magnolia is about three-quarters of a mile from Green-Cove Springs,
where are two or three large, well-kept boarding-houses. There is a very
pleasant, shady walk through the woods from one place to the other; and
the mail comes every day to Green Cove, and is sent for, from the
Magnolia House, in a daily morning carriage. It is one of the amusements
of the guests to ride over, on these occasions, for a little morning
gossip and shopping, as Magnolia, being quite sequestered, does not
present the opportunity to chaffer even for a stick of candy. Of course,
fair ones that have been accustomed to the periodical excitement of a
shopping-tour would sink into atrophy without an opportunity to spend
something. What they can buy at Green Cove is a matter of indifference.
It is the burning of money in idle purses that injures the nervous
system.
There are no orange-groves on this side of the river. The orange-trees
about the house are entirely of the wild kind; and, for merely
ornamental purposes, no tree more beautiful could be devised. Its vivid
green, the deep gold-color of its clusters of fruit, and the exuberance
with which it blossoms, all go to recommend it. Formerly there were
extensive orange-groves, with thousands of bearing trees, on this side
of the river. The frost of 1835 killed the trees, and they have never
been reset. Oranges are not, therefore, either cheap or plenty at
Magnolia or Green Cove. Nothing shows more strikingly the want of
enterprise that has characterized this country than this. Seedling
oranges planted the very next day after the great frost would have been
in bearing ten years after, and would, ere now, have yielded barrels and
barrels of fruit; and the trees would have grown and taken care of
themselves. One would have thought so very simple and easy a measure
would have been adopted.
At eleven o'clock the next morning we took steamer for Mandarin, and
went skimming along the shores, watching the white-blossoming plum-trees
amid the green of the forest. We stopped at Hibernia, a pleasant
boarding-house on an island called Fleming's, after a rich Col. Fleming
who formerly had a handsome plantation there. There is a fine,
attractive-looking country-house, embowered in trees and with shaded
verandas, where about forty boarders are yearly accommodated. We have
heard this resort very highly praised as a quiet spot, where the
accommodations are homelike and comfortable. It is kept by the widow of
the former proprietor; and we are told that guests who once go there
return year after year. There is something certainly very peaceful and
attractive about its surroundings.
But now our boat is once more drawing up to the wharf at Mandarin; and
we must defer much that we have to say till next week. Phoebus, we are
happy to say to our girl correspondents, is bright and happy, and in
excellent voice. All day long, at intervals, we can hear him from the
back veranda, shouting, "What cheer! what cheer!" or sometimes
abbreviating it as "Cheer, cheer, cheer!"
Since we have been writing, one of those characteristic changes have
come up to which this latitude is subject. The sun was shining, the
river blue, the windows open, and the family reading, writing, and
working on the veranda, when suddenly comes a frown of Nature,--a black
scowl in the horizon. Up flies the wind; the waves are all white-caps;
the blinds bang; the windows rattle; every one runs to shut every thing;
and for a few moments it blows as if it would take house and all away.
Down drop oranges in a golden shower; here, there, and everywhere the
lightning flashes; thunder cracks and rattles and rolls; and the big
torrents of rain come pouring down: but, in the back-porch, Phoebus
between each clap persists in shouting, "What cheer! what cheer!" Like a
woman in a passion, Nature ends all this with a burst of tears; and it
is raining now, tenderly and plaintively as if bemoaning itself.
Well, we wouldn't have missed the sight if we had been asked; and we
have picked up a bushel of oranges that otherwise somebody must have
climbed the trees for.
Meanwhile the mail is closing. Good-by!
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