After this hymn the following stanzas, soliciting the customary gifts of cakes or eggs, are sung:
The shutters are then opened by the people within, and a supply of cakes or other pastry is dropped into a bag carried by one of the party, who acknowledge the gift in the following lines, and then depart:
| “Aquesta casa reta empedrada, Empedrada de cuastro vens, Sun amo de aquesta casa, Es omo de compliment.” | “This house is walled round, Walled round on four sides. The owner of this house Is a polite gentleman.” |
If nothing is given, the last line reads thus:
| “No es homo de compliment.” | “Is not a polite gentleman.” |
This song is repeated throughout the city until midnight. To the listener it has a peculiar fascination like some of the tunes from popular operas, keeping one awake to listen to its strains, even after many repetitions have rendered the singing monotonous.
The walls of the United States barracks are probably the oldest structures in the place. An old house on Hospital Street, torn down in 1871, when Mr. Pendleton built a very pretty cottage upon the same ground, was said by old residents to have been the oldest house in the town. The former residence of the attorney-general during the English possession stood just south of the Worth House on the corner of Bay and Green Streets. This was a very old structure, though built in too costly a manner to have been one of the earliest buildings, one of which in English times still bore the date 1571. The house was built by a Spaniard named Ysnada. Its beams were made of a wood brought from Cuba, which resembled our royal palm in being susceptible of taking a high polish. The staircases, wainscoting, and panels were of lignum vitæ. For many years the house stood in too dilapidated a condition for occupancy. Finally the wood was torn out by curiosity hunters and dealers, and made into canes and other mementoes of “the oldest house in St. Augustine.”
The present sea-wall was built between 1835 and 1843, under the superintendence of Colonel Dancey, now living at his orange grove called Buena Vista, on the St. Johns River. He was then a captain in the U. S. Army. The wall is ten feet above low-water mark, seven feet thick at the base, and three feet wide on top, capped with granite, and extends along the whole front of the city, from the old fort on the north to the barracks on the south, about three-quarters of a mile in length. Opposite the plaza the wall forms a basin for small boats. Under Colonel Dancey the government spent three appropriations of fifty thousand dollars each, having spent twenty thousand dollars previously in preparation for the work. Captain Benham spent two appropriations of fifty thousand dollars each in covering the wall with granite slabs, as it was found that the coquina was rapidly wearing away under the tread of pedestrians using the wall as a promenade. Much of the pleasure of this otherwise delightful promenade is marred by the narrowness of the curbing, making the passing difficult. This feature is said to be unobjectionable to lovers, who are credited with the opinion that to see St. Augustine aright it is necessary to promenade the sea-wall by moonlight, viewing the rippling waters of the bay, with the roar of the surf on the neighboring beach as an interlude to the sweeter music of their own voices. Colonel Dancey built the present causeway leading to the depot in 1837 at the expense of the United States. His successor, Captain Benham, superintended the construction of the water battery at the fort, and other repairs made to the property of the United States within the city.