Port Limón
Christmas Eve--Heat as a Stimulant--Essentials to a Good
Sleeper--Sheltering Reefs--Flying-Fish--Port Limón--View of
the Island and Town from the Ship--A Sailing Vessel--The
Piers--Fruits--Sharks--Christmas Festivities of San José--The Great
Flood--Accidents on the Railway--The Graveyard Washout--Two Weeks of
Travel to go a Hundred Miles--Ashore--Almost an Accident--Difficult
Landing--A Negro with an Irish Brogue--Other Negroes--A Cockney
Accent--U. S. Accent--Sun Baths and Shower Baths--The Rainy Season--No
Thunder--An Earthquake--Its Wasted Energy--Population of Limón---The
Fruit Company--The Stores and Business Houses--San Joséans Caught at
Limón by the Washout--Boarding the Boat--Freight-ship Luxury--Arrival
of the Italian Ship--Christmas Dinner on Board--Government Piers--The
Warehouse of the United Fruit Company--Other Houses--Clean
Streets--The Colored Inhabitants--The Race Problem--Vultures--The
Cockpit--The Cock Fight--A Used-up Victor--The Market--Tough
Meat--Saloons--The Hotel and Garden--A Cockatoo--Highballs--Dear S. S.
Limón--Escape from Malaria, Mosquitoes and Yellow Fever.
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS.
OFF PORT LIMÓN, ON S. S. LIMÓN.
10:30 A. M. Saturday, Dec. 24, 1904.
This is Christmas eve, or will be when it is. It required quite a
little will power for me to come into the smoking-room where there is
no breeze, in order to write and swelter, and swelter and write, and
thus do two things at the same time on the same day. I feel like one
bird being killed by two stones.
You, of course, can have no conception of the effect of this tropical
heat upon the nervous energies, for heat is a stimulant, and therefore
not in your line. I formerly imagined that it was a pleasant experience
to be under the influence of a stimulant, but now know that it is not.
It does not make it a bit easier to do what you do not wish to do. I
wonder if science is really correct in calling heat a stimulant, or
if the idea is merely an opinion of scientists who, like women, are
forever changing their minds, and who have but little experience or
sympathy with stimulants?
By night my head is weary from thinking about how happy people are who
live on land, so I promptly fall asleep and stay asleep for seven or
eight hours. The three essentials to a good sleeper are present, viz.,
a relaxed mind, a comfortable stomach and warm feet. The combination
is not to be had at home where the brain, stomach and feet can not get
together.
We were all day Monday from 10:30 A. M. to 6 P. M. in getting out of
the Mississippi River (120 miles or thereabouts) and had smooth sailing
on Tuesday, giving every one a chance to eat three times. On Wednesday
we all dieted three times, being tossed by a troublesome trade-wind
which was to last a week. But it is the unexpected that is always
happening. By noon we ran behind some sheltering reefs off Yucatan
and were suffering only from hunger--which is more easily cured than
seasickness.
The sun was shining and innumerable flying-fish were sporting about the
boat. Instead of sailing through the air as I had seen them represented
in books, they seemed to keep their winglike fins in a constant
flutter, like the wings of hummingbirds, and shone brightly in the
sunlight as they sped over the waves for forty or fifty feet. When
they shot up out of the water they reached a height of two or three
feet, went ahead for a short distance, and gradually sank nearer and
nearer to the water until buried in a rising wave. After gaining the
height acquired by the first impulse as they emerged, they did not seem
able to rise any higher, but occasionally one would strike the crest
of a wave at the end of its flight and give itself an upward turn,
and would thus get a fresh start and take another flight, somewhat
shorter than the first. The large number of them, and their liveliness
and apparently intense enjoyment of the air and sun bath, produced
a decidedly exhilarating effect upon us and added to the joy of not
being seasick. But alas! Great happiness never lasts. The next morning,
Thursday, we were in the open sea again among the swells.
And the swells still continue on the sea as well as in Port Limón,
where we have been anchored since yesterday afternoon. The coast line
is straight and there are no breakwaters for the protection of ships,
except an island by the name of Uvita, which is situated about a
quarter of a mile from the shore. Our ship, two freight steamers and a
sailing vessel are anchored behind it. The island appears oval in shape
and has, I should say, a surface of about six acres. There are reefs at
either end upon which foamy breakers are constantly curling and which,
with the dense tropical forest that covers it, constitute an animated
and pleasing picture. From the ship the town also looks beautiful,
nestling among the cocoa palms and other trees that line the shore, and
forming a pretty fringe to the densely wooded, rising background.
The sailing vessel, which is a large schooner, came in shortly after
we did, and it was an interesting experience to see her handled by
three or four men. She came toward us riding at full speed before
the wind with all sails set. She let down some of them as she came
near us, swung slowly around our stern, let down more sail, pointed
up toward the wind, then let down all sail and dropped anchor just as
she got into position beside us at a conveniently safe distance. The
quickness with which so few men executed these numerous details at the
right moment, and the accuracy with which the ship was maneuvered, with
nothing but the wind as a motor, caused me to realize that there was as
much nicety in managing a ship as in removing an appendix.
If there is no bay at Limón there are at least fine piers. The ships
remain at anchor until the sea is calm, then move up beside the piers
and take on their loads. Coffee and bananas seem to be the principal
exports, although about all kinds of tropical fruits are, or can be,
raised in Costa Rica. Oranges and pineapples are plentiful, but our
Northern apple, which has almost as great a variety of flavors as all
of the tropical fruits put together, is an exotic and a luxury.
We saw a shark foraging about the ship this morning. Usually nothing
but the back fin came in sight as he swam along the surface, although
occasionally he would show his nose. The sailors are fishing for him,
but so far have not had a bite, and I am deprived of an exciting
description. But few in my place would allow the opportunity to pass,
bite or no bite. The captain says that the popular notion that sharks
turn on the back or side when they bite or take anything into the mouth
is a mistaken one. He and others have seen them grab things without
turning. They do not always take time to turn on the side. Like other
animals they bite at things in any old way. But if a shark wishes to
seize a large object that is floating on the surface, he may, if in no
hurry, turn sidewise in order not to have to lift his head out of water
over the object. Or if he wishes to bite a man’s leg he must turn
sidewise in order not to bump his nose against the leg and thus prevent
the mouth, which is quite a distance behind the nose, getting here. But
that he habitually turns on his back or side, like a playful kitten,
in order to eat or commit murder is one of those romantic notions that
people who like to be deceived like to believe. Information that is
novel or absurd attracts attention and spreads widely, and is slow to
be corrected by reason and accurate observation. Natural science still
has many entertaining absurdities to eliminate from its teachings.
But now that I am within sight and touch of the land of promise, the
beautiful Costa Rica, I find myself in a sad plight. I can not get
in. I sailed from New Orleans a week earlier than the other delegates
in order to spend the holiday week at San José, the capital of Costa
Rica and the Paris of Central America, and practice my Spanish and
participate in the revelry. The beautiful city is located up in the
highlands nearly 4,000 feet above the sea level and has a mean yearly
temperature of 68 degrees F., the extremes being 50 and 80 degrees.
Although it has neither a good troupe of actors nor of singers, it has
the finest theater on the continent. It therefore imports an operatic
company from Spain every year for the Christmas holidays, and has a
season of operatic and theatrical performances, mimic bull-fights,
genuine cock-fights, noisy merry-go-rounds, harmless football and
all sorts of Spanish celebrations. All business is suspended and the
people give themselves up to a season of carnival such as Latin nations
delight in. But the wind blew, the rain came, the earth quaked and
the mountains started down toward the sea, carrying away and burying
miles of the only railroad track that led from the Caribbean sea to the
capital. This occurred four days ago, and two feet of water is still
running over the great railroad bridge, which is 620 feet long and
220 feet above the bed of the well-named Reventazon River (Big Buster
River). The wind and rain did about the same thing last year and,
finding that it was easy, repeated its performance this year, only in a
more thorough manner.
The last train that came down from San José had to run through water
that reached almost to the firebox of the engine, and stop occasionally
to chop up huge tree trunks that overlay the track. A train taking
up the imported actors and singers engaged for the Christmas
festivities at San José has not been heard from, and as all telegraphic
communication between the port and the capital is interrupted, it is
not known whether the players are now acting for a living or swimming
for their lives. A trainful of workmen, sent up to see what could be
done to clear the track, was caught in a land slide and buried, engine,
men and all.
Nine inches of rain fell at Limón night before last and carried the
muddy water of the river out into the sea for five miles, coloring it
a light yellow. As we came here we entered this yellow sea before we
sighted Limón, and were in it fully an hour before we arrived in port.
Trees, bunches of bananas and other debris are floating about, and
although the stream that empties into the sea at Limón was a small one,
they say that it is now large enough to float a ship. A portion of the
graveyard here was also washed out, the flood carrying tombstones from
one grave to another and mixing up the bones. However, as far as the
living are concerned this is not a calamity, but a blessing, for the
town has received the washing it needed to prevent the development of
pestilence. The buried negroes don’t know the difference, nor do the
living care. The dead are having a good drying off down below and the
living expect to get one.
My fellow passengers, all of whom are bound for San José, will have to
wait for a passing ship to take them to Colón, then cross the isthmus
by rail to the city of Panama, and wait there for a steamship to take
them up the west coast to Punto Arenas where they can wait for a train
to San José. Whether they will have to stay there very long or not,
depends upon the amount of washing out there has been on the Pacific
side. As the steamers make many stops on the Pacific coast and do not
run very often, the passengers will be on the way between one and two
weeks, according to their luck in catching a boat and a train, instead
of making the overland trip of 103 miles in a few hours by rail, as
they had expected to do.
As for me I will lose the fine Christmas weather in the mountains and
the round of novel entertainments in the Paris of Central America, and
be obliged to spend two weeks instead of one in the hot city of Panama,
which is at sea level, within eight degrees of the equator, and within
two or three degrees of blood heat.
3:30 P. M., Dec. 24, 1904.
We have been ashore. The United Fruit Company sent out a row boat in
which we climbed over the swells for about a quarter of a mile as the
falcon flies, but over half a mile as the row boat climbed up and
coasted down. Getting from the lowered stairway of the ship into the
small boat was a test of good jumping, good judgment and good luck. The
waves as seen from the deck of the ship did not appear over three feet
high from trough to crest, yet the little boat beside the ship sank at
least five feet from the step platform and rose up to it again.
The insurance agent had an excess of confidence in himself, as all
successful insurance agents must have, and went down the steps first,
to show us how. But for once his judgment of risks was poor. As he
jumped at the boat, it sank out of reach and moved from under him.
Luckily he had a business education, which teaches men never to give
up what they have once laid their hands on, and he kept hold of the
railing of the stairway. But his big body had acquired momentum and
had to go, and he swung suspended by his hands over the water, with
his umbrella sticking to him and his coat tails flying, until the boat
rose up beside him and he was pulled into it. A man with less physical
strength and presence of mind would have splashed down into the waves
to frighten sharks and spoil our excursion to Limón. The insurance
agent, however, did not even lose his umbrella, which was not insured
and which he held up in triumph and exultation as soon as the danger
was over. The ladies saw the performance and could not be persuaded
to leave the ship, as their lives were not insured. Some one spoke of
sharks, and they shuddered.
Upon arriving at the pier we were rowed to the landing place, where
again good judgment and gymnastics were required in order to jump on
the lower platform before the boat would sink away, and where good luck
and agility were necessary to enable one to get up on the pier before
the next wave broke over the steps leading up to it.
The first dock hand we saw was a coal-black negro with an Irish brogue
which he used freely. It was a precious combination and gave me a new
sensation. I was sorry that I could not take the combination with me
as a curio. Nearly all of the negroes about the pier were Jamaicans
and had a quaint accent and inflection of voice that was musical and
pleasant to listen to. One of them had acquired a cockney accent and
shocked and instructed us by calling a dollar a “crony” (_corona_), a
highball “a eyeball” and a baked potato “a biked potighto.” I never
realized before how characterless and commonplace our United States
pronunciation really is. It lacks the _bizarrerie_ of the native London
article which has been called by Don G. Seitz “a queer jargon of
misplaced aspirates and vowels interspersed with drawls and growls.”
We have to invent Americanisms and rhetorical barbarities in order to
outdo them.
While ashore we had hot baths in our own perspiration followed by cool
shower baths in the rain, the frequent repetition of which finally
drove us back to the ship. The rainy season is supposed by the calendar
to last from May to November, but the calendar is a theorist, for we
have been having rain from one to five or six times a day, varying from
brief sun-showers to copious rainfalls. On the Caribbean side it rains
both in the rainy and dry seasons, there being only about two months in
the year of dry weather. The rain, however, cools the atmosphere and
the earth, and renders the lowlands near the coast quite comfortable
compared with the Pacific side, where the seasons are more sharply
differentiated, and there is more dry weather. Although I have seen
many showers I have heard no thunder on the Caribbean. The showers come
and go with such rapidity that apparently they have no time to thunder.
Possibly the hot air over such warm water is so uniformly laden with
moisture that electricity does not easily concentrate except at great
heights and is only heard on great occasions. But it is just as well
not to hear it, for it is Southern in temperament and revolutionary
in its methods, and is apt to radically change the existing order of
things.
Limón had an earthquake five days ago at midnight. It frightened
everybody and sent people skipping around in their muddy back yards
clad in flowing white raiment like angels errant, but it did them no
harm. The following lines are copied from the local newspaper: “At
midnight on Monday the entire city was thrown into a state of alarm
by a severe shock of earthquake, the like of which had never been
experienced in Port Limón by the oldest inhabitants. Several private
houses and shops suffered, etc.” At present earthquakes are useless
generators of energy, but if they could be stored up and used to shake
school boys and servant girls out of bed on cold mornings they would
become popular.
Limón has about 3,000 inhabitants, largely negroes from Jamaica, and
is the only Costa Rican port of entry on the Atlantic side. It is
practically a North American town, however, being supported by the
banana business of the United Fruit Company. Near the wharves is the
main building of the company containing the offices and stores. Here
merchandise of all kinds can be bought, from that which is put into
the stomach to that which is worn on the back. The greater part of the
goods, however, come from the United States and, as the Costa Rican
duties are high, one pays about double our retail price at home. The
town has a good-sized hotel, a bank, a well-stocked drug store, two
or three steamboat agencies, a few small stores for the negroes, and
numerous saloons of high and low degree. The large stores and agencies,
as well as all things that pertain to politics, are conducted by
Costa Ricans, many of whom live at San José and come down to Limón
frequently to look after their interests. Several San Joséans came down
just before the washout to attend to business for a day or two, and
will now be obliged to wait here two or three months or make the trip
down to Panama and up the Pacific coast with some of our S. S. Limón
passengers--a just punishment for neglecting the holidays for business.
If I had arrived several days earlier and had gone to San José before
the washout, I should have had to return by way of the Pacific coast,
missing the Medical Congress and arriving home about two weeks after
the end of my journey. Thus the storm saved me, and was a fortunate
occurrence after all.
It is also fortunate that the floods have almost stopped the moving of
bananas from the plantations down to the shore, and that the sea is too
rough for the ships to take on their loads. The S. S. Limón will thus
be obliged to remain at anchor behind the island for a day or two, and
the captain will be able to keep us as boarders until Monday when a
big Italian passenger ship arrives. We have hitherto been longing for
dry land, but now that we are liable to be put on it to live in the
town where the nights are hot, muggy and mosquito-ry, where there is
a complete ice famine, much malaria and a few cases of yellow fever,
we are content to remain on the steamer. The captain says that the sea
is the only place to live on, and from the tropical, semi-infernal
standpoint his view is the right one. Freight-ship accommodations have
become a luxury, which proves that luxury is merely a point of view.
Everything is luxury to some, nothing is luxury to others.
7 A. M., Dec. 26, 1904.
The Italian steamship, our friend in need that is to take us to Colón,
has arrived and will depart this afternoon.
Yesterday we had an enjoyable Christmas dinner which was seasoned by
the fact that we had gone through the hollowing out process of getting
into the tropics by sea, and by the fear that we had more emptiness to
endure before another opportunity for indulgence would present itself.
I often think that the well-known and often-sought sea-appetite is
largely due to a making up for missed and lost meals. We had barley
soup, fish, roast turkey, cold meats, canned peas, canned corn, sliced
tomatoes, strawberry preserves, plum pudding, Washington pie, cheese,
fancy cake, oranges, apples, nuts, raisins, grapes and champagne. After
we had filled the available space in our bodies with this conventional
conglomeration, to whose noxious influence the custom of ages has
rendered the human family more or less immune, the captain took the
insurance agent and myself on shore to see the Christmas festivities.
While climbing the waves in the row boat on the way to the landing
I noticed how well the government piers were built, the posts being
protected by copper sheeting and the edge of the platform surrounded
by heavy iron girders. These iron girders were, however, a sad trial
to the ship captains, for in bad weather they injured the sides of the
ships, and made it almost necessary to wait for a calm sea in order
to move up for a load. The Costa Ricans, of course, put these girders
on their piers to make them last longer and, having a monopoly of the
business, found it profitable to accommodate themselves instead of
their customers.
The warehouse of the United Fruit Company, which stands near the shore,
is a handsome two-story rectangular building composed of windows and
verandas, the upper story being fitted up as lodgings and lounging
quarters for the employees. The principal streets have been filled in
and macadamized, and were washed entirely free of loose dirt and gravel
by the recent rains, with the result that the surface looks like rough
concrete, and is as clean as if it had been scrubbed with scrubbing
brushes by a corps of housemaids. All of the houses except two or
three of the five or six business buildings are one and two-story
frame skeletons, and are thus practically earthquake proof. They could
be rocked like dry-goods boxes without being harmed or rendered more
dilapidated; and if they were rocked over they and their inhabitants
could be replaced at but little expense.
The negroes here are much blacker than those in the United States, many
of them having skin as black and lusterless as soot. Their complexions
are seldom spoiled by white blood. They are the real thing. They are
better natured, more manageable and more interesting than our mulattos,
who are neither one thing nor the other, although in the United States
they claim that they are both things and have in them the best blood
of both races. Slavery was the crime of the South, but it was perhaps
a pardonable one in all except one feature, viz., the mixing of the
races. That act was the sin, and the result is our race problem--a
curse. The white blood of the mulatto longs for its own, and the black
blood of the genuine negro is taught to long for what is not its own.
Vultures hopped about the back yards and perched upon the housetops
ready to eat up the garbage as fast as thrown out. Stagnant water and
dirt abounded, but it seemed to agree as well with the natives as
with the big birds. The sun’s heat reminded us of the heat of some
of our Northern steam-heated houses, and our handkerchiefs were kept
busy drying our faces and necks. So when we found a score of negroes
gathered in the shade about a cockpit we went into the shade to cool
off.
The cockpit was a round space about ten feet in diameter surrounded by
six slender wooden posts supporting the roof and forming a part of a
low wall about three feet high--high enough to keep the fighting cocks
within, but not to obstruct the view of the sports. The surrounding
space was shaded by large trees but not enclosed, being merely a back
yard to which a wide passage between two houses led. There was no
admission fee, the spectators or “betters” standing around the pit
betting on their favorites.
In the fight we saw a medium-sized Spanish rooster, belonging to the
establishment, disable a large one of the same breed with the second
stroke, and kill it with the third. The entertainment was short,
but not sweet. A lance about two and one-half inches long had been
fastened to one of the legs of each bird, the lances being about as
wide and long as the small blade of a large penknife, slightly curved
and acutely pointed. At the second jump the lance of the small rooster
pierced the body of the larger one, who immediately turned sidewise and
sank down. The victor seemed to understand the action of the wounded
bird and was inclined to leave it alone, but the owners set them at
it again. The wounded bird made another great effort, but his abdomen
was this time pierced by the penetrating lance of the victor, which
stuck fast and held him down beside his prostrate victim. The owner
pulled them apart, upon which the wounded bird jerked his leg and wing
convulsively two or three times and expired.
I think that it was an easy death for a fighting cock, although not
as easy as having his neck wrung. He certainly had a much easier time
than the victor of the previous fight, in which artificial spurs had
not been used. The hero stood on a pile of boards nearby without a
feather on his head, neck and thighs, and with his bared skin swollen
and as red as raw beef. He had conquered in a long fight, but in
the process had undoubtedly had a half hour of the most severe and
exhausting punishment. Yet he stood up and looked proudly about him,
like a fighting cock still, unconscious of his loss of beauty and of
usefulness--too naked to fight and too tough to be eaten.
Having seen enough to satisfy our barbarous instincts, and cool off
our enthusiasm but not our bodies, we continued our walk and soon
came to a large centrally located market such as exists in nearly all
Southern towns. Here we saw negroes carrying in freshly killed beef to
be sold the next morning at daybreak, for, on account of the scarcity
of ice, the butchers have to sell their meat almost as soon as killed.
This probably accounts for the unseasoned toughness which is the chief
distinguishing characteristic of tropical beef, although tough beef is
sometimes found in the temperate zones. We afterwards passed several
saloons in which the white young men of the town were playing cards,
and stopped in one of them and drank nauseating luke-warm orangeades.
Even the saloons and the hospitals were out of ice. Our last stop
was at the hotel, a good-sized frame building that backed up to the
seashore and was delightfully cooled by the sea breeze. The front
garden of about three acres was the most beautiful mass of foliage I
have ever seen. Excepting the wide paths, it was almost a solid mass of
loaded orange trees, towering royal palms, foliage plants eight feet
high, flowering trees, and other plants of the richest green, yellow,
orange and variegated coloring.
We passed through the hall into the back yard, which bordered on the
seashore, and sat for a while on the wide porch enjoying the sea breeze
and watching a tame cockatoo; a red, yellow, orange, green, black and
blue parrot, fully a yard in length from the tip of his yellow beak to
the end of his blue and cardinal colored tail. I often wonder if we
Americans are not descendants of the beautiful and loquacious parrot
instead of the gibbering monkey, for our women are so ornamental, and
swearing comes so natural to our men.
While sitting and chatting we had to do the appropriate thing and take
a couple of highballs, for we were joined by some real Costa Ricans,
who take whiskey and White Rock at stated intervals for their health,
particularly when they come down to visit these hot lower regions. When
the time came to go we drank another highball. I left out the whiskey,
for I knew that I had to climb into the boat; but the others, including
the temperate captain, took the universal poison as the Scotch dispense
it. They had the advantage of long practise and experience. My book
knowledge did not help me in practice.
After exercising a great deal of sober good judgment and juvenile
agility, we got safely in and out of the row boat and finally on board
our dear S. S. Limón. We were glad to be again on the boat, which was
clean, cool and provided with ice and icebox meat, and were fortunate
in not being obliged to spend the night in the old dilapidated
worm-eaten hotel, which was full of mosquitoes and hot air, and had
undoubtedly sheltered and shrouded many a case of yellow fever in the
past.