As we look upon these old Spaniards our thoughts go back to the days of their sires, whose minds were ever on the alert in search of some new sources from which would flow fresh streams of amusement. Their manners, habits, and customs were once varied as their origin--having descended from the Spanish, Italians, Corsicans, Arabs, and French, possessing the peculiar traits of these nationalities. The carnivals, posy balls, and many other amusements in which they formerly indulged, have now in a great measure been absorbed by the Yankee element. The holiday processions no longer march around the plaza, bearing their bright banners and escutcheons blazoned with the ensigns of their kings, or with the names of their favorite patron saints. The night before Easter in St. Augustine the observance of a peculiar custom is still retained, which the early settlers brought from Spain with them: it is that of the young men going around to the houses of their friends singing a song called Fromajardis. What a strange sensation steals over us to be awakened just before the old cathedral bells have chimed twelve by the sound of musical instruments, accompanied with singing, in a foreign tongue, a song which has echoed through the same town for more than three centuries! It indicates that the Lenten season is now over, and the young men are anxious to participate in feasting. Although it is customary, they are not always invited to partake of a bountiful collation after their song is finished, but are prepared to do so when the opportunity presents itself. The extreme poverty of the old citizens now renders it impossible for them to conform to the customs of palmier days, when large amounts of money were received from Cuba by the soldiery, and the labor of slaves furnished many with a genteel support. From these people we can see with what tenacity they cling to their home associations; although misfortune has crushed their spirits, and poverty lessened their desire for enjoyment, yet in their hearts still lingers the memory of a festive past, which now cheers them on through adverse fortune, and lightens life of half its burdens. Most of the old inhabitants are persons of very moderate means, moderate ability, and moderate their wishes by surrounding circumstances--who apparently live and grow old, ripen and die, with as little effort toward great designs or grand projects as the sweet potato in the hill. Many of them live seventy or eighty years, are born and die in the same house without forming any foreign attachments or associations--the machinery of their human frames not being moved with as much rapidity here as North.