Chapter XVI · Orange Groves and an Ancient Village—The Oldest Town and Fort in the United States—Northern Speculations.

From Jacksonville, we steamed down the coast to St. Augustine. “The oldest town in the United States,” managed, in the good old times, to secure handsome gratuities from the national authorities. A long granite wall, splendidly built, by Government contractors, lines the whole water face of the village, and gives wharfage for a place of twenty, instead of a paltry two thousand inhabitants. Toward the upper end of the harbor stands the quaint Spanish fort, the oldest fortification on our sea-coast, “bastioned on the square,” as the engineers describe it, with Spanish inscription by the old drawbridge,^[22] and Spanish coat of arms over 169the gate, and rusty Spanish guns still standing on the parapets; Spanish dungeons beneath, with rings to which men were chained, and French inscriptions, penciled more than a century ago, in solitary despair, on the dungeon walls, and still telling their own story of the sufferings of the times.

Climbing the old look-out tower of concrete shells, which stands nearly perfect yet on the sea face of the fort, one sees a collection of curious little antique houses, built so closely together that the streets between them can hardly be made out, a widening circle of orchard-like spots of green in the midst of seemingly waste expanse, a tumble-down collection of old grave stones, and beyond all, the dark-green line of the forests. This is St. Augustine, with its Spanish streets, and orange groves, and relics of three hundred years of growth and decay.

Even to this quaint old Sleepy Hollow of the extreme South the war has penetrated with its changes. On the Plaza del Armas, where, of old, Spanish soldiers, in cumbrous accouterments, had trained their firelocks, and marched beneath the Red and Orange, with the arms of Spain, and where, later, Spanish monks, to the tolling of the bell, that still remains, had formed their long processions, and solemnly moved out in stately show, to pronounce the doom of God alike upon sacrilegious invaders and the pagan infidels, who inhabited the country; this very Plaza was surrounded by long 170rows of stalwart negroes, black as ebony, splendidly armed, and drawn up in handsome regimental lines for dress parade. There is an island, not far off the coast of Florida, where the Spanish colors still float, and where this spectacle of soldiers made from slaves might prove suggestive.

When St. Augustine was laid out, the theory of those days was that, without excessively narrow streets, it was impossible to have a cool town in these low latitudes. The narrower the streets, they argued, the more perfect the draught through them; and so it comes that, from the projecting second-story balconies on the one side, in the main street of St. Augustine, you can almost step to the similar balconies on the other side. In the street itself there is no room for sidewalks, and I am not even sure that carts can pass each other.^[23] Behind each house is a luxuriant garden; great masses of flowers hang over the walls or depend from the trellises; and, through the open doors, one gets glimpses of hammocks, swinging under vine-clad trees, and huge, but airy, Sleepy-Hollow chairs. Curious little piazzas jut into the narrow streets, and dark Spanish faces, with coal-black brows and liquid eyes, look out from the windows.

One such, a pretty Madame Oliveras, whose husband has gone to the Rebel army, and concerning whose fate, on his (now daily expected) return, his fond wife is prettily anxious, displays a tempting array of palmetto 171work in her rag-carpeted little parlor—toy baskets, hats, napkin rings, fans and the whole catalogue of palmetto fancy work—drawing numerous greenbacks from the Yankees, and evoking, in consequence, much warm politeness from the grateful grass widow. There are not many Rebels here, she thinks; but the fact that any number of wives, like her, are expecting returning husbands, “now that paroles have been given,” remains unexplained. Of course the Government will never think of interfering with their little plantations; surely, they meant no harm, and knew no better than to fight for their State, as they were told!

Passing through an old cemetery, where obelisks of granite, without a word of inscription, have stood for nearly three hundred years; where old tombs have fallen to pieces in the lapse of time, and human bones protrude amid the decaying masonry; while, over all, the rich vegetation of the semi-tropical climate throws a kindly concealing veil of beauty, we come out into groves of exquisite fragrance. The ground is covered with oranges, and the fruit is still clinging to the trees in bunches that bend down and almost break the branches. The oranges are of a size, and especially of a flavor, never found at the North; and the deliciously dreamy, luxuriously indolent retreats one finds amid these orange groves, and in the pleasant cottages of the owners, make St. Augustine seem a town of another continent and century.

One of the orange groves was pointed out as that purchased by Major John Hay, late the President’s private secretary. It had been sold for unpaid taxes by the Land Commissioner—the taxes having remained unpaid for the sufficient reason that the owner was 172away in the Rebel army—and Major Hay had secured it by an investment of some five hundred dollars. Last year, as an enthusiastic Floridian explained, the orange crop was worth two thousand five hundred dollars! But, unfortunately for my dormant enthusiasm, Hay had told me of his financial success in Florida before I left Washington. “Incidental expenses” had required him to advance another sum about equal to the original purchase money, and while the orange crop might, for all he knew, have been a very fine one, he had never seen an orange or received a penny from it! The Floridian pointed out beautiful little groves that were soon to be sold, and dilated on their advantages; but the party produced no purchasers.

There is great uncertainty, of course, about the titles in these tax sales, and many people find it difficult to regard the transactions as very creditable to the Government. There is no doubt, however, that, if the titles stand, investments made in the lands about St. Augustine must be profitable. The exquisite climate will always make the place a resort for debilitated people, and particularly consumptives from the North; and the orange crop, although occasionally injured by the frost, is so nearly certain that, for those who can have it properly attended to, it must, at the present prices for investments, prove unusually profitable. At the rates now ruling, the gross returns of a single year’s crop will nearly pay for the land. Whoever purchases, however, will here, as elsewhere through the South, have to bear the odium among the returning Rebels, who will soon make up again the bulk of the population, of having taken advantage of their misfortunes and helplessness to get possession of their property for nothing. Under such circumstances, let the climate be never so 173delightful, and the profits never so inviting, a sensitive man might still find residence in St. Augustine unpleasant.

The negroes here seem to have a vague idea that they are free; but little change in their relations to their old masters is perceptible. In the back country they remain, as usual, on the little cracker plantations, and neither masters nor negroes succeed in more than making a rude living.

Little boys were “playing marbles” in the streets with green oranges, as we returned to the wharf, and a crowd of people, who had seen no other opportunity for months to get North, were begging permission to go on board our boat, and return with us to Fernandina.

174