IV.
I suppose we might have walked from the boat-landing to the Parish Church embowered in its palms a few blocks away, but even that short distance was exaggerated by the early hot glare of the sun. The Northeast Trade was taking his morning nap, and the air was utterly motionless. So Daddy hails a cab, and we rumble off in the direction of some ringing bells. The town, as we drove along, had the dead look of an English Sunday morning; there were few people visible, and those we saw were evidently following the bells, as we were. Back of our desire to go where the face of the priest was leading us, there was a hope that, in attending an English church, presided over by a white, English priest, we should there see the representative people of Kingston, the white owners of the island. This church was one of the few beautiful sights in Kingston. Truly, some good priest of the olden time must have planned with lingering touch the graceful garden which so lovingly enshrined the venerable spot. An avenue of palms, singing their silvery song all the long day, skirted on either side the wide stone walk to the entrance, and bent their long, waving arms very close to our heads as we stepped within the doorway. The church, as an ancient tablet indicated, was built in the latter part of the seventeenth century. It followed the sweet lines of the English cathedral, built from time to time, as one could readily observe from the varying indications of age in the structure itself.
We were early for the service, for the second bell had not rung. The priest met us at the door. He was a man of ripe years, with close-cut whitening hair, and a face that one would always remember. It was framed in strength and moulded by the love of God. There was in it that indefinable beauty which comes from a sacrificial life, from a life breathed upon by the spirit of holiness and quiet. There were no lines of unrest there; the poise of divine equilibrium was his living benediction, and we followed him down the stone aisle, over the memorial slabs of the departed great buried beneath, to a seat just the other side of a massive white pillar, midway between open windows on one side and an open door on the other, where the grateful breeze, now faintly rustling the palms without, swept in upon us in delicious waves.
We were placed quite well in front of the transept, and as we waited there in the quiet old building, I began to make a mental estimate of just where the different classes of Jamaican society would find themselves. Here, where we were, would be the whites, and back beyond the transept, the negroes, and in the choir, of course, the fair-haired English boys. Then the old bell began to ring again, and a few of our fellow voyagers came in and took seats in front of us,—notably Mr. and Mrs. F——, who had been the guests of the priest the day before. The church was filling. The owners of the seat in which the priest had placed us arrived, and we were requested by a silent language, which speaks more forcibly than words, to move along and make room. In the meantime, the pew was also filled from the other side, and in the same dumb language we were requested to move back the other way. Thus we were wedged in closely between the two respective owners of the seat. And they were not white owners,—they were black, brown, yellow—but not white. The church filled rapidly. It filled to the uttermost. Mr. and Mrs. F——, in front of us, were obliged to separate, for, when the owners of their seat arrived, they simply stood there until Mr. F—— was forced to leave his wife and crowd in somewhere else. The pew-owners were the rightful possessors, and the white man or the stranger apparently of little consequence. There was every conceivable shade of the African mixture. The choir was made up partially of black negresses, partially of yellow girls, with men of all hues besides, and the whole congregation in this Church of England was similarly mixed, with the black blood strongly predominant. I saw, outside of our party, only one Englishwoman and one Englishman, and a few about whom I was doubtful, and those were all. The blacks were very far from being the true type of African. In some cases, there would be the negro face in all its characteristics, with one exception, and that would be the oblique eyes of the Chinese. There were Japanese negroes, and Chinese negroes, and English and French negroes. It was a horrible mixture of negro with every other people found in the island, with the negro in the ascendant.
I saw no marks of deference paid to the white strangers; they were placed in the same position in which a negro would find himself in a Mississippi gathering of white people. If you have ever witnessed the enthusiasm with which the negro is welcomed in such places, you can understand our position that day in Jamaica. We had been told of the contempt in which the white man is held in Haïti, and, not having experienced it, were disinclined to believe such an abnormal state of things. But, here in Jamaica, without ever having been informed of the state of society, we felt it as plainly as if it had been emblazoned on the sign-boards. We were not welcome and we felt it. We were out of our element.
The people were all well clothed,—many in elegance. The most of them in white and black; court mourning for the queen.
And then the grand old service began,—that wonderful world-encircling service of our old English Mother Church—always the same and always sufficient—and it was all so strange,—the feeling I had about that word “we.” There was a slow dawning in my soul that never before had the word “humanity” meant anything but a white humanity to me—a universal love for black, yellow, chocolate, brown, saffron humanity had never come fully into my consciousness. And, while I sat there in that vast, black assemblage, the long, terrible past of Jamaica arose before me, and, too, the doubtful future loomed up in gloomy outlines, and I wondered what would be the outcome of it all. Where would the Englishman be in another century in Jamaica? Would Jamaica revert back to the Haïtien type, or is some hand coming to uphold the island? It is far from my intention to touch upon the political situation in Jamaica,—especially as I don’t know anything about it. I can only tell you what I saw, and you can draw your own conclusions. All I can say is, where is the white man in Jamaica? What is his position, and what has brought him into his present deplorable condition? Has the white blood after all so little potency?
One needs but to glance at James Anthony Froude’s masterful book, “The English in the West Indies,” in order to see the why and wherefore of it all. His words have greater force to-day than even at the time of his writing, for the course of events has more than justified his predictions.
Our opinions of the situation were wholly unbiased, for we did not read Froude’s account until long after, so that our sensations, our surprises, at the Jamaican English Church service, were wholly original.
The service proceeded through the prayers—our prayers—and then came the sermon. I shall never forget the text. It was taken from that masterpiece of Biblical literature, the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”
The priest had been there for over thirty years, and he began:
“Beloved in the Lord, my children!” And we, white and black, were all his children. We were in a strangely reversed situation, for even the good priest had the tawny hue of Africa faintly shining in his fine face. No mention of colour distinction was made: but which of us was to have the charity? Did it not seem that he pleaded for the white man—that the stronger black should have more charity? Or was it for us as well? And it seemed to me I realised for the first time the position of our well-bred Southerner; and everything was jumbled and queer in my mind as the priest spoke. And his beautiful strong face shone over the people, and his voice quivered with a deep love, touching the raiment of one who said, “Come unto me all ye”—all—all—all! The white arches echoed back the pleadings, the commands, the love, while in quiet eloquence he told of One who set his face steadfastly toward Jerusalem.
The church emptied itself, and we were left with the priest, and the old sunken tombs, and the sleeping organ, and the white light streaming through the windows. And we wondered if we had yet learned what the Master meant when he said:
CHAPTER IX.
“CUANDO SALIDE LA HABANA”
“I sometimes think that never blows so red
The rose as where some buried Cæsar bled;
That every hyacinth the garden wears
Dropt in her lap from some once lovely head.”
THE dream days have come and gone. We have left historic Santiago with its forts and battle-fields, and the beautiful harbour of busy commercial Cienfuegos; we have skirted along the southern coast of Cuba, Pearl of the Antilles, through the Yucatan Channel, into the Gulf of Mexico, and now we are come to Havana, where countless voices call us in every direction both day and night.
And yet it is not of Santiago, the old Merrimac lying in midchannel, El Caney, or San Juan Hill that I am writing to-day—no, nor of the wrecks of Cervera’s fleet strewn in rocking skeletons along the coast. No, those stories have long since been well told you—those tragic stories of battle and death, gone now into the past with the echoes of muffled drums and the shuffling feet of sick soldier boys, dragging themselves home when the day of vengeance was over. No, it is not of that I am writing, but of a day which I gave to you, O mothers of our glorious marines! and I take it now from out the memories of those sunny isles, a precious keepsake, that it may be yours for ever.
You are known to me, yet I cannot speak your names. You are near to me, yet the continent divides us. Your eyes speak to me, and yet, should we meet, you would pass unrecognised. A universal love, a universal memory has called you to me, and space cannot separate us.
In this city of beauty, though alluring at every turn, there was one pilgrimage, come what may, I would not fail to make. The Morro and Cabañas might be slighted, but not that patch of green earth away over the hill where the boys of the Maine lie buried so near the waters that engulfed them.
Far from the city they rest, where none may trouble their deep slumbers. Their only monument a bare worn path where thousands of those who loved your boys and honoured their memory have trodden down the grass about the lowly bed.
It was a day as still as heaven, when in the City of the Dead I silently took my way; and coming to their long home I knelt down in the moist coverlet of grass and folding my hands looked up into the infinite depth of the blue sky, which dropped its peaceful curtain so tenderly over them. I seemed to stand upon a sun-kissed summit, from which I might scan the whole earth. And it was from there, afar off, I felt the yearning of your tears. I reached down to the earth and gathered some humble little flowers which pitying had throbbed out their sweet souls over the blessed dead; and I held them lovingly in my hands, and then placed them within the leaves of a book, thinking that some day when we should meet I would give them to you. And now they wait for your coming, O mothers! I could give you naught more precious.
Yes, the days have come and gone as all days must, and we shall soon have left the Isles of Endless Summer. But so long as life lasts, their radiance will enfold us, and when the day is done, we shall draw the curtain well content, knowing that no greater beauty can await us than this fair earth has brought.
CHAPTER X.
A MEMORY OF MARTINIQUE
“La façon d’être du pays est si agréable, la température si bonne, et l’on y vit dans une liberté si honnête, que je n’aye pas vu un seul homme, ny une seule femme, qui en soient revenus, en qui je n’aye remarqué une grande passion d’y retourner.”—Le Père Dutertre, writing in 1667.
A FEW insignificant little photographs are lying on the desk before me. Some of them are blurred; some of them are out of focus. They have been for many months packed away among bundles of other photographs of a similar character, moved from their corner in the library amongst the books of travel, only to be occasionally dusted by the indifferent housemaid and packed away again out of sight.
Days come and days go, and things move on in uniform measure, and life glides silently away from us, and one day passes much as does the day before; and we plan and work and hope, and we build to-day upon the assurances of yesterday and to-morrow; and, although we know that there are times when love can be crushed out of a life, yet we base our hope upon the eternal fixedness of love; and, although constantly face to face with the mutability of all created things, we build upon the eternal stability of matter. We hope by reason of an undying faith in those we love; we build upon a belief in the immutability of the everlasting hills; and we go on building and hoping until, with some, there comes a day when the soul burns out, and the everlasting hills crumble to ashes, and loving and building is no more, and there is never loving or building again in the same way.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Much as we touch the sacred belongings of the beloved dead, do I now bring forth from their lonely hiding-place the few photographs of St. Pierre and the fascinating shores of Martinique, which we took last winter, as we cruised through the Windward Islands.
Having but just read the terrible tidings from Martinique that St. Pierre has been utterly destroyed by volcanic eruption, and the fair island left an ash-heap, these one-time insignificant little pictures become at once inexpressibly dear to me; and I have been sitting here for a long, long time, looking first at one and then at another, with a tenderness born of sorrow and love.
Say what you may of the futility of a love which clings to places, it is nevertheless a passion so deeply rooted in some natures that neither life nor death seem able to cause its destruction. There is no reasoning with love; it is born to be, to exist, and why we love there is no finding out. Strange, this wonderful loving which comes to you and me! Not alone the love we lavish upon God’s creatures; upon father, mother, sister, brother, husband, wife, and children, and the whole world of humankind; but upon all of God’s handiwork: His trees, His flowers, His dear brown soil, His hills, His valleys, His broad, sweeping plains, His high, loftily crested peaks, His lonely byways, where shy birds and soft-footed beasts hold high carnival the livelong day.
Beloved as are all of God’s creatures, there are for each one of us a few, a very few, souls without whom loving would seem to pass away. Beautiful as is the great earth, there are chosen spots upon it for you and for me, to which our thoughts revert with an infinite tenderness; and were such sweet abiding-places suddenly to be blotted from the earth, it would seem to us as though beauty had died for ever.
Such a treasure-house was St. Pierre to me. In the midst of islands, each rivalling the other in loveliness, Martinique had a claim for homage which none other possessed. Its charm was felt even far out to sea, as its lofty headlands, with terrible Pelée looking over, struck a bold pace for the lesser isles to follow.
As we approached the still, deep harbour,—although the hour was late for landing,—we were so permeated by the puissant fascination of the place, that, against the protests of old wiseacres aboard, we nevertheless took the first available small boat, lured into the arms of St. Pierre by her irresistible summons.
And what was that summons? Who can tell?
The same hand beckoned us which has for generations been beckoning other children of men; other children who have gone there to live and die content; the same that beckoned old Father Dutertre hundreds of years ago. Children’s children have been born there, and have grown old and withered, and have gone the way of all the earth, and La Pelée, the giantess, has slept for generations, and the children had quite forgotten that the day might come when she would awaken. La Pelée was slumbering, oh! so gently—so peacefully, that far-away night, when we first wondered at her beauty—and we, too, forgot! For did not her children say that she would never waken more?
The soft, blue hills said, “Come!” The lonely peaks, beyond, said, “Come!” And the little city waved its pretty white hand to us with “Come!” in every motion; and the sweet-voiced creole lads, who rowed us in, smiled, “Come!” and what could we do?
And then, when we entered the little city, it was so snug and clean, and it was all so different, so different. How can I explain it to you? There was, as it were, a homogeneousness about the people which was not apparent in the other islands. Here was a people whose sires had sprung from the best blood of France, from a race of great men and women; here the question of colour had been more harmoniously worked out; and we felt at once that we were amongst those whose ancestors had learned, through the streaming blood of kings and princes, the principles of Liberty, Equality, and Justice.
The people said, “Come!” and we answered, and long, long into the night we were following the summons.
Then it was that La Pelée was fair, and she lay so still, so still, that the children forgot—if they ever really knew—that very beautiful women can sometimes be very wicked—only “sometimes,” for there are so many beautiful good women.
But the children loved La Pelée; she was beautiful, and she took her bath so gently, away amongst the clouds and mist of the morning.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
As I look again in the unchanging photograph at the dark mountains and the tiny white city, cuddled down by the sea, with its quaint lighthouse and its old church, there rises a strange mist over my soul, and a blur comes into my eyes, and I feel myself pressing the cold bit of cardboard against my lips as I would the face of a beloved.
It comes to me that once again there has gone from my life for eternity that which can never return; just as the whole bright world can be changed into darkness by the passing out of a soul we love; and we know that, however much we long for its return, it can never come back; that from that hour we tread the way alone. The silent spirit takes up the light, falters a moment at the door, turning, smiles sweetly upon us, and is gone, and we are left in a dark room. Oh! the love that we mortals lavish in this world of ours!
There was about Martinique a sweetness, a translucent loveliness, an unforgettableness which crept into the innermost fibre of my being. It even seemed to creep into my blood and pulsate through my body with every beat of my heart.
I listen now to the memories of my soul, and hear again the sweet, soft voices of the creole girls and the quick, noiseless tread of the carriers of water, fruits, and cacao coming down from Morne Rouge, coming from the tender shadows which droop caressingly about the feet of slumbering Pelée. And I can hear the cool trickle of the water from the half-hidden fountain in a cranny of the wall; and I hear the rush of the stream down from the mountainside, over stones as white as milk. And sweet, shy flowers hang over high walls and nod to me; and from green blinds in low, white mansions, I hear soft young voices, whispering and laughing. A youth passes, as the blind opens, and he laughs and goes to the other side of the street to beckon, and, oh! there it is again—the old story.
And I go on and on, and I come to the Rivière Roxelane where the women are spreading their clothes to dry on the great rocks, and the river tumbles along, and twists in and out with gentle murmurs, and the women are washing and laughing.
And I go on to the palms, higher up, and some one brings me wild strawberries from the cool mountains, and I sit down and pick them from the basket and eat to my heart’s delight; and I rest on the bridge, so old, all covered with moss and flowers, and I look down into the valley, where the city lies, and beyond where it dabbles its feet into the blue sea. And the picture is framed in an oval of green, drooping trees, and whispering vines, and deep-scented flowers.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It must have come—the end—just as the good priest was saying mass down in the white church by the sea, and the creole girls had come from the mountains with their sticks of palm—for salad—and had sold their fruits in the market, and had gone with the fishermen to the good priest; and the white church was crowded to the doors,—for the priest was beloved, and the church had broad arms,—and the boys were chanting, when—my God! where should the children escape? The fiery mountain back of them and the deep sea before them and the air about them a sweeping furnace!
“Children! Children!” I seem to hear the clear, ringing voice of the old priest. “I commit your souls to God. Amen, amen.”
The beautiful Pelée burned out her wicked soul, the River Roxelane ran dry, the dear, blue sky of morning was turned to hideous night, the white city fell in blazing ruins, and now the everlasting hills lift their scarred sides in grim desolation.
THE END
INDEX
Andes Mountains, The, [67], [84], [137].
Aragua River, Venezuela, [145], [146].
Bank, The, Caracas, [106-111].
Blue Mountains, The, Jamaica, [197], [205].
Bolivar, [95].
Statue of, [84], [87].
Botanical Gardens, The, Martinique, [15], [20].
Botanical Gardens, The, Port of Spain, [15-34].
Ceiba-Tree, The, [16].
Coffee-Tree, The, [24].
Cabañas, Havana, [240].
Caracas, Venezuela, [64], [68], [73], [77], [79-124], [130].
Bank, The, [106-111].
Cathedral, The, [84], [87], [96-97], [103], [113], [118-120], [130].
Gran Hotel de Caracas, The, [80].
Gran Hotel de Venezuela, The, [81-84], [96], [114].
Market, The, [103], [106].
Military Band, The, [97-99].
Municipal Palace, The, [94-96].
Plaza, The, [117], [118].
Society of Caracas, The [122-124].
Square of Bolivar, The, [84], [87].
Caribbean Sea, The, [36], [151], [153], [159], [193].
Castro, Cipriano, [88-89], [96], [101], [121], [138], [152], [179].
Cathedral, The, Caracas, [84], [87], [96-97], [103], [113], [118-120], [130].
Ceiba-Tree, The, [16].
Cervera, Admiral, [180-182].
Cienfuegos, Cuba, [239].
Coffee-Tree, The, [24].
Curaçao, Island of, [139], [154], [156], [159], [176-179]. See also [Willemstad].
El Caney, Cuba, [239].
Gran Hotel de Caracas, The, Caracas, [80].
Gran Hotel de Venezuela, The, Caracas, [81-84], [96], [114].
Great Venezuelan Railway, The, [139-142].
Gulf of Mexico, The, [239].
Gulf of Paria, The, [11], [64].
Havana, Cuba, [239].
Cabañas, [240].
Morro, The, [240].
Jamaica, Island of, [197], [208], [211-212].
Blue Mountains, The, [197], [205].
Kingston, [198], [205], [218], [221], [224-236].
Mandeville, [201].
Natives, The, [227-228].
Rio Cobre, [205].
Spanish Town, [211-212].
Kingston, Jamaica, [198], [205], [218], [221].
Parish Church, The, [224-236].
La Brea, Trinidad, [35], [42-59].
La Guayra, Venezuela, [64], [68], [69-72], [78], [101].
Lake of Valencia, Venezuela, [125], [145-146].
Mandeville, Jamaica, [201].
Margarita, Island of, [64].
Market, The, Caracas, [103-106].
Martinique, Island of, [248-264].
Botanical Gardens, [15], [20].
Mount Pelée, [255], [256], [263-264].
Rivière Roxelane, [260], [264].
St. Pierre, [248], [252].
Military Band, The, Caracas, [97-99].
Morro, The, Havana, [240].
Mount Pelée, Martinique, [255], [256], [263-264].
Municipal Palace, The, Caracas, [94-96].
Natives, The, of Curaçao, [160-163], [177-178];
of Jamaica, [227-228];
of Trinidad, [51], [56].
Orinoco River, The, [11], [64].
Parish Church, The, Kingston, [224-236].
Plaza, The, Caracas, [117], [118].
Port of Spain, Trinidad, [12].
Botanical Gardens, The, [15-34].
Queen’s Park Hotel, The, [12-14].
Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, [78], [101], [125], [126], [129], [136], [151], [154], [156].
Queen’s Park Hotel, Port of Spain, [12-14].
Rio Cobre, Jamaica, [205].
River Tuy, The, Venezuela, [144-145].
Rivière Roxelane, The, Martinique, [260], [264].
St. Pierre, Martinique, [248], [252].
San Juan Hill, Cuba, [239].
Santiago, Cuba, [239].
Society of Caracas, The, [122-124].
Southern Cross, The, [189-191], [193], [196].
Spanish Town, Jamaica, [211-212].
Square of Bolivar, The, Caracas, [84], [87].
Trinidad, Island of, [11], [16], [29].
Natives, The, [51], [56].
Valencia, Venezuela, [101], [125], [126], [136], [146].
Willemstad, Curaçao, [154], [160-184], [187].
Yucatan Channel, The, [239].