Mr. Johnson, Dr.
Kollock, Thomas Williams, And Henry Cunningham."
While in Savannah, I paid a visit to Bonaventure, formerly a country seat
of Governor Tatnall, but now abandoned.
A pleasant drive of a mile or two,
through a budding forest, took us to the place, which is now itself almost
grown up into forest. Cedars and other shrubs hide the old terraces of the
garden, which is finely situated on the high bank of a river. Trees of
various kinds have also nearly filled the space between the noble avenues
of live-oaks which were planted around the mansion. But these oaks - never
saw finer trees - certainly I never saw so many majestic and venerable
trees together. I looked far down the immense arches that overshadowed the
broad passages, as high as the nave of a Gothic cathedral, apparently as
old, and stretching to a greater distance. The huge boughs were clothed
with gray moss, yards in length, which clung to them like mist, or hung in
still festoons on every side, and gave them the appearance of the vault of
a vast vapory cavern. The cawing of the crow and the scream of the jay,
however, reminded us that we were in the forest. Of the mansion there are
no remains; but in the thicket of magnolias and other trees, among
rosebushes and creeping plants, we found a burial-place with monuments of
some persons to whom the seat had belonged.
Savannah is more healthy of late years than it formerly was. An
arrangement has been made with the owners of the plantations in the
immediate vicinity by which the culture of rice has been abandoned, and
the lands are no longer allowed to be overflowed within a mile from the
city. The place has since become much less subject to fevers than in
former years.
I left, with a feeling of regret, the agreeable society of Savannah. The
steamboat took us to St. Mary's, through passages between the sea-islands
and the main-land, similar to those by which we had arrived at Savannah.
In the course of the day, we passed a channel in which we saw several huge
alligators basking on the bank. The grim creatures slid slowly into the
water at our approach. We passed St. Mary's in the night, and in the
morning we were in the main ocean, approaching the St. John's, where we
saw a row of pelicans standing, like creatures who had nothing to do, on
the sand. We entered the majestic river, the vast current of which is
dark with the infusion of the swamp turf, from which it is drained. We
passed Jacksonville, a little town of great activity, which has sprung up
on the sandy bank within two or three years. Beyond, we swept by the mouth
of the Black Creek, the water of which, probably from the color of the mud
which forms the bed of its channel, has to the eye an ebony blackness, and
reflects objects with all the distinctness of the kind of looking-glass
called a black mirror. A few hours brought us to Picolata, lately a
military station, but now a place with only two houses.
Letter XIII.
St. Augustine.
St. Augustine, East Florida, _April 2, 1843._
When we left Picolata, on the 8th of April, we found ourselves journeying
through a vast forest. A road of eighteen miles in length, over the level
sands, brings you to this place. Tall pines, a thin growth, stood wherever
we turned our eyes, and the ground was covered with the dwarf palmetto,
and the whortleberry, which is here an evergreen. Yet there were not
wanting sights to interest us, even in this dreary and sterile region. As
we passed a clearing, in which we saw a young white woman and a boy
dropping corn, and some negroes covering it with their hoes, we beheld a
large flock of white cranes which rose in the air, and hovered over the
forest, and wheeled, and wheeled again, their spotless plumage glistening
in the sun like new-fallen snow. We crossed the track of a recent
hurricane, which had broken off the huge pines midway from the ground, and
whirled the summits to a distance from their trunks. From time to time we
forded little streams of a deep-red color, flowing from the swamps,
tinged, as we were told, with the roots of the red bay, a species of
magnolia. As the horses waded into the transparent crimson, we thought of
the butcheries committed by the Indians, on that road, and could almost
fancy that the water was still colored with the blood they had shed.
The driver of our wagon told us many narratives of these murders, and
pointed out the places where they were committed. He showed us where the
father of this young woman was shot dead in his wagon as he was going from
St. Augustine to his plantation, and the boy whom we had seen, was wounded
and scalped by them, and left for dead. In another place he showed us the
spot where a party of players, on their way to St. Augustine, were
surprised and killed. The Indians took possession of the stage dresses,
one of them arraying himself in the garb of Othello, another in that of
Richard the Third, and another taking the costume of Falstaff. I think it
was Wild Cat's gang who engaged in this affair, and I was told that after
the capture of this chief and some of his warriors, they recounted the
circumstances with great glee. At another place we passed a small thicket
in which several armed Indians, as they afterward related, lay concealed
while an officer of the United States army rode several times around it,
without any suspicion of their presence. The same men committed,
immediately afterward, several murders and robberies on the road.
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.
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