TREE GROWING OUT OF A CHIMNEY IN JAMAICA
If New York be the port of departure, several lines offer themselves to the traveler, and soon after the canal is opened their number will be increased. At present the Panama Railroad Company, owned by the government, maintains a line of ships mainly for the carriage of supplies and employes of the Canal Commission. There is already discussion of the wisdom of abandoning this line after the construction work is over, on the ground that the United States government has no right to enter into the business of water transportation in competition with private parties. If sold by the government, however, the line will doubtless be maintained under private ownership. The United Fruit Company, an American corporation with an impressive fleet of ships all flying the British flag, also carries passengers to the Isthmus from New York and New Orleans, as does the Hamburg-American Line, from New York only. My own voyage was by the Royal Mail Steam Packet line, an historic organization chartered in 1839 for the express purpose of bringing England into closer touch with its West Indian colonies. The excellent ships of this line, sailing fortnightly from New York, touch at the little port of Antilla on the northern shore of Cuba, spend twenty-four hours at Jamaica and reach Colon on the eighth day of the voyage. Thence the ship plows along through our American Mediterranean, touching at Trinidad, St. Kitts, Barbadoes and other British colonial outposts until at last she turns into the open ocean, buffeting her way eastward to Gibraltar and Southampton, her home port.
CANE RIVER FALLS
A real bit of England afloat is the “Oruba” with officers clad on festive occasions in full dress uniforms closely resembling those of the Royal Navy, and stewards who never dropped dishes in a storm but dropped their h’s on the slightest provocation. “’E’s in the ’old, mum,” explained one when a lady inquired for the whereabouts of a missing dog. It is wonderful after all how persistent are the British manners and customs in the places the English frequent. From the breakfast tea, bloaters and marmalade, to the fish knives sensibly served with that course at dinner, but which finicky Americans abjure, all about the table on these ships is typically English. In the colonies you find drivers all turning to the left, things are done “directly” and not “right away,” every villa has its tennis court, and Piccadilly, Bond St., and Regent Street are never missing from the smallest colonial towns.
But to return to the voyage. For four days we steamed south along a course as straight as though drawn by a ruler. For three days the wind blew bitter and cutting, the seas buffeted the weather side of the ship with resounding blows, and the big dining saloon displayed a beggarly array of empty seats. Betwixt us and Africa was nothing but a clear course for wind and wave, and both seemed to suffer from speed mania. Strange noises rose from the cabins; stewardesses looked business-like and all-compelling as they glided along the narrow corridors. Hardened men in the smoke room kept their spirits up by pouring spirits down, and agreed that the first leg of a voyage to Colon was always a beastly one.
But by the morning of the fourth day a change comes over the spirit of our dreams. The wind still blows, but it is soft, tempered to the shorn lamb. The ship still rolls, but the mysterious organ called the stomach has become attuned to the motion and ladies begin to reappear on the deck. The deck chairs so blithely rented at New York are no longer untenanted, and we cease to look upon the deck steward who took our money as a confidence man. A glance at the chart at noon shows us off the northern coast of Florida and the deep blue of the water betokens the Gulf Stream. Next morning men begin to don their white suits, and the sailors wander about barefooted. A bright girl suggests that a voyage from New York to the tropics is like a shower bath taken backwards, and we all are glad that the warm water faucet is at last turned on.
THE ROAD TO MARKET
A typical highway of Jamaica, followed by natives going to Kingston