Neptune will board us on the way.
[CHAPTER III]
TRINIDAD TO RIO JANEIRO
How the Battleship Fleet Greeted the New Year at Sea—Good Will Fore and Aft—Beautiful Spectacle of a Searchlight Drill With Ninety-six Lights—Crews on the Whole Glad to Get Away from Port of Spain Despite Official Cordiality—The Culgoa and the Catamaran—Missouri's Man Overboard—The Sleepy Brigantine.
On Board U.S.S. Louisiana, U. S. Battle Fleet,
Rio Janeiro, January, 14.
IT is not exceeding the limits of strict accuracy to assert that there was not a man on Admiral Evans's fleet who was not glad to leave Trinidad. The statement must not be taken as reflecting in the least upon the officials of the place. No greetings to a fleet of foreign warships could have been more cordial and sincere than those given by Governor-General Jackson and his assistants. There was no reserve about it. It was genuine and from the heart.
But the Trinidad people did not wake up. Half a dozen merchants flew American flags above their shops, perhaps fifty persons all told came out to visit the ships, the clubs were thrown open to officers and now and then some of the residents might drive or stroll down to the waterfront to take a look at the fleet.
There were two reasons for this apparent indifference. One was that the ships were anchored fully five miles from town. It was like anchoring a fleet of vessels at Tompkinsville and expecting the citizens of Manhattan to flock to the Battery to gaze at them or hire small boats to go down to see them. A more powerful reason was that the Christmas horse races were on. That meant three days of closing the shops at noon, three days of betting, three days of sharpening wits to contest with three card monte men, roulette men, wheel of fortune men; three days when the most prosperous of the large Hindu population, in all their picturesque garb, women with rings in noses, bracelets on arms and legs, brilliant hued gowns, and men in their turbans and one garment of a sheet made into coat and trousers—came into town; three days when the society of the place imitated the Epsom and Derby customs and drove into the inner enclosure with their drags and other turnouts, and had luncheons and visits; three evenings of promenading and dining at the Queen's Park Hotel.