On our way home from Panama, Doctor Frank, who had been seasick during the whole of the voyage down, said:
“They can say what they please about the tropics, I am never going there again. Zur Hoelle with the tropics! They were made for negroes; let the negroes have them. I have said it.”
I confess that for the time being I agreed with him. The full-blooded negro improves and thrives and finds his wants satisfied in the tropics, and will never thrive elsewhere. When the tropical negro wants a rest he takes a siesta, and is rested. When he wants food he plucks a banana, a pineapple or a mango, and is nourished. When he is thirsty he climbs a tree, cuts open a cocoanut, drinks the juice, and is refreshed. When he craves riches he stays away from work to spend a week’s earnings, and is rich. When he wishes to rise in the social scale, he marries above him, and is stuck-up. When he needs an education he learns to come in out of the sun, and is wise. He does not hanker after social and literary distinction, and is satisfied. He does not seek office, and is not disappointed. He does not ask for tips, and they are not thrust upon him, except by the Yankee-errant. When he comes to die he gets sick or is killed and is restored to the impartial dust of his Mother Earth and, having accumulated neither wealth nor cultivated tastes that he cannot take with him, remains forever after contented. His life is a bit of time, his death a bite of dust. The world has been benefited, but not disturbed by him. He has been true to his race and has accomplished his destiny; he has peopled the tropics.
Look at Doctor Cameron’s picture and then at mine. Who would not choose mine for the negro? If he can not solve his race problem in the United States, he can go to the tropics, and the tropics will solve him. The Romans told each other to see Naples and die. The negroes have not Naples, but they have the equator. It is theirs. Sooner or later they will have possession.
As to the mulatto, he is more sinned against than sinning. He is the product of man’s interference with the divine will as evidenced in God’s work. Extremes, whether of race or rhetoric, do not blend; they antagonize and distress. This new race mixture is neither white nor negro. God made the negro, man made the mulatto. As the blonde race thrives best in the north temperate climate and the negro in the tropical, the mulatto would thrive best in the semi-tropical. In Cuba the lighter colored ones would find an appropriate climate and congenial surroundings. In Cuba there is no color line or race prejudice. The mulattoes could mingle with the whites until in time they would form a part of a dusky white, intelligent mixed race. They would be dissolved and their problem solved. But they must hurry up or the race problem will get there first.
The darker mulattoes might go to Hayti and make use of their intelligence in reforming society and running the government, and thus render a real service to mankind. It would be a missionary service in which the missionaries would save themselves also. This would be easier than to win high station and respect in a white man’s country. In Hayti they would in time become assimilated with the native black race and become a part of a lighter colored, more intelligent race than exists there to-day. Nothing could be more simple.
If our negro will not do this (and who said he would?) he must be diluted or spread out, for the white man must rule in a white man’s country. His only hope for toleration and assistance is by being in the minority. If white immigration will accomplish this in the Southern states then the negro will be saved; if not he must save himself by spreading himself.
CHAPTER VII
At Gran Hotel Centrál
El Gran Hotel Centrál—Its Plan—Prices—Two in a Room—Church Ruins as Boarding-houses—The Hotel Furniture—Advantage of Two in a Room—Primitive Service—The Plumbing—How to Break up Luxurious Habits—The Temperature—A Walk in the Sun—Baths—Doctor Echeverría’s Appetizer—Effects of Liquor—His Character—The Hotel Food—The Venezuelan Minister—The Custom of Treating—Cigaret Smoking, a Solitary Vice—A Visit to the Home of Señor Arango—Clothing an Injury—Panama Ladies—A Linguistic Defeat—Spanish American Education—Influence of United States upon Central American Customs—Language of the Lower Classes—A Visit to the Southern Club—Cola by the Pint—Beer—Alcohol Versus Syrup—To Bed in the Dark—The Light Habit Broken up—A Definition of Happiness—A Miraculous Dawn and an Awakening Town—The Sun Makes a High Jump—Southern Activity and Northern Indolence—A Delightful Sponge Bath and an Hour of Exercise—Coffee and Rolls—Delayed Eggs and Drastic Americans—A Revolution for an Egg—Reasons for the Light Early Breakfast—Burnt Coffee as a Delicacy.