“When off St. Augustine, a pilot will take you up to the town. There is nine feet on the bar, but it constantly shifts. The famous ‘fresh water springs’ in the ocean are situated eight miles S. by E half E. from the ‘entering buoy’ of this inlet.
“Bound to the southward, Matanzas River carries you from St. Augustine through a distance of nearly thirteen miles to Matanzas Inlet. The channel is winding, but has deep water for a little over seven miles, where there is a seven-feet bar. Below this, for nearly two miles, five feet is the least water, in a crooked channel close under the eastern bank. Thence are depths varying from nine to twenty feet until Matanzas Inlet is reached. The route to the southward leads across this inlet with seven feet at mean low water; and on entering the river again, on the south side of the inlet, you will have but six feet. Matanzas River heads in the midst of extensive marshes between five and six miles to the southward of the inlet; and but two feet can be carried through.
“Beyond this there is no navigation. Wishing to proceed still farther southward, you must retrace your course to Matanzas Inlet, cross the bar and skirt the Florida coast for about fifty miles to Mosquito Inlet. Your pilot (for you must have obtained one at St. Augustine or you cannot enter at all) will take you over the bar with about six feet at mean low water—the mean rise and fall being two feet. Once in the inlet you may go to the northward, through Halifax River to its head, twenty miles above. While in the narrow passage, which extends from Mosquito Inlet for over five miles to the northward, you will carry not less than ten feet; but when the river expands you will find shoal water—the depths varying from three to nine feet, except in occasional deep holes. The channel is very narrow, and can only be followed by the stakes. The small settlements of Port Orange and Daytona are situated on the western bank of this river. Three feet at mean low water can be taken to its head, but there is no lunar tide after you get above the influence of the inlet—the rise and fall being governed solely by the winds.
“Going southward from Mosquito Inlet you enter Hillsborough River; which, through a winding course between fifteen and sixteen miles long, brings you into Mosquito Lagoon, twelve miles to the southward of the inlet. Two miles and a half up Hillsborough River is New Smyrna, a pretty little settlement on the western bank among orange, fig and banana trees. Nine feet may be taken to abreast of the village; not less than five feet is found for five miles beyond New Smyrna; but above that point no more than three feet can be carried through to Mosquito Lagoon;—although there are deep holes with as much as three and a half fathoms. The channel is narrow and very crooked.
“Mosquito Lagoon is wide and shallow—its width ranging from one to two and a half miles. It has a general course about S. E. by S., and is between fifteen and sixteen miles long. A bar of three and a half feet obstructs the entrance from Hillsborough River; but, that once crossed, a good channel, with from five to ten feet takes you to within two miles of its head. This terminates the inland navigation, unless the vessel be able to pass through ‘Haul-over Canal.’ There is but a foot and a half water in this canal.
“Indian River may be entered from seaward by Indian River Inlet, which cuts through the sandy strip of coast-line about one hundred miles to the southward of Mosquito Inlet and sixty miles below Cape Canaveral. I would not advise a small vessel to attempt to navigate this coast; as it is very dangerous should the wind come to the eastward (which it often does in this vicinity), and there is no shelter except the precarious anchorage under Canaveral. The bar at Indian River inlet has seven feet over it at low water, but shifts constantly in both depth and position, and can only be crossed in the smoothest weather. Besides the bar there is an ‘Inner Bulkhead’—so called, over which there is but four feet. It is said by the natives, however, that by taking what is called the Blue Hole Passage, five feet to five and a half may be taken safely into the river.”
The fishing at St. Augustine, which is a quaint old town, said to be the oldest in America, and well worth a visit in itself, is better during the winter months than any to be had north of it. Plenty of boatmen can be hired who will pilot the stranger to the best spots. Around here the foliage becomes still more tropical. The frost will occasionally penetrate, and the most famous oranges are to be grown only still further South, on the shell hammacks of the Indian and Banana Rivers, where single trees bear as many as six thousand of these golden fruit each. But we were actually tired of fishing, and looked on complacently with the pitying superiority of accomplished success at the patient anglers, trying their best to kill a few inoffensive finny creatures off the bridge, across the St. Sebastian River, or bringing triumphantly home in the native’s “dug out” the proceeds of a day’s hard work on the bay. The Doctor was especially indifferent, and excited universal envy when he told of the wondrous sport we had had during our two months of recreation. While I do not for a moment intend to impugn his absolute veracity, some of the adventures which he related had passed from my memory or had grown since I heard them last. He would make no more violent sporting effort than repeating these tales, and preferred to sit on a chair upon the plaza, retailing them, with the encouragement of a sour orange punch, or wander through the coquina built Fort Marion, visit the old Cathedral, or roam the narrow streets. We laid in a supply of native preserves, sketched the graceful date palm, and never ceased wondering at the odd and extravagant beauty of the semi-equatorial foliage and plants. There is interesting, although not very extensive sailing in the harbor, and many varieties of bay snipe to be killed. A yachting club, which will show every courtesy to brethren from the North, has a boat house on the shore.
The further one goes South the better the shooting and fishing become, and I would advise any one, who feels as if it were impossible ever to get enough of either, not to stop in the St. John’s, or short of St. Augustine. There he can spend several weeks profitably, and should thence go on South to Halifax River and New Smyrna, where he will think nothing of catching a hundred sheepshead in a day, no tiny fellows either, but weighing from six to ten pounds a piece, or half as many channel bass of fifteen to twenty pounds each, together with as many sharks thrown in as he has stomach or tackle for. By the way, I forgot to mention that among our outfit was a couple of shark hooks and a line of a hundred fathoms, as thick as the little finger, all of which did good but rather brutal service. Back of New Smyrna, the woods are full of venison and bear meat, turkeys, and other feathered game. The best duck shooting is in the southern part of the lagoon or river, but the bars and beaches everywhere are alive with bay snipe, herons, cranes, pelicans, and a thousand smaller birds.
But a truce to this everlasting repetition of sport, which was growing monotonous even to Mr. Green’s insatiable sporting appetite, and turn to something pleasanter. The royal lady of the house had resolved to give us such a feast as we had not had before. The supplies laid in at St. Augustine enabled her to carry out her idea, but the selection of the day and date for the event was a mystery. I supposed it must have been to celebrate my birthday, which, it is true, had come and gone six months before; but as it had not yet been kept, needed commemoration as badly as though it had never taken place at all. No matter what was the moving inducement, the banquet was worthy of it. We men had been smuggled out of the way while the preparations were being made, so that, while we had a general idea of the drift of things, we had no conception of the gorgeousness of the result. It was not a feast fit for a king merely, but a sufficient banquet had all the gods been invited. There were raw oysters, two kinds of fish, sheepshead boiled, and channel bass baked, chicken soup, and turtle soup, from turtle caught on the spot, roast wild turkey, and boiled mutton, scalloped oysters, venison, and wild ducks, bay snipe, potato salad, peas, tomatoes, beans, and baked sweet potatoes, while for dessert there was such an array of goodies, that the room in my log book was in danger of running short, and I could only record a few, such as fresh cake, strawberries, spiced figs, and all the preserves and spiced fruits that the table would hold, closing with cheese and coffee. The only wonder was, that after such a dinner to which our appetites and our loyalty both pressed us to do more than ample justice, any of the party survived. If you have doubts of our state of minds and bodies, go on a three months’ cruise and wind up with such a dinner and “you will know how it is yourself.”
Of all places on the eastern shore of Florida, the Indian and Banana Rivers are the most delightful and interesting. Here, when you are once inside the bar, which, as I have said, is a little perilous, there is room and occupation for a winter. The salt water fishing is mainly near the inlet, but in the tributary streams is an unlimited supply of the fresh water varieties. The sailing is splendid, and the climate, except for its warmth, delicious. By the time the reader peruses these pages, it is probable that inland communication will have been opened with the Indian River, either by the “Haul-over,” which in the year 1882 was only twelve feet wide and one foot and a half deep, or from the St. John’s, by the way of Lake Washington; and that there will be finished another canal from Indian River to Lake Worth and Biscayne Bay, making a safe and easy passage round the keys to the Gulf side. This was to have been done when we were there, and if not yet finished, soon will be.