“Collector—(rushing out of the office)—Go to ——. The rest of the sentence was lost in the distance.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Southern “Ultima Thule” of the United States.
Along the Florida coast there were occasional glimpses of solitary light-houses and barren beaches; once we got aground where there ought to have been deep water, and were pleasantly assured that, if we had to take to the land, we would be among the everglades, with no chance of finding any inhabitants but moccasin snakes, and possibly a stray Seminole; for the rest, we had schools of porpoises plunging about our feet, the superb phosphorescence of the waters, and fine fishing—each haul of a dolphin or a Spanish mackerel from our stern line creating as much sensation on deck as one would have expected from the Stonewall. And so, with favoring breezes and the most delicious weather, we coasted among the keys, and finally steamed into the harbor of Key West.
The United States District Attorney, pleasantly known in Washington, where he occupied a responsible position in the Treasury Department, during the dark days of the war, as “Plantz, of Florida,” came aboard the “Wayanda” as soon as she touched the wharf. He was full of the glories of Florida, and the hopes of the re-organizing State; but, in this climate, there were things more important than politics. “It’s your sacred duty, you know, to take care of your health in this tropical country; and there’s nothing so good to begin with as our acclimatizing drink, which is the greatest of all the institutions of Key West.” “Champerou,” it appeared, was the name of this acclimatizer. Its concoction appeared a miracle of the powers of combination. Curacoa was taken as the base; Absinthe, Maraschino and other liqueurs were added, with sugar and eggs thrown in, till an analytical chemist would have been hopelessly puzzled by the compound. But it proved acclimatizing; and I observed that even the natives still thought it wise to take prudent precautions—such as a glass of Champerou—against the effects of the climate.
As a coaling station at the entrance of the Gulf, and the location of the United States civil officers for the Southern District of Florida, Key West had attained such importance before the war as to have attracted, according to the census of 1860, a population of two thousand eight hundred and thirty-two. Notwithstanding the departure of many rebels, the town has increased during the war to a population of about three thousand five hundred. It is neatly built, and better paved than most Southern places of like size. There is a street of good-looking frame business houses; a large hotel offers naval officers and others, who happen in port, a variation from ship fare; and a club house, sustained by the civil, military and naval services, supplies many of the comforts that would hardly be expected on this last desolate sand bank of Florida, and extreme Southern possession of the United States. Yet it took all the familiar sights and conveniences to enable one to realize that it was an American town. Bananas were for sale in the shops nearly four months earlier than we expect at the North the unripe, leathery fruit, which is all Northern people can get for the banana; limes, and sapadillos, and “sour sops,” were the common fruits of the season; the houses were here and there hedged in, not with arbor vitæ, or box, or even Cherokee rose, but with great, branching, luxuriant cactus, as high as a man’s head; for shade trees in the front yards, they had the palm-like cocoa.
The Spanish Consul sent down his carriage, and the supply of other vehicles in the little island was pretty well exhausted in providing conveyances for the party. Our drive took us around the whole island. Spots of dark green constantly dotted the water near the beach—the uninhabited “keys.” Some of them did not seem to be more than half an acre in extent; others would make nice little farms, but for snakes, and sharks, and storms, in which the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico would combine in washing over the crops. The stunted shrubbery (which, my fair companion in the ride told me she had learned, after a year’s residence, to call the “Forests of Key West”), was, apparently, no where more than ten or twelve feet high. Wild cocoas were abundant. Gigantic, and not attractive looking, cactus covered the rocks, and forbade strolls out of the beaten track. Tamarinds, hibiscus, sugar-apples, pawpaws, (totally different from the Northern tree of that name,) sapadillos, lime trees, buttonwoods, mastics, with lignum vitæ, gum elemi and sal soda plant, made up a vegetation as varied as it was novel to Northern eyes.
Old salt vats, where, before the war, the slaves, in the rude, shiftless way which slavery perpetuated, made salt enough for the consumption of Key West, by letting in sea water and evaporating it, lined the coast for perhaps a mile.
Elsewhere there was nothing but the dwarfed vegetation to be seen, till we came to what had been spoken of at the outset as the main feature of the ride around the island—“Old Sandie’s farm.” A rude fence separated this from the surrounding waste land, but the soil was equally stony, and apparently sterile; and it was hard to see how any exertions could make it productive. So everybody in Key West had always thought, and till “Sandie” came the islanders didn’t grow their own vegetables.
The carriages drew up at a little hut with two rooms, which was announced as “Sandie’s house,” and “Auntie” (his wife), who came to the door, led us to a little, open “lean-to,” which she called a piazza.