St. Augustine is perhaps the most talked-about city in Florida. It is a
quaint old Spanish city with a great history. The evidences of the past
seem to be disappearing rapidly, the retreat being forced by the
introduction of modern ideas and immense sums of modern capital.
Memorial Church is one of the features of the town, and behind it the
traveler sees, as he approaches, turrets and towers of every shape and
size. The pavements are almost uniformly good, and as one is driven
along the streets for the first time, every turning seems to bring to
light some new wonder and some unexpected beauty. Hedges formed of
oleanders, arbor vitae, larches and cedars, to say nothing of masses of
roses of all kinds, upset all his preconceived notions of tree, shrub
and flower growth, and convince him that he has come to a land flowing
indeed with milk and honey, where winters are practically unknown.

The Hotel Ponce de Leon is naturally the great object of his search, and
if his purse affords it the tourist certainly stops here, if only for
the sake of saying that he has slept, for one night at least, in this
extraordinary and marvelously magnificent hostelry. If the Ponce de Leon
were in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis or Chicago, it would excite
murmurs of admiration on every hand. But its existence would not be
regarded as something extraordinary, as it certainly is in a town of the
size of St. Augustine. The enterprise which led to its construction has
been commented on again and again, and the liberal methods of management
have also been the subject of much comment. As the carriage passes
through the arched gateway into the enclosed court, blooming all the
year round with fragrance and beauty, the tourist begins to apologize
mentally for the skepticism in which he has indulged, concerning this
wonder of the age. After mounting several successive terraces of broad
stone steps, he finds himself at last before the magnificent front of
the great hotel. Before him there is the grand doorway, surmounted by