In Quest of El Dorado

by Stephen Graham

Personally I do not believe the stories of moral depravity, the cannibalism, which is said to have broken out among the people. They are not so starved as that. They have not been exploited in the way the people of the other islands have. Cubans will eat one another before Haitians. But they get married without going to church, it is true, and have children who remain unbaptized. Otherwise they are "good Catholics," some of the best I have seen. There is no doubt about it—the inside of a church, where there is a church, is one of the best social scenes in Haiti. The women may often go in uncovered, and the holy water bowl be dry, or the worshipers may not know when or how to cross themselves—but the loveliness and simplicity of service are in utter contrast to the world outside, to the jungle, and to the ordinary ways of men and women.

You sit in a vast sky-blue church in the evening and watch the children, with chaplets in their hair and garlands of flowers in their hands, and listen to the Spanish singing. And girls all in white go up to the Madonna with armfuls of flowers and, throwing their heads and their breasts to her, yearn to her and gesticulate and perorate and fling down their flower sacrifices and go. And the priest lights the incense over the flower-heaped altar so that every blossom smokes upwards to the Virgin's feet.

Oh, to live in that atmosphere always and be at peace! You realize the sweet emotion, though you know that character and the world's reactions forbid that you shall take it far.

I stayed at a pleasant city called Santiago of the Gentlemen. The Americans call it Santiago of the Bandits, but it seemed to be a brighter city than the capital, having more pretensions to civilization. The steel mosquito gratings on the verandas of the hotel were commendable. How can one enjoy one's days when the mosquitoes chase you all night!

It would, however, be vain to seek in the island of Haiti the comforts and conventions of Porto Rico. The United States is in control, but it is proving more difficult to introduce new ways of living. The mahogany-colored chambermaids of the hotel smoke heavy black cigars as they work, and every time Yokine, who waits on me, wants to light up afresh she makes an errand to my room for the matches beside my candlestick. My bedroom is just a section of a dormitory divided off by wooden partitions. The bed is surmounted by a high-domed-mosquito-netting cage which is a room in itself once you are inside.

There is no such thing as a "room with a bath" on the island. Round the corner from the veranda is a mildewed douche which drops water on your back in beneficent but not abundant trickles. It is not entirely private and you should keep your eyes on two doors whilst you wash. And there are sometimes other occupants beside yourself, to wit, the giant Roach and his family. Father Roach is very fond of water, and when you turn on the shower he also comes forth to share in the splash.

In other parts of the hotel the roaches are portentous. One tries to find a likeness for them. They are like old-fashioned brown metal trunks, a little reduced in size. The sideboard in the dining room might be the grand terminal station of some city of the gnomes, and drawn up outside it are a score of brown cabs, some waiting, some moving.

Or if they are not cabs they are little brown pups. The waiters treat them brutally, but I feed them from my plate and they make off with a bit of bread or a quiver of Spanish omelette as readily as cat or dog.

I see little lizards also running up the dining-room wall. The most interesting extra gentleman lodger, however, is the tropical spider. He is not gigantic but gigantesque, as big as the palm of your hand; speedy, audacious, voracious. He lives not in a web but on a wall, on a series of walls, and no other spider dare stay on it with him for a couple of minutes. Ah, here he comes, sprawling over the dusty map of the island of Haiti hanging in the hall. A Dominican politician smiles and points at him and would whisper something about the military government of which he sees a symbol.

There is a steady malice against Americans, and as I am English the other guests of the hotel open their hearts. They take pleasure in scratching crosses on the figure of Liberty on the American money. Their own money has largely disappeared, but a fine coin the size and appearance of a silver dollar is now reckoned as only twenty cents. They say it is intrinsically worth forty cents, and that an American bank collected some millions of them, took them to New York, and sold them at a large profit. There are two great banking institutions on the island: one is American, the other is the Royal Bank of Canada. The Dominicans assure me they place all their business with the Royal Bank. They say that the dollar has impoverished them because it has raised the cost of living so terribly. They retaliate by using the British bank.