I Must Tell You, However, What Was Said To Me By A Person Who Had Passed A
Considerable Time In
Florida, and had journeyed, as he told me, in the
southern as well as the northern part of the peninsula,
"That the climate
is mild and agreeable," said he, "I admit, but the annoyance to which you
are exposed from insects, counterbalances all the enjoyment of the
climate. You are bitten by mosquitoes and gallinippers, driven mad by
clouds of sand-flies, and stung by scorpions and centipedes. It is not
safe to go to bed in southern Florida without looking between the sheets,
to see if there be not a scorpion waiting to be your bed-fellow, nor to
put on a garment that has been hanging up in your room, without turning it
wrong side out, to see if a scorpion has not found a lodging in it." I
have not, however, been incommoded at St. Augustine with these "varmint,"
as they call them at the south. Only the sand-flies, a small black midge,
I have sometimes found a little importunate, when walking out in a very
calm evening.
Of the salubrity of East Florida I must speak less positively, although it
is certain that in St. Augustine emigrants from the north enjoy good
health. The owners of the plantations in the neighborhood, prefer to pass
the hot season in this city, not caring to trust their constitutions to
the experiment of a summer residence in the country.
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