"The light that never was, on sea or land."




A MORNING AT THE OLD SUGAR MILL.[1]


[Footnote 1: I have called the ruin here spoken of a "sugar mill" for no
better reason than because that is the name commonly applied to it by
the residents of the town. When this sketch was written, I had never
heard of a theory since broached in some of our Northern newspapers,--I
know not by whom,--that the edifice in question was built as a chapel,
perhaps by Columbus himself! I should be glad to believe it, and can
only add my hope that he will be shown to have built also the so-called
sugar mill a few miles north of New Smyrna, in the Dunlawton hammock
behind Port Orange. In that, to be sure, there is still much old
machinery, but perhaps its presence would prove no insuperable objection
to a theory so pleasing. In matters of this kind, much depends upon
subjective considerations; in one sense, at least, "all things are
possible to him that believeth." For my own part, I profess no opinion.
I am neither an archaeologist nor an ecclesiastic, and speak simply as a
chance observer.]

On the third or fourth day of my sojourn at the Live Oak Inn, the lady
of the house, noticing my peripatetic habits, I suppose, asked whether I
had been to the old sugar mill. The ruin is mentioned in the guide-books
as one of the historic features of the ancient settlement of New Smyrna,
but I had forgotten the fact, and was thankful to receive a description