Santo Domingo City, more often called “La Capital” within the country, is a prettier town than Santiago, and somewhat larger. It is less compact, has more trees and open spaces, and many curious old ruins,—palaces, gates, fortresses, and churches—so many old churches, in fact, that some of them are now used as theaters and government offices. Of the several ancient stone gateways remaining from its former city wall the most curious is the “Puerta de la Independencia,” opening on a pretty outer plaza—curious because the Dominicans pretend it is the gate through which the triumphant army entered after driving out the Haitians in 1844, though any street urchin knows the entry was really made by a less ornate gate nearer the sea. Then there is the aged tree down in the custom house compound on the banks of the Ozama river to which Columbus is said to have tied one of his ships. The cathedral on the central plaza is a picturesque pile of old stone, without tower or spire, and noteworthy for the elaborate tomb of the famous Genoese just inside its main portal. Without going into the vexed question of whether the bones it contains are really those of the great discoverer, except to say that Havana, Valladolid, Seville, and Santo Domingo City are all equally certain that they have the genuine remains, one can at least say that the tomb itself is worth visiting. Indeed, though a trifle ornate for American tastes, it is astonishingly artistic to the traveler long familiar with the almost universally ludicrous “art” of Latin-American churches. With its splendid bronze reliefs, its excellent small figures in marble, and its inspiring general form, it might almost rank as the gem of ecclesiastical architecture south of the Rio Grande.
Once in the cathedral there are several other things worth a glance before leaving, though its tiny windows give the interior an eternal twilight. Two or three paintings by Velasquez and Murillo have a genuine value; a picture brought over by Columbus can be seen only by means of the sexton’s key; a cross which the discoverer of America is said to have set up nearby is protected by glass doors let into the wall because the faithful and the curious were given to chipping off pieces as sacred relics or souvenirs. The mahogany choir-stalls, the pulpits, and the altars are all of rich-red old woodwork. There is an excellent tomb of the archbishop who was once president. Indeed, it does not seem necessary to be of Columbian stature to be able to sleep one’s last sleep beside the doughty old navigator. During our stay in the city the marble floor was opened a few feet from the historic tomb to receive the remains of a Syrian merchant, long resident in “La Capital” but deceased in New York, whose only claim to glory seemed to be a fortune easily won and wisely spent. The interior of the cathedral has been generously “restored” by daubing the walls with gleaming white. It was planned to whitewash the aged outer walls also, but the Pope vetoed the suggestion, for which the Dominicans seem to have a grievance against him.
The government palace, occupied now by Americans in navy and marine uniforms, is full of capacious leather-upholstered chairs, in striking contrast to the average uncomfortable Dominican seat. No wonder they fought one another to become president. Ostentation is more important than real use among the two score or more automobiles with wire wheels and luxurious tonneaux that hover about the central plaza, though there are good macadam roads for 16, 25, and 30 kilometers respectively in as many directions. The theaters are seldom occupied by actors in the flesh, though now and then there is a bit of opera. The only regular attractions are the movies, which begin at nine in theory, nearer ten in practice, and feature the same curly-haired heroes and vapid-faced heroines that nightly decorate the screens in the United States. Like all Latin-Americans, the people of “La Capital” are great lovers of noise. Despite American rule the crack-voiced church bells begin their constant din long before dawn. During the “flu” epidemic, with its endless succession of funerals, they thumped for nine mortal days without a pause, until the marine doctors protested that most of the victims were dying for lack of sleep. Automobiles scorn to use mufflers; carriages are constantly jangling their bells. Every boy in town is an expert whistler, and every passer-by will find some way of making a noise if he has to invent it. The throngs returning from the cinemas habitually make slumber impossible until after midnight. One comes to wonder if it is not this constant lack of sleep that makes the Dominicans so nervous, inattentive, and racially inefficient.
Small as it looks on the map it is not a simple matter to cover all Santo Domingo in a few weeks. Among the parts we missed were the southwestern provinces, including the town of Azua, seventy miles from the capital, founded in 1504 by Don Diego Velazquez, who later conquered and settled Cuba. Thereabouts once dwelt many illustrious sons of old Spain, among them Cortés, the conqueror of Mexico, Pizarro, who subjugated Peru, and Balboa, the discoverer of the Pacific. A much shorter route from Port au Prince to the Dominican capital is that through this region, but it is chiefly by water. Lake Azua, partly in Haiti, is fifty-six feet above sea-level, and a paradise for duck-hunters. Lake Enriquillo, only five miles east of the other, and named for the last Indian chief who opposed the Spaniards, is a hundred feet below the sea and more salty than the ocean itself. Nor should the traveler to whom time is unlimited fail to visit the high mountain ranges in the center of the country, with their breakneck trails and luxuriant vegetation.
One of the drawbacks of West Indian travel is the lack of shipping between the islands, particularly the larger ones. Only in the ports themselves can one get the slightest data on sailings, and often not even there. This is especially true of Santo Domingo, one of whose chief misfortunes is the American line that holds a virtual monopoly of its sea-going traffic. Not only are its freight and passenger rates exorbitant, its treatment of travelers and shippers worse than autocratic, and some of its steamers so decrepit that they take twenty-six days for the run down from New York, halting every few hours to pump out the vessel or patch something or other essential to her safety, but it keeps a throttle hold on poor Santo Domingo by more or less questionable means. Not long ago another line proposed to establish traffic between the island and New Orleans. One of its steamers put into a Dominican port, offering to take cargo at reasonable rates. Though the warehouses along the wharves were piled high with cacao, not a bag was turned over to the newcomer. Her captain button-holed a shipper and asked for an explanation.
“It’s like this,” whispered the latter, “we should like to give you our cargo, but if we do, the other line will leave our in-coming goods, on which we are absolutely dependent, lying on the dock in New York until they rot.”
The captain visited several other ports of the republic, with the same result, and the proposed line to New Orleans died for lack of nourishment. Disgruntled natives assert that the monopoly keeps its hold because it has a large fund with which to starve out competitors, and because its president is a member of our Shipping Board. The Dominicans, however, are losing patience, and there are signs that the freight that should go in American bottoms will gradually go to British, Dutch, and later to German steamers.
We were spared all this through the kindness of the military governor, who sent us to La Romana on a submarine chaser. Lest some reader be subject to seasickness by suggestion, I shall not say a word about the ability of these otherwise staunch little craft to cut incredible acrobatic capers on a barely rippling sea. The fact that we noted the gaunt old American battleship Memphis still sitting bolt upright on the rocks beside the seaside promenade of the capital just where a wave tossed her in September, 1916, the dangerous bottle entrance to the harbor of San Pedro de Macoris, with its wrecked schooner, and the water that spouted a hundred feet into the air through the coral holes along the low rocky coast and hung like mist for minutes before it fell, must be accepted as proof that we are experienced sailors. At length appeared the red roofs of La Romana, with its narrow river harbor, similar to that of the capital, and the Santo Domingo we knew was forever left behind.