Inseparable, almost, from the log-house of the Southern poor, is the cabin home of the negro, because the two are separated by such a thin line of distinction that only critical inspection can prevent them from assimilating in the minds of those unfamiliar with Southern life. There is the same stone-chimney and clap-board roof, but the colored man’s cabin is a single room, and the front is porchless. More hasty construction is also noted, for the logs are laid like a turkey-pen, and clap-boards are used again, not for weather-boarding, but as a substitute for batten. Windows are not needed, through which to exchange civilities with the season, for there are holes and crannies to let smoke out, and plenty of accidental entrances for the warm summer air to get in. It is thus at small effort and no care the worst weather is kept out, and contentedness reigns within.
AMONG THE PALMETTOS ON THE BANKS OF HALIFAX RIVER, FLORIDA.—This is a typical Southern scene, and one of the most delightful to human senses that could be imagined. It is so perfectly in accord with nature that in imagination we can hear the bursting of the buds as they grow beneath the fructifying influences of the Southern sun, and feel the soft, hazy atmosphere as it gently rolls in from the cooling waters of the sea, and floods the intervening spaces of the moss-covered trees. In the Garden of Eden there must have been many bowers such as this, where Adam and Eve whispered the first vows of devotion and human love.
THE HEAD OF HALIFAX RIVER, ABOVE ORMOND.
Through Georgia and into the land of orange groves we sped, stopping a day at Jacksonville, and then hurried on to San Augustine, the oldest town in America (founded by the Spanish in 1565), and possibly the most interesting. It is a link which connects the present with the earliest events of discovery in our country—a link rusty with the blood of conquest and martyrdom. Here it was that Spanish cruelty and French retaliation were carried to the most barbaric extreme, and the enslavement of native Indians began. Passing through the first ordeals of settlement, a century later it was bitterly afflicted by raids of Indians and the plundering of pirates, so that its growth was prevented, and not until the British surrendered possession to the United States in 1821, did the place show any indications of permanency, or that it would attain to any importance beyond what it had before reached as a very small village.
St. Augustine is located on a narrow peninsula formed by the Matanzas and San Sebastian Rivers, and is separated from the ocean by Anastasia Island. From a place of little consequence, in the last few years it has become distinguished as the most popular winter resort in the South. Several things have conspired to bring about this change, chief of which, however, was the enterprises of Mr. H. M. Flagler, who, recognizing its favorable location, resolved to convert the town from a listless, sleeping, poverty-stricken village into such an Eden of loveliness as the arts of man can create. In accomplishing this object he spent $6,000,000, and the improvements are of such a character as may well satisfy his ambition. The Ponce de Leon Hotel is a revival of the richest examples of Moorish architecture. It is old Spain of the golden reign of Ibn-l-Ahmar transported to American shores. And strange coincidence it is, that the year in which Columbus set sail on his first western voyage in quest of eastern lands, the year of the Moorish Expulsion, the beautiful Alhambra, most magnificent building that ever graced the earth, was given over to vandalism and spoliation. The Ponce de Leon, with its lavish adornment, picturesque style and exquisite grounds, in which every known tropical plant is made to add its beauty and shed its fragrance, while fountains cool the summer air, is a reminder of the great palace of Grenada, and the chivalry of Spain in the time of Columbus.