A beamy shore-boat is engaged at one bolivar apiece (negotiations having been started on a basis of five bolivars apiece, charged by the boatmen), and we have plenty of room for all, even the Doctor, who is going with us (for he was just too late for the launch—perhaps, with malice aforethought); and so we row to the stone steps of the quay of La Guayra, the port of Caracas, our first landing on the “Spanish Main.”
We have left the land of what we supposed to be our mother tongue, and are come to a country where we can really be understood, or misunderstood, according to our abilities to express ourselves, in a language more constant than English. I take a mental stock, and find four Spanish phrases which did not fail me in Santo Domingo, and shall not fail me here. Besides I have been practising them since then! With these I can fare sumptuously:
¿Cuanto cuesta? (How much does it cost?)
¿Qué hora es? (What o’clock is it?)
¡Mucho bonito! (Very beautiful!)
Yo no entiendo. (I do not understand.)
This, with a few nouns sprinkled in, was my vocabulary; but I had no fears,—had we not our own interpreter?
And the big, strong oars brought us to the landing. Then we girls, in charge of the Doctor, were stood up in the shade of a warehouse, where we watched the white uniformed South Americans, struggling with our obdurate men for their landing charges—for here they charge for the right to land. Then the men disappeared with the bags, and we waited what seemed to us a very long time, until, with one consent, we just thought we wouldn’t stay put another minute; so the Doctor takes the lead with his big white Indian helmet jammed over his eyes, and Little Blue Ribbons and Sister raise a fine cloud of dust, running on ahead. But we older ones know what it means to be in La Guayra, so we follow on very leisurely. On the way, we meet an excited messenger already sent to hurry us to the train.
La Guayra is said to be the hottest place about the West Indies, and I could well imagine how the Great Mother would have to fan her little white children, when they once really felt the breath of the unconscionable sun; but, as we walked along, even though the sun had climbed a few steady hours, we found it far from uncomfortable, even carrying our heavy satchels, and the white umbrella, besides.
Along a dusty and sun-stricken water-front, disfigured with railroad tracks, and low warehouses, we came to the station, where the men, triumphant, were impatiently waiting, after sending out their belated relief expedition. Tickets had been bought, gold pieces divided up into fascinating silver pieces, called bolivars (in honour of the great South American liberator—accent on the second syllable, if you please), and all in our lord and master’s own Spanish, of which we were justly proud; and then we find places in the train, and in a few moments after our arrival we jerk out among the white houses.