My Native Land: The United States: its Wonders, its Beauties, and its People; with Descriptive Notes, Character Sketches, Folk Lore, Traditions, Legends and History, for the Amusement of the Old and the Instruction of the YoungCox, James
History
My Native Land: The United States: its Wonders, its Beauties, and its People; with Descriptive Notes, Character Sketches, Folk Lore, Traditions, Legends and History, for the Amusement of the Old and the Instruction of the Young
Cox, James
Indians of North America; United States -- Description and travel; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1865-1918
Lake Worth is one of the prettiest lakes in the South. It is a very
beautiful sheet of water, broken only by Pitts' Island, which is located
near its northern end. The most useful and desirable products of the
North have here a congenial home, alongside those most loved in the
region of the equator. A New Englander may find his potatoes, sweet
corn, tomatoes and other garden favorites, and can pluck, with scarcely
a change in his position, products that are usually claimed as
Brazilian. He finds in his surroundings, as plentiful and as free as the
water sprinkling before him, such strange neighbors as coffee, the
tamarind, mango, pawpa, guava, banana, sapadillo, almond, custard apple,
maumec apple, grape fruit, shaddock, Avadaco pear, and other equally new
acquaintances.
And these are all neighbors, actual residents, natives of the soil, not
imported immigrants or exacting visitors to be tenderly treated. Giant
relatives, equally at home, are the rubber tree, mahogany, eucalyptus,
cork tree and mimosa. All these, within forty hours' travel of New York,
to be reached in winter by an all-rail trip, and to be enjoyed in a
climate that is a perpetual May. It was but a few years ago (less than a
dozen) that the beauties of Lake Worth were at first dimly reported by
venturesome sportsmen, who had gazed upon its unspeakable loveliness.
To-day the taste and labor of wealthy capitalists from East and from
West, have lined its fair shores with elegant homes. One of these, the
McCormick Place, has for the past two years been famous for its wondrous
beauty. It is situated at Palm Beach, on the eastern shore of the lake,
and faces westward or inland. It thus receives the cool air from the
lake and the breezes from the Atlantic, which is but a stroll distant.
The entire estate comprises 100 acres, all under high cultivation. It
has a water front on both lake and ocean of 1,200 feet. In this lovely
spot Mr. McCormick built a castle, so handsomely finished, inside and
out, so tastefully designed and so elegantly furnished, that one would
imagine he expected to entertain royalty within its walls.
It is said that nowhere on the continent is so great a variety of
vegetable growth presented in one locality, as is here to be seen in the
full perfection of lusty growth. The cacti at this point are marvels of
variety and beauty. One's idea of what a cactus is can never be complete
until one has witnessed a scene such as this, and a collection of this
magnitude. The fruit trees form a mass of groves. In some of these, huge
cocoanuts tower away above all other growth, while alongside of these
monarchs of arbory culture there are groves of dwarf trees, less
tremendous but quite as interesting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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