GARDENS OF THE CARIBBEES
Volume I

Travel Lovers’ Library

Each in two volumes profusely illustrated

Florence
By Grant Allen
Romance and Teutonic Switzerland
By W. D. McCrackan
Old World Memories
By Edward Lowe Temple
Paris
By Grant Allen
Feudal and Modern Japan
By Arthur May Knapp
The Unchanging East
By Robert Barr
Venice
By Grant Allen
Gardens of the Caribbees
By Ida M. H. Starr
Belgium: Its Cities
By Grant Allen

L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
Publishers
200 Summer Street, Boston, Mass.

G A R D E N S O F
THE CARIBBEES

Sketches of a C r u i s e to the W e s t
I n d i e s a n d t h e S p a n i s h M a i n

By
Ida M. H. Starr

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.
ILLUSTRATED

Boston
L. C. Page & Company
MDCCCCIV

Copyright, 1903
By L. C. Page & Company
(INCORPORATED)
———
All rights reserved
Published July, 1903
Colonial Press
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co
Boston Mass., U. S. A.

To
My Beloved Children

TO THE READER

THESE sketches were written during a memorable cruise to the West Indies and the Spanish Main in the winter and spring of 1901. There has been no attempt to write a West Indian guide-book, but rather to give preference to the human side of the picture through glimpses of the people and their ways of life and thought. With this idea it was thought best to give attention only to such of the ports visited as were full of human interest and typical of the life about the Caribbean Sea.

There was a strong feeling that we were sailing in romantic waters, and there has been no desire to eliminate the element of fancy from these pages.

It may be of interest to remember that at no time since—and perhaps never before—could this voyage have been made under the same conditions. Since then man and the greater powers of Nature seem to have conspired to make much of this delightful region forbidding to strangers. Several ports have become dangerous because of fever and plague; proclamations in French and pronunciamientos in Spanish have adorned West Indian street corners; Haïti has reverted to its almost chronic state of riot and revolution; the Dominican republic has again chosen a President whose nomination came from a conquering army; Venezuela has been full of alarms and intrigues; while already the Germans are beginning to show their hand in the Caribbean; Martinique and St. Vincent have been desolated by volcanoes then thought to be practically extinct; and of delicious St. Pierre there remains but a sadly sweet memory.

I. M. H. S.

10 June, 1903.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Volume I.

Gardens of the Caribbees

CHAPTER I.
THE VOYAGE

I.

“THANK you, Rudolph, I believe I will take some lemonade and one or two of the sweet biscuit; that will do;” and I settled back in my ship chair, feeling as serene and happy as a woman in a white linen frock can feel. Every one must have gone down into every one’s trunk this morning; was there ever such a change? Why, the count and his brother are fairly blinding to the eyes, in their smart white flannels. They actually look a bit interesting. Here they come now; the count has evidently had his lemonade, I see he is still nibbling a biscuit.

This is the first time I have realised where we are going. This arraying of one’s self in cool things and white things makes one really believe that, after all, the voyage is not a delusion.

“Rudolph, you’re a dear,” this to myself, but aloud, as the faithful steward comes with my lemonade, I thank him and take the glass while he goes on in search of the youngsters. What a comfort that old soul has been to us! He began by being willing to speak German, and certainly that was an indication of a great deal of character. I think he was the first German I had ever met, who, knowing enough English to carry on an ordinary conversation, would, at times, express himself in his native tongue. That was good of Rudolph; of course we had to tell him not to speak English at first, but he never forgot. And such care as he gave us those horrible days, when we didn’t drink lemonade or sit on the deck; when the ship wouldn’t go anywhere but up and down; when it fairly ached to turn itself inside out, I know it did. It was then that Rudolph was neither man nor woman, but the incarnation of goodness and patience. Dear old Rudolph!

Let me see—how many meals is this so far? Breakfast at eight o’clock makes one; bouillon and wafers at half-past ten, two; lunch at twelve-thirty makes three, and here I am hungry as ever, simply revelling in number four. I wish I had another biscuit. This is delicious! I mean the sky and the sea and the ship and all the people dressed so airily and looking so unconscious of what has gone before. If no one else will testify, Rudolph certainly can, that much has gone before. But this sea, this straightaway plowing into Southern waters is beginning to make me forget, and for fear that I may do so I must tell you how it happens that I am feeling so blissfully relieved at this moment. Of course I am not perfectly at ease, for I don’t think a woman in a white linen frock can be until it has passed the stage where she has to be thinking of spots.

Six days ago I was not sitting here in a white frock. I was bundled in furs, and even then cringed and shivered with the cold. Ough! it was raw and bleak that sad day of our sailing. The January wind, chilling us to the marrow, swept in from the desolate ocean like the cruel thrusts of so many icy knives. Even the prospect of a voyage to the Islands of the Blest left us indifferent and shivering and blue. I vaguely thought that when we were once on shipboard we could get warm, but the doors were all open and the passages so blocked with visitors that even had it occurred to any one to shut the doors I don’t think it could have been done.

My handsome cousin from New York came with a big bunch of lovely violets, and I thought, as I touched their cold faces to mine, that they, too, must certainly be suffering and homesick.

This voyage had been one of our dreams. We two—Daddy and I—had sat many a night by the crackling wood fire in our dear library talking it over. We planned how we should take the little girls and leave the four boys; how we should for once really go off for a glorious lark; but now, alas! every vestige of romance faded from our firelight dreams as we pulled ourselves away on such a bleak day, with not a gleam of sunshine to cheer us.

Had there been at that last moment any sane reason for turning back, I should have done so. I do not see why I had expected anything else but a bleak wind on the North River in January, but certainly I did have a sort of a fancy that, once on shipboard bound for Southern seas, the glamour of our voyage would warm me to the very heart, but it didn’t. I grew colder every minute, and after the cousin had said “Good-bye” and his tall silk hat was lost in the crowd at the gangway, it seemed to me that we were all bereft of our senses to think of leaving the library fireplace; but Daddy was beckoning me, and the little girls were making off in his direction; there was no escape. All I could do was to shiver and follow them. They were in tow of a red-nosed, white-coated steward; that was Rudolph. We didn’t know it then, and even if we had I hardly think we would have cared. Rudolph had our luggage, loads of it, our bags, our rug rolls, our numerous duffle; he had it all well in hand and he forged ahead through the crowd with good-natured indifference to the wrath of those going the other way, loaded down in similar fashion. We were trying to find Numbers 41 and 44. Everybody else was trying in like haste to find some other number. There were more crooks and turns and funny little corridors running off in different directions than you would imagine could be built into a self-respecting ship, with here and there a constricted spot where a narrow steel door led through some “water-tight bulkhead.” Now and then I lost sight of the little girls’ bobbing ribbons and found myself peering down the wrong corridor, following some other person’s luggage; then I would turn and elbow through the crowd, and bolt down the wide passage again to catch a glimpse of Little Blue Ribbons and Sister, both fairly dancing at the prospect of a real voyage in a real ship. And then came the appalling thought, “If I don’t hurry and push through these swarms of people, those youngsters may disappear for ever in a sort of Pied-Piper-of-Hamelin Fashion.”

In a dazed way I stumbled and hurried on, and finally, to my great relief, I heard the children’s voices issuing from Number 41, which proved to be well aft on the upper deck. It was a beautiful, large room, with big lower berths on opposite sides, and convenient mahogany wardrobes for the clothing—quarters quite befitting the dainty little maids who were to call it home for many weeks. My traps were left in the other room with Daddy’s, and as it was but a few moments of sailing time, we left things as they were, ran up the stairway near our door just as the stiff German bugler was sounding the warning for visitors to leave the ship. Then the last preparations for departure began. The gangplank was taken in, and we began to move, ever and ever so slowly, and, shuddering, I turned around to see how the deluded people looked who were going to death and destruction with me. “It is all the fault of that wretched sun,” I thought. “Why doesn’t it know enough to shine on sailing day? If the clouds don’t shift, we’ll all go to Davy Jones’s, and only think of the trouble I have had getting ready!” Much as I commiserated as a whole my fellow sufferers, outside of our own little group there was only one couple of which I have now any distinct remembrance, and I noticed them because I was quite sure they were bride and groom. “It is just too bad of her to wear that lovely gown to a watery grave! She ought to have left it at home for a relative. Anything would have done to swim in if it was only warm,” I thought; but the bride leaned over the rail and waved her handkerchief at some one and laughed, and then wiped her eyes and laughed once more, but she kept the gown on.

A horribly blatant German band, on board an Atlantic liner which lay alongside, bellowed forth national airs, and I wished I could choke it. The dwindling crowd on shore waved and shouted, and I went off alone and directly rubbed against some fresh white paint. That was too much! I just sat down and cried, and wondered why I hadn’t brought some turpentine and why I had ever left the babies, why I had ever forsaken the comfortable library in midwinter; but alas, I wondered a great deal more a few days later!

II.

Contrary to all precedent, instead of watching the fast-fading shores of New York Harbour, I simply went to the stateroom and began to find myself, and certainly I did not regret it afterward. I unpacked our most necessary clothing, got out the brushes and combs, unstrapped the roll of rugs, stowed away in a handy corner my smelling-salts, and small convenient bottles of various kinds,—all the time accusing myself that I had not been satisfied with the calmer view I had had of “The Islands of the Blest” from our library window; that I must need hunt the real thing by steamship; an ever impossible method, as Kipling had warned me long ago:

“That route is barred to steamers: you’ll never lift again
Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain.
They’re just beyond the skyline, howe’er so far you cruise
In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws.

“Swing round your aching search-light—’twill show no haven’s peace!
Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, gray-bearded seas!
Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep’s unrest—
But you aren’t a knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest.”

I shall always believe that the force of suggestion was the cause of our undoing. When a lot of people sit down to luncheon, all with one fixed idea, with one definite question in their minds, sooner or later that question is bound to be answered in one way or another. All one has to do is simply to wait long enough and the answer will come. “Mental Science” and “Christian Science” notwithstanding, there wasn’t a soul in that dining-room but was wondering with all his faculties whether he would be or would not be. Incidentally, the ship felt the pulse of old Atlantic, and he began to be. And, as time wore on, the dining-saloon became deserted, and the question was answered. I never knew nor cared where the people went. As for myself, I took a rug, made for the warmest corner of the deck I could find, covered myself head and ears, and wanted to be alone. I was conscious that Little Blue Ribbons had tucked herself under my wing, a sad little birdling; but Sister and Daddy were very grand. They gaily walked the decks and laughed when they passed us,—but we didn’t laugh! No, we didn’t even smile. The ocean had never troubled me before,—that is not to any extent, for I had had a theory that if I could only keep on deck and wear a tight belt, the worst would soon be over. But there are seasons when all signs fail, and this time everything turned out wrong.

The following day I managed to dress and get upon deck with the others. Oh! if I only had a chance at a good railroad, those who would might hunt up the islands; I had had enough already. I made up my mind to one thing, I should give up my ticket at Nassau and go home alone by rail through Florida. I didn’t say anything of this plan to Daddy, but I thought it all out and had it all arranged, when I found that I could not get warm and could get so miserably seasick. I considered it a brilliant and original inspiration, and I clung to it with all my feeble strength.

Sunday it commenced to blow furiously, coming first from the southwest, and increasing as the day wore on, until by night, with the wind shifted to north of west, a howling gale was on, outer doors battened down, promenade decks swept by water, and everybody curled up in bed, bracing themselves as best they could, trying to keep from rolling out of their berths. I wish it understood that the word everybody is used reservedly, for there were a few exceptions, Daddy being one of them,—cranks who prided themselves on not missing a meal. Then came that awful night! This was the time Rudolph shone. It was he who suggested champagne and ship-biscuit. Daddy didn’t know how many bottles he brought to our room, and we didn’t, until it came time to pay the bills. Then Daddy was surprised, but Rudolph wasn’t. “Rudolph,” I said, that terrible night, as he brought in the bottle, and steadied himself to pour a glassful, “were you ever in such a storm as this before; don’t you really think we’re in great danger?” He assured me that he had been in much worse storms, but I knew he hadn’t. I could tell by the way he looked that he was only trying to cheer me up, for he was dreadfully solemn, and had a big black lump on his forehead where he had hit his head as he came in with the bottle. I listened while he told of other storms ever and ever so much worse; how he had been thirty years a steward, how he swore every voyage would be his last; but how somehow he kept on shipping; he didn’t mind storms. “So you have never gone down at sea, Rudolph? Oh, I am so glad, for then you wouldn’t be here, would you?” He forgave me of course. I was not the first sufferer Rudolph had brought champagne and ship’s biscuit.

When Sister was a babe, Daddy gave her a little Jap toy, which we called the “Red Manikin.” He was round as an apple, with his face one big grin. Whichever way we stood him, Manikin would jump up serenely on his plump little legs, always smiling and jolly. But one day there came a sad ending to Manikin’s smiles. He was smashed in a nursery storm, and we found him under the bed standing straight on his head. Through snatches of sleep, my disordered dreams made a grinning, red Manikin of our ship. I wondered when the final smash would come and our big toy no longer swing back on its round legs? Over and over the great ship went, and I held my breath. “Now this time it will never come back. I know it. Oh! how terrible to have the water pour into our staterooms and never a chance to swim. No, there we go the other way. Now we go, go, go! Oh, if I wouldn’t try to keep the ship from rolling over! What good can I do by holding my breath and bracing back in this way? I wonder how the bride feels by this time? That lovely brown dress, she’ll never wear it again. Well, I’m glad I’m not a bride.”

Whatever happened just then I could not tell, but there was a curious sort of a dull explosion, and all the electric lights went out. Then our trunks broke loose and went crashing back and forth at each other, whack, bang, with a vicious delight.

“I’ll not endure this suspense another moment,” thought I, “I must have a light and I must know what is the matter, and I must bring Daddy in here this minute. If we are going down I want him to be with us.” So I swung myself out of the berth, dodged a trunk, groped my way to the door, and ran barefooted to Number 44. I didn’t stop to knock, but turned the knob, as a terrific lurch of the ship threw me against Daddy’s berth, where the only man who knew anything about running that ship lay fast asleep.

Of course you’ll think that an absurd thing to say, but then you don’t know Daddy. He is the kind of a man who was born with expedients in both hands. However much I doubted the wisdom of confessing it to Daddy, away down in my heart I felt that if he would only wake up and come into our room, he would devise a way to save us, if every one else went to the bottom. Hadn’t he time and again rescued us from dreadful disasters by fire and water, didn’t he in his quiet way master every situation at the right moment; was there any one more skilled in handling boats, more subtle in knowledge of winds and waves than Daddy? Wasn’t there just cause that I should wake him up? Of course there was! It wasn’t right that he should be sleeping so peacefully while his wife and children were waiting for the last trump. No, it wasn’t right. So I touched him rather lightly, somewhat hesitatingly, because he never likes to be awakened, and I said—well, I don’t recall just what I said; you know how I felt; and he, the man of expedients, the man of many rescues, turned over and grunted out, “What on earth are you making such a fuss about? Go and see the captain? No, I’ll not go and see the captain or any other man, and I don’t want to sit on your trunk. Go to bed, we’re all right; the sea isn’t as bad as it was before midnight, and what’s the use of worrying anyway? Go to bed, that’s a good girl.” What could I do but go? He wouldn’t budge, so I went back to Number 41 with all the injured dignity possible under the circumstances, and I didn’t care a bit when his door banged good and hard after me. I have never since then been able to understand his utter indifference to our distress that night. It must have been something he ate for dinner.

It was a weird night outside; a white gray night, shone upon fitfully by a sullen moon and a few lonely stars. Every other minute we were in utter darkness, as a thunderous wave came surging deep over the port-holes; then for a brief moment again the sickly light of the moon would steal through the thick wet glass to where the little girls lay, and I wondered if the morning would ever come.

III.

The next day I did not dare look from my port-hole. I had not only drawn the lattice-screen to keep out the water—for the ports were leaking badly—but had even fixed up a curtain with some towels, so that I might not see the storm-vexed sea without. I simply lay there wondering why, why, why, I had ever come? But after awhile adorable Rudolph knocked at the door and gave us each our glass of wine and biscuits, and we felt encouraged, and asked him what had happened to the lights last night. He looked blandly ignorant of any disaster, and shook his head and told us nothing. He was a wise man, that Rudolph! Then he suggested that we get up and dress, after he had lashed the trunks back where they belonged, and had straightened up a nice little round spot in the middle of the room, where we could stand and reach for things. With a grim determination, I pulled down the towel, opened the lattice, and looked out. There is no use in trying to tell you anything about the sea, because I couldn’t. All I can do is advise you never to round Cape Hatteras in a gale. “But what shall we do about the Islands of the Blest?” you ask. That is a simple problem, start from well down in Florida, and take the shortest cut across!

At seven o’clock by the ship’s bell I went to work to keep my promise to Rudolph. I have a distinct remembrance of having put both stockings on wrong side out. I was an hour hunting for my shoes. Everything else had to be scrambled for in the same way. It was two o’clock when I was dressed sufficiently to make a decent appearance; but I needed to have had no fear of criticisms, for as I made my way on deck, crawling up the main cabin stairway, there wasn’t a soul to be seen, except the jackies in their oilskins, who looked rather amazed when I poked my head out of the door.

I then had a view of the ship’s deck which I had not hitherto had. She was very narrow and long, I hadn’t before realised how long and how narrow. No wonder she rolled like a gigantic log canoe, but she was a beauty though! I began to forget her temper because of her looks—a common blunder in judging her sex, I am told. She was stripped naked for the plunge, and to see her pitch headlong into the seething water, throwing foam to the mast-heads, sending a deluge of crashing seas adown our decks, made me scream with delight. It was glorious, glorious, glorious! Down she went,—the beauty,—roaring, cracking, twisting, groaning, howling, and hissing. She fought as with a thousand furies, plunging and rolling into and through the seas, which rushed down upon her as if they would crush her to atoms.

Just then the sun broke from out the fast-moving clouds, and sprang upon the water in a million glistening rays of brilliant light, and my whole being was filled with joy that I had eyes to see such wonders. The storm was at its height the night before when we were to the southeast of Cape Hatteras, after we had steamed well into that beautiful Gulf Stream one reads about. There we were hove to, with head to the storm, engines slowed down, and oil dripping over our bows for twenty-four hours, and were carried one hundred miles out of our course. Unfortunately the oil did little good, for we were in a cross sea which occasionally broke with a thundering crash over our stern as well as over our bows, and we were horribly twisted and shaken. But at last, on Monday afternoon, at four o’clock, the storm quieted so we were able to square away again for the Windward Passage. So much for that terrible gale from the Gulf, which, as we afterward learned, did much damage to coastwise shipping.

As the storm broke, one by one, poor forlorn remnants of our fellow passengers began to appear in all possible states of dilapidation; and for the rest of the day, inspired by a subject of common interest, we sat about, clinging to fixed chairs, talking over our experiences, and watching the fast disappearing tempest.

It was then I learned that my original plan of buying a ticket home from Nassau in the Bahamas and through Florida by rail was shared by every second person I met, and whether the purpose is fully carried out or not remains to be seen.

IV.

There was one peculiar and unlooked-for feature in the experience of seasickness which may be universal to all like sufferers, but it was novel to me. It was when in one of my sane moments the morning before the storm that I threw myself down on a couch in the main saloon, too inert to lift my head, too woebegone to think that I could ever smile again, that I raised my eyes and caught sight of a figure opposite me, compared with which I was in a state of heavenly rapture. It was none less than his Excellency, Herr Baron von Pumpernickel Donnerwetter Hohenmaltsteinhaufen, high officer in the service of his Majesty, the Kaiser. He was all in a heap, a big soft heap, wound about by a big brown ulster. Poor soul, he didn’t care much how it was buttoned, it was all wrong anyway, but he was not thinking of trifles. On a bald pate was a comical felt hat,—one of those little Alpine hats German tourists affect,—jammed over the left eye; his face was unshaven, his hair unshorn and uncombed, his nose big and red, and his eyes watery, meaningless, colourless, glassy eyes rolling about in helpless agony. He sat there with his arms dangling at his sides, mumbling to himself. I hadn’t anything else to do, so I watched him and listened. What can he be saying? I suppose it’s the “Lorelei;” maybe he dreams he’s on the Rhine! His sorrowful, wife-forsaken look aroused my sympathy; I listened more attentively. I have always had a lingering affinity for the German Folkslieder, but, oh, dear, it wasn’t a Folkslied at all! He was swearing volley after volley of feeble, limp oaths, uttered in a broken and scarcely audible voice. I thought the sight of a woman might stop his flow of wrath, so I lifted myself up a little and looked at him as severely as I could under the circumstances, but to no purpose. His monotonous oaths went rolling on and on, until a kind steward came and asked his Excellency if he would have something to eat. Now that steward ought to have known better. I knew there would be trouble. There are times when men must be left alone, and this was his Excellency’s time. I tried to warn the steward, and even worked up an especial groan to attract his attention, but, like a stupid old dunderhead, he stood there with his mouth open; and then he caught it: “Verdamter—damter—damity—dam—” it pealed, bellowed forth with royal spontaneity, and the steward was a white streak out of the saloon door.

There were sufferers in the room besides myself, and it was remarkable to note, how that full and complete expression of his Excellency’s wrath worked like a healing balm upon us all. I shall not confess to any such lapses on the part of my immediate family and friends,—no, I shall never confess to that! but I will say that there are times when the use of strong language is an outlet most beneficial to overwrought digestive organs. I will say that much.

The little blue map of the West Indies given to me at our departure, which same map has lain very snugly between the unopened pages of my journal until to-day, shows me, as for the first time I unfold the wrinkled paper, that we have just passed Watling’s Island (the San Salvador of the early explorers) and a lot of other little islands; while a row of tiny dots shows that we are somewhere near the Tropic of Cancer. Daddy tells of watching until late last night to make out the light on San Salvador, and how it blinked up finally from the waves far ahead on our starboard bow and as quickly disappeared, to gradually grow brighter as we brought it abeam of us—our first smell of land since we dropped the bleak shore of New Jersey. My eyes tell me as they look seaward that we have left the great lonely waste of the Atlantic and have come into sweeter waters, on seas of heavenly rest, which flow away from us as do the rolling white clouds above. I watch dreamily the shoals of flying fish darting aside from under the bow in long low lines of flashing silver; and I look away to where ships come up from over the meeting of sky and ocean.

I know now why Rudolph can not give it up.

CHAPTER II.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAÏTI

I.

FROM the rising of the sun to its sudden drop into the sea, this has been a funny day in Haïti, our first land-fall. All night we had been threading through the dangerous shoals and past the lower islands of the Bahama group, until at last we turned into that great thoroughfare, the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haïti, and finally were at rest in the harbour of Port-au-Prince. Knowing that we were to make port this morning, I was awakened very early by the delightsome expectation of the sight of a green earth; and long before Little Blue Ribbons and Sister had stirred with the spirit of a new day, I had scurried through the corridor to my delicious salt tub. The ship lay very still. It but just felt the finger-tips of the ocean’s caress. A sweet, warm, gentle, alluring air filtered in through the open port-hole and permeated my body with the delicious intoxication of summer. I threw myself into the bath with every pore a-quiver for its cool refreshment, and as the briny water spread its arms about me, I looked out upon the sea, where my first tropical sunrise burst upon me. It was such a businesslike performance that I laughed right in old Sol’s face, and splattered water at him through the port-hole; it served him right for being so abominably prosaic. Five minutes before his appearance, there was not the slightest indication in the sky that anything was about to happen, no fireworks, no signals, no red lights, nothing but the dull blue sky of early morning. When, all at once, a bright red tip peeps over the water, and in three minutes the big, round ball is on hand, ready for business, whereupon he blazes away fortissimo from the start. It was rude and ill-mannered of him to intrude upon my bath, but it seemed to be his way with the ladies, so I fled to find Sister and Wee One in wildest joy, on their knees in bed crowding their pretty heads together for a peep at the wonderful land about them. The ship had swung to her anchor, and lay bow-on to Port-au-Prince, while to starboard was a range of lofty mountains which clambered and struggled and budded and blossomed into the white sky of morning.

The sudden call of Summer, the eternal loveliness of warmth, the expansion of the soul from out the chill of ice and snow, into the bliss of laughing seas and delicious sunlight; the sight of green, graceful palms bending their stately heads to the summons of the morning, the merry wavelets frolicking, splashing, laughing, calling to us,—Summer—Summer—Summer—was all so intoxicating that, had the choice been possible, who knows but we would have bartered our very souls, with but little hesitancy, for a lifetime of such sensation!

There was something akin to emancipation in the pile of airy frocks which lay waiting for Sister and Little Blue Ribbons, and if our fingers hadn’t been all thumbs, and if we hadn’t been on our knees half the time in the berth, peering out from the port-hole, we could have donned the summer glories a full hour sooner, and might have been on deck in the open with all the sweets of the early tropical morning about us. But, what could one do but look and marvel, when the sea about us was swarming with tiny boats, laden with treasures of the deep and of the forest? What would you do, now, tell me, if, after long dreaming of the Islands of the Blest, you suddenly awakened to find them really true, and your own dear self in the midst of them? Why bless your heart! You would have looked, and laughed, and wondered, just as we did, and have been for ever dressing, too.

Long, long ago, when I was a “Little Sister,” my boon companion had a parrot given her, and one day it screamed horribly and bit me, and ever after I held a vengeful spirit for the whole parrot family. But that morning at Haïti—ah! that first soft morning, when the jabbering black Haïtiens came to us with corals and parrots and strange, freaky fruits, a fierce fancy possessed me to buy a parrot. Of course, the morning was to blame for it. I was really not a free agent. It was a delusion that, somehow, if I bought the parrot, the summer would be thrown in with it. But dear, sensible Sister, my judge and jury and supreme court on all occasions, thought it a foolish idea, so we didn’t nod “yes” through the port-hole; we only shook our heads and laughed. But the parrot man didn’t have time to answer back, for, before he knew it, a newcomer bumped into the bow of his skiff and made him very angry; so he gave way in short order, for the late arrival didn’t carry any parrots or coral, or anything to sell; it carried a very tall, black man, who stood immovably in the centre of the craft. “Oh! Come, Sister, I know it’s the President, it must be!” He wore a tall silk hat, with an ancient straight brim, and a black frock coat and a terribly solemn expression. But we were mistaken after all; it was only the health officer. We were sure one of those rollicking waves would spill him over, but, alas, the shiny old stovepipe rose and fell with the precision of a clock and nothing happened, and we were so disappointed! Then it disappeared up the ladder, and we buttoned up a bit more and were dressed at last.

II.

Port-au-Prince is as daintily hidden away in the folds of the mountains, as a lace handkerchief in the chatelaine of a beautiful woman. There seemed to be nothing left undone by Nature to make it, in point of location, a chosen spot, hidden from the curious world: a realm of bliss for lovers to abide in. Port-au-Prince was once called the “Paris of the West Indies;” that is, when the French were its masters and the blacks their slaves. It is not so now, for when the blacks revolted and drove their masters from the land, the death-knell of civilisation was sounded. It is the capital of the Black Republic of Haïti, the paradise of the negro, where to be black is the envied distinction; where the white man can scarcely hold property without confiscation in some form; where the negro is the high-cockalorum. Yes, it was called Paris, but that was long, long ago. Poor little town! It is now the forlornest, dirtiest little rag-a-muffin in the whole world, still trying to strut a bit, but in truth a ridiculous caricature of civilisation.

As we approached land, the character of the place was indicated by the boats lying at anchor, and by those which clung, like a forlorn hope, to the rickety old piers along shore. They were the most dilapidated, nondescript lot of craft I have ever seen.

The “fort” at the harbour entrance was in a state of collapse, and about big enough to shelter a basket of babies. The Haïtien “man-of-war” anchored near the shore was an absurd old iron gunboat with rusty stacks and dishevelled rigging, painted in many colours and temporarily incapacitated because of leaky boilers and broken engines. The rest of the “Haïtien Navy,” i. e., another old rusty gunboat, was lying neglected and half sunken near by. The pier where we landed was so shattered by time and water that I had to pick my way very carefully in order to keep from falling through. On shore, we were at once surrounded by a mob of jabbering Haïtiens, speaking—well, it’s hard to say just what. It started out French and ended in an incomprehensible jargon, intelligible only to the delicate Haïtien ear. As we picked our way along the tumble-down pier, between piles of coral which had been recently removed from the shoal water near shore (in order that small boats could land at the piers), the tatterdemalion Haïtiens escorted us to the city, under a tumble-down archway, into tumble-down Port-au-Prince, to find waiting for us at the other side of this water gate an assortment of vehicles which I find it quite impossible to describe. They had had an earthquake in Port-au-Prince the preceding October, and those carriages looked as if they had passed through the whole shocking ordeal. The horses, not as high as my shoulder, were simply animated bones,—“articulated equine skeletons” somebody said—harnessed with ropes and strings and old scraps of leather, to what were once “carriages,” all of antiquated patterns,—anything from a cart to a carryall; and to the enormous Americans, who doubled up their precious knees in order to sit inside, they seemed like the veriest rattletraps for dolls. Off they moved, the whole wobblety procession, to the cracking of native whips and howls of the admiring vagabonds. The white dust blew about us, and the sun beat down upon our heads, and we were in the Tropics indeed. I do not know whether it was the result of seasickness, or what it was, but everything in Haïti looked crooked. Sister said that the Mother Goose “Crooked Man” must have come from Haïti, and I agreed with her.

III.

We preferred to walk up into the town,—not because we were more merciful than those who had wobbled and rattled and jiggled on before us, but because we thought it would be a little more Haïtien than if we drove. We might have taken the tram, but it was more fun to watch it hitch its precarious way along after its stuffy, rusty, leaky little “dummy” engine, down through the crooked streets, than to jerk along with it. The only sensible thing to do was just to stand there within the ruins of a one-time beautiful city and look about us. It was the worst, the forlornest, the most mind-forsaken place of which you can conceive. Earthquakes had cracked and tumbled down some of the best buildings, fire had destroyed many others, and the remains had been left as they had dropped, under the blistering sun, to crumble away into dust; and thronging in and through the ruins like black ants about their downtrodden dwelling, were swarms of rag-tag human beings whom I call such merely because no species of “missing link” has yet been recognised by our anthropologists.

It was an official building before which we were standing, and as we were about to move on to a shadier spot, the guards, or the soldiers, or whatever one might call them, approached and presented arms under the crooked arch, and disappeared noiselessly within the inner court. This barefooted squad, some ten strong,—negroes of all shades of blackness,—were equipped in gorgeous red caps. Yes, they all had caps, and muskets, every one of them; the remaining parts of the uniform, unessential parts, were eked out with linen dusters and old rags which happened to be lying around handy. I don’t see why they should have bothered about having the dusters, but I suppose it was traditional.

Just as we approached the main street under a blazing sun, there came toward us two chariots, with wheels eight or ten feet high, harnessed each to a mixture of tiny, woebegone donkeys and mules, about the size of hairpins, going at full speed with the true negro love of display, for the benefit of the strangers. The charioteers wore shirts and tattered hats, and yelled like wild hyenas at the poor, astonished mules. “Hurrah for Ben Hur!” we shouted, and the triumphant victor rattled ahead in a cloud of dust. Then we went on to the next performance, a Haïtien officer strutting past, bedecked with gold lace and buttons, and great cocked hat, well plumed, and barefooted. There was no use being serious; we couldn’t be. We were in the midst of an opera bouffe, with negroes playing at government, with the happy-go-lucky African savage fully possessed of his racial characteristics, fondly imagining himself a free and responsible man; and it was one, long pitiful laugh for the poor black children who were taking themselves in such dead earnest.

IV.

It was not to imitate Mr. F. Hopkinson Smith in the least that we said we must find a white umbrella, and yet even had we wished to imitate Mr. Smith, could we have followed in the way of a more delightsome traveller? It was simply because we were conscious that a white umbrella, with a soft green lining, is a necessary adjunct to life in the tropics. It is in harmony with its environment, because it is almost a necessity; and being such, we were not to be dissuaded from our desire. So, with that definite intent to our steps, we started to find the white umbrella.

Was every one else hunting for one, too, that the crowd was all going in our direction,—surely not! No sun could ever blaze strongly enough to penetrate those woolly tops. We go on a little farther, and then we begin to understand from a wave of odours sweeping over us that it’s to market we’re going with all the rest; and so for the time we are led from the purpose of the morning.

The stench grows more pronounced; we become a part of a black host, with babies, children, men, women, and donkeys crowding into the square, where a long, low-tiled market-building and its surrounding dirty pavement becomes the kitchen for the whole of Port-au-Prince; a place where filthy meats and queer vegetables and strange fruits are sold, and where all manner of curious, outlandish dishes are being concocted. The black women crouching on the ground over little simmering pots and a few hot coals, jabbering away at their crouching neighbours, were more like half-human animals than possible mothers of a republic. And in amongst the women were the babies, rolling around on bits of rags, blissfully happy in their complete nakedness. But there was something about those black, naked babies which seemed to dress them up without any clothes. Does a naked negro baby ever look as bare to you as a naked white baby?

Stopping a minute, where a louder, noisier mob of women were busy over their morning incantations, my eye chanced to dwell for a second longer than it should have done, on a pudgy little pickaninny, which was lying in its mother’s lap, kicking up its heels, with its fat little arms beating the air in very much the same aimless manner that our babies do. Seizing upon my momentary interest in the youngster, its mother caught up the wiggling, naked thing, and with all the eloquence of a language of signs, contrasted her naked baby with what seemed to her the regal splendour of my white shirt-waist. For an instant I weakened and caught at my pocketbook mechanically, but, as I did so, I glanced up just quickly enough to see her ladyship give a laughing wink to one of her neighbours, as much as to say: “Jest see me work ’em!”—and I caught the wink in time to turn the solemn face into a crooning laugh, when, with the worst French I could muster,—and that was a simple matter,—I told the mother her baby was all right. It didn’t need any clothes; I was just wearing them because it was a sort of habit. People would be lots more comfortable in Haïti without them. For a minute, those black, beseeching eyes had had me fixed, but, fortunately for our further peace of mind, I looked once too many times.

The air was thick with horrible smells and horrible sounds as well. We became a target for begging hands, and “Damn, give me five cents,” was every second word we heard. Where the poor creatures ever learned so much English, would be difficult to say, but it was well learned. Over the black heads, over the little cooking breakfasts, over the endless procession of donkeys, carrying sugar-cane and coffee and all sorts of stuff from off somewhere we didn’t know about, to the market we did know about—there arose an arch which was even more barbaric than the naked babies and their half-naked mothers. It was just the thing for the market—it fitted in with the smells; it was something incredibly hideous and archaic. It was not French, it was purely an African creation, made of wood, in strange ungraceful points and ornamented with outlandish coloured figures; and yet it was an arch, and we ought to forgive the rest.

But the white umbrella! were we never to begin our search? We left the market and took the shady side of the street. But, being a party of four, we all wanted to do different things, yet, being a very congenial party of four, we went from one side of the street to the other, as one or the other happened to catch sight of something novel; thus, back and forth, zigzag, we made for the white umbrella.

Laddie, in far-off America, had been promised stamps; in fact he had been promised almost the limit of his imaginary wants, if he would only stay with Grandmamma by the sea, and not mind while we were off for the Islands; so it was not only a white umbrella which kept us moving on up the sunny streets, but Laddie and his stamps. Thus the post-office stepped in where the white umbrella should have been ladies’ choice.

A nondescript following conducted us to the post-office, where we met a very different type of man. The officials spoke such beautiful French that we became at once hopelessly lost in our idioms. When the Creole postmaster discovered our self-appointed escort of ragamuffins crowding the entrance to the office, his black eyes flashed for a second, and some terrible things must have been said to the crowd, which we did not understand, for the office was emptied in short order. Here, we thought, was the true Haïtien; the market-people were the refuse.

Another zigzag, and we stopped in at a pharmacie to ask about the white umbrella. We were met by another Haïtien, a courteous, delightful gentleman, the chemist of Port-au-Prince, a man of rare charm and courtly manner. He gave Little Blue Ribbons and Sister some pretty trinkets as souvenirs, at the same time pointing the way to a shop very near, where without fail we could find—you know! Ah! But between that shop and us there was—well, what to call it I find it hard to say, for it certainly wasn’t a soda-water fountain, or an ice-cream haven, but into it we went, all of us, and we sat down, while Daddy ordered wonderful things for us to drink, and we had real ice, too; and in my glass there was more than the limes and sugar and ice, which Sister was sipping. There was certainly something more than mere lime-juice in my glass, for I didn’t care, after taking one taste, nearly so much about the umbrella as I did before, and Daddy was so relieved. We sat there very contentedly for quite awhile, but the little girls grew restless and said we must go on to something else, so gathering up the fragments of our Northern energy, we were out in the street again.

A sleepy, honest little donkey, loaded with baskets of very diminutive bananas, came our way. With malice aforethought, we made a raid to the extent of three pennies’ worth. The keeper sold reluctantly, for he said we would surely die, if we ate bananas and walked in the sun. So we walked in the sun and ate bananas, and didn’t die; no, indeed not. We lived to be very thankful for those bananas, as you shall hear later. And then we went on past the guard-house, where the slumbering army dozed by their stacks of rusty muskets; past unnumbered hammocks, out of which long black legs hung in listless content; on past the sellers and buyers of coffee who stood marking the weights of enormous sacks, swung on huge, antiquated scales; on past the women, crouching over their stores of pastry, fruits, sweets,—on to the shop where at last we found the white umbrella, with a green lining, and then there was peace in the family for awhile!

V.

I could not tell you her name, for she did not tell us, and somehow we didn’t think to ask for it. She reminded us of Guadeloupe, our Mexican maid, who had carried Laddie in the soft folds of her rebozo so many sweet days through the paradisiacal gardens of old Córdova. Shall I ever forget the music of her voice, when, with Laddie snuggled closely to her, she would stand in the early evening (amidst the flowers and the rich, ripe fruits which seemed to be waiting for her touch), and say, in a voice like a soft lute: “Mira la luna, Guillermo!” And his big, brown eyes would turn from the face of the gentle Guadeloupe to where her hand pointed to the high, sailing moon, throwing its silvery kisses upon the willing earth below. The Creole and the Mexican were affinities, although with seas between them. One was Guadeloupe, the other—what shall we call her; Florentine? Proserpine? What mattered a name! We were content.

We had been strolling along away from the shops, out to where the tramway came to an abrupt end; out to where the level country took to its heels up the hillsides and went scampering off into the deep green mountains. Out beyond the President’s palace, whose one-time glories were not yet quite effaced by the sad fortunes of Haïti, to where a row of houses, evidently homes of the Haïtien “Four Hundred,” hidden away behind high French gateways and walls, were dropped from the glare of the white sun under glistening leaves of heavy foliage. Deep red, red flowers high in the tops of the trees hung like drops of blood over the crumbling, broken fountains. A sad little marble Cupid, with his bow and quiver gone, was still pirouetting in stony glee over a stained and dried-up basin. The gateway—her gateway—a wonder in chiselled stone and blossoming work of iron, was all but hidden by a mass of heavy, tangled vines. The white umbrella paused; we stood enchanted before the outspreading garden, and, while there, she of the wondrous face came down the steps of the mansion and out into the garden toward us. Down the path she came with a swift and graceful movement, not walking but gliding; her garments fell from her in loose, sweeping lines of grace.

As she approached us, a delicate pink flush spread over her olive face, while with an exquisite charm,—in most perfect French,—she invited us in to the cool seclusion of her veranda. She was the colour of a hazel-nut. Her hair hung in two long, glorious braids, and it was just half-inclined to wave in sweet caresses about her oval face. Her eyes were of a radiant brilliancy, and, as she spoke, the light from them broke full upon us like something sudden and unlooked-for. She was straight as a cypress, and her head was set with the poise of a young palm-tree.

Her family came out to meet us,—the brothers and sisters,—they were all very much at ease, but none of them had the charm of our hostess. Our conversation amounted to very little; it was one of the times when words seemed a bit out of place, particularly so with the sudden demand upon our slumbering French verbs. But she was forgiving, and we were appreciative, and the time passed delightfully.

In the corner of her garden, there was a little out-of-door school, whither she led us to hear verses and songs by the solemn-eyed Haïtien noblesse, and we listened, as it were, to the remnant of a once brilliant people in its last feeble efforts to resuscitate the memories of courtly ancestors. It did not seem credible that there could exist any relation between these intelligent children, this brilliant young goddess, and the half-human beings crouching over their sizzling pots in the market-place.

VI.

This is the way it read:

“HOTEL-CASINO BELLEVUE
Champ de Mars—Port-au-Prince.
Dirigé par Fräulein J. Stein, de Berlin

Chambres garnies, avec ou sans pension.
Bassin-douche—Jardin d’agrèment.
Table d’Hôte de 8 à 9 hs—de 1 à 2 hs—de 6 à 7 hs.
Salon de Lecture—Billard—Piano, etc.
Journaux français, allemands, americaines et anglais.

Cette établissement jadis si bien connu, somptueusement remis à neuf, se recommande aux voyageurs et aux residents par le confort d’un hôtel de 1er ordre et par les divertissements que sa situation et ses dépendances offrent au public.”

You know there are some things in this world of uncertainties of which one is sure. One is sure of certain things without ever having seen them—something like the pyramids; one takes them for granted. Just how it came about that we took the “Hotel-Casino Bellevue” for granted it would be difficult to say, but we did. It was the one established fact about Port-au-Prince. It had been passed from one to another before we made port that the “Hotel Bellevue” was the summum bonum of Haïti. Thither, never doubting, we faced about at high noon, following the small brother of our lustrous Creole beauty, and we found it, the Hotel Bellevue, as did others.

Little Blue Ribbons, Sister, and I were placed—dumped into—three waiting chairs on the white veranda. And then Daddy disappeared, with others, all with the same air of confidence, to order dinner—it was to be dinner, you know, for did not the card say: “Table d’Hôte de 1 à 2 hs?”—of course it did. And we all had those little cards and they were all alike. They were our souvenirs.

Why the Hotel Bellevue hadn’t any shade-trees in front; why it was so glaringly hot and dusty and brazen-faced, we didn’t see. Oh, yes! It was on account of the “Bellevue”—out to the ocean! “Dirigé par Fräulein Stein;” that was it. She didn’t like trees; she wanted the “Bellevue.” She had chopped down the trees—we knew she had. “Dirigé par Fräulein Stein”—we didn’t care for Fräulein Stein at all.

Some one on the other side of the veranda drops down an awning, and we drop the awning on our side. Blue Ribbons takes off her hat, and Sister wonders what keeps Daddy so long. I think of Fräulein Stein. She’s in there, of course; that’s why he’s so long. That’s why all the other men stay so. She is another Circe.

Here he comes. He looks mildly happy.

“It’s ordered. I ordered it in German first, then French, and then Fräulein Stein,”—but there he hesitated.

“Yes, it’s Fräulein Stein, of course,” I reply. “What did she have to say?”

“No, it wasn’t Fräulein Stein at all,” he answers, “it was Fräulein Stein’s manager; he’s a Norwegian, so of course he speaks English fluently.”

“What did you order?” Sister asks. Then Daddy looked a bit sad.

“I couldn’t order just what I thought you’d like of course, because they didn’t have it, but I did the best I could. Let me see—I think the first was sardines. I thought after the bananas you’d need a kind of appetiser, so I ordered sardines first, and some other stuff,—and turkey.”

“Turkey? Oh, Daddy, this is not Thanksgiving Day!”

“No, it’s not Thanksgiving, but there was something said about turkey, and I thought we might as well have what the others ordered.”

We didn’t think we cared much for turkey, but we weren’t hungry enough to argue, so we let the bill of fare go at that, and started out to investigate the premises. Ever since we had been at the Hotel Bellevue, we were unconsciously aware of curious droning sounds. We scarcely noticed them at first, for they were not aggressive,—they were merely persistent, like the sleepy humming of insects. They fitted in with the white light and the hot stillness of noonday. But, after waiting for Daddy, and thinking about Fräulein Stein, the sounds became more distinct; they grew more insistent. The people on the other side of the veranda quieted down, and there wasn’t so much chattering as there had been when we first arrived at the Hotel Bellevue. No, it was much quieter. As the voices ceased with the spreading of the scorching noonday light on the dry walks and the denuded garden,—its few, stiff little lonesome shrubs gasping for water,—the sounds grew to a positive delirium.

We stole out into the “jardin d’agrément.” If I could only glorify that back yard I would,—indeed, from my heart I would! But “es hat nicht sollen sein!” It was not La Bellevue there! Oh, no! It was not! There was a little gutter running through the yard, and there was some slimy liquid in the gutter which might once have been water. But the ducks didn’t mind; they waddled around in the puddles just the same. By the cook-house, a Witch of Endor was browning some coffee over an open fire. Out of respect to the cook, I say she was browning the coffee. She was indeed browning the coffee with a vengeance; she was burning it black—fairly to cinders. Around with the ducks was the turkey. He was the master of that back yard, but alas! he was having his last fling! He did not know it, nor did we; we knew soon after.

But what right had we to be in the back yard of the Hotel Bellevue? If we didn’t find the gutter agreeable to our over-refined sensibilities why not go where it was “Belle”? But there were those sounds and we were keen on the trail. We should not be thwarted by a flock of waddling ducks. It was evidently from a neighbour’s the sound came, so, picking our steps carefully over a heap of rubbish and broken bottles and discarded ducks’ feet and hens’ feathers, we peeped through a crack in the high board fence and saw in the neighbouring yard one portion of a family party; another crack revealed more, and, putting them together, we counted some eight or ten very serious people sitting around a large oval table, singing a curious chant,—if one dare call it such,—some of them; the others were shaking curious little gourd rattles in time with the monotonous recitative. The “Witch of Endor” tells us that the neighbours are celebrating the birth of twins. Deliver us from triplets!

How far are we from the voodoo and all the savagery of Africa?

There was a glory in that hotel back yard after all. But, to tell the truth, we didn’t discover it until some one behind us, black and half-naked, made a murderous assault upon the turkey. He, the turkey, screaming awful protest, flew into the merciful arms of a breadfruit-tree which hung its great leaves in a sadly apologetic manner over the scene of coffee-burning and waddling ducks. To stand under a breadfruit-tree which was doing its noblest to forget its environment—well, one ought to forgive much, and we did, until we learned that even the breadfruit wasn’t ready done—it had to be cooked.

At last the cloth was laid and the table set, and Little Blue Ribbons unfolded her napkin, and we all did the same, for Little Blue Ribbons seldom makes a mistake. She is a proper child, and had hitherto fed on proper meat. Then we chatted and sat there,—and sat there and chatted. Presently, when we had talked it all over,—the market and the Creole beauty, and everything else,—we stopped talking and just sat there thinking. Sister had some bananas left, and she graciously suggested that fruit before dinner was in good form, so we each took a banana and sat longer.

There was nor sight nor sound of Fräulein Stein, nor of any one belonging to the Stein family. We and our fellow travellers were the silent occupants of the high-ceilinged dining-room. Noon had long since gone with the morning,—one o’clock, and still no signs of life. One-thirty,—from out the silent courtyard, after an hour and a half waiting; from out the back kitchen, near the duck puddle and the breadfruit-tree, there appeared a negro in solemn state. He had been dressing. I suppose he was the one we had been waiting for. He wore an ancient long-tailed coat with brass buttons, a white waistcoat, and very clean trousers—and shoes, too—and a flower in his buttonhole, and he carried in his hand,—yes, dear ones, he carried in his hand (only in one hand, for the other one was needed for purpose of state)—he carried in his hand one small plate of sardines, our appetisers, which had been neatly arranged in two tiny rows of six each. A menial of lower order followed with the bread, enough for one hungry man, and it fell to the first and nearest table. We were hopelessly distant from the sardines and the bread. The solemn head waiter avoided us. We thought we must have offended him. The sardines continued to pass us. Soon a dish of smoking yams was carried on beyond. We knew then that his Majesty had us in disfavour. The “spirit of ’76” arose; we would have sardines or perish. We raided the serving-room. Sister captured a whole box of sardines and I a loaf of bread. We waylaid a boy with coffee, took the pot, hunted up sugar, ran into a black woman, who was handing in a few boiled yams, seized all she had and sat down to the finest meal ever spread: yams, sardines, bread, and black coffee. At two-thirty, a faint odour of turkey hovered over the dining-room, but we didn’t care for turkey; we had said so from the first, and besides, we had known that turkey in his glory. Sardines we had not despised, and we had sardines. And then the bananas helped out, and so did the bread and the bitter coffee. I would not have had the dinner other than it was—no, not for all the waiting; it was all so in keeping with the whole crazy country.

Fräulein Stein never appeared. I do not think there was a Fräulein Stein, or ever had been. She was just made up, along with the “table d’hôte” and the “chambres garnies” and the “douche” and the “jardin d’agrément.” But in a feminine way we laid it up against Fräulein Stein,—that meal and the trees,—and we always shall. For who else do you think could have cut down the trees?

There seemed to be a sort of stupefaction over the whole establishment. I know the poor creatures did the very best they knew how, but they didn’t know how,—that was the trouble. It didn’t occur to them to cook a lot of yams at one time; they cooked enough for one or two, and when those were ready, they cooked some more for somebody else. You can imagine the length of time required for such a meal. But then there’s nothing much else to do in Haïti, and why not be willing to wait for dinner?

Out of respect to the courtly “pharmacien” and to our lovely Proserpine, there’s not to be one word more about the “Hotel Bellevue,” and not a word more about anything else in poor little Port-au-Prince; but I could not help wishing that some day dear old Uncle Sam would come along and give Haïti a good cleaning up, and whip them into line for a time at least; but Heaven deliver us from ever trying to assimilate or govern such a degenerate and heterogeneous people. Alas, for that ideal Black Republic, where every negro was to show himself a man and a brother!

As we were leaving for ship, the Haïtien daily paper was issued—a curious little two-page sheet, some eighteen inches square, printed in French, Le Soir—and in it appeared this pitiful paragraph, which seemed in a way to be the hopeless lament of Haïti’s remnant for the sad condition of things in this beautiful island:

“The Americans who arrived this morning are visiting our city. But what will they see here to admire? Where are our monuments, our squares, our well-watered streets? We blush with shame! They can carry back with them only bad impressions; there is nothing to please or charm them, except our sunny sky, our starry nights, and the exuberance of nature.”

Is it possible that the writer of those lines had forgotten the Lady Proserpine?

CHAPTER III.
SANTO DOMINGO

I.

“THERE’S nothing in the least to be afraid of, Mother, nothing in the least. Why, see, even his Excellency doesn’t mind.” It was Sister who spoke, but even so there was a kind of unearthly qualm creeping over me as I made my way cautiously down the ladder and waited until a generous swell from the big outside sent the ship’s boat within stepping distance, and then, with a jump, made for the vacancy next to Little Blue Ribbons. When one is on dry land, fear of the water seems so unreasoning that the timid soul speaks of it in a half-apologetic manner; but never yet when landing in an open boat in an exposed harbour, where the mighty roll of the ocean lifts and drops and there seems but a veil between the great world above and the great world beneath—never yet have I been able to take the step from steamer to boat with any real sensation of pleasure.

We had been skirting the southern shore of the great island of Haïti or Santo Domingo since sundown the night before, and at daybreak the word flew around that we were off Domingo City. We must have left all the sunshine with the happy darkies in Port-au-Prince, for, as we glanced from our port-holes, we saw nothing but a tumble of leaden water under a gray sky—just water and sky. Domingo City lay to the other side.

Once ready for the day and out on deck, we were met by a gloomy world. Heavy banks of clouds piled on one another as if determined to hide the sun. There were no dancing, rollicking little harbour waves that morning; they were ugly and sullen ground swells, and told of heavy weather somewhere by their grumbling, threatening heavings. A stiff wind blew, for we had come to the region of the “Northeast Trades,” and it was no laughing matter to lower the boats and land us safely, especially with such clumsy boats’ crews. There is practically no harbour at Santo Domingo, the capital of la Republica Dominicana; that is, no harbour for deep-keeled craft. The Ozama River affords a safe inner harbour for light-draught vessels, but on account of a bar at the entrance to this charming stream,—upon whose shores the historic old city slumbers,—we were forced to anchor in the open roadstead and take the ship’s boats for land.

The fear which had so troubled me when we first left the solid decks of our good ship was soon forgotten as we approached the City of the Holy Sunday,—Santo Domingo,—fairy godmother at the christening of Western civilisation, the first to feel the pulse of those undying souls whose spirits spanned the centuries to come!

I recall how I looked with all my eyes and with all my soul at the wondrous picture opening before me as we swung into the river entrance, and wondered if I could keep its beauty for ever. Could it be more lovely, more enchanting, more mysterious under a white sun shining from out a motionless blue heaven? Who shall say? Old! Old! Kissed by the winds of centuries, Santo Domingo rests upon the brow of a verdant plateau, and stretches its sinuous arms dreamily beyond the hills on the shore. Great red rocks, in whose rifts glossy ferns and graceful vines have sought safe harbour, break the roll of the sea into a thousand glistening clouds of spray, enveloping the summit of the cliff in a translucent mist. Like a weather-worn, decrepit, but stately warrior, the ancient fort, with massive towers and mossy turrets and bastions and broken walls, still holds its guard over the harbour; and as we passed from the sea into the placid Ozama River, the enchanting view of Santo Domingo arose in full sight. Cloaked in a faintly shimmering mist, under a gray, tumultuous sky, the ancient city rose to greet us as a dreamy, nebulous siren of the sea. Crumbling ruins of ancient stone stairways led from the fort through a water-gate to the river; down those mossy flights I could all but see a gay troop of Spanish cavaliers approaching their quaint old galleons moored hard by. Truly it was an enchanted city; asleep, untouched by the hand of man since the days of its first great builder; asleep, moss-grown, hoary, throbbing still with the dying passion of mediævalism.

II.

Contrary to our prearranged plan, we decided, upon landing, to engage a carriage. Just why, I hardly knew, but there was a subtle power at work in the mind of one of our party, and although it has never been hinted at since then, in calmly going over that carriage-hiring I think I begin to read the riddle. We had left our French at Haïti, and this was our first experiment on this voyage with Spanish, and I suspect some of us were anxious to see how Cervantes’s language—la idioma Castellana—would work when it came to such a common-place proceeding as the hiring of a carriage.

We came off with colours flying, and took seats in a vehicle made some twenty-five or fifty years ago (quite modern as compared with those of Port-au-Prince), bumped up the steep stony hill, under an old archway, and had our first glimpse of the solid Spanish architecture of Santo Domingo. Everything was interesting; the balconies upheld by graceful supports of wrought iron; the neat appearance of the low-roofed, white and blue washed houses; the ever-beautiful palms and banana groves seen in vistas across the river; even our driver was a source of interest, for I expended my entire vocabulary of Spanish—few words indeed—upon that youth, all to no purpose. All he did was to look dazed and answer, “Si, señora” to everything, hit or miss, until we came to the Cathedral, when, just to make it right with my conscience for having been the innocent cause of all his awful lies, I asked him, pointing to the building, which could be nothing in the mind of a sane man but a cathedral, if that was the Cathedral, and he said: “Si, señora,” and I felt relieved.

No description can convey to your mind an adequate impression of the beauty of this wonderful old cathedral, for one needs colour, colour, colour, everywhere for its proper setting. It is built of the yellowest of soft porous stone, to which time has bequeathed a luminosity, the brilliancy of which no language can rightly picture. It is purely Spanish in its style, depending for its beauty entirely on its symmetry of form and not on extraneous ornamentation; it is built rather low to withstand frequent earthquakes, and from its solidity and simplicity and directness of construction has a charm which few of the later Spanish cathedrals possess. Time has laid her kindly hands upon this temple of God gently—ever so gently, and through many a lifetime has fulfilled the priestly office of consecration.

I sat down in the shade, for, as we left the carriage, a big cloud tumbled over by mistake and the sun laughingly plunged headlong through the mist before the quarrelsome elements had time to gainsay. With Little Blue Ribbons close by, and Sister and our Spanish Student disappearing within the arches of the Cathedral, I sat there on the base of one of the great pillars at the doorway, and filled my eyes with the beauty of the strong, graceful arches overhead, in whose time-worn curves hung the ancient bells, beautiful bronze bells, now green with age, still pealing forth the praise of God as in the days of Columbus’s followers.

Down the weather-worn and sun-ripened sides of the Cathedral were long streaks of black, like the silent tears of centuries, shed for glories now no more. Was it not enough to rest there, where one could look at the bells and wait for the quiver of the long tongues, ringing out the hour of mass, and catch the thrill of the mottled gray and blue sky sifting its mellow light through the ancient towers? There are some things so absolutely satisfying that it seems an arrant sacrilege to be discontent and want for more. But Little Blue Ribbons, with the impatience of childhood, began to tug at my hand, and the dear old bells must have gone asleep, for with all our longing they hung there covered by their deep, green silence, and Little Blue Ribbons said we would have our waiting all for nothing. For nothing is it, dear one, to forget the stress of living for awhile, and let one’s spirit drop into the peace of a sleeping bell?

III.

We found that the interior of the Cathedral had a very new, clean face, having been recently “restored” and whitewashed; thus being out of harmony with the venerable exterior; however, some one remarked, it was “gratifying to see that the Dominicans appreciate their ancient monument.” That complacent remark struck the ear awry, like the whine of a deacon’s report at a Sunday-school convention. Appreciate? Why, the people of Santo Domingo worship this spot! It is the one place of interest to them; it is the one thing they ask the stranger if he has seen; it is the centre of their life and love,—that ancient pile of yellow glory,—for are not the ashes of their great Cristobal Colon guarded there? Would that we Americans had any relic we held as sacredly!

So I suppose we ought not to quarrel with the Dominicans over the new coat of whitewash, for they meant it well, but we can at least wish they hadn’t cleaned house so thoroughly. Within those walls rest the bones of Columbus after their many disinterments and post-mortem wanderings—so it is claimed; but whether these are the bones of Columbus, or of some one else, who can say? What does it matter? Somewhere about one hundred years ago,—in 1795,—’tis said, when this island was ceded to the French, the Spaniards took Columbus’s bones back to Spain. Later these mortal fragments were returned to Santo Domingo, in accordance with his expressed wish that they finally be buried in this his beloved birthplace and funeral-pyre of his cherished hopes in the New World; which wish had been once before honoured in the first removal of the remains to the then Spanish colony. Sealed in a leaden casket they were imbedded in masonry under the stone floor of the cathedral chancel, and there was no attempt to disturb them until about 1878, when they were presumably removed to Havana to be re-interred there, and, as the Spaniards stoutly maintain, again disinterred from their resting-place in the cathedral at Havana and hurried away to Spain just before the American occupation of Cuba, there to receive the sad honour of a costly mausoleum in Seville. But a few years ago a second box was discovered, buried fast in ancient masonry and cement, about three feet from the place in which the first one was found; and this leaden box, the Dominicans claim, holds the real bones of the real Columbus, for they stoutly maintain that the other box contained the bones Diego Colon, nephew to Columbus, or, as some say, his son,—not Cristobal Colon, our Columbus—and the inscription on a silver plate found inside seems to bear out the authenticity of the later discovery, as does also the location of this second casket and the pains taken to render it secure. Whosesoever bones they were, I was in the proper frame of mind to venerate them, and it was with a feeling of deep awe and pathos that I stood before the much-disputed leaden box, now enshrined in gold and silver, and covered by a very gorgeous white marble tomb, newly made in Barcelona. The box is about a foot and a half long, one foot high, and one foot wide—rather a small space for so great a man as Columbus, but then,—

“Imperial Cæsar, dead, and turn’d to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.”

And so the Dominicans had a very beautiful and lofty and modern monument built in Spain and brought across the water to San Domingo, as a fitting shrine for their great treasure. With many minarets and dainty arches cut from snowy marble, and ornate with carvings and gilt, it stands more as a monument to the faithful loyalty of the Dominicans than to the memory of that valiant discoverer. He was a world soul. He belongs to all time, as do all the great. The march of Western civilisation is his monument. The Dominicans plan to erect a building which they deem worthier this work of gold and marble than is the sad old cathedral Columbus founded,—worthier the sacred leaden box; but could there be a more fitting sanctuary for the great Genoese, than within these ancient walls whose beginnings he directed and which rose after death in direct fulfilment of his ambition?

We found built into the wall a huge cross, rudely hewn of wood, which the stories say was set in a clearing in a little plain by Columbus, before the year 1500, to mark the place where his great church should stand. This primitive cross was afterward built into the wall itself. How constantly memories of the great discoverer hover about these walls; for it was in Santo Domingo that Columbus was imprisoned by his jealous rivals, and thence at last he was taken in chains to Spain, where he died, and hither again came his weary bones.

How pathetic, yet how characteristic, is this grim example of the Spaniard’s reverence for the past, even if that past may have been so cruelly dishonoured! Columbus, the poor Genoese dreamer; Columbus, still the crazy explorer, but upheld by royal hands; Columbus, the fêted and flattered discoverer of new worlds, giving to Spain greater riches than she dreamed; Columbus, the victim of jealous gossip and intrigue, bound in chains and finally dying,—broken and disgraced. Columbus, in ashes these four hundred years, guarded in pomp, and convoyed by great ships in this final retreat, step by step, from the empire he founded! For with each successive loss of her rich holdings in the New World, Spain has tried to carry with her in her retreat, these precious relics, until the name Columbus, framed in dishonour, disaster, and defeat, has become to her almost a pain. How tragic that Spain should strain to her heart with fierce jealousy, as the last but most precious remnant left of all her American possessions, the few crumbling bones of Columbus!

We left the Cathedral reluctantly, but as the day was moving rapidly on we were anxious to see as much as possible of the city; so we reëntered the carriage and drove to the Correo to post letters and get some money changed. While Daddy was in the post-office, I endeavoured, with my four Spanish words, to make our driver understand that I wanted him to move along to the corner, so that we might look out over the river, but he only smiled and said: “Si, señora,” and went on putting up the rubber curtains to keep out the unexpected shower that had blown up from nowhere. So I sat there in despair, for I did want to get that view, but I did not want to get wet. At that moment, seeing my predicament, a gentleman approached the driver and told him just what to do, and then disappeared into the post-office. When the Spanish Student returned, he was accompanied by my kindly interpreter, to whom we were presented.

“Sister,” says the smiling Daddy, “this is Señor Alfredo P—— A——, private secretary to the President, and he has most kindly offered to show us about the city.” We all bow to the señor, and I wonder if he is really the private secretary, or a private humbug, waiting around to ensnare us. Shame upon my suspicion! May that moment of doubt be for ever fruitless in the process of my gradual regeneration!

Señor Alfredo was one of the handsomest men I had ever seen. And this I say not in the enthusiasm of a first meeting, but after carefully weighing my words. Señor Alfredo was dark, and our man blond, so there could be no comparison between dissimilar types and no cause for jealousy, and then I said that the señor was one of the handsomest. That “one of the” should make all the difference in the world. The señor was simply one of the procession of nature’s adornments in which you are marching. There, now, may I go on, and may I say just what I wish of the señor without offence?

The señor had been educated in New York City, and his English was most charming; it had the grace of a rich Spanish accent, and the correctness of a scholar. I hesitate to tell you of the señor’s charms, lest you think them over-abundant,—impossible in any one man, and you might not enjoy the day in old Domingo, and that would be an unhappy state, truly.

The señor’s first question was: “Have you seen the Cathedral?” Yes, we had seen it in our way, but possibly not in his. Then he dismisses the disappointed coachman, and we follow the señor again to the worshipped temple, and have its wonders revealed to us by one who knew every stone in its construction. After long prowling around, through cloisters and shrines, and after hunting up the place in the chancel where those poor old bones were disinterred, and carefully comparing the former hiding-places of each of the disputed caskets, we leave the cathedral and wander about Domingo City. The señor guides us, not at our request, but of his own free will, to all the places of interest in the city; and then to the old fort which we had seen on our arrival. I should have been quite satisfied to have stayed there all day, looking from the massy turrets out to sea, but the señor was solicitous that we should go about with the officer in command of the fort, and see everything of interest. Old as it is, it is still used by the army; the native military school and the naval academy both being within its walls. The smart-looking men presented arms as we passed from the gateway into the street again, and we took pleasure in telling the commandant how much better his troops appeared than the ridiculous Haïtien soldiery. This seemed to please both of our friends, for the Dominicans apparently have a feeling of contempt for their neighbours of the Negro Republic, and rightly, too, judging from what we saw.

Then, we walked and walked and walked, up one narrow street and down another, catching numerous glimpses of most entrancing gardens through the half-way opened doors. We asked for the daily paper, and were taken at once to the office of the Listin Diario, whose editor was the brother of Señor P—— A——. He and our Spanish Student had, to them, an interesting conversation about the political situation in Santo Domingo and in Venezuela; and after having promised to dine with us on the boat at six o’clock, we continued our walk in and about and all around, until, much to our surprise, we were taken into a cool, big courtyard, up a wide flight of worn stone steps into the señor’s home. There we met his wife and children, listened to beautiful native dances sympathetically played on the piano by the señor; we rocked in the ever-present Vienna bent-wood chair, talked to the parrot, played with the baby, and drank cocoanut milk from the green cocoanut, and lived to drink from many more. The cocoanut, when used for milk by these Southern people, is cut quite green, before the solid meat has formed and when all is liquid within, and is said to be most healthful. Of our party, the adventurous man and children liked it very much, but the cautious woman a very little. Then we made our adieux, not without the promise, however, that the señor would meet us at three o’clock for the trip up the Ozama River in the ship’s boats.

All day the clouds were reeling heavily in bulky, black heaps, now and then dropping down upon our innocent heads torrents of spattering rain. But we were not to be discomfited by a rain-shower, for were we not prepared? We left the ship with but one umbrella, the white one with the green lining, but as we bade the señor “Adios,” a sudden shower called forth his best silk umbrella. He was insistent, and there was nothing to do but for Daddy to tuck Sister under his wing, accepting the señor’s offer, and for Little Blue Ribbons to trot along by my side, under the Haïtien umbrella. And the green lining proved fast green; it did not run, not a particle!

By three o’clock, Domingo City was a veritable Port Tarascon, and it seemed that Daudet must have been here before he wrote of his poor drenched French émigrés. The rain still fell. It ran down the streets anywhere it pleased; it dripped off the ruined roof of Diego’s Palace; it scampered down the awning of the German Legation; it stood in little pools on the terrace overlooking the river; it trickled down the face of the timeless old sun-dial, and made the long seams on its face dark and wet, as if from tears.

What bliss if we could only have set our watches by the hour told on the Dominican sun-dial! But there was no sun and consequently no time.

I have an inspiration! It has just come to me. Now my course is plain; now I know what I shall do with the little girls. I have often longed to obliterate for them the thought of time. I have wanted them to grow into a feeling of possession of all the time there ever can be,—countless ages and ages of time, with never a shadow of hurry lurking about; with never a doubt but that the days will be long enough in which to live their fullest measure of happiness. I shall invoke the aid of the gods, in whose arms rests so peacefully this “Island of the Blest,” and they shall build for me an enchanted palace somewhere,—perhaps not just here, but somewhere. I think I shall leave that to the little girls, but it shall be an enchanted palace, all overgrown with sweetbrier and moss, and roundabout shall be a garden—a dear garden, with violets and lilies and arbutus and anemones—and then the trees,—there shall be no end of them!—maple and ash, and slender birch and elm, and linden and—but it seems to me I hear you wondering that we should leave out the palms and the breadfruit and banana and citron. I know it does not seem just as it should be, but I am afraid, if we had the palms and the breadfruit, we’d never feel really at home in our palace, and, of course, we must feel at home even in an enchanted palace. We could have two palaces if we wanted to, and have the palms in the company palace, and the cool, sweet maples we could have for our very own. Yes, that is it! That’s what we’ll do!

In the midst of the garden, we will have a Dominican sun-dial, an exact reproduction of this one. I shall make a sketch of it before we move a step further, and it shall he chipped and worn and sun-baked and tear-stained, and it shall look centuries old. Then there must be a Dominican sky; half-sun and half-shade. And then, don’t you see, the little girls will never know the time at all,—only just as the clouds run off for a frolic. And I shall arrange an indefinite supply of such weather, and that’s just where we’ll all live. Yes—Daddy and all the dear ones, and it will be such a relief not to be obliged to wind our watches.

“Mother!” said Sister, coming up back of me and peeping under the white umbrella which Little Blue Ribbons was holding resolutely over my head while I sketched; “Mother! what is it you’re drawing?”

“Do you need to ask? Can’t you see it’s the sun-dial?”

“Oh! I thought it was the boy out there in the rain.”

IV.

What can the señor do without his best umbrella? Will he take the black umbrella of his wife’s aunt? No, he will not take the black umbrella of his wife’s aunt, dear Mr. Otto, he has taken the umbrella of his wife’s sister, we will say, to adhere to tradition; but, to tell the truth, I could never say whose umbrella the señor borrowed, but when he appeared he was really so beaming under the dark covering over him, that I quite forgot to ask him whose umbrella it was.

Ah! what would the señor think if he should ever read these words? Would he forswear the friendship? We should sincerely beg forgiveness, for we would sooner never see the walls of Domingo again than to lose the señor’s good-will.

The excursion up the Ozama was a world of delight from beginning to end. The Ozama is one of God’s most perfect little rivers, deep and rather narrow, winding through an enchanting country. The shore is outlined for miles by never-ending mangroves, and on the higher upper banks are the breadfruit, and palms, and a world of unknown trees and fruits. Had there been no palms, no breadfruit or mangroves, it would have been enough joy to me to know that up this self-same river in centuries long since dead, there had swept the doughty keels of Columbus’s crazy little ships. But the Spanish Student was not so easily satisfied; he wanted to know things; how much mahogany and ebony and lignum vitæ was gotten from the outlaying country, and what sort of dyewoods they exported. The señor gave much valuable information, but not much more than the natives themselves, who came gliding down the stream in dugouts, having in tow one or two or three mahogany logs. Who says that all the true Santo Domingo mahogany was cut generations ago? There was a constant and silent passing of these dark craft, for the most part with but a single occupant. Sometimes a woman in the bow, half-buried by a cargo of plantains, bending over a pot of some sort, would be cooking on an improvised camp-fire built on earth above the plantains; and thus busy—one at the fire, the other at the paddle—she and her black mate would slip along out of sight under the dark mysterious shadows of the mangroves, closely hugging the shore.

Not far from the city, the señor pointed to a mighty tree, one of the most gigantic of the tropics, a ceiba, to which it is said Columbus made fast his ships. There was no reason to doubt the statement, and, besides, it is so much pleasanter to believe such natural things than to be for ever doubting. And why should not Columbus have made his ships thus fast? The ceiba looked a thousand years old. Who knows but that it is even older?

A little way down the stream and closer to the city, there was a spring of sweet cool water, and above it a stately canopy of stone, built by Bartholomew Columbus,—Christopher’s brother,—and called “The Fountain of Columbus.”

Oh, such a day, under the rocking, tumbling clouds, ever moving, ever changing, moulding, blending from black to gray and billowy white, under fitful showers and sudden baths of sunlight! It was a dream day of sleeping bells and timeless dials and ruined towers and enchanted palaces, with the bones of poor old Columbus beating time to the hopes of the ambitious San Dominicans of to-day.

Evening came, and we were at dinner on the boat with our delightful friend from the shore, drinking to the prosperity of the Dominican Republic, and to the hope that Señor P—— A—— might live to be President of his beloved country. But, alas, how many Presidents they have to have in these Spanish “republics” to round out the tally with Destiny!

It seemed to me that, for my part, if all Spaniards were as gracious, as hospitable and genuine as our new-found friend, there would never have been a Spanish-American War.

And so next day we sailed away, leaving the City of the Holy Sunday wrapped in peace and good-will; but who can tell the day or hour when the land may again be devastated by revolution?

CHAPTER IV.
SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO

I.

WE were creeping in toward the entrance of the harbour of San Juan, Puerto Rico, waiting for the pilot, who had sighted us afar off. It was when almost at a standstill that our brown-skinned pilot in his open lug-sail boat came alongside and sprang for our rope ladder with the nimble agility of his prehistoric progenitors. He left two small boys, one at the tiller aft and one in the bow of the boat hanging on to a line dropped them from about midships of our steamer. The pilot continued shouting at the boys as he disappeared over our heads to where the captain stood waiting on the bridge; but things did not seem to go well with the boys below, for instead of at once assuming command of our ship the pilot again turned his attention to the boys. He now followed up his first harangue by a supplement in very angry tones, evidently out of patience with the poor little fellows, who, much excited, could not seem to keep their boat from sheering at a dangerous angle, with her bow against the side of our ship. A quick flash of resentment toward that dusky pilot spread from one to the other of us as we saw how panic-stricken the boys were, and how as our ship suddenly put on a bigger head of steam the little boat alongside had become unmanageable and was in imminent danger of being sucked under our side. To prove that he was powerless to prevent disaster, after incessant yells from his father, the lad in the stern-sheets of the boat jumped to his feet and flung out with tragic despair his two hands, in each of which he held up the fragments of a broken tiller. Then in all the languages of our ship the boys are howled at to let go. Already their narrow boat is beginning to careen dangerously against the side of our moving steamer. Not a moment too soon they let go the rope, and their excited, high-pitched voices sound strangely out of place as they rapidly drift astern of us in the open sea. The pilot had evidently assured his boys that he would look after them, for within a few rods of the harbour entrance a loitering sail is hailed. To our tremendous relief we follow the rescuer until we see that a tow is in progress, and then we feel better.

As we approach the harbour, and at the entrance dodge into a channel between yellow reefs plainly visible through the clear water, it is no small thing to see our dear Stars and Stripes peacefully waving over that relic of mediæval Spain, the venerable Morro of San Juan on the bold headlands to our left; its wide-spreading fortifications, gray with centuries and fast going to decay, running in walls and terraces far above the sea. We throw our whole soul into the soft folds of that flag with a deep sense of joy. There are among our company some with whom as loyal Americans we cannot but feel restraint, owing partly to the whisperings afloat that the aliens are envoys from his Majesty the Emperor of Germany, bent on a mission not altogether that of pleasure. However that may be, we are all the more moved to enthusiasm over our flag when we are conscious of the lack of that sentiment among the Germans. So when we are near enough to the fort to hear the wild cheers of welcome issuing from every parapet and tower of that old pile, we know no hounds and answer the welcome as you would have done had you been there. Spontaneously “The Star Spangled Banner,” started by the boys on the fort, finds a hearty echo from our ship, and my eyes are blurred so that the restless, shouting, singing boys on shore look dim and indistinct. Yes, we are coming home. Uncle Sam owns Puerto Rico, and I am happy to feel that here in the West Indies he has asserted his rank among the nations of the world, and intends to make this colonial home a sweet clean place for all of his children who wander upon Southern seas. Some day this fair harbour will be filled with ships flying the Stars and Stripes, and again our merchant vessels will be doing their rightful share of the West Indian commerce.

The way in which I found my love for those soldier boys expanding was really wonderful. The sight of those old blue flannel shirts, those faded Khaki breeches, those tossing felt hats aroused within me in this strange tropical island unexpected waves of patriotism. There sprung at once a dangerous leak in my affections, and had it not been for the quiet pressure upon my shoulder of a strong hand I so well knew, who can tell what might have happened? Even so, there was not a boy upon the island but I could have mothered with my whole heart, and I could not, however persistently that hand still lingered, quite stifle the upheaval of that undying mother instinct.

Although aware that Uncle Sam was fully alive to the great dower that this island alliance would bring him, I must still believe that his choice was not a little influenced by the actual charms of Puerto Rico herself: that, however much he, a man of some years, might appear indifferent to the allurements of lovely women, he is still like the rest of his sex chivalrously bent upon fresh conquests. In this case let us rejoice that he has been so fortunate, and that so pretty a face has brought so much of real worth.

Although, womanlike, acknowledging a deeper interest in our troops than in anything else, I could not be indifferent to the city of San Juan as we slipped past the reef at the entrance into the wide expanse of harbour and dropped anchor opposite the beautiful landing quay. El Puerto Rico del San Juan Bautista (The Rich Port of St. John the Baptist), as the Spaniards centuries before had christened her, opened before us like a bespangled fan, and threw from her glittering white walls the swaying efflorescence of stately palms. From the ancient fort on the headland to the Casa Blanca and the city beyond, it was a progression of delicious sights and sounds.

II.

Has it ever impressed you how rarely nature appeals to one’s sense of humour? She brings us infinite delights, but seldom cultivates in us our faculty of laughing. But down here off Puerto Rico, she for once leaves her beaten track of sobriety and indulges in the most extravagant caprices. How she ever thought out such a ridiculous line of hills none but Father Time could tell you; here her centuries of bottled-up giggles have burst forth, and she has made herself the most outlandish head-gear she could contrive, and here she stands, caught in the act of being silly. From this distance I should say the hills are barren, save for now and then a palm, which, dotted irregularly over the epidemic of peaks, gives the hills the forlorn look of a mole on an old woman’s cheek. There is every size of these jagged, saw-tooth peaklets jumping up in the air like so many scarecrows, and when our ship swings to her anchor and leaves us broadside to Puerto Rico’s shore, the little girls and I enter into the joke and laughingly wonder how it ever happened.

Then to match the distant landscape out came the Puerto Rican shore boats with ridiculous little open hen-coop cabins aft, much like the funny “summer cabins” affected by some New Jersey catboats—only more so. There were no end of fine modern launches of all sorts darting about us, some of them waiting for passengers, and others from our ships in the harbour bringing officers and ladies aboard, but Daddy would have none of them. He and the little girls are already under a hen-coop in one of the miserable little boats and nothing will do but I must go too. I protest, but to no avail. The stiff shore breeze makes prompt decision necessary, and I creep down under the coop an unwilling passenger; I would so much rather have been in one of the puffy boats. So off we go heeling well to the breeze as our funny, high-slung lateen sail drives us shoreward at a great rate.

We were not alone under the hen-coop, for we had some Puerto Rican musicians with us, and my qualms at the flying boat are actually forgotten in the strange but fascinating music of those natives. They carried not only the universal guitar of the usual form, but also a funny little guitar not a quarter as big as the ordinary sort, and a curious round gourd with shot or pebbles inside, which, attached to a handle, they used as a rattle, and other gourds some eighteen inches long, corrugated with many deep scratches, upon which they accented the strong beat of the measure by scraping with a bit of wire in a most dexterous manner. I can well imagine the contempt of some of our European musicians for such music, but as for myself, although trained in the most conservative of foreign schools, I could but acknowledge the deep influence of these untutored artists, and yielded myself in fascination to the weird rhythm of their music. Music to these peoples is not a dreary taskmaster, as it is to many of their Northern brothers; it is as necessary to them as is the outpouring sunlight, and they use it with a freedom and comradeship and love which is unknown to us. My senses are suffused with strange emotions of pleasure as I listen dreamily to the lullings of the water, percolated through and through by the cadences of low voices and the rhythmic repetition of single notes. I was unreal to myself even after Captain B—— and his wife, friends whom we half-hoped to meet in San Juan, had grasped our hands and led us to an army coach near by.

III.

Instead of being the dumping-ground for all the garbage of the city and the location for unsightly warehouses, the quay at San Juan is a perfect delight. I happened to-day to turn to a precious volume of Washington Irving’s “Life of Columbus.” While reading along I came across a letter in which the valiant discoverer endeavours to bring to his king some conception of the beauty of his newly found lands; saying that he fears his Majesty may have reason to doubt the veracity of his statements, for each new island surpasses in beauty the one before; in fact that one could live there for ever. Time cannot efface the noble bearing of Puerto Rico, and although far, far removed from the picture which met the eyes of her early discoverers, she is to-day not only from the standpoint of the picturesque, but from the practical aspect of cleanliness and order, a place to which every American may turn with pride.

To find upon landing a noble water-front finely paved, relieved by grassy quadrangles in which choice varieties of palms are set with the unfailing intuition of the true nature lover, places one at once en rapport with the best things of life. Why, why are we of the North so blind to the soul’s necessity for beauty? Why are we so dumbly indifferent to that craving? If we but looked deeply enough into the psychological influence of beauty, we would be forced to recognise man’s necessity for its expression in public places. There is no city among the Spanish-speaking peoples but has its restfully attractive plaza, varying in beauty as the wealth of the community permits—a playground and a club-house and a concert-hall in one for all the people. And when my mind reverts in unwilling retrospection to the innumerable hideous and barren cities large and small of our United States, it seems to me that we are hopelessly lost in the fog of the common-place. If we Americans were a poor people, there might be palliating circumstances, but we are not poor, we have more wealth than any people on earth, and surely a republic should give its equal citizens all the beauty and pleasure possible. We are merely blind, that is all. Pray God that our eyes may be opened and that right soon!

In these islands the plaza, where the people live largely in the open air, is the synonym for all that is congenial to the eye and soothing to the ear, and this explains much of the enthusiasm which we starved Northerners express when once within the satisfying influences of such surroundings.

Captain B—— and his wife are graciously willing to wait our pleasure, while we linger idly content, but we must not trespass too long upon their indulgence; so we enter the coach and rumble up the steep narrow streets after four lustrous army mules. Our driver, a native Puerto Rican, speaks to the mules in English, and ready with the explanation before I could form the question, Captain B—— says: “Yes, the boys use English, because their mules were brought here from the States, and of course they wouldn’t understand if the boys spoke Spanish to them.” Stopping for the passage of an army freight wagon, it seemed very comical to me to hear those Puerto Rican lads “gee-hawing” to the sleek American mules.

If the politics of our American cities could be as well administered as those of San Juan appear to be from the cleanliness and order of her streets we would indeed have cause to rejoice. The streets of San Juan were so clean that even the trailer of skirts might for once be forgiven her lack of common decency. She could have walked the full length of San Juan and not gathered up as much filth as she would in one block of one of our Northern sidewalks. Such was the cleanliness of the place that again and again we exclaim over the fine condition of the city; and Captain B—— bore out our impression that Uncle Sam had done his house-cleaning most effectively, and was now trying to maintain that condition by educating a force of native police,—“spigitys,” our boys call them.

As we were going through the Plaza we saw a great crowd on the far side, gathered about a regular American “trolley-car,” and wondering at their enthusiastic demonstrations, we were told that this was the first trip of the first electric car in Puerto Rico—a great step toward becoming Americanised.

IV.

We were in the Captain’s hands, and although Sister and Daddy were decorously unquestioning as to where we were going and what we were to do when we got there, Little Blue Ribbons and I couldn’t refrain from asking, when we found ourselves clattering out of San Juan to the tattoo of the hard little hoofs, if the Captain intended to drive us to Ponce? “Oh, hardly, this evening,” he laughingly replied. “I thought we would merely take a spin out a way on the military road to give you a glimpse of the country. The madam has planned a Puerto Rican dinner for you at the Colonial, and afterward there is to be a concert on the Plaza.” “Simply fine,” I said, “I do so enjoy trying the native bills of fare” (but alas, for their after effects!).

The military road, a beautiful macadamised highway, swept through a country whose surface was richly covered with broad pasture lands where many cattle were grazing. The plains were fairly peppered with palm-trees, which, owing to their long trunks and pluming tops, interfered but little with the pasture beneath. The military road is fringed by these noble trees, at least as far as we go, and although now to us a necessary feature in the West Indian landscape, I never weary of their aristocratic grace. We must have gone some miles when the madam suggested our return. A crack of the whip, a vociferous shouting to the mules, and the coach faces right about with military precision for San Juan. With many a bewildering twist and turn through the upper town, we reach the Morro headland, and are glad enough to leave the coach and throw ourselves into the deep grass, where we sit a long time looking out to sea.

Those of you who have been there know; those of you who have not, never can know the loveliness of that far-spreading vision. No, not if all the poets joined in one grand panegyric, you would never know what it all meant. You would need to feel the dull booming of the sea against the cliffs and hear the cool rattle of the palms crooning over the children in the Casa Blanca; you must run your hands through the stiff deep grass down to the earth which makes so sweet and so warm a bed; you must throw back your face to the uplifting Northeast Trade; then you will know what it means to sink down upon the green carpet of San Juan and look out to sea.

A veil dropped over the still water; the sea and sky melted into one substance; then we arouse sufficiently to realise that the madam is waiting. By this time San Juan had made ready for the night; we could see the fitful flicker of her electric lights down near the barracks, and here and there the dull red stare of an olden time street-lamp swinging midway between the dark lanes which intersect the upper town like long tentacles.

We ran down along the sea-wall, under the lattice of the stately Casa Blanca, and came into the city; turning abruptly to the left we were about to follow the Captain up the steep street, when I was stopped suddenly with my whole soul ablaze with wonder, for there on the top of the hill, as if on the very stones themselves, there rolled a great yellowish-green moon, and about it there fell a heaven splashed with emerald and gold. There were green and yellow and strange hues of blue all blending into a splendour which dazzled the senses and made one feel dumb. I am so thankful that we saw the moon before dinner. I couldn’t have looked in the face of a green moon afterward, no, I could never have done it.

I beg of you to be as considerate of me as possible in your judgment. I do not mean to be ungrateful to our dear hosts, or unkind or disagreeable; but after that dinner, planned for us with so much care and pride, all I could say was, “O Lord, have mercy upon us—miserable offenders!” We had things to eat I had never dreamed of, and may I be spared a recurrence of them in my future dreams! There were:

Tomatoes and peppers.

Pork chops, and peppers.