This brief account of one of the most interesting towns in this country, in many historical points of view, has been prepared to meet the wants of those who may desire to learn something of the place in view of a sojourn, or who may already have come hither in search of health. The work makes no pretension to fullness of detail, nor to absolute perfection in any particular. It is rather a glimpse at, than a full history of, the place, though it gives such a connected view of the course of events

This city, the ancient metropolis of the Spanish Province of East Florida, is situated near the Atlantic coast, little south of the 30th parallel of north latitude. The southern point of a narrow peninsula, formed by the confluence of the waters of the St. Sebastian River and the sea, which here is backed in behind Anastatia Island, through the inlets of North River and Matanzas bar, is the site on which the city stands. The island, behind which takes place an expansion of these waters into a be

This city is by forty years the oldest town within the limits of the United States of America. It was the offspring of the religious bigotry, fanaticism, and jealousy, of a barbarous but heroic age. On the 8th of September, 1565, at noonday, on the celebration of a religious festival in honor of Mary, the virgin goddess of Papal homage and superstitious reverence, a creature of the Spanish government, Pedro Melendez by name, who had recently crossed from the old world, entered this harbor, debar

This city enjoys many advantages in respect to climate, which are peculiar. The same may be true of the climate of the Florida peninsula in general. An intelligent correspondent of the Army and Navy Chronicle, in an interesting article, thus writes of the climate of Florida: “Florida, from its position, lying just north of the Tropic of Cancer, and being nearly surrounded by water, would be judged to possess one of the blandest and most equable climates in the world. And such, in fact, for sever