Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 22.djvu/668

650 The best places on the river are Magnolia and Green Cove Spring, twenty-eight and thirty miles south of Jacksonville, and Palatka, seventy-five miles from there, each of which possesses superior hotel accommodations, and is subject but little, if at all, to malaria during the winter season.

Gainesville, some forty miles west of Palatka on the line of the Transit Railway, is one of the best locations in the State. It is situated on comparatively high land for Florida, is surrounded by pine-woods, and free from malaria—but, other than as a health resort, has no attractions.

Jacksonville, the center of trade activity, eighteen miles from the mouth of the St. John's, is a city of considerable enterprise. The comforts and conveniences of a Northern city can be obtained there in greater degree than anywhere else in the State. It has, however, in addition, some of the injurious influences which pertain to large cities. There is more danger of typho-malarial diseases and intestinal troubles.

St. Augustine—twenty-five miles south of the mouth of the St. John's, on the coast—that old Spanish town which rests so tranquilly by the sea, looking out over the broad waves of the Atlantic, which roll across from the mother-land, is a most interesting place to the voyager. Its quaint houses, built in the Spanish fashion, from the coquina or imperfectly-formed limestone which is quarried on the beach; its narrow and winding streets, which one may almost cross with a single stride; its old fort, dating from 1696, when Spanish power still ruled a large portion of the world, and Florida was one of the least of its possessions—these, and the many legends which linger around the only moss-covered ruins in America, are the attractions of the place. Long before Jacksonville or any settlement on the St. John's River existed, St. Augustine was noted for its salubrious climate. It is now known, however, that its exposed position on the coast, subjecting it to the whims of every wild northeaster, make it unfitted for very sensitive invalids, though still a favorite resort for several wealthy New York gentlemen of yachting proclivities, who have villas there—and also for those of youthful fervor who cling to romance and sentiment.



HE traveler, coming fresh from Europe into Damaraland, is struck by the complete communistic freedom with which every man appropriates the land and its natural products. Roads have been worn 