It was late in the afternoon when the steamer reached Jacksonville. As the arrival of the steamship had been delayed by the storm, the Bobbsey’s were left no time to look about Jacksonville, but hurried at once to the railroad station, and there took the train that carried them to St. Augustine. It was about an hour before sunset when they got out of the train at this quaint, pretty old town.
“Oh, what funny little streets!” cried Bert, as they started for their hotel where they were to stay until they could go to the hospital and see Cousin Jasper. “What little streets!”
“Aren’t they darling?” exclaimed Nan.
“Yes, this is a very old city,” said Mr. Bobbsey, “and some of the streets are no wider than they were made when they were laid out here over three hundred years ago.”
“Oh, is this city as old as that—three hundred years?” asked Nan, while Flossie and Freddie peered about at the strange sights.
“Yes, and older,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “St. Augustine is the oldest city in the United States. It was settled in 1565 by the Spaniards, and I suppose they built it like some of the Spanish cities they knew. That is why the streets are so narrow.”
And indeed the streets were very narrow. The one called St. George is only seventeen feet wide, and it is the principal street in St. Augustine. Just think of a street not much wider than a very big room. And Treasury street is even narrower, being so small that two people can stand and shake hands across it. Really, one might call it only an alley, and not a street.
The Bobbseys saw many negroes about the streets, some driving little donkey carts, and others carrying fruit and other things in baskets on their heads.
“Don’t they ever fall off?” asked Freddie, as he watched one big, fat colored woman on whose head, covered with a bright, red handkerchief, or “bandanna,” there was a large basket of fruit. “Don’t they ever fall off?”
“What do you mean fall off—their heads?” asked Bert with a smile.