CURAÇAO. CITY OF WILLEMSTAD
I.
Small wonder indeed that the early explorers, the men to whom we owe the
discovery of these island gems, gave them such charmingly poetical
names. Small wonder that they named them as one would a necklace of
deep-sea pearls, strung as they are one upon another in a circlet about
the blue Caribbean Sea, the shadow of one velvety peak throwing its dark
coolness fairly to the base of sister isles, some but a few hours
distant, others perhaps a day, across seas as blue and green and limpid
as the ether above. It seems incredible that from these peaceful waters
rise the vast, cyclonic storms which frequently make such desolation on
our coasts; and that within the green and softly moulded outlines of
some of these mountainous islands there lie volcanic craters which
still grumble and threaten; but, as there are times and seasons for all
things, so there seems to be an ordering for the giant winds to rage,
when the sun is dyed its deepest, and the earth pants for want of drink
to moisten her quivering lips. But that time of unrest is far away now,
and, as we leave Puerto Cabello and its quiet harbour, bound for
Curaçao, and drop below the horizon the cocoanut-fringed shores of the
Spanish Main, it seems as if it must ever be on unruffled seas and
toward peaceful havens that the islanders voyage back and forth.
Surely it is not more than the turning once over in sleep before, with
the morning breeze fresh in our nostrils, we are right upon the dear
little Dutch city of Willemstad, the capital of the Dutch West Indies on
the island of Curaçao; and, once ashore, we long to lodge indefinitely
behind the spotless white curtains that peek out from under some snug
little peaked roof, shifting scenes only when the impulse to go farther
comes over us; and then sailing away in one of the little packet
schooners which coast along from island to island, or possibly, taking
passage in a mail steamer, or anything bound anywhere, just so it does
not come blundering along before we are ready.
There should be no words for days and hours in the tropics. Time should
be measured by enjoyments in changeful measure, slow and fast, as one's
mood demands. Rigid hours are obtrusive where the rustle of the
cocoa-palm invites rest.
II.
The little girls and I are hurrying into our hair ribbons and our white
petticoats and white waists and white hats, just as fast as our fingers
can tie or button, when Curaçao jumps into our cabin windows, or maybe
our ship has jumped into Curaçao; or is it Holland we have dropped upon,
or is it a new stage-setting for the latest _al fresco_ production of
"The Flying Dutchman?"
We no sooner have our first glimpse than, for a bit, all the dressing
stops, and we crowd our three heads up to the port-holes in perfect
delight. As our slim ship slowly winds herself into the river-like
harbour, this West Indian Holland becomes more and more enchanting. The
harbours in these islands have been an increasing wonder to us. On the
Venezuelan coast Puerto Cabello (translated literally, "The Port of the
Hair," because there it was said a hair would hold a ship) is a perfect
example of a harbour for small vessels. Deep, natural channels--like
rivers--wind circuitously until they widen into land-locked basins where
ships of all nations, and of all rigs, and for all purposes, from the
grim war-ship to the native dugout, come unexpectedly into sight as the
channel turns and broadens into the real harbour. There the ship is left
by the native pilot.
This harbour of Curaçao is no exception. We enter by a narrow, deep way
protected by rocky barriers, directly into a little inner bay, encircled
by the quaint town. The houses gliding by, within easy hailing distance
of our decks, are preëminently Dutch, of brilliant, striking colouring,
noticeably yellow, and mathematically exact as to rows and heights and
proportions--most un-West-Indian. The town is certainly just recovering
from a fresh coat of kalsomine. It is bright as a top and clean as a
whistle.
[Illustration: ACROSS STE. ANNE BAY
Harbour of Willemstad, Curaçao
Copyright, 1901, by Detroit Photographic Co.]
We are but a stone's throw from either dock, and it requires a lot of
common sense, even downright logic, to persuade us that we are in the
Caribbean Sea, and not far off on the other side of the globe coming out
of the flat estuaries of the bleak North Sea into the Meuse or the Y.
A bit of Holland has been lost from out Mother Earth's pocket, and has
fallen by the way in this Western Hemisphere; and it has managed to get
along without the big Dutch mother very well. It has grown up into full
stature, following the instincts of its birth, almost wholly
uninfluenced by tropical environment. Here it stands, a perfect little
Dutchman, an exact reproduction of its staunch progenitors. Its forms
and habits have followed the traditions of its ancestors, not those of
its West Indian foster-mother. There is only one racial trait lacking in
Curaçao,--we saw no windmills; all the rest is there. But, to our great
relief, we are told that even the windmills appear on the country places
farther inland.
III.
The arrival of our ship awakens the Yellow City early in the morning,
and, before our boats are lowered, the shore is white with crowds of
Curaçaoans, big and little, pushing and jostling each other for a sight
of us. Our breakfast is done with in short order. A hurried bit of
fruit, a quick swallow of boiling coffee, a fresh roll, and up we
scramble to the deck. So it is invariably, as we near a port. Each time
we come upon an island more curious, more irresistible than any we have
seen before. We may be sighting it first as we refresh our bodies with a
bath of the clear salt water from without, warmed into the most
delicious mildness by the eternal smile of the sun. Then comes a
scramble to dress, then a bolt to the dining-room, where we eat and run.
Now, in pops a big "if." If we were only snoozing in a Dutch
four-poster, with a frilled nightcap on, under a peaked roof in
Willemstad, then we'd never need to hurry, for all we'd have to do would
be to open our eyes and look around, and wait for the coffee to come
with a rap at the door and a lifting of the curtain. But there is small
comfort in listening to the endless schemes of that miscreant "if."
We'll banish him in disgrace.
[Illustration: SOME OF OUR FRIENDS AT WILLEMSTAD]
[Illustration: WHERE THE BASKET-WOMEN WAITED
Willemstad, Curaçao]
Before we have time to readjust our impressions of one island to
the anticipated pleasures of the one following, we are among a new
people, speaking a strange tongue, living to us a new life,--to them a
weather-worn old life; among people in densely populated cities, shut
off from our world by weeks--at times by months--of silent isolation.
Then all at once a fleck of smoke lifts above the horizon, a steamer is
sighted far out at sea, the pilot puts out in his little open boat, and
the whole island throbs with new emotion, for a ship is coming!
From a poetical standpoint, I wish it were possible to believe that this
emotion is a disinterested pleasure in welcoming strangers; in feeling
once again the hand of man from the great world outside. Viewing the
people, as we must, largely from an impersonal standpoint, it impressed
us that the West Indian cares very little for the welcome or for the
hand of man from the great continent; but that he is up early in the
morning to devise new ways of reaching the pockets of the invaders, come
they ever so peaceably.
The natives await the coming of strangers, as a pack of hungry wolves
watch for the shorn lamb. I myself have been that shorn lamb on several
occasions.
[Illustration: THE LANDING
Willemstad, Curaçao]
Quite undaunted by the great crowd of Curaçaoans on shore, our jackies
made a cable fast to the near-lying quay, by which means our big boats
are pulled back and forth, to and from the ship. Those coming to us
bring the sellers of baskets; and it is here, although forewarned and
forearmed, that our basket mania again breaks forth in full force. First
came the famous Curaçaoan nests of baskets, of which Charles Kingsley
confesses to have been beguiled into buying; and, if so wise a man as he
fell victim to the wiles of the Curaçaoan basket-woman, how much more
readily would we weaker mortals become her prey? Then, ranged
temptingly, along the dock stood rows of Curaçaoan hampers,--great,
fine, coloured affairs, which we looked at, and looked at, and looked
at, and didn't buy. Then, beside the basket-women, were the men with
fans and all sorts of straw weavings,--and then, oh! the work-boxes.
Truly, you have seen them! Has not your grandmother stowed away in
the dark attic somewhere an old mahogany box, inlaid with ivory and
brass and coloured woods, with fascinating secret drawers and numerous
lids for the hiding of her precious keepsakes and age-worn trinkets?
Such a box is one of the chaste memories of my childhood,--Grandmother's
mahogany box, with the inlaid lid and the musty odour of bygone years.
When we found these same dear old boxes away down in Curaçao, the worn,
hingeless, forsaken chest in the attic arose into a new dignity--into
the dignity of a noble family lineage. So I have found at last its
_habitat_, and these bright and gleaming creations are great-great--and
no end to great--grandchildren of my far-away, lonely relic in the
attic. But sentiment has to give way to reason, and we shake our heads
at the box-man and the hamper-woman, who, nevertheless, follow us up to
the bridge from the Otra-Banda shore over the canal, whence they watch
dejectedly while we pay bridge-toll and disappear across the canal into
the narrow Dutch streets, where the high roofs seem ready to topple over
upon us.
IV.
What a picture of Dutch colonial life comes to us in that short walk!
The overreaching eaves all but touch. Old lanterns swing across the
narrow way, wrought-iron sign-posts reach long arms out over our heads,
the shop doors are wide open, and the keepers of the shops could readily
shake hands across the way.
I wonder if there is any excuse at all for the fact that my preconceived
ideas about Curaçao were wholly founded upon a very indistinct memory of
a certain liquid of that name, said to be distilled upon this island
from the wild sour orange? I expected to find this ambrosial nectar
stacked in rows in every shop, in bottles, long and slim, chunky, dumpy,
and round; in nice little flat bottles,--gifts for bachelor friends; in
ornamented fancy bottles for envying housewives; in thick, pudgy,
squatty bottles for gouty old uncles; in every conceivable shape and
size I expected to find it.
Willemstad was not to be Willemstad--city, town, burg--it was to be an
inhabited flask of curaçao, a kind of West Indian bubble blown from the
lips of the Northeast Trades, sweet with the breath of wild orange. The
man with the bottles was to be a more subtle tempter than the
hamper-woman, and--but it didn't happen that way at all. It turned out
very differently.
I, for one, did not see a single bottle of any shape or form in the
whole town, but the men must have found some, for just before sailing a
box was brought in, labelled "Curaçao," and I surmised it was liqueur,
but I didn't open the box. Truly I did not!
Some of us cynically argued that the liqueur was all sent in from
somewhere else and palmed off as a native product; others clung to the
home-production fancy, and yet neither one was altogether wrong, for the
famous liqueur is made both in Holland and in this little Dutch colony
away off in the New World; at any rate this is its birthplace and home.
But the gold filigree, for which the islanders are famous, was true to
our expectations. We are drawn up the shut-in street by the magnetism of
a crowd which is gathering about a shop-door, and filling the tiny place
fairly to suffocation with eager buyers of gold rings and pins, and all
sorts of trinkets.
We turn from the goldsmith and the seller of corals, and the shops, and
make for the tram,--a little, two-seated bandbox on wheels, drawn by a
two-penny mule on a tiny track through the clean white streets of
Curaçao. We are told that there is a law against the painting of the
houses white, on account of the blinding glare of the sun, and no
wonder, for, even after a few short hours of wandering, our eyes ache
with the strain and glare of so great light. The blue houses are an
exquisite rest to the eye. The whole colour scheme of Curaçao is yellow
and blue, and sometimes light green, with white used sparingly as
decoration. Green, the green of trees and grass, you ask? No. I said
nothing of the green of nature. It's too thoroughly Dutch for that.
The bandbox car hitches along, threatening to topple over any minute on
the toy donkey and stop,--at least until sundown, which would be most
sensible. Let's cover up the donkey and get out of the glare until
night! But, no! He has his own ideas, and experience has taught us the
futility of an attempt to change them, so we settle down to the
succession of yellow houses and blue houses, and white pillars and clean
flights of white steps, but hardly a peep of green, not a sprig of palm,
or tamarind, or orange, not a vestige of the great fundamental
nature-colour--except in a well-concealed little park--everything paved
and finished and whitewashed--only a few prim and well-pruned shrubs
carefully set in either corner of the tiny front yards, and our eyes
ache for the sight of trees and grass. Where the wild orange grows, we
failed to discover, for the town itself is almost entirely bare of trees
or flowers. Of course, it must be remembered that our very short stay
made any long excursion into the country out of the question. Let us
come again; we must find the wild oranges!
Strange, is it not? No shade whatever in latitudes where the growing of
great vegetation is but the matter of a few months. As far as we could
see, there were no real trees in Willemstad; still, if palms do not grow
in Holland, whatever would be the sense in having them here? They would
spoil the likeness.
So we jerk our hats down, readjust the dark glasses, tuck our
handkerchiefs under our collars, and start up a breeze with a Curaçaoan
fan, and decide to play "Jack-in-the-box" and jump out; primarily, to
make straight for our ship to escape the midday sun; secondarily, to
take one very impressionable member of our party away from the alarming
charms of a stunning Curaçaoan woman--a woman of that noble and grandly
developed type which often appears in the descendants of the
Dutch--whose comely form occupies a goodly share of the bandbox seat.
The streets in this residence part of the city are still and empty. The
penny donkey and "we'uns" are the only live things visible. We are
seized with a desire to pound on those eternally closed doorways to see
if people really do live there. This seeing things on the outside is no
fun. Let's make a sensation of some kind! Upset the bandbox, roll the
plump lady in a heap inside; put on the cover; stand the penny donkey on
top; capture some Curaçaoan hampers, jump inside, pull down the lid and
play forty thieves.
[Illustration: A JOLLY DUTCH PORT
Willemstad, Curaçao]
But, no,--we are sworn foes to scenes, and our vain wish to pinch
somebody dies unsatisfied; and finally, when the penny donkey comes to
the end of the route down by the quay, we take the longest way around,
through the narrow thoroughfares, following the curve of the shore, over
bridges which span the canals leading from the main channel of the
harbour, down past the basket-woman with her tempting wares on the
Otra-Banda quay to our floating home, where the governor and all the
prominent citizens of Willemstad have assembled in great numbers.
Well, we've found out one thing. The houses were empty sure enough. The
people are all on our ship. What a good thing it was we left the bandbox
right side up! There would have been no one to rescue the plump lady.
V.
Our friends, Mr. and Mrs. U----, come toward us with a group of
strangers--Curaçaoan--whose acquaintance happened just as the best
things of life come to us--by the merest chance. They were driving about
the city in company with the American consul, when, in passing one of
the most attractive residences, their attention was drawn toward two
young women who were standing out on the veranda, waving a great
flag--our Stars and Stripes--in utter disregard of heat and sun; waving
it forth in the yellow and white glare with all the love of country and
home which motion could express. Their enthusiasm at once called forth a
response on the part of the visitors; the carriage stopped and forthwith
all the occupants of the house, following the two girls with the flag,
came to welcome the strangers. The newcomers were bidden to enter and
there was no limit to their hospitable entertainment.
The flag-bearers were two homesick Southern girls, married to the sons
of a leading Dutch family. They had not visited their native land since
their marriage, and, oh! how they longed to see the dear old South
again! When their countrymen set foot at Curaçao, all of the slumbering
mother-country love broke forth again, and the old flag came out, and
they feasted the strangers, and did their utmost to honour the precious
sentiment of loyalty to home. And, after the ices and cooling drinks and
fruits and confections, they and their friends were invited aboard
ship, where it was our pleasure to make their acquaintance.
We find here, as we have in all the other islands, that the leading
families--the men in power--are comparatively pure representatives of
the original colonising stock; that is, pure Dutch, Dane, Castilian,
French, as the case may be; but that the people are a strange mixture of
all nationalities, speaking languages for the most part unwritten,
handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, strangely
intangible, and yet as fixed and well recognised among the people as is
the old Common Law in the courts of Anglo-Saxon countries. Our friends
in Curaçao tell us that the well-born natives speak Dutch, English,
Spanish, and often French, with equal facility; added to this is another
language which must be learned in order to deal with the common people.
This curious language--"_Papaimiento_," it is called--has been reduced
to a certain degree of form in order to facilitate its being taught in
the schools. Children learn this language from their nurses, just as our
Southern children acquire the negro dialect from the old "mammies." The
comparison cannot be carried out to its full extent for the reason that,
while our negro dialect bears a close and intelligible likeness to
English, _Papaimiento_ is so unlike Dutch as to render its acquisition
almost as difficult for a Dutchman as that of any other foreign
language, but fortunately the Dutch are good linguists. It bears, of
course, some likeness to Dutch in the fundamentals, but aside from that,
it is a strange combination of speech--perhaps more Spanish than
anything else--put together, it would seem, to meet the needs of as many
people as possible. The meaning of the name _Papaimiento_ is, in the
dialect, "The talk we talk," _i. e._, "our language."
Curaçao lies some fifty miles off the coast of South America, and her
favourable position between Venezuela and the Windward Islands has made
her free port a most desirable one for the smugglers who wish to supply
cheap goods to the South American ports. Thousands of flimsy tin-covered
trunks ready for Venezuelan voyagers bear evidence of her popularity as
a free and unquestioning port. Here, also, many steamers touch. But,
above all, Curaçao is the haunt and refuge of the disappointed or
temporarily exiled Spanish American politician or revolutionist.
Here, like puppets in a show, appear from time to time many noble
patriots ready to fight for their undying principles and incidentally to
absorb any loose property in the track of their conquering "armies;" and
here hies the deposed "President," or the lately conquered general, with
his chests of treasure, waiting for a ship to his beloved Paris. Watch
our own American newspapers for the warlike notes that Willemstad,
Curaçao, ever feeling the pulse of northern South America, sends out to
the world. Did she not give us the earliest news of Cervera's mysterious
fleet? Does she not thrill us with the momentous gymnastics of President
Castro, and the blood-curdling intentions of General Matos, General
Uribe-Uribe, General Santiago O'Flanigan _et hoc genus omne_?
The date of our visit to Curaçao is about the time of the little Queen
of Holland's wedding, so that Wilhelmina and her prospects, and all the
gossip attending so charming a personage, becomes with us, as we sit
chatting together on the deck, a lively topic of interest. Mrs. C----
tells us of a gold box which is to be sent the young queen as a bridal
gift from her subjects in Curaçao; a box fashioned after the most
perfect art of the native goldsmith, in filigree so rare that none but a
queen were fit to open it. This box, perchance the size of Pandora's
once enchanted casket, is to be filled with the needlework of Curaçaoan
women--work as far-famed as the lace of Maracaibo, the lace we expected
to see everywhere in Caracas, while we were then so near the Maracaibo
country, but which one can never find unless the open-sesame of the
Spanish home is discovered, as impossible a task as the quest of the
immortal Ponce de Leon. We did not see the Maracaibo lace, nor the
Curaçaoan lace, and we are told that such a disappointment is not
unusual; it is only for the elect--the Curaçaoan people themselves--that
these wonderful specimens of the skill of patient women are visible.
I shall never forget hearing that unwritten page in the tragic history
of Spain's noble son, Admiral Cervera, as the Doctor in his quiet, low
voice told how the great admiral touched first at Curaçao after his
long and perilous voyage from Spain. It was the Doctor's son who sent
the cable message to the United States, telling that the Spanish fleet
was in the offing. But it was the Doctor himself who went with the
surgeons who had been sent ashore by Cervera on their humiliating
errand, to all the pharmacies in Curaçao for surgical supplies. The
fleet had been hurried from Spain unprepared, and in fact almost
unseaworthy, with not so much as a single bandage aboard or the most
ordinary necessities for the immediate succour of the wounded. They had
absolutely nothing in the way of such medical and surgical equipment at
hand, although they knew their imminent and terrible need for just such
things. Doctor C----, with the true physician's love for his fellow men,
went from pharmacy to pharmacy with the surgeon, and bought up all the
bandages and gauze and iodoform and other supplies which were to be
found. Meantime detachments from the ships' crews began to land--hungry
and worn, sad with the shadow of the great coming tragedy--and they fell
upon the island like a lot of starved wolves. They actually had not
food enough aboard to keep body and soul together, for the corrupt and
procrastinating government at Madrid had not even properly victualled
this fleet of war-ships before sending them to their certain
destruction. The market was cleaned of everything it could afford, and
even then it was a mere drop in the bucket to that unhappy host. Later
Doctor C---- went out to the flag-ship with the surgeon, and spoke with
Cervera, who prophetically told him that he knew he was going to his
doom--but it had to be! And the twisted skeletons of those noble ships
which we later saw strewn from Santiago on along the southern Cuban
coast was but the fulfilment of the miserable fate he then so clearly
foresaw, but which, after his unavailing pleas to the Spanish government
before sailing, the staunch old admiral, with a Spaniard's pride and
bravery, would not avoid. For so it was written! Is there not a strain
of the Moor's fatalism still traceable in the true Spaniard?
Thus as we chat with our new-found friends on topics grave and gay
through the noon hour and on into mid-afternoon, the people of the city
continue to crowd one another, row upon row, on the dock. A native band
plays our national airs and Dutch national airs, and our decks are
filled with visitors--the governor of the island and his suite and
ladies, and fine little solemn-eyed and suspiciously dark-skinned Dutch
children; and, in the midst of all the visiting and moving back and
forth, some one asks Doctor W---- how the islanders feel about
absorption by the United States--apparently a possibility now present in
the mind of every West Indian; and the not surprising answer is made,
that, for his part, he--a Dutchman, Holland-born--would favour
annexation; and from the wild enthusiasm of the people ashore, as the
bugle sounds the first warning of departure, one might readily believe
that so favourable, so friendly, is the feeling for the United States,
that the slightest advances toward peaceable annexation would be met
with universal favour. And so the merchants also talked.
The houses begin to move,--no, it's our boat herself, slowly, very
slowly. We drop our shore-lines, and shout after shout rings after us.
The populace moves in a mass along the quay, and the native band beats
away its very loudest, and the bigger marine band aboard beats even
louder, and it's a jumble of national airs in different keys, and
hurrahs, and the people following along the quay. We wave our
handkerchiefs until our arms are tired. One black-faced, bandannaed,
Dutch conglomerate in her enthusiasm whips off her bright skirt, and in
a white petticoat and red chemise she waves the fluttering skirt in the
breeze.
If the United States ever seriously contemplates the annexation of any
of the West Indian islands, the surest way, and the quickest way, to
bring it about would be to send ship-loads of pleasure-seeking
Americans, for bimonthly visits, leave their mania for buying things
unrestrained, and, before diplomacy has had time to put on its dress
suit, the islanders would beg for annexation.
[Illustration: A SNUG HARBOUR
Willemstad, Curaçao]
Do not deceive yourself into the belief that you will find El Dorado in
these islands, where the products of the country, food, and lodging, can
be bought for a song; where one can get full value for money expended.
On the contrary, values have become so distorted by the extravagance of
some American tourists that to be recognised as an American is a
signal for the most extortionate demands from the hotel-keeper to the
market-woman. The system of extravagant feeing and still more our
readiness to pay what is asked us instead of bargaining and haggling
over prices as the natives do, and as is confidently expected of any
sane human being, has so demoralised service and the native scale of
prices that it is fairly impossible to obtain the ordinary necessities
for which one expects to pay in the hotel bill, without giving
needlessly large fees to the servants who happen to be in your
attendance; or to find anything offered at a reasonable price in the
markets.
At the sight of an American--and we are readily distinguished--the
prices advance, and the unoffending tourist is obliged to suffer for the
extravagance of those who have gone before him. This infection has
spread through all the islands, and there has not been a port on our
entire cruise wholly free from its effect. Perhaps, however, Willemstad
was the pleasantest of all in this respect, for it is a free port, used
to low prices and the ways of outsiders.
It might be possible to go through the islands at a reasonable expense,
provided one spoke the language necessary at the various ports with
ease, and had the time and patience to bargain and shop indefinitely;
provided, _also_, one could beat against the tide which sweeps the
American toward the "Gran Hotel." Let him but once depart from his
ancestral traditions of simple habits, let him but enter the portico of
the "Gran Hotel," and he at once becomes the prey of every known species
of human vulture. It is the old story of Continental Europe over again.