| "'Aquesta casa reta empedrada |
| Empedrada de cuatro vens; |
| Sun amo de aquesta casa |
| Es omo de compliment.' |
"If nothing is given, the last line reads thus:—
| "'No es homo de compliment.'" |
CHAPTER XIX.
ST. AUGUSTINE IN ITS OLD AGE.—1565-1868.
Three hundred and three years have now passed over the walls of this venerable city. Ten generations of men and women have passed away since this ancient city had an existence and a name. One can look back to 1565 and picture to the mind the galleons of Spain anchored off its harbor; see the gallant Adelantado Menendez, clad in mail, preceded by the standards of Spain, and followed by his men at arms, his bowmen and his cavaliers, taking possession of the country in the name of his sovereign. The waves roll in upon the same shores now as they did then; the green, grassy marshes and oyster-clad banks present to our eyes the same appearance as they did to theirs; the white sandy beach which received the impress of the iron-clad heel of the cavalier, now yields to the pressure of your foot; the rustling pines along the shore cast their pleasant shadows over you as they did over them, and perchance the same eager thoughts of gain pervade your breast as you pass beneath them, as filled the hearts and souls of those who long ago came seeking gold and wealth unmeasured upon those shores.
Three hundred years ago, and St. Augustine stood the solitary settlement of the white race north of the Gulf of Mexico in all that great expanse which now boasts of its thirty-four States, its three hundred cities, and its thirty millions of people.
Then the Province of Florida extended northward to the pole, and westward to the Pacific. At a later period, after the voyages of the French and English, its boundaries were limited to the shores of the Chesapeake and the Mississippi river, and were subsequently gradually contracted to their present limits, so that Florida once represented upon the maps all of the United States.
The life of St. Augustine runs parallel with that of Spain. For a long period Spain was at the head of European monarchies; its rulers held sway over more vast possessions than had ever belonged to any single crown since the days of the Cæsars; wealth flowed into its coffers from the New World in boundless profusion, and corruption, venality and effeminacy followed in its train. The whole continent of America was claimed as its dominion. Its fleets anchored upon every shore for conquest or exploration, and its banners were unfurled by its generals, and the cross was planted by its priests, upon every headland. From all this grandeur and eminence the Spanish monarchy has been cast down. Driven from land to land, it has receded from the main land of America, and has exchanged its dominion over a continent to the islands of the sea, which it holds with a precarious grasp, and it now remains in a dry old age a fourth-rate power where once it stood foremost. The first planted of all the cities of the United States, St. Augustine, now ranks among the least.
Ten years have been added to the longevity of the ancient city since the first publication of this work. Ten years do not make their mark upon the aged man as they do upon the youth launching forth into manhood, or as they do upon him who in the full measure of his matured strength is battling with life. On the nation at large, these ten years have left almost ineffaceable scars and bruises; ten years, the most important, the weightiest and the gravest of any since the throes of the great revolution which gave birth to the nation. This long sad period has left no mark upon its walls—grey and mouldy with the weight of years, and have scarcely added a tinge the more of age and sorrow—and yet the inner life of the old city has sustained a great shock. The system of servitude, which has now been swept away, was the sole dependence of many aged persons, of many poor widows and orphan children.