Long had we yearned to taste an orange plucked fresh from the tree! Often had we anticipated the unrivalled freshness of the gushing juice of the fruit yet warm to the heart with sunshine, and exhaling still the fragrance of the dews of morning! Now we had got our oranges, “fresh from the tree—dew, sunshine, &c., &c.,” at last. We tasted the long-anticipated delicacy. Ugh! our dainty morsel turned out to be the bitter rind, the biting acrid juice, of that species known as the “sour orange”! What an excellent moral might have been deduced from this Dead Sea fruit of our desires! It was a sermon in a bite! But, unfortunately, there was nobody to whom to preach it, except the cat. We threw our oranges far, far away, sadder and wiser women. But the daughters of Eve are incorrigible, and, anon, we built our dreams again around a “fresh mango,” and were again disillusioned. Yet unconvinced by many disenchantments, we still go on through life seeking our mango or our orange, “fresh from the tree.”
But that afternoon’s peregrination is still one of our pleasantest memories of St. Augustine.
There are plenty of amusements and resorts in and around this quaint, mediæval-looking old place to entertain the tourist, when he has sufficiently taken into himself the aspect of this bit of the middle ages dropped down in the modern day of the bright New World.
When you have seen all that St. Augustine itself has to show you, you may, with much profit and interest, extend your wandering, and cross over to inspect the coquina quarries and the fine lighthouse on St. Anastasia’s Island, when the solitary keepers will, perhaps, tell you some stirring incidents of their lonely lives; or you may sail down to the wonderful sulphur spring, which boils up from the ocean—its pale blue sulphurous water forcing its way through a hundred and forty feet of the salt sea waves. The current is at times so strong (for the spring is intermittent), that a short time ago one of the coast survey steamers was floated over the “boil” of it!
There is another delightful excursion passing through the city gate, over a smooth, pleasant road, till you turn off to San Sebastian Beach, which forms a pleasant drive for many miles, when you may see the ruins of some old palisades, which at one time connected Fort Monsa with a stockade at San Sebastian. The excursion need only occupy a few hours; unless you choose to linger by the way, you may return to St. Augustine in time for dinner.
There are plenty of occupations wherewith gentlemen may beguile the pleasant hours. They can indulge in shooting and fishing expeditions on the banks of the Matanzas river, and shoot their own game, catch their own fish, and cook their own dinners. It is not an uncommon thing for ladies to join in these excursions. They enjoy playing at “being gipsies” for a season; they soon tire of it.
On one balmy morning early we turn our backs upon the sweet-scented old-world city, and take the little fussy, jog-trot train back to Tocoi, carrying with us a host of pleasant memories of this delicious, dreamy, romantic St. Augustine.
CHAPTER XIII.
A chat by the way.—A steam bicycle.—Rough times.—At Ocala.
The boat is waiting, bobbing up and down at the little rustic pier at Tocoi. The sun is laughing down upon us, with a face of shining gold, and the sweet east wind is fanning our cheeks with its breath of balm; a sweep of sunny water lies before us, sea-gulls and strange birds are wheeling over our heads as we step on board, and are soon on our way to Palatka.