The war maker

PRESIDENT BAEZ of Santo Domingo was short and thin and had a washed-out look, as though his skin had been faded by chemicals instead of by a three-quarters’ admixture of white blood. He had large full eyes that were shifty and insincere. He was clever but superficial, cunning and treacherous. Had I seen him before I went to his cursed country, to reorganize his army and aid in putting down the growing revolutionary sentiment, I would have remained in Venezuela or gone elsewhere in search of adventure, for he looked a coward and provoked distrust. I had heard of him only as a good fighter but that reputation, I became convinced soon after my first visit to the “palace,” had been earned for him by his former friends and supporters and was in no sense the work of his own sword, at least so far as recent years were concerned. In his earlier days he might have displayed more bravery, and he must have shown some courage to arouse a fighting degree of loyalty that had four times swept the country, but presuming that to be true he had gone back greatly with advancing age. He seemed to have convinced the superstitious mulattoes, with whom the still more fanatical full-blooded blacks were always at war, that he was a real man of destiny whose course could not safely be interfered with, and his successive successes probably were due more to that belief than to any other cause. His brother, the Minister of War, had all of the President’s faults in accentuated form and added to them an inordinate vanity. He was jealous of me from the start. He had expected that I would recommend to him such changes in the “military establishment” as I thought wise, but I insisted on doing things myself and having a free hand, which the President was quite willing to give me, perhaps because he was suspicious of even his own brother.

The “army” was, in reality, not much more than an unorganized body of densely ignorant natives who, as practically the only compensation for their supposed loyalty, were allowed to carry guns, which they did not know how to use. I taught them how to march without getting in each other’s way, how to handle their arms without shooting themselves, and as much discipline as they were amenable to, but I fear my efforts did not go much beyond that even though they did effect a decided improvement. One of my first recommendations to the President was that he buy and fit out two small gunboats with which to patrol the coast and hold in check such revolutionary centres as Monte Cristi, under threat of bombardment. They could also be used, as I pointed out, to transport troops quickly to rebelliously inclined districts. The President thought well of the plan and, though I advised steamers, he directed that the “Juliette,” for which he agreed to pay a fair price, be converted into such a craft. I ordered five small rapid-fire guns sent from England to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and, the revolutionary spirit seemingly having subsided with the improvement in the army, took the “Juliette” there in the Summer of 1873, to have her decks strengthened and mount the cannon. We returned early in the Fall to find that the smouldering revolution had burst into a flame and a large force was marching on Santo Domingo City, and only a few miles away. When I reached the palace the President and his brother were vehemently but vainly advising each other to be brave.

“What shall we do—what shall we do?” demanded the President as I entered the door.

“It strikes me that it might be a good scheme to fight,” I replied, with no attempt to conceal my disgust at their attitude. “In fact, I should say it is up to us to fight, and fight until we are all bloody, if we have to.”

“Yes, yes, but where?” queried the trembling chief executive.

“Go out and meet them,” I advised. “They probably will not be looking for us, as I judge that would be a departure from the established Santo Domingan method of warfare, and we may be able to take them at a disadvantage.”

“No, no,” urged the panic-stricken Minister of War, “let us wait until they get into the city and then bombard them with your guns.”

“Which would mean,” I said, “killing four or five of your own people to every one of the enemy. I am not used to that way of fighting and don’t know how to do it.”

They told me there were about three thousand men in the attacking force. We had more than four thousand men under arms, which gave us the advantage of numbers. The city had no defences worthy the name and I insisted that the thing to do was to go outside and fight it out in the open, while the doughty General, who seemed to be seeking delay more than anything else, was in favor of making a rough-and-tumble of it in the town. The President, who had imbibed something of American ideas during his three years’ residence in New York, and who had apparently regained a little of his nerve while we were canvassing the situation, agreed with me, and, against the continued objections of his brother, we went out to meet the attacking army.

Gen. Baez commanded our centre and right while I commanded our left flank. His reason for wanting to postpone the action was quickly apparent, for he was an arrant coward. He began to give way, before a force that was inferior in both numbers and discipline, with the firing of the first gun, and fell back so rapidly that before I realized it my command was flanked and almost cut off, with the sea on one side of us and the enemy on two others and rapidly closing up the fourth. My men fought surprisingly well until they suddenly discovered that they were almost surrounded, when they promptly went into a panic. Most of them dropped their guns and ran for the city, with an activity of which I had not dreamed them capable, while nearly all of the others, in regular South American fashion, about-faced and joined the rebels on the spot. In a few minutes I was captured, along with about a hundred men who were so numbed by fear that they could neither run nor fight, and had not enough discretion to join the enemy. I was furious over the cowardice of Baez and put up the hardest fight I was capable of, with the satisfaction of putting six or eight blacks on a permanent peace basis, but with my revolver empty and my sword broken I was overwhelmed by the inky cloud. Gen. Baez galloped back to the city and he and his bewildered brother, the President, had barely time to board a small schooner and sail for Curacoa before the capital was in the hands of the rebels. Gen. Ganier d’Aton, a tool of Pimental and Cabral, was at once proclaimed President, and hailed by the populace with the customary acclaim.

Instead of being killed at once, as I had expected to be, I was taken to a small fort on a hill near the town where, on the trumped-up and altogether false charge that I had fomented trouble and brought on civil war, I was tried by drum-head court-martial and sentenced to be shot at sunrise. The verdict was, of course, dictated by revenge, and execution of it was delayed because they wished to gloat over me for a while. This was a little the most serious predicament I had ever been in and, with the idea of taking every chance that was open to me rather than with any distinct hope that it would be answered, I gave the grand hailing sign of a powerful secret order which I had joined while in Caracas. I thought I saw a sergeant raise his eyes but, as he gave no further sign, I concluded that if there had been any movement it had been one of surprise and not of recognition. I was placed in a large sala with windows opening on the courtyard and blank walls on the other three sides. The windows were barred and after satisfying myself that they were secure, and that there was no way of escape, I laid down and smoked, reflecting that if my time had come there was no way of interfering with the programme scheduled for the break of day. The soldiers were drinking and celebrating their victory with shouts and songs, which lessened in volume and vehemence as the night wore on, but two sentries who paced back and forth in front of my room and met under one of the windows religiously kept sober. Now and then a drunken coterie would press their dirty faces against the bars to hurl at me denunciatory bursts of Spanish eloquence, to which I vigorously replied, but these enlivening visits grew less and less frequent, as the consumption of tafia rum increased.

Along about three o’clock, just as I had about made up my mind that in a couple of hours I would be due to start on an indefinite exploration into regions about which nothing is known except that no traveller ever returns from them, I heard a short scuffle at each end of the path the sentries were patrolling and a gurgling noise as though a man was choking. The next moment Lorensen’s voice came softly through the door, “Are you in there, Captain?” I assured him that I was.

“Stand away from the door,” he said, and I obeyed the order with pleasurable alacrity. Three blows with a log of crutch mahogany taken from a pile in the courtyard which had been brought in from the mountains for export, smashed in the door. Lorensen seized my arm and, led by the sergeant who had, after all, recognized the sign I had made and answered it, we climbed down a declivity back of the fort and made our way to the shore, where two boats were waiting for us. The smashing in of the door of my prison aroused the drowsy guard and we were hardly well out of the fort before there was a beating of drums and loud shouts from the few half sober officers, directed at the soundly sleeping soldiers. They finally mustered a detachment which was sent in pursuit of us, but they were not in a condition to move rapidly and did not reach the shore until we were a considerable distance away from it. They fired a few shots in the general direction of the sea but as we were in no danger of being hit we did not raise a gun.

When we got out to the “Juliette” I heard the story of my deliverance. I had been taken prisoner about the middle of the afternoon and it was early in the evening when the death sentence was passed on me. The sergeant, whose name was Alexandro, had understood my signal. He went into the city as soon as he could get away from the fort and, by persistent questioning of the natives, finally ascertained that I was in command of the American ship lying in the harbor,—for I had not hoisted the Santo Domingan flag on the “Juliette.” He then rowed out to the ship and, after telling Lorensen what had happened, through a member of the crew who could speak Spanish, offered to lead a rescuing party to the place where I was confined. He said it would be comparatively easy to get me away as only a small body of troops had been left at the fort, the supply of rum in the city being much larger, and they would be helpless from drink.

Lorensen, being a member of the same order, could well understand why a white man should have taken the deep personal interest in my welfare which Alexandro manifested, but he was suspicious that the negro was seeking to lead him into a trap. He decided, however, to take no chances, so, after warning Alexandro that he would be the first man killed if he attempted any treachery, Lorensen went ashore with sixteen well-armed men, six of whom were left with the boats while the others proceeded to the old fort. They surprised the two sentries at the opposite ends of their beat, throttled them and, as the surest means of preventing an outcry, cut their throats, which accounted for the gurgling noise I had heard. Then they broke in the door of the sala, in which operation they were obliged to make enough noise to arouse the guard.

Such are the obligations of a great secret order.

Men whom I sent ashore reported that President Baez and his brother had fled and the rebels were in full control of the government, and as soon as it was day I sailed close in and bombarded the fort where my execution was to have taken place. There was a great helter-skeltering of rum-soaked braves when the first shells exploded around their ears, but there were some who did not get away, and the crumbling walls came down and buried them. Then we headed for Venezuela again, after an experience that paid me only in excitement. I had not drawn a dollar from Baez and I had been obliged to pay for the changes made in the “Juliette” and for the guns that were brought from England, for I could not find a banker in Halifax who would advance a cent on the letter of credit from the great Republic of Santo Domingo. Still, I figured that the experience had furnished me enough excitement to justify its cost. Several years later I met Gen. Baez again in Murphy’s Hotel at St. Thomas but did not see him until he took a good-natured shot at me. The bullet smashed a pile of dishes on the arm of a waiter ten feet away from me, and from the start that waiter made I would not be surprised to hear that he is running yet around the hills back of Charlotte Amalia.

At Caracas I found that Guzman had been duly elected Constitutional President. He was inaugurating a scheme of public improvements, the country had settled down to business, and the prospect was all for long continued peace, which was displeasing to me and I wanted to get away again. However, Guzman had a plan to keep me busy. There was not then, nor is there now for that matter, a decent map of Venezuela. It was reported from Paris that a Frenchman had gone up the Orinoco to its headwaters and had found that the Casiquiare River, which empties into it, formed a natural canal connecting with the Rio Negro, which runs into the Amazon at Manaos, Brazil. Guzman proposed that I go over this route and seek to verify the Frenchman’s report. Exploring unknown lands has always been as much a passion with me as aiding and abetting revolutions, and I willingly accepted the commission, but, though I did not tell Guzman so, I had no intention of returning to Caracas. As an evidence of my appreciation of his friendship I gave him a Jurgensen watch, which I had had made to order, and the “Juliette,” just as she stood, sending Lorensen and one or two others to London to work under the direction of my agents until I should arrive. He used the good little ship for years as a mail boat between La Guaira and Curacoa. Guzman gave me a Damascus sword of exquisite workmanship, which, not long afterward, I used with good effect on the pirates of the China Sea.

He wanted the exploration made on a grand scale and suggested that he send along a detachment of soldiers. I convinced him that his plan was impracticable, for a small party could get through much more easily than a large one. Late in October I went to Trinidad to outfit for the trip. There, at the old Ice House Hotel, I met two young Britishers who were men after my own heart: Dr. Rogers, a rich Church of England clergyman who preferred the legitimate pleasures of this world to the prospects of the next, and Frank Anderson, son of a wealthy Glasgow merchant and a recent graduate of Edinburgh University. They had come out to hunt for big game and were outfitting for a trip up the Orinoco. When I told them where I was going they expressed a great desire to accompany me and I readily agreed. I was glad to have such good companions for the long and probably dangerous journey, for it was a tradition that there were many “bad Indians” far up the river. I was the commandant of the party, Rogers was the scientist, and Anderson the provider. They had brought out from England two Peacock collapsible boats and to complete our fleet I bought an Orinoco lancha, a large flat-bottomed scow with a single enormous sail.

We went up as far as Ciudad Bolivar, the head of steam navigation, on the old side-wheeler “Bolivar,” and there took to our boats, which were provisioned for six months and carried seven natives to do the hard work. There was only a slight current in the river, which was at low stage as it was then “midsummer”—their winter comes with the rainy season in our midsummer,—while the steady trade wind from the Atlantic blew straight upstream, so we made good progress under sail. It was a lazy trip in the early stages and a tiresome one, for there were only a few dirty hamlets along the way and the llanos stretched away on both sides of us in an interminable monotony. At the confluence of the Apure and Arauca Rivers, two hundred and fifty miles above Ciudad Bolivar, we found a great inland delta, larger and more bewildering than that at the mouth of the Orinoco where there are thirty-six separate channels that have been charted. This delta, like the one on the coast, was formed by the tremendous force and volume of the “midwinter” floods, which had built up so many islands of soft mud that it was at times difficult for us to stick to the main stream.

One of our most interesting experiences was at the junction of the Rio Meta and the Orinoco, one hundred and fifty miles farther on, where we encountered the so-called “musical stones,” of which we had heard marvellous tales from the natives. These are granite cliffs which, we had been told, gave out at sunrise sounds closely resembling the tones of an organ. This mythical music, as we regarded it, caused us to stay here several days and finally, on one very cool morning, by placing our ears to the rocks, we distinctly heard subterranean growls, groans, and whistles, which could without great stretch of the imagination be compared to the notes of an organ, though it must needs be a wheezy one to make the similarity approximately honest. We all knew something about geology and, without pretending to give a scientific conclusion, it was our opinion that the sounds were caused by the hot air of the day, which the rocks retained during the night, being driven out by the cool air of the early morning through narrow fissures that were partially obstructed by thin layers of mica, lying at an angle to the general stratification, which served as reeds. The resultant vibrations were musical enough to produce a weird sensation as we listened to them, and it was easy to imagine the effect they would have on the ignorant and superstitious natives, and the stories for which they furnished a foundation. The Orinoco is navigable as far as the Meta for light-draft steamers at all seasons of the year, but it may be centuries before the “musical stones” become an advertised attraction for tourists.

At Atures, one hundred miles above, and again at Maypures, just beyond, were two rapids around which our boats had to be carried; but with these exceptions it was plain sailing, or paddling, until we crossed the line into Brazil. Another hundred miles beyond the rapids brought us to the jumping-off place of the world—the indescribably filthy little hamlet of San Fernando de Atabapo, built where the Guaviare River comes down from the mountains of Colombia to join the Orinoco. It is on the border of Venezuela and Colombia and its population is largely made up of murderers and escaped convicts from both countries, with a few from near-by Brazil. A number of the leading citizens undertook to waylay us as we were leaving the place but the only result of their misguided effort was that two or three of them received what the law would have administered if it had been given a chance.

From the time we left Ciudad Bolivar we had been sailing through a veritable wilderness, with human habitations few and far between, but after we left San Fernando de Atabapo we travelled through the primeval forest, which came down to the river’s edge on both sides. Its only inhabitants were widely scattered Indians, who were inquisitive enough but not at all ugly. There were miles and miles of magnificent rubber trees, which were especially abundant along the Casiquiare, and great stretches of vanilla and cacao growing wild. The Orinoco is indeed a wasted waterway. The vast empire it drains, covering more than half of Venezuela, is marvellously rich in minerals and in its forests, and could easily be made as rich in agriculture. Yet when we made our trip there were fewer people living along it than there had been four hundred years before when Ordaz, the Spanish explorer, ascended it to the mouth of the Meta, and I doubt if there has been any increase in the population since our visit. Ten Hudson Rivers could be added to or taken from the Orinoco without affecting it, yet it is traversed only by the native lanchas and bongos, or dugouts.

We turned into the Casiquiare River, two hundred miles above San Fernando de Atabapo, with considerable regret, for we would have greatly liked to follow the Orinoco to its unexplored source in the mysterious Parima Mountains, where is said to dwell a race of white Indians, who are popularly supposed to stand guard, with deadly blow pipes shooting darts that produce instant death, over vast treasures of virgin gold. But that would have taken many months more and we were not prepared for so long a trip. The priceless forest which surrounded us was filled with game of all kinds and great snakes, and alive with birds of wondrous plumage. There were so many snakes, in fact, that we anchored our boats at night and slept in them in the middle of the river, where we had nothing to fear but the enormous crocodiles which poked us with their ugly snouts to prevent us from oversleeping. We landed every day to stretch our legs and shoot, with ridiculous ease, enough game to keep us in fresh meat, but we never camped on shore at night.

After following the Casiquiare for one hundred and fifty miles or more we came to the parting of the ways—the point at which the Rio Negro, coming down from the foothills of the Andes, five hundred miles away, divides to feed both the Orinoco and the Amazon—and solved the mystery of the two rivers. There was no connecting canal of slack water, as the Frenchman was said to have reported. The Rio Negro, a wide and deep stream, forms the boundary between Venezuela and Colombia for nearly two hundred miles. At two degrees north latitude, or about one hundred and twenty miles from the equator, it divides, the smaller part, approximately one-third of the volume, forming the Casiquiare, which runs east for a short distance and then north to the Orinoco, while the main stream runs south and then east until it empties into the Amazon at Manaos. Though we had no map to guide us the situation seemed plain when we reached the larger river, which fed the Casiquiare, and by following the downward course of that stream until we were certain it was the Rio Negro, we settled the question.

Just below the junction of the Ucayari River with the Rio Negro, almost directly under the equator, we came to a succession of falls and rapids around which we made a portage. From there on, through the same silent wilderness of natural wealth that we had traversed for weeks, we leisurely sailed and drifted down to the Amazon, for the blistering heat discouraged all physical effort that was not mandatory. It was not until we reached the lower reaches of the river that we found men gathering rubber, and they were taking only ounces where tons were at their hands. We reached Manaos early in May, 1874. We had been six months on the trip and had covered all of two thousand miles which, everything considered, was fast travelling. Aside from its educational value the exploration had been delightful, and though tired from living so long in cramped quarters we were all in better health than when we left Trinidad.

My companions, who rejoiced in having been thrown in the way of greater sport and more interesting experiences than they had expected to find, were ready to return to England and I arranged to go with them. After resting for a week or two we went down to Para on a river boat and thence to Rio Janiero on one of the Lloyd Brazilero steamships. From there we sailed for England on the Royal Mail steamship “Elbe,” commanded by Captain Moir, who was in command of the “Trent” when Mason and Slidell were taken off. On the way across I compiled a full report of the exploring trip which I mailed to Guzman, with a promise that I would return to Venezuela within a few years. I left my British friends at Southampton and went to London to join Frank Norton and start for the China Sea, of which he had pictured so much that was good in my sight.