Chapter VI: Part 6

WHAT TO BRING.--If the ladies of your party are equestriennes, by all means let them bring their riding habits with them: everybody rides. Driving, too, is largely indulged in, the roads being hard, smooth and unusually wide. They extend for miles and miles through the pine woods, and their picturesque beauty you will please imagine; it is not easy to describe it without using more adjectives than I have at my command en route. To sportsmen let me say, do not come without your dog and gun or you will never forget nor forgive the error. Wild turkeys abound, there are snipe in plenty and quail can be bagged by a novice. You see them on the road while driving, and the crack of the rifle is heard almost constantly. Quail on toast is a regular dish at the hotels at least once a day.

THE NEGRO AND HIS WORKS.--Without desiring to attack political problems, to raise dead issues or to discuss questions that have long since been answered, one cannot resist the temptation to obtain information on the result of the emancipation proclamation, for although it is over a quarter of a century old the subject yet has great interest for this country, and for other countries also, for that matter. Here is a statement of facts and figures in condensed, nutshell form upon which chapters and books might be written--the colored population of Georgia pay taxes on real estate amounting to twelve millions of dollars, the realty being estimated at about one half its actual value, and their personal property is estimated at about six millions of dollars. There are instances of marked faithfulness and attachment of slaves to their former owners, some of the blacks still serving their white masters. Among the servants of Mrs. M. A. Bower, proprietor of the Piney Woods Hotel, are two who formerly served this same “master,” one of them being the skilful pastry-cook of the hotel. Negroes say that the whites and work do not agree. Possibly not; they are unaccustomed to labor hard in this section, and on the other hand whites claim that the colored are by nature more fitted for work in such a climate. Be that as it may, it is certain that the colored people of the South are not over fond of work, either: you cannot depend upon their working regularly. So soon as they can put enough by to keep them in cracked wheat or hominy and a little tobacco the colored laborers are likely to throw up a job, and are not over particular if they occasionally leave an employer in the lurch. If you are a new settler and are building a house, for instance, they will have no compunction about leaving you some fine morning, or some wet afternoon, before your house is roofed in. Of clothing for warmth they need little, and the weather never being severe their log cabins or pine huts need not be very tight: if they shed the rain that is all that is necessary for them.

THE CHAIN GANG.--The jail at Thomasville was not near large enough until a new plan of punishment was adopted. The colored roughs committed small offences for the very purpose of getting into prison; in that way obtaining food and shelter, and at the same time “doin’ nuffin.” Not so now: the town council met and adopted the resolution that prisoners should be made to work, and that is how the “chain gang” came into existence. You will see gangs of colored men repairing the roads and engaged in other public works on the highway. They wear a striped uniform after the prevailing fashion at our State prisons. The two legs of each man are held close enough together by iron chains to prevent the action of running, but yet the chains afford him sufficient freedom to move about and make himself useful with pick and shovel. It is a novel sight for a stranger to meet one of these gangs on the road, and the clank of the locked iron links has a strange and weird sound. To their credit be it said, the men are ashamed of their public disgrace, and the Thomasville prison is now large enough to hold all the applicants for admission. Making the negro work and making him a public show have had good effect. Such a plan is of course not feasible for cities, but it might be adopted with a degree of success in thinly populated districts of Northern States. Tramps give Thomasville a wide berth. If one of the genus unwittingly wanders that way he is given his choice: he must leave at once or join the chain gang and work for thirty days.

UPLAND PRODUCTS.--Cotton is still king in the South, and Georgia produces its full share, but Thomas county is also noted for oats. More oats are produced in Thomas county than in any other county in the United States. This I have from one of the prominent citizens of the town, whose information is as extensive as the manner of imparting his knowledge is agreeable. If you come to Thomasville try to meet Dr. Bower. He practices his profession no longer, being interested in many large enterprises. He can give you more interesting information concerning these parts than probably any other person hereabouts. But you must allow a little for Dr. Bower’s enthusiasm. He is apt to look at Thomasville and Thomas county through a rose-colored glass. From Dr. Bower your correspondent learned, among other things, that the Le Conte pear, which grows in such profusion here and in Florida, was brought to this country from China about fifty years ago, and propagated by Commodore Le Conte, a Georgian of French descent. It does not equal the Bartlett in flavor, but its skin is tougher, and it bears transportation better. You may see orchards containing thousands of trees, and the trees average a production of twelve to fifteen bushels. Some trees are said to yield as many as thirty-five bushels. They boast here of the largest pear orchard in the world--two hundred and twenty-five acres. Last year twenty-five thousand crates of pears were shipped from Thomasville to cities in the North and West. Some found their way to the New England summer resorts, and were received with favor. Still, from all I can learn, while the North has its Bartlett, it need not envy the South its Le Conte.

THE POOR KINE.--It is conceded that they raise here in abundance cotton, oats and pears, and that pine trees, roses, magnolias, quail, figs, and other good things grow in profusion, but, on the other hand, the live stock is very poor indeed and meats must come all the way from New York if people demand meat that is good and nutritious. That is where all the meat comes from which is consumed at the hotels. It almost makes your heart ache to see the poor, weak oxen that are forced to work, and the thin, bony cows that must yield their milk. It may be different in summer time, when the grass is rich, but the cattle seem to be very poorly fed now, or not fed at all. They are allowed to roam freely about the streets and byways of the town, and pick up, by day or night, what they can find.

THE WINN FARM.--An exception to this rule must be made in favor of Winn Farm, a tract of eighteen hundred acres, owned by F. J. Winn, several hundred acres of which are under cultivation. The stock there looks better than the animals you see in Thomasville proper, and for which you have nothing but sympathy. They make good wine, too, at Winn Farm, and it is offered in hospitable quantities from the hand of an attractive, cultivated woman, the presiding genius of the place, Mrs. F. J. Winn. The luscious, juicy oranges which are put on the tables of the Piney Woods Hotel in such liberal measure, come from the grove on Indian River, Florida, owned and cultivated by Dr. Bower. The grove contains four or five thousand orange trees in bearing.

THE HOTELS.--There is a standing joke about certain Southern cities where there are only two hotels, that, whichever one you select, you will wish that you had chosen the other. Although the hotels south of the line have greatly improved of late years, the old joke will still apply in certain towns and cities. Not so, however, at Thomasville. There are only two hotels here known to fame, and you will make no mistake if you select either. It is a matter of surprise to find two such hotels in such a comparatively small town. The Mitchell House and the Piney Woods Hotel (I take them alphabetically) are both large, new, handsomely furnished and perfectly appointed houses, containing all the modern improvements, and erected with strict regard for the laws of sanitation. The Mitchell House is an imposing solid brick structure, four stories high, two hundred feet square, with a cultivated park of two acres sweeping before its front piazza. This little park is reserved for the hotel guests and their friends.

The Piney Woods Hotel is within gun-shot distance of the Mitchell House, on the same street, with a front measuring three hundred and fifty feet, the other side overlooking Paradise Park, of which I have already spoken. The Piney Woods stands, as it were, and as its name might indicate, on the very edge of the pine forests, and yet it is only a five minutes’ walk from the post-office and a ten minutes’ drive from the depot. The pamphlet issued by the proprietor tells you that “the Piney Woods is modelled similar to the Grand Union Hotel, at Saratoga Springs,” but this is a mistake of the compiler of the work, and is no compliment at all to the house under consideration--which is far more pleasing to the eye, exteriorly, than the Grand Union at Saratoga. The Piney Woods is built after plans of J. A. Woods, a New York architect, who planned the new Grand Hotel _in the Catskill Mountains_, and with its wide and lofty verandas, its projecting towers, its pretty corners here and there, is a facsimile on a somewhat smaller scale of that favorite and beautiful house. Any one who has seen the hotel on the line of the Ulster and Delaware Railway, can picture to himself the Piney Woods Hotel at Thomasville. The late Captain Gillette, who kept the Mountain Hotel, kept this one also for years. William E. Davies is now the manager of the Piney Woods.

Each hotel, the Mitchell House and the Piney Woods, will accommodate nearly three hundred guests.

THE BEST ROUTE.--The Atlantic Coast Line, called “the short route to Florida,” is by all odds the best way to reach Thomasville from the Eastern States and from New York. The vestibule train, “the Florida special” of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which traverses this route, is the quickest and most luxurious train, with its dining-room car, library car, etc., but this only leaves New York on certain days of the week, and you must apply for seats a long time ahead, and then you may not get them. The ordinary trains, with Pullman sleepers, are good enough for the majority of travellers, and they afford people opportunity to stop over and see the cities en route--Washington, Richmond, Wilmington, N. C., Charleston and Savannah. Or, if you prefer, you may come direct from New York, in about thirty-two hours, to Waycross, Ga., where there is connection for Thomasville, distant four hours. But if you “stop over,” you must be prepared to travel in ordinary coaches between the Southern cities; parlor cars are not attached to local trains. It would help Thomasville materially if the Savannah, Western and Florida Road (everybody in this section calls it “the S. F. & W.”) were to run a quick train with a parlor car to meet the Florida special. The return would not be great at first, but it would prove profitable to the road ultimately. Washington, D. C., seems to be especially favored: the Atlantic Coast Line runs a Pullman buffet sleeping car for Washington passengers direct to Thomasville. Strangers and tourists make it a point to go to the stations to see the Pennsylvania vestibule train at different points of the road, and the colored folk stand and stare at the beautiful appointments with eyes and mouth wide open. “Only God’s people,” remarked one surprised darkey, “can ride in them carriages.”

A NEW SOUTHERN RESORT.

If you tell people in New York that you are “going to Brunswick for the winter,” they will probably look at you with surprise; some will say, “Do you mean New Brunswick?” having in mind New Brunswick, N.J.; while others will say, “Brunswick; where is Brunswick, in what State? I never heard of it.” Well, new as Brunswick may appear to the majority, it is an old place, having been settled and laid out in the year 1763.

WHERE IS BRUNSWICK?--Brunswick is in the Southeastern part of Georgia, not far from the Florida border, sixty miles below Savannah, seventy miles north of Jacksonville. The city covers an area of two miles square, and is handsomely laid out, the whole adorned by some of the most beautiful groves of live oaks and cedars to be found in the South. It is situated on a small peninsula jutting out into the sea, surrounded on three sides by salt water, but protected from the severity of the ocean winds by outlying islands. Brunswick is only eight miles from the sea and there are no fresh water streams or swamps within many miles to breed malaria, the air being constantly renewed and vivified by the health-bearing breezes of the ocean, that render it, as official statistics show, one of the healthiest cities in the Union.

Among its natural advantages are its climate, uniform and mild in winter, its geographical position being but little north of St. Augustine, ice being seldom seen, and snow rarely, if ever; its forests of pine, palm and moss-covered oak, its healthy soil, pure water, semi-tropical foliage and plants, the magnificent drives, and last, but by no means least, its superior water facilities, having one of the finest harbors in the South Atlantic. As to the trees: I have stood under the far-famed old oaks of England, I have seen the moss-covered trees of Bonaventure, of which all Savannah proudly boasts, and admired the great oak at Thomasville, whose branches measure ninety feet across; but there is an oak here which belittles them all for age, strength and size. Under the “Lovers’ Oak” at Brunswick it is said that one hundred teams can find shelter from the sun’s rays. It is called Lovers’ Oak because a marriage was once performed under it, several hundred witnesses being present at the open air ceremony.

JEKYL AND OTHER ISLANDS.--There are a number of beautiful islands near here which are fertile almost beyond one’s imagination. Everybody has heard of Jekyl Island, and all true sportsmen know it. It is famous as the location of one of the finest club-houses in the country, the island being a paradise for the sportsman and fisherman. It is literally full of game; deer, wild turkey and other fowl are so plentiful that visitors are sure of good sport. Being a natural game preserve, upon which the general public have not been permitted to hunt, the increase has been rapid and the supply practically inexhaustible. The club-house, seen from the river, is a noble structure. Then there is St. Simon’s Island, which lies off the coast at a distance of seven miles from Brunswick, and is noted for the wonderful fertility of its soil. It excels especially in fruits--oranges, peaches, figs, bananas, olives, lemons, limes and pecans, growing in great profusion. The climate is almost perfection. Ice is seldom seen, and snow has been seen here but once within the present century,

A DOCTOR’S CERTIFICATE.--Brunswick’s peninsular location, almost surrounded by salt water, with immense pine forests on the north, extending hundreds of miles into the interior, conduces to a state of healthfulness excelled by no other place of its population in the whole South. Dr. H. Buford, Health Officer of the City of Brunswick, makes the following official statement: “The result of my observation and experience as a practitioner in this city and in the country adjacent thereto, during a residence of seven years, proves that our mortuary statistics show a minimum death rate--Poughkeepsie, N. Y., not excepted. During an active practice of seven years I cannot record a single case of scarlet fever or diphtheria. Hay fever and asthma are unknown here.”

A MISTAKE OF CONGRESS.--Brunswick is a century and a quarter old, but it went along lazily and slowly, like many other Southern towns and villages, and the war somewhat retarded its progress. Nor was it helped by a committee from Congress which, some years after the war, took a cruise along the Atlantic coast to examine the facilities of our seaports. Congress has not earned its peculiar reputation without deserving it. This committee may have included members who were learned in the law, or who knew how to hoe potatoes, but of harbor advantages and the requirements of ships they must have been innocently ignorant. They reported that “the harbor of Brunswick was twelve feet deep.” This went abroad and ships went elsewhere. How near to the truth came this report may be judged by one instance. On Friday, February 3, 1888, the English steamer, the Port Augusta, cleared this port drawing twenty feet of water and carrying 6,559 bales of cotton, weighing over three millions of pounds and valued at $300,000. It was the largest cargo ever cleared from a South Atlantic port, and ships drawing _twenty-four feet of water_ enter and leave here without the slightest danger of touching bottom. So much for the congressional report. That the shipping facilities of Brunswick are becoming known may be judged also from the following facts and figures: During the whole month of February, 1887, the exports of cotton, naval stores and lumber amounted to $78,000 while for only the _first five days_ of Feb., 1888, the exports amounted to over $300,000. These figures are given on official authority from the collector of the port. Are more significant statements needed to show the marvellous advance and improvement of this place? Here they are--the exports in the year 1886 amounted to less than a million dollars; in 1887 they footed up over two and a quarter millions. The imports of 1886 were less than $5,000, the imports of 1887, $48,000.

A CITY BY THE SEA.--How has all this seeming prosperity and increase of business on the water affected the land? Well, in 1884 the population of Brunswick was 3,000, four years later it was 8,000; the increase of taxable property was thirty-three per cent, greater in ’87 than ’86; the comptroller of the State says that this county (Glynn) has made for the last twelve months a larger pro rata increase than any other county in the State of Georgia, for eight years ago there was not a brick building in the place; now there are blocks and blocks of brick stores and fine dwellings; increase in the value of the land is almost fabulous, and there is a new brick hotel here, “the Oglethorpe,” which cost with furniture, $160,000, the equal of which for site and style cannot be found between Washington, D.C., and St. Augustine, Fla.

THE OGLETHORPE.--The new hotel is an evidence of and in keeping with the new order of things. The location of the building is choice--on the highest ground in Brunswick, affording fine views and rare sanitary facilities. The house is not merely considered to be, but is fire-proof. So perfect is the protection against fire that the company insuring the property reduced the usual hotel rate one-half in consideration of the character of the building and the excellence of the fire system adopted. The Oglethorpe stands on the principal street, near the railway depot and steamboat wharf, on a plot of ground about three hundred feet square, the main building having three stories and being two hundred and sixty-seven feet long, with wings running back one hundred and forty feet. It is the largest building in the place, and with its graceful round brick towers at each corner, and its turrets and spires jutting through the roof, here and there, it is the most prominent object you see as you approach Brunswick from any direction, either by land or water. The Oglethorpe, being new, is the latest exponent of all that is best and most approved in modern hotel building, and of course has all the “modern improvements.” The drawing-room is a grand apartment, reminding you of the parlor of the United States at Saratoga; the dining-room is lighted from three sides, and seats three hundred persons; the main floor, the entrance, office and lower hall are tiled with Georgia marble in beautiful colors, and there is a covered porch for promenading which reaches up to the second story. It is two hundred and forty feet long, and from twenty to twenty-five feet wide.

The bedrooms of the Oglethorpe are larger, as a rule, than those of most hotels. Even the “small rooms” connecting with the suites are twenty feet long by eleven wide, and have two windows, each seven feet high by three feet wide. The “tower” rooms, with their open fire-places, carved wooden mantels, tiled hearths, rich Moquette carpets, portières of velours, and lace curtains on brass poles are as handsome as the bedrooms of any other hotel that the writer has seen, and if the walls and ceilings were artistically decorated and frescoed, the “tower” rooms of the Oglethorpe probably might compare with those palatial bedrooms of the Hotel Métropole in London. A peculiarity of the Oglethorpe is that there are no back rooms; each one faces the street or overlooks the bay, but a few hundred feet distant. Between the bay and the house the grounds of the hotel are attractively laid out. As to the table and general management of the Oglethorpe, it is only necessary to say that the manager is Warren Leland, Jr., a member of the celebrated Leland family--a name long associated with some of the leading hotels in the United States.

EN ROUTE TO AND FROM FLORIDA.--Brunswick is reached by rail from the North by the Atlantic Coast Line and the Savannah, Florida and Western Railroad by way of Savannah and Waycross, Ga., and from Jacksonville, Florida, by railway to Fernandina in one hour, and thence by steamboat in four hours. The water route is very pleasant. The boats, if not splendid specimens of naval architecture, are at least staunch and comfortable. You take an inside route, hug the shore, pass many beautiful islands and get glimpses of most picturesque scenes.

Tourists contemplating a visit to Florida for health or pleasure do well to break the journey at Waycross or Jessup, visit Brunswick and see the charming country thereabouts. The run is made from Waycross to Brunswick in three hours and ten minutes.

The route Southward is from New York to Quantico, Va., over the Pennsylvania tracks; from Richmond to Charleston via Atlantic Coast Line; from Waycross to Brunswick by the Plant system. Leave New York (Desbrosses or Cortlandt streets) at 9 P.M. or midnight--through car to Waycross.

A CUBAN CITY IN THE UNITED STATES.

KEY WEST, February, 1891.

Key West, in Spanish Cayo Hueso (Bone Island), derived its name, so says history, from the fact that the island was strewn with human bones. The conquerors didn’t take time to bury the bones of the conquered. The change, corruption Spaniards call it, from Cayo Hueso to Key West was easy.

The United States bought the island from Spain in 1816. The formation is coral and it contains about two thousand acres. The Hon. C. B. Pendleton, editor and proprietor of the _Equator-Democrat_, and a man of culture who has served in the State Senate, showed me an island, or key, as they call it in these parts, distant from Key West five miles, and which he believed to be the most southerly point in the United States. Another authority informed me that Cape Sable, distant from Key West about sixty miles, is the most southerly point.

To quote Editor Pendleton, Key West is distant from the tropical line only thirteen miles. Doctors will differ; another authority gives it as sixty miles. I am inclined to think that on the tropical question my editorial brother is correct in his estimate, because Key West is only distant from Cuba eighty or ninety miles.

The climate is about the same as that of Havana. In the Cuban capital the mercury never goes below sixty degrees; in Key West the lowest point recorded is fifty-one.

Key West is the ninth port of entry in the United States, collecting more import duty than all the other ports in the States of Florida and Georgia and one-half of Alabama combined.

In 1860 the population was about two thousand, one-quarter of whom were colored; but in 1869, after the rebellion in Cuba, the population of the island began to increase and now it numbers twenty-two thousand, and they claim that it is the largest city in Florida.

The inhabitants are mixed, very much mixed--Cubans, negroes, Americans, Chinese, etc. The negroes come from Nassau, Cuba and other places.

Key West was bought of Spain, as before remarked; the island is nearer Cuba than any other land, it is not in any sense American except that it flies the American flag, and it seems to be now, to all intents and purposes, a foreign place--a Spanish colony, as it once was. Spanish is the prevailing language, and Cubans predominate. All the public notices and handbills are printed in two languages, several newspapers are printed in Spanish, and only one, the _Equator-Democrat_, in English. It is difficult to make a purchase or to transact any business unless you speak Spanish, and there are few drivers or conductors of street cars who can understand you if addressed in English. The car drivers swear at their patient, sadly abused mules in hard Spanish. All the American residents and business men speak the prevailing tongue, or are learning it as fast as they can, for without it they cannot so readily conduct business.

Speaking of the street cars, they are all open, of course, winter and summer. In fact, there is never anything resembling northern winter weather in Key West; light summer clothes and Panama hats are worn the year round.

But you are not obliged to patronize street cars. Riding in private conveyances is at a cheaper rate of fare than even in London, or in a country town on the Continent. In London the smallest cab fare is one shilling (twenty-five cents); in Key West you can ride a short distance for a dime, and a longer distance for fifteen cents. The conveyance is a very light and very dirty wagonette on four wheels. The driver is as dirty as his vehicle, and his horse resembles those poor skeletons which are blindfolded and pushed into the arena at a Cuban bull fight.

Such tropical fruits as the sugar apple, the guava, mango, the soft and sweet sapadillo, thrive in Key West. The climate and salt atmosphere combine to make it the home of the palm. There are many tall, slender and beautiful cocoanut trees, some with their graceful leaves waving as high as eighty feet in the air, making an interesting and pretty picture against a cloudless sky.

But the cultivation of the cocoanut in Key West might be made very profitable as well as picturesque. At present there are comparatively few of such trees; their cultivation ought to be encouraged. The tree has no tap root, and will thrive on a thin soil. It comes into bearing eight or ten years from the nut; and after that the fruit grows and increases every month in the year. Like the orange tree, the older it gets the more it bears. A bearing cocoanut grove costs less to care for than an orange grove, and the revenue therefrom is greater. It requires no cultivation, and is as hardy in its section as the cabbage palmetto, that grows everywhere in Florida. Besides, cocoanuts can be shipped in any month of the year; they require no packing, no care in handling, and they will bear transportation for thousands of miles. There is a good market for green cocoanuts in these parts as well as for matured ones. When the nut is fully grown, but green, it contains about two glasses of clear juice, milk we call it in the North. It is considered a healthful beverage in the tropics and sells per glass in the streets of Havana for the equivalent of five cents.

Nature has favored Key West with a perfect climate. It is surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico, as blue and as beautiful as the famous Danube. Nature in fact has done everything she could to make the place desirable as a residence for man, but man has done little or nothing for himself, thus far, and if the truth must be told, notwithstanding its favorable natural conditions and its lovely surroundings, Key West is not yet a desirable place to live in. It has no sanitary laws, for nothing whatever has been done with a view to sanitation, and yet with the salt ocean all around the little island, how easy it would be to make it healthy and clean, for it is neither one nor the other. There is no such thing as system, no sewerage whatever in the town excepting one iron pipe which leads from one hotel, the Russell House, to the sea, and even that one pipe is allowed to clog occasionally.

A liberally illustrated and large edition of the _Equator-Democrat_ was issued in 1889, which presents a very rose-colored view of Key West. In that paper I find that “the pleasant streets running at right angles are as smooth and hard as adamant.” I am not certain that I am very well acquainted with adamant, but I know that the streets of Key West are unpaved and that they are the roughest and the dirtiest streets I ever saw. As I have lived in Baltimore, in New York and in New Orleans, my testimony ought to be accepted on such a theme. I speak of Key West in fine weather; what it must be in wet weather I don’t like to imagine. If nothing but very deep ruts, holes and great gullies in the roadway resemble adamant then is Key West adamantine beyond doubt.

There is not a boot-black in the town; none is needed. Nobody thinks of blacking his shoes; it would be absurd. I spoke on this point with a young New Yorker who hails from the fashionable precincts of Madison avenue. He is a business man who is liberal in the matter of money, usually dressy, and extremely neat in his person. He has been in Key West six months, and in all that time not a brush has passed over his shoes.

I regret to differ with my learned and courteous friend, the editor of the _Democrat_, on the subject of hotels. Let him speak for himself. He says that “The Russell House, the leading hotel in the city, is second to none in the State in accommodations.” Now I had an idea that St. Augustine and Jacksonville and Tampa were in Florida, and that there were such hotels “in the State” as the Ponce de Leon and The Cordova at St. Augustine, and the new Tampa Bay Hotel at Tampa Bay, not to mention a number of other first-class houses “in the State.”

Directly opposite the Russell is the Duval House. You may never have heard of it; it is not one-third the size of the Russell House. I know nothing of the apartments of the Duval. for I investigated no further than the dining-room, but that was enough to establish its good reputation. It will be a long time before I forget how beautifully garnished a dish they made at the Duval of a red snapper, and the delicious flavor of their _omelette soufflée_ remains with me still. The Duval is presided over by a Cuban lady, Mrs. Bolio, who kept for years one of the leading hotels in Havana. She is evidently a woman who knows what good living is.

Cigar-making is a very large and important industry in Key West. The place was selected for cigar-making because the climate is suited to the “curing” of tobacco in the leaf, and because it is near Havana. There is something also in the name. Everybody does not know that this (Spanish) island is United States territory, and some smokers if they see a “Key West” label on a box of cigars believe, without stopping to think, that they are smoking a foreign-made cigar. Now a Key West cigar if made from Havana tobacco of fine quality has just as good a flavor as if it were made in Cuba, but the Key West cigar can be sold at a lower price because the import duty on cigars is much higher than the duty on the raw material.

Having the same climate as Havana, the best climate in the world for tobacco curing, and the cigars being made by Cubans, who are the best cigar-makers in the world, Key West turns out just as good cigars as can be produced anywhere--provided always that tobacco of the first quality is used. And the cigar need not consist entirely of Havana tobacco. A cigar of choice flavor is made of a mixture of tobaccos--Havana “filler” and “binder,” with, say, a “Connecticut seed” or Sumatra wrapper.

The manufacture of cigars has without doubt aided largely in building up the business of Key West. One authority says that there are two hundred factories, employing five thousand operatives, and transacting a business amounting to seven millions of dollars annually. But this report may be exaggerated. However, here are some more figures, and if the reader is mathematically inclined he can draw his own conclusions: Key West during 1890 turned out one hundred and forty millions of cigars.

There are very few Spanish or American cigarmakers in Key West; the majority are Cubans, with a very small sprinkling of negroes. There are so many factories and so many operatives that, although it is a cigar-producing place, very few cigars indeed are sold at retail. Everybody smokes, every one invites you to smoke; cigars are almost as free as the air. It would be a paradise for a young dude who has a slender purse and who is addicted to the weed.

Upon the courteous invitation of P. Pohalski & Co., who have a branch in Havana, with headquarters in Warren street, New York, I paid a visit to their factory, which is one of the largest in Key West, and I was much interested in what I saw. Pohalski & Co. erected their own factory, upon their own ground, and it is one of the most imposing edifices in Key West. They also built upon their own land a number of small houses which they rent to their workmen at a moderate figure; for its size it is quite a respectable colony.

Although very large, employing several hundred hands, the factory is orderly, exceedingly clean and neat, showing good government. Perfect system reigns throughout the entire establishment. The first floor is used for the business offices, for cases of tobacco and for the “strippers;” the whole of the second floor is occupied by cigar makers, and the third floor is used by the “packers,” also for curing leaf tobacco and for storing cigars in boxes.

A “stripper” is one who, with the dexter finger and thumb of the right hand pulls the stem from the leaf while the leaf is damp, the leaf being held in the left hand. It is done by a dexterous and quick movement, not a vestige of the leaf remaining on the stem. The most costly leaves, for wrappers, are only entrusted to experienced operators. The strippers in this factory are numbered by scores. They are all females, all Cubans, and range in age from ten years old to women of fifty.

It is not a pleasing sight to one who associates woman with habits of refinement, to see the older women, while at their work of stripping, smoke long, thick cigars. They hold the cigar between their teeth and seldom remove it, not even to talk. They are rough-looking cigars, rolled into shape by the women themselves from the leaves they are stripping.

A more pleasing picture is presented on the cigar-making floor, above. You will be surprised upon entering to see a man standing erect in the centre of the room, book in hand, reading aloud. You cannot help but notice, although Spanish may be Greek to you, that the reader’s voice is powerful and well trained, reaching to the extreme corners and to the most distant ears on the vast floor. He is a professional reader. The several hundred men club together, each paying a nominal sum for the reader’s services. In this way, while engaged in their work, they hear the news of the day and are regaled with the latest Spanish novel.

“Packing” cigars is a technical term. It is not simply to tie them up with pretty silk ribbons and place them neatly in a box. A packer is one who assorts the colors also. It is a very nice and delicate piece of work. It demands a good eye for color and long experience, and then it can only be done in a certain light, of course not by artificial light, nor unless the day is bright.

An overcast, murky and heavy sky is not good for packing--assorting, it might be called. In a few hundred loose cigars placed on a table ready for “packing,” the casual observer will probably see only three or four colors. They are first assorted roughly to bring together those of decided colors--light brown, medium, dark brown, etc. Then a pile of dark or light shades is gone over again and again until the different piles of cigars are alike, as if they were all made from one leaf and turned out by machinery. The packer also discards a cigar that is not perfectly made, or one not uniform with the rest. A special few, exact as to form and hue, are selected for the top row, to catch and please the eye of the smoker when the lid of the box is raised. A good packer is paid better than any other operative in the business. Men and women are employed in it, some of them earning as high as twenty-five or thirty-five dollars per week.

The sponge trade is also a very large and important industry here. The sponges are found in this part of the Gulf of Mexico, and the trade gives employment to a great many people. I visited the largest sponge house, that of Arapian & Co., and saw there in different stages, sponges valued at a quarter of a million dollars. Such a stock of sponges, as you can easily imagine, occupies much space. My only surprise was to find such valuable merchandise housed in a light frame building. A fire would spread easily, and the whole would be rapidly consumed.

I have spoken of the dirty, unpaved streets of Key West; it would be unfair not to mention a lovely drive which you can take for a few miles on the edge of the Gulf. You go around the old forts, you see lighthouses and other interesting objects en route, the bracing air from the Gulf fans your cheeks, the ocean is spread out before you, and if you return in the early evening, and near dinner time, you will most likely be favored with a grand sunset, and you will surely have a keen appetite.

Key West is reached from New York by steamers of the Mallory line, and from New Orleans by New Orleans and Havana steamers, but decidedly the best and most luxurious way of going to the island is by the Plant line of steamers which leave Tampa, Florida and Havana, Cuba, three times a week. The “Mascotte” and “Olivette” were built for this route. They are both staunch, swift, beautifully appointed ships, whose commanders were in the Atlantic service for years, the “Olivette” being the fastest boat of her size in the world--a model vessel.

If you are going to Key West for pleasure--it is possible for people to go there with that end in view--you will go from New York to Jacksonville via the Pennsylvania and Atlantic coast lines and there take the Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railroad, although part of this “railway” journey consists of a sail on the Gulf of Mexico, from Tampa.

The island, with all its objectionable features, has churches of different denominations, it has convents, good schools, and has one large substantial and beautiful brick and stone building for a custom house, for which the government appropriated one hundred thousand dollars.

Key West has a police force numbering fourteen officers, including men of all colors and several nationalities.

ST. AUGUSTINE.

AN ANCIENT CITY MODERNIZED.

ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA., Feb. 8, 1891.

What a contrast, to leave the dust and dirt of Key West, its unpaved roadways, full of deep ruts, large holes and great gullies: Key West, with its mixed population of twenty thousand negroes, Cubans, Chinamen and white folks: Key West, minus sidewalks, and minus many evidences of a high state of civilization: what a contrast is it to arrive in this beautiful city of the South, with its smooth-paved streets, its clean and aristocratic air, and its three wondrously beautiful Spanish hotels, all within speaking distance of each other. It is like leaping, if I may use such an expression, from hades to heaven.

The changes here within the past three years are great. Most important to the tourist is the erection of a railway bridge which crosses the St. John’s River. Three years ago you were obliged to stop at Jacksonville if you approached from the north; if from the south, you steamed across on a ferry-boat from Palatka. Now you take your seat in a drawing-room car at Jersey City, in the North, or at Tampa, if you approach from the South, and you need not leave the car until the conductor calls out “St. Augustine”--thirty-one hours by vestibuled train from New York, twelve hours by the West India Fast Mail from the Gulf, at Tampa.

As to other changes, much land has been reclaimed from the river, miles of roadway have been asphalted and paved with wooden blocks; the old fort is being restored, for which work the government has appropriated $15,000; many new houses have been built, all of coquina and in the Moorish style; to the oldest house in the town has been added a new stone tower; there has been erected a new City Hall, which includes a fine market; and to crown it all, as it were, there is a new church, a Memorial Presbyterian Church, built in memory of the beautiful daughter Mr. Flagler lost two years ago. The structure is so attractive, so pleasing to the eye, that in driving away from it you find yourself constantly turning around to keep its graceful architectural lines in view as long as possible.

It is probably not possible to enhance the splendor of the Ponce de Leon Hotel, the drawing-room of which, with its magnificent proportions, its onyx fire-place, its ceiling decorations, its rich carpets and furniture, and its rare paintings by Bridgman, Koppay, and other artists, is not rivalled by any other hotel in the world. To call it palatial is no compliment to “the Ponce” parlor, for I have seen no apartments in royal palaces that are more pleasing, and I have been favored with a view of many palaces in many countries. But the approaches to the great hotel and its own grounds have been improved and are now finished.

The same remarks will apply to the exterior of the Alcazar Hotel, the smooth and pleasant walk around the outside of which measures just half a mile. The colored boys know: they use it semi-occasionally for a foot or bicycle race: “twice around the Alcazar is one mile” they will tell you.

One of the novel features of this establishment is a swimming pool, into which the sulphur water rushes up from the artesian well with great force. There is room in the pool (40 by 120 feet) for scores of swimmers, and there is always a number of visitors looking from the galleries above on the lively scene below. With the mercury ranging between 70 and 80 the sulphur water is indeed refreshing; and they say it is quite invigorating. Temperature of the water, 75 degrees.

In the Hotel Cordova you will notice some changes, for the indefatigable manager, E. N. Wilson, is never content with his efforts. There is a new dining-room for instance. The best seems not good enough for Mr. Wilson, and his critical eye is always finding some way to improve the house and to add to its comfort. He has redecorated the parlor. The walls are now richly papered but the tints are not satisfactory--to Mr. Wilson. The furniture and carpets are in dark colors, so Mr. Wilson later on contemplates covering the walls with white and gold for an artistic contrast. Expensive? Yes, I should say so, but who cares for the expense? Mr. Flagler has a very long purse and Mr. Wilson has _carte blanche_. If the owner in planning these hotels had thought only of pecuniary profit probably they would never have come into existence in their present form. It is an idea with him to beautify the ancient city, and a half million dollars more or less make little or no difference to Mr. Flagler. Yet his hotels are conducted with a careful regard of business-like methods, although this is not apparent to the casual observer.

By the way, I have the very best of reasons for knowing that Mr. Flagler’s private acts of charity are many and munificent. After making full and proper inquiry into a case presented to him he always responds, but he never wants his generous acts to be made public. He will not thank me for this “mention,” I feel sure, but it is his due and possibly no harm can come from printing it.

Mr. Flagler has bought all the land around and about his three hotels, so that nobody can erect anything anywhere near him. He is not the man to do anything by halves.

The sitting-room in which this is penned is one of a suite I occupy in the castellated tower on a corner of the Hotel Cordova. The walls of the building are of gray coquina. Outside each window is a small and separate “kneeling balcony,” protected by ornamental iron railings, painted a reddish brown--such balconies as you see in some buildings in Madrid. The windows have white lace curtains and the shades are alternate blue and crimson--contrasting pleasantly with the neutral tint of the outer walls. To the east, within stone’s throw, is Cordova Park; to the west, the same distance, is the one-acre park of the Alcazar, with its tropical foliage, pretty walks and handsome fountain; while diagonally opposite, same distance again (about one hundred feet), loom up the terra-cotta turrets, towers, arches and gabled roofs of the Ponce de Leon Hotel, with its grand park of four and a half acres. This may convey some idea of the situation; to describe the scene requires the pen if not the pencil of an artist.

The Cordova drawing-room has its tables and chairs, and it contains some books also; not odd volumes picked up haphazard, but books bought and selected by an artist, book-worm and connoisseur. In the Cordova library you will find “Burke’s Peerage,” “Almanach de Gotha,” “Webster’s Royal Red Book,” “Kelly’s Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes,” “The County Families of the United Kingdom,” Debrett’s “House of Commons and the Judicial Bench,” “Castles and Abbeys of England” and “Stately Homes of England.” I have enumerated only a few of the ordinary volumes relating to Great Britain, but there are also rare and valuable tomes richly and beautifully illustrated, descriptive of life and scenes in different countries. For instance, one set in three volumes is “Masterpieces of Industrial Art and Sculpture at the International Exhibition,” by J. B. Waring, published in 1862. This mammoth work is richly illuminated, bound in red morocco, picked out with gold, and measures one foot by a foot and a half. It probably cost in London twenty-five pounds, and gives one some idea of the money and good taste expended in selecting the Cordova library. If one is fond of instructive books his taste can be gratified at the Cordova.

At the majority of hotels you eat ordinary oranges, brought to the table direct from the store-room: at the Cordova only Indian River oranges are used, selected “Indian Rivers,” and instead of coming direct from the store-room they come from a refrigerator. After this process they become Grateful and Comforting, to quote the names which Epps, the famous cocoa man, gave his two daughters. Perfect quiet reigns in the dining-room. The waiters are governed, well governed, by a head waiter whose head is level. He would even satisfy that “cranky critic,” as he has been called, Max O’Rell. The men, when serving dinner, wear dress coats, black trousers and white cravats. Instead of a loose waistcoat they wear a broad black sash around the waist, and instead of noisy boots they wear shoes having cloth uppers and rubber soles--black tennis shoes. Not a word is heard from the servants, except in polite response to an order, and they glide about like dark angels.

ABOUT TAMPA.

THE INN, PORT TAMPA, FLA., January 31, 1891.

Tampa is of interest historically, being the place where Ferdinand De Soto landed May 25, 1539. From here he started on his search for the mines of wealth supposed to exist in the new world, which resulted in the discovery of the Mississippi river. It is here also that Narvaez, having obtained a grant of Florida from Charles V. of Spain, landed with a large force April 16, 1528.

Tampa is on the Gulf coast of Florida, two hundred and forty miles from Jacksonville. There are two trains daily with Pullman cars from Jacksonville and St. Augustine to Tampa, passing through Palatka, Sanford and Winter Park, both having direct connection with all Eastern and Western cities and one being a through train from New York.

Its rapid growth during the past seven years from about eight hundred inhabitants to as many thousands, has been brought about by the Plant system, which completed the South Florida railroad to Tampa for the purpose of developing Tampa commercially.

Dr. Long, a United States army surgeon, wrote of Fort Brooks, at Tampa, “This post has always been considered a delightful station.” Dr. Long’s reports and other reports to the surgeon-general at Washington show it to be one of the most healthful stations in the country.

Peninsulas have always been thought desirable because of their climate, which gives them advantages over other localities, and among peninsulas Florida is unrivalled because of its latitude and particularly as it is affected by the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

The investment of large capital in constructing a new hotel in Florida with the expectation of drawing to it the requisite patronage, demanded a knowledge of the requirements of winter tourists who visit the place for health or pleasure. Those requirements have been carefully studied by Mr. H. B. Plant, president of the Plant Investment Company, acting under the advice of eminent scientists, in the selection of Tampa. The new hotel is situated on the west side of the Hillsborough river where it empties into Tampa bay, opposite to and facing the city, which is within easy walking distance. From the river to the front of the hotel there are extensive lawns and flower beds, with orange, palm and other tropical trees, the hotel grounds and property including twenty-two acres. At the rear of the house there is a long stretch of pine lands.

As you view the house at a distance, from the deck of a steamer, or from a car window, with its long stretch of brick front, its iron and stone trimmings, its many towers with great and gorgeous silver-bronzed, balloon-shaped domes, each surmounted by a shining gold crescent, it impresses you at once as being a great oriental palace. And this idea is aided by the palms and other tropical trees and shrubs by which it is surrounded.

The oriental idea also strikes you as you enter. There is a grand “office,” the ceilings are supported by stout marble columns, and the music-room, the drawing-room, and all the minor rooms on the main floor are furnished in the very best taste, the matter of expense never seeming to be a question with those who selected the furniture and decorations in different parts of the world. It is safe to say that very few winter or summer resort hotels in this country are as richly furnished.