When the strong wind blows off the coast on to the Gulf, it is known to seamen as a “norther,” and so violent are these winds that their force, acting on the sea, rapidly diminishes its depth within twelve or fifteen miles of the marshes.  A coasting-vessel drawing five feet of water will anchor off Apalachee Bay in eight feet of water, at the commencement of a “norther,” and in four or five hours, unless the crew put to sea, the vessel will be left upon the dry bottom of the Gulf.  After the wind falls, the water will return, and the equilibrium will be restored.

We ascended St. Marks River; and passed the site of a town which had been washed out of existence in the year 1843 by the effects of a hurricane on the sea.  These hurricanes are in season during August and September.  The village of St. Marks consisted of about thirty houses, the occupants of which, with two or three exceptions, were negroes.  The land is very low, and at times subjected to inundation.  A railroad terminated here, but the business of the place supported only two trains a week, and they ran directly to the capital of Florida, the beautiful city of Tallahassee, eighteen miles distant.

The negro postmaster courteously presented me with my package of letters, and I had an opportunity to observe the way in which he fulfilled his duties.  When the mail arrived, it was thrown upon a desk in one corner of a small grocery store, and any person desiring an epistle went in, and, fumbling over the letters, took what he claimed as his own.

The railroad agent, a young northerner, I found sleeping soundly in his telegraph office, though the noonday sun was pouring in his windows.  He apologized for being caught napping, but declared it was his only amusement in that desolate region of damps, and assured me a man would deteriorate less rapidly by sleeping away his idle hours than by keeping awake to what was going on in the neighboring hamlet.  Besides the United States Signal officer, his only intelligent neighbor was a brother of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, who had purchased a property, two or three years before, in the once flourishing town of Newport, a few miles up the river.  He spoke feelingly of the efforts of the Rev. Charles Beecher to educate his enfranchised negro neighbors; of his inviting them to his house, and laboring for the welfare of their souls.  All the patient and Christian efforts of the philanthropist had proved unavailing, and thieving and lying were still much in vogue.

It has been proposed by engineers to connect all the interior Gulf-coast watercourses from the Mississippi River at New Orleans to the Suwanee River in Florida.  To achieve this end it will be necessary to excavate several canals at points now used as portages.  From St. Marks to the Suwanee River there are some rivers which might be used in connecting and perfecting this great interior water-way.