CHAPTER XVIII.
PRESENT APPEARANCE OF ST. AUGUSTINE, AS GIVEN BY THE AUTHOR OF THANATOPSIS--ITS CLIMATE AND SALUBRITY.
St. Augustine has now attained, for this side of the Atlantic, a period of most respectable antiquity. In a country like America, where States are ushered into existence in the full development of maturity, where large cities rise like magic from the rude forest, where the "oldest inhabitant" recollects the cutting down of the lofty elms which shadowed the wigwam of the red man, perchance on some spot now in the heart of a great city; an antiquity of three centuries would be esteemed as almost reaching back (compared with modern growth) to the days of the Pharaohs.
The larger number of early settlements were unsuitably located, and were forced to be abandoned on account of their unhealthiness; but the Spanish settlement at St. Augustine has remained for near three hundred years where it was originally planted; and the health of its inhabitants has, for this long period, given it a deserved reputation for salubrity and exemption from disease, attributable to locality or extraneous influences or causes.
The great age attained by its inhabitants was remarked by De Brahm; the number and healthfulness of the children that throng its streets, attract now, as they did then, the attention of strangers. This salubrity is easily accounted for, by the almost insular position of the city, upon a narrow neck of land nearly surrounded by salt water; the main shore, a high and healthy pine forest and sandy plains, so near the ocean as to be fanned by its constant breezes, and within the sound of its echoing waves; a situation combining more local advantages for salubrity could hardly be imagined. While it will never probably increase to any great extent in population, it will hardly be likely to decrease. Its health, easy means of support, unambitious class of inhabitants, with their strong attachments and family and local ties, will contribute to maintain St. Augustine as the time-honored ancient city, with its permanent population, and its visitors for health, for centuries perhaps yet to come.
I cannot perhaps better conclude these historic notices than by giving the impressions of the author of Thanatopsis,[43] one whose poetic fame will endure as long as American literature exists. Writing from St. Augustine in April, 1843, he says:
"At length we emerged upon a shrubby plain, and finally came in sight of this oldest city of the United States, seated among its trees on a sandy swell of land, where it has stood for three hundred years. I was struck with its ancient and homely aspect, even at a distance, and could not help likening it to pictures which I had seen of Dutch towns, though it wanted a wind-mill or two to make the resemblance perfect. We drove into a green square, in the midst of which was a monument erected to commemorate the Spanish constitution of 1812, and thence through the narrow streets of the city to our hotel.
"I have called the streets narrow. In few places are they wide enough to allow two carriages to pass abreast. I was told that they were not originally intended for carriages; and that in the time when the town belonged to Spain, many of them were floored with an artificial stone, composed of shells and mortar, which in this climate takes and keeps the hardness of rock; and that no other vehicle than a hand-barrow was allowed to pass over them. In some places you see remnants of this ancient pavement; but for the most part it has been ground into dust under the wheels of the carts and carriages introduced by the new inhabitants. The old houses, built of a kind of stone which is seemingly a pure concretion of small shells, overhang the streets with their wooden balconies; and the gardens between the houses are fenced on the side of the street with high walls of stone. Peeping over these walls you see branches of the pomegranate, and of the orange-tree now fragrant with flowers, and rising yet higher, the leaning boughs of the fig with its broad luxuriant leaves. Occasionally you pass the ruins of houses--walls of stone with arches and stair-cases of the same material, which once belonged to stately dwellings. You meet in the streets with men of swarthy complexions and foreign physiognomy, and you hear them speaking to each other in a strange language. You are told that these are the remains of those who inhabited the country under the Spanish dominion, and that the dialect you have heard is that of the island of Minorca.
"'Twelve years ago,' said an acquaintance of mine, 'when I first visited St. Augustine, it was a fine old Spanish town. A large proportion of the houses which you now see roofed like barns, were then flat-roofed; they were all of shell rock, and these modern wooden buildings were then not erected. That old fort which they are now repairing, to fit it for receiving a garrison, was a sort of ruin, for the outworks had partly fallen, and it stood unoccupied by the military, a venerable monument of the Spanish dominion. But the orange-groves were the wealth and ornament of St. Augustine, and their produce maintained the inhabitants in comfort. Orange-trees of the size and height of the pear-tree, often rising higher than the roofs of the houses, embowered the town in perpetual verdure. They stood so close in the groves that they excluded the sun; and the atmosphere was at all times aromatic with their leaves and fruit, and in spring the fragrance of the flowers was almost oppressive.'
"The old fort of St. Mark, now called Fort Marion--a foolish change of name--is a noble work, frowning over the Mantanzas, which flows between St. Augustine and the island of Anastasia; and it is worth making a long journey to see. No record remains of its original construction; but it is supposed to have been erected about a hundred and fifty years since,[44] and the shell rock of which it is built is dark with time. We saw where it had been struck with cannon balls, which, instead of splitting the rock, became imbedded and clogged among the loosened fragments of shell. This rock is therefore one of the best materials for fortification in the world. We were taken into the ancient prisons of the fort-dungeons, one of which was dimly lighted by a grated window, and another entirely without light; and by the flame of a torch we were shown the half obliterated inscriptions scrawled on the walls long ago by prisoners. But in another corner of the fort, we were taken to look at the secret cells, which were discovered a few years since in consequence of the sinking of the earth over a narrow apartment between them. These cells are deep under ground, vaulted over-head, and without windows. In one of them a wooden machine was found, which some supposed might have been a rack, and in the other a quantity of human bones. The doors of these cells had been walled up and concealed with stucco, before the fort passed into the hands of the Americans.
"You cannot be in St. Augustine a day without hearing some of its inhabitants speak of its agreeable climate. During the sixteen days of my residence here, the weather has certainly been as delightful as I could imagine. We have the temperature of early June as June is known in New York. The mornings are sometimes a little sultry; but after two or three hours a fresh breeze comes in from the sea sweeping through the broad piazzas, and breathing in at the windows. At this season it comes laden with the fragrance of the flowers of the Pride of India, and sometimes of the orange tree, and sometimes brings the scent of roses, now in bloom. The nights are gratefully cool; and I have been told by a person who has lived here many years, that there are very few nights in summer when you can sleep without a blanket.
"An acquaintance of mine, an invalid, who has tried various climates, and has kept up a kind of running fight with death for many years, retreating from country to country as he pursued, declares to me that the winter climate of St. Augustine is to be preferred to that of any part of Europe, even that of Sicily, and that it is better than the climate of the West Indies. He finds it genial and equable, at the same time that it is not enfeebling. The summer heats are prevented from being intense by the sea-breeze, of which I have spoken. I have looked over the work of Dr. Forry on the climate of the United States, and have been surprised to see the uniformity of climate which he ascribes to Key West. As appears by the observations he has collected, the seasons at that place glide into each other by the softest gradations; and the heat never, even in midsummer, reaches that extreme which is felt in the higher latitudes of the American continent. The climate of Florida is, in fact, an insular climate: the Atlantic on the east, and the Gulf of Mexico on the west, temper the airs that blow over it, making them cooler in summer and warmer in winter. I do not wonder, therefore, that it is so much the resort of invalids; it would be more so if the softness of its atmosphere, and the beauty and serenity of its seasons were generally known. Nor should it be supposed that accommodations for persons in delicate health are wanting; they are, in fact, becoming better with every year, as the demand for them increases. Among the acquaintances whom I have made here, I remember many who having come hither for the benefit of their health, are detained for life by the amenity of the climate. 'It seems to me,' said an intelligent gentleman of this class, the other day, 'as if I could not exist out of Florida. When I go to the north, I feel most sensibly the severe extremes of the weather; the climate of Charleston itself appears harsh to me.'
"The negroes of St. Augustine are a good-looking specimen of the race, and have the appearance of being very well treated. You rarely see a negro in ragged clothing; and the colored children, though slaves, are often dressed with great neatness. In the colored people whom I saw in the Catholic church, I remarked a more agreeable, open, and gentle physiognomy than I have been accustomed to see in that class.
"Some old customs which the Minorcans brought with them from their native country, are still kept up. On the evening before Easter Sunday, about eleven o'clock, I heard the sound of a serenade in the streets. Going out, I found a party of young men with instruments of music, grouped about the window of one of the dwellings, singing a hymn in honor of the Virgin,[45] in the Mahonese dialect. They began, as I was told, with tapping on the shutter. An answering knock within had told them that their visit was welcome, and they immediately began the serenade. If no reply had been heard, they would have passed on to another dwelling. I give the hymn as it was kindly taken down for me in writing, by a native of St. Augustine. I presume this is the first time that it has been put in print; but I fear the copy has several corruptions, occasioned by the unskillfulness of the copyist. The letter _e_, which I have put in italics, represents the guttural French _e_, or, perhaps, more nearly the sound of the _u_ in the word but. The _sh_ of our language is represented by _sc_ followed by an _i_ or an _e_; the _g_, both hard and soft, has the same sound as in our language.
"'Disciar_e_m lu dol Cantar_e_m aub' alagria Y n'arem a da Las pascuas a Maria O Maria! "'Sant Grabiel, Qui portaba la ambasciado Des nostro rey del cel, Estaran vos prenada Ya omitiada Tu o vais aqui surventa Fia del Dieu contenta Para fe lo que el vol Disciar_e_m lu dol, &c.
"'Y a milla nit Pariguero vos regina A un Dieu infinit, Dintra una establina. Y a milla dia, Que los angles von cantant Pau y abondant De la gloria de Dieu sol Disciar_e_m lu dol, &c.
"'Y a Libalam, Alla la terra santa Nus nat Jesus Aub' alagria tanta Infant petit Que tot lu mon salvaria Y ningu y bastaria Nu mes un Dieu tot sul Disciar_e_m lu dol, &c.
"'Cuant de Orion lus Tres reys la stralla veran Dieu omnipotent Adora lo vingaran Un present inferan De mil _e_ncens y or A lu beneit seno Que conesce cual se vol Disciar_e_m lu dol, &c.
"'Tot fu gayant Para cumple la prumas Y lu Esperit sant De un angel fau gramas Gran foc ences, Que crama lu curagia Dieu nos da lenguagia Para fe lo que Dieu vol Disciar_e_m lu dol, &c.
"'Cuant trespasa De quest mon nostra Senora Al cel s' empugia Sun fil la matescia ora O! Emperadora Que del cel san eligida Lu rosa florida Me resplenden que un sol Disciar_e_m lu dol, &c.
"'Y el tercer giorn Que Jesus resunta Dieu y Aboroma Que la mort triumfa De alli se balla Para perldra Lucife An tot a sen penda Que de nostro ser el sol Disciar_e_m lu dol, &c.
"After this hymn, the following stanzas, soliciting the customary gift of cakes or eggs, are sung:--
"'Ce set que vam cantant, Regina celestial! Damos pan y alagria Y bonas festas tingan Y vos da sus bonas festas Danos dines de sus nous Sempre tar_e_m lus neans Uestas Para recibi un grapat de nes, Y el giorn de pascua florida Alagramos y giuntament As qui _e_s mort par dar nos vida Y via glorosiamente, A questa casa esta empedrada Bien halla que la empedro; San amo de aquesta casa Baldria duna un do Formagiado o empanada Cucutta a flao; Cual se val casa rue grada, Sol que no rue digas que no.'
"The shutters are then opened by the people within, and a supply of cheese, cakes or other pastry, or eggs, 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 cuatro vens; Sun amo de aquesta casa Es omo de compliment.'
"If nothing is given, the last line reads thus:--
"'No es homo de compliment.'"