HARPER’S{1}NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
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No. CCXCV.—DECEMBER, 1874.—Vol. L.
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THE ANCIENT CITY.
IN TWO PARTS.—PART I.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by Harper andBrothers, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Vol. L—no. 295—1
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GARDEN IN ST. AUGUSTINE.
Like deserts roll between;
Be then our mother—take us for thy children,
O dear St. Augustine!”
It was a party of eight, arranged by Aunt Diana. She is only my aunt bymarriage, and she had with her a bona fide niece, Iris Carew, a gayschool-girl of seventeen, while I, Niece Martha, as Aunt Diana alwayscalls me, own to full forty years. Professor Macquoid went for tworeasons—his lungs, and the pleasure of imparting information. It wasgenerally understood that Professor Macquoid was engaged upon a GreatWork. John Hoffman went for his own amusement; with us, because hehappened to sail on the same steamer. He had spent several winters inFlorida, hunting and fishing, and was in his way something of a Thoreau,without Thoreau’s love of isolation. Mr. Mokes went because Aunt Dianapersuaded him, and Sara St. John because I made her. These, with MissSharp, Iris Carew’s governess, composed our party.
We left New York in a driving January snow-storm, and sailed three daysover the stormy Atlantic, seeing no land from the winter desolation ofLong Branch until we entered the beautiful harbors of Charleston andSavannah, a thousand miles to the south. The New York steamer went nofarther; built to defy Fear, Lookout, and the terrible Hatteras, sheleft the safe, monotonous coast of Georgia and Upper Florida to ayounger sister, that carried us on to the south over a summer sea, andat sunrise one{2} balmy morning early in February entered the broad St.Johns, whose slow coffee-colored tropical tide, almost alone amongrivers, flows due north for nearly its entire course of four hundredmiles, a peculiarity expressed in its original name, given by theIndians, Il-la-ka—“It hath its own way, is alone, and contrary to everyother.”
“The question is,” said Sara St. John, “is there any thing one oughtto know about these banks?”
“ ‘Ye banks and bray-aas of bon-onny Doo-oon,’ ” chanted Iris, who, freshas a rose-bud with the dew on it, stood at the bow, with the windblowing her dark wavy hair back from her lovely face; as for her hat, ithad long ago found itself discarded and tied to the railing forsafe-keeping.
“The fresh-water shell heaps of the St. Johns River, East Florida,”began the Professor, “should be—should be somewhere about here.” Hepeered around, but could see nothing with his near-sighted eyes.
“Iris,” called Aunt Diana through the closed blinds of her state-room,“p