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Updated: June 15, 2025
Here I found my first Florida jays. They sat on the chimney-tops and ridgepoles, and I was rejoiced to discover that these unique and interesting creatures, one of the special objects of my journey South, were not only common, but to an extraordinary degree approachable. Their extreme confidence in man is one of their oddest characteristics.
The smoke stood on the chimney-tops as if a tall visionary tree grew out of each; and the many-colored cloths in the yard of Orooblis, the Armenian dyer, hung unmolested by a breath. Orooblis himself was the only thing, in that soft and bright noon, which appeared on the land to be animated with any purpose.
"For anything that wasn't made for the purpose, it's doing wonders," I retorted. Then a sudden puff sent us up fully ten feet. "Heavens! There goes our chance at those roofs!" "Dear me! So it does!" muttered the inventor as we sailed gracefully over the chimney-tops. "How unfortunate!" "It'll be a lot more unfortunate when we pitch down into the street!" I snarled.
Whole quarryfuls of wrought stone had been piled along the streets and around the squares, and were now grown, in truth, like nature's self again, in their rough, time-worn massiveness, with weeds and wild flowers where their decay accumulated, blossoming, always the same, beyond people's memories, every summer, as the storks came back to their platforms on the remote chimney-tops.
Some of the houses on the river banks appeared to be tenanted by white people, but the majority had a haunted, desolate appearance, the only signs of life being strolling soldiers, who thrust their legs through the second story windows, or contemplated the river from the chimney-tops, and groups of negroes who sunned themselves on the piazza, or rushed to the margin to gaze and grin at the passing steamers.
Far above, silent and dim as a picture, was the city, with its huge mill-masonry, confused chimney-tops, and church- spires; nearer rose the height of Belvidere, with its deserted burial- place and neglected gravestones sharply defined on its bleak, bare summit against the sky; before me the river went dashing down its rugged channel, sending up its everlasting murmur; above me the birch-tree hung its tassels; and the last wild flowers of autumn profusely fringed the rocky rim of the water.
It is a very pretty town, and emphatically modern in style; presenting nothing that is anti-American in appearance, except its clusters of chimney-tops, so common everywhere in Europe.
Once outside, she stopped a minute with Worth to adjust herself to the sharp wind which swept across from the north. Here was a rectangular space surrounded by walls which ran around its four sides to form the coping, unbroken in any spot; a gravel-and-tar roof, almost flat, with the scuttle and a few small, dust covered skylights its only openings, four chimney-tops its sole projections.
The next house barely showed its old red chimney-tops, above its bowers; the next was empty, with windows vacantly gazing, its paths peopled with great bearded weeds that stood mutely watching and guarding the seldom-opened gate.
There are so many ladies who would be glad to do the work." Miss Merivale had caught her breath sharply as Pauline mentioned Australia, but neither of the girls noticed her agitation. Rose had wandered to the window, and was looking with delight at the vast expanse of chimney-tops, and the little glimpse of the river, grey under the cold March sky.
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