"If The Inquisition," Said The Gentleman Who Accompanied Us, "Was
Established In Florida, As It Was In The Other American Colonies Of Spain,
These Were Its Secret Chambers."
Yesterday was Palm Sunday, and in the morning I attended the services in
the Catholic church.
One of the ceremonies was that of pronouncing the
benediction over a large pile of leaves of the cabbage-palm, or palmetto,
gathered in the woods. After the blessing had been pronounced, the priest
called upon the congregation to come and receive them. The men came
forward first, in the order of their age, and then the women; and as the
congregation consisted mostly of the descendants of Minorcans, Greeks, and
Spaniards, I had a good opportunity of observing their personal
appearance. The younger portion of the congregation had, in general,
expressive countenances. Their forms, it appeared to me, were generally
slighter than those of our people; and if the cheeks of the young women
were dark, they had regular features and brilliant eyes, and finely formed
hands. There is spirit, also, in this class, for one of them has since
been pointed out to me in the streets, as having drawn a dirk upon a young
officer who presumed upon some improper freedoms of behavior.
The services were closed by a plain and sensible discourse in English,
from the priest, Mr. Rampon, a worthy and useful French ecclesiastic, on
the obligation of temperance; for the temperance reform has penetrated
even hither, and cold water is all the rage. I went again, the other
evening, into the same church, and heard a person declaiming, in a
language which, at first, I took to be Minorcan, for I could make nothing
else of it. After listening for a few minutes, I found that it was a
Frenchman preaching in Spanish, with a French mode of pronunciation which
was odd enough. I asked one of the old Spanish inhabitants how he was
edified by this discourse, and he acknowledged that he understood about an
eighth part of it.
I have much more to write about this place, but must reserve it for
another letter.
Letter XIV.
St. Augustine.
St. Augustine, _April 24, 1843_
You can not 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 full
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 the
summer when you can sleep without a blanket.
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