VI.
This is the way it read:
“HOTEL-CASINO BELLEVUE
Champ de Mars—Port-au-Prince.
Dirigé par Fräulein J. Stein, de Berlin
Chambres garnies, avec ou sans pension.
Bassin-douche—Jardin d’agrèment.
Table d’Hôte de 8 à 9 hs—de 1 à 2 hs—de 6 à 7 hs.
Salon de Lecture—Billard—Piano, etc.
Journaux français, allemands, americaines et anglais.
Cette établissement jadis si bien connu, somptueusement remis à neuf, se recommande aux voyageurs et aux residents par le confort d’un hôtel de 1er ordre et par les divertissements que sa situation et ses dépendances offrent au public.”
You know there are some things in this world of uncertainties of which one is sure. One is sure of certain things without ever having seen them—something like the pyramids; one takes them for granted. Just how it came about that we took the “Hotel-Casino Bellevue” for granted it would be difficult to say, but we did. It was the one established fact about Port-au-Prince. It had been passed from one to another before we made port that the “Hotel Bellevue” was the summum bonum of Haïti. Thither, never doubting, we faced about at high noon, following the small brother of our lustrous Creole beauty, and we found it, the Hotel Bellevue, as did others.
Little Blue Ribbons, Sister, and I were placed—dumped into—three waiting chairs on the white veranda. And then Daddy disappeared, with others, all with the same air of confidence, to order dinner—it was to be dinner, you know, for did not the card say: “Table d’Hôte de 1 à 2 hs?”—of course it did. And we all had those little cards and they were all alike. They were our souvenirs.
Why the Hotel Bellevue hadn’t any shade-trees in front; why it was so glaringly hot and dusty and brazen-faced, we didn’t see. Oh, yes! It was on account of the “Bellevue”—out to the ocean! “Dirigé par Fräulein Stein;” that was it. She didn’t like trees; she wanted the “Bellevue.” She had chopped down the trees—we knew she had. “Dirigé par Fräulein Stein”—we didn’t care for Fräulein Stein at all.
Some one on the other side of the veranda drops down an awning, and we drop the awning on our side. Blue Ribbons takes off her hat, and Sister wonders what keeps Daddy so long. I think of Fräulein Stein. She’s in there, of course; that’s why he’s so long. That’s why all the other men stay so. She is another Circe.
Here he comes. He looks mildly happy.
“It’s ordered. I ordered it in German first, then French, and then Fräulein Stein,”—but there he hesitated.
“Yes, it’s Fräulein Stein, of course,” I reply. “What did she have to say?”
“No, it wasn’t Fräulein Stein at all,” he answers, “it was Fräulein Stein’s manager; he’s a Norwegian, so of course he speaks English fluently.”
“What did you order?” Sister asks. Then Daddy looked a bit sad.
“I couldn’t order just what I thought you’d like of course, because they didn’t have it, but I did the best I could. Let me see—I think the first was sardines. I thought after the bananas you’d need a kind of appetiser, so I ordered sardines first, and some other stuff,—and turkey.”
“Turkey? Oh, Daddy, this is not Thanksgiving Day!”
“No, it’s not Thanksgiving, but there was something said about turkey, and I thought we might as well have what the others ordered.”
We didn’t think we cared much for turkey, but we weren’t hungry enough to argue, so we let the bill of fare go at that, and started out to investigate the premises. Ever since we had been at the Hotel Bellevue, we were unconsciously aware of curious droning sounds. We scarcely noticed them at first, for they were not aggressive,—they were merely persistent, like the sleepy humming of insects. They fitted in with the white light and the hot stillness of noonday. But, after waiting for Daddy, and thinking about Fräulein Stein, the sounds became more distinct; they grew more insistent. The people on the other side of the veranda quieted down, and there wasn’t so much chattering as there had been when we first arrived at the Hotel Bellevue. No, it was much quieter. As the voices ceased with the spreading of the scorching noonday light on the dry walks and the denuded garden,—its few, stiff little lonesome shrubs gasping for water,—the sounds grew to a positive delirium.
We stole out into the “jardin d’agrément.” If I could only glorify that back yard I would,—indeed, from my heart I would! But “es hat nicht sollen sein!” It was not La Bellevue there! Oh, no! It was not! There was a little gutter running through the yard, and there was some slimy liquid in the gutter which might once have been water. But the ducks didn’t mind; they waddled around in the puddles just the same. By the cook-house, a Witch of Endor was browning some coffee over an open fire. Out of respect to the cook, I say she was browning the coffee. She was indeed browning the coffee with a vengeance; she was burning it black—fairly to cinders. Around with the ducks was the turkey. He was the master of that back yard, but alas! he was having his last fling! He did not know it, nor did we; we knew soon after.
A West Indian Africa
Port-au-Prince, Haïti
Copyright, 1901, by Detroit Photographic Co.
But what right had we to be in the back yard of the Hotel Bellevue? If we didn’t find the gutter agreeable to our over-refined sensibilities why not go where it was “Belle”? But there were those sounds and we were keen on the trail. We should not be thwarted by a flock of waddling ducks. It was evidently from a neighbour’s the sound came, so, picking our steps carefully over a heap of rubbish and broken bottles and discarded ducks’ feet and hens’ feathers, we peeped through a crack in the high board fence and saw in the neighbouring yard one portion of a family party; another crack revealed more, and, putting them together, we counted some eight or ten very serious people sitting around a large oval table, singing a curious chant,—if one dare call it such,—some of them; the others were shaking curious little gourd rattles in time with the monotonous recitative. The “Witch of Endor” tells us that the neighbours are celebrating the birth of twins. Deliver us from triplets!
How far are we from the voodoo and all the savagery of Africa?
There was a glory in that hotel back yard after all. But, to tell the truth, we didn’t discover it until some one behind us, black and half-naked, made a murderous assault upon the turkey. He, the turkey, screaming awful protest, flew into the merciful arms of a breadfruit-tree which hung its great leaves in a sadly apologetic manner over the scene of coffee-burning and waddling ducks. To stand under a breadfruit-tree which was doing its noblest to forget its environment—well, one ought to forgive much, and we did, until we learned that even the breadfruit wasn’t ready done—it had to be cooked.
At last the cloth was laid and the table set, and Little Blue Ribbons unfolded her napkin, and we all did the same, for Little Blue Ribbons seldom makes a mistake. She is a proper child, and had hitherto fed on proper meat. Then we chatted and sat there,—and sat there and chatted. Presently, when we had talked it all over,—the market and the Creole beauty, and everything else,—we stopped talking and just sat there thinking. Sister had some bananas left, and she graciously suggested that fruit before dinner was in good form, so we each took a banana and sat longer.
There was nor sight nor sound of Fräulein Stein, nor of any one belonging to the Stein family. We and our fellow travellers were the silent occupants of the high-ceilinged dining-room. Noon had long since gone with the morning,—one o’clock, and still no signs of life. One-thirty,—from out the silent courtyard, after an hour and a half waiting; from out the back kitchen, near the duck puddle and the breadfruit-tree, there appeared a negro in solemn state. He had been dressing. I suppose he was the one we had been waiting for. He wore an ancient long-tailed coat with brass buttons, a white waistcoat, and very clean trousers—and shoes, too—and a flower in his buttonhole, and he carried in his hand,—yes, dear ones, he carried in his hand (only in one hand, for the other one was needed for purpose of state)—he carried in his hand one small plate of sardines, our appetisers, which had been neatly arranged in two tiny rows of six each. A menial of lower order followed with the bread, enough for one hungry man, and it fell to the first and nearest table. We were hopelessly distant from the sardines and the bread. The solemn head waiter avoided us. We thought we must have offended him. The sardines continued to pass us. Soon a dish of smoking yams was carried on beyond. We knew then that his Majesty had us in disfavour. The “spirit of ’76” arose; we would have sardines or perish. We raided the serving-room. Sister captured a whole box of sardines and I a loaf of bread. We waylaid a boy with coffee, took the pot, hunted up sugar, ran into a black woman, who was handing in a few boiled yams, seized all she had and sat down to the finest meal ever spread: yams, sardines, bread, and black coffee. At two-thirty, a faint odour of turkey hovered over the dining-room, but we didn’t care for turkey; we had said so from the first, and besides, we had known that turkey in his glory. Sardines we had not despised, and we had sardines. And then the bananas helped out, and so did the bread and the bitter coffee. I would not have had the dinner other than it was—no, not for all the waiting; it was all so in keeping with the whole crazy country.
Fräulein Stein never appeared. I do not think there was a Fräulein Stein, or ever had been. She was just made up, along with the “table d’hôte” and the “chambres garnies” and the “douche” and the “jardin d’agrément.” But in a feminine way we laid it up against Fräulein Stein,—that meal and the trees,—and we always shall. For who else do you think could have cut down the trees?
Courtyard of the American Legation
Haïti
There seemed to be a sort of stupefaction over the whole establishment. I know the poor creatures did the very best they knew how, but they didn’t know how,—that was the trouble. It didn’t occur to them to cook a lot of yams at one time; they cooked enough for one or two, and when those were ready, they cooked some more for somebody else. You can imagine the length of time required for such a meal. But then there’s nothing much else to do in Haïti, and why not be willing to wait for dinner?
Out of respect to the courtly “pharmacien” and to our lovely Proserpine, there’s not to be one word more about the “Hotel Bellevue,” and not a word more about anything else in poor little Port-au-Prince; but I could not help wishing that some day dear old Uncle Sam would come along and give Haïti a good cleaning up, and whip them into line for a time at least; but Heaven deliver us from ever trying to assimilate or govern such a degenerate and heterogeneous people. Alas, for that ideal Black Republic, where every negro was to show himself a man and a brother!
As we were leaving for ship, the Haïtien daily paper was issued—a curious little two-page sheet, some eighteen inches square, printed in French, Le Soir—and in it appeared this pitiful paragraph, which seemed in a way to be the hopeless lament of Haïti’s remnant for the sad condition of things in this beautiful island:
“The Americans who arrived this morning are visiting our city. But what will they see here to admire? Where are our monuments, our squares, our well-watered streets? We blush with shame! They can carry back with them only bad impressions; there is nothing to please or charm them, except our sunny sky, our starry nights, and the exuberance of nature.”
Is it possible that the writer of those lines had forgotten the Lady Proserpine?
A Mill for Sawing Mahogany
Haïti
CHAPTER III.
SANTO DOMINGO
I.
“THERE’S nothing in the least to be afraid of, Mother, nothing in the least. Why, see, even his Excellency doesn’t mind.” It was Sister who spoke, but even so there was a kind of unearthly qualm creeping over me as I made my way cautiously down the ladder and waited until a generous swell from the big outside sent the ship’s boat within stepping distance, and then, with a jump, made for the vacancy next to Little Blue Ribbons. When one is on dry land, fear of the water seems so unreasoning that the timid soul speaks of it in a half-apologetic manner; but never yet when landing in an open boat in an exposed harbour, where the mighty roll of the ocean lifts and drops and there seems but a veil between the great world above and the great world beneath—never yet have I been able to take the step from steamer to boat with any real sensation of pleasure.
We had been skirting the southern shore of the great island of Haïti or Santo Domingo since sundown the night before, and at daybreak the word flew around that we were off Domingo City. We must have left all the sunshine with the happy darkies in Port-au-Prince, for, as we glanced from our port-holes, we saw nothing but a tumble of leaden water under a gray sky—just water and sky. Domingo City lay to the other side.
Once ready for the day and out on deck, we were met by a gloomy world. Heavy banks of clouds piled on one another as if determined to hide the sun. There were no dancing, rollicking little harbour waves that morning; they were ugly and sullen ground swells, and told of heavy weather somewhere by their grumbling, threatening heavings. A stiff wind blew, for we had come to the region of the “Northeast Trades,” and it was no laughing matter to lower the boats and land us safely, especially with such clumsy boats’ crews. There is practically no harbour at Santo Domingo, the capital of la Republica Dominicana; that is, no harbour for deep-keeled craft. The Ozama River affords a safe inner harbour for light-draught vessels, but on account of a bar at the entrance to this charming stream,—upon whose shores the historic old city slumbers,—we were forced to anchor in the open roadstead and take the ship’s boats for land.
The fear which had so troubled me when we first left the solid decks of our good ship was soon forgotten as we approached the City of the Holy Sunday,—Santo Domingo,—fairy godmother at the christening of Western civilisation, the first to feel the pulse of those undying souls whose spirits spanned the centuries to come!
I recall how I looked with all my eyes and with all my soul at the wondrous picture opening before me as we swung into the river entrance, and wondered if I could keep its beauty for ever. Could it be more lovely, more enchanting, more mysterious under a white sun shining from out a motionless blue heaven? Who shall say? Old! Old! Kissed by the winds of centuries, Santo Domingo rests upon the brow of a verdant plateau, and stretches its sinuous arms dreamily beyond the hills on the shore. Great red rocks, in whose rifts glossy ferns and graceful vines have sought safe harbour, break the roll of the sea into a thousand glistening clouds of spray, enveloping the summit of the cliff in a translucent mist. Like a weather-worn, decrepit, but stately warrior, the ancient fort, with massive towers and mossy turrets and bastions and broken walls, still holds its guard over the harbour; and as we passed from the sea into the placid Ozama River, the enchanting view of Santo Domingo arose in full sight. Cloaked in a faintly shimmering mist, under a gray, tumultuous sky, the ancient city rose to greet us as a dreamy, nebulous siren of the sea. Crumbling ruins of ancient stone stairways led from the fort through a water-gate to the river; down those mossy flights I could all but see a gay troop of Spanish cavaliers approaching their quaint old galleons moored hard by. Truly it was an enchanted city; asleep, untouched by the hand of man since the days of its first great builder; asleep, moss-grown, hoary, throbbing still with the dying passion of mediævalism.
The Old Fort at the River Entrance
Santo Domingo
II.
Contrary to our prearranged plan, we decided, upon landing, to engage a carriage. Just why, I hardly knew, but there was a subtle power at work in the mind of one of our party, and although it has never been hinted at since then, in calmly going over that carriage-hiring I think I begin to read the riddle. We had left our French at Haïti, and this was our first experiment on this voyage with Spanish, and I suspect some of us were anxious to see how Cervantes’s language—la idioma Castellana—would work when it came to such a common-place proceeding as the hiring of a carriage.
We came off with colours flying, and took seats in a vehicle made some twenty-five or fifty years ago (quite modern as compared with those of Port-au-Prince), bumped up the steep stony hill, under an old archway, and had our first glimpse of the solid Spanish architecture of Santo Domingo. Everything was interesting; the balconies upheld by graceful supports of wrought iron; the neat appearance of the low-roofed, white and blue washed houses; the ever-beautiful palms and banana groves seen in vistas across the river; even our driver was a source of interest, for I expended my entire vocabulary of Spanish—few words indeed—upon that youth, all to no purpose. All he did was to look dazed and answer, “Si, señora” to everything, hit or miss, until we came to the Cathedral, when, just to make it right with my conscience for having been the innocent cause of all his awful lies, I asked him, pointing to the building, which could be nothing in the mind of a sane man but a cathedral, if that was the Cathedral, and he said: “Si, señora,” and I felt relieved.
A Closer View of the Old Fort
Santo Domingo
No description can convey to your mind an adequate impression of the beauty of this wonderful old cathedral, for one needs colour, colour, colour, everywhere for its proper setting. It is built of the yellowest of soft porous stone, to which time has bequeathed a luminosity, the brilliancy of which no language can rightly picture. It is purely Spanish in its style, depending for its beauty entirely on its symmetry of form and not on extraneous ornamentation; it is built rather low to withstand frequent earthquakes, and from its solidity and simplicity and directness of construction has a charm which few of the later Spanish cathedrals possess. Time has laid her kindly hands upon this temple of God gently—ever so gently, and through many a lifetime has fulfilled the priestly office of consecration.
I sat down in the shade, for, as we left the carriage, a big cloud tumbled over by mistake and the sun laughingly plunged headlong through the mist before the quarrelsome elements had time to gainsay. With Little Blue Ribbons close by, and Sister and our Spanish Student disappearing within the arches of the Cathedral, I sat there on the base of one of the great pillars at the doorway, and filled my eyes with the beauty of the strong, graceful arches overhead, in whose time-worn curves hung the ancient bells, beautiful bronze bells, now green with age, still pealing forth the praise of God as in the days of Columbus’s followers.
Down the weather-worn and sun-ripened sides of the Cathedral were long streaks of black, like the silent tears of centuries, shed for glories now no more. Was it not enough to rest there, where one could look at the bells and wait for the quiver of the long tongues, ringing out the hour of mass, and catch the thrill of the mottled gray and blue sky sifting its mellow light through the ancient towers? There are some things so absolutely satisfying that it seems an arrant sacrilege to be discontent and want for more. But Little Blue Ribbons, with the impatience of childhood, began to tug at my hand, and the dear old bells must have gone asleep, for with all our longing they hung there covered by their deep, green silence, and Little Blue Ribbons said we would have our waiting all for nothing. For nothing is it, dear one, to forget the stress of living for awhile, and let one’s spirit drop into the peace of a sleeping bell?
III.
We found that the interior of the Cathedral had a very new, clean face, having been recently “restored” and whitewashed; thus being out of harmony with the venerable exterior; however, some one remarked, it was “gratifying to see that the Dominicans appreciate their ancient monument.” That complacent remark struck the ear awry, like the whine of a deacon’s report at a Sunday-school convention. Appreciate? Why, the people of Santo Domingo worship this spot! It is the one place of interest to them; it is the one thing they ask the stranger if he has seen; it is the centre of their life and love,—that ancient pile of yellow glory,—for are not the ashes of their great Cristobal Colon guarded there? Would that we Americans had any relic we held as sacredly!
The Cathedral and the Statue of Columbus
Santo Domingo
So I suppose we ought not to quarrel with the Dominicans over the new coat of whitewash, for they meant it well, but we can at least wish they hadn’t cleaned house so thoroughly. Within those walls rest the bones of Columbus after their many disinterments and post-mortem wanderings—so it is claimed; but whether these are the bones of Columbus, or of some one else, who can say? What does it matter? Somewhere about one hundred years ago,—in 1795,—’tis said, when this island was ceded to the French, the Spaniards took Columbus’s bones back to Spain. Later these mortal fragments were returned to Santo Domingo, in accordance with his expressed wish that they finally be buried in this his beloved birthplace and funeral-pyre of his cherished hopes in the New World; which wish had been once before honoured in the first removal of the remains to the then Spanish colony. Sealed in a leaden casket they were imbedded in masonry under the stone floor of the cathedral chancel, and there was no attempt to disturb them until about 1878, when they were presumably removed to Havana to be re-interred there, and, as the Spaniards stoutly maintain, again disinterred from their resting-place in the cathedral at Havana and hurried away to Spain just before the American occupation of Cuba, there to receive the sad honour of a costly mausoleum in Seville. But a few years ago a second box was discovered, buried fast in ancient masonry and cement, about three feet from the place in which the first one was found; and this leaden box, the Dominicans claim, holds the real bones of the real Columbus, for they stoutly maintain that the other box contained the bones Diego Colon, nephew to Columbus, or, as some say, his son,—not Cristobal Colon, our Columbus—and the inscription on a silver plate found inside seems to bear out the authenticity of the later discovery, as does also the location of this second casket and the pains taken to render it secure. Whosesoever bones they were, I was in the proper frame of mind to venerate them, and it was with a feeling of deep awe and pathos that I stood before the much-disputed leaden box, now enshrined in gold and silver, and covered by a very gorgeous white marble tomb, newly made in Barcelona. The box is about a foot and a half long, one foot high, and one foot wide—rather a small space for so great a man as Columbus, but then,—
Ruins of Castle Built by Diego Colon
Santo Domingo
Copyright, 1901, by Detroit Photographic Co.
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.”
And so the Dominicans had a very beautiful and lofty and modern monument built in Spain and brought across the water to San Domingo, as a fitting shrine for their great treasure. With many minarets and dainty arches cut from snowy marble, and ornate with carvings and gilt, it stands more as a monument to the faithful loyalty of the Dominicans than to the memory of that valiant discoverer. He was a world soul. He belongs to all time, as do all the great. The march of Western civilisation is his monument. The Dominicans plan to erect a building which they deem worthier this work of gold and marble than is the sad old cathedral Columbus founded,—worthier the sacred leaden box; but could there be a more fitting sanctuary for the great Genoese, than within these ancient walls whose beginnings he directed and which rose after death in direct fulfilment of his ambition?
We found built into the wall a huge cross, rudely hewn of wood, which the stories say was set in a clearing in a little plain by Columbus, before the year 1500, to mark the place where his great church should stand. This primitive cross was afterward built into the wall itself. How constantly memories of the great discoverer hover about these walls; for it was in Santo Domingo that Columbus was imprisoned by his jealous rivals, and thence at last he was taken in chains to Spain, where he died, and hither again came his weary bones.
Where Columbus Planted the Cross
Santo Domingo
How pathetic, yet how characteristic, is this grim example of the Spaniard’s reverence for the past, even if that past may have been so cruelly dishonoured! Columbus, the poor Genoese dreamer; Columbus, still the crazy explorer, but upheld by royal hands; Columbus, the fêted and flattered discoverer of new worlds, giving to Spain greater riches than she dreamed; Columbus, the victim of jealous gossip and intrigue, bound in chains and finally dying,—broken and disgraced. Columbus, in ashes these four hundred years, guarded in pomp, and convoyed by great ships in this final retreat, step by step, from the empire he founded! For with each successive loss of her rich holdings in the New World, Spain has tried to carry with her in her retreat, these precious relics, until the name Columbus, framed in dishonour, disaster, and defeat, has become to her almost a pain. How tragic that Spain should strain to her heart with fierce jealousy, as the last but most precious remnant left of all her American possessions, the few crumbling bones of Columbus!
We left the Cathedral reluctantly, but as the day was moving rapidly on we were anxious to see as much as possible of the city; so we reëntered the carriage and drove to the Correo to post letters and get some money changed. While Daddy was in the post-office, I endeavoured, with my four Spanish words, to make our driver understand that I wanted him to move along to the corner, so that we might look out over the river, but he only smiled and said: “Si, señora,” and went on putting up the rubber curtains to keep out the unexpected shower that had blown up from nowhere. So I sat there in despair, for I did want to get that view, but I did not want to get wet. At that moment, seeing my predicament, a gentleman approached the driver and told him just what to do, and then disappeared into the post-office. When the Spanish Student returned, he was accompanied by my kindly interpreter, to whom we were presented.
“Sister,” says the smiling Daddy, “this is Señor Alfredo P—— A——, private secretary to the President, and he has most kindly offered to show us about the city.” We all bow to the señor, and I wonder if he is really the private secretary, or a private humbug, waiting around to ensnare us. Shame upon my suspicion! May that moment of doubt be for ever fruitless in the process of my gradual regeneration!
Señor Alfredo was one of the handsomest men I had ever seen. And this I say not in the enthusiasm of a first meeting, but after carefully weighing my words. Señor Alfredo was dark, and our man blond, so there could be no comparison between dissimilar types and no cause for jealousy, and then I said that the señor was one of the handsomest. That “one of the” should make all the difference in the world. The señor was simply one of the procession of nature’s adornments in which you are marching. There, now, may I go on, and may I say just what I wish of the señor without offence?
The señor had been educated in New York City, and his English was most charming; it had the grace of a rich Spanish accent, and the correctness of a scholar. I hesitate to tell you of the señor’s charms, lest you think them over-abundant,—impossible in any one man, and you might not enjoy the day in old Domingo, and that would be an unhappy state, truly.
The señor’s first question was: “Have you seen the Cathedral?” Yes, we had seen it in our way, but possibly not in his. Then he dismisses the disappointed coachman, and we follow the señor again to the worshipped temple, and have its wonders revealed to us by one who knew every stone in its construction. After long prowling around, through cloisters and shrines, and after hunting up the place in the chancel where those poor old bones were disinterred, and carefully comparing the former hiding-places of each of the disputed caskets, we leave the cathedral and wander about Domingo City. The señor guides us, not at our request, but of his own free will, to all the places of interest in the city; and then to the old fort which we had seen on our arrival. I should have been quite satisfied to have stayed there all day, looking from the massy turrets out to sea, but the señor was solicitous that we should go about with the officer in command of the fort, and see everything of interest. Old as it is, it is still used by the army; the native military school and the naval academy both being within its walls. The smart-looking men presented arms as we passed from the gateway into the street again, and we took pleasure in telling the commandant how much better his troops appeared than the ridiculous Haïtien soldiery. This seemed to please both of our friends, for the Dominicans apparently have a feeling of contempt for their neighbours of the Negro Republic, and rightly, too, judging from what we saw.
Entrance to the Fort and Military School
Santo Domingo
Then, we walked and walked and walked, up one narrow street and down another, catching numerous glimpses of most entrancing gardens through the half-way opened doors. We asked for the daily paper, and were taken at once to the office of the Listin Diario, whose editor was the brother of Señor P—— A——. He and our Spanish Student had, to them, an interesting conversation about the political situation in Santo Domingo and in Venezuela; and after having promised to dine with us on the boat at six o’clock, we continued our walk in and about and all around, until, much to our surprise, we were taken into a cool, big courtyard, up a wide flight of worn stone steps into the señor’s home. There we met his wife and children, listened to beautiful native dances sympathetically played on the piano by the señor; we rocked in the ever-present Vienna bent-wood chair, talked to the parrot, played with the baby, and drank cocoanut milk from the green cocoanut, and lived to drink from many more. The cocoanut, when used for milk by these Southern people, is cut quite green, before the solid meat has formed and when all is liquid within, and is said to be most healthful. Of our party, the adventurous man and children liked it very much, but the cautious woman a very little. Then we made our adieux, not without the promise, however, that the señor would meet us at three o’clock for the trip up the Ozama River in the ship’s boats.
All day the clouds were reeling heavily in bulky, black heaps, now and then dropping down upon our innocent heads torrents of spattering rain. But we were not to be discomfited by a rain-shower, for were we not prepared? We left the ship with but one umbrella, the white one with the green lining, but as we bade the señor “Adios,” a sudden shower called forth his best silk umbrella. He was insistent, and there was nothing to do but for Daddy to tuck Sister under his wing, accepting the señor’s offer, and for Little Blue Ribbons to trot along by my side, under the Haïtien umbrella. And the green lining proved fast green; it did not run, not a particle!
Looking across the Plaza
Santo Domingo
By three o’clock, Domingo City was a veritable Port Tarascon, and it seemed that Daudet must have been here before he wrote of his poor drenched French émigrés. The rain still fell. It ran down the streets anywhere it pleased; it dripped off the ruined roof of Diego’s Palace; it scampered down the awning of the German Legation; it stood in little pools on the terrace overlooking the river; it trickled down the face of the timeless old sun-dial, and made the long seams on its face dark and wet, as if from tears.
What bliss if we could only have set our watches by the hour told on the Dominican sun-dial! But there was no sun and consequently no time.
I have an inspiration! It has just come to me. Now my course is plain; now I know what I shall do with the little girls. I have often longed to obliterate for them the thought of time. I have wanted them to grow into a feeling of possession of all the time there ever can be,—countless ages and ages of time, with never a shadow of hurry lurking about; with never a doubt but that the days will be long enough in which to live their fullest measure of happiness. I shall invoke the aid of the gods, in whose arms rests so peacefully this “Island of the Blest,” and they shall build for me an enchanted palace somewhere,—perhaps not just here, but somewhere. I think I shall leave that to the little girls, but it shall be an enchanted palace, all overgrown with sweetbrier and moss, and roundabout shall be a garden—a dear garden, with violets and lilies and arbutus and anemones—and then the trees,—there shall be no end of them!—maple and ash, and slender birch and elm, and linden and—but it seems to me I hear you wondering that we should leave out the palms and the breadfruit and banana and citron. I know it does not seem just as it should be, but I am afraid, if we had the palms and the breadfruit, we’d never feel really at home in our palace, and, of course, we must feel at home even in an enchanted palace. We could have two palaces if we wanted to, and have the palms in the company palace, and the cool, sweet maples we could have for our very own. Yes, that is it! That’s what we’ll do!
In the midst of the garden, we will have a Dominican sun-dial, an exact reproduction of this one. I shall make a sketch of it before we move a step further, and it shall he chipped and worn and sun-baked and tear-stained, and it shall look centuries old. Then there must be a Dominican sky; half-sun and half-shade. And then, don’t you see, the little girls will never know the time at all,—only just as the clouds run off for a frolic. And I shall arrange an indefinite supply of such weather, and that’s just where we’ll all live. Yes—Daddy and all the dear ones, and it will be such a relief not to be obliged to wind our watches.
“Mother!” said Sister, coming up back of me and peeping under the white umbrella which Little Blue Ribbons was holding resolutely over my head while I sketched; “Mother! what is it you’re drawing?”
“Do you need to ask? Can’t you see it’s the sun-dial?”
“Oh! I thought it was the boy out there in the rain.”
IV.
What can the señor do without his best umbrella? Will he take the black umbrella of his wife’s aunt? No, he will not take the black umbrella of his wife’s aunt, dear Mr. Otto, he has taken the umbrella of his wife’s sister, we will say, to adhere to tradition; but, to tell the truth, I could never say whose umbrella the señor borrowed, but when he appeared he was really so beaming under the dark covering over him, that I quite forgot to ask him whose umbrella it was.
Ah! what would the señor think if he should ever read these words? Would he forswear the friendship? We should sincerely beg forgiveness, for we would sooner never see the walls of Domingo again than to lose the señor’s good-will.
The excursion up the Ozama was a world of delight from beginning to end. The Ozama is one of God’s most perfect little rivers, deep and rather narrow, winding through an enchanting country. The shore is outlined for miles by never-ending mangroves, and on the higher upper banks are the breadfruit, and palms, and a world of unknown trees and fruits. Had there been no palms, no breadfruit or mangroves, it would have been enough joy to me to know that up this self-same river in centuries long since dead, there had swept the doughty keels of Columbus’s crazy little ships. But the Spanish Student was not so easily satisfied; he wanted to know things; how much mahogany and ebony and lignum vitæ was gotten from the outlaying country, and what sort of dyewoods they exported. The señor gave much valuable information, but not much more than the natives themselves, who came gliding down the stream in dugouts, having in tow one or two or three mahogany logs. Who says that all the true Santo Domingo mahogany was cut generations ago? There was a constant and silent passing of these dark craft, for the most part with but a single occupant. Sometimes a woman in the bow, half-buried by a cargo of plantains, bending over a pot of some sort, would be cooking on an improvised camp-fire built on earth above the plantains; and thus busy—one at the fire, the other at the paddle—she and her black mate would slip along out of sight under the dark mysterious shadows of the mangroves, closely hugging the shore.
Not far from the city, the señor pointed to a mighty tree, one of the most gigantic of the tropics, a ceiba, to which it is said Columbus made fast his ships. There was no reason to doubt the statement, and, besides, it is so much pleasanter to believe such natural things than to be for ever doubting. And why should not Columbus have made his ships thus fast? The ceiba looked a thousand years old. Who knows but that it is even older?
A little way down the stream and closer to the city, there was a spring of sweet cool water, and above it a stately canopy of stone, built by Bartholomew Columbus,—Christopher’s brother,—and called “The Fountain of Columbus.”
Oh, such a day, under the rocking, tumbling clouds, ever moving, ever changing, moulding, blending from black to gray and billowy white, under fitful showers and sudden baths of sunlight! It was a dream day of sleeping bells and timeless dials and ruined towers and enchanted palaces, with the bones of poor old Columbus beating time to the hopes of the ambitious San Dominicans of to-day.
Evening came, and we were at dinner on the boat with our delightful friend from the shore, drinking to the prosperity of the Dominican Republic, and to the hope that Señor P—— A—— might live to be President of his beloved country. But, alas, how many Presidents they have to have in these Spanish “republics” to round out the tally with Destiny!
It seemed to me that, for my part, if all Spaniards were as gracious, as hospitable and genuine as our new-found friend, there would never have been a Spanish-American War.
And so next day we sailed away, leaving the City of the Holy Sunday wrapped in peace and good-will; but who can tell the day or hour when the land may again be devastated by revolution?
CHAPTER IV.
SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO
I.
Looking to Sea from San Juan
Puerto Rico
Copyright, 1901, by Detroit Photographic Co.
WE were creeping in toward the entrance of the harbour of San Juan, Puerto Rico, waiting for the pilot, who had sighted us afar off. It was when almost at a standstill that our brown-skinned pilot in his open lug-sail boat came alongside and sprang for our rope ladder with the nimble agility of his prehistoric progenitors. He left two small boys, one at the tiller aft and one in the bow of the boat hanging on to a line dropped them from about midships of our steamer. The pilot continued shouting at the boys as he disappeared over our heads to where the captain stood waiting on the bridge; but things did not seem to go well with the boys below, for instead of at once assuming command of our ship the pilot again turned his attention to the boys. He now followed up his first harangue by a supplement in very angry tones, evidently out of patience with the poor little fellows, who, much excited, could not seem to keep their boat from sheering at a dangerous angle, with her bow against the side of our ship. A quick flash of resentment toward that dusky pilot spread from one to the other of us as we saw how panic-stricken the boys were, and how as our ship suddenly put on a bigger head of steam the little boat alongside had become unmanageable and was in imminent danger of being sucked under our side. To prove that he was powerless to prevent disaster, after incessant yells from his father, the lad in the stern-sheets of the boat jumped to his feet and flung out with tragic despair his two hands, in each of which he held up the fragments of a broken tiller. Then in all the languages of our ship the boys are howled at to let go. Already their narrow boat is beginning to careen dangerously against the side of our moving steamer. Not a moment too soon they let go the rope, and their excited, high-pitched voices sound strangely out of place as they rapidly drift astern of us in the open sea. The pilot had evidently assured his boys that he would look after them, for within a few rods of the harbour entrance a loitering sail is hailed. To our tremendous relief we follow the rescuer until we see that a tow is in progress, and then we feel better.
As we approach the harbour, and at the entrance dodge into a channel between yellow reefs plainly visible through the clear water, it is no small thing to see our dear Stars and Stripes peacefully waving over that relic of mediæval Spain, the venerable Morro of San Juan on the bold headlands to our left; its wide-spreading fortifications, gray with centuries and fast going to decay, running in walls and terraces far above the sea. We throw our whole soul into the soft folds of that flag with a deep sense of joy. There are among our company some with whom as loyal Americans we cannot but feel restraint, owing partly to the whisperings afloat that the aliens are envoys from his Majesty the Emperor of Germany, bent on a mission not altogether that of pleasure. However that may be, we are all the more moved to enthusiasm over our flag when we are conscious of the lack of that sentiment among the Germans. So when we are near enough to the fort to hear the wild cheers of welcome issuing from every parapet and tower of that old pile, we know no hounds and answer the welcome as you would have done had you been there. Spontaneously “The Star Spangled Banner,” started by the boys on the fort, finds a hearty echo from our ship, and my eyes are blurred so that the restless, shouting, singing boys on shore look dim and indistinct. Yes, we are coming home. Uncle Sam owns Puerto Rico, and I am happy to feel that here in the West Indies he has asserted his rank among the nations of the world, and intends to make this colonial home a sweet clean place for all of his children who wander upon Southern seas. Some day this fair harbour will be filled with ships flying the Stars and Stripes, and again our merchant vessels will be doing their rightful share of the West Indian commerce.
The way in which I found my love for those soldier boys expanding was really wonderful. The sight of those old blue flannel shirts, those faded Khaki breeches, those tossing felt hats aroused within me in this strange tropical island unexpected waves of patriotism. There sprung at once a dangerous leak in my affections, and had it not been for the quiet pressure upon my shoulder of a strong hand I so well knew, who can tell what might have happened? Even so, there was not a boy upon the island but I could have mothered with my whole heart, and I could not, however persistently that hand still lingered, quite stifle the upheaval of that undying mother instinct.
Although aware that Uncle Sam was fully alive to the great dower that this island alliance would bring him, I must still believe that his choice was not a little influenced by the actual charms of Puerto Rico herself: that, however much he, a man of some years, might appear indifferent to the allurements of lovely women, he is still like the rest of his sex chivalrously bent upon fresh conquests. In this case let us rejoice that he has been so fortunate, and that so pretty a face has brought so much of real worth.
Although, womanlike, acknowledging a deeper interest in our troops than in anything else, I could not be indifferent to the city of San Juan as we slipped past the reef at the entrance into the wide expanse of harbour and dropped anchor opposite the beautiful landing quay. El Puerto Rico del San Juan Bautista (The Rich Port of St. John the Baptist), as the Spaniards centuries before had christened her, opened before us like a bespangled fan, and threw from her glittering white walls the swaying efflorescence of stately palms. From the ancient fort on the headland to the Casa Blanca and the city beyond, it was a progression of delicious sights and sounds.
II.
Has it ever impressed you how rarely nature appeals to one’s sense of humour? She brings us infinite delights, but seldom cultivates in us our faculty of laughing. But down here off Puerto Rico, she for once leaves her beaten track of sobriety and indulges in the most extravagant caprices. How she ever thought out such a ridiculous line of hills none but Father Time could tell you; here her centuries of bottled-up giggles have burst forth, and she has made herself the most outlandish head-gear she could contrive, and here she stands, caught in the act of being silly. From this distance I should say the hills are barren, save for now and then a palm, which, dotted irregularly over the epidemic of peaks, gives the hills the forlorn look of a mole on an old woman’s cheek. There is every size of these jagged, saw-tooth peaklets jumping up in the air like so many scarecrows, and when our ship swings to her anchor and leaves us broadside to Puerto Rico’s shore, the little girls and I enter into the joke and laughingly wonder how it ever happened.
Then to match the distant landscape out came the Puerto Rican shore boats with ridiculous little open hen-coop cabins aft, much like the funny “summer cabins” affected by some New Jersey catboats—only more so. There were no end of fine modern launches of all sorts darting about us, some of them waiting for passengers, and others from our ships in the harbour bringing officers and ladies aboard, but Daddy would have none of them. He and the little girls are already under a hen-coop in one of the miserable little boats and nothing will do but I must go too. I protest, but to no avail. The stiff shore breeze makes prompt decision necessary, and I creep down under the coop an unwilling passenger; I would so much rather have been in one of the puffy boats. So off we go heeling well to the breeze as our funny, high-slung lateen sail drives us shoreward at a great rate.
We were not alone under the hen-coop, for we had some Puerto Rican musicians with us, and my qualms at the flying boat are actually forgotten in the strange but fascinating music of those natives. They carried not only the universal guitar of the usual form, but also a funny little guitar not a quarter as big as the ordinary sort, and a curious round gourd with shot or pebbles inside, which, attached to a handle, they used as a rattle, and other gourds some eighteen inches long, corrugated with many deep scratches, upon which they accented the strong beat of the measure by scraping with a bit of wire in a most dexterous manner. I can well imagine the contempt of some of our European musicians for such music, but as for myself, although trained in the most conservative of foreign schools, I could but acknowledge the deep influence of these untutored artists, and yielded myself in fascination to the weird rhythm of their music. Music to these peoples is not a dreary taskmaster, as it is to many of their Northern brothers; it is as necessary to them as is the outpouring sunlight, and they use it with a freedom and comradeship and love which is unknown to us. My senses are suffused with strange emotions of pleasure as I listen dreamily to the lullings of the water, percolated through and through by the cadences of low voices and the rhythmic repetition of single notes. I was unreal to myself even after Captain B—— and his wife, friends whom we half-hoped to meet in San Juan, had grasped our hands and led us to an army coach near by.
III.
Instead of being the dumping-ground for all the garbage of the city and the location for unsightly warehouses, the quay at San Juan is a perfect delight. I happened to-day to turn to a precious volume of Washington Irving’s “Life of Columbus.” While reading along I came across a letter in which the valiant discoverer endeavours to bring to his king some conception of the beauty of his newly found lands; saying that he fears his Majesty may have reason to doubt the veracity of his statements, for each new island surpasses in beauty the one before; in fact that one could live there for ever. Time cannot efface the noble bearing of Puerto Rico, and although far, far removed from the picture which met the eyes of her early discoverers, she is to-day not only from the standpoint of the picturesque, but from the practical aspect of cleanliness and order, a place to which every American may turn with pride.
Boat Landing and Marine Barracks, San Juan
Puerto Rico
Copyright, 1901, by Detroit Photographic Co.
To find upon landing a noble water-front finely paved, relieved by grassy quadrangles in which choice varieties of palms are set with the unfailing intuition of the true nature lover, places one at once en rapport with the best things of life. Why, why are we of the North so blind to the soul’s necessity for beauty? Why are we so dumbly indifferent to that craving? If we but looked deeply enough into the psychological influence of beauty, we would be forced to recognise man’s necessity for its expression in public places. There is no city among the Spanish-speaking peoples but has its restfully attractive plaza, varying in beauty as the wealth of the community permits—a playground and a club-house and a concert-hall in one for all the people. And when my mind reverts in unwilling retrospection to the innumerable hideous and barren cities large and small of our United States, it seems to me that we are hopelessly lost in the fog of the common-place. If we Americans were a poor people, there might be palliating circumstances, but we are not poor, we have more wealth than any people on earth, and surely a republic should give its equal citizens all the beauty and pleasure possible. We are merely blind, that is all. Pray God that our eyes may be opened and that right soon!
In these islands the plaza, where the people live largely in the open air, is the synonym for all that is congenial to the eye and soothing to the ear, and this explains much of the enthusiasm which we starved Northerners express when once within the satisfying influences of such surroundings.
Captain B—— and his wife are graciously willing to wait our pleasure, while we linger idly content, but we must not trespass too long upon their indulgence; so we enter the coach and rumble up the steep narrow streets after four lustrous army mules. Our driver, a native Puerto Rican, speaks to the mules in English, and ready with the explanation before I could form the question, Captain B—— says: “Yes, the boys use English, because their mules were brought here from the States, and of course they wouldn’t understand if the boys spoke Spanish to them.” Stopping for the passage of an army freight wagon, it seemed very comical to me to hear those Puerto Rican lads “gee-hawing” to the sleek American mules.
If the politics of our American cities could be as well administered as those of San Juan appear to be from the cleanliness and order of her streets we would indeed have cause to rejoice. The streets of San Juan were so clean that even the trailer of skirts might for once be forgiven her lack of common decency. She could have walked the full length of San Juan and not gathered up as much filth as she would in one block of one of our Northern sidewalks. Such was the cleanliness of the place that again and again we exclaim over the fine condition of the city; and Captain B—— bore out our impression that Uncle Sam had done his house-cleaning most effectively, and was now trying to maintain that condition by educating a force of native police,—“spigitys,” our boys call them.
As we were going through the Plaza we saw a great crowd on the far side, gathered about a regular American “trolley-car,” and wondering at their enthusiastic demonstrations, we were told that this was the first trip of the first electric car in Puerto Rico—a great step toward becoming Americanised.
IV.
We were in the Captain’s hands, and although Sister and Daddy were decorously unquestioning as to where we were going and what we were to do when we got there, Little Blue Ribbons and I couldn’t refrain from asking, when we found ourselves clattering out of San Juan to the tattoo of the hard little hoofs, if the Captain intended to drive us to Ponce? “Oh, hardly, this evening,” he laughingly replied. “I thought we would merely take a spin out a way on the military road to give you a glimpse of the country. The madam has planned a Puerto Rican dinner for you at the Colonial, and afterward there is to be a concert on the Plaza.” “Simply fine,” I said, “I do so enjoy trying the native bills of fare” (but alas, for their after effects!).
The First Trolley Car in San Juan
Puerto Rico
The military road, a beautiful macadamised highway, swept through a country whose surface was richly covered with broad pasture lands where many cattle were grazing. The plains were fairly peppered with palm-trees, which, owing to their long trunks and pluming tops, interfered but little with the pasture beneath. The military road is fringed by these noble trees, at least as far as we go, and although now to us a necessary feature in the West Indian landscape, I never weary of their aristocratic grace. We must have gone some miles when the madam suggested our return. A crack of the whip, a vociferous shouting to the mules, and the coach faces right about with military precision for San Juan. With many a bewildering twist and turn through the upper town, we reach the Morro headland, and are glad enough to leave the coach and throw ourselves into the deep grass, where we sit a long time looking out to sea.
Those of you who have been there know; those of you who have not, never can know the loveliness of that far-spreading vision. No, not if all the poets joined in one grand panegyric, you would never know what it all meant. You would need to feel the dull booming of the sea against the cliffs and hear the cool rattle of the palms crooning over the children in the Casa Blanca; you must run your hands through the stiff deep grass down to the earth which makes so sweet and so warm a bed; you must throw back your face to the uplifting Northeast Trade; then you will know what it means to sink down upon the green carpet of San Juan and look out to sea.
A veil dropped over the still water; the sea and sky melted into one substance; then we arouse sufficiently to realise that the madam is waiting. By this time San Juan had made ready for the night; we could see the fitful flicker of her electric lights down near the barracks, and here and there the dull red stare of an olden time street-lamp swinging midway between the dark lanes which intersect the upper town like long tentacles.
The Military Road Across Puerto Rico
Near San Juan
Copyright, 1901, by Detroit Photographic Co.
We ran down along the sea-wall, under the lattice of the stately Casa Blanca, and came into the city; turning abruptly to the left we were about to follow the Captain up the steep street, when I was stopped suddenly with my whole soul ablaze with wonder, for there on the top of the hill, as if on the very stones themselves, there rolled a great yellowish-green moon, and about it there fell a heaven splashed with emerald and gold. There were green and yellow and strange hues of blue all blending into a splendour which dazzled the senses and made one feel dumb. I am so thankful that we saw the moon before dinner. I couldn’t have looked in the face of a green moon afterward, no, I could never have done it.
I beg of you to be as considerate of me as possible in your judgment. I do not mean to be ungrateful to our dear hosts, or unkind or disagreeable; but after that dinner, planned for us with so much care and pride, all I could say was, “O Lord, have mercy upon us—miserable offenders!” We had things to eat I had never dreamed of, and may I be spared a recurrence of them in my future dreams! There were:
Tomatoes and peppers.
Pork chops, and peppers.
Codfish, vegetables and peppers.
Chicken and peas and more peppers and some black coffee and cheese, and the sweetest sweets I ever tasted, with a final dessert of beans with a sugar sauce. After dinner madam had chairs arranged on the balcony over the Plaza. She led the way, and said the concert would be delightful in the moonlight. But as the pepper and the various concoctions of grease and greens and sugar and beans began to make themselves felt, I turned my chair around, saying that I never could look at the moon any length of time, especially a green moon. Then Sister gave me a despairing look and turned her chair around too; gave my hand a hard squeeze, and leaning over, said: “Mother, it’s the peppers and sweet things; do you think Daddy could get me some Jamaica ginger?” A whispered consultation is held, after which the Captain and Daddy disappear, and then something warm and comforting is fixed up for Sister and me, and we decide that after all we will turn our chairs around to face the moon, but alas, the inconstant creature had slipped on her black hood and was scurrying off like a little fat nun. She was no more to be seen that night.
But her displeasure does not affect the humour of San Juan, for by this time the Plaza is filled with people making “el gran paseo” around and around the square in true Spanish fashion.
Meantime the Plaza is being filled with chairs—rocking-chairs—which seem to spring up out of nothing. I never saw or expect to see so many rocking-chairs in any one place. Here the “Four Hundred” sit, having paid a small fee for the use of the chairs, and here they rock back and forth and back and forth in endless waves until the music begins. Some rock with the elegant ease of the portly señora and others with the sprightly jerk of the laughing niñita, and as seen from the veranda of the Colonial, the eyes ache as they involuntarily follow the moving crowds circling countless times around the improvised barricade of oscillating chairs. But the music begins, the people are suddenly still, and out over the luminous night, still eloquent of the retreating moon, there fall the first notes. I know that it is rank heresy in me to acknowledge to any race but the Germans a preëminence in musical intuition; but I shall do so in spite of all the traditions of my youth. I believe that if the Spanish-American races could be given the skill and the knowledge to formulate their musical ideas to such an extent as has come to the painstaking Germans by generations of grinding, we would have greater music—and certainly more human music—than the world has ever heard. The Puerto Rican, as well as the Mexican, the Cuban, the Dominican, is the natural musician; he feels to his finger-tips every vibration of sound he utters, and he makes you feel what he does. His music is akin to that of the wild sea-bird, it is brother to the moaning of the winds, to the wan song of the dusky maidens in the dance—to dream sounds in cocoanut and palm-tree groves; it is life, moving, quickening, pulsating life their music speaks, and without life, what is the stuff we call music?
“Thank you, thank you, you have given us an evening we shall never forget. Shall we not see you in the morning? Buenas noches.”
V.
It was high noon as Little Blue Ribbons and I left the empty Plaza and started out with grim determination to do our duty. The streets were silent as the sun crept over our heads and sent its burning, perpendicular rays through the white umbrella. But that was of no consequence. We two had made up our minds to accomplish a certain purpose, and when we make up our minds neither man nor weather can prevail against us. We had been idle long enough. Time and time again we had drifted to the time-ripened Morro. Days had gone by and we lacked the energy to begrudge their inconsequential passing, but now a time of reckoning had come. We would have no more such idleness. Little Blue Ribbons and I had awakened on this particular day to a realisation of our unperformed duty, and although detained through one pretext and another all the morning, by noon we forswore further procrastination and hurriedly left the Plaza before our good intentions could again be lulled by inaction.
Inland Commerce
Puerto Rico
Copyright, 1901, by Detroit Photographic Co.
It was to the Square of Ponce de Leon we were going; and although not sure of its exact location, we remembered a fine old church near by, and that was our landmark.
It is strange indeed what a web of dreams the past weaves about its heroes, however recent their careers; but when the hand of time leads us back to the remote events of centuries gone by, we are hopelessly bewildered by the discordant wrangling between the real and the improbable.
Although the early companion of Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of Florida and the intrepid voyager on many seas, the conqueror and the first governor of Puerto Rico, and later the powerful and hated rival of Columbus’s son, Ponce de Leon’s one unrealised hope, his tireless search for the fountain whose waters were to contain the elixir of life, has so over-shadowed his actual achievements by the glamour of the legendary, that his very name has become the synonym for the stuff of which dreams are made. Standing thus as the embodiment of the unattainable, the knight errant of roseate hopes and undying aspirations, he has ever been, in spite of the irascible humour given him by history, a figure from whom none could wrest the talisman of romance.
Where are his contemporaries, where are those greater discoverers, abler rulers, better men who thronged these alluring waters during the two generations of Ponce de Leon’s eventful life? Dead, even in name, many of them, or else safely embalmed in the musty pages of some old history seldom read. But in him there was the spirit of the poet and the mystic, which ever has and ever will appeal to the imagination of mankind and through imagination attains immortality.
Thus it suggested much to us to find his statue in San Juan and to have heard some one assert with an air of authority that his bones rested in the old church hard by; all of which bore incontrovertible testimony to the fact of his having once been an actual living personality. So we two decide without saying a word to any one that we will make a pilgrimage to that church of the uneasy shades and prove for ourselves Ponce de Leon’s identity with fact.
With a feeling of affinity for the doughty old cavalier, and with half a sigh that I can never again lift my feet with the light-hearted grace of the little maid at my side, we wander on through the deserted streets until we come to the square of Ponce de Leon. It looked as it had before, only much whiter, much brighter, and oh, so silent! The church stood passively asleep; there were only the still hot rays reflected into our faces from the sun-baked pavement. The same, and yet not the same, was the empty square, for as we made nearer approach we found that the pedestal upon which before the figure of Ponce de Leon had stood with lofty bearing and haughty mien was now but a bare block of stone glaringly white in the noonday silence with naught but the inscription left.
The figure was gone! “Can it be that we have been dreaming, that it was never there?” I ask, in consternation. “No, Mother, surely not, I remember perfectly well a statue was standing there as we drove through only last evening.” With a startled tremor I wish the place were not so deserted, I wish some one would come, I dislike being so alone, and I wish that we had Daddy with us. But pulling ourselves together with a frightened glance over our shoulders, we pass the abandoned pedestal and go toward the church, unquestioningly sure of safe sanctuary within its open door. To our amazement we find it barred and locked. We try a side entrance; that too is mysteriously fast; but hearing a faint sound, as of retreating feet within, we venture a timid knock on the door. But our rappings bring no response save a hollow echo and a momentary cessation of the footsteps.
Still hesitating as to our next move, we stand there in the white glare, while a sensation of strange unreality creeps over us. Hesitating, but still unwilling to relinquish the pilgrimage without further effort, we spy an ancient iron-bound gate in the high stone wall adjoining the cathedral. We try its rusty latch and find it unlocked. We cautiously push it open. It turns heavily on great creaking hinges stiff from long desuetude, and swings to after us as with an ominous sigh.
We find ourselves in the secluded corridors of an ancient cloister. The sun still lingers on a patch of green courtyard dropped in the midst of the shadows, and up from the luminous verdure a cool fountain plays its restful measure. An ancient sun-dial speaks of the deathless tread of time, and in the deeper shade of a dark recess, on tables of venerable age, huge volumes lay, on whose yellow pages were strewn adown the wide-spread lines of the quaint Gregorian staff, the great square notes of an ancient Latin chant. Then,—