We are but a stone’s throw from either dock, and it requires a lot of common sense, even downright logic, to persuade us that we are in the Caribbean Sea, and not far off on the other side of the globe coming out of the flat estuaries of the bleak North Sea into the Meuse or the Y.
A bit of Holland has been lost from out Mother Earth’s pocket, and has fallen by the way in this Western Hemisphere; and it has managed to get along without the big Dutch mother very well. It has grown up into full stature, following the instincts of its birth, almost wholly uninfluenced by tropical environment. Here it stands, a perfect little Dutchman, an exact reproduction of its staunch progenitors. Its forms and habits have followed the traditions of its ancestors, not those of its West Indian foster-mother. There is only one racial trait lacking in Curaçao,—we saw no windmills; all the rest is there. But, to our great relief, we are told that even the windmills appear on the country places farther inland.
III.
The arrival of our ship awakens the Yellow City early in the morning, and, before our boats are lowered, the shore is white with crowds of Curaçaoans, big and little, pushing and jostling each other for a sight of us. Our breakfast is done with in short order. A hurried bit of fruit, a quick swallow of boiling coffee, a fresh roll, and up we scramble to the deck. So it is invariably, as we near a port. Each time we come upon an island more curious, more irresistible than any we have seen before. We may be sighting it first as we refresh our bodies with a bath of the clear salt water from without, warmed into the most delicious mildness by the eternal smile of the sun. Then comes a scramble to dress, then a bolt to the dining-room, where we eat and run. Now, in pops a big “if.” If we were only snoozing in a Dutch four-poster, with a frilled nightcap on, under a peaked roof in Willemstad, then we’d never need to hurry, for all we’d have to do would be to open our eyes and look around, and wait for the coffee to come with a rap at the door and a lifting of the curtain. But there is small comfort in listening to the endless schemes of that miscreant “if.” We’ll banish him in disgrace.
