II.
The little girls and I are hurrying into our hair ribbons and our white petticoats and white waists and white hats, just as fast as our fingers can tie or button, when Curaçao jumps into our cabin windows, or maybe our ship has jumped into Curaçao; or is it Holland we have dropped upon, or is it a new stage-setting for the latest al fresco production of “The Flying Dutchman?”
We no sooner have our first glimpse than, for a bit, all the dressing stops, and we crowd our three heads up to the port-holes in perfect delight. As our slim ship slowly winds herself into the river-like harbour, this West Indian Holland becomes more and more enchanting. The harbours in these islands have been an increasing wonder to us. On the Venezuelan coast Puerto Cabello (translated literally, “The Port of the Hair,” because there it was said a hair would hold a ship) is a perfect example of a harbour for small vessels. Deep, natural channels—like rivers—wind circuitously until they widen into land-locked basins where ships of all nations, and of all rigs, and for all purposes, from the grim war-ship to the native dugout, come unexpectedly into sight as the channel turns and broadens into the real harbour. There the ship is left by the native pilot.
This harbour of Curaçao is no exception. We enter by a narrow, deep way protected by rocky barriers, directly into a little inner bay, encircled by the quaint town. The houses gliding by, within easy hailing distance of our decks, are preëminently Dutch, of brilliant, striking colouring, noticeably yellow, and mathematically exact as to rows and heights and proportions—most un-West-Indian. The town is certainly just recovering from a fresh coat of kalsomine. It is bright as a top and clean as a whistle.
We are but a stone’s throw from either dock, and it requires a lot of common sense, even downright logic, to persuade us that we are in the Caribbean Sea, and not far off on the other side of the globe coming out of the flat estuaries of the bleak North Sea into the Meuse or the Y.
A bit of Holland has been lost from out Mother Earth’s pocket, and has fallen by the way in this Western Hemisphere; and it has managed to get along without the big Dutch mother very well. It has grown up into full stature, following the instincts of its birth, almost wholly uninfluenced by tropical environment. Here it stands, a perfect little Dutchman, an exact reproduction of its staunch progenitors. Its forms and habits have followed the traditions of its ancestors, not those of its West Indian foster-mother. There is only one racial trait lacking in Curaçao,—we saw no windmills; all the rest is there. But, to our great relief, we are told that even the windmills appear on the country places farther inland.