A Door
Is The Ventilator To The Room; The Windows Are Not Raised Except In Warm
Weather, But The Door Is Kept Open At All Seasons.
On cold days you have a
bright fire of pine-wood blazing before you, and a draught of cold air at
your back.
The reason given for this practice is, that fresh air is
wholesome, and that close rooms occasion colds and consumptions.
Letter XII.
Savannah.
Picolata, East Florida, _April 7, 1843._
As I landed at this place, a few hours since, I stepped into the midst of
summer. Yesterday morning when I left Savannah, people were complaining
that the winter was not over. The temperature which, at this time of the
year, is usually warm and genial, continued to be what they called chilly,
though I found it agreeable enough, and the showy trees, called the _Pride
of India_, which are planted all over the city, and are generally in bloom
at this season, were still leafless. Here I find every thing green, fresh,
and fragrant, trees and shrubs in full foliage, and wild roses in flower.
The dark waters of the St. John's, one of the noblest streams of the
country, in depth and width like the St. Lawrence, draining almost the
whole extent of the peninsula, are flowing under my window. On the
opposite shore are forests of tall trees, bright in the new verdure of the
season. A hunter who has ranged them the whole day, has just arrived in a
canoe, bringing with him a deer, which he has killed. I have this moment
returned from a ramble with my host through a hammock, he looking for his
cows, and I, unsuccessfully, for a thicket of orange-trees. He is
something of a florist, and gathered for me, as we went, some of the
forest plants, which were in bloom. "We have flowers here," said he,
"every month in the year."
I have used the word hammock, which here, in Florida, has a peculiar
meaning. A hammock is a spot covered with a growth of trees which require
a richer soil than the pine, such as the oak, the mulberry, the gum-tree,
the hickory, &c. The greater part of East Florida consists of pine
barrens - a sandy level, producing the long leaved pine and the dwarf
palmetto, a low plant, with fan-like leaves, and roots of a prodigious
size. The hammock is a kind of oasis, a verdant and luxuriant island in
the midst of these sterile sands, which make about nine-tenths of the soil
of East Florida. In the hammocks grow the wild lime, the native orange,
both sour and bitter-sweet, and the various vines and gigantic creepers of
the country. The hammocks are chosen for plantations; here the cane is
cultivated, and groves of the sweet orange planted. But I shall say more
of Florida hereafter, when I have seen more of it. Meantime let me speak
of my journey hither.
I left Charleston on the 30th of March, in one of the steamers which ply
between that city and Savannah.
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