entirely easy to get into the landing-boats, and it was still less easy
to get out at the stairs which ascended to the stone piers. Every billow
would throw the little boats six or eight feet into the air, and one had
to be pretty careful to step just at the right instant or he would leave
one foot on a high step and the other in the boat, far below. Several of
our best passengers were dismembered in that way.
Once on shore, the enchantment took hold of us again. It was so sunny
and bright and the streets were so attractive--all paved with small
black cobbles, set in the neatest and most careful fashion. Our
conveyances were waiting just at the end of the pier, and they were, I
believe, the most curious conveyances in the world. They were not
carriages or carts or wheeled vehicles of any sort, but sleds--here in a
land of eternal summer--sleds with enclosed tops, and drawn by oxen.
Their drivers were grave, whiskered men who motioned us to get in; after
which we started, and they began greasing the runners as we went along.
They did this by putting a grease-soaked rag in front of a runner now
and then and driving over it.
I don't think an American would do it that way. He would take a barrel
of soft soap and a broom and lubricate the whole street. Their way is
neater, and about as effective, I suppose; besides, when they have been
doing it another three hundred years or so, they will have some grease
on these streets, too. Already one may see indications of it here and
there.
Our course was uphill, and we ascended along a panorama of sunny life
and tinted flower-hung walls to the outskirts of that neatest and most
charming of cities--continuously expressing our delight in the general
attractiveness of everything: the wonderfully laid streets; the really
beautiful sidewalks of very tiny vari-colored cobbles all set in perfect
mosaic patterns; the glow and bloom of summer everywhere. We admired
even the persistent little beggars who ran along on both sides of the
sleds, throwing camellias into our laps, crying out, "Penny! Penny!"
their one English word--hopping, dancing, beseeching, and refusing to be
comforted.
We gave to the first of these tormentors, but it was not a good way to
get rid of them. It was like putting out molasses to satisfy a few
flies. A dozen more were around us, going on in a most disturbing
manner. Our driver finally dispersed them by making some terrific
motions with his whip-handle.
We were at the outskirts at last, but only at the beginning of the real
climb. A funicular railway takes one up farther, and presently we are
ascending straight to Paradise, it seemed to us, by a way that led
through a perfect wilderness of beauty--flower, foliage, and waving
green, with tiny stucco houses set in tangled gardens and slopes of
cane--while below and beyond lay the city and the harbor and our ship at
anchor on the violet sea.
Would we be so enchanted with the magic of this Happy Isle if it were
not our first landing after a long winter voyage, which if not stormy
was at all events not entirely smooth? Perhaps not, yet I think there
are certain essentials of beauty and charm that are fundamental. The
things we dream of and do not believe exist; the things that an artist
will paint now and then when he forgets that the world is just a place
to live and toil and die in, and not really to be happy in at all. But
those things are all here in Madeira, and when we learned that nobody
ever gets sick here, and that everybody gets well of everything he
happens to have when he comes, we said: "Never mind going on; send the
ship home, or sink it; we will abide here and roam no more."
At the end of the funicular there was still more hill to climb, and one
could either do it afoot or be carried up in a hammock. Most of us young
people did it afoot, allowing enfeebled men of eighteen and twenty the
comfort of the hammocks. As they passed us we commented on their luxury,
and made it otherwise interesting for them. It was pleasant enough
walking and there was a good deal to see. The foliage was interesting,
ranging as it did from the palm of the tropics to the pine of the
northern forests. You can raise anything in Madeira, except money--there
is not much of that, and things are cheap accordingly. No doubt it is
the same in heaven, but I am getting ahead of my story.
We lunched at the top, in a hotel that was once a convent and still has
iron-barred windows, but before luncheon we walked out for the view to a
little platform which seems when you step out on it to be hanging in the
air, so that you involuntarily hesitate and reach for something firm.
All the distance you have climbed in the ox-sleds, by the funicular, and
afoot drops away perpendicularly at your feet, and you are looking down,
straight down, and still down, to what seem fairy tree-tops and a
wonderful picture valley through which a tumbling ribbon of water goes
foaming to the sea. It is the most sudden and dramatic bit of scenery I
know.
We had delicious strawberries at our luncheon--strawberries that
required no sugar--and a good many other kinds of fruit--some of which
we could identify and some of which the Reprobates discussed in their
usual unrestrained fashion, calling one another names that were at once
descriptive and suited to the subject in hand. There were pomegranates
and guavas and comquats and loquats; also there was Madeira wine, of
course, and hereafter I am going to know something about native wines in
the lands we visit before I begin business--that is, wholesale business.
But never mind--let it go; it is a good deal like sherry, only it tastes
better, and the Reprobates said--but as I mentioned before, let it
go--it really does not matter now.
[Illustration: TWO MEN TAKE YOU IN HAND AND AWAY YOU GO]
We descended that long, paved, greased hill in toboggans that are nice,
comfortable baskets on runners. They hold two and three, according to
size, and you get in and two men take you in hand, and away you go. You
go, too. A distance of two miles has been made in three minutes in those
things. I don't think we went as fast as that, but it was plenty fast
enough for the wild delight of it, and if I had money enough and time
enough I would go there and slide and slide away the eternal summer
days.
It was a swift panorama of flower and sunlit wall and distant sea--the
soft air rushing by. Now and then we would whirl past a carrier--a
brown, bent man with one of those great sleds on his shoulders, toiling
with it up the long, steep hill. They were marvellously picturesque,
those carriers, but I wish they wouldn't do it. It takes some of the joy
out of the slide to feel that somebody is going to carry your toboggan
up the hill on his back.
We shot out on the level at last, and started on a little tour of the
town. Laura and I wandered away alone, and stopped at little shops, and
tried to transact business, and finally bought a clay water-jug for a
hundred and twenty reis, which is to say sixpence, which is to say
twelve cents. Money in Madeira is calculated in reis, just as it is in
the Azores, and the sound of the word suddenly recalled the visit of the
_Quaker City_ "Pilgrims" to those islands, and the memory of Blucher's
disastrous dinner-party.
But they will take anything that looks like money in Madeira, rather
than miss a trade, and when a person who has been accustomed to
calculating dollars and cents is suddenly confronted with problems of
reis and pence and shillings and half-crowns and francs, he goes to
pieces on his money tables and wonders why a universal currency would
not be a good thing.
All the streets in Madeira have that dainty cobble paving, and all the
sidewalks are laid in the exquisite mosaic which makes it a joy to
follow them. The keynote of the island is invitation. Even a jail we saw
is of a sort to make crime attractive. I hasten to add that we examined
only the outside.
We were adopted by a guide presently--a boy whose only English was the
statement that he could speak it--and were directed quietly but firmly
toward places where things are sold. We tried to impress upon him in
such languages as we could think of that we did not want to buy
anything, and that we did not care much for a guide, anyway. We said we
wanted to see bougainvillea--a lot of bougainvillea, in a great mass
together, as we had seen it from the ship. He nodded excitedly and led
us away, but it was only to a place where they sold embroideries which
we did not care for, though they were cheap enough, dear knows, as
everything is cheap here--everything native at least.
When our guide grasped the fact at last that we did not want to do any
buying, he became sad, weakened gradually, dropped behind, accepted a
penny, and turned us over to another guide of the same sort. We wandered
about Funchal in that way until it was time to embark, adopted by one
guide after another, and abandoned to our fate when they realized that
we were not worth anything in the way of commissions from the merchants
and very little in any form. We did get a guide at last who knew where
the bougainvillea house was, but it was too late then to go to it. It
did not matter; there were flowers enough everywhere and bougainvillea
on many walls.
The place did not lose its charm with close acquaintance. It seemed
entirely unspoiled. We saw no suggestion of modern architecture or
European innovation--no blot anywhere, except a single motor-car--the
only one, I believe, in Funchal. There is but one fly in the ointment of
Madeira comfort--the beggars. They begin to beg before they can walk,
and they call, "Penny! Penny!" before they can lisp the sacred name of
"Mamma." However, one good thing has come of our experience with them.
They have prepared us for beggars elsewhere. We are hardened, now--at
least, we think we are. The savor of pity has gone out of us.
But I was speaking of architecture. Without knowing anything on the
subject, I should say that the architecture of Madeira is a mixture of
Spanish and Moorish, like that of Mexico. Only it is better than
anything in Mexico. From the ship, the stucco, tile-roofed city is
flawless; and as we steam away, and night comes down and lights break
out and become a jewelled necklace along the water's edge, our one
regret is that we are leaving it all behind.
Good-bye to Madeira--a gentle place, a lovely place--a place to live and
die in.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] By referring again to the German guide-book I find that the first
gentleman's name was not Taxicab, but as that is nearer to what it looks
like than anything that can be made out of the real name I will let it
stand.
[Illustration: DID A SORT OF FANDAROLE]
VII
A DAY TO OURSELVES
We had another full day at sea, after Madeira--a day of reflection and
reminiscence, for each of us had some special joy to recall. Perhaps
that of the Diplomat was as picturesque as any. He told it to me
privately, but a thing like that should not be allowed to remain
concealed forever; besides, the young lady is in darkest Germany now and
does not know English, anyway. That last-named fact was responsible for
the incident.
The Diplomat had just landed at the bottom of the slide, he said, when
two of our party--Americans--came along with a bright-faced and quite
stylish-looking German girl who was not having a very good time because
they knew no German and she no English. It was clearly a case for the
Diplomat, who is an unattached person, full of the joy of travel and
familiar with all languages, living and dead.
He had not been presented to the young German person on the ship, but he
had seen her now and again in company with an older, rather
plain-looking woman, very likely her maid. No doubt the young woman was
a countess, or a baroness, or at all events a person of station and
importance. Politely enough he proffered his services as escort, was
accepted, and the two set out gayly to enjoy the halcyon Madeira
afternoon.
She was a most sociable companion, the Diplomat said, ready for anything
that resembled a good time. They visited places of interest; they
dropped into little shops; he bought flowers for her; they had
refreshments here and there--dainty dishes and pleasant Madeira
wines--keeping up, meantime, their merry German clatter. They became
quite gay, in fact, and whenever they met any of the ship party, which
they did frequently enough, the Diplomat, as he confessed to me, became
rather vain and showy--set his hat on one side and did a sort of
fandarole, accompanying his step with operatic German airs. At such
moments she even took his hand and entered into the spirit of the
occasion.
[Illustration: THEN IT DAWNED UPON THE DIPLOMAT]
Altogether it was a charming experience, and they were both sorry when
it was time to return to the ship. Arriving there they were met by the
older, plain-looking woman, who greeted his companion with words that
were pleasant enough, gentle enough, but which partook of the nature of
a command. Then it dawned upon the Diplomat; it was not the older,
plain-looking woman who was the maid!
"I would have done it just the same," he explained to me in a dark
corner of the deck, after dinner, "just the same, of course, being a
gentleman, only under the circumstances I might have cut out the
cakewalk and the music."
A ship is a curious place altogether; a place of narrow limits and
close contact, yet full of subterranean depths from which surprises may
develop at any moment. The Chief Engineer, to whom I sit next at meals,
often quotes meditatively,
"A ship it is a funny thing,
It sails upon the sea--"
The Chief does not recall the rest of the stanza, but we all admit the
truth of what he does remember. Ship life on the whole is not like other
life; ship characteristics do not altogether resemble those on land.
Take the "Porpoise," for instance. I have no doubt that the Porpoise on
land is a most excellent and industrious business man, more or less
absorbed in the daily round of his ventures--a happy-hearted contented
Hebrew person, fairly quiet (it doesn't seem possible, but I am willing
to believe it), on the whole a good citizen, satisfied if his name
appears now and then in the local paper, when he gets in some new line
of goods or makes an improvement on his home.
But on shipboard the Porpoise is just--a porpoise. He is fat, as his
name implies, and describes revolutions of the ship, blowing constantly.
At no time of day and in no part of the ship will you be safe from the
Porpoise. He is from an interior town--an unimportant town, by its
census and location, but it has become important on this vessel.
He has instructed us upon other subjects, too. Nothing is too
complicated, or too deep, or too abstruse for the Porpoise. He will
attack any question at sight, and he will puff and spout and describe
circles and wallow in his oratory, and follow his audience about until
he has swept the deck clean. Yet we love that Porpoise, in spite of
everything. He is so happy and harmless and gentle. It is only because
he is on a ship that he is a bore.
Also, we love the "Mill." The Mill is a woman--a good woman--one of the
kindliest souls on earth, I suspect, and her mouth is her warrant for
her name. It goes all the time, but it does not deal with important
things. Indeed, nothing is too unimportant for her hopper, and she
grinds exceeding small. Just now, for an hour or so, she has been
explaining that she did not sleep very well last night, and minutely
cataloguing the reasons why. She will keep it up for another hour, and
then if somebody hasn't dropped her overboard she will dig up something
else of equal value and go right on, refreshed and rejoicing in the
consciousness of well-doing.
The Mill would not act this way at home--she would not have time. It is
only because she is on a ship where everybody is idle and irresponsible
and "different," and likely to be peculiar. As Laura, age fourteen, said
to me to-day--paraphrasing the words of the old Quaker spinster to her
sister, "I think everybody on this ship is peculiar except thee and me,
and sometimes I think _thee_ is a little peculiar." That expresses the
situation, and on the whole we enjoy it. We are like the little boy
whose reputation for being a strange child did not interfere with his
happiness. "Gee, ain't it great to be crazy!" was his favorite remark,
and whatever we may be on this ship, we are content with the conditions,
and would not change them, even if we could.
VIII
OUT OF THE SUNRISE
I have seen the shores of Africa and Spain! The bath steward came very
early, this morning--earlier than usual. He had his reasons, but I had
forgotten and was sleepy, so I said "No," and tried to doze again. Then
all at once from the deck there arose a swell of music--rich, triumphant
music--an orchestration of "Holy, Holy, Holy"--such a strain as one
might expect to hear if the eternal gates should swing ajar. I
remembered, then; it was Sunday morning--but there was something more.
Land! The land that lies on the other side of the ocean!
In a moment I was at my port-hole, which is on the starboard side. We
had changed our course and were bearing more to the north. Directly in
front of me the sun was rising. The east was a mass of glowing
outlines--golden clouds and hill-tops mingled. It was the Orient--that
is what it was--the Far East; the sun rising over Africa! Something got
hold of me then--I hardly know what. Certainly I was not unhappy; but
then it was all so sudden and spectacular, and I had waited for it so
long.
I do not remember how I got dressed; only for a moment at a time could I
drag myself away from that port-hole. The sun rose higher--the outlines
of Morocco became more distinct, but they did not lose their wonder of
color--their glory of purple and gold. I realized now that the
prospectuses had not exaggerated the splendor of the East, even on their
gorgeous covers--that they could not do so if they tried. By the time I
was on deck we were running close enough to the lofty shores to make out
villages here and there and hill-top towers--the habitation and the
watch-towers of the Moors. How eagerly and minutely one scanned these
with the glass to distinguish the first sign of Oriental life--to get a
glimpse of the reality of what had so long been but a romance and a
dream. It was those people who had conquered Spain and built the
Alhambra.
What was going on inside those curious flat-topped houses and those
towers? Marvellous matters, no doubt, that had to do with nargileh and
magic and scimiters and flying carpets and scarcely imperceptible nods
to the executioner who always hovered among the draperies in the
background. The Reprobates appeared and declared there was no romance
anywhere in sight and never had been in that direction; that Morocco was
just a place of wretched government and miserable people whose chief
industries were laziness and crime. There are moments when I would be
willing for this ship to sink to properly punish the Reprobates.
The Diplomat was better. He said there was as much romance and magic
over there as ever, and more executioners; and the Diplomat knows. We
would pass Ceuta, the African Pillar of Hercules, before long, he told
us. The other pillar was the Rock of Gibraltar, which lay still farther
ahead.
We went over to the other side of the ship presently, for we were
overlooking the Bay of Trafalgar, where a little more than a hundred
years ago Horatio Nelson died, after convincing the combined navies of
France and Spain that it required something besides numbers to win a
victory. Nelson went into that fight with thirty-two vessels, little and
big, against forty of the combined fleets. He hoisted the signal,
"England expects every man to do his duty," and every man did it. One
half of the combined fleets struck their colors, and the rest made off,
or sank, and with them went Napoleon Bonaparte's scheme for invading
England.
We looked out on the placid water, laughing in the Sunday morning
sunlight, and tried to imagine those vanished fleets--stately ships of
the line with their banks of guns; smart frigates and rakish
cutters--all that splendid concourse of black hull and towering canvas,
and then the boom and the flash of guns--the conflict and the glory of
that morning so long ago. This much was real, and it was romance; not
even the Reprobates could brush away the bloom.
The captain came by and pointed ahead to Tarifa, where the Barbary
pirates a long time ago levied tribute on the merchants and added the
word "tariff" to the dictionary. Their old castle has fallen into ruin,
but the old industry still thrives, under the same name. Then we went
back to starboard again for a look at Tangier, where, alas, we were not
to land, because Algiers had been provided for us instead.
[Illustration: BUT NOW GIBRALTAR, THE CROUCHING LION OF TRAFALGAR, HAD
RISEN FROM THE SEA]
But now Gibraltar, the crouching lion of Trafalgar, had risen from the
sea. The English call it "The Rock," and that is just what it looks
like--a big bowlder shaped like a sleeping lion--its head toward Spain,
its tail toward Africa. I think most persons have an idea that the Rock
lies lengthwise, east and west--I know I thought so. Instead it lies
north and south, and is really a stone finger pointed by Spain toward
the African coast. It is Great Britain's pride--it has cost enough for
her to be proud of it--and is her chief stronghold.
About it are gathered her warships of to-day--dark, low-browed fighters
like our own--any one of them able to send to the bottom a whole fleet
like Nelson's and the combined fleets besides. They look quiet enough,
ugly enough, and drowsy enough, now. So does Gibraltar, but it is just
as well, perhaps, not to twist the Lion's tail. We had no intention of
doing so, and I don't see why they were so afraid of us. They wouldn't
let us visit their shooting-galleries--the galleries where they keep
their big guns, I mean; they wouldn't let us climb the Rock on the
outside; they wouldn't even let us visit an old Moorish castle which
stands about half-way up. Perhaps they thought we would spike their
guns, or steal the castle, or blow up the Rock with infernal machines.
They did let us take carriages and drive along the main streets of the
city, through a park or two and out to Europa Point, I think that was
the place. We were interested, but not enthusiastic. After Madeira, one
does not go mad over the beauties of Gibraltar. The vehicles were funny
little affairs--Spanish, I suppose; the driver spoke the English of
Gibraltar--an English which nobody outside of Gibraltar, and only a few
people there, can understand; the road was good; the flowers--bluebells,
yellow daisies, dandelions and heliotrope--all wild--were profuse and
lavishly in bloom everywhere along the way. Had we come direct to
Gibraltar, we should have raved over these things like enough, and we
did rave a little, but it was a sort of placid ecstasy. Military
hospitals and barracks and officers' quarters are not the kind of
scenery to excite this crowd.
It was different, though, when we got to Europa Point. There, on one
side rose the great Rock abruptly from the sea, while before us
stretched the Mediterranean, all blue and emerald and iridescent, like
a great fire-opal in the sun. It was our first glimpse of the water
along whose shores began the history and the religions of more than half
the world. "The grand object of all travel is to see the shores of the
Mediterranean," said Dr. Johnson, and there were some of us who not
until that moment, I think, fully grasped the fact that this object,
this dream of a lifetime, was about to be accomplished.
The Patriarch forgot the Phoenicians for a little and began to talk
about Athens and of Mars Hill from which St. Paul had preached, though
he added presently that it was quite certain St. Paul's grandfather had
been a Phoenician; the Diplomat quoted something about his soul being
"far away sailing on the Vesuvian Bay"; the Porpoise began to meditate
audibly how far it was in a straight line to Jerusalem; the Mill ground
a quiet little grist about flannels she expected to wear in Egypt; even
the Reprobates were subdued and thoughtful in the face of this watery
theatre that had held the drama of the ancient world.