The longevity for which the inhabitants of St. Augustine have been
remarkable is a proof of its healthfulness; indeed, the tenacity with
which they cling to life, as well as the uncomplaining manner in which
they endure every thing, is really wonderful. Several years since, an
aged lady, who had been helpless for years before her death, remarked
that Death seemed to have forgotten her--she remained here so long.
Some who have heretofore imagined that St. Augustine had no attractions
but its antiquity must remember that new industries are constantly being
developed, among the most recent of which is the manufacture of
marmalade and wine from the native wild orange fruit. We had the
pleasure of visiting both these enterprising establishments--first the
marmalade factory, in charge of Señor S. B. Valls, a Cuban exile. His
father, Señor Jose Valls, under the well-known brand of "El Pavo Real,
Fabricada de Dulces," or Sweetmeat and Guava Jelly-maker, in Havana, has
won a world-wide reputation, having received the Paris Exposition medal,
1867. His method is original, and his sweetmeats better adapted to the
American taste than those of Scotch make. The enterprise has met with
great success, the demand always exceeding the supply, and the moderate
charges being also an attractive feature. He preserves lemons, limes,
and figs in such a manner that they will keep for years. He makes an
orange-bloom cordial, which must be, without doubt, the original nectar
of the gods; for certainly there is nothing like it, the flavor
perfectly resembling the odor of the orange-blossom; the sensation
produced in swallowing it is like sailing on a summer sea.
The orange-wine manufactured by Genovar & Brother well deserves to
supplant the miserable, adulterated, yeasty preparations which are sold
and drunk daily by those whose minds are afterward in a constant state
of doubt as to the amount of harm incurred by the potion imbibed.
It is April, and the season has arrived when visitors commence leaving;
all amusements in which they delighted have become stale--even the
yacht-races, which contributed so largely to the entertainment of those
fond of boating; while outsiders are constantly under the impression
that the boats are trying to tack for another course, making an effort
to anchor, or turning in for a nap.
The Southern Indians imprisoned here for the past three years have been
a subject of comment and amusement for most of the visitors, while their
presence in the city was any thing but desirable to certain aggrieved
persons, who succeeded in obtaining an escape-valve for their feelings
by the following expressions, printed in the _Savannah Morning News_,
entitled, "A Page from the Unwritten History of the Ancient City":
"_St. Augustine, Fla._, March 4, 1878.--While the prominent points in
St. Augustine, which present themselves to visitors, are written
threadbare, there is an undercurrent, although felt by the suffering,
that has never been stirred by the anxious inquirers after information.
It is God's poor--those reduced by circumstances over which they have no
control. Many exclaim, Lo! the poor Indian; but none consider the
avenues to employment which the presence of these scalping, murdering,
human heart-eaters, are causing in this water-locked city by the sea.
When teaching the Indian to appreciate the value of a Government which
proposes to protect them, at the same time enabling them to participate
in all the privileges of an enlightened organization, why cannot they be
made self-sustaining, and hired out, as other convicts? What heroic
deeds of greatness have they ever achieved, that they should be treated
like prisoners of State, instead of inhuman fiends, at whose record of
crime Satan would grin with delight? Many of them are permitted to roam
with freedom, not only in every portion of the city, but in the country
around, thus terrifying timid citizens with their presence, causing them
to change their habitations to the town for protection. While they are
fed and clothed by the Government, free, they hire themselves out at
lower wages than poor laborers can work for, and be sustained. This has
become a great source of grievance to the community, which they desire
to have redressed by their removal. Much of the money they make is only
to buy food for a pampered taste, which has been acquired since they
came here, and not to sustain their existence. If labor has to compete
with crime, the hand of industry with the bloody hand, where is the hope
on which honesty is to hinge and work its way through the world? The
whole can be told in a few words: While these sixty savages are here
being employed in every department of manual labor, thus taking the
bread from the mouths of dependent women and children, it is productive
of suffering in our midst, whilst those advanced in life look in vain
for a support to their sons, whose hands are tied by these savage
oppressors."
Two weeks after the news of the pope's death had been received in other
cities, and the drapery of mourning become dusty, the cathedral bells
here commenced tolling at sunrise, and continued the entire day until
dusk. The chimes in Rome were never struck with more regularity, and
when the sun sank to his home in the west a sigh of relief was felt,
that every thing has an end. If the day was spent by the Catholics in
mourning for the pope, the night was spent by the visitors in giving
expression to the most jubilant demonstrations of joy--the festivities
being gotten up by the Yacht Club, which appears to be the only central
live-figure head-light in the city now. On this occasion the Yacht House
was illuminated with Chinese lanterns, which encircled it over the
water's edge; calcium lights blazed with overpowering brilliancy, and
the most dazzling rockets shot through the air like meteors, while the
brass band discoursed very loud, stirring strains, and the little boats
glided about on the bay, like _ignes-fatui_, with lights suspended on
their masts or on their bows, glittering through the darkness,
resembling a distant constellation. With the freedom of uncaged birds,
fresh from bondage, every one appeared buoyant, giving themselves up to
the pleasure of the hour with a kind of _abandon_ as if, after all, it
might be a panoramic view produced by some Eastern Magi. After the
illumination on the water was ended, the string-band commenced playing,
when busy feet kept time to the harp and viol, without a thought of the
confessional which would have to be met before the next sacrament.
For a few days past the weather has been rather capricious, the sunshine
hidden behind damp clouds, and the wind more boisterous than
sight-seekers enjoy. We imagine some of the tourists' note-books are
full enough of complaints. The weather is delicious now, the air all
balm, the sky all blue, the bananas waving in the gentlest of breezes,
the sea heaving softly under the sunlight. We shall miss this changeful
sea at St. Augustine, the reviving air, the lovely palms, the
mocking-bird upon whose happiness the day closed too soon, as from his
perch in a neighboring orange-tree he trills his song of joy until the
night is far spent.
_St. Augustine_, April, 1878.--The Indians have gone! Yes, the pets of
some and the pests of others have left St. Augustine amidst the
sympathetic demonstrations of a crowd, followed by the best wishes of
all, that they may arrive safely at their points of destination. The
marks of improvement are evident on the outside of them; but none need
nurse the delusion that it has struck in. On being asked what they were
going to do with their clothes when they went West, they replied, with a
symbolic jerk, "Tear them off, and throw them away!" Think of Mrs. Black
Horse and Mochi, with their heads dressed in fashionable Mother Goose
hats, with plumes and white tissue veils, that had been given them by
lady-visitors, their bodies rolled up in a buffalo-skin, before a
campfire, after a long march in the rain, or fresh from a war-dance,
with the dripping scalps of white men hung from their waists as trophies
of bloody triumphs! They were delighted at the prospect of freedom;
beating against rock walls and prison-bars was too much pressure for
them--to which they yielded in sullen despair. They left their
literature--religious picture-books and buffalo-hunts not being in
harmony--"Moody and Sankey" song-books suddenly losing all charm for
them, "Hold the Fort" being changed to "Leave the Fort." They said, "Me
man, no school." Some of them could speak Spanish, and while here
learned a little English. They corresponded with their kindred on the
plains by picture-writing. A lady-visitor wished Minimic, or Eagle's
Head, to give her a letter written him by his wife, when he replied,
"What white squaw do with my squaw's letter?" The poetry of the idea was
evidently lost on him.
The "noble red man" of the novel-writer and these coarse savages, whose
rough nature repels all polish, are quite different. Three of these
Indians, who have taken to the customs of the whites more kindly than
the others, are to be sent North and educated, the expense incurred
being the enterprise of private individuals.
A year previous to their departure, while the work of civilization was
supposed to be progressing very rapidly, in the midst of untiring
efforts on the part of Church-missionaries to convert them, one of the
tribes was discovered plotting mutiny. They could not endure the strain
of civilization--it was too much for them. White Horse, chief of the
Kiowas, reckoning the number of moons long past since he had the promise
of freedom, excited an insurrectionary movement among the Kiowas,
twenty-four in number. When their intentions were manifested by
insubordination, a squad of armed soldiers were ordered from the
barracks to seize them after they had entered their mess-room in the
casemate. The Indians were marched out in pairs, and searched, to which
they submitted without resistance. A number of barbed, steel-pointed
arrows, and pistols, were found on their persons. They did not intend a
general massacre; only those who opposed them in their efforts to escape
were to be murdered. The fort was closed for a day or two only, when
White Horse and his principal accomplices--Lone Wolf, Woman's Heart, and
To-Zance--were put in irons. These Indians pined for their homes; their
lofty, aristocratic natures revolted against the discipline to which
they were subjected, as unmanly and unsuited to the dignity of a
warrior, who had roamed with unrestrained movements over the plains,
free as the herd which he killed. Most of the Indians, while here,
employed their time in making bows and arrows, and polishing sea-beans,
while the women worked over old bead moccasins, and freshened them up
with new soles and buckskin linings, all of which were bartered to
visitors--thus making their bondage more endurable, besides furnishing
themselves with pocket-money.
As in time past, the old fort, that has lifted its turrets unmoved for
centuries to the fierce gales which visit the coast, will again become
the home of the lizard, a resort for bats, the abode of the owl, whose
shrill screechings and weird movements make the darkness of night more
suggestive of a ghoul-haunted castle, where unhappy spirits are supposed
to assemble, when "coarser spirits wrapped in clay" are snoring to the
ascending and descending scale of unwritten sounds.
Opposite St. Augustine is situated St. Anastasia Island, which was named
for a celebrated saint in the Roman calendar of favorites. On this
island is found the coquina, or shell-rock, from which the fort and many
of the houses were built; here also roam the fleet-footed deer,
catamount, and wild hog. At low tide the ponies and marsh-cows resort
here to feed upon the long grass which grows so luxuriantly at all
seasons. The cattle, while in pursuit of it, frequently become bogged,
and die; but the horses, when reared here, are not so unfortunate, being
lighter and more nimble-footed; when they get beyond their depth, and
are sinking, they throw themselves on their sides, and commence
floundering and rolling until they find a surface sufficiently solid to
sustain their weight, when they rise and quietly resume eating, as
though nothing had occurred. Like all other places in this vicinity, it
has historic records. It was here, in 1740, General Oglethorpe erected a
battery of five pieces, four of which were eighteen-pounders. When he
had made the preparations necessary for an attack on St. Augustine, he
gave the Spanish Governor an invitation to surrender. General Oglethorpe
received the reply that he would "be glad to shake hands with him in the
castle."
The new light-house stands on this island--being constructed because the
old one was found to be undermining by the action of the waves. The old
coquina light-house was designed to subserve the double purpose of a
fortress and a beacon, having strong walls and loop-holes, with a cannon
on its summit, to be fired as a signal on the approach of a vessel. At
night a light-wood fire was kept burning, which could be seen by vessels
at sea for several miles.
On the coast below St. Augustine, surrounded by the briny waves, some
distance from shore, bursts up a fresh-water spring, from which ships
can obtain their supplies before going to sea. This remarkable fountain
of fresh water is produced from one of those subterranean currents so
frequent throughout the State, north of the Everglades, coming to the
surface only when they reach a point considerably below the level of
their sources, sometimes forming lakes, and at others channeling their
way to the sea.
The coral reefs, so abundant in Florida, are the
[Illustration: FLORIDA REEF CORAL.]
work of a tiny insect which operates only under water, after which the
water deposits the lime that constitutes the limestone of Florida--many
portions of the State having been subject to upheaval since the deposit
of lime between the coral reefs. This lime formation being undoubtedly
very recent, and having little solidity, is entered by the
surface-water, which forms channels through it; thus, by the force of
accumulated waters, it reaches the sea, these channels being constantly
enlarged by the lime combining with the water, together with the
abrading action of the currents; and when the rock is so weakened as to
be unable to support the weight above, it falls, and the lime-sink is
formed, or fresh-water springs, with no feeders on the surface, but
supplied from below, burst up in mid-ocean, with sufficient force to
displace the denser salt-water, or change the position of a vessel.
About sixty miles below St. Augustine, at Fort Moultrie, a council was
held by the whites, in 1823, for the purpose of limiting the movements
of the Seminoles to the southern portion of the State, thus interposing
a white element between them and the Georgia Indians, to prevent an
alliance in the event of war.
The Indians were the Nimrods of our country; they did not require large
bodies of land for culture. The murder of McIntosh, in Georgia, caused
many of the Indians to leave that State for Florida. Here they were
called Seminoles, or runaways, being only refugees and fugitives,
without a country or language. They adopted a dialect resembling the
four Southern Indian tongues of which they formed a part--it being still
retained by the remnant of the tribe inhabiting the Everglades.