V.
Our friends, Mr. and Mrs. U——, come toward us with a group of strangers—Curaçaoan—whose acquaintance happened just as the best things of life come to us—by the merest chance. They were driving about the city in company with the American consul, when, in passing one of the most attractive residences, their attention was drawn toward two young women who were standing out on the veranda, waving a great flag—our Stars and Stripes—in utter disregard of heat and sun; waving it forth in the yellow and white glare with all the love of country and home which motion could express. Their enthusiasm at once called forth a response on the part of the visitors; the carriage stopped and forthwith all the occupants of the house, following the two girls with the flag, came to welcome the strangers. The newcomers were bidden to enter and there was no limit to their hospitable entertainment.
The flag-bearers were two homesick Southern girls, married to the sons of a leading Dutch family. They had not visited their native land since their marriage, and, oh! how they longed to see the dear old South again! When their countrymen set foot at Curaçao, all of the slumbering mother-country love broke forth again, and the old flag came out, and they feasted the strangers, and did their utmost to honour the precious sentiment of loyalty to home. And, after the ices and cooling drinks and fruits and confections, they and their friends were invited aboard ship, where it was our pleasure to make their acquaintance.
We find here, as we have in all the other islands, that the leading families—the men in power—are comparatively pure representatives of the original colonising stock; that is, pure Dutch, Dane, Castilian, French, as the case may be; but that the people are a strange mixture of all nationalities, speaking languages for the most part unwritten, handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, strangely intangible, and yet as fixed and well recognised among the people as is the old Common Law in the courts of Anglo-Saxon countries. Our friends in Curaçao tell us that the well-born natives speak Dutch, English, Spanish, and often French, with equal facility; added to this is another language which must be learned in order to deal with the common people.
This curious language—“Papaimiento,” it is called—has been reduced to a certain degree of form in order to facilitate its being taught in the schools. Children learn this language from their nurses, just as our Southern children acquire the negro dialect from the old “mammies.” The comparison cannot be carried out to its full extent for the reason that, while our negro dialect bears a close and intelligible likeness to English, Papaimiento is so unlike Dutch as to render its acquisition almost as difficult for a Dutchman as that of any other foreign language, but fortunately the Dutch are good linguists. It bears, of course, some likeness to Dutch in the fundamentals, but aside from that, it is a strange combination of speech—perhaps more Spanish than anything else—put together, it would seem, to meet the needs of as many people as possible. The meaning of the name Papaimiento is, in the dialect, “The talk we talk,” i. e., “our language.”
Curaçao lies some fifty miles off the coast of South America, and her favourable position between Venezuela and the Windward Islands has made her free port a most desirable one for the smugglers who wish to supply cheap goods to the South American ports. Thousands of flimsy tin-covered trunks ready for Venezuelan voyagers bear evidence of her popularity as a free and unquestioning port. Here, also, many steamers touch. But, above all, Curaçao is the haunt and refuge of the disappointed or temporarily exiled Spanish American politician or revolutionist.
Here, like puppets in a show, appear from time to time many noble patriots ready to fight for their undying principles and incidentally to absorb any loose property in the track of their conquering “armies;” and here hies the deposed “President,” or the lately conquered general, with his chests of treasure, waiting for a ship to his beloved Paris. Watch our own American newspapers for the warlike notes that Willemstad, Curaçao, ever feeling the pulse of northern South America, sends out to the world. Did she not give us the earliest news of Cervera’s mysterious fleet? Does she not thrill us with the momentous gymnastics of President Castro, and the blood-curdling intentions of General Matos, General Uribe-Uribe, General Santiago O’Flanigan et hoc genus omne?
The date of our visit to Curaçao is about the time of the little Queen of Holland’s wedding, so that Wilhelmina and her prospects, and all the gossip attending so charming a personage, becomes with us, as we sit chatting together on the deck, a lively topic of interest. Mrs. C—— tells us of a gold box which is to be sent the young queen as a bridal gift from her subjects in Curaçao; a box fashioned after the most perfect art of the native goldsmith, in filigree so rare that none but a queen were fit to open it. This box, perchance the size of Pandora’s once enchanted casket, is to be filled with the needlework of Curaçaoan women—work as far-famed as the lace of Maracaibo, the lace we expected to see everywhere in Caracas, while we were then so near the Maracaibo country, but which one can never find unless the open-sesame of the Spanish home is discovered, as impossible a task as the quest of the immortal Ponce de Leon. We did not see the Maracaibo lace, nor the Curaçaoan lace, and we are told that such a disappointment is not unusual; it is only for the elect—the Curaçaoan people themselves—that these wonderful specimens of the skill of patient women are visible.
I shall never forget hearing that unwritten page in the tragic history of Spain’s noble son, Admiral Cervera, as the Doctor in his quiet, low voice told how the great admiral touched first at Curaçao after his long and perilous voyage from Spain. It was the Doctor’s son who sent the cable message to the United States, telling that the Spanish fleet was in the offing. But it was the Doctor himself who went with the surgeons who had been sent ashore by Cervera on their humiliating errand, to all the pharmacies in Curaçao for surgical supplies. The fleet had been hurried from Spain unprepared, and in fact almost unseaworthy, with not so much as a single bandage aboard or the most ordinary necessities for the immediate succour of the wounded. They had absolutely nothing in the way of such medical and surgical equipment at hand, although they knew their imminent and terrible need for just such things. Doctor C——, with the true physician’s love for his fellow men, went from pharmacy to pharmacy with the surgeon, and bought up all the bandages and gauze and iodoform and other supplies which were to be found. Meantime detachments from the ships’ crews began to land—hungry and worn, sad with the shadow of the great coming tragedy—and they fell upon the island like a lot of starved wolves. They actually had not food enough aboard to keep body and soul together, for the corrupt and procrastinating government at Madrid had not even properly victualled this fleet of war-ships before sending them to their certain destruction. The market was cleaned of everything it could afford, and even then it was a mere drop in the bucket to that unhappy host. Later Doctor C—— went out to the flag-ship with the surgeon, and spoke with Cervera, who prophetically told him that he knew he was going to his doom—but it had to be! And the twisted skeletons of those noble ships which we later saw strewn from Santiago on along the southern Cuban coast was but the fulfilment of the miserable fate he then so clearly foresaw, but which, after his unavailing pleas to the Spanish government before sailing, the staunch old admiral, with a Spaniard’s pride and bravery, would not avoid. For so it was written! Is there not a strain of the Moor’s fatalism still traceable in the true Spaniard?
Thus as we chat with our new-found friends on topics grave and gay through the noon hour and on into mid-afternoon, the people of the city continue to crowd one another, row upon row, on the dock. A native band plays our national airs and Dutch national airs, and our decks are filled with visitors—the governor of the island and his suite and ladies, and fine little solemn-eyed and suspiciously dark-skinned Dutch children; and, in the midst of all the visiting and moving back and forth, some one asks Doctor W—— how the islanders feel about absorption by the United States—apparently a possibility now present in the mind of every West Indian; and the not surprising answer is made, that, for his part, he—a Dutchman, Holland-born—would favour annexation; and from the wild enthusiasm of the people ashore, as the bugle sounds the first warning of departure, one might readily believe that so favourable, so friendly, is the feeling for the United States, that the slightest advances toward peaceable annexation would be met with universal favour. And so the merchants also talked.
The houses begin to move,—no, it’s our boat herself, slowly, very slowly. We drop our shore-lines, and shout after shout rings after us. The populace moves in a mass along the quay, and the native band beats away its very loudest, and the bigger marine band aboard beats even louder, and it’s a jumble of national airs in different keys, and hurrahs, and the people following along the quay. We wave our handkerchiefs until our arms are tired. One black-faced, bandannaed, Dutch conglomerate in her enthusiasm whips off her bright skirt, and in a white petticoat and red chemise she waves the fluttering skirt in the breeze.
If the United States ever seriously contemplates the annexation of any of the West Indian islands, the surest way, and the quickest way, to bring it about would be to send ship-loads of pleasure-seeking Americans, for bimonthly visits, leave their mania for buying things unrestrained, and, before diplomacy has had time to put on its dress suit, the islanders would beg for annexation.
Do not deceive yourself into the belief that you will find El Dorado in these islands, where the products of the country, food, and lodging, can be bought for a song; where one can get full value for money expended. On the contrary, values have become so distorted by the extravagance of some American tourists that to be recognised as an American is a signal for the most extortionate demands from the hotel-keeper to the market-woman. The system of extravagant feeing and still more our readiness to pay what is asked us instead of bargaining and haggling over prices as the natives do, and as is confidently expected of any sane human being, has so demoralised service and the native scale of prices that it is fairly impossible to obtain the ordinary necessities for which one expects to pay in the hotel bill, without giving needlessly large fees to the servants who happen to be in your attendance; or to find anything offered at a reasonable price in the markets.
At the sight of an American—and we are readily distinguished—the prices advance, and the unoffending tourist is obliged to suffer for the extravagance of those who have gone before him. This infection has spread through all the islands, and there has not been a port on our entire cruise wholly free from its effect. Perhaps, however, Willemstad was the pleasantest of all in this respect, for it is a free port, used to low prices and the ways of outsiders.
It might be possible to go through the islands at a reasonable expense, provided one spoke the language necessary at the various ports with ease, and had the time and patience to bargain and shop indefinitely; provided, also, one could beat against the tide which sweeps the American toward the “Gran Hotel.” Let him but once depart from his ancestral traditions of simple habits, let him but enter the portico of the “Gran Hotel,” and he at once becomes the prey of every known species of human vulture. It is the old story of Continental Europe over again.
CHAPTER VII.
THE SOUTHERN CROSS
“WAKE up! Wake up! If you want to see the Southern Cross, wake up and come on deck!” And we remember how long we had been waiting for those wonderful stars, and how Daddy, who many nights slept on deck, had told us that he often saw them, and how we had, night after night, vowed we would make the effort to awaken at two in the morning, and how, each night, we had slept along, too tired with the wonder days to move an inch until bugle-call.
But here comes this far-off voice again calling us from the Northland of dreams, and it seems to be saying, “This is your last chance. By to-morrow (whenever that uncertainty comes!) the stars will have rolled away, or you will have sailed along, and there will be no Southern Cross, and you may as well not have come away down here to the Spanish Main at all if you miss seeing it,”—and then we wake a bit more, and the figure in the doorway stands there with “come” on his face, and “wake up!” on his lips, and we try to think how sorry we shall be if we do not see the Southern Cross. And then the door closes with a rather contemptuous click, and we land in the middle of the floor, aroused by the disappearance of the figure in pajamas and by our somewhat reawakened sense of duty.
Throwing on light wrappers, the little girls stumble along after me to where our man stands leaning against the rail, his face turned skyward.
“There it is—see? Right in the south, directly opposite the Great Bear that sunk below the northern horizon two hours ago. One star down quite low, near the horizon, and one almost in a straight line above, and one at either side equal distances apart, like an old four-cornered kite. You must imagine the cross. But it’s hardly what it’s cracked up to be!” And we blink at the stars, and they blink at us, and we feel strangely unreal and turned about.
What in all the world has the Southern Cross to do with the nineteenth century? It belongs to Blackbeard, and the great procession of pirates and roving buccaneers who swept these seas in tall-sparred, black-hulled craft, some hundreds of years ago. One or the other of us is out of place. The only consistent part of the night is, that, while our eyes are searching for the four luminous dots in the Southern Cross, our ship is plunging on toward Jamaica, that one-time Mecca of the bandit rover of the sea. There he found safe harbour and friends in the same profession; there it was that the hoards of Spanish gold and plate and all conceivable sorts of plunder, taken from the hapless merchantmen, were bought and sold and gambled away. But, without the accompaniment of roystering pirates and swaggering buccaneers, the Southern Cross seems out of joint. Jamaica may do as she is, but, as we look out across the scurrying waters, there’s a malicious twinkle to the top star in the Southern Cross and that makes us all the more determined to give it an opportunity to renew old acquaintance. We’ll have a pirate—we must have a pirate, if not a real one, bloody and black and altogether fascinating, we must conjure one by magic! Pirates there must be! So, to pacify our insatiable desire to resuscitate the ghostly heroes of the long-dead past, the Spanish Student offers a yarn.
Four bells of the second night watch rings out, and “All’s well!” floats above our heads, and the witching hour of two in the morning brings the proper flavour to the story. We cuddle down on some stray ship chairs, and the story begins:
“Once upon a time—”
“Oh, dear! Is it to be a ‘once upon a time’ story, Dad? Then it won’t be real,” breaks in the Wee One.
“Yes, it is real, Chick; at least, so far as I know. But you must not interrupt me again. If you do, I might forget, and then the Cross up there would put out its lights and go to bed.”
“No, Dad, I’ll be good.”
“Well, once upon a time, there was a doughty old French Corsair, who was one of the most daring pirates on the Spanish Main. Morals were in a topsyturvy state in those days, and in none were they more wrong-side-to than in this famous old Frenchman. He had a long, low, topsail schooner, painted black, with sharp clipper stem, clean flush decks and tall and raking masts, and—”
“I know all about him, Dad. He had a black beard, and he used to braid it in lots of pigtails, and tie it with ribbons,” says Wee One, again.
“Now, Toddlekins, what did I say? I shall certainly bundle you off to bed. No, it wasn’t Blackbeard, but it was a pirate just as fierce and fully as bad mannered. This old fellow had been rampaging around here, there, and everywhere, all about this Caribbean Sea and along the Spanish Main, in search of ships and gold and prisoners, and occasionally even food, and in fact anything of value he might come across; when not very far from where we are now—yes, just about this latitude, it was, but a few leagues more to the west—by the light of the stars—yes, by the light of this very Southern Cross, he makes out the land, and soon after spies a tidy, prosperous little village handy to the shore of a palm-fringed inlet. Like the provident pirate that he was, he at once decides that he is both hungry and thirsty and that his lusty followers are short of rations. Here is a likely port from which to supply.
“So off goes a long-boat filled with his precious cutthroats, carrying a pressing invitation to the village priest and some of his friends to come aboard. The fat priest is routed out and escorted to the waiting boat; he understands his mission, he has seen such men before. So, taking along a few chosen friends, he makes the best of a bad business and is rowed off to the ship in short order. The citizens, meanwhile, are requisitioned for all sorts of food and drink, and the priest and his friends have a jolly time of it as hostages. But as his wit grows with the wine it occurs to our Corsair that, with a priest aboard, Holy Church should have due reverence, and roars out his imperative suggestion that mass would be in order. An altar is rigged up on the quarter-deck, holy vestments and vessels are quickly brought from the village church, and the ship’s crew are summoned to assemble and warned to take hearty part in the service. In place of music, broadsides are ordered fired from the pirate’s cannon after the Credo, after the Elevation, and after the Benediction. At the Elevation of the Host, the captain finds occasion to reprove a sailor for lack of reverence. But at a second offence from the same trifler, out comes his cutlass—a swift, shining circle follows the Corsair’s blade, and off flies the still grinning head and the blood spirts high from the jumping trunk. The poor priest is startled, but the captain reassures him with kind words, for, says he, it is only his duty and always his pleasure to protect the sanctity of holy things; he would do the same thing again—and a thousand times!—to any one who was disrespectful to the Holy Sacrament. For why is there a great God above and his Holy Church on earth except to be honoured? Then the service continues as if nothing had happened and again comes the whine of the Latin chants and the thunder of the reverent guns.
“After mass, the body is heaved overboard and no burial rites are said, for who shall try to save a heretic’s soul? The priest is put ashore with many a smile and oath and many a pious crossing, and our Corsair and his pack of thieves go their way, having paid their respects to Holy Church.”
“Oh, Dad!” says Toddlekins, “that was lovely; is it true? Tell us another! Just one more! Don’t you remember about Captain Kidd?
“‘My name was Captain Kidd, as I sailed, as I sailed,
My name was Robert Kidd, as I sailed.
My name was Robert Kidd,
God’s laws I did forbid,
And wickedly I did, as I sailed.’
“Don’t you remember the other verses? You used to sing them to us on the yacht before we ever thought of seeing the real Southern Cross.”
And just as the indulgent parent begins to waver, and the little girls are sure they have won another story, down—down—down—drops a big star, the foot of the Cross, millions of miles away, and the three lonely wanderers still hanging low in the heavens reach out their great shadowy arms in ghostly warning to those unthinking children of Adam who defy time and sleep and all things reasonable, just for the sake of a few old memories of a very questionable past.
Then those three deserted stars quiver and shiver and hide behind the wandering company of torch-bearers, and silently disappear, and a tired moon gives a vague uncertainty to sea and air.
In spite of the early morning mystery, all our efforts to reinstate the French Corsair, the black-hulled phantom, and the headless sailor, fail.
The decks of the ship are damp and empty and long. The ungainly deck chairs are locked together in gruesome lines like monstrous grasshoppers dying in winrows, and the great engines below beat and throb, and the water rolls past us in giant breathings, full of the sighs of dead men lying fathoms deep beneath our keel, and the stars sink lower and lower, and we are hurrying on toward the morning. Our eyes are still longing for sleep, and the little girls flutter down below, and we two after them. In the morning, after some strange dreams, we lie at anchor off the Blue Mountains of Jamaica.