When the stranger leaves Bay Street he seems to enter another country in passing the distance of a single square. About all the other streets are bordered with live-oaks or water-oaks, and every house has a flower-garden and an orange grove, on a small scale. The balconies and verandas are loaded with vines, which are in full flower in March. The air is scented with the fragrance of the jasmine. The sidewalks are of wood, and the roads are the original soil, which looks like the blue house-sand of the North.
St. James Park is two squares from Bay Street. All of one side of it is occupied by the St. James Hotel. In the centre of the park is a small kiosk, from which one may take in the surroundings. Like all the rest of Florida, even the fertile orange groves, the soil looks like blue sand. There are plenty of semi-tropical plants, and the scene is as unlike anything in the North as possible. In every lot there are orange-trees, with oranges on them; but they are not the eatable fruit. They are bitter or sour oranges, which remain on the trees all winter.
The orange-trees blossom in March; and then the air is densely loaded with their perfume. The leaves remain green all winter; but in the early spring they begin to put forth new shoots and leaves. The old leaves are dark green, and the new ones light. On the same tree may be seen the old and the new leaves, the ripe fruit, and the richly-scented blossoms. Coming from the frozen North in March, the traveller seems to be hurled into "eternal summer," more like fairy-land than anything else, as the wheels whirl him into Jacksonville.
I had seen the place in December, coming from the summer of a more northern latitude. I had spent the winter in more tropical regions, and the flowers and the oranges were nothing new to me. When I landed I was thinking of the post-office, which was my first objective point. We had been moving about so much that I had not received a single letter since I left Jacksonville in December. The post-office is on Bay Street, nearer the northern than the southern end of the street. I walked in that direction; but I had not gone ten rods before I saw Captain Boomsby standing at the door of one of the numerous saloons on that street.
I halted to look at him. His face was very red, and he had grown quite stout since he sailed the Great West, in which I had had the roughest experience of my lifetime with him. He wore no coat, for his fat and the fires of the whiskey he drank kept him in a fever-heat all the time. I kept back behind a pile of goods on the sidewalk while I surveyed him, and I hoped he would not see me. He seemed to be waiting for customers; and though I desired him to have none, I wished him to retire within his shop, and allow me to pass without being seen.
I was dressed in the full uniform of the steam-yacht, with a white canvas cap. He had seen me in this rig enough to know it, and my chances of passing him without being seen were very small. But I was not afraid of him, and I was rather ashamed of the idea of dodging him. Taking the outside of the sidewalk, and looking intently at the other side of the street, where the retail dry-goods and curiosity shops were located, I attempted to get by the saloon without being seen by its proprietor.
"Why, Sandy, how are you?" demanded Captain Boomsby, rushing out to me and seizing me by the hand.
In spite of my hanging back, he dragged me to the door of the saloon.
"How do you do, Captain Boomsby?" I replied coldly.
"Come in and take sunthin', Sandy," he persisted, dragging me into the saloon in spite of my resistance. "You are about man-grown now, and I cal'late you can take a drop of whiskey, on a pinch."