A LAND OF MYSTERY AND MURDER
With my return to London in the early eighties, after I had been sent
to prison by proxy for seven years in Australia, the old lure of the
West Indies, with their continuous riot of revolutions, came over me
so strongly that I could not hold out against it, nor did I try. Frank
Norton, my old partner in piracy, had the “Queen of the Seas” at the
East Indian docks, where he was displaying a ship ventilating apparatus
which he had invented. He urged me to go back to the China Sea with
him and resume operations against the pirates, but I put him off.
Soon after leaving him I ran into an English engineer named Tucker,
whom I had known in Venezuela, and from him I learned that Guzman
Blanco, the Dictator, was in Paris, his foreign capital, from which he
was directing the government of Venezuela through a dummy President,
and was anxious to see me. I was not particularly desirous of seeing
him, however, for I feared I could not resist him, and I had no wish
to again be tied down in Caracas, as I had been before when I was
his confidential agent. I was much more interested in reports which
reached me, through contraband channels, that a new revolution was
shaping up in Costa Rica, and that there was a prospect of trouble in
Hayti and even in Venezuela.
I took the first ship for Halifax and went from there to St. John,
New Brunswick, where I bought the fore and aft schooner “George V.
Richards.” She was a trim-looking craft of about one hundred and eighty
tons, and stanch, but, as I discovered later, as faddish as an old
maid. We never could trim her to suit her and she never behaved twice
the same under similar conditions. In the same weather she would settle
back on her stern like a balky mule or sail like a racing yacht, just
as the spirit moved her. Yet I was fond of her, for she was a great
deal like myself; she had her wits about her all of the time and was
at her best in an emergency. I took her to Bridgeport, Connecticut,
where I loaded up with old Sharps and Remington rifles and a lot of
ammunition, and, after burying them under sixty tons of coal, sailed
for Venezuela to see what was going on in Guzman’s absence.
Instead of going direct to La Guaira, where I was well known, I headed
for Maracaibo, the city that gave Venezuela its name. Alonzo de Ojeda,
who followed Columbus, sailed westward along the coast of Terra Firme,
which the Great Discoverer had spoken of as “the most beautiful lands
in the world,” to the Gulf of Maracaibo. There he found several Indian
villages built on piles and, prompted by this suggestion, he named the
land Venezuela, or “Little Venice.” Maracaibo has a splendid harbor
for light-draft vessels, and but for the fact that it has been subject
to the whims of successive plundering presidents it would now be the
chief city of the country. Not only is it the port of a great and
rich section of Venezuela, but it is the only outlet for the coffee
and other products of a large part of Colombia. Ever since their
separation there has been ill-feeling between the two republics, and
it has suited the fancy of every Venezuelan president since Guzman’s
day, Castro being the chief offender, to spasmodically shut off all
communication with Colombia, with consequent disastrous effects to the
trade of Maracaibo. As a partial offset to these recurrent embargoes,
the city boasts of a brand of yellow fever that has actually made it
famous, at least among travellers in South America. It is so mild that
it is seldom fatal and wise folks who are ticketed for the interior of
Venezuela go to Maracaibo and stay until they have had the fever and
become immune.
The collector of customs at Maracaibo “borrowed” a fine rifle from me,
which is one of the South American varieties of graft, and put me up
at the club, where I was thrown in friendly contact with the people
I wished to meet. I found that General Alcantara was acting as dummy
President while Guzman was enjoying himself in Europe, and I soon
satisfied myself, from remarks dropped by his friends in response to
my guarded inquiries, that he was ambitious to become the ruler of
Venezuela in fact as well as in name. The movement to overthrow Guzman
was, in fact, taking definite form, and I sold a part of my arms to
Alcantara’s friends. They wanted to buy the entire cargo, but I refused
to part with it, on the ground that the bulk of it had been contracted
for elsewhere. It was apparent that serious trouble was brewing for
Guzman and, instead of proceeding to Costa Rica, I sailed for La
Guaira, intending to visit Caracas and look the situation over at close
range.
At the capital there was the same undercurrent of revolt against the
dictatorship of Guzman, which was being secretly encouraged by the
partisans of the acting President. I called at the Yellow House to pay
my respects to Alcantara, whom I had known in Guzman’s army, and in
the course of our conversation he suggested that I remain in Caracas
and become his friend, as I had been Guzman’s. He did not tell me of
his real ambition in so many words, but I needed no binoculars to see
what was in his mind. I at once wrote Guzman fully, telling him of
Alcantara’s treachery and describing the situation as I had found it,
and then sailed for Costa Rica. Guzman had also heard of what was going
on through other sources and, as I subsequently learned, he returned to
Venezuela a few months later, before the revolt that was being hatched
had broken its shell. The government was promptly turned over to him
by Alcantara, who at once started to leave the country, evidently
fearing that if he remained he would be summarily sent to San Carlos,
then as now the unhappy home of political prisoners. He started for
La Guaira by the old post road, along which were a number of public
houses. In one of these he met a party of politicians and while with
them he died suddenly. It was charged by Alcantara’s friends that he
was poisoned by order of Guzman, who suspected that he was going away
to launch a revolution, but the friends of Guzman claimed that he ate
heartily of rich salads while in a heated condition and died from
acute indigestion. The latter version of it has always been my view,
for Guzman was not the man to have an enemy, nor even a friend who
had played him false, put out of the way in such fashion. Guzman was a
dictator to his finger tips, but he was nothing of a murderer.
The Costa Ricans were, I found, making one of their periodical but
always futile efforts to depose their President, General Tomaso
Guardia, and I had no difficulty in disposing of my arms and
ammunition, which I exchanged for a cargo of coffee. I might have
joined the revolution had I not become convinced that it had no more
chance of success than those which had preceded it. Gen. Guardia, who
ruled until he died, was one of the few strong men Central America
has produced. He was the Diaz of Costa Rica and as much of a dictator
as Guzman Blanco, whom he greatly resembled in his friendship for
foreigners and his contempt for the natives. When he heard of a
political leader, so called, who was trying to stir up trouble, Gen.
Guardia would send for him and say: “Your health has not been good
for some time. I see that you are failing. You need a long trip.
Go to Europe and stay a year,” or two years or five, according to
circumstances. A couple of trusted lieutenants were assigned to stay
with the politely condemned exile, “to see that he wanted for nothing,”
and he never failed to take the next ship for foreign shores.
Another presidential method was to summon some discontented one, who
was planning an insurrection, and make him a member of the Cabinet.
Flattered by this honor the new Minister was easily tempted to come
out with exaggerated expressions of confidence in Gen. Guardia and his
government. Thereupon the President would kick him into the street.
“There,” he would say to the natives, “you see, all that man wanted was
money. He is nothing of a patriot.”
Guardia always smiled, whether he was sentencing a man to exile or
ejecting him from his shifting Cabinet; he regarded the natives as
only children. By such methods as these he made himself master of the
country, and the little rebellions which sprang up from time to time
were quickly suppressed. One of the foreigners for whom he developed
a great liking was Dr. W. R. Bross, a New York physician who was at
Port Limon with a party of engineers who were building a railroad
from the coast into the interior. While on a visit to Port Limon the
President discovered that Dr. Bross had much more skill than any of
the physicians at the capital. He wanted him to go to Europe with him
and, when this proposition was rejected, urged him to accompany him to
San Jose, the capital, and become his private physician, at a salary
he was to name himself. This offer was also turned down. Had Dr. Bross
been more worldly, and less devoted to the men who were in his care,
he could have secured concessions worth millions of dollars, for Gen.
Guardia was more than generous to his friends.
I suspected that the coffee I received had been stolen from planters
who were loyal to the government, and that the rebels had “levied”
on it as a war tax, but as they charged me three cents less a pound
than the market price, while I charged them four or five times as much
for the arms and ammunition as they cost me, I had no compunctions of
conscience about taking it. It is a waste of good time and precious
protoplasm to sympathize with Central or South Americans who are
pillaged by rebels, for in the next uprising the victims of the
previous one will, in their turn, be the plunderers. Thanks to the
meddling of American warships, things have quieted down a great deal
within recent years, but in the good old days, of which I am writing,
revolutions were as much a part of the daily life of the people in
those countries as their morning meal, and more so than their morning
bath. In fact, the most popular morning salutation was, “Who are we
revoluting for [or against] to-day?” Few went further and asked why
they were in revolt, for that was a minor consideration and there
were not many who knew. At least nine-tenths of the steady routine of
revolutions were due to nothing more than personal ambition, which
has been the curse of Latin America. Some man of influence or a
disgruntled general who had helped to elevate some other general to
the presidency, and then had not been shown the consideration to which
he thought himself entitled, would raise the standard of rebellion.
Under a plethora of promises as to what he would do when he became
president, he would attract other dissatisfied ones to his cause, and
it usually was only a question of time until he overturned the unstable
government. Then he would, in turn, be unable or unwilling to make good
on all of his promises, real or implied, and those whom he disappointed
would proceed to throw him out. Every man of importance had a following
of ignorant natives who, either because they had grown up in his
section of the country and had been taught to show him homage, or
because they expected to lead lazy lives when he became all-powerful,
would follow him blindly. A revolution which involved any question of
good government was almost unheard of. It is nothing but the inordinate
and, among the upper classes, almost unanimous thirst for power that
has retarded the development of these rich countries for generations.
Blessed by nature beyond the understanding of those who have not spent
years in them, they have been cursed by man. When they have become
civilized and their development once sets in, it will eclipse anything
America has ever seen.
But these observations are not a part of my story. With the cargo of
loyalist coffee we headed for New Orleans. We made bad weather of it
all of the way. The faddish ship wouldn’t sail or heave to and was
as cranky as an old man in his dotage. Some days we actually went
backward, and it was a long time before we raised South Pass light and
were picked up by a tug. The moment the hawser tightened the old ship
threw herself back on her haunches and refused to budge. The captain of
the towboat, after struggling strenuously to get us under way, dropped
back and screamed at me, “What in hell is the matter with that damned
old hooker?”
“You don’t know how to tow and she knows it,” I retorted.
“One would think you had all the anchors in the United States down,” he
shouted.
I assured him that we didn’t have even one down and he tried it again
and finally got us to going. We were off quarantine soon after
sundown and discovered that an embargo of forty days against Central
American ports had been raised only an hour before. The balkiness of
the “Richards” had prevented us from having to ride at anchor for days
or weeks and be subjected to casual inspection and gossip which might
have caused trouble. While the delay had been of service to us in that
respect it provoked some anxiety on another point. I had an idea that
the Costa Rican Government might try to have the ship seized, and our
trip had been such a long one that no time was to be lost in selling
our cargo and getting away. I took samples of the coffee to New Orleans
on a tug and placed them in the hands of old Peter Stevens, of the
Produce Exchange, who sold the whole cargo in an hour.
While the coffee was coming out stores were going in, and we were out
of the river again and on our way to Hayti in record time. Though I had
good cause to remember Santo Domingo I never had been in the “Black
Republic,” and as I had heard there was a probability of some lively
times there I determined to visit it before I returned to New York. But
the crankiness of the “Richards” interfered with my plans. When we were
about one hundred miles west of Key West the old ship committed suicide
by burning herself to death. The fire started in the hold amidships,
but we could not even imagine what might have caused it. It was so
unexpected that it had a good start before we discovered it. We fought
it, of course, but we might as well have tried to quench a volcano
in eruption. The strange craft had made up her mind to go under, and
there was nothing for us to do but take to the whaleboat, which was
large enough for all of us, as I had only a small crew. After we had
shoved off we returned at considerable risk to rescue a big black cat
which was on the ship when I bought her. We had christened him “John
Croix,” and every man on board undertook to teach him all he knew
about navigation, with the result that the animal had become so highly
educated that he could do everything about the ship but use the sextant.
Our humanity was well rewarded, for John saved our lives, or at least
saved us from a lot of suffering. A stiff norther came up before we
sighted land and for several days we were tossed about without any
clear idea as to the direction in which we were being blown, for not
once did we get a glimpse of sun or moon by which to take a reckoning.
Eventually we drifted among the islands to the westward of Key West,
and we headed for the largest one in sight. In the heavy sea that was
running we made a bad mess of the landing. Our boat was overturned
and stove in, the bung came out of the water cask, and all of our
supplies and most of our instruments were lost. We got ashore all
right, and John Croix with us, but we had neither food nor water, and
when a search of the little island failed to reveal so much as a sign
of a spring of fresh water, we began to give some thought to what our
chances would be in the hereafter. We bivouacked gloomily that night on
the beach. Early in the morning the cat awakened me by rubbing against
my face. At first I thought he was only depressed, like the rest of us,
and wanted company, but he pestered around until I got up and followed
him. Calling to me over his shoulder he led the way to a clump of
mangrove trees, whose roots overhung the bank three feet above high
tide. John trotted under the mass of roots and began to purr loudly. I
started to follow him and then backed out, but the cat yowled so loudly
that I got down on all fours again and followed him. I crawled along
for ten or twelve feet until I found John standing over a rivulet of
fresh water about as big as my finger. I drank my fill from it and then
awakened the others and told them of John’s discovery. They hailed him
as our saviour, and when he came trotting into camp a couple of hours
later with an oyster in his mouth they were ready to beatify him.
Until John had shown us the way to food, as he had led us to water, we
had not thought of looking for oysters, of which there were millions
around the roots of the mangrove trees. Strengthened and encouraged we
patched up our boat and, when the storm had blown itself out, put to
sea again and encountered a little schooner from St. John’s, Florida,
which took us to Key West, where we soon got a ship for New York.
On the way north we put in at Charleston, where I had enjoyed much
excitement as a blockade runner, and there I presented John Croix to a
Methodist minister who promised to give him a good home.
I was still anxious to visit Hayti, that land of mystery and murder,
and, in the guise of an English planter, I went there on a West Indian
steamer. Hayti has had more internal troubles and more presidents than
any other of the revolutionary republics and her domestic disorders
will continue until they are stopped by some powerful outside
influences, for the blacks and mulattoes are eternal enemies. In the
first three years following the separation from Santo Domingo there
were four presidents. In 1849 Soulouque, a negro, proclaimed himself
Emperor, as Faustian I. He ruled with despotic power, renewed the war
on Santo Domingo, and played hob generally with the nation’s finances
and affairs. In 1858 General Geffrard, a mulatto whom Soulouque
had condemned to death, revolted and proclaimed himself President.
He restored the constitution and held on until 1867, when he was
overthrown by General Salnave, who lasted three years before he was
deposed and shot. He had four successors in twice as many years, the
last one being General Salomon, who was at the head of affairs when I
arrived on the scene.
It did not take me long to make up my mind that Hayti was the warmest
hotbed of intrigue I had ever run across and I felt that I was among
friends and in a thoroughly congenial atmosphere. The very air seemed
to breed revolutions; perhaps because it was peopled with the spirits
of the old buccaneers who had their headquarters at the western end of
the island in the entrancing early days. There were many plotters for
the presidency, but there were two great rival camps, one headed by
General F. D. Legitime and the other by General Florville Hippolyte.
Legitime was planning to overturn the government at once, but it was
the scheme of Hippolyte, who was more cunning and willing to wait, to
continue Salomon in power until the election of 1886, when he expected
to secure his own election as Constitutional President. All of the
plots and counter-plots were laid in secret, of course, yet all men of
influence knew in a general way what the others were doing and where
they stood, with due allowance for the treachery always found in Latin
countries, which creates a delightful element of uncertainty.
Hippolyte was one of the ugliest negroes I have ever known--and my
estimate of him as here set down is in no way influenced by the fact
that some years later he arranged to have me carefully murdered. With
his bloodshot eyes and white whiskers, which latter reminded one
of dirty lace curtains, his cruel face was suggestive of some wild
animal. He was abrupt and domineering in his manner and there was not
a forgiving drop of blood in his veins. If the hippopotamus is as
savage a brute as has been pictured, Hippolyte should have taken all
of his name from that animal. He could laugh, but only like a hyena,
and it was impossible for him to smile. Brutal and bloodthirsty, he was
at the same time a forceful old villain and possessed of much native
shrewdness. Like all of the blacks he was a devout voodoo worshipper,
and with the aid of the _papalois_--the priesthood of the cannibalistic
creed--he played on the superstitions of the ignorant negroes. We
became well acquainted during the year or more that I loafed around
Port au Prince, revelling in the oddly warlike surroundings and
watching the budding plots, and at times I found him interesting.
Legitime was the opposite of Hippolyte in all of his qualities. He
was a bright, intelligent, progressive mulatto; well educated for
a Haytien and with a good address and the manners of a gentleman.
Intense loyalty was one of his strongest characteristics and he had
visions of his country’s immediate future which have not yet, after
twenty-five years, been in any degree realized. No one questioned his
bravery, and while he to some extent lacked firmness and strength of
character, I believed he would develop these vital traits with age,
for he was then a comparatively young man. He had the elements of a
first-class president, and had he ever become firmly established in
that office Hayti would to-day be a very different country and a much
more agreeable neighbor.
In the end I allied myself with Legitime, and in so doing incurred the
bitter enmity of Hippolyte, who had told me something of his plans and
had even gone so far as to suggest, without going into details, that
I coöperate with him when the time for action arrived. The result was
that when I went over to his hated rival he took it as a deadly insult,
and the chances are that we would have taken a few shots at each other
if my stay in the country had not been cut short. I was negotiating
with Legitime to supply him with arms and take a commission in his
army, and we were getting along famously toward a real revolution when
suddenly, in the latter part of 1884, President Salomon ordered that
he be expelled from the country for plotting against him. If Legitime
had been less popular he would have been unceremoniously shot, but
Salomon’s influence was already beginning to wane and he did not care
to add largely to his enemies, so he contented himself with an order of
expulsion. At the same time, through the instrumentality of Hippolyte,
the suggestion was conveyed to me that the climate of Hayti was not
suited to my health. Legitime boarded a ship for Jamaica, which was
conveniently in the harbor when his expulsion was announced, and I
accompanied him. He told me the time was not ripe for his revolt and
that he proposed to wait until the conditions were more favorable for
him. As a matter of fact he waited four years, and while he succeeded
in overthrowing Salomon in the end, his rule was short-lived. I
remained with him in Kingston for some time and then, as I saw no
prospect of quick action, returned to Australia, by way of London,
where I resumed my British name of George MacFarlane.
I reached Melbourne in 1885, after an absence of about four years, and
went to Menzies’ Hotel, which was not the one I had stopped at before,
when I was James Stuart Henderson. Of my three companions who had been
sent to prison for stealing the “Ferret,” Leigh, the sailing master,
had recently completed his term, while Nourse, who impersonated me, and
Joe Wilson, had still nearly two years to serve. I located Leigh and
put him to work for Nevins, a sail maker, and sent word to the others
that I was there and would wait around until they came out. Then,
fearing that I might be recognized by some of the officers who had
suspected, during the trial, that Nourse was playing a part, with the
probable result that I would be forced to again change places with him,
which I had no wish to do, I went on to Sydney. There I met Montfort
& Co., merchants and speculators, through whom I became financially
interested in a group of silver properties known as the Sunny Corner
Mines, in the Broken Hills district in New South Wales. We also laid
claim to Mount Morgan, deceptively described as “A Mountain of Gold,”
which was partly in Queensland. We plunged heavily on a question of
title, which was in litigation, and stood, as we thought, to make many
millions. When the decision of the highest court was finally announced
the bottom fell out of our scheme, for we were knocked out at every
point, and there was a void in my bank account which represented
considerably more than one hundred thousand dollars.
From the time of my first visit to Australia the laboring men had been
conducting an anti-Chinese agitation, to perpetuate and strengthen
their power over capital. There were not then, nor are there now,
nearly enough workers in the country to supply the demand. The native
blacks are without question the laziest people under the sun. The
notoriously indolent West Indian negro is an enterprising and ambitious
citizen by comparison with them, for there is no power on earth by
which they can be made to work. The Chinese, always on the lookout for
a labor market, soon heard of the rich field and invaded it in droves,
whereupon the white workmen of all grades set up a great hullabaloo; it
was there I first heard the cry of the “Yellow Peril.” The employers,
fearful of antagonizing their employees, either joined with them or
let them have their own way. They urged England to put a stop to
the importation of Chinese and when the mother country, which was
extending its “sphere of influence” (meaning thereby the acquisition of
territory) further and further into the Celestial Empire, declined to
act, Victoria and New South Wales took the matter into their own hands
and passed a Chinese exclusion law. It provided that any ship captain
who brought Chinese into these Provinces should be compelled to return
them, forfeit his certificate, and pay a fine of not more than three
hundred pounds for each “Chinkie,” and he might also be sent to jail.
Chinese were further prohibited from entering the restricted districts
by the overland route, and while it was impossible to entirely shut
them out, it was thought the new law would greatly reduce the number
that entered the country.
It occurred to me that I might recoup my mining losses by importing
Chinamen, without running any considerable risk of arrest, and I went
into the business. It promised to be profitable, for the natural effect
of the exclusion law was to intensify the desire of the “Chinkies” to
get into the two Provinces, where the demand for them was the greater
on account of their restricted number. I bought the old mission ship
“Southern Cross,” which took Bishop Selwyn to Australia, a fore and
aft schooner of about two hundred tons, and sent her across the bay to
Balmain to be overhauled and put in shape for her new purpose. I had
her fitted up as a private yacht, but all of her fittings below decks
were so arranged that they could be knocked down and stored away,
leaving the hold open. On the first trip to China I had tiers and rows
of berths built on the same quickly removable principle, and with this
arrangement there was enough space to enable us to carry more than two
hundred passengers without discomfort.
I brought Leigh up from Melbourne and made him sailing master and again
began preying on the Chinkies, but in a more friendly way than when
I was plundering their pirate junks in the China Sea. The Chinamen
furnished their own food, and Quong Tart, a rich Chinese merchant of
Sydney, paid me one hundred and fifty dollars for every one I landed in
Victoria or New South Wales. He arranged for their shipment, so, when
I arrived at Amoy or Shanghai, where they all came from, I had only
to wait for the requisite number to come on board, and he also took
charge of them when they were put ashore. In a spirit of dare-deviltry
I landed the first shipload less than five miles north of Newcastle,
the second largest city in New South Wales. The subsequent cargoes I
unloaded on the beach north of Newcastle or south of Sydney, without
ever feeling that I was in any serious danger of being discovered.
Each time I sent word to Quong Tart where the next load would be put
ashore and about the time I was expected he sent spies to the spot
to see if any officers were hanging around and signal to me if there
was danger of running into a trap. No two cargoes were ever landed at
the same place and only Quong Tart knew where to look for me on the
next trip. When Nourse and Wilson were released from prison the former
scurried across Bass Strait to his old Tasmanian home with the money
I had paid him for so successfully impersonating me. He considered
that he had been well compensated for his compulsory retirement from
active life and expected to invest his capital in some small business,
to which affluent position, under ordinary conditions, he never could
have aspired with any degree of confidence. Wilson’s disposition was to
go back to the sea with me, so I bought the “Nettie H,” a handy little
steamer, and put her into the Chinese smuggling trade. I took command
of the steamer, with Leigh as sailing master, and put Wilson in charge
of the schooner, as I could trust him with the least anxiety. He had
none of Leigh’s love for liquor and the result of his carelessness with
the “Ferret” had made him as careful as a Scot. While the “Nettie H”
was being fitted out, the authorities warned me that they knew what I
was up to and it would go hard with me if they secured proof of their
suspicions, but, knowing they were only shooting in the air, I laughed
at them.
If this business of carrying Chinese under cover had been as
productive of adventure as it was of profits, I would have stuck to it
indefinitely, but it was so absolutely devoid of excitement that it
palled on me. After we had made eight or nine trips, which more than
repaid my financial losses ashore, I withdrew from the trade, with the
idea of returning to the seductive West Indies, where I imagined there
were higher-class operations to be conducted, and more thrilling times
to be found. While I was disposing of my ships and finally closing up
my Australian affairs, I was in Sydney for several weeks and stopped
at the Imperial Hotel, where I met and became well acquainted with
Guy Boothby, the English novelist. Though he dreamed away his inborn
love of adventure, while I industriously practised mine and made it
my life, he was a good deal of a kindred spirit, and in the course of
our numerous long talks I told him enough about my experience with
the Beautiful White Devil, without going into any of the detailed and
intimate facts which have been told in these confessions, so that he
subsequently wove a romance about her, using her sobriquet as a title
for the story.
Accompanied by Leigh and Wilson, who were going only as far as
England, I boarded a steamship for London, on my way back to New York.
It would have been easier and quicker for me to have returned by way of
San Francisco, but I involuntarily selected the roundabout way, to soon
find that it led me into a unique and altogether unexpected experience.