Some were going for the rest and the amusement promised at several noted winter resorts. Others were in search of health that had been shattered by confinement or over-work. Some were going away for a few weeks only; others for the entire winter. Some were going no farther south than Florida, others purposed visiting some of the Antilles, and even, mayhap, the Spanish Main.
As for the writer, he had no fixed plan, and for this reason he had not even thought of making out an itinerary. He would go to Florida to take up again a line of travel that had been interrupted some decades before. He had always been interested in the lives and achievements of the early Spanish discoverers and conquistadores, and had, in days gone by, followed in the footsteps of Narvaez and de Soto, of Cabeza de Vaca and Coronado, Fray Marcos de Niza, and Hernando Cortes. And now that he had the opportunity, it occurred to him that he could do nothing better or more profitable than make a reality what had been a dream from boyhood. He would visit the islands and lands discovered by the immortal “Admiral of the ocean sea” and follow in the footsteps of the conquistadores in Tierra Firme. He would explore the lands first made known by Balboa, and Quesada, and Belalcazar and rendered famous by the prowess of the Almagros and the Pizarros. He would visit the homes of the Musicas, the Incas, and the Ayamaras, wander among the Cordilleras from the Caribbean Sea to Lake Titicaca and beyond, and follow in the wake of Diego de Ordaz and Alonzo de Herrera on the broad waters of the Orinoco and in that of Pedro de Orsua and Francisco de Orellana in the mighty flood of the Amazon.
A great undertaking apparently, and, considered in the light of certain reports published about tropical America, seemingly impossible. To say the least, such a journey, it was averred, implied difficulties and privations and dangers innumerable.
“Do you wish to spend the rest of your life in South America? It will require a lifetime to visit the regions you have mentioned. I have myself spent many years in traveling in tropical America, and knowing, as I do, the lack of facilities for travel, the countless unforeseen delays of every kind, and the mañana habit that obtains everywhere in the countries you would visit, I have no hesitation in stating that you are attempting the impossible, if you mean to accomplish all you have spoken of in the limited time you have allotted to yourself.”
Such were the words addressed to the writer on the eve of his departure by a noted traveler and one who is considered an authority on all things South American. Not very encouraging, truly, especially to one who was seeking rest and recreation and who was anything but inclined to court hardships and dangers in foreign lands and among peoples that were reputed to be only half-civilized, where-ever they chanced to be above the aboriginal savage that still roams over so much of the territory on both sides of the equator.
But, as already stated, the writer had on leaving home no definite programme mapped out. He left that to shape itself according to events and circumstances. He departed on his journey with little more of a plan than the vague indications of a life-long dream. Still, confiding in Providence, he hoped that he would be able to realize this, as he had, in years gone by, realized other dreams that seemed even less likely ever to become actualities.
LA FLORIDA
Twenty-eight hours after leaving New York, with its snow and ice and arctic blasts, our party found itself wandering among the orange groves and promenading beneath the graceful palms of old, romantic St. Augustine. We could scarcely credit our senses, so complete was the change in our environment. A soft, balmy atmosphere, gentle zephyrs, sweet, feathered songsters without number, all joining in a chorus of welcome to the strangers from the North, made us think that we had been transported to the Hesperides or to the delights of the Elysian Fields. And when, after nightfall, we walked about the grounds and the courts of the famous hostelries that have been recently erected regardless of expense, and provided with every luxury that money and art can command—all brilliantly illuminated by thousands of electric lights of divers colors—it seemed as if we had, in very deed, suddenly, we knew not how, become denizens of fairyland. To find anything similar to the scene that here bursts upon the view of the delighted visitor one must go to Monte Carlo during the season when thousands are attracted thither from all parts of the world, or betake oneself to the Place de la Concorde when the gay French capital is en fête.
St. Augustine, with all its traditions and historic associations, is one of the most restful and interesting of places, especially in winter, and a place, too, where one might tarry for months with pleasure. Nothing can be more delightful than the drives in the pine-forests adjacent to the city,