The St. John's is the grand water-highway through some of the most
beautiful portions of Florida; and tourists, safely seated at ease on
the decks of steamers, can penetrate into the mysteries and wonders of
unbroken tropical forests.
During the "season," boats continually run from Jacksonville to
Enterprise, and back again; the round trip being made for a moderate
sum, and giving, in a very easy and comparatively inexpensive manner,
as much of the peculiar scenery as mere tourists care to see. On
returning, a digression is often made at Tekoi, where passengers cross a
horse-railroad of fifteen miles to St. Augustine; thus rendering their
survey of East Florida more complete. In fact, what may be seen and
known of the State in such a trip is about all that the majority of
tourists see and know.
The great majority also perform this trip, and see this region, in the
dead of winter, when certainly one-half of the glorious forests upon the
shore are bare of leaves.
It is true that the great number of evergreen-trees here make the shores
at all times quite different from those of a Northern climate; yet the
difference between spring and winter is as great here as there.
Our party were resolute in declining all invitations to join parties in
January, February, and March; being determined to wait till the new
spring foliage was in its glory.
When the magnolia-flowers were beginning to blossom, we were ready, and
took passage--a joyous party of eight or ten individuals--on the steamer
"Darlington," commanded by Capt. Broch, and, as is often asserted, by
"Commodore Rose."
This latter, in this day of woman's rights, is no mean example of female
energy and vigor. She is stewardess of the boat, and magnifies her
office. She is a colored woman, once a slave owned by Capt. Broch, but
emancipated, as the story goes, for her courage, and presence of mind,
in saving his life in a steamboat disaster.
Rose is short and thick, weighing some two or three hundred, with a
brown complexion, and a pleasing face and fine eyes. Her voice, like
that of most colored women, is soft, and her manner of speaking
pleasing. All this, however, relates to her demeanor when making the
agreeable to passengers. In other circumstances, doubtless, she can
speak louder, and with considerable more emphasis; and show, in short,
those martial attributes which have won for her the appellation of the
"Commodore." It is asserted that the whole charge of provisioning and
running the boat, and all its internal arrangements, vests in Madam
Rose; and that nobody can get ahead of her in a bargain, or resist her
will in an arrangement.
She knows every inch of the river, every house, every plantation along
shore, its former or present occupants and history; and is always ready
with an answer to a question. The arrangement and keeping of the boat do
honor to her. Nowhere in Florida does the guest sit at a more
bountifully-furnished table. Our desserts and pastry were really, for
the wilderness, something quite astonishing.
The St. John's River below Pilatka has few distinguishing features to
mark it out from other great rivers. It is so wide, that the foliage of
the shores cannot be definitely made out; and the tourist here,
expecting his palm-trees and his magnolias and flowering-vines, is
disappointed by sailing in what seems a never-ending great lake, where
the shores are off in the distance too far to make out any thing in
particular. But, after leaving Pilatka, the river grows narrower, the
overhanging banks approach nearer, and the foliage becomes more
decidedly tropical in its character. Our boat, after touching as usual
at Hibernia, Magnolia, and Green Cove, brought up at Pilatka late in the
afternoon, made but a short stop, and was on her way again.
It was the first part of May; and the forests were in that fulness of
leafy perfection which they attain in the month of June at the North.
But there is a peculiar, vivid brilliancy about the green of the new
spring-leaves here, which we never saw elsewhere. It is a brilliancy
like some of the new French greens, now so much in vogue, and reminding
one of the metallic brightness of birds and insects. In the woods, the
cypress is a singular and beautiful feature. It attains to a great age
and immense size. The trunk and branches of an old cypress are smooth
and white as ivory, while its light, feathery foliage is of the most
dazzling golden-green; and rising, as it often does, amid clumps of dark
varnished evergreens,--bay and magnolia and myrtle,--it has a singular
and beautiful effect. The long swaying draperies of the gray moss
interpose everywhere their wavering outlines and pearl tints amid the
brightness and bloom of the forest, giving to its deep recesses the
mystery of grottoes hung with fanciful vegetable stalactites.
The palmetto-tree appears in all stages,--from its earliest growth,
when it looks like a fountain of great, green fan-leaves bursting from
the earth, to its perfect shape, when, sixty or seventy feet in height,
it rears its fan crown high in air. The oldest trees may be known by a
perfectly smooth trunk; all traces of the scaly formation by which it
has built itself up in ring after ring of leaves being obliterated. But
younger trees, thirty or forty feet in height, often show a trunk which
seems to present a regular criss-cross of basket-work,--the remaining
scales from whence the old leaves have decayed and dropped away. These
scaly trunks are often full of ferns, wild flowers, and vines, which
hang in fantastic draperies down their sides, and form leafy and flowery
pillars. The palmetto-hammocks, as they are called, are often miles in
extent along the banks of the rivers. The tops of the palms rise up
round in the distance as so many hay-cocks, and seeming to rise one
above another far as the eye can reach.
We have never been so fortunate as to be able to explore one of these
palmetto-groves. The boat sails with a provoking quickness by many a
scene that one longs to dwell upon, study, and investigate. We have been
told, however, by hunters, that they afford admirable camping-ground,
being generally high and dry, with a flooring of clean white sand. Their
broad leaves are a perfect protection from rain and dew; and the effect
of the glare of the campfires and torch-lights on the tall pillars, and
waving, fan-like canopy overhead, is said to be perfectly magical. The
most unromantic and least impressible speak of it with enthusiasm.
In going up the river, darkness overtook us shortly after leaving
Pilatka. We sat in a golden twilight, and saw the shores every moment
becoming more beautiful; but when the twilight faded, and there was no
moon, we sought the repose of our cabin. It was sultry as August,
although only the first part of May; and our younger and sprightlier
members, who were on the less breezy side of the boat, after fruitlessly
trying to sleep, arose and dressed themselves, and sat all night on
deck.
By this means they saw a sight worth seeing, and one which we should
have watched all night to see. The boat's course at night is through
narrows of the river, where we could hear the crashing and crackling of
bushes and trees, and sometimes a violent thud, as the boat, in turning
a winding, struck against the bank. On the forward part two great
braziers were kept filled with blazing, resinous light-wood, to guide
the pilot in the path of the boat. The effect of this glare of red light
as the steamer passed through the palmetto hummocks and moss-hung
grottoes of the forest was something that must have been indescribably
weird and beautiful; and our young friends made us suitably regret that
our more airy sleeping-accommodations had lost us this experience.
In the morning we woke at Enterprise, having come through all the most
beautiful and characteristic part of the way by night. Enterprise is
some hundred and thirty miles south of our dwelling-place in Mandarin;
and, of course, that much nearer the tropical regions. We had planned
excursions, explorations, picnics in the woods, and a visit to the
beautiful spring in the neighborhood; but learned with chagrin that the
boat made so short a stay, that none of these things were possible. The
only thing that appears to the naked eye of a steamboat traveller in
Enterprise is a large hotel down upon the landing, said by those who
have tested it to be one of the best kept hotels in Florida. The aspect
of the shore just there is no way picturesque or inviting, but has more
that forlorn, ragged, desolate air that new settlements on the river
are apt to have. The wild, untouched banks are beautiful; but the new
settlements generally succeed in destroying all Nature's beauty, and
give you only leafless, girdled trees, blackened stumps, and naked white
sand, in return.
Turning our boat homeward, we sailed in clear morning light back through
the charming scenery which we had slept through the night before. It is
the most wild, dream-like, enchanting sail conceivable. The river
sometimes narrows so that the boat brushes under overhanging branches,
and then widens into beautiful lakes dotted with wooded islands.
Palmetto-hammocks, live-oak groves, cypress, pine, bay, and magnolia
form an interchanging picture; vines hang festooned from tree to tree;
wild flowers tempt the eye on the near banks; and one is constantly
longing for the boat to delay here or there: but on goes her steady
course, the pictured scene around constantly changing. Every now and
then the woods break away for a little space, and one sees orange and
banana orchards, and houses evidently newly built. At many points the
boat landed, and put off kegs of nails, hoes, ploughs, provisions,
groceries. Some few old plantations were passed, whose name and history
seemed familiar to Madam Rose; but by far the greater number were new
settlements, with orchards of quite young trees, which will require
three or four more years to bring into bearing.
The greater number of fruit-orchards and settlements were on the eastern
shore of the river, which, for the reasons we have spoken of, is better
adapted to the culture of fruit.
One annoyance on board the boat was the constant and pertinacious firing
kept up by that class of men who think that the chief end of man is to
shoot something. Now, we can put up with good earnest hunting or fishing
done for the purpose of procuring for man food, or even the fur and
feathers that hit his fancy and taste.
But we detest indiscriminate and purposeless maiming and killing of
happy animals, who have but one life to live, and for whom the agony of
broken bones or torn flesh is a helpless, hopeless pain, unrelieved by
any of the resources which enable us to endure. A parcel of hulking
fellows sit on the deck of a boat, and pass through the sweetest
paradise God ever made, without one idea of its loveliness, one gentle,
sympathizing thought of the animal happiness with which the Creator has
filled these recesses. All the way along is a constant fusillade upon
every living thing that shows itself on the bank. Now a bird is hit, and
hangs, head downward, with a broken wing; and a coarse laugh choruses
the deed. Now an alligator is struck; and the applause is greater. We
once saw a harmless young alligator, whose dying struggles, as he threw
out his poor little black paws piteously like human hands, seemed to be
vastly diverting to these cultivated individuals. They wanted nothing of
him except to see how he would act when he was hit, dying agonies are so
very amusing!
Now and then these sons of Nimrod in their zeal put in peril the nerves,
if not lives, of passengers. One such actually fired at an alligator
right across a crowd of ladies, many of them invalids; and persisted in
so firing a second time, after having been requested to desist. If the
object were merely to show the skill of the marksman, why not practise
upon inanimate objects? An old log looks much like an alligator: why not
practise on an old log? It requires as much skill to hit a branch, as
the bird singing on it: why not practise on the branch? But no: it must
be something that _enjoys_ and can suffer; something that loves life,
and must lose it. Certainly this is an inherent savagery difficult to
account for. Killing for killing's sake belongs not even to the tiger.
The tiger kills for food; man, for amusement.
At evening we were again at Pilatka; when the great question was
discussed, Would we, or would we not, take the tour up the Okalewaha to
see the enchanted wonders of the Silver Spring! The Okalewaha boat lay
at the landing; and we went to look at it. The Okalewaha is a deep,
narrow stream, by the by, emptying into the St. John's, with a course as
crooked as Apollo's ram's horn; and a boat has been constructed for the
express purpose of this passage.
The aspect of this same boat on a hot night was not inspiriting. It was
low, long, and narrow; its sides were rubbed glassy smooth, or torn and
creased by the friction of the bushes and trees it had pushed through.
It was without glass windows,--which would be of no use in such
navigation,--and, in place thereof, furnished with strong shutters to
close the air-holes. We looked at this same thing as it lay like a
gigantic coffin in the twilight, and thought even the Silver Spring
would not pay for being immured there, and turned away.
A more inviting project was to step into a sail-boat, and be taken in
the golden twilight over to Col. Harte's orange-grove, which is
said--with reason, we believe--to be the finest in Florida.
We landed in the twilight in this grove of six hundred beautiful
orange-trees in as high condition as the best culture could make them.
The well-fed orange-tree is known by the glossy, deep green of its
foliage, as a declining tree is by the yellow tinge of its leaves. These
trees looked as if each leaf, if broken, would spurt with juice. Piles
of fish-guano and shell banks, prepared as top-dress for the orchard,
were lying everywhere about, mingling not agreeably with the odor of
orange-blossoms. We thought to ourselves, that, if the orange-orchard
must be fed upon putrefying fish, we should prefer not to have a house
in it. The employee who has charge of the orchard lives in a
densely-shaded cottage in the edge of it. A large fruit-house has
recently been built there; and the experiments of Col. Harte seem to
demonstrate, that, even if there occur severe frosts in the early
winter, there is no sort of need, therefore, of losing the orange-crop.
His agent showed us oranges round and fair that had been kept three
months in moss in this fruit-house, and looking as fresh and glossy as
those upon the trees. This, if proved by experience, always possible,
does away with the only uncertainty relating to the orange-crop.
Undoubtedly the fruit is far better to continue all winter on the trees,
and be gathered from time to time as wanted, as has always been the
practice in Florida. But, with fruit-houses and moss, it will be
possible, in case of a threatened fall of temperature, to secure the
crop. The oranges that come to us from Malaga and Sicily are green as
grass when gathered and packed, and ripen, as much as they do ripen, on
the voyage over. We should suppose the oranges of Florida might be
gathered much nearer ripe in the fall, ripen in the house or on the way,
and still be far better than any from the foreign market. On this point
fruit-growers are now instituting experiments, which, we trust, will
make this delicious crop certain as it is abundant.
Sailing back across the water, we landed, and were conveyed to the
winter country-seat of a Brooklyn gentleman, who is with great
enthusiasm cultivating a place there. It was almost dark; and we could
only hear of his gardens and grounds and improvements, not see them. In
the morning, before the boat left the landing, he took us a hasty drive
around the streets of the little village. It is an unusually pretty,
attractive-looking place for a Florida settlement. One reason for this
is, that the streets and vacant lots are covered with a fine green turf,
which, at a distance, looks like our New-England grass. It is a mixture
of Bermuda grass with a variety of herbage, and has just as good general
effect as if it were the best red-top.
There are several fine residences in and around Pilatka,--mostly
winter-seats of Northern settlers. The town has eight stores, which do a
business for all the surrounding country for miles. It has two large
hotels, several boarding-houses, two churches, two steam saw-mills, and
is the headquarters for the steamboats of the Upper St. John's and its
tributaries. Four or five steamers from different quarters are often
stopping at its wharf at a time. "The Dictator" and "City Point," from
Charleston, run to this place outside by the ocean passage, and,
entering the mouth of the St. John's, stop at Jacksonville by the way.
The "Nick King" and "Lizzie Baker," in like manner, make what is called
the inside trip, skimming through the network of islands that line the
coast, and bringing up at the same points. Then there are the
river-lines continually plying between Jacksonville and this place, and
the small boats that run weekly to the Ocklawaha: all these make Pilatka
a busy, lively, and important place.
With Pilatka the interest of our return-voyage finished. With Green-Cove
Springs, Magnolia, Hibernia, at all of which we touched on our way back,
we were already familiar; and the best sight of all was the cottage
under the oaks, to which we gladly returned.
[Illustration]