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National Geographic : 1908 Dec
Contents
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE THE OLD SPANISH FORT, MATANZAS INLET, FLORIDA prosperous days. Everywhere are seen the mended crevices that are reminders of the days of earthquake a quarter of a century ago.. Tiers of latticed verandas are the rule, and the roofs bear heavy old-fashioned tiles. There is a mournful dignity in the quiet city, living even now in the atmosphere of a time long gone; and nowhere is this felt more deeply than when in the moonlight one sees the line of the fine old houses that front the bat tery wall and set their faces toward the broad expanse of the harbor. The moon's rays glint along the barrels of old cannon that speak mutely of an historic past, and darkly outlined against the sea ward horizon above the shimmering rip ples of the bay lies old Fort Sumter. The grass may grow between the cobblestones of the streets along the water front, and the vultures may flock each morning to the ancient market roof; but do not these things comport with the repose of that patrician life which only the old South knew and the charmed memory of which still lingers here in Charleston, the aris tocrat of American cities? In our South the tangible things around us keep fresh the memory of things the North has long since forgot ten: The lone chimney of the farmhouse burned in the civil war, the deserted man sion crumbling to decay, and under the live-oaks the many graves of those who died in the lost cause. The palmetto is the most distinctive, but by no means the most attractive, tree of the South Carolina-Florida region. The most northerly natural grove of this palm is found close by the side of the beach of Cape Fear, at the southernmost extremity of North Caro lina; but in northern Florida it consti tutes whole forests and grows even upon the sandy beaches within a few feet of the breakers. Here, in combination with the yucca, the holly, and the cactus, it forms bristling thickets whose spiny leaves bid defiance to all intruders. Far ther inland, however, along the moist 864
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