Turning into St. George Street, we found at the northern end of the town the old City Gates, the most picturesque ruin of picturesque St. Augustine. The two pillars are moresque, surmounted by a carved pomegranate, and attached are portions of the wall, which, together with an outer ditch, once extended from the Castle of San Marco, a short distance to the east, across the peninsula to the San Sebastian, on the west, thus fortifying the town against all approaches by land. The position of St. Augustine is almost insular. Tide-water sweeps up around and behind it, and to this and the ever-present sea-breeze must be attributed the wonderful health of the town, which not only exists, but is pre-eminent, in spite of a neglect of sanitary regulations which would not be endured one day in the villages of the North. Passing through the old gateway, we came out upon the Shell Road, the grand boulevard of the future, as yet but a few yards in length. “They make about ten feet a year,” said John; “and when they are at work, all I can say unto you is, ‘Beware!’ You suppose it is a load of empty shells they are throwing down; but no. Have they time, forsooth, to take out the oysters, these hard-pressed workmen of St. Augustine? By no means; and so down they go, oysters and all, and the road makes known its extension on the evening breezes.” The soft moonlight lay on the green waste beyond the gates, lighting up the North River and its silver sand-hills. The old fort loomed up dark and frowning, but the moonlight shone through its ruined turrets, and only the birds of the night kept watch on its desolate battlements. The city lay behind us. It had never dared to stretch much beyond the old gates, and the few people who did live outside were spoken of as very far off--a sort of Bedouins of the desert encamping temporarily on the green. As we went on the moonlight lighted up the white head-stones of a little cemetery on the left side of the road. “This is one of the disappointing cemeteries that was ‘nothing to speak of,’ I suppose,” said Sara. “It is the Protestant cemetery,” replied John, “remarkable only for its ugliness and the number of inscriptions telling the same sad story of strangers in a strange land--persons brought here in quest of health from all parts of the country, only to die far away from home.” “Where is the old Huguenot burying-ground?” asked Aunt Di. “The Huguenots, poor fellows, never had a burying-ground, nor so much even as a burying, as far as I can learn,” said Sara. “But there is one somewhere,” pursued Aunt Di. “I have heard it described as a spot of much interest.”