“There is much violent and pestilent feeling among the women. They seem to mistake treason for courage, and have a theatrical desire to figure as heroines. Their minds have doubtless been filled with the falsehoods so industriously circulated in regard to the lust and hatred of our troops. On the night before our arrival, a party of women assembled in front of the barracks and cut down the flag-staff, in order that it might not be used to support the old flag. The men seemed anxious to conciliate in every way. There is a great scarcity of provisions in the place. There seems to be no money, except the wretched paper currency of the Rebellion, and much poverty exists. In the water-battery at the fort are three fine army thirty-two-pounders, of 7,000 pounds, and two eight-inch seacoast howitzers, of 5,600 pounds, with shot and some powder. There are a number of very old guns in the fort, useless and not mounted. * * * * * “I have the honor to be very respectfully, “C. R. P. RODGERS, _Commander_. “_Flag Officer_, S. F. DU PONT, “Commanding S. Atlantic Blockading Station.” Mr. Christobal Bravo, an old and much-respected citizen of the place, who is still alive, was the mayor who surrendered the town. Immediately after the close of the Rebellion, real estate in the city possessed very little value. Within a short time, however, as a few wealthy men began to secure sites for winter residences, the prices suddenly leaped to the full value, and, in many cases, fictitious values, which they have since maintained. The climate of St. Augustine is unsurpassed by that of any location in the world. The mass of testimony to its healthfulness and agreeableness is constantly accumulating, and dates from its first settlement. The extreme old age attained by the aborigines in Florida has been referred to in the extract from Laudonnère. Romans mentions a man, eighty-five years old, who had gone five miles on foot to catch fish, while his mother was meantime busy preparing bread. The following quaint testimony is from “Romans’s History”: