I must tell you, however, what was said to me by a person who had passed a considerable time in Florida, and had journeyed, as he told me, in the southern as well as the northern part of the peninsula, "That the climate is mild and agreeable," said he, "I admit, but the annoyance to which you are exposed from insects, counterbalances all the enjoyment of the climate. You are bitten by mosquitoes and gallinippers, driven mad by clouds of sand-flies, and stung by scorpions and centipedes. It is not safe to go to bed in southern Florida without looking between the sheets, to see if there be not a scorpion waiting to be your bed-fellow, nor to put on a garment that has been hanging up in your room, without turning it wrong side out, to see if a scorpion has not found a lodging in it." I have not, however, been incommoded at St. Augustine with these "varmint," as they call them at the south. Only the sand-flies, a small black midge, I have sometimes found a little importunate, when walking out in a very calm evening. Of the salubrity of East Florida I must speak less positively, although it is certain that in St. Augustine emigrants from the north enjoy good health. The owners of the plantations in the neighborhood, prefer to pass the hot season in this city, not caring to trust their constitutions to the experiment of a summer residence in the country. Of course they are settled on the richest soils, and these are the least healthy. The pine barrens are safer; when not interspersed with marshes, the sandy lands that bear the pine are esteemed healthy all over the south. Yet there are plantations on the St. John's where emigrants from the north reside throughout the year. The opinion seems everywhere to prevail, and I believe there is good reason for it, that Florida, notwithstanding its low and level surface, is much more healthy than the low country of South Carolina and Georgia.