To one who never before had travelled farther than is Dobbs Ferry from
Philadelphia, my journey south to New Orleans was something in the
way of an expedition, and I found it rich in incident and adventure.
Everything was new and strange, but nothing was so strange as my own
freedom. After three years of discipline, of going to bed by drum-call,
of waking by drum-call, and obeying the orders of others, this new
independence added a supreme flavor to all my pleasures. I took my
journey very seriously, and I determined to make every little incident
contribute to my better knowledge of the world. I rated the chance
acquaintances of the smoking-car as aids to a clear understanding of
mankind, and when at Washington I saw above the house-tops the marble
dome of the Capitol I was thrilled to think that I was already so much
richer in experience.
To me the country through which we passed spoke with but one meaning.
I saw it as the chess-board of the War of the Rebellion. I imagined
the towns fortified and besieged, the hills topped with artillery, the
forests alive with troops in ambush, and in my mind, on account of their
strategic value to the enemy, I destroyed the bridges over which we
passed. The passengers were only too willing to instruct a stranger in
the historical values of their country. They pointed out to me where
certain regiments had camped, where homesteads had been burned, and
where real battles, not of my own imagining, but which had cost the
lives of many men, had been lost and won. I found that to these chance
acquaintances the events of which they spoke were as fresh after twenty
years as though they had occurred but yesterday, and they accepted my
curiosity as only a natural interest in a still vital subject. I judged
it advisable not to mention that General Hamilton was my grandfather.
Instead I told them that I was the son of an officer who had died for
the cause of secession. This was the first time I had ever missed
an opportunity of boasting of my relationship to my distinguished
grandparent, and I felt meanly conscious that I was in a way disloyal.
But they were so genuinely pleased when they learned that my father had
fought for the South, that I lacked the courage to tell them that while
he was so engaged another relative of mine had driven one of their best
generals through three States.
I am one who makes the most of what he sees, and even the simplest
things filled me with delight; my first sight of cotton-fields, of
tobacco growing in the leaf, were great moments to me; and that the men
who guarded the negro convicts at work in the fields still clung to the
uniform of gray, struck me as a fact of pathetic interest.
I was delayed in New Orleans for only one day. At the end of that time
I secured passage on the steamer Panama. She was listed to sail for
Aspinwall at nine o’clock the next morning, and to touch at ports along
the Central American coast. While waiting for my steamer I mobilized
my transport and supplies, and purchased such articles as I considered
necessary for a rough campaign in a tropical climate. My purchases
consisted of a revolver, a money-belt, in which to carry my small
fortune, which I had exchanged into gold double-eagles, a pair
of field-glasses, a rubber blanket, a canteen, riding boots, and
saddle-bags. I decided that my uniform and saddle would be furnished
me from the quartermaster’s department of Garcia’s army, for in my
ignorance I supposed I was entering on a campaign conducted after the
methods of European armies.
We left the levees of New Orleans early in the morning, and for the
remainder of the day steamed slowly down the Mississippi River. I sat
alone upon the deck watching the low, swampy banks slipping past us
on either side, the gloomy cypress-trees heavy with gray moss, the
abandoned cotton-gins and disused negro quarters. As I did so a feeling
of homesickness and depression came upon me, and my disgraceful failure
at the Point, the loss of my grandfather, and my desertion of Beatrice,
for so it began to seem to me, filled me with a bitter melancholy.
The sun set the first day over great wastes of swamp, swamp-land, and
pools of inky black, which stretched as far as the eye could reach;
gloomy, silent, and barren of any form of life. It was a picture which
held neither the freedom of the open sea nor the human element of the
solid earth. It seemed to me as though the world must have looked so
when darkness brooded over the face of the waters, and as I went to
my berth that night I felt as though I were saying good-by forever to
allthat was dear to me--my country, my home, and the girl I loved.
I was awakened in the morning by a motion which I had never before
experienced. I was being gently lifted and lowered and rolled to and
fro as a hammock is rocked by the breeze. For some minutes I lay between
sleep and waking, struggling back to consciousness, until with a sudden
gasp of delight it came to me that at last I was at sea. I scrambled
from my berth and pulled back the curtains of the air port. It was as
though over night the ocean had crept up to my window. It stretched
below me in great distances of a deep, beautiful blue. Tumbling waves
were chasing each other over it, and millions of white caps glanced and
flashed as they raced by me in the sun. It was my first real view of the
ocean, and the restlessness of it and the freedom of it stirred me with
a great happiness. I drank in its beauty as eagerly as I filled my lungs
with the keen salt air, and thanked God for both.
The three short days which followed were full of new and delightful
surprises, some because it was all so strange and others because it was
so exactly what I had hoped it would be. I had read many tales of the
sea, but ships I knew only as they moved along the Hudson at the end of
the towing-line. I had never felt one rise and fall beneath me, nor
from the deck of one watched the sun sink into the water. I had never at
night looked up at the great masts, and seen them swing, like a pendulum
reversed, between me and the stars.
There was so much to learn that was new and so many things to see on
the waters, and in the skies, that it seemed wicked to sleep. So, during
nearly the whole of every night, I stood with Captain Leeds on his
bridge, or asked ignorant questions of the man at the wheel. The steward
of the Panama was purser, supercargo, and bar-keeper in one, and a most
interesting man. He apparently never slept, but at any hour was willing
to sit and chat with me. It was he who first introduced me to the
wonderful mysteries of the alligator pear as a salad, and taught me to
prefer, in a hot country, Jamaica rum with half a lime squeezed into the
glass to all other spirits. It was a most educational trip.
I had much entertainment on board the Panama by pretending that I was
her captain, and that she was sailing under my orders. Sometimes
I pretended that she was an American man-of-war, and sometimes a
filibuster escaping from an American man-of-war. This may seem an absurd
and childish game, but I had always wanted to hold authority, and as I
had never done so, except as a drill sergeant at the Academy, it was
my habit to imagine myself in whatever position of responsibility
my surroundings suggested. For this purpose the Panama served me
excellently, and in scanning the horizon for hostile fleets or a pirate
flag I was as conscientious as was the lookout in the bow. At the
Academy I had often sat in my room with maps spread out before me
planning attacks on the enemy, considering my lines of communication,
telegraphing wildly for reinforcements, and despatching my aides with
a clearly written, comprehensive order to where my advance column was
engaged. I believe this “play-acting,” as my room-mate used to call
it, helped me to think quickly, to give an intelligent command
intelligently, and made me rich in resources.
For the first few days I was so enchanted with my new surroundings that
the sinister purpose of my journey South lost its full value. And when,
as we approached Honduras, it was recalled to me, I was surprised to
find that I had heard no one on board discuss the war, nor refer to it
in any way. When I considered this, I was the more surprised because
Porto Cortez was one of the chief ports at which we touched, and I was
annoyed to find that I had travelled so far for the sake of a cause in
which those directly interested felt so little concern. I set about
with great caution to discover the reason for this lack of interest.
The passengers of the Panama came from widely different parts of Central
America. They were coffee planters and mining engineers, concession
hunters, and promoters of mining companies. I sounded each of them
separately as to the condition of affairs in Honduras, and gave as my
reason for inquiring the fact that I had thoughts of investing my
money there. I talked rather largely of my money. But this information,
instead of inducing them to speak of Honduras, only made each of them
more eloquent in praising the particular republic in which his own money
was invested, and each begged me to place mine with his. In the course
of one day I was offered a part ownership in four coffee plantations, a
rubber forest, a machine for turning the sea-turtles into fat and shell,
and the good-will and fixtures of a dentist’s office. Except that I
obtained some reputation on board as a young man of property, which
reputation I endeavored to maintain by treating everyone to drinks in
the social hall, my inquiries led to no result. No one apparently knew,
nor cared to know, of the revolution in Honduras, and passed it over as
a joke. This hurt me, but lest they should grow suspicious, I did not
continue my inquiries.