EMIGRATING HOMEWARD
In reality almost as much as in fancy I had entered another world. It
is chiefly in retrospect that a journey through Spain, as through
Palestine, brings home to the traveler the full difference between those
gaunt regions of the earth and the world to which he is accustomed.
Here the change was like that from a squatter's cabin, a bachelor's
quarters to a residence of opulence.
Arrived while the day was still in its prime at St. Jean Pied de Port, I
found myself undecided how to continue. The rescuing forty dollars
awaited me--postal errors precluded--in Bordeaux; but Baedeker having
now become mere lumber, I had no means of knowing which of two routes to
follow to that city. I halted to make inquiries of an old Spaniard
drowsing before his shop--so like one of mine own people he seemed amid
this babble of French. But though he received me with Castilian
courtesy he could give me no real information. Under the awning of a
cafe a hundred paces beyond, two well-dressed men were sipping cooling
drinks. Their touring-car stood before the building, and not far away,
in the shade of an overhanging shoulder of the Pyrenees, loitered a
chauffeur, in all the accustomed accoutrements of that genus. He had
the appearance of an obliging fellow. I strolled across to him, hastily
summoning up my dormant French.
"Monsieur," I began, "vous me pardonnerez, mais pour aller d'ici a
Bordeaux vaut il mieux passer par Bayonne ou bien par Mont de--"
He was grinning at me sheepishly and shifting from one leg to the other.
As I paused he blurted out:
"Aw, I don't talk no French!"
"Then I suppose it 'll have to be English," I answered, in the first
words of that language I had spoken in ninety-six days--and in truth
they came with difficulty.
"Go' bly' me!" burst out the astounded knight of the steering-wheel.
"'Ow ever 'd you get in this corner o' the world? Say, I ayn't said
more 'n 'yes, sir' or 'no, sir' to their lordships--" with a slight jerk
of the head toward the men under the awning--"in so long I 've bally
near forgot 'ow. 'Ere it is Sunday an'--"
"Saturday," I interrupted.
"Sunday, I say," repeated the chauffeur, drawing out a card on which
were penciled many crude crosses. "Ere 's 'ow I keep track--"
"Senora," I asked, turning to a woman who was filling a pitcher at a
hydrant behind me, "que dia tenemos hoy?"
Her lip curled disdainfully as she answered:
"Tiens! Vous me croyez un de ces barbares-la?"--tossing her head toward
the mountain range behind us.
"Mille pardons," I laughed. "Force of habit. This monsieur and I are
disputing whether to-day is Saturday or Sunday."
"Out again without your nurses!" she cried sarcastically. "Saturday, of
course."
"Now 'ear that!" said the chauffeur, almost tearfully, when I
interpreted. "'Ow ever can a man keep track of anything in this bally
country? Say, what was that question you was tryin' to ask me?"
"I 'm walking from Gib to Bordeaux," I remarked casually, and repeated
my former inquiry. His expression changed slowly from incredulity to
commiseration. Suddenly he thrust a hand into his pocket.
"I say, won't you 'ave a mite of a lift? Why, we took near all
yesterday to come from that place. You couldn't walk there in a month."
"No, thanks, I 'm fairly well heeled," I answered.
"Better 'ave a yellow-boy," he persisted, drawing out several English
sovereigns. "Lord, you 're more 'n welcome, y' know. They ayn't no
bloomin' use to me 'ere!"
At that moment I noted that the milords under the awning had spread out
before them a large touring map, and I left the chauffeur gasping at my
audacity as I stepped across to them. The older was struggling to give
an order to the waiter, who crouched towel on arm over them. There is a
strange similarity between a full-grown Briton attempting to speak
French and a strong man playing with a doll.
"Beg pawdon, gentlemen," I said, when I had helped them out of the
difficulty, "but would you mind my glancing at your map? I want to
find--"
"Ah--why, certainly," gasped one of the startled nobles.
But even with the chart before me I was no nearer a decision, for the
two roads appeared of almost equal length. As I turned away, however, a
poster on a nearby wall quickly settled my plans. It announced a great
bullfight in Bayonne the next afternoon, with Quinito, Mazzatinito, and
Regaterm, among the most famous of Spain's matadores--far more so than
any it had been my fortune to see in that country.
I sped away at once along a macadamed highway at the base of the
Pyrenees beside a clear river--a mere "riviere" to the French, but one
that would have been a mighty stream in Spain. Its banks were thickly
grown with willows. On the other hand the mountain wall, no less green,
rose sheer above me, bringing an unusually early sunset. Along the way
I met several old men, all Basques, who noting that I also wore the
boina greeted me in their native "Euscarra." Not a word of any other
tongue could they speak; and when I shook my head hopelessly at their
hermetical language, they halted to gaze after me with expressions of
deep perplexity. So, too, in the mountain-top village of Bidarry to
which I climbed long after dark after a dip in the river, all speech was
Basque; though some of the younger inhabitants, finding I was of their
race only from the cap upward, fell to talking to me in fluent French or
Spanish.
The first hours of the following clay were in the highest degree
pleasant. Thereafter the country grew hilly, the sun torrid, and as I
was forced to set the sharpest pace to reach the bullring by four. I put
in as dripping a half-day as at any time during the summer; and I have
yet to be more nearly incinerated in this life than in the sol of the
great "Place des Taureaux" of Bayonne, crushed between a workman in
corduroys and a Zouave in the thickest woolen uniform the loom weaves.
The fight, like the ring, was Spanish in every particular, though the
programmes were printed in French. It was by all odds the greatest
corrida I was privileged to attend during the summer, for the three
matadores stand in the front rank of their profession. Yet it was
somehow far less exhilarating than those I had seen in Spain. One had a
feeling that these past masters were running far less risk than their
younger colleagues; one enjoyed their dexterity as one enjoys a seasoned
public speaker, yet the performance lacked just the thrill of
amateurishness.
Here, too, I saw Spain's greatest picador, the only one indeed I ever
saw accomplish what the picador is supposed to do,--to hold off the bull
with his _garrocha_. This he did repeatedly, placing his lance so
unerringly that he stopped the animal's most furious charges and forced
him to retire bellowing with rage and with blood trickling down over his
shoulders. In all the afternoon this king of the pike-pole had but one
horse killed under him. It was in connection with this one fall that
Quinito, the boldest of the matadores, won by his daring such applause
as seemed to shake the Pyrenees behind us. Moreno lay half buried under
his dead horse, in more than imminent danger of being gored to death by
the bull raging above him. In vain the anxious caudrilla flaunted their
cloaks. All at once Quinito stepped empty handed into the ring and
caught the animal by the tail. Away the brute dashed across the plaza,
twisting this way and that, but unable to bring his horns nearer than an
inch or two of his tormentor who, biding his time, let go and vaulted
lightly over the barrier.
I quitted Bayonne with the dawn and for four days following marched
steadily on across the great Landes of France. Miles upon miles the
broad highway stretched unswerving before me through an ultra-flat
country between endless forests of pine. On the trunk of every tree hung
a sort of flowerpot to catch the dripping pitch. There was almost no
agriculture, nothing but pine-trees stretching away in regular rows in
every direction, a solitude broken only by the sighing of the wind
sweeping across the flatlands, where one could shout to the full
capacity of one's lungs without awakening other response than long
rolling echoes. Once in a while a pitch-gatherer flitted among the
trees; less often the highway crossed a rusty and apparently trainless
railroad at the solitary stations of which were tumbled hundreds of
barrels of pitch.
My shoes wore out, those very oxfords "custom-made" in America and
honestly tapped in Toledo, and I was forced to continue the tramp in
alpargatas, or what had here changed their name to _sandales_. As my
twenty-franc piece melted away a wondering began to grow upon me whether
I was really homeward bound after all; so myriad are the mishaps that
may befall a mere letter.
Still the unswerving road continued, the endless forests stretched
ahead. Such few persons as I met scowled at me in the approved French
fashion, never once imitating the cheery greeting of the Spaniard. Now
and again a man-slaughtering automobile tore by like some messenger to
or from, the infernal regions, recalling by contrast one of the chief
charms of the land I had left behind. Hardly one of those destroyers of
peace and tranquillity had I seen or heard in all Spain.
Four months afoot had not improved my outward appearance. It was not
strange that the post-office officials of Bordeaux stared at me long and
suspiciously when I arrived at length one afternoon with a single franc
in my pocket. The letter was there. When I had, after the unwinding of
endless red tape, collected the amount of the order, my journey seemed
over indeed.
The "Agents Maritimes" to whom I applied accepted me readily enough as
an emigrant to America, agreeing to pick me up in Bordeaux and set me
down unstarved in New York for the net sum of two hundred and three
francs. But there came a hitch in the proceedings. The agent was
firing at me with Gaelic speed the questions prescribed by our exacting
government--"Name?" "Age?" "Profession?"--and setting down the answers
almost before I gave them, when:
"Have you contracted to work in the United States?"
"Oui, monsieur."
He stopped like a canvas canoe that has struck a snag.
"C'est impossible," he announced, closing his book of blanks with a
thump. "We cannot of course sell you a ticket."
I plunged at once into an explanation. I advanced the information that
the contract labor law was not framed to shut out American citizens. I
protested that I had already toiled a year under the contract in
question, and for my sins must return to toil another. I made no
headway whatever.
"It is the law of the United States," he snapped. "Voila! C'est assez."
Luckily I had a day to spare. By dint of appealing to every maritime
authority in the city I convinced the agent at last of his error. But
it was none too soon. With my bundle and ticket in one hand and a sort
of meal-sack tag to tie in my lapel--if I so chose--in the other, I
tumbled into the night train for Paris just as its wheels began to turn.
Emigrant tickets are not good in France by day. There was one other
tagged passenger in the compartment, a heavy-mannered young peasant
likewise wearing a boina. Being thus drawn together we fell gradually;
into conversation. He was at first exceeding chary, with the two-fold
canniness of the Basque and of the untraveled rustic whose native
village has warned him for weeks to beware wily strangers. When I
displayed my ticket, however, he lost at once his suspicion and, drawing
out his own, proposed that we make the journey as partners. He was
bound for Idaho. We did not, however, exchange ideas with partner-like
ease, for though he had passed his twenty-five years in the province of
Guipuzcoa he spoke little Spanish.
Near midnight a few passengers alighted and I fell into a cramped and
restless sort of dog-sleep from which I awoke as we screamed into
Versailles. When we descended at the Montparnasse station we were
joined by three more Basques from another compartment. They, too, wore
boinas and, like my companion, in lieu of coats, smocks reaching almost
to the knees. They were from near Pamplona and had tickets from
Bordeaux to Fresno, California, having taken this route to avoid the
difficulties of leaving Spain by sea.
The Paris agent of the "American Line" did not meet us in silk hat and
with open arms; but when we had shivered about the station something
over an hour an unshaven Italian of forty, with lettered cap and a
remarkable assortment of unlearned tongues picked us up and bore us away
by omnibus to his "Cucina Italiana" in the Passage Moulin. Breakfast
over, I invited my fellow-emigrants to view Paris under my leadership.
They accepted, after long consultation, and we marched away along the
Rue de Lyon to the site of the Bastille, then on into the roar of the
city, the Spaniards so helplessly overwhelmed by the surrounding sights
and sounds that I was called upon times without number to save them
being run down. At length we crossed to the island and, the morgue
being closed, entered Notre Dame. I had hitherto credited Catholic
churches with being the most democratic of institutions. Hardly were we
inside, however, when a priest steamed down upon my companions.
"Sortez de suite!" he commanded. "Get out! How dare you enter the
sacred cathedral in blouses!"
The Basques stared at him open-mouthed, now and then nervously wiping
their hands on the offending smocks. I passed on and they followed,
pausing where I paused, to gape at whatever I looked upon. The priest
danced shouting about them. They smiled at him gratefully, as if they
fancied he were explaining to them the wonders of the edifice. His
commands grew vociferous.
"Ces messieurs, sir," I remarked at last, "are Spaniards and do not
understand a word of French."
"You then, tell them to get out at once!" he cried angrily.
"You must pardon me, monsieur," I protested, "if I do not presume to
appoint myself interpreter to your cathedral."
We continued our way, strolling down one nave to the altar, sauntering
back along the other toward the entrance, the priest still prancing
about us. In the doorway the Basques turned to thank him by signs for
his kindness and backed away devoutedly crossing themselves.
At the Louvre, however, the smock-wearers were halted at the door by two
stocky officials, and we wandered on into the Tuileries Gardens. There
the quartet balked. These hardy mountaineers, accustomed to trudge all
day on steep hillsides behind their burros, were worn out by a few miles
of strolling on city pavements. For an hour they sat doggedly in a
bench before I could cajole them a few yards further to the Place de la
Concorde to board a Seine steamer and return to the Cucina. I left them
there and returned alone to while away the afternoon among my old haunts
in the Latin Quarter.
Soon after dark the razorless son of Italy took us once more in tow and,
climbing to the imperial of an omnibus, we rolled away through the
brilliant boulevards to the gare St. Lazare. Here was assembled an army
of emigrants male and female, of all ages and various distances from
their last soaping. In due time we were admitted to the platform. A
third-class coach marked "Cherbourg" stood near at hand. I stepped upon
the running-board to open a door. A station official caught me by the
coat-tail with an oath and a violence that would have landed me on the
back of my head but for my grip on the door handle. Being untrained to
such treatment, I thrust out an alpargata-shod foot mule-fashion behind
me. The official went to sit down dejectedly on the further edge of the
platform. By and by he came back to shake his fist in my face. I spoke
to him in his own tongue and he at once subsided, crying:
"Tiens! I thought you were one of those animals there."
We were finally stuffed into four cars, so close we were obliged to lie
all night with our legs in one another's laps. The weather was arctic,
and we slept not a wink. Early in the morning we disentangled moody and
silent in Cherbourg. Another unshaven agent took charge of my
companions' baggage with the rest, promising it should be returned the
moment they were aboard ship. I clung skeptically to my bundle. We
were herded together in a tavern and served coffee and bread, during the
administration of which the agent collected our tickets and any proof
that we had ever possessed them, and disappeared. The day was wintry
cold. All the morning we marched shivering back and forth between the
statue of Napoleon and the edge of the beach, the teeth of the
south-born Basques chattering audibly. At noon we jammed our way into
the tavern again for soup, beef and poor cider, and were given
rendezvous at two at one of the wharves.
By that hour all were gathered. It was after four, however, when a
tender tied up alongside. A man stepped forth with an armful of tickets
and began croaking strange imitations of the names thereon. I heard at
last a noise that sounded not altogether unlike my own name and, no one
else chancing to forestall me, marched on board to reclaim my
credentials. A muscular arm thrust me on through a passageway in which
a Frenchman in uniform caught me suddenly by the head and turned up my
eyelids with a sort of stiletto. Before I could double a fist in
protest another arm pushed me on. At six a signal ran up, we steamed out
through the breakwater, and were soon tumbling up the gangway of the
steamer _New York_. At the top another doctor lay in wait, but
forewarned, I flung open my passport, and flaunting it in his face,
stepped unmolested on deck.
Some four hundred third-class passengers had boarded the steamer in
England, and no small percentage of the berths were already occupied.
Unlike the nests of the _Prinzessin_, however, they might reasonably be
called berths, for though they offered no luxury, or indeed privacy,
being two hundred in a section, the quarters were ventilated,
well-lighted, and to a certain extent clean. I stepped to the nearest
unoccupied bunk and was about to toss my bundle into it when a young
steward in shirt-sleeves and apron sprang at me.
"No good, John," he shouted, in Cockney accents and striving to add
force to his remarks by a clumsy pantomime. "Berth take. No more. No
good, John. All gone. But--" jerking his head sidewise--"Pst! John!
I know one good berth. One dollar--" holding up a hand with forefinger
and thumb in the form of that over-popular object--"All take, Joh--"
"Say, what t'ell's the game, anyhow, mate?" I interrupted.
His legs all but wilted under him.
"Sye, ol' man," he cried, patting me on the shoulder. "S'elp me, I took
you for one o' these waps, as why shouldn't I, in that there sky-piece
an' make-up? Of course you can 'ave the berth. Or sye, over 'ere by the
port'ole's a far 'an'somer one. There y' are. Now, mite, if ever I can
'elp you out--" and he was still chattering when I climbed again on
deck.
Unfortunately, in the rough and tumble of embarking I had lost sight of
the Spaniards. When I found them again every berth was really taken,
for there was a shortage--or rather considerably more than the legal
number of tickets had been sold; and the quartet, having withstood the
blackmail, were among those unprovided. That night they slept, if at
all, on the bare deck. Next day I protested to the third-class steward
and he spread for them two sacks of straw on a lower hatch. There, too,
the icy sea air circulated freely. Worst of all, in spite of the solemn
promises of the agent, their bags, in which they had packed not only
blankets and heavier garments, but meat, bread, fruit, cheese, and botas
of wine sufficient to supply them royally during all the journey, had
been stowed away in the hold. For two days they showed, after the
fashion of emigrants, no interest in gastronomic matters. When appetite
returned they could not eat American--or rather English food. "No hay
ajos!--It has no garlic!" they complained. Once or twice I acted as
agent between them and an under cook who sneaked out of the galley with
a roast chicken under his jacket, but they grew visibly leaner day by
day.
On the whole steerage life on the New York was endurable. The
third-class fare was on a par with most English cooking,--well-meant but
otherwise uncommendable. The tables and dishes were moderately clean,
the waiters, expecting a sixpence tip at the end of the passage, were
almost obliging. In the steerage dining-room, large and airy, was a
piano around which we gathered of an evening to chat, or to croak
old-fashioned songs. Here it was that I felt the full force of my long
total abstinence from English. It was days before I could talk
fluently; many a time my tongue clattered about a full half-minute in
quest of some quite everyday word.
On the fourth day out the oldest of the Spaniards appealed to me for the
twentieth time to intercede for them with the third-class steward.
"Hombre," I answered, "it is useless; I have talked myself hoarse. Go
to him yourself and it may have some effect."
"But he understands neither Castilian nor Euscarra!" cried the Basque.
"No matter," I replied. "He is a man in such and such a uniform. When
you run across him touch him on the sleeve and lay your head sidewise on
your hand--the pantomime for sleep the world over--and he will remember
your case."
An hour or more afterward I was aroused from reading a book in an
alleyway aft by the third-class steward.
"I say," he cried, "will you come and see what the bloomin' saints is
biting these Spanish chaps? They ayn't no one else can chin their
lingo."
I followed him forward. Before the dispensary stood a wondering and
sympathetic group, in the center of which was the Basque making wry
faces and groaning, and the ship's surgeon looking almost frightened.
"What's up?" I asked.
"Blow me if I know!" cried the medicine-man. "This chap comes and
touches me on the arm and holds his hand against his cheek. I gave him
a dose for toothache, and the beggar 's been howling ever since. Funny
sort of creatures."
The Spaniards got no berth during the voyage, though I carried their
appeal in person to the captain. They were still encamped on the lower
hatch on the morning when the land-fever drew us on deck at dawn. Soon
appeared a light-ship, then land, a view of the charred ruins of Coney
Island, then a gasp of wonder from the emigrants as the sky-scrapers
burst on their sight. We steamed slowly up the harbor, checked by mail,
custom, and doctor's boats, and tied up at a wharf early in the
afternoon. Rain was pouring. I appeared before a commissioner in the
second cabin to establish my nationality, bade the Basques farewell as
they were leaving for Ellis Island, and scudded away through the deluge.
In my pocket was exactly six cents. I caught up an evening paper and
with the last coin in hand dived down into the Subway.
The Summer's Expense Account:
Transportation ................... $90.
Food and Lodging ................. 55.
Bullfights, sights, souvenirs .... 10.
Miscellaneous .................... 17.
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$172