I went with my father and mother to St. Augustine only last winter. We went through the Ponce de Leon, which I think must be the finest hotel in the world. It is built of some kind of stuff that glitters in the sun, and looks in the shade as if it were blue, and the trimmings are of terra cotta. The floors of the halls are inlaid with little bits of marble, and the marble columns everywhere make you think for a minute that you are stepping into an art gallery instead of a hotel. The rotunda is just lovely! It has eight oak pillars to support it, each beautifully carved. The rotunda is four stories high, and has corridors on each story with more columns and lovely arches. The dome has wonderful paintings and carved figures, giving in pictures the history of Spain and France. You can look straight up through an opening to the great copper columns which form the lantern at the top. The large parlor is perfectly splendid. It is a hundred and four feet long, and fifty-three feet wide; but there are arches and portières, so that it can be divided into five rooms whenever the people wish. It is magnificently furnished. I think, however, that the great dining-room is really more beautiful than the parlor. More than eight hundred people can take dinner there at one time, and you can look out of the windows at lovely orange groves, and hear the mockingbirds singing, and there is a band of music which always plays while the dinner is being served.
Anna Wheeler Austin.
A band of singers used to go about the streets of old St. Augustine on Easter eve, playing on their violins and guitars, and stopping under the windows to sing:
“Disciarem lu doi,
Cantarem anb alagria,
Y n’arem a da
Las pascuas a Maria.”
It seems almost impossible to sing such queer-sounding words, but translated they mean:
“Ended the days of sadness,