We meet many other promenaders who, like ourselves, appreciate the glorious view, except in some cases when the view is bounded by a sun-bonnet on one side and a wide sombrero, shading a bearded masculine face, upon the other. There was Darby enjoying the evening air, with his fat wife Joan trudging by his side; and here was a tall young lady of Amazonian deportment solemnly parading side by side with her latest conquest—a small, meek young man, who had evidently no strength to resist capture and could not close his ears to the voice of the charmer. He wore spectacles and a blue necktie, reminding one somewhat of a pet sheep being led by a blue ribbon; one half expected to hear him reply with a soft “Baa—aa” to the tender tones of his ladylove. Now in turning a shady corner we come upon a pair of time-honoured flirts, who had left their youth a long way behind them, and are now shooting their blunt little arrows at one another, both well practised, and evidently little damage is done on either side.
Descending presently from our vantage ground, we turn our backs upon the romantic old fort, looking so grey and lonesome in the sunlight; its glories have passed away, and its peaceful solitudes have become the haunt of tourists and travellers; the green lizards swarm in its sunny corners, and men and women linger through long summer evenings in its shady nooks, and make love beneath its frowning battlements. We pass along the sea wall, which is of coquina, like most of the buildings here, and is about a mile long, forming a magnificent promenade; it is elevated above the roadway, and being only two feet wide it gives no encouragement to the “gay and festive throng” or social gathering on moonlit evenings. People generally march in single file and take the air in a solemn business-like fashion, though occasionally a pair of young, slim creatures cling together and walk side by side, by no means inclined to carp at the narrowness of the wall, which compels one arm to slide round the other waist, and with a kind of forced pressure to “hold on” to save the other from falling. On one side is the water, still as a lake, yet indescribably seeming to breathe the “salt sweet fragrance” of the vast Atlantic beyond.
The pretty vessels of the yachting club, with white sails fluttering, are curtseying to their own shadows on its surface. On the other side, about three feet below the sea wall, is a wide, smooth, shell road, where you may enjoy a delightful drive or promenade au cheval; here and there are stone steps leading up to the wall, so that you are not obliged to march along its whole length, or leap down at the risk of breaking your neck. Fronting the water on the other side of the road is Bay Street, the principal business thoroughfare of the city, where there are some excellent shops, and queer old houses which take boarders all the year round, for the winter cold, or summer heat, is never excessive in St. Augustine; it is one of the few Floridian resorts which is pleasant at all seasons. The temperature, calculated by a study of the thermometer for the last ten years, is for summer about 80 Fahrenheit; autumn, 70 to 75; winter, 58 to 60—a most delightful temperature, especially as there is generally a soft balmy east wind blowing, though occasionally in the winter time a wild north-easter, in its fiercest mood, sweeps over the Atlantic, and wreaks its vengeance on St. Augustine and the surrounding coast. People are inclined to smash the thermometer which dares to register only sixty when this cruel wind is biting them through!
At the other end of the sea wall, opposite the fort, are the United States Barracks, jutting out at the water side; there is generally a regiment stationed here, when the band plays every day at five o’clock during the season. Although this quaint dreamy old city is but a small place, there is much of interest to be seen here.
There is the “Plaza de la Constitution,” where the good Christians burnt their brethren a century ago; it is a large square, laid out with grass plots, and flower beds, with paths cut through, leading from one side of the Plaza to the other. In the centre stands the curious old market-place, roofed in at the top, but open on all sides; this was the ancient slave mart, where “God’s image, carved in ebony,” was bought and sold in most ungodly fashion; there is the place where they stood, ranged in rows like cattle in a pen, so that their purchasers might walk to and fro examining them from all points to see that they had their money’s worth. They sit there now, these selfsame slaves of the old days, with bright kerchiefs round their heads, surrounded by fruits and flowers, buying and selling on their own account, laughing, chaffing, bargaining with one another with the easy air that freedom gives. Close by is the graceful monument erected by the ladies of St. Augustine to the Confederate dead, whose names are carved upon the shaft. No matter how impoverished the land may have been, how ruined the people, in every Southern city, small or great, they have found money enough to erect a monument,—some most costly, some poetic, and all more or less artistic, to those who—
“Fell while wearing the grey for them!”
There is another monument, somewhat weather-beaten, erected by the Spaniards to commemorate the adoption of the Spanish institutions in 1812. Then there is the grey old rookery of a convent, where the withered old sisters sit for ever making lace—wondrous fine lace it is, and produced in such large quantities we wonder who buys it all. Fronting on the Plaza, also, is the old cathedral, with its quaint Moorish belfry, and still more quaint and ancient peal of bells, one of which bears the stamp of 1682. It is not much regarded from an architectural point of view, its antiquity is everything. Partly facing the Plaza, and partly facing the sea breezes, stands the St. Augustine Hotel. We preferred the “Magnolia,” though its position is perhaps not so good; it stands in the centre of that queer crooked St. George Street, and is as pretty and picturesque as, considering its name, it ought to be, with odd turns and angles, verandahs clinging everywhere covered with blooming flowers, and beautiful magnolias and banana trees in the delicious straggly old garden. The magnolias are not yet in bloom, but from their nest of leafy buds we catch a glimpse of the creamy flower, and the long purplish crimson leaves of the banana still shields the golden fruit from too quick maturity. The oleander is already covered with its luxuriance of crimson, pearly pink, and waxen white bloom, and the Japan plum tree laden with juicy fruit.
Stepping out on the verandah in the early morning we find everybody sucking oranges in the most solemn business-like fashion. The gentlemen go at it with a will, and generally work through a whole basketful of the golden fruit; they make a hole at one end and suck with inflated cheeks, like a bevy of ancient cherubs blowing a trumpet, and suck in sweet silence, seemingly oblivious of all that is passing round them as they take their morning dose of this delicious nectar. Some of the ladies peel them with white slim fingers, and extract the juice as daintily as the bee extracts honey from the flower; some of the uncompromising feminine family, “who have no nonsense about them,” pull the orange to pieces, mangle its delicate tissues, and disembowel it with ruthless teeth. Some work as though they were sucking for a wager, and others go through their heap with slow solemn enjoyment. Those who have not eaten a fresh gathered orange in Florida don’t know what an orange is.
All round in the neighbourhood of St. Augustine are lovely orange groves, and long avenues with cedar hedges, and grand old mulberry trees with gnarled and knotted trunks, and heavy branches, that look as antiquated as the city itself. Being desirous of entering into, and spending a little time in the inspection of some one of the many noted orange groves, we were directed to one owned by a prominent citizen, who would, we were assured, “make us right welcome;” and armed with cards of introduction we took our way to his residence. Passing along a magnificent avenue of stately trees, which bordered his extensive grounds, and closed above our heads shutting the sunlight out, we came to the large iron entrance gate. There was a bell, and we rang it, but nobody answered it except a large white cat, who emerged from a shrubbery, and rubbed against the gate purring and arching her back ingratiatingly as if inviting us to enter. Finding no response except this feline welcome, we pushed open the gate and walked up to the house, the cat purring a congratulatory purr at our heels as if she was very glad indeed that we had come. We ascended the “stoop” (Anglicè, door steps), and rang the hall-door bell. No answer. We amused ourselves ringing at intervals; and when we were tired of tinkling the bell, which seemed to wake sepulchral echoes, we started on a tour of inspection around the house. It seemed as dead asleep as the Sleeping Beauty; its eyes were all shut, the sun-blinds all rigorously closed. There were seats on the piazza, and we rested for a while in the fragrant shadow of a great apoppinac tree, whose showers of dainty yellow blossoms fell like an odorous golden rain upon the grass, while the fairy flowers of the azalea, light as drifted snow-flakes, stirred as if breathing soft mysteries in the whispering balmy breeze. Meanwhile the cat jumped up on my lap and went to sleep, until we started afresh on an exploration of the grounds; then our feline friend escorted us, her comfortable and contented purr allaying the apprehensions of ferocious mastiffs which invariably beset us in strange quarters, though our secondary dread of steel man-traps, set for more harmful intruders than ourselves, kept us cautiously within the boundaries of the gravel walks.
We found tool-sheds, arbours, bowers, stables, chicken-houses, dog-kennels and cottages, but not a sign of life except a portly hen and a brood of chickens, who fled to their coop at sight of our soft snowflake of an escort, whose emerald eyes dilated, and affectionate purring ceased at sight of them. Having explored the more domestic portion of the grounds, and still finding nobody to show us through the orange plantation, we proceeded to show ourselves through it. Is there a tree, I wonder, more beautiful than the orange, with its shining foliage of dark and glossy green, its scented snow of blossoms, its red-gold globes of fruit! Here in St. Augustine, although too late in the season for the fullest beauty of the groves—the gathering being almost over—we still found here and there the flower and the fruit growing amicably together on sister boughs. We came upon one glorious tree, its graceful branches bending under the rich burthen of its fruit of fiery gold, glowing in that southern sunshine. We reached down a laden bough, and trespassed on the taken-for-granted hospitality of our unknown and unknowing host to the extent of an orange apiece.