These all swoop down on the defenseless travelers, like birds of prey over a fallen carcass, to the amusement of some, and the annoyance of many more. There is no lack of attention from interested parties, if you have the money to spend.
During the winter the old wharf, which shakes as though it had the palsy whenever a dog trots over it, has men and boys throwing out lines with a simple hook, and others with elaborate reels and silver hooks, amusing themselves; while the old Spaniards bask in the sunshine, on the sea-wall, resting from their night of toil in fishing on the rolling waves, as a means of support, like the apostles of old.
A good cart was formerly the highest ambition of the natives, while now elegant carriages, with liveried drivers, roll around the streets, decked with the trappings of wealth and show of fashion.
It is very amusing, many times, to hear the uncultured youths, reared in St. Augustine, make remarks in regard to the appearance and dress of visitors, frequently mocking them when they are speaking, particularly if the language is a little more refined than that to which they have been accustomed; but the most astonishing thing of all is the mysterious manner with which the natives come in possession of your name, the facts connected with your movements, where you stay, and, more than all, if you have any money. If you are not flush and free with funds, you can rest from any annoyances, except boarding-house keepers, who have adopted the motto, “Pay as you go, or go away.”
The celebrated Florida curiosities are a great source of traffic, from the June-bugs to the head of a Jew-fish, including stuffed baby alligators that neither breathe nor eat, tusks from the grown ones, mounted with gold; birds of beautiful and varied plumage, relieved by the taxidermist of every thing but their coat of feathers and the epidermis, looking at you from out glass windows, through glass eyes; screech-owl tails and wings; pink and white curlew-feathers; saws from sword-fish of fabulous length; sharks’ heads; sea-beans, supposed to have grown on Anastasia Island, but drifted from the West Indies; and the palm, wrought in so many varied and fanciful forms of imaginary and practical utility as scarcely to be identified as a native of the Florida wilds, whose rough and jagged stalks seem to defy an assault from the hand of the most expert explorer, being upheld by its roots of inexplicable size and length.
Most visitors think their tour incomplete without a palmetto hat; but who of the many that purchase asks, or cares, where these home-made articles were produced—what thoughts were woven by the light-hearted workers—what fancies flitted through the brain of the dark-eyed maiden, in whose veins flows the blood of a foreign clime.
The Florida pampas-grass, gathered from the surrounding swamps, is much used in ornamenting China vases and ladies’ hats, together with the excrescent growths from the tall cypress-trees. Each countryman’s cart has a marsh-hen, blue crane, or a box of live alligators, seeking to make money and divert the attention of curiosity-seeking persons.
All visitors will, no doubt, be solicited, freely and frequently, by the different crafts, to make an investment; but it is all nothing. Everybody has to make a support in some way—as the little boy replied to the Northerner who asked him how the people all lived down here in this sandy country. The lad replied, “Off from sweet taters and sick Yankees.”
It has hitherto been a prolific source of entertainment for those who have been here to listen to the narrations of old settlers. The tide of memory never fails them. They can relate things that occurred long anterior to the current of their existence, with the same unbroken connection of circumstances as though they were among the events of yesterday. Most of the old settlers are dead now; but the legends live with the younger ones—the legendary transfer having been made without any apparent diminution of the marvelous.
Our days here pass in peaceful quietude, the time moving on with imperceptible speed; but the daily records would not fill a page in history, or supply material for a romance. An incident occasionally takes place, which stirs the under-current of life a little—as the capsizing of a yacht, catching a big fish, shark, or alligator.