OLD FORT AND SEA WALL AT ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA.—This old fort possesses a peculiar interest for Americans, being the oldest historic fortification of our country. Its construction was begun by Menendez de Aviles, a Spaniard, in 1565, but it was not completed until two centuries later. It was then called Fort San Marco, but with a ruthless disregard of historic associations characteristic of our people, it has been changed to Fort Marion, without in the least adding to the lustre of the renown of the great Revolutionary patriot of the South. The walls of the fort are composed of a conglomerate called coquina, which is formed of shells and sand brought from the island of Anastasia. Originally soft and pliable as plaster, it becomes almost of granitic hardness by exposure, affording a safe protection against the primitive artillery of that period. ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: A HUNTER’S CABIN ON THE CANAL, DISMAL SWAMP.] Crossing Hampton Roads by steamer to Norfolk, we proceeded southward by the Norfolk Southern Railroad, through a region known as the Dismal Swamp, famous alike in fact and fiction. The term has been indelibly affixed to two extensive stretches of morass, the larger of which lies between the James River on the north and Albemarle Sound on the south, thus covering a part of Virginia and North Carolina, having a length of about forty miles and a breadth of twenty-five miles. Little Dismal Swamp is wholly within North Carolina, in the peninsula between Albemarle Sound and Pimlico Sound, and while occupying considerably less than one-third as much area as Great Dismal, is probably better known to readers because of the tragedies which have been enacted within its dark and gloomy districts. Speaking generally, the swamps are composed of a spongy, vegetable soil, but without any mixture of earth, which supports a dense growth of aquatic plants, brush-wood and timber. Sir Charles Lyell, the distinguished geologist, was first to bring to notice the curious fact that the surface of the swamp is actually twelve feet higher in many places than the surrounding country, so that its drainage is outward, except where a few small streams flow in from the west side. The center of Great Dismal is occupied by Drummond’s Lake, an oval basin six miles long and three wide, with perpendicular banks and fifteen feet depth of water. In and around this lake is a veritable paradise for hunters, for its waters abound with fish and wild fowl, and the adjacent woods are the favorite haunts of deer, bears, wild-cats, coons and swamp-rabbits. The region, inexpressibly dreary as it is, contributes largely to commerce by furnishing immense supplies of timber. To facilitate transportation the Great Swamp is intersected by canals, the two largest being those which connect the Elizabeth and Pasquotank Rivers, and Elizabeth River with Carrituck Sound.