AN OCEAN VOYAGE IN WINTER. 175

passengers flock on shore, and here you first begin to realize
that you have left the dreary regions of winter behind. As
he nears the wharf, the tourist will begin to think that, in
the number of smells at least, it resembles the city of Co-
logne. This, however, is due to the vast quantity of fer-
tilizers which is constantly on storage near by.
 Next day-the fourth from New York-Fernandina is
reached, a lovely island city of roaj streets, and ample
flower-gardens surrounding handsome houses. Here we get
our first near view of the palmetto and the orange-tree, and
of that teeming luxuriance of vegetation which marks a
semi-tropical clime. Again on board, and seven hours later
the steamer is passing swiftly up the broad and beautiful
St. John's River, affording on either hand a continuous
panorama of the most pleas andl c ry. Soon
the mighty screw ceases to revolve, we round gracefully up
to the pier, good-bys are hastily exchanged, and the tourist
is in Jacksonville,* the social headquarters in wint4- d
the chief commercial center of the Land of Flowers. Here
at last he finds June in January; and, as he discards his
overcoat and takes his farewell glance at the steamer which
brought him thither, he will be apt to recall Thomas Bu-
chanan Read's suggestive and graceful lines:
 "Yon deep bark goes
 Where traffic blows
 From lands of sun to lands of snows;
 This happier one
 Its race is run
 From lands of snow to lands of sun."

 Since the foregoing was written, a change of plan has occurred, by
which the steamers of the Mallory Line stop at Fernandina, and passengers
are carried to Jacksonville in one and a half hour by the new short-cut
railroad. It is understood that this arrangement is only temporary, and
the steamers will, in the near future, resume their through trips direct to
Jacksonville.