Across the Andes

by Charles Johnson Post

Five days out from Panama and we awoke to find the Mapocho swinging to her anchor in the Guayas River and awaiting the pleasure of the port-doctor. On one side a distant shore loomed through the heated, humid haze, on the other a sluggish tide-water creek disappeared in the jungle of the bank an easy rifle-shot away. A ramshackle church with a huge crucifix showed at one side of the port-doctor’s house and here and there a few houses and thatched roofs appeared above a stretch of white beach. A few black pigs wandered about, showing the only signs of life. Somewhere beyond this dismal outpost was Guayaquil. Already in the captain’s quarters was a conference of the skipper, the young Chilean ship’s doctor fresh from school and on his first trip, and the port doctor.

Presently they emerged, the captain feebly expostulating. We were to be held “under observation” for forty-eight hours as yellow fever and bubonic suspects. That Guayaquil should quarantine against anything is—at the least to an ordinary sense of humor—funny, for Guayaquil has never seen the time that it was likely to catch anything it did not already have, except a clean bill of health.

We learned for the first time that there were three Chileans abroad who were being returned to Chile by their consul. They were anemic, destitute and sick with malarial fever; although the whole coast was in a panic over yellow fever and the bubonic, yet this time had been chosen to ship them home some two thousand miles to a Chilean hospital! They had been stowed between decks and the young ship’s doctor had made the mistake of attempting to gloss over their existence, or at any rate to split the difference between truth and expediency, and had succeeded only in exciting a peevish suspicion in a marooned gentleman who had some power. He did not even look at the cases—quarantine forty-eight hours, and then he would return with advices from the government.

A few of us went down to take a look at the Chilenos whose appearance had held us up. There was no formal hospital on board so a little compartment had been hastily thrown up between decks. It was built of the loose planks on which the cattle stand during the voyage; it was closed on all four sides, windowless, and with but a single opening for a doorway curtained by a filthy piece of canvas. This black hole, reeking with filth, was the hospital; a couple of figures lay on the floor and looked up dully at the sudden flare of a match while, from an open cargo port, the third was tottering, a shrunken wreck with the ghastly teeth of a skull and socketed eyes.

At noon the purser presented each first cabin passenger with a little bill for half a sovereign—two dollars and a half, gold—which amount we were charged for as demurrage every day in any quarantine. The deck steerage paid a shilling, gold, each day.

THOSE WHO REFUSED TO PAY WERE THROWN INTO THE CHICKEN COOP.

The purser, a pleasant young Chilean with an Irish name, yet who spoke no word of English, was the one busy man on the idle ship. In expectation of quarantine the occupants of the port chicken coop had been transferred and now the purser appeared with the first officer, the boatswain, and a few of the crew. They climbed the rope and the purser jangled a chain and padlock suggestively. One by one the shillings came out. He reached the Chinamen; some were dragged from below or hauled out from the partition of baggage in which they had tried to hide, all protesting sullenly. Those who refused to pay were thrown into the chicken coop until about a dozen were jammed into its close quarters. It was too low for even a small man to stand upright, while its condition made it impossible to lie down so that the Chinamen squatted on the floor or huddled up on the perches. Then as they decided to pay, if the purser had nothing on hand more pressing he would come up and let them out.

Of those who witnessed this wretched steamship extortion the German really enjoyed it; he clucked and mimicked before the coop with great gusto and then scuttled below for his camera. He had scarcely focussed before the free Chinamen who knew a camera were chattering shrilly in hostile groups, the caged Chinamen clacking angrily back, and the first officer pounced upon the photographic outfit. This collecting of shillings from the Chinamen and the method of enforcement is no light-hearted morning’s pleasure and is likely at any time to end seriously. Also it could be noted that in the immediate background were others of the officers and crew following operations, and the arms rack aft of the chart-room was unlocked.