Of the salubrity of East Florida I must speak less positively, although it is certain that in St. Augustine emigrants from the north enjoy good health.  The owners of the plantations in the neighborhood, prefer to pass the hot season in this city, not caring to trust their constitutions to the experiment of a summer residence in the country.  Of course they are settled on the richest soils, and these are the least healthy.  The pine barrens are safer; when not interspersed with marshes, the sandy lands that bear the pine are esteemed healthy all over the south.  Yet there are plantations on the St. John’s where emigrants from the north reside throughout the year.  The opinion seems everywhere to prevail, and I believe there is good reason for it, that Florida, notwithstanding its low and level surface, is much more healthy than the low country of South Carolina and Georgia.

The other day I went out with a friend to a sugar plantation in the neighborhood of St. Augustine.  As we rode into the inclosure we breathed the fragrance of young orange-trees in flower, the glossy leaves of which, green at all seasons, were trembling in the wind.  A troop of negro children were at play at a little distance from the cabins, and one of them ran along with us to show us a grove of sour oranges which we were looking for.  He pointed us to a copse in the middle of a field, to which we proceeded.  The trees, which were of considerable size, were full of flowers, and the golden fruit was thick on the branches, and lay scattered on the ground below.  I gathered a few of the oranges, and found them almost as acid as the lemon.  We stopped to look at the buildings in which the sugar was manufactured.  In one of them was the mill where the cane was crushed with iron rollers, in another stood the huge cauldrons, one after another, in which the juice was boiled down to the proper consistence; in another were barrels of sugar, of syrup—­a favorite article of consumption in this city—­of molasses, and a kind of spirits resembling Jamaica rum, distilled from the refuse of the molasses.  The proprietor was absent, but three negroes, well-clad young men, of a very respectable appearance and intelligent physiognomy, one of whom was a distiller, were occupied about the buildings, and showed them to us.  Near by in the open air lay a pile of sugar cane, of the ribbon variety, striped with red and white, which had been plucked up by the roots, and reserved for planting.  The negroes of St. Augustine are a good-looking specimen of the race, and have the appearance of being very well treated.  You rarely see a negro in ragged clothing, and the colored children, though slaves, are often dressed with great neatness.  In the colored people whom I saw in the Catholic church, I remarked a more agreeable, open, and gentle physiognomy than I have been accustomed to see in that class.  The Spanish race blends more kindly with the African, than does the English, and produces handsomer men and women.