Leaves around, a little stirred,
Came a sound, a sense of music which was rather felt than heard.
Softly, finely it inwound me;
From the world it shut me in,—
Like a fountain falling round me—”
My hand is held close and with wide eyes Little Blue Ribbons asks if she may drink at the fountain. Half-refusing, half-assenting, we are about to draw near, when from out an opening door, whence seemed to come the music, there appeared a figure bent in contemplation and wrapped in the shadows of the past. It was so like the statue on the square without that the one at my side gasps, “It is he, Mother, what shall we do?” and shrinking spellbound, I hold the dear little hand, glad to feel the human warmth of its pressure. With dread and yet with fascination I watch the lone, sad, weary figure, as it were the phantom of old age eternally unreconciled to the flight of youth. I watch while it moves eagerly toward the fountain to lean forward and drink deep, deep, with an insatiable thirst; and then with a hopeless sigh it paces back and forth among the shadows.
A Ranch Near San Juan
Puerto Rico
A bell clangs out the hour of one, and the great wooden gate swings open of itself, while we two, much affrighted, slip unnoticed behind the columns of the corridor into “the twilight gloom of a deep embrasured window” which for long years had been sealed from the light by the gray masonry of the ancient church.
Even as we look the silent figure has vanished, and we are left there with only the sound of the plaintive, ever murmuring fountain.
Awed and silent, we creep from our hiding-place and drag open the unwilling gate and once again we are out in the dazzling sunlight.
There—wonderful to relate—on its pedestal was the statue as it stood the day before, with outstretched hand and far-away look, scanning the distant horizon where to his ever disappointed eyes was just lifting the palm-fringed shore of that mythical island of Bimini, where at last flowed the long-sought fountain of youth.
Lest the unhappy shade again returning should seek sudden vengeance for our bold espionage, we took our flight toward the Plaza, nor stopped to breathe until again we found refuge in the crowded shops.
CHAPTER V.
CHARLOTTE AMALIE. ST. THOMAS
I.
AFTER the long stretches of ocean, you from the North will find that there is something positively cosy about these dear islands. You tuck your head under your wing with the parrots at night, off one island, and, the next thing you know, it’s morning, the sweet land-breeze steals in through the port-hole, and you’re up with the monkeys off another island—perhaps more enchanting than the last. Why, it seems not half the trouble going from port to port that it is to make fashionable calls in the great city, and such a lot more fun.
But speaking of parrots and monkeys: the only ones we have seen thus far were some very solemn little creatures which have been brought to the ship for sale,—poor captives, chained and unnaturally pious, sitting alongside their black captors.
We have not heard a single bird-note since leaving the North. Is it possible that there are no song-birds here, and in fact no birds of plumage left about the settlements? We fully expected the latter, but not a glimpse have we had of them,—no, not even in the forest along the Ozama, did we distinguish a single bird-note. Can it be that the plume-hunters for our Northern milliners have ranged through all these sunny islands? Ah, my friends of the feather toques and the winged head-gear, what have we to answer for? It all seems so empty without the birds where trees and flowers grow so gladly; just as if Nature’s feast were spread to empty chairs. After all, how fondly we do love that particular expression of creation with which we are long familiar! My heart reaches out in homesick yearning for the notes of our dear Northern songsters. How brutal are the details of the “march of civilisation!”
From San Juan, Puerto Rico, to St. Thomas it was only a night’s journey, and I am sure, had we been so disposed, we might have touched some other islands equally lovely on the way. But there must be some time for rest,—even though Little Blue Ribbons said she did not want to sleep (she knew she couldn’t), and Sister thought it a great waste of valuable experience not to make all the ports there were. Nevertheless, when morning came and the sun was wide awake, I had no little trouble in arousing the children.
And now it came to pass that all those threatenings and fitful tears and dire forebodings of the day before were simply whims and weather jokes. The sea fell into a gentle calm, and on St. Thomas there never shone a brighter sun or blew a sweeter breeze; and we realised that at last we were under the lee of that smiling windbreak of the Caribbean—“The Windward Islands.” Getting our anchor early, we moved from our first stopping-place, well out in the harbour, over to the wharves; where the huge piles of coal rose up before the port-hole, with other ranges of piles, like mimic mountains, farther on, while we were so close to the dock that I could see the gangway being lowered, as I bent over the sleepy little girls.
The Harbour
Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas
“Look, children!” I said,—“look, wake up, you’re losing so much!” And they rub their pretty eyes and want to know what’s the matter.
“Here we are, dears, at St. Thomas, the coaling-station. Daddy is waiting for us. I’ll go up on deck. Send word by Rudolph if you want me to help with the ribbons.”
So I hurried up the after companion stairs. Close to our side were the mammoth piles of coal, from which we were to make requisition; off about a mile to the other side of the great amphitheatre lay Charlotte Amalie (the chief city of the Danish Islands), making for herself as beautiful a picture as one could wish. We were in a superb harbour, with high, dome-shaped hills embracing us on either side, and the little city of Charlotte Amalie to the right of us on the beautiful slopes above, like a white lady reaching out her jewelled hands in gracious welcome. Whatever tales of buccaneer and pirate, of scuttled galleons, of buried treasure, of maidens fair, of romance, I had ever heard, came hurrying back to me in that delicious spot; and when the Castles of Bluebeard, and that erstwhile king of pirates, Blackboard, came into view, it seemed truly as if we ought to fly at our main-truck the black flag with the skull and cross-bones, and run out the cold bronze nose of a “long-tom” over our bulwarks, just to add the finishing touch.
The little girls and I were simply determined to let romance run riot in Charlotte Amalie. We would eat pomegranates and wear flowers in our hair; we would dream dreams on Bluebeard’s turret, and win into smiles his villainous, wrinkled, old ghostship. But, firm as was our purpose, it required no small effort to keep it uppermost in our minds. We thought Daddy would certainly be dragged into the water before he had engaged his shore boat. He was howled at, pulled at by the sleeves, jerked at by the coat, by great roaring blacks, fairly gnashing their teeth in impotent rage at Daddy’s indecision. But who could decide in such a mob? We were beckoned, at last, to come along, and picking our way down the ladder, plumped ourselves into “Champagne Charlie’s” boat, leaving “Uncle Sam,” “Honest William,” “Captain Jinks,” and a score of others screaming a medley of imprecations and their own praises in a mad scramble for the next victim.
We were not only beset by those in the boats, but also by a swarm of semi-amphibious imps,—not little imps by any means, but huge, muscular, bronze Tritons, who pursued, with wonderful rapidity, “Champagne Charlie’s” catch, and clung to the gunwale of our boat, and dove underneath and about us, wholly indifferent to our terror at the thought of being capsized. They howled, they swore with Southern abandon because we would not throw them pennies to dive for; and away off lay the little White Lady—the beautiful Charlotte Amalie. What a naughty lot of children she had! Daddy told “Charlie” that if he would not hurry us out of that mob, he’d not get a penny for his trouble, and Daddy used forcible English, too; for, strange to say, English is the common as well as the official language of the Danish West Indies. But I must not mislead you. It’s not your English or my English they use; it’s a funny kind of jargon; a baby talk disguised by Scandinavian intonations and besmirched by generations of African savagery. Sometimes you think you understand it, and then you think you don’t, and again you wish you hadn’t—so there you are.
Well, “Charlie” is at last aroused and a few good strokes of his oars free us from the vermin and bring us into less troubled waters. On the way across the land-locked harbour we passed a Danish man-of-war, a Russian frigate, a Venezuelan cruiser, a little schooner-rigged sailing “packet,” which carries the mail to other islands, and a number of powerfully built trading schooners; still nearer shore, there was a fine floating dry dock, where a very shapely little schooner—evidently once a yacht—was out of water being repaired.
II.
Hillside Homes
Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas
As we stepped on land and walked up under the shade of mahogany and mango trees, while the boatman’s fees were being struggled with, it seemed to me that I had never walked in so clean a street, or stood in such delicious shade. Oh, it was so clean and cool and beautiful! The macadamised streets were sprinkled and moist, the houses were all white and green, hugged close by high-walled gardens overflowing with flowering vines,—in particular that marvellous Bougainvillia, which flourishes in such triumphant splendour over these tropic walls; and everywhere the odours were sweet. The sky, as it glistened through the heavy, glossy mangoes, was as blue as blue can be, and the women carriers of water moved with rapid, noiseless tread, bearing their burdens upon their turbaned heads, and the little children offered us flowers. I find, as I write, that my mind constantly reverts to the cleanliness of the place. First, I said: “Oh, how charming!” and then, “Oh, how clean!” but, before I proceed further, you should be told that, the widely followed example of Spain—mother of the picturesque—is not responsible for this delightful condition of things, for in the Spanish-speaking islands, alas! it is otherwise!
Just here I must make a confession. I couldn’t tell you of the petty blemishes on the time-furrowed brow of wonderful old Santo Domingo—no, I could not, for there were those tears that for centuries had worn their cankering way across the face of the weary old Mother Church,—and then the long-suffering bell, and the tired, sad-faced sun-dial! No, I could not tell you then; and now that the memory of those tears comes to me again, I hardly feel it in me to confess to you after all. No, I never can! Those half-forgiven regrets could be told only to the dispassionate bells of the City of the Holy Sunday; you shall never hear them.
Yes, Charlotte Amalie’s face was clean. She wore a fresh pinafore and a green frock, and her bonnet was pink and starry white; and she was very prim and quiet, was the Lady Charlotte, despite her merry, laughing eyes. But the little lady has a funny lot of children. She doesn’t mind, though—not she. She folds her hands, and shakes her pink and white bonnet, and makes no apology. A funny lot of children she has indeed: blond pickaninnies and black babies,—black whites with kinky hair and white blacks with straight hair, all higgledy-piggledy, and they all speak a blond pickaninny’s language. Charlotte Amalie herself, when in state, speaks real English, and some of her officials Danish and French, as well. Her little daily paper, which came to us wet from the press,—Lightbourn’s Mail Notes,—was printed in English; so you see her ladyship knows the real world-language when she sees it, even if she is a foster-child of Denmark and burdened with the everlasting curse of Ham.
In Charlotte Amalie
St. Thomas
III.
While some of the party were writing postal cards and letters in a cool, flowery retreat, reached by devious shady passages and looking out into an open court, known as a post-office, I strolled up the quiet street to the first turning, where the cross road came to an abrupt, but very beautiful end in a little white chapel, sheltered by waving palms. There seemed to be but one main street, which followed the shore awhile and then went loitering off up the hill in a most indifferent manner.
The houses, with one story in the rear and two in the front, were built on the hillside, so that the chapel before me—well up on the slope—was approached by a long flight of stone steps. Snow-white columns upheld the simple portico, and the royal palms rose higher and higher from one terrace to another, their regular trunks like stately shafts of stone, until their warm plumes met over the golden cross. The picture, with chapel and palms and terraces and flowers and delicately wroughtiron gateway, was so compact, that it seemed as if some one just a little bigger than myself might tuck the whole affair right into a pocket for a keepsake.
Turning slowly about to look for the children, I glanced through the half-open blinds of a house on the corner, and there met a pair of very engaging eyes, which besought me in the universal language, to come in and see what there was for sale. The eyes belonged not to a maiden, but to a tiny, stoop-shouldered Spanish-Danish-English woman, who fluttered about in great excitement at the prospect of a sale. Strangers do not drop from the sky every day in these remoter of the West Indies. I bought a piece of needlework, and my change, in St. Thomas silver and Danish copper, was brought me by a regal old negress, in a voluminous red calico gown, standing out like the “stu’nsails” of a full-rigged ship, flying as her proper colours aloft, a brilliant green and yellow bandanna. My! but she was tall—six feet, it seemed, and she smiled all over her face with the meaningless good-nature of her race. What teeth she had left were glistening white. By the way, why is it that on these islands you find so many women, and not necessarily old women by any means, but girls from fourteen up—both white and black—with many of their teeth gone? Has the American dentist yet untrodden fields?
Black Susan salaamed me out, and seeing Daddy and the little girls ahead of me, I followed the clean—I repeat, clean—narrow street, as it wound up the well-tilled hillside to “Bluebeard’s Castle.”
IV.
It was a long, hot walk, that climb, in spite of the good breeze and the white umbrella’s shade, and we stopped a number of times on the way up to cool ourselves, and, incidentally, to envy the carriage of the brisk and leathery old women, who came striding past us up the hill, with great water-cans on their heads and water-jugs in their hands, stolidly indifferent to the hot sun and the heavy burdens they were carrying. It comes to me now that I did not see a young negress in the whole town, but this was explained on our return to the ship.
It was next to impossible to be keen enough to appreciate fully the remarkable vegetation and flowers and animal life all about us. The flowers seemed hung at the wrong end, and all the vegetable world strange and topsy-turvy; even some insects that we saw seemed quite outlandish. For a long time, as I sat between two rusty old cannon, dangling my feet with most awful irreverence over Bluebeard’s fortress wall, I kept my eye on an old bumblebee—a black and yellow pirate that bumbled of the peaceful present and the strenuous past; but even the every-day bumblebee was twice as big as he had any right to be, and he had the deep-drawn drone of a sleepy country parson. Then, just as the bumblebee hummed himself out of sight into the heart of a deep red hibiscus nodding its heavy head at me from the top of the wall, out of the mouth of one of Bluebeard’s piratical cannon there peeped two shining, yellow eyes in a little green body, and they stared at me, and I stared at them, each most curious about the other, until the inspection became rather embarrassing, and I rapped on the rusty, weather-worn old murderer, and away scampered Mr. Eyes, back with the ghosts and memories—all dying together. A little green lizard, with life for a wee bit of awhile; an ancient cannon of curious shape, rusting, but outliving a little longer; a great gray rock underneath, disintegrating piece by piece, going back again into the universe; and an immortal soul in a human body; are we all part and parcel of the same cosmic dust?
Twenty cannons dropped into the heavy embrasured masonry of Bluebeard’s wall looked down with grim irony upon a pious, self-complacent, twentieth-century gunboat, entering thus unchallenged their own waters. Whether it was the lizard rustling among the grasses inside the cannon, or whether it was a reawakened pirate’s ghost, I shall not venture to assert; but there certainly came to me a whisper which translated itself into the most disdainful reproach of our much-vaunted humanitarianism. I tried to explain to this little voice that nowadays we had reduced the killing of men to a science; that it was less painful to be blown to pieces by dynamite shells from a torpedo-boat than to be hacked to pieces by a pirate’s cutlass, therefore, more honourable, and that fighting was still necessary because diplomacy was too young to be weaned. But from certain mysterious sounds, very like the chucklings of an old man, I thought best to beat a retreat. Besides there were Daddy and the little girls waving to me from the top of the sturdy old watch-tower, so I gathered my umbrella, hat, and basket, and put to flight the flock of geese which had been examining my umbrella with long-necked curiosity. They, little caring for the sanctity of my far-reaching thoughts, went hissing and squawking down the hill in a most irate humour. I took a long breath, pinched myself to get awake, and started up the steep tower steps.
Charlotte Amalie from “Blue Beard’s Castle”
St. Thomas
From the top of this tower of “Bluebeard’s Castle” (kept in repair by the Italian consul, whose residence is here), one could look out across the pretty town to the rival fastness of old “Blackbeard,” crowning another hill of surpassing beauty. A road, white and smooth and shaded with palms, clung caressingly about the white-crested bay, and I longed to follow it. Yonder another road struggled up a hillside, through sugar-cane and fruit-trees, and tumbled off somewhere on the other side. I longed to follow that one, too. Another, white and edged with tamarinds and oranges, wandered off somewhere else, and I wanted to go there. But the last carriage had clattered off, and it was too hot to walk “over the hills and far away;” so, after a long quiet feast of the glory about us, we leisurely made the descent, and were again among the cannon crowning the ancient parapet. We strolled along down the steep winding highway, stopping now to trim our hats with flowers, gathered with much difficulty from behind a prickly hedge, and then to look with rapture upon the scene below, and again to talk about it all. The sun beat down upon our heads, but we did not mind that, for the cooling breeze came up from the sea, sweetly and gently, as if it loved us, and the mountains and the earth were oh, so richly clad, and the eyes so content with seeing and the nostrils so glad with the fragrant air!
V.
I wondered then why we Americans should not settle the matter at once with Denmark. As I understand it, there were negotiations for the purchase of these islands approved by General Grant, then President, in 1867; but, for some reason, the proposed treaty with Denmark was not ratified by Congress, and the little island was forgotten; but since the recent growth of our navy and the necessity for its constant care of the Caribbean Sea, and especially now that we seem destined to become sponsors to an Isthmian canal, the island of St. Thomas comes again to the front as one of the most desirable possessions the United States could have in these waters. The harbour of Charlotte Amalie is so protected by mountains and guarded by bold islands, with deep water inside, and an unimpeded channel from the sea, that, with sufficient fortification, it could be made absolutely impregnable, a West Indian Gibraltar, and at the same time a most valuable and protected station for naval supplies, docks, and the like.
On the Terrace
Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas
I do not believe in war, battle, or bloodshed, but I do most forcibly believe in the present necessity for our policy of expansion,—not alone because of the advantage to ourselves, but as well for the good of the yet unborn West Indians; and if we can extend our power through diplomacy and peaceful measures, I should be glad to see “Old Glory” floating over all the Greater and Lesser Antilles, provided—and this is the terrible if—that the present mixed and degenerate population could be miraculously reformed or removed.
In the case of Charlotte Amalie, there seems to be among the educated middle classes a sincere desire for American supremacy, and, although there is some opposition—largely sentimental—from leading Danes, the only important points that have arisen seem to be the question of how much we are to give, and whether certain influences in Denmark will permit the confirmation of a treaty for the transfer of the islands to the United States. I was told that the price suggested was somewhere about $5,000,000. This, I presume, does not include the rest of the Danish possessions among the Virgin Islands; but, while we are interested, why not take in the whole family; St. Thomas, St. John, St. Croix, and the other small islands adjacent?
Will the Germans try to block our acquisition of this group? The Kaiser’s subjects talk fair enough, but they unquestionably want St. Thomas—and who knows?
All through this day our fellow passengers, the German officers, were very busy making photographs and writing notes, and their interest even went so far as to lead to the suggestion by one enthusiastic Teuton that some day the German flag would fly over this beautiful harbour—but that was a slip of the tongue, and no doubt he would gladly have recalled the hasty remark a moment later.
There is truly no limit to the possibilities of these islands, if only the natives can be taught the value of their soil and the Adam-given necessity of labour. Here the mango grows; the mahogany, tamarind, guava, orange, lignum vitæ, cypress, bay, cocoanut, pomegranate, fig, and palms of all varieties—rare woods and rich fruits. Vegetables would grow more freely if only tilled and encouraged a bit. The export for which St. Thomas seems famous is its bay rum, made from the bay leaves and berries, brought mostly from Lesser St. John’s Island, and distilled in great stills well-nigh filling the fragrant cellars of several of Charlotte Amalie’s largest establishments.
Coaling our Ship
Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas
VI.
“I’ll give you a quarter if you’ll throw Mary in!” shouted one of the passengers from the rail of our ship to a great powerful negro, the bully among bullies of a crowd of blacks which swarmed as thick as bees on the pier close to our moorings.
“Mary” was one of several hundred negro girls who had been coaling our ship since early morning. All day long, the endless procession of short-skirted, straight-backed, flat-hipped, bare-legged, bandannaed negresses, carrying on their heads the baskets of coal to be emptied through the coal-chutes or into a barge, had gone on amidst deafening roars of laughter, insane oaths, and noiseless tread. The barge, when filled, was towed alongside the vessel and unloaded into our starboard coal-bunkers. The port bunkers were filled direct from the dock by similar baskets of coal dumped into the port coal-chutes.
We were watching the black children from the deck, and Paterfamilias turning to me, said, in a wholly justified tone: “There, now, my reformer, you see a practical working example of equal rights for women! It means equal or greater labour, as well, and a sad breaking down of all womanliness. The women do the work and the men loaf around at home to spend the money.” “Do you mean to infer, my dear, that if we women in America had equal suffrage, you men would stay at home and wait for the money we earn? Surely I’d never believe it of our American men—never!”
Whatever other men would do, the negroes of St. Thomas certainly did not do the work, as far as we could see. There were a few fellows who helped with the barge, and who handled the shore boats, but the heavy loads were borne on the heads of the women, and they appeared to be in every way equal to the occasion. We were witnessing a marvellous exhibition of endurance, for the sun was by no means gentle, and the baskets of coal weighed well up toward a hundred pounds each, but they were carried with the ease of so many feathers, with a light, active step, from morning until evening, without cessation.
“Throw her in and I’ll give you a quarter!” Mary was a young girl, black as night, with a hard, cruel, unsmiling face, and the restless watching eyes of a wild animal. She, too, had been carrying coal all day, and when her work was done, she, with some fifteen or twenty others, had followed along the dock to the ship’s bow, where pennies were being tossed to the pier by some of our plethoric passengers. A coin would fly through the air, drop on the pier amidst a scrambling, wriggling pile of howling negroes, with legs and arms and heads in a hopeless heap. Mary fought well; she already had a mouthful of pennies; she was as swift as thought, and as merciless of the others as the unfeeling elements. It was easy to see that she was a match for any man in the crowd, and it was easy, too, to see that, when the promise of “a quarter”—a mighty pile of money to those poor children—was held out to the one who should throw her into the water, there was more willingness to get the money than to approach Mary. She knew enough English to take in the situation, and stood there on the pier, not ten inches from the edge, with her bare arms folded, her thin, powerful legs tense, her head thrown back with defiance in its motionless poise, her fierce eyes rolling from side to side, watching for the first who would dare approach her.
One more word from the ship, and Mary was caught around the waist by a black giant who had been waiting his chance. In an instant, she seemed to grow a foot taller. She made a plunge for the man’s throat,—bent him down, down, down, with her eyes fiercely terrible; and there she held the unhappy creature until he begged for mercy, and amidst cheers from Mary’s admirers, slank away out of sight. Her spring was so sudden, so silent, so fierce, that I could not think of her as being human; she was more of the wild beast than one of her Ladyship’s children. And yet we cheered for Mary, too, and she it was who won the quarter.
I wish the Lady Charlotte would look after her children better.
CHAPTER VI.
MARTINIQUE
I.
THERE are so many different ways of seeing things—I suppose as many ways as there are souls to see; and yet, in a measure, one can generalise these many ways under two great heads. Just as we call the infinite variations of light, from the first bird-note of breaking day, through all the changing fancies of brilliant sun and wandering clouds—as we call it all day; and the wonders of darkness, night; so can our ways of seeing things be generalised under two great heads. There is the orthodox, scholarly, scientific way, and there is the heterodox, unscholarly, and unscientific way. Following the law of compensation, there is much to be said on both sides. If the mind is fully prepared, through study and research into the nature of the object to be seen, one has the satisfaction of viewing it as one would the face of an old and familiar friend. On the other hand, when the mind greets the object to be seen, unprepared, in an absolutely unprejudiced, plastic state, it has all the delight of surprise, enthusiasm, and novelty, over a newly acquired possession. And none will deny that this unscholarly, unprepared way of seeing things has its merits. In travelling where the countries visited are interesting mainly from an historical standpoint, no doubt much would be lost to the traveller whose knowledge of the background for his picture is indistinct; in that case, truly, the scholar is the one whose enjoyment should be keenest. On the other hand, where the charm of a place lies largely in its picturesque beauty, in its possibilities of surprise, through novel and curious phases of life, I believe that the traveller who is wholly unprepared has pleasures in store for him equalled only by the exquisite and spontaneous enthusiasms of childhood.
This long preamble is not so much to explain the two ways of seeing things, as it is to console myself for having known so little of the West Indies before starting on this cruise. There is no use in trying to appear wiser than one is, because, before one knows it, along comes some one who does really know; out flashes the critical knife, and off vanishes that beautifully flimsy wind-bag into thin air. For instance, I might have stood complacently unmoved when the great mountain peaks and the sleeping volcanic craters of Martinique rose in green majesty from the Caribbean Sea, and I might have said: “Why, certainly, that is just as I expected!” But I did not say so, because I had not expected such mountain peaks in the West Indies, though somewhat prepared by the islands we had thus far seen.
Once on a time I had a very charming picture in my mind of the West Indies, but, charming as it was, it was not the real islands as I have found them; and ever since having known the reality I have been trying to revitalise that former picture and compare it with the genuine impressions; but I find it of so ephemeral a nature that I can scarcely recall it. All I remember is, that I expected to find the islands low and flat, and mostly of a coral formation. Some of the islands are indeed of this nature, but comparatively few. As we sailed under sunny, cloudless skies, over a brilliantly blue sea, the monarchs of the Caribbees arose one by one in glorious majesty; and especially these Windward Islands, a great windbreak to keep out the big Atlantic, with Martinique the crowning summit. At times, single gigantic rocks, the homes of sea-birds, lonely and desolate, stood out from the deep; and then great ranges of mountains, covered to the summit with densest foliage, lifted themselves to the sky many thousands of feet. It is said with authority that, on these islands—particularly on St. Vincent—there still survive some of the ancient Caribs, the aboriginal West Indian race, no doubt descendants of those brave Indians so harried and murdered by the early Spanish explorers. In Martinique, the mixture of Carib blood is still apparent, showing, even through generations of negro pollution, in many a coppery skin, wild fierce eye, and proud head with straight black locks.
To me it seemed that Martinique is an epitome of the whole West Indies. In appearance, in products, in people, in history, it might taken as the highest type of these garden isles, once enjoyed by vast tribes of pure-blooded and self-respecting savages, but now held by the conglomerate descendants of all colours and all nations.
II.
Now had I been more familiar with the rare though limited treasures of West Indian literature, I would not have marvelled at the glorious mountain summits of Martinique that day we came to picturesque St. Pierre; I might have said to my companion: “Ah! here they are, quite as I expected; old, old friends; little white city, square cathedral tower, narrow, hilly streets; above and beyond little irregular fields—all hanging to the mountainside as they should!” But, instead, I stood fairly on tiptoe in the bow of our great ship, as she cut through high-running waves, with my hair blowing in a thousand directions, grasping for an impish pin to gather up as much as was amenable to reason, marvelling with all my senses at the approach to Martinique, as the dim mountains, coming nearer and nearer, were humanised by the habitations of men.
We four were there together. Sister’s curls were a flutter of gold in the low afternoon sun, and her sweet gray eyes were straining far ahead at the slopes of Martinique; Little Blue Ribbons clung to Daddy’s strong hand, while she leaned over the bow to watch the laughing foam dance up to kiss her pretty lips. How good it was to have them with us!—the two little girls—so keenly joyous in all the new marvels of sea and land. If Laddie had only been there, too—But for the other three boys, far off in our warm Northern nest, I had no longings. With them aboard, life on the ship would have been one vanishing streak of six black-stockinged legs, with an avenging Mother in pursuit from dawn till evening.
The Sugar Mill Near St. Pierre
Martinique
Now, whether it happened while I was trying to pin my hair together and could see nothing, or whether I was so absorbed with the great wonders that lesser ones failed to attract me, or whether it came by magic, I’ll not say; but at all events, in less than no time after we had taken our pilot aboard, the sea seemed to be alive with innumerable small sailing craft. I would look out toward Martinique on the port bow, and see what appeared to be the crest of a combing wave,—for the “Northeast Trades” were blowing fresh, and we were not yet under the lee of the island—a second more and this same white crest would change into a sail, darting off, close-hauled, into the wind, as swiftly as a pelican plunging at his prey. These materialised wave-crests continued to appear until I counted over thirty of them on all sides of us, on the same tack, making for land; low, narrow fishing-boats, coming in with the day’s catch. These were replaced, as we finally made port and dropped anchor, about three-fourths of a mile from shore in an open bay or roadstead, by a horde of little canoes, filled with chattering, copper-coloured natives, who came swarming out to us, each in a single boat, except a few who shared some larger canoes, and each arrayed in a bit of loin-cloth. These remarkable natives were so interesting to us all that I cannot resist giving you a description of their peculiarities.
As I told you, I came to the islands sadly lacking in information regarding the island of Martinique or the city of St. Pierre. I knew a little about it, to be sure; I knew that the Empress Josephine—the beautiful and unfortunate wife of the great Napoleon—was a creole from the shores of this island; I read in our West Indian guide-book (fortunately a very tiny affair) that Martinique is 43 miles long and 19 miles wide; that it has a population of 175,000; that its mountains rise to the height of some 4,500 feet; that the annual rainfall is great—some 87 inches; that the mean temperature is high, about 81 degrees; that the soil is rich and readily responds to cultivation; that the island was discovered by Columbus in 1502 (or in 1493, as some say), and settled by the French in 1635; that the belligerent English had, at different times, interfered in its peaceful life, capturing it first at the end of the Seven Years’ War, and subsequently holding it for two periods covering a considerable part of the Napoleonic wars; that it had been occasionally frightened by volcanic eruptions from Mont Pelée, and more often shaken by earthquakes; all of which sounds very much like an encyclopedia, in fact all of these historical data were copied word for word from our guide-book, which I took down at Daddy’s dictation. It is really all his fault. He said I was not definite enough; that people wanted facts, not tinselled trivialities, so I acquiesced: “Very well, read it off,” and there it is. You see how it sounds. I don’t like it myself, but some people may.
Coming to Welcome Us
St. Pierre, Martinique
There was one fact about Martinique which was worth more to me than all the data put together. I had a servant—a French woman—who for years took care of the children.
Once upon a time she had lived in the household of the Governor of Martinique, after he had returned to Paris; and she had darned his stockings; think of it! My good Elise had darned the stockings of the Governor of Martinique, and many a time she had darned mine! Wasn’t that enough to establish a lasting bond of interest between Martinique and the wanderer from the North?
But these dark things in the water—where do they belong? Elise and the Governor of Martinique’s stocking could never help us settle that question. As I said, they swarmed about the ship like so many insects. They were an entirely different type of people from the black imps of St. Thomas.
At St. Thomas the native was quite as ready with his guffaw as he was with his oaths. He was a big African animal, black as coal, with the flat nose and heavy lips, with all the idiosyncrasies we know so well; a somewhat exaggerated, wilder, freer type than the Ethiopian we meet in our Southern States. But these natives of Martinique were altogether different from the blacks of St. Thomas. Their bodies were often of the most beautiful copper colour, verging on red; their features were regular, and in some cases rather attractive,—rare cases these, however; their expressions were fierce and saturnine, even in the youngest children of eight or ten years. They had to a marked degree that animal trait of fixing their eyes upon an object and never leaving it until what they wished had been granted them.
These swarms of men and boys had come out to dive for coins—silver preferred—and how had they come? Mostly in slender canoes, some seven to ten feet in length, varying in dimensions according to the size of the occupant, one boy in each canoe. These flimsy shells were about a foot to fifteen inches wide, and six or eight inches deep, made of thin boards or even the rough sides of light packing-cases skilfully joined together and payed up with pitch. They were flat-bottomed, sharp at both ends and barely wide enough for the single occupant to sit in, and without seats, oars, or paddles. In what one might call the bow—if bow there is to such a craft—the low sides were bridged over and boxed in underneath, with a narrow slit in the top of this tiny locker into which to drop the captured pennies. This was the diver’s bank, where he deposited his capital after his mouth was too full to hold more. In lieu of paddles, he had a bit of thin board about the size of a cigar-box cover in each hand; sometimes this artificial fin had a loop to fit back of the hand, and sometimes the little fellows would use only their hands to paddle themselves about, sitting well down, leaning forward, darting rapidly through the water. Meanwhile some bigger boys and men appeared, two or three together, in larger skiffs propelled by oars or paddles.
The divers whisk in and out among the host (for there were also other larger boats now come from shore to see us) with marvellous skill, and when we toss a coin into the clear sea, away go the paddles and boats, and down go a half-dozen copper-coloured bodies, each making for the same shining point, and all we can see for awhile is several pairs of whitish soles gleaming under the water, and sometimes the short turmoil of a fight below the surface; then up comes a sputtering heathen with the coin in his hand, to show he has found it. Into his mouth it goes and then off he chases for the abandoned canoe, which by this time is full of water and looks a hopeless derelict. But that is nothing to this semi-aquatic creature, for he grasps the two sides of the boat, gives it a dexterous roll and lift combined, emptying most of the water, bails out the rest with a rapid movement of his hands, throws his body across the canoe and is inside before it has time to capsize.
Looking from the Deck of Our Ship
St. Pierre, Martinique
These boys and men gave us a most remarkable exhibition of swimming. For the consideration of a little silver, they even dove under our steamer amidships, coming up on the other side in about the same time that it took us to walk across the deck. It must be remembered, however, that these divers do not go to the bottom for the coins, as we are often led to believe by traveller’s accounts; they dive underneath the coins and catch them as they go zigzagging toward the bottom. It would be well-nigh impossible, so I am told, to recover a coin in thirty-five to fifty feet of water, even were it not very difficult and dangerous for a swimmer to reach the bottom, on account of the pressure of the water at that depth.
During the entire performance, the shouting was continuous, at times almost deafening, and yet not a sign of laughter or merriment with it all. They were fearsome creatures, these divers. With no very great stretch of the imagination, I could picture a cannibal feast with these very men the chief actors. Their fierce looks were unlike those of any human being I had ever seen. They suggested at once the ancient inhabitants from whom the Caribbean Sea has taken its name.
III.
After our ship’s papers had been duly passed upon, the process of disembarkation began, and although late in the afternoon, we were all most eager to land and see the charms of Martinique at closer range, and, incidentally, to post our letters. We anchored as I said, quite a distance out, which was rather a surprise, for as we approached the shore we saw that sailing craft of all sizes and descriptions, from sloops to full-rigged ships, were moored within a hundred yards or so of the levee, with anchors ahead from each bow, and stern-lines out to shore. This was a most unusual sight in an open roadstead. It was partly accounted for by the fact of there being deep water close up to the shore, but principally because St. Pierre is in the latitude of the true northeast trade-winds, which at this season are as sure as the rising of the sun, and this harbour is on the leeward side of the island, and thus smooth and protected.
We had been sailing under the beneficent care of the trade-wind for many days now, without fully appreciating it, and it was only when the daring of these trading vessels was explained, that we realised why it was that they had nothing to fear from contrary winds, or from the danger of being blown on the rock-paved beach.
The Harbour and Shipping
St. Pierre, Martinique
Copyright, 1901, by Detroit Photographic Co.
Some years ago, at home, I was quarantined with a case of fever, and I recall most vividly my demand for suitable literature, paper bound, something that could be burned up if necessary; and I can yet see the amused expression on my nautical husband’s face as he handed me volume after volume of sea stories. I had no choice in the matter; I read my books and ate my food as it was handed me, and asked no questions. Now, long years after, in the harbour of St. Pierre, with brig and brigantine, and bark and barkentine safely moored to the levee, the charm and fascination of those delightful sea yarns comes stealing over me once again, and I can appreciate how surely the mariners must have counted upon the time when the trade-wind would rise and carry them on their course. Steady and hearty it blows. At ten or eleven o’clock of the morning, the heat of the tropics lifts its hat to the “Doctor” as the natives call the trade-wind. At six o’clock it bids him good night. At eight o’clock, he calls again for the few hours of darkness, so that both day and night are tempered by his salubrious presence.
Our joy would now be complete if we could but see the Southern Cross, for we had felt the rushing hurry and the firm caresses of the Northeast Trades, and despite all our former indifference to the sea, the mariner’s spirit was surely asserting itself.
It was at the close of a long, delicious tropical day that we four stepped from the shore boat to the paved beach of St. Pierre, to the beach where empty the clear streams of mountain water flowing down through the streets of the town above. Had our coming been that of royal guests, our hostess could not have been trimmer or neater. Sister left us at the pretty white lighthouse right on the beach, and ran on ahead to pick up an especially beautiful shell which she could not resist, and we walked on along the street that follows the shore, under the shade of the mangoes, until, when we turned to wait for her, she seemed to have been caught into the very arms of the tower and held there for hostage. To be sure, she was only arranging her shells in the basket, but she was so quiet and the tower beyond was so old, old—so white and so still—that I called to her in a kind of dumb terror at some impending evil: “Sister, come, you must not loiter behind, keep with us!”
The Lighthouse on the Beach
St. Pierre, Martinique
It is possible that had our landing in St. Pierre been at noonday it would not have been so ever-memorable. We might have felt industrious, we might have thought we ought to see things and do things. But, ah! we were spared that! It was at the drop of day when men do not work nor women weep; and so we had nothing to do but follow where the people were going, on beyond the little lighthouse tower dozing by the sea.
The bells in the white church under the hill had been ringing as we rowed toward shore, and it was not long before the church emptied itself into the street, nor long before we were part of the happy worshippers who scattered in every direction. St. Pierre arose from the very water’s edge. A row of substantial stone buildings shaded by wide-spreading glossy mangoes stretched as far as I could see in the twilight. The street made a turn away from the beach and the buildings followed after. In the other direction it led to the church and then came to an end.
But St. Pierre couldn’t have built on a straight line had she wished to do so. She has chosen a mountain for her home and she had to plan accordingly. So she builds until her streets become a series of stone steps, up—up—up; and then, when they finally run against a sheer wall of rock, they stop going up and go round, for they seem to go on indefinitely.
But we were not to be baffled by stone steps, we only pushed on a little more vigorously, and started the climb into St. Pierre to post the precious letters which had been written under such stress of circumstances. We went up and about, and found the post-office, just too late to satisfy the demands of Martinique red tape; for the black officials were still redolent of sealing wax as the last sack of outgoing mail was closed; and what were we to do next? We were advised to hunt up the American consul, and possibly he could, by special suasion, find some way of caring for our letters. So we went on through the clean, narrow stone streets, passing many a home which shone out in the early twilight very enticingly, through the high gateways, down to the consul’s house, which we found barred and bolted for the night.
The Street Along the Water-front
St. Pierre, Martinique
Oh, these comfortable American consuls of the tropics! They live among flowers and palms, arise late and go to their town offices by noon; then “business” grows dull and they bolt the office at three or four o’clock and take flight to a gardened home, in some cool mountain suburb, to rest from the wearisome grind of diplomacy. Would that we all might rise to the dolce far niente of an American consulate! But after all we need them; for if our flag is now seldom seen in out-of-the-way ports, who but the American consul will protect the wandering American?
Two gentlemen, standing in a notary’s office hard by the consulate, explained that the ship Fontabella, which was to carry the mail, had not yet arrived, and that perhaps our letters must go to New York by way of Southampton. Then it was not too late after all. Why not leave them in the box at the consulate? “Would they be sent?” we ask. An affirmative reply decides us. What mattered a short delay? Those letters couldn’t be hurried however urgent their contents. They must wait for the Fontabella until she was ready, and when that time would be none could say. What could be more romantic than to send our letters by this fancifully named ship, however long her voyage, however indolently she loitered in these fair seas; wherever she strayed she was still the Fontabella. Who knows but some of her charms might miraculously sift in through a rent in my package and breathe a spell upon my words? Ah, Fontabella! Heaven bless you; and I stand sighing over the mysterious music of a name!
IV.
Do you remember a game we children used to play, which had this little refrain?