A summer on the borders of the Caribbean sea.

by J. Dennis Harris

T certainly takes the impatience out of one to travel very much on a sail vessel. The dead certainty of your getting becalmed annihilates even contrary anticipation. But instead of murmuring at the irksome roll of this spell-bound ship, which flaps its sails as vainly as a bird with cropped wings, I, with genuine Spartan philosophy, will make the most of it by going visiting, that is, from the cabin to the forecastle. Here I take a seat beside an American; (for, my dear H., nobody ever knows what true friendship is until they have been shipwrecked, nor does any one conceive how mutual are the sympathies of persons coming from the same country, however remote their positions may have been, until they have met away from home, and been surrounded by foreign influences. Strange as it may seem, I have not met a colored American out this way but who actually celebrates the Fourth of July.)

Instead of complaining of this ghastly calm, as I was about to say, I take a seat beside my friend Mr. Johnson, formerly of Plymouth, Massachusetts, from whom I learned the following important story, albeit, a love story. Important because it shows the correctness of that theory which assumes this,—the infusion of Northern blood as one of the means by which the more sluggish race of the tropics is to be quickened and given energy, and also how these seductive southern zones induce persons to sacrifice kindred, friends, and home, in order to live and die under their soothing influences.

The story is this: Some years ago he had sailed from Boston to Balize with a cargo of ice; was taken sick, and the captain of his vessel, having made all possible arrangements for his comfort, left him in the hospital to recover. He did so, and was just on the eve of going over to Jamaica to get on board a vessel in which to return home, when up stepped an elderly man, who accosted him in English and also in Yankee, to wit: “Guess you are from the States?” to which Mr. Johnson replied, of course, “You, too, I suppose?” The fact is, if you could not tell an American away from home by his looks, his salutatory phrases are as certain as an oddfellow’s password.

So Mr. Dickinson, the elderly gentleman, was from the States also, and nothing would do but Mr. Johnson must accompany him to his home in Ruatan, there to spend a few weeks for old acquaintance’ sake, and meanwhile strengthen his health. He went; but Mr. Johnson coming from the States had never seen so lovely an island, and certainly none so prolific as Ruatan. He found oranges selling for one dollar per barrel, and cocoa-nuts at a cent apiece; and that after being rowed a distance of six miles. He found also that good milch cows could be bought for six dollars each; and that upon one of the neighboring islands wild cattle were to be had for the sport of catching. On Utille, another island, also, almost in sight of Ruatan, is a settlement of whites, which, though small, is in a very flourishing condition; both being tributary to Ruatan. Altogether, he liked the appearance of things exceedingly.

Mr. Johnson not being one of your lazy visitors, soon began to make himself useful by assisting his friend Mr. Dickinson in whatever he might have to do; and so one day, with pants rolled up to his knees, he went over to a neighbor’s to borrow some bags. This neighbor had a pretty niece who lived in Nicaragua, which is just over the way, and who was now on a visit to her uncle.

It was near dusk; his neighbor was not at home; but, with that careless indifference which travellers in the tropics will appreciate, he walked into the shanty, slightly nodded to some one he saw sitting in the corner, and immediately stretched himself out in a hammock.

The timid girl, less frightened at this rude freedom than at the bushy whiskers of the Northerner, answered his inquiries as to when her uncle would be in, curtsied, and left the room; but in doing so she discovered about the trimmest ancle and the neatest pair of stockings Mr. Johnson had ever beheld. It fixed him. He could not sleep after that without dreaming of the pretty feet, and, of course, pretty owner.

Mr. Johnson found business with his neighbor very often. The divinity went over home; Mr. Johnson had business over there also; and with genuine American grit obtained the old man’s consent, and actually returned with his daughter.

Soon after this Mr. Johnson received from the States the mournful intelligence of his father’s death, and, like a dutiful son, immediately sailed for Plymouth to see his mother and sisters. His brother, equally anxious with his mother and friends to have him stop at home, offered him a situation as clerk in a lawyer’s office. But, alas! those pretty feet! They had caused him to sacrifice his home; and although shipwrecked in the attempt, he is now back in Ruatan, with no expectation of ever meeting his Plymouth friends again during life. “I told them,” said he, “she was not quite so white as some of them, but she’s a darn sight better-hearted;” which is very probably a fact. Mr. Johnson affirmed, also, that he could not be induced to leave Ruatan for the income of the most princely merchant in Boston; but I make allowances for a man who has a young wife with pretty feet.

Ruatan, as you are aware, is the principal one of the celebrated Bay Islands, the sovereignty of which has been so long in dispute. Nor can I settle the question as to whether the British claim is just or not; I can only give it to you as I get it.