Carolina, complained of the severe heat and sultriness of the air. Not a
breath cooled the atmosphere, parched by the burning summer sun's rays.
In the afternoon the usual sea breeze failed to appear, and there was no
relief from the intense closeness and almost overpowering warmth. The
sky was clear, but with a misty, steamy appearance which reminded one
strongly of glowing, tropical countries.
As the night came on, the absence of the glare of the sun was the only
relief to the parched and panting population. Seated in the parlor of a
large three-storied brick house in the central portion of the city, I
spent the evening after tea conversing with two friends who had called
to see me. After a few hours of pleasant conversation, one of my friends
said it was time to leave. Taking out his watch, he continued, "Six
minutes of ten, and--_what is that?_" A low, deep rumbling noise as of
thunder, only beneath instead of above us, coming from afar and
approaching us nearer and nearer, muttering and groaning, and ever
increasing in volume,--it was upon us in an instant.
The massive brick house we were in began to sway from side to
side--gently at first with a rhythmical motion, then gradually
increasing in force, until, springing to our feet, we seized one another
by the hand and gazed with blanched and awe-struck faces at the
tottering walls around us. We felt the floor beneath our feet heaving
like the deck of a storm-tossed vessel, and heard the crashing of the
falling masonry and ruins on every side. With almost stilled hearts we
realized that we were in the power of an earthquake. The motion of the
house, never ceasing, became now vertical. Up and down it went as though
some monstrous giant had taken it in his hands as a plaything and were
tossing it like a ball for his amusement. Recalling our dazed senses,
and staggering to our feet as best we could, with one accord we rushed
down the steps leading to the front door, and, grasping the handle,
turned it. In vain--the door was jammed, and we were compelled to wait
like rats in a trap until the shock had passed!
Concentrating its energies into one final, convulsive effort, the huge
earth-wave passed and left the earth palpitating and heaving like a
tired animal. There came crashing down into our garden-plot the chimneys
from the house in front of ours. Fortunately the falling bricks injured
none of us. Making another trial, we succeeded in opening the door and
rushed into the street.
Now there came upon us an overpowering, suffocating odor of sulphur and
brimstone, which filled the whole atmosphere. We were surrounded by a
crowd of neighbors--men, women, and children--who had rushed out of
their houses, as we had done, and who stood with us in the middle of the
street, awaiting they knew not what.
Suddenly there came again to our ears the now dreaded rumbling sound.
Like some fierce animal, growling and seeking its victim, it approached,
and we all prepared ourselves for the worst. The shock came, and for a
moment the crowd was awed into silence. Fortunately this shock was not
nearly so severe as the first. The earth became still once more, and the
roaring died away in the distance.
[Illustration: STREET SCENE DURING THE CHARLESTON EARTHQUAKE.]
How the people shunned their houses and spent that and succeeding nights
in the streets, private gardens, and on public squares, is well known
from the many accounts given in the daily and illustrated papers at the
time.
So perfectly still and calm was the air during the night, that a lamp,
which was taken out in the open air burnt as steadily as though
protected in a room, and no flickering revealed the presence of a breath
of wind.
Again, some strong and powerful buildings in certain portions of the
city were wrecked completely, while others older and undoubtedly weaker
passed through the shock unharmed. A house on one corner was perfectly
shattered, while, just a few hundred feet away, the house on the
opposite corner was not damaged in the slightest except that a little
plastering was shaken down.
Knowing that a city with a population of sixty thousand had been wrecked
in every direction by an earthquake, one would expect the death-list to
be enormous; but not more than about forty were killed outright, and but
a few more were wounded. Had the shock occurred in the daytime, when the
streets were thronged, the loss of life must have been terrible.
HIDING PLACES IN WAR TIMES
BY J. H. GORE
For some years after the close of our Civil War, the attention of our
people was chiefly occupied with a study and recital of the most
prominent battles, the decisive events, and the acts of famous officers.
But when these bolder features of the war panorama had been examined and
discussed, more time was taken to look at some of the details, to call
up the minor incidents, to bestow meed of praise upon privates, or to
record the littles that made up the much.
The sacrifices of the women and children at home have been repeatedly
referred to in general, but seldom do we see mention made of their daily
privations, the petty but continual annoyances to which they were
subjected, and the struggle they made to sow and reap, as well as the
difficulties they met in saving the harvested crops.
The hiding-places here described were all in _one_ house. This house was
in Virginia, near a town which changed hands, under fire, eighty-two
times during the war--a town whose hotel register shows on the same page
the names of officers of both armies, a town where there are two large
cities of the fallen soldiers, each embellished by the saddest of all
epitaphs--"To the unknown dead." Out from this battered town run a
number of turnpikes, and standing as close to one of these as a city
house stands to the street was the house referred to--the home of a
widow, three small children, a single domestic, and, for part of the
time, an invalid cousin, whose ingenuity and skill fashioned the secret
places, one of which was on several occasions his place of refuge.
With fall came the "fattening time" for the hogs. They were then brought
in from the distant fields, where they had passed the summer, and put in
a pen by the side of the road. And although within ten feet of the
soldiers as they marched by, they were never seen, for the pen was
completely covered by the winter's wood-pile, except at the back, where
there was a board fence through whose cracks the corn was thrown in.
Whenever the passing advance-guard told us that an army was approaching,
the hogs were hurriedly fed, so that the army might go by while they
were taking their after-dinner nap, and thus not reveal their presence
by an escaped grunt or squeal. Fortunately, the house was situated in a
narrow valley, where the opportunities for bushwhacking were so great
that the soldiers did not tarry long enough to search unsuspected
wood-piles. On one occasion we thought the hogs were doomed. A wagon
broke down near the house, and a soldier went to the wood-pile for a
pole to be used in mending the break. Luckily, he found a stick to his
liking without tearing the pile to pieces. This suggested that some
nice, straight pieces be always left conveniently near for such an
emergency, in case it should occur again.
The house had a cellar with a door opening directly out upon the "big
road," and never did a troop, large or small, pass by without countless
soldiers seeking something eatable in this convenient cellar. It was
never empty, but nothing was ever found. A partition had been run across
about three feet from the back wall, so near that even a close
inspection would not suggest a space back of it; and being without a
door, no one would think there was a room beyond. The only access to
this back cellar was through a trapdoor in the floor of the room above.
This door was always kept covered by a carpet, and in case any danger
was imminent, a lounge was put over this, and one of the boys, feigning
illness, was there "put to bed." In this cellar apples, preserves,
pickled pork, etc., were kept, and its existence was not known to any
one outside of the family.
The two garrets of the house had false ends, with narrow spaces beyond,
where winter clothing, flour, and corn were safely stored. The partition
in each was of weather-boarding, and nailed on from the inner side so as
to appear like the true ends, and, being in blind gables, there was no
suspicion aroused by the absence of windows. The entrance to these
little attics was through small doors that were a part of the partition,
and, as usual in country houses, the clothesline stretched across the
end from rafter to rafter held enough old carpets and useless stuff to
silence any question of secret doors. Several closets also were provided
with false backs, where the surplus linen of the household found a safe
hiding-place.
In such an exposed place a company of scouts, or even a regiment, could
appear so unexpectedly that it was necessary to keep everything out of
sight. Even the provisions for the next meal had to be put away, or
before the meal could be prepared a party of marauders might drop in and
carry off the entire supply. In the kitchen a wood-box of large size
stood by the stove. It had a false bottom. In the upper part was "wood
dirt," a plentiful supply of chips, and so much stove-wood that the
impression would be conveyed that at least there was a good stock of
fuel always on hand. The box was made of tongued and grooved boards, and
one of these in the front could be slipped out, thus forming a door.
Into this box all the food and silverware were put. No little ingenuity
was needed in making this contrivance. The nails that were drawn out to
let this board slip back and forth left tell-tale nail-holes, but these
were filled up with heads of nails, so that all the boards looked just
alike. I remember once a soldier was sitting on this box while mother
was cooking for him what seemed to be the last slice of bacon in the
house. She was so afraid that he would drum on the box with his heels,
as boys frequently do, and find that the box was hollow, that she
continually asked him to get up while she took a piece of wood for the
fire. It was necessary to disturb him a number of times before he found
it advisable to take the proffered chair, and in the meantime a hotter
fire had been made than the small piece of meat required.
Of course it was advisable to have at least scraps of food lying
around--their absence at any time would have aroused suspicion and
started a search that might have disclosed all. The large loaves of
bread were put in an unused bed in the place of bolsters; money, when
there was any on hand, was rolled up in a strip of cotton which was tied
as a string around a bunch of hoarhound that hung on a nail in the
kitchen ceiling; the chickens were reared in a thicket some distance
from the house, and, being fed there, seldom left it.
Although this house was searched repeatedly, by day and by night, by
regulars and by guerrillas, by soldiers of the North and of the South,
the only loss sustained were a few eggs, and this loss was not serious,
for the eggs were stale.
ST. AUGUSTINE
BY FRANK R. STOCKTON
The city of St. Augustine, on the eastern coast of Florida, stands in
one respect preeminent among all the cities of the United States--it is
truly an old city. It has many other claims to consideration, but these
are shared with other cities. But in regard to age it is the one member
of its class.
Compared with the cities of the Old World, St. Augustine would be called
young; but in the United States a city whose buildings and monuments
connect the Middle Ages with the present time, may be considered to have
a good claim to be called ancient.
After visiting some of our great towns, where the noise and bustle of
traffic, the fire and din of manufactures, the long lines of buildings
stretching out in every direction, with all the other evidences of
active enterprise, proclaim these cities creations of the present day
and hour, it is refreshing and restful to go down to quiet St.
Augustine, where one may gaze into the dry moat of a fort of medieval
architecture, walk over its drawbridges, pass under its portcullis, and
go down into its dungeons; and where in soft semi-tropical air the
visitor may wander through narrow streets resembling those of Spain and
Italy, where the houses on each side lean over toward one another so
that neighbors might almost shake hands from their upper windows, and
are surrounded by orange-groves and rose-gardens which blossom all the
year.
St. Augustine was founded in 1565 by Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who was
then Governor of Florida. Here he built a wooden fort which was
afterward replaced by the massive edifice which still exists. St.
Augustine needed defenses, for she passed through long periods of war,
and many battles were fought for her possession. At first there were
wars in Florida between the Spanish and the French; and when the town
was just twenty-one years old, Sir Francis Drake captured the fort,
carrying off two thousand pounds in money, and burned half the buildings
in the town. Then the Indians frequently attacked the place and
committed many atrocities; and, half a century after Drake, the
celebrated English buccaneer Captain John Davis captured and plundered
the town.
Much later, General Moore, Governor of South Carolina, took the town and
held it for three months, but was never able to take the fort. In 1740
General Oglethorpe, Governor of Georgia, attacked St. Augustine,
planting batteries on the island opposite, and maintaining a siege for
forty days; but he was obliged to withdraw. Three years later he made
another attack, but succeeded no better. Even now one can see the dents
and holes made in the fort by the cannon-balls fired in these sieges.
In 1819 Florida was ceded to our Government, and St. Augustine became a
city of the United States.
Approaching St. Augustine from the sea, the town looks as if it might be
a port on the Mediterranean coast. The light-colored walls of its houses
and gardens, masses of rich green foliage cropping up everywhere in the
town and about it, the stern old fortress to the north of it, and the
white and glittering sands of the island which separates its harbor from
the sea, make it very unlike the ordinary idea of an American town.
In the center of the city is a large open square called the Plaza de la
Constitucion, surrounded by beautiful live-oaks and pride-of-India
trees, with their long, hanging-mosses and sweet-smelling blossoms.
Most of the streets are narrow, without sidewalks, and from the
high-walled gardens comes the smell of orange-blossoms, while roses and
other flowers bloom everywhere and all the time.
At the southern end of the town stands the old Convent of St. Francis,
which is now used as barracks for United States soldiers.
The old palace of the governor still stands, but now contains the
post-office and other public buildings. There was once a wall around the
town, and one of the gates of this still remains. There is a tower on
each side of the gateway, and the sentry-boxes, and loopholes through
which the guards used to look out for Indians and other enemies, are
still there. Along the harbor edge of the town is a wall nearly a mile
long, built at great expense by the United States Government as a
defense against the encroachments of the sea. This is called the sea
wall, and its smooth top, four feet wide, is a favorite promenade.
Walking northward on this wall, or on the street beside it, if you like
that better, we reach, a little outside of the town, what I consider the
most interesting feature of St. Augustine. This is the old fort of San
Marco, which, since it came into the possession of our government, has
been renamed Fort Marion.
[Illustration: THE SPANISH COAT-OF-ARMS.]
The old fort is not a ruin, but is one of the best-preserved specimens
of the style of fortification of the Middle Ages. We cross the moat and
the drawbridge, and over the stone door-way we see the Spanish
coat-of-arms, and under it an inscription stating that the fort was
built during the reign of King Ferdinand VI of Spain, with the names and
titles of the dons who superintended the work. It took sixty years to
build the fort, and nearly all the work was done by Indians who were
captured and made slaves for the purpose. Passing through the solemn
entrance, we come to an open square surrounded by the buildings and
walls of the fort, which, in all, cover about an acre of ground. On the
right is an inclined plane which serves as a stairway to reach the
ramparts where the cannon were placed. The _terre-plein_, or wide, flat
surface of the ramparts, makes a fine walk around the four sides of the
fort from which we can have views of land and sea. At each corner was a
watch-tower, three of which remain; and into these one can mount, and
through the narrow slits of windows get a view of what is going on
outside without being seen himself. At one end of the fort is the old
Spanish chapel, and all around the square are the rooms that used to be
occupied by the officers and the soldiers. Into the chapel the condemned
prisoners used to be taken to hear their last mass before being marched
up to the north rampart and shot.
Down in the foundations of the fort are dungeons into which no ray of
sunlight can enter. After the fort came into the possession of our
government, a human skeleton was found in one of the dungeons, chained
to a staple in the wall; and in another dungeon, without door or window
and completely walled up, there were discovered two iron cages which had
hung from the walls, each containing a human skeleton. The supports of
one of the cages had rusted away, and it had fallen down, but the other
was still in its place. A great many romantic stories were told about
these skeletons, and by some persons it was supposed that they were the
remains of certain heirs to the Spanish throne whose existence it was
desirable utterly to blot out. One of the skeletons was that of a woman
or girl. The cages and skeletons have been removed, but we can go into
the dungeons if we take a lantern. Anything darker or blacker than these
underground cells cannot be imagined. I have seen dungeons in Europe,
but none of them were so hopelessly awful as these.
In another part of the fort is a cell in which Osceola, the celebrated
Indian chief, was once imprisoned, in company with another chief named
Wild Cat. There is a little window near the top of the cell, protected
by several iron bars; and it is said that Wild Cat starved himself until
he was thin enough to squeeze between two of the bars, having first
mounted on the shoulders of Osceola in order to reach them. Whether the
starving part of the story is true or not, it is certain that he escaped
through the window.
When I last visited San Marco, it was full of Indian prisoners who had
been captured in the far West. Some of them were notorious for their
cruelties and crimes, but in the fort they were all peaceable enough. It
was one of these Indians, a big, ugly fellow, who lighted me into the
dungeon of the skeleton-cages.
This fort, which is in many respects like a great castle, is not built
of ordinary stone, but of coquina, a substance formed by the
accumulation of sea-shells which, in the course of ages, have united
into a mass like solid rock. On Anastasia Island, opposite St.
Augustine, there are great quarries from which the coquina stone is
taken, and of this material nearly the whole town is built. It is
interesting to visit one of these quarries, and observe how in the
upper strata the shells are quite distinct, while the lower we look down
the more and more solid and stone-like the masses become.
The harbor of St. Augustine is a portion of the sea cut off by Anastasia
Island. Southward, the Matanzas River extends from the harbor; and in
all these waters there is fine fishing. On the sea-beaches there is good
bathing, for the water is not too cold even in winter. St. Augustine is
an attractive place at all seasons of the year, and its three superb
hotels--the Ponce de Leon, the Alcazar, and the Cordova--are among the
most celebrated in America. In winter people come down from the North
because its air is so warm and pleasant, and in summer people from the
Southern States visit it because its sea-breezes are so cool and
refreshing. It is a favorable resort for yachts, and in its wide, smooth
harbor may often be seen some of the most beautiful vessels of this
class.
St. Augustine is not only a delightful place in which to stay, but it is
easy to reach from there some points which are of great interest to
travelers. The great St. John's River is only fourteen miles away, and
is connected with the town by a little railroad. At Tocoi, the river
terminus of the railroad, people who wish to penetrate into the heart of
Florida, with its great forests and lakes and beautiful streams, can
take a steamer and sail up the St. John's, which, by the way, flows
northward some two hundred miles. In some parts the river is six miles
wide, resembling a lake, and in its narrow portions the shores are very
beautiful.
About forty miles above Tocoi the Ocklawaha River runs into the St.
John's, and there are few visitors to St. Augustine who do not desire to
take a trip up the little river which is in many respects the most
romantic and beautiful stream in the world. At Tocoi we take a small
steamboat which looks like a very narrow two-story house mounted upon a
little canal-boat, and in this we go up the St. John's until we see on
the right an opening in the tree-covered banks. This is the mouth of the
Ocklawaha, and, entering it, we steam directly into the heart of one of
the great forests of Florida. The stream is very narrow, and full of
turns and bends. Indeed, its name, which is Indian, signifies "crooked
water"; and sometimes the bow of the boat has even to be pushed around
by men with long poles. Of course we go slowly, but no one objects to
that, for we do not wish to hurry through such scenery as this. On each
side we see green trees with their thick evergreen foliage, with vines
and moss hanging from many of them, and the ground beneath covered with
the luxuriant shrubbery which grows in these warm regions.
Sometimes we can see through the trees into the distant recesses of the
forest, and then again we are shut in by walls of foliage. Now and then
we may see an alligator sunning himself on a log, and as our boat
approaches he rolls over into the water and plumps out of sight.
Water-turkeys, whose bodies are concealed in the bushes, run out their
long necks to look at us, presenting the appearance of snakes darting
from between the leaves; while curlews, herons, and many other birds are
seen on the banks and flying across the river. In some places the stream
widens, and in the shallower portions near the banks grow many kinds of
lilies, beautiful reeds, and other water-plants. For long distances
there is no solid ground on either side of the river, the water
penetrating far into the forest and forming swamps. Near the edge of the
river we frequently see myriads of tree-roots bent almost at right
angles, giving the trees the appearance of standing on spider-legs in
the water.
Sometimes the forest opens overhead, but nearly all the way we are
covered by a roof of green, and at every turn appear new scenes of
beauty and luxuriance. Occasionally the banks are moderately high, and
we see long stretches of solid ground covered with verdure. There is one
spot where two large trees stand, one on each bank, close to the water,
and the distance between the two is so small that as our boat glides
through this natural gateway there is scarcely a foot of room to spare
on either side.