e 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.

An acquaintance of mine, an invalid, who has tried various climates and
has kept up a kind of running fight with Death for many years, retreating
from country to country as he pursued, declares to me that the winter
climate of St. Augustine is to be preferred to that of any part of
Europe, even that of Sicily, and that it is better than the climate of the
West Indies. He finds it genial and equable, at the same time that it is
not enfeebling. The summer heats are prevented from being intense by the
sea-breeze, of which I have spoken. I have looked over the work of Dr.
Forry on the climate of the United States, and have been surprised to see
the uniformity of climate which he ascribes to Key West. As appears by the
observations he has collected, the seasons at that place glide into each
other by the softest gradations, and the heat never, even in midsummer,
reaches that extreme which is felt in higher latitudes of the American
continent. The climate of Florida is in fact an insular climate; the
Atlantic on the east and the Gulf of Mexico on the west, temper the airs
that blow over it, making them cooler in summer and warmer in winter. I do
not wonder, therefore, that it is so much the resort of invalids; it would
be more so if the softness of its atmosphere and the beauty and serenity
of its seasons were generally known. Nor should it be supposed that
accommodations for persons in delicate health are wanting; they are in
fact becoming better with every year, as the de