“Having at one time witnessed some of the handicraft of our red brethren, I thought I would step in, and lo! the room was filled with some three hundred persons, anxious to behold this scene of blood. The Indians were veritable, stout, murderous-looking rascals; the mail-rider, a six-foot youth—oiled locks, beautifully parted, elegantly-combed mustache, white pantaloons, straps, and boots. This was the grandest specimen of a mail-rider ever seen in Florida. He might have personated some of those fictitious pretenders of gentility which sometimes visit you—but for a letter-carrier—Heaven save the mark! The wife was a pretty, plump, well-fed girl of sixteen, dressed in all the simplicity of girlhood, before fashion had desecrated its pure feeling with tournures, converting the human form divine into a monstrosity. Well, the chase was interesting; our six-footer stretched his legs and black coat-tails with effect. When fairly caught by his pursuers, he was bound, and his wife was likewise brought in captive. Then rose the loud and fierce yells of these demi-devils. The mimic scene was one of intense interest, and the quick dispatch of life argued something in favor of the captors, until the process of scalping commenced, when the blood rushed in gushes on the bosom of the girl, as her tresses were held up amidst the fiendish hurrahs of the Indians. Here there was a pause; the imagination had been wound up to the highest pitch, when something of a less gloomy character was furnished the audience.”
It was then the Florida settlers prayed for the peace we now enjoy—when their streams should have the dreary solitude broken by the splash of the oar, and their moss-covered banks send back the song of the contented boatmen—when their tranquil surface should be rippled by the freighted bark, with white canvas bending before the breeze, sailing out to the ocean—when the watch-fires of their foes should be extinct, and the yell of murder give place to the melody of grateful hearts, as their songs of praise should rise from the hummocks and plains; that the land might be indeed the home of the Christian, the abiding-place of happiness and contentment.
CHAPTER X.
Far in ether stars above thee
Ever beam with purest light,
Birds of richest music love thee,
Flowers than Eden’s hues more bright,
And love—young love, so fresh and fair—
Fills with his breath thy gentle air.
MANY writers who come to Florida copy an abstract of the most interesting portions contained in the guide-books, besides what they can hear, afterward filling up the interstices from their imaginations. We look to the old Spaniards for information, but, alas! they are like the swamp cypress which the gray moss has gathered over until its vitality has been absorbed—age has taken away their vigor.
This point appears to be a favored place for the stimulus of thought, where inspiration can be gathered from atmospheric influences, and not the heat of youth or the vapor of strong drink. Daily we are more impressed with the fact how treacherous are the links which connect the chain of tradition in a country where its earliest history is mingled with a record wonderful as the champions of knight-errantry who figured in the pages of romance.
The early settlers were lured here by legends of a fairy realm, where youth and beauty held perpetual sway, and mountains of gold reared their shining peaks. (See Frontispiece.)
From the 28th of August, 1565, when Pedro Melendez planted the broad banner of Spain with its castellated towers in the lonely settlement of Seloe, beside the waters which our Huguenots had previously dignified with the title, “River of Dolphins,” to the present time, imagination has been on the alert to penetrate the past history of this country. On the site of the present plaza was celebrated the first mass in America by Mendoza, the priest, assisted by his acolytes.