Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1

by Andrew Dickson White

Finally, after nearly a fortnight of clambering over mountains, pushing through tropical thickets, fording streams, and negotiating in palm huts, we approached the sea; and suddenly, on the north side of the island, at the top of the mountain back of Puerto Plata, we looked far down upon its beautiful harbor, in the midst of which, like a fly upon a mirror, lay our trim little frigate Nantasket.

The vice-president of the republic, surrounded by the representatives of the city, having welcomed us with the usual speeches, we pushed forward to the vice-presidential villa, where I was to be lodged.

Having no other dress with me than my traveler's outfit, of which the main features were a flaming red flannel shirt, a poncho, and a sombrero, and having been invited to dine that evening at the house of my host, with the various consuls and other leaders of the place, I ordered two of my men to hurry down the mountain, and out to the frigate, to bring in my leather trunk containing a costume more worthy of the expected ceremony; and hardly were we comfortably established under the roof of the vice-president, when two sailors came in, bringing the precious burden.

Now came a catastrophe. Turning the key, I noticed that the brass fittings of the lock were covered with verdigris, and, as the trunk opened, I shrank back in horror. It was filled, apparently, with a mass of mossy white-and- green mold from which cockroaches of enormous size darted in all directions.

Hastily pulling down the cover, I called a council of war; the main personages in it being my private secretary, Professor Crane, since acting president of Cornell University, and sundry of the more important men in the expedition. To these I explained the situation. It seemed bad enough to lose all means of presenting a suitable appearance at the approaching festivity, but this was nothing compared with the idea that I had requited the hospitality of my host by spreading through his house this hideous entomological collection.

But as I exposed this latter feature of the situation, I noticed a smile coming over the faces of my Dominican attendants, and presently one of them remarked that the cockroaches I had brought would find plenty of companions; that the house was doubtless already full of them. This was a great relief to my conscience. The trunk was removed, and presently the clothing, in which I was to be arrayed for the evening, was brought in. It seemed in a fearful condition, but, curiously enough, while boots, shoes, and, above all, a package of white gloves carefully reserved for grand ceremonies, had been nearly devoured, the garments of various sorts had escaped fairly well.

The next thing in order being the preparation of my apparel for use, the men proceeded first to deluge it with carbolic acid; and then, after drying it on the balconies in front of the vice-president's house, to mitigate the invincible carbolic odor by copious drenchings of Florida water. All day long they were thus at work making ready for the evening ceremony. In due time it arrived; and, finally, after a sumptuous entertainment, I stood before the assembled consuls and other magnates. Probably no one of them remembers a word of my discourse; but doubtless every survivor will agree that no speaker, before or since, ever made to him an appeal of such pungency. I pervaded the whole atmosphere of the place; indeed, the town itself seemed to me, as long as I remained in it, to reek of that strange mixture of carbolic acid and Florida water; and as soon as possible after reaching the ship, the contents of the trunk were thrown overboard, and life became less a burden.

Having been duly escorted to the Nantasket, and received heartily by Commander McCook, I was assigned his own cabin, but soon thought it expedient to get out of it and sleep on deck. The fact was that the companions of my cockroaches had possession of the ship, and, to all appearance, their headquarters were in the captain's room. I therefore ordered my bed on deck; and, though it was February, passed two delightful nights in that balmy atmosphere of the tropical seas while we skirted the north side of the island until, at Port-au-Prince, I rejoined the other commissioners, who had come in the Tennessee along the southern coast.

At the Haitian capital our commission had interviews with the president, his cabinet, and others, and afterward we had time to look about us. Few things could be more dispiriting. The city had been burned again and again, and there had arisen a tangle of streets displaying every sort of cheap absurdity in architecture. The effects of the recent revolution—the latest in a long series of civic convulsions, cruel and sterile—were evident on all sides. On the slope above the city had stood the former residence of the French governor: it had been a beautiful palace, and, being so far from the sea, had, until the recent revolution, escaped unharmed; but during that last effort a squad of miscreants, howling the praises of liberty, having got possession of a small armed vessel in the harbor and found upon it a rifled cannon of long range, had exercised their monkeyish passion for destruction by wantonly firing upon this beautiful structure. It now lay in ruins. In its main staircase an iron ring was pointed out to us, and we were given the following chronicle.

During the recent revolution the fugitive President Salnave had been captured, a leathern thong had been rudely drawn through a gash in his hand, and, attached by this to a cavalryman, he had been dragged up the hill to the palace, through the crowd which had but recently hurrahed for him, but which now jeered and pelted him. Arriving upon the scene of his former glory, he was attached by the thong to this iron ring and shot.