The first frosts turned the upper leaves of the banana trees a light brown like that of elm leaves after they fall in the autumn. The two nights at seventeen killed the plants to the ground, and not even the thick coats that I saw hung over green bunches of bananas here and there sufficed to keep the fruit from freezing, any more than similar protection helped the flower beds any; the cold was too severe to be staved off in that way. I think the most striking sight was a big field of sugar cane out at Hastings. This had been green and luxuriant, though ripe for the knife, the grinding having begun in many sections. After the second morning of severe cold this field was all of a lovely soft, tan brown, the exact color of the shooks in a Northern cornfield where they are allowed to stand out in the field until this time of year. The Southern cornstalks still standing in the field do not take that color, nor are they so massed. The whole looked as striking and out of place as the weather in which I saw it. In this same town of Hastings is a big orange grove from which the fruit had been but half picked, the rest hanging, waiting for the holiday rush to be over, the market cleaned up, and the prices better. There the orange leaves were curled and crisp with the frost and a thousand boxes or more of splendid, golden fruit was still hanging, yellow, beautiful in the chill sun--and solid blocks of ice, from kumquats which are as big as one’s thumb to grapefruit almost as big as one’s head. There is an alligator friend of mine out by the city gates for whose safety on that first cold morning I was much concerned. For free alligators one need have but little worry. Safe under water in the warm corners of the swamps they were sleepy and happy and would not come out till the sun called them with sufficient vigor to assure them a warm day. Nor need I worry much for the city alligator who is put into the little pond beneath a fountain in the plaza on the first of January, to be removed no doubt when the tourists go. The steady outflow of warm artesian water would make him comfortable. The East Coast railroad people have two that they put into similar tanks in their station grounds. These, too, seem to be a part of the decoration in honor [Illustration: “The first frosts turned the upper leaves of the banana trees a light brown”] of the tourists. So, not to be outdone in friendly welcome, a photographer friend of mine has been keeping “George” in a pen in a shallow, cement tank on his grounds down by the city gate.