The ship was soon boarded by a messenger from Mr. Wetter, the outgoing American Consul at Madagascar, and I was piloted ashore. The view of Tamatave from the ship was not prepossessing, and my walk through the city to the hotel was not inspiring. The attempt to dignify the six or eight feet wide alleys (which were the main arteries for travel) as avenues or streets, seemed ludicrous, and the filthy condition, the absence of all sanitary regulations in a province pretending a civilized administration, was to me a revelation. The natural sequence of such neglect was the visitation of the "Bubonic plague" a few months after my arrival and an immense death-rate. The alarm proved a conservator for the living, for the burning of the effected districts, widening the streets and enforcement of sanitary rules have tended to lessen its virulence, although it has been yearly in its visitations; for while foul surroundings are recognized as hot-beds for the propagation of the germs of this pest, recent experience has demonstrated that while cleanliness and rigid sanitary measures are less inviting, they are not positive barriers to its approach and dire effect. The "terror" originally supposed to be indigenous only to India, Egypt, and China, and so domestic in its habits as to confine its ravages to few precincts, now stalks forth as on a world mission—to Mauritius in Indian Ocean, to Japan, Brazil, Australia, Honolulu, and last and not least, interesting from an American point of view, are the stealthy footsteps of the unwelcome guest in the city of San Francisco, Cal. "While medical information relating to the plague is still less definite and extensive than it should be," says an eminent physician, "it is now well demonstrated that the disease depends upon a specific microbe."
It may be communicated from one person to another through expectoration, oozings from the mouth of dying persons, or through the excretions of the body. "The fears it inspires are well grounded, for the recoveries in a case of severe epidemics are only ten per cent. Of 126 cases reported from Manila from January 20 to March 30, 1900, 112 cases resulted fatally." In India, where the plague has been the most severe, the deaths from this cause have averaged 5,000 a week of recent years, a considerable amount of study has been devoted to the various phases of the plague, by physicians in Europe and the East especially, and a number have given their lives to the cause of medical science in attempts to find some method of successfully combating it. It is needless to say that no specific has as yet been discovered in its treatment, and ordinary curative measures have but little effect on its course.
In Chinatown, San Francisco, where it made its appearance, a rigid "cordon sanitaire" was established, and all outer intercourse prohibited. It is not believed that conditions are inviting in North America, although "the wish may be father to the thought."
The following brief expression relative to Madagascar and comment on Negro status in the following letter to the "Colored American," published in Washington City, may be in place:
Tamatave, Madagascar, Aug. 5, 1900.
Dear Friend Cooper: I have your favor June 14th last, in which you say you would like to have a line from me, that you "may let the friends over here know what you are doing." Well, here it is, line upon line, if not precept, etc. I am "still doing business at the same old stand," and doubt if I have anything to say regarding this "far-away post" that would particularly interest your readers, engrossed as I perceive they are in domestic phases and in the alignment of our recent acquisitions.
Regarding the physical development or moral progress of Madagascar, as you know it is now a French province, with a Governor General and staff, all appointees from France. The Government is doing considerable to open up the country by means of telegraphs, railroads, turnpikes and canals. At Paris they recently voted sixty millions francs (12 million dollars) for a railroad from here to Tananarivo, the capital, 200 miles from here, over a mountainous and broken country. The capital is situated on a plateau 5,000 feet above sea level, with a climate cool and bracing. Here at Tamatave a fireplace or heating stove in a house are unknown appendages. The Hovas for a long period were the rulers previous to the conquest and occupation by the French, who by diplomacy—"force and iron will"—the means usually adopted by the strong when a coveted prize looms in the distance, added an immense territory to their colonial possessions. But perhaps in the interest of civilization the change is not to be deplored. The Hovas were a superior class of Madagascan people the rulers being men of education and ability, but not equal in quality or quantity to cope with the energy, wealth and military prowess of a power like France.
The mental and physical conditions of the great bulk of the natives were not, and are not, inviting; they were held by a mild system of slavery, a system that in substance still exists under French rule as to forced labor on public works. The severity of tasks and bad rum are said by a friendly society at Paris in its protest "to be fast decimating their number." The French Government, however, are establishing an extension of schools for the natives, where industrial training will be the marked feature, and which on yesterday, the occasion being an official visit the Governor was pleased to pay me, I took pains to extol; as you know industrial training is my pet. The General wisely remarking, "we wish first to place the present generation in a position to earn more money, so they will be able to give their offspring a higher education if they wish." The English, Norwegians from America, the Friends and other missions, are doing something for their educational and moral progress, but the appliances are meager compared with the herculean task that awaits them.
There is, however, this difference in the problem here. There are colored men occupying places of prominence as officials, as tellers in banks, clerks in counting-houses and merchant stores. Here it is condition, and not color, wealth and position, the "open sesame." On social occasions the brother in black is in evidence, without special notice of the fact, and, strangest of it all, on the following day the sun and other heavenly bodies seem to stand or revolve in their accustomed orbits. My health has been good, although the bubonic pest, periodical in its visitations, has been alarming in the suddenness of its destruction of life. In the spring it is again expected to alight without "healing in its wings." But I will not longer dwell on Madagascan peculiarities, many of which, as elsewhere, are not chastening. What I am interested in, and want to know about is, how you are getting on with the "old grudge?" If I judge correctly from the journals that reach me, that during my near three years' absence, its status, unlike renowned grape-juice, has neither dissipated or improved by lapse of time, and that lynching and disfranchisement still have the right of way.
The expansion of our sovereignty is fraught with complications, and onerous duties from the statesman, the zeal of the humanitarian, and of reformers and friends of equitable government, unflinching determination are required, that kindness and justice shall be ceded to the people thereof. But is the prospect for the dissemination or ascendancy of these virtues either bright or promising? If the exercise and enjoyments of these attributes are not granted to millions of the American household, is it reasonable to expect they will dominate abroad? There is reason for apprehension that our cousins in the East will find little change of despotic tendencies amid the rank and file of American adventurers. The philosophy of our system of government seems out of balance. Cicero wrote "that excessive liberty leads both nations and individuals into excessive slavery."