MANDARIN, FLA., March 14, 1872.
"They talk about Florida being the land of flowers: I'm sure _I_ don't
see where the flowers are."
The speaker was a trim young lady, with pretty, high-heeled boots,
attired in all those charming mysteries behind and before, and up and
down, that make the daughter of Eve look like some bright, strange,
tropical bird. She had come to see Florida; that is, to take board at
the St. James. She had provided herself with half a dozen different
palmetto-hats, an orange-wood cane tipped with an alligator's tooth,
together with an assortment of cranes' wings and pink curlews' feathers,
and talked of Florida with the assured air of a connoisseur. She had
been on the boat up to Enterprise; she had crossed at Tekoi over to St.
Augustine, and come back to the St. James; and was now prepared to speak
as one having authority: and she was sure she did not see why it was
called a land of flowers. _She_ hadn't seen any.
"But, my dear creature, have you ever been where they grow? Have you
walked in the woods?"
"Walked in the woods? Gracious me! Of course not! Who could walk in sand
half up to one's ankles? I tried once; and the sand got into my boots,
and soiled my stockings: besides, I'm afraid of snakes."
"Then, my dear, you will never be a judge on the question whether
Florida is or is not a land of flowers. Whoever would judge on that
question must make up her mind to good long tramps in the woods; must
wear stout boots, with India-rubbers, or, better still, high
India-rubber boots. So equipped, and with eyes open to see what is to be
seen, you will be prepared to explore those wild glades and mysterious
shadows where Nature's beauties, marvels, and mysteries are wrought. The
Venus of these woods is only unveiled in their deepest solitudes."
For ourselves, we claim to have experience in this matter of flowers;
having always observed them in all lands. We were impressed more by the
_flowers_ of Italy than by any thing else there; yes, more than by the
picture-galleries, the statues, the old ruins. The sight of the green
lawns of the Pamfili Doria, all bubbling up in little rainbow-tinted
anemones; the cool dells where we picked great blue-and-white violets;
the damp, mossy shadows in the Quirinal gardens, where cyclamen grow in
crimson clouds amid a crush of precious old marbles and antiques; the
lovely flowers, unnamed of botany, but which we should call a sort of
glorified blue-and-white daisies, that we gathered in the shadowy dells
near Castle Gandolpho,--these have a freshness in our memory that will
last when the memory of all the "stun images" of the Vatican has passed
away.
In our mind's eye we have compared Florida with Italy often, and asked
if it can equal it. The flowers here are not the same, it is true. The
blue violets are not fragrant. We do not find the many-colored anemones,
nor the cyclamen. Both can be planted out here, and will grow readily;
but they are not _wild_ flowers, not indigenous.
"Well, then, are there others to compensate?" We should say so.
The yellow jessamine itself, in its wild grace, with its violet-scented
breath, its profuse abundance, is more than a substitute for the
anemones of Italy.
If you will venture to walk a little way in the sand beyond our
back-gate, we will show you a flower-show this morning such as Chiswick
or the Crystal Palace cannot equal.
About a quarter of a mile we walk: and then we turn in to what is called
here an oak-hammock; which is, being interpreted, a grove of
live-oak-trees, with an underbrush of cedar, holly, and various
flowering-shrubs. An effort has been made to clear up this hammock. The
larger trees have some of them been cut down, but not removed. The work
of clearing was abandoned; and, the place being left to Nature, she
proceeded to improve and beautify it after a fashion of her own. The
yellow jessamine, which before grew under the shadow of the trees, now,
exultant in the sunshine which was let in upon it, has made a triumphant
and abounding growth, such as we never saw anywhere else. It is the very
Ariel of flowers,--the tricksy sprite, full of life and grace and
sweetness; and it seems to take a capricious pleasure in rambling
everywhere, and masquerading in the foliage of every kind of tree. Now
its yellow bells twinkle down like stars from the prickly foliage of the
holly, where it has taken full possession, turning the solemn old
evergreen into a blossoming garland. Now, sure enough, looking up full
sixty feet into yonder water-oak, we see it peeping down at us in long
festoons, mingling with the swaying, crapy streamers of the gray moss.
Yonder a little live-oak-tree has been so completely possessed and
beflowered, that it shows a head of blossoms as round as an apple-tree
in May. You look below, and jessamine is trailing all over the ground,
weaving and matting, with its golden buds and open bells peeping up at
you from the huckleberry-bushes and sedge-grass.
Here is a tree overthrown, and raising its gaunt, knotted branches in
air, veiled with soft mossy drapery. The jessamine springs upon it for a
trellis: it weaves over and under and around; it throws off long sprays
and streamers with two golden buds at the axil of every green leaf, and
fluttering out against the blue of the sky. Its multiform sprays twist
and knot and tie themselves in wonderful intricacies; and still where
every green leaf starts is a yellow flower-bud. The beauty of these buds
is peculiar. They have little sculptured grooves; and the whole looks as
if it might have been carved of fairy chrysolite for a lady's ear-drop.
Our little brown chambermaid wears them dangling in her ears; and a
very pretty picture she makes with them. Coal-black Frank looks
admiringly after her as she trips by with them shaking and twinkling to
his confusion, as he forgets for a moment to saw wood, and looks
longingly after her. No use, Frank. "Trust her not: she is fooling
thee." Her smiles are all for lighter-colored beaux. But still she wears
yellow jessamine in her crapy hair, and orders Frank to bring her
wreaths and sprays of it whenever she wants it; and Frank obeys. That's
female sovereignty, the world over!
In this same hammock are certain tall, graceful shrubs, belonging, as we
fancy, to the high-huckleberry tribe, but which the Floridians call
sparkleberry. It is the most beautiful white ornamental shrub we have
ever seen. Imagine a shrub with vivid green foliage, hanging profusely
with wreaths of lilies-of-the-valley, and you have as near as possible
an idea of the sparkleberry. It is only in bud now, being a little
later than the jessamine, and coming into its glory when the jessamine
is passing away.
The regular employment now of every afternoon is to go out in the
mule-cart with old Fly into the woods, flower-hunting.
It is as lovely an afternoon-work as heart could wish; the sky is so
blue, the air so balmy, and at every step there is something new to
admire. The coming-out of the first leaves and tags and blossom-keys of
the deciduous trees has a vividness and brilliancy peculiar to these
regions. The oak-hammock we have been describing as the haunt of yellow
jessamine is as picturesque and beautiful a tree-study as an artist
could desire. There are tall, dark cedars, in which the gray films of
the long moss have a peculiarly light and airy appearance. There is the
majestic dome of the long-leaved Southern pine, rising high over all the
other trees, as in Italy the stone-pine. Its leaves are from twelve to
eighteen inches long; and the swaying of such pines makes a _susurrus_
worth listening to. The water-oak is throwing out its bright young
leaves of a gold-tinted green; and the live-oak, whose leaves are
falling now, is bursting into little velvety tags, premonitory of new
foliage. Four species of oaks we notice. The live-oak, the water-oak,
and a species of scrub-tree which they call the olive-leaved oak, are
all evergreens, and have narrow, smooth leaves. Then there are what are
familiarly called black-jacks,--a deciduous oak, which bears a large,
sharply-cut, indented leaf, of a character resembling our Northern ones.
Besides these, the prickly-ash, with its curiously knobbed and pointed
branches, and its graceful, feathery leaves, forms a feature in the
scene. Underneath, great clumps of prickly-pear are throwing out their
queer buds, to be, in turn, followed by bright yellow blossoms.
To an uninstructed eye, the pine-woods in which we ride look like a
flat, monotonous scene. The pines rise seventy, eighty, and a hundred
feet in the air, so that their tops are far above, and cast no shade.
This is a consideration of value, however, for a winter's ride; for one
enjoys the calm sunshine. Even in days when high winds are prevailing
along the river-front, the depth of these pine-woods is calm, sunny, and
still; and one can always have a pleasant walk there. When the hotter
months come on, the live-oaks and water-oaks have thick, new foliage,
and the black-jacks and hickory and sweet-gum trees throw out their
shade to shelter the traveller. Every mile or two, our path is traversed
by a brook on its way to the St. John's. The natives here call a brook a
"branch;" and a branch is no small circumstance, since all the finest
trees and shrubbery grow upon its banks. You can look through the high,
open pillars of the pine-trees, and watch the course of a branch half a
mile from you by the gorgeous vegetation of the trees which line its
shores.
We jog along in our mule-cart, admiring every thing as we go. We are
constantly exclaiming at something, and tempted to get out to gather
flowers. Here and there through the long wire-grass come perfect gushes
of blue and white violets. The blue violets are large, and, of
necessity, are obliged to put forth very long stems to get above the
coarse, matted grass. The white are very fragrant, and perfectly whiten
the ground in some moist places. There is a large, fragrant kind, very
scarce and rare, but of which we have secured several roots. We are
going this afternoon to the "second branch" after azaleas. We stop at a
little distance, when its wall of glossy verdure rises up before us.
There is no accomplishment of a mule in which Fly is better versed than
stopping and standing still. We fancy that we hear him, in his inner
consciousness, making a merit of it, as we all do of our pet virtues. He
is none of your frisky fellows, always wanting to be going, and
endangering everybody that wants to get in or out with prances and
curvets,--not he! He is a beast that may be trusted to stand for any
length of time without an attempt at motion. Catch _him_ running away!
So we leave Fly, and determine to explore the branch.
The short palmettoes here are grown to the height of fifteen feet. Their
roots look like great scaly serpents, which, after knotting and
convoluting a while, suddenly raise their crests high in air, and burst
forth into a graceful crest of waving green fans. These waving clumps of
fan-like leaves are the first and peculiar feature of the foliage. Along
the shore here, clumps of pale pink azaleas grow high up, and fill the
air with sweetness. It is for azaleas we are come; and so we tread our
way cautiously,--cautiously, because we have heard tales of the
moccasin-snake--fearful gnome!--said to infest damp places, and banks of
rivers. In all our Floridian rambles, we never yet have got sight of
this creature; though we have explored all the moist places, and sedgy,
swampy dells, where azaleas and blue iris and white lilies grow. But the
tradition that such things are inspires a wholesome care never to set a
foot down without looking exactly where it goes. "The branch," we find,
is lighted up in many places by the white, showy blossoms of the
dogwood, of which, also, we gather great store. We pile in
flowers--azalea and dogwood--till our wagon is full, and then proceed
with a trowel to take up many nameless beauties.
There is one which grows on a high, slender stalk, resembling in its
form a primrose, that has the purest and intensest yellow that we ever
saw in a flower. There is a purple variety of the same species, that
grows in the same neighborhoods. We have made a bed of these woodland
beauties at the roots of our great oak, so that they may finish their
growth, and seed, if possible, under our own eye.
By the by, we take this occasion to tell the lady who writes to beg of
us to send her some seeds or roots of Florida plants or flowers, that we
have put her letter on file, and perhaps, some day, may find something
to send her. Any one who loves flowers touches a kindred spot in our
heart. The difficulty with all these flowers and roots sent North is,
that they need the heat of this climate to bring them to perfection.
Still there is no saying what a real plant-lover may do in coaxing along
exotics. The "run" we have been exploring has, we are told, in the
season of them, beautiful blue wisteria climbing from branch to branch.
It does not come till after the yellow jessamine is gone. The
coral-honeysuckle and a species of trumpet-creeper also grow here, and,
in a little time, will be in full flower. One of our party called us
into the run, and bade us admire a beautiful shrub, some fifteen feet
high, whose curious, sharply-cut, deep-green leaves were shining with
that glossy polish which gives such brilliance. Its leaves were of waxen
thickness, its habit of growth peculiarly graceful; and our colored
handmaiden, who knows the habits of every plant in our vicinity, tells
us that it bears a white, sweet blossom, some weeks later. We mentally
resolve to appropriate this fair Daphne of the woods on the first
opportunity when hands can be spared to take it up and transport it.
But now the sun falls west, and we plod homeward. If you want to see a
new and peculiar beauty, watch a golden sunset through a grove
draperied with gray moss. The swaying, filmy bands turn golden and
rose-colored; and the long, swaying avenues are like a scene in
fairyland. We come home, and disembark our treasures. Our house looks
like a perfect flower-show. Every available vase and jar is
full,--dogwood, azaleas, blue iris, wreaths of yellow jessamine, blue
and white violets, and the golden unknown, which we christen primroses.
The daily sorting of the vases is no small charge: but there is a hand
to that department which never neglects; and so we breathe their air and
refresh our eyes with their beauty daily.
Your cold Northern snow-storms hold back our spring. The orange-buds
appear, but hang back. They are three weeks later than usual. Our
letters tell us frightful stories of thermometers no end of the way
below zero. When you have a snow-storm, we have a cold rain: so you
must keep bright lookout on your ways up there, or we shall get no
orange-blossoms.
We have received several letters containing questions about Florida. It
is our intention to devote our next paper to answering these. We are
perfectly ready to answer any number of inquiries, so long as we can
lump them all together, and answer them through "The Christian Union."
One class of letters, however, we cannot too thankfully remember. Those
who have read our papers with so much of sympathy as to send in
contributions to our church here have done us great good. We have now a
sum contributed with which we hope soon to replace our loss. And now, as
the mail is closing, we must close.
P. S.--We wish you could see a gigantic bouquet that Mr. S---- has just
brought in from the hummock. A little shrub-oak, about five feet high,
whose spreading top is all a golden mass of bloom with yellow jessamine,
he has cut down, and borne home in triumph.
What an adornment would this be for one of the gigantic Japanese vases
that figure in New-York drawing-rooms! What would such a bouquet sell
for?
[Illustration]
"FLORIDA FOR INVALIDS."
We find an aggrieved feeling in the minds of the Floridian public in
view of a letter in "The Independent," by Dr. ----, headed as above; and
we have been urgently requested to say something on the other view of
the question.
Little did we suppose when we met our good friend at Magnolia,
apparently in the height of spirits, the life of the establishment, and
head promoter of all sorts of hilarity, that, under all this delightful
cheerfulness, he was contending with such dreary experiences as his
article in "The Independent" would lead one to suppose. Really, any one
who should know the doctor only from that article might mistake him for
a wretched hypochondriac; whereas we saw him, and heard of him by
universal repute at Magnolia, as one of the cheeriest and sunniest of
the inmates, taking every thing by the smoothest handle, and not only
looking on the bright side himself, but making everybody else do the
same. Imagine, therefore, our utter astonishment at finding our buoyant
doctor summing up his Florida experience in such paragraphs as these:--
"From what I have observed, I should think Florida was nine-tenths
water, and the other tenth swamp. Many are deceived by the milder
climate here; and down they come--to die. The mildness, too, is
exaggerated. Yesterday morning, the thermometer was at thirty-six
degrees. Outside, our winter overcoats were necessary; and great
wood-fires roared within. Now and then the thermometer reaches eighty
degrees at mid-day; but, that very night, you may have frost.
"Another fact of Florida is malaria. How could it be otherwise? Souse
Manhattan Island two feet deep in fresh water, and wouldn't the price of
quinine rise?
"I have no objection to the term 'sunny South;' it is a pretty
alliteration: but I object to its application to Georgia and Florida in
February. I wish you could have seen me last Friday night. We were
riding two hundred and sixty miles through a swamp,--Okefinokee of the
geographies. I was clad in full winter suit, with heavy Russian
overcoat."
But a careful comparison of the incidents in his letter solves the
mystery. The letter was written in an early date in the doctor's
Floridian experience, and before he had had an opportunity of
experiencing the benefit which he subsequently reaped from it.
We perceive by the reference to last Friday night, and the ride through
Okefinokee Swamp, that the doctor was then fresh from the North, and
undergoing that process of disenchantment which many Northern travellers
experience, particularly those who come by railroad. The most ardent
friends of Florida must admit that this railroad is by no means a
prepossessing approach to the land of promise; and the midnight cold
upon it is something likely to be had in remembrance. When we crossed
it, however, we had a stove, which was a small imitation of
Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, to keep us in heart. Otherwise there is a
great deal of truth in our friend's allegations. As we have elsewhere
remarked, every place, like a bit of tapestry, has its right side and
its wrong side; and both are true and real,--the wrong side with its
tags and rags, and seams and knots, and thrums of worsted, and the right
side with its pretty picture.
It is true, as the doctor says, that some invalids do come here, expose
themselves imprudently, and die. People do die in Florida, if they use
the means quite as successfully as in New York. It is true that
sometimes the thermometer stands at seventy at noon, and that the nights
are much cooler; it is true we have sometimes severe frosts in Florida;
it is true we have malaria; it is true that there are swamps in Florida;
and it is quite apt to be true, that, if a man rides a hundred miles
through a swamp at night, he will feel pretty chilly.
All these are undeniable truths. We never pretended that Florida was the
kingdom of heaven, or the land where they shall no more say, "I am
sick." It is quite the reverse. People this very winter have in our
neighborhood had severe attacks of pneumonia; and undoubtedly many have
come to Florida seeking health, and have not found it.
Yet, on the other hand, there are now living in Florida many old
established citizens and land-owners who came here ten, twenty, and
thirty years ago, given over in consumption, who have here for years
enjoyed a happy and vigorous life in spite of Okefinokee Swamp and the
malaria.
Undoubtedly the country would be much better to live in if there were no
swamps and no malaria; and so, also, New England would be better to live
in if there were not six months winter and three more months of cold
weather there. As to malaria, it is not necessary to souse Manhattan
Island under water to get that in and around New York. The new lands in
New York will give you chills and fever quite as well as Florida. You
can find malarial fevers almost anywhere in the towns between New York
and New Haven; and it is notorious that many estates in the vicinity of
New York and Philadelphia sell cheap on that very account, because they
are almost as malarious as some Italian villas.
Florida is not quite so bad as that yet, although it has its share of
that malaria which attends the development of land in a new country. But
the malarial fevers here are of a mild type, and easily managed; and
they are generally confined to the fall months. The situation of
Florida, surrounded by the sea, and the free sweep of winds across it,
temper the air, and blow away malarious gases.
In regard to consumptives and all other invalids, the influence of a
Floridian climate depends very much on the nature of the case and the
constitution of the individual.
If persons suffer constitutionally from cold; if they are bright and
well only in hot weather; if the winter chills and benumbs them, till,
in the spring, they are in the condition of a frost-bitten hot-house
plant,--alive, to be sure, but with every leaf gone,--then these persons
may be quite sure that they will be the better for a winter in Florida,
and better still if they can take up their abode there.
But if, on the contrary, persons are debilitated and wretched during hot
weather, and if cool weather braces them, and gives them vigor and life,
then such evidently have no call to Florida, and should be booked for
Minnesota, or some other dry, cold climate. There are consumptives
belonging to both these classes of constitution; and the coming of one
of the wrong kind to Florida is of no use to himself, and is sure to
bring discredit on the country. A little good common sense and
reflection will settle that matter.
Again: there is a form of what passes for consumption, which is, after
all, some modification of liver-complaint; and, so far as we have heard
or observed, Florida is no place for these cases. The diseases here are
of the bilious type; and those who have liver-complaint are apt to grow
worse rather than better. But there are classes of persons on whom the
climate of Florida acts like a charm.
There are certain nervously-organized dyspeptics who require a great
deal of open, out-door life. They are in comfortable health during those
months when they can spend half their time in the open air. They have no
particular disease; but they have no great reserved strength, and cannot
battle with severe weather. They cannot go out in snow or wind, or on
chilly, stormy days, without risking more harm than they get good. Such,
in our Northern climate, are kept close prisoners for six months. From
December to May, they are shut in to furnace-heated houses or air-tight
stoves. The winter is one long struggle to keep themselves up. For want
of the out-door exercise which sustains them in summer, appetite and
sleep both fail them. They have restless nights and bad digestion, and
look anxiously to the end of winter as the only relief. For such how
slowly it drags! They watch the almanac. The sun crosses the line; the
days grow a minute longer: spring will come by and by. But by what cruel
irony was the month of March ever called spring?--March, which piles
snow-storms and wind-storms on backs almost broken by endurance. The
long agony of March and April is the breaking-point with many a delicate
person who has borne pretty well the regular winter.
Said one who did much work, "I bear it pretty well through December. I
don't so much mind January. February tires me a little; but I face it
bravely. But by March I begin to say, 'Well, if this don't stop pretty
soon, _I_ shall: I can't get much farther.'" But our heaviest
snow-storms and most savage cold are often reserved for March; and to
many an invalid it has given the final thrust: it is the last straw that
breaks the camel's back. But after March, in New England, comes April,
utterly untrustworthy, and with no assured out-door life for a delicate
person. As to the month of May, the poet Cowper has a lively poem
ridiculing the poets who have made the charms of May the subject of
their songs. Mother Nature is represented as thus addressing them:--
"'Since you have thus combined,' she said,
'My favorite nymph to slight,
Adorning May, that peevish maid,
With June's undoubted right,
The minx, cursed for your folly's sake,
Shall prove herself a shrew;
Shall make your scribbling fingers ache,
And bite your noses blue.'"
Which she generally does.
So it is not really till June that delicately-constituted persons, or
persons of impaired vigor, really feel themselves out of prison. They
have then about five months at most in which they can live an open-air
life, before the prison-doors close on them again.
Now, the persons who would be most benefited by coming to Florida are
not the desperately diseased, the confirmed consumptives, but those of
such impaired physical vigor that they are in danger of becoming so. An
ounce of prevention here is worth many pounds of cure. It is too often
the case that the care and expense that might have prevented disease
from settling are spent in vain after it has once fastened. Sad it is
indeed to see the wan and wasted faces, and hear the hollow death-cough,
of those who have been brought here too late. Yet, in hundreds of
instances, yes, in thousands, where one more severe Northern winter
would have fastened disease on the vitals, a winter in a Southern
climate has broken the spell. The climate of Florida is also of peculiar
advantage in all diseases attended by nervous excitability. The air is
peculiarly soothing and tranquillizing: it is the veritable
lotos-eater's paradise, full of quiet and repose. We have known cases
where the sleeplessness of years has given way, under this balmy
influence, to the most childlike habit of slumber.
For debility, and the complaints that spring from debility, Florida is
not so good a refuge, perhaps, as some more northern point, like Aiken.
The air here is soothing, but not particularly bracing. It builds up and
strengthens, not by any tonic effect in itself so much as by the
opportunity for constant open-air life and exercise which it affords.
For children, the climate cannot be too much praised. In our little
neighborhood are seven about as lively youngsters as could often be met
with; and the winter has been one long out-door play-spell. There has
not been a cough, nor a cold, nor an ailment of any kind, and scarce an
anxiety. All day long we hear their running and racing,--down to the
boat-wharves; in the boats, which they manage as dexterously as little
Sandwich-Islanders; fishing; catching crabs, or off after flowers in the
woods, with no trouble of hail, sleet, or wet feet. Truly it is a
child's Eden; and they grow and thrive accordingly.
Now as to malaria. That is a word requiring consideration to those who
expect to make Florida a permanent home, but having no terrors for
those who come to spend winters merely. There is no malaria in winter;
and Dr. C---- may be consoled in reflecting that frost always destroys
it: so that, when the thermometer is, as he says, at thirty-two degrees,
there is no danger, even though one be in the same State with forty
swamps. In fact, for ourselves, we prefer a cool winter such as this has
been. An October-like winter, when it is warm in the middle of the day,
and one can enjoy a bright fire on the hearth morning and night, is the
most favorable to out-door exercise and to health.
But merely to come to Florida, and idle away time at the St. James or
the St. Augustine Hotel, taking no regular exercise, and having no
employment for mind or body, is no way to improve by being here. It is
because the climate gives opportunity of open-air exercise that it is so
favorable; but, if one neglects all these opportunities, he may gain
very little.
It cannot be too often impressed on strangers coming here, that what
cold there is will be more keenly felt than in a Northern climate.
Persons should vary their clothing carefully to the varying temperature,
and be quite as careful to go warmly clad as in colder States. In our
furnace-heated houses at the North we generally wear thick woollen
dresses and under-flannels, and keep up a temperature of from seventy to
eighty degrees. In the South we move in a much lower temperature, and
have only the open fire upon the hearth. It is therefore important to go
warmly clad, and particularly to keep on flannels until the warm weather
of April becomes a settled thing.
In regard to the healthfulness of Florida, some things are to be borne
in mind. In a State that has the reputation of being an invalid's
asylum, many desperate cases necessarily take refuge, and, of course,
many die. Yet, notwithstanding the loss from these causes, the census
of 1860 showed that the number of deaths from pulmonary complaints is
less to the population than in any State of the Union. In Massachusetts,
the rate is one in two hundred and fifty-four; in California, one in
seven hundred and twenty-seven; in Florida, one in fourteen hundred and
forty-seven. Surgeon-Gen. Lawson of the United-States army, in his
report, asserts that "the ratio of deaths to the number of cases of
remittent fevers has been much less among the troops serving in Florida
than in other portions of the United States. In the middle division, the
proportion is one death to thirty-six cases of fever; in the northern,
one to fifty-two; in Texas, one to seventy-eight; in California, one in
a hundred and twenty-two; while in Florida it is one in two hundred and
eighty-seven."
Such statistics as these are more reliable than the limited observation
of any one individual. In regard to sudden changes of climate, Florida
is certainly not in all parts ideally perfect. There are, at times,
great and sudden changes there, but not by any means as much so as in
most other States of the Union.
Sudden changes from heat to cold are the besetting sin of this fallen
world. It is the staple subject for grumbling among the invalids who
visit Italy; and, in fact, it is probably one of the consequences of
Adam's fall, which we are not to be rid of till we get to the land of
pure delight. It may, however, comfort the hearts of visitors to Florida
to know, that, if the climate here is not in this respect just what they
would have it, it is about the best there is going.
All this will be made quite clear to any one who will study the tables
of observations on temperature contained in "The Guide to Florida,"
where they can see an accurate account of the range of the thermometer
for five successive years as compared with that in other States.
One thing cannot be too often reiterated to people who come to Florida;
and that is, that they must not expect at once to leave behind them all
sickness, sorrow, pain, inconvenience of any kind, and to enter at once
on the rest of paradise.
The happiness, after all, will have to be comparative; and the
inconveniences are to be borne by reflecting how much greater
inconveniences are avoided. For instance, when we have a three-days'
damp, drizzling rain-storm down here, we must reflect, that, at the
North, it is a driving snow-storm. When it is brisk, cold weather here,
it is an intolerable freeze there. The shadow and reflection of all
important changes at the North travel down to us in time. The
exceptionally cold winter at the North has put our season here back a
month behind its usual spring-time. The storms travel downward, coming
to us, generally, a little later, and in a modified form.
We cannot better illustrate this than by two experiences this year.
Easter morning we were waked by bird-singing; and it was a most heavenly
morning. We walked out in the calm, dewy freshness, to gather flowers to
dress our house,--the only church we have now in which to hold services.
In the low swamp-land near our home is a perfect field of blue iris,
whose bending leaves were all beaded with dew; and we walked in among
them, admiring the wonderful vividness of their coloring, and gathering
the choicest to fill a large vase. Then we cut verbenas, white, scarlet,
and crimson, rose-geraniums and myrtle, callas and roses; while already
on our tables were vases of yellow jessamine, gathered the night before.
The blue St. John's lay in misty bands of light and shade in the
distance; and the mocking-birds and red-birds were singing a loud _Te
Deum_.
Now for the North. A friend in Hartford writes, "I was awaked by the
patter of snow and sleet on the window-pane. Not a creature could go out
to church, the storm was so severe: even the Irish were obliged to keep
housed. With all we could do with a furnace and morning-glory stove, we
could not get the temperature of our house above fifty-five degrees."
In the latter part of the day, we at Mandarin had some rough, chilling
winds, which were the remains of the Northern Easter storm; but we were
wise enough to rejoice in the good we had, instead of fretting at the
shadow of evil.
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