will have to hire a boat and a boatman, and in either
case he must carry with him his provisions.

St. Mary's in April is St. Mary's in August--a drowsy, quaint old town,
warm in the daytime and cool at night; hot in the sunlight, but with
cool sea-breezes. The streets of St. Mary's are her glory: they are one
hundred feet wide, carpeted with a green sward smooth as a shaven lawn,
lined with live-oaks and china trees. In April the latter are in full
bloom, their lilac blossoms hanging in dense panicles, the green leaves
flecking them just enough to afford contrast, and the sombre Spanish
moss depending gracefully from every branch and limb. Great gaudy
butterflies are continually hovering over them and fluttering uneasily
from flower to flower, and gleaming humming-birds, our own Northern
summer visitors (the _Trochilus colubris_), are flashing from tree to
tree, now poised a moment in air, now sipping honey from the tiny cups.

From the lighthouse dome at Fernandina one can look over half the
island, trace the white sand-beach miles to the south--follow it north
till it curves inland where Amelia Sound, the mouth of the St. Mary's
River, forms the harbor. Away north runs up Cumberland Beach, and among
the trees and over a broad stretch of marsh gleam white the ruins of
"Dungeness." West, again, one sees the gloomy pines of the main land,
behind which the sun goes down, lighting gloriously the marsh and silver
threads of the river.

Unlike the seasons of the North, there is here no perceptible line of
demarcation between them. We cannot positively assert that spring has
opened or summer or winter begun. As for autumn and harvest-time, the
crops are being continually gathered in. So since the year came in I
have seen various plants and shrubs in bloom that ought to open with
spring. Up the Ocklawaha in January I saw the blackberry or dewberry in
blossom; and ever since, along the St. John's in that month and
February, on the banks of the St. Mary's in February and March, and even
here, in Fernandina and St. Mary's, it is blossoming and bearing fruit.
It is this week--the first week in April--that we obtained the first
fruit for the table, buying it for ten cents a quart. It puzzles one to
think of planting. When must he begin? Last Christmas one of our
truck-farmers had a large crop of peas ready to harvest: a chance frost
gobbled them up, however: now (April) peas and potatoes are in their
prime.

By the middle of