ORMOND BEACH, FLORIDA

Isn’t this a fine long beach? Can you see how far it stretches? The sand is just as firm and hard as a floor, so the beach is often used to race on. Automobiles have made unusual records here: the sand is so smooth that they can go at great speed over it. Can you imagine how strange these automobiles would look to a child who had never seen one? We sometimes think the carriages of other countries are queer to look at, but if we had never seen an automobile before, perhaps it would look the strangest of all to us. Indeed, just after dark when the lamps are lighted they look like great monsters with shining eyes and open mouths coming towards one. Did you ever notice it?

Wouldn’t you love to have a run along this beach, and to paddle in the water? Perhaps some time you will be in Florida and go to Ormond Beach; perhaps you have already been there. Florida has water on three sides and there are many beaches of course, but the coast is flat and sandy, with reefs and sand bars that go way out into the ocean, so there are not many good harbours for vessels. On the side where the Atlantic is there are very few. Something grows in Florida that you like very much; I wonder if you know what it is? It grows on trees with dark, glossy leaves; it is round and the colour is between a red and yellow. The colour has the same name as the fruit, so I can’t tell you what it is without telling the name of the fruit. Do you know what it is now?

On the famous Ormond Beach. The record-breaking Automobile Race-Course, Daytona, Florida