a part of the governmental jurisdiction of Jamaica. It is with rare
pleasure that I mention the latter fact, (since “next to being great
one’s self it is desirable to have a true relish for greatness,”) for it
gives me an opportunity to inform you that the order of knighthood has
recently been conferred by Her Britannic Majesty on Sir Edward Jordan,
Mayor of the city of Kingston and Prime Minister of Jamaica--a degree of
dignity never before attained by a colored man, as I believe, since the
British government began. The day of the Anglo-African in America has
not yet clearly dawned, but it is dawning. A great many of the officers
here, too, are colored. How strange it seems to stand before a large,
fine-looking black or colored man, entitled Sir, Honorable, Esquire, and
the like! To save me, I cannot realize it, although I see, hear, and
shake hands with them every day.
But the grand source of interest to you and to me is, of course, the
slaves manumitted by the magnanimity of the British government some
twenty-six years agone. It is strangely interesting to hear them tell of
parties making their escape to Hayti by sail-boats previous to the act
of emancipation, sometimes sailing swift and direct, and at others
dodging under the lee of the Caicos reefs until pursuit had been
suspended, reminding one much of our Canadian friends. The history of
the escape of slaves in our day is as full of heroism as any history in
the world.
The neatness and cleanly appearance of the masses are actually
surprising. I say it with all due respect, but, take them all in all,
the colored people really present a better appearance than the whites.
The latter, however, for reasons which you will already have
anticipated, are of course more wealthy and intelligent--for which
reason, also, they have heretofore been entirely at the head of
political affairs. It is only recently that the blacks, who are in the
majority, began to tread on their political heels. Some of the whites do
not like to see this, but the easiest way for them is to allow
themselves to be peacefully absorbed by the colored race in these
regions, for their destiny is sealed.
The Caicos Islands, like most of the Bahamas, are but a series of coral
reefs, more extensive in territory and less sterile than this portion
of the colony; but their principal products are about the same--salt and
shipwrecks. They are at once “the residence and the empire of danger.”
An American captain is now here selling the wreck of a cargo lately
shipped from Boston to New Orleans--(Captain Elliot, ship Nauset, total
wreck on North Caicos reef, July 7, 1860.) The population of the group
inclusive is about five thousand, principally colored, who are
remarkably industrious, if one is to judge from the rapidity with which
they load a vessel with salt; and the essentially limited resources of
the island would seem to admit of their being equally virtuous. Churches
abound, and schooling may be had at the rate of three cents per week.
Every thing is due to the English missionary societies for the healthy
tone of morality and religion which prevails in these islands, and I
must say, as I believe, chiefly to the Baptists.
But the great characteristic and most amusing peculiarity of these
people is their inordinate attachment to the British crown. A captain of
a schooner on the coast (black, but thoroughly British) one day
overheard some reckless fellow speak disrespectfully of Queen Victoria.
About every thing he thought of or said during the rest of the voyage
was, “He insult my Queen,” repeating “He insult my Queen” over and over
again. They seem to regard Queen Victoria with about the same reverence
that the Spanish Catholics bestow upon the Virgin Mary. Nor do I blame
them for this, since, if England were crippled to-day, it would be
difficult to say what would become of the world’s humanity. It would be
like extinguishing the sun!
Every thing is salty. You stand a chance to get some Boston ice here,
which is a _rara avis_ in this direction; but before you can get it
congealed into cream you are bound to get salt into it, it would seem. A
nice saloon, a good hotel, three churches, (English, Wesleyan, and
Baptist,) and a first class Masonic lodge--at the head of which is a
colored Esquire--together with its excessive salt propensities, are
about the best things that can be said for Grand Turk’s Island. Stay! I
forget the “Royal Standard,” a weekly journal, to the editor of which I
am under obligations, and from which I clip the following
NOTICE.
On the first of August, the “Friendly Society” and the “Benevolent
Union Society” of Salt Cay will march in procession from the
Society Hall, at 11 o’clock A. M., to the Baptist chapel, where a
sermon will be preached by the Rev. W. K. Rycoft on the occasion.
By order, etc.,
JOHN L. WILLIAMS.
So much for the land of salt, and a farewell to its happy people, the
most that can be said of whom is that they worship Queen Victoria.
(Let me tell you a story. In passing around these islands, we are one
day with the Spanish, next day with the English, and the third with the
French. It is sometimes diverting. I was sitting one warm afternoon
before the door of a countryhouse, having a large green sward-yard
sloping away to the road. The house was full of children, some of whom
were, or pretended to be, studying their books. Well, suddenly there
came pouring down a splendid summer shower, when, without a word, half a
dozen of these little rogues, of both sexes, dropped their books,
stripped off to the skin, and away they went sailing around the yard
like so many water nymphs! In five minutes more they were all dressed,
sitting down with their books, and looking as demure as if nothing had
happened. “So there hadn’t,” except that one plump little girl _fell
heels over head_! That is one way of taking a shower bath I never
thought of.)
By the way, an American captain was this day looking at a number of
hands, male and female, engaged in loading a vessel with salt. The women
were employed holding the sacks, and tying them when filled.
“That’s a smart gal,” said the Yankee captain, pointing to an ebon Venus
who was singing, dancing, and tossing the sacks around as merrily as
your city girls ever “pawed” the piano.
A sleek-faced gentleman turned up his eyes at us, and inquired: “You lub
dis gal, Cap’en?”
“Thunder, no!” said the astonished American; “I don’t love anybody!”
Which remark, I guess, was not very far from the truth.
The vessel which I am now on board of is a full-rigged, finely-finished
English brig. Her sails are all set, the wind blows fresh, and she cuts
the water like a sword-fish. The captain cleared $1,400 on his trip out,
with a cargo of lumber from the States. How much will our friend Wm.
Whipper make in a year running his craft up a Canadian creek? The
tenacity with which our leading colored men embrace that short-sighted
policy which teaches them to confine their enterprises to certain
proscribed, prejudice-cursed districts, is not only extraordinary--it is
marvellous.
The heavenly night comes on. The clouds in the sky look like ships on
fire. The rising moon trembles upon the silver-sheeted waves in the
east, while the receding sun burnishes the west, tinging the waters even
to our very spray. And thus, in this sea of glory, do we skim along.
_This_ is the “poetry of sailing.”
“Thou glorious, shining, billowy sea,
With ecstasy I gaze on thee!
And as I gaze, thy billowy roll
Wakes the deep feelings of my soul.”
LETTER XV.
British Honduras.
THE ISLAND OF RUATAN--THE SAILOR’S LOVE STORY--THE SOVEREIGNTY OF
THE BAY ISLANDS--ENGLISH VS. AMERICAN VIEW OF CENTRAL AMERICAN
AFFAIRS.
_Off Ruatan the New “Gibralter,” Flower of the
Bay Islands, and “Key to Spanish America."_
It certainly takes the impatience out of one to travel very much on a
sail vessel. The dead certainty of your getting becalmed annihilates
even contrary anticipation. But instead of murmuring at the irksome roll
of this spell-bound ship, which flaps its sails as vainly as a bird with
cropped wings, I, with genuine Spartan philosophy, will make the most of
it by going visiting, that is, from the cabin to the forecastle. Here I
take a seat beside an American; (for, my dear H., nobody ever knows what
true friendship is until they have been shipwrecked, nor does any one
conceive how mutual are the sympathies of persons coming from the same
country, however remote their positions may have been, until they have
met away from home, and been surrounded by foreign influences. Strange
as it may seem, I have not met a colored American out this way but who
actually celebrates the Fourth of July.)
Instead of complaining of this ghastly calm, as I was about to say, I
take a seat beside my friend Mr. Johnson, formerly of Plymouth,
Massachusetts, from whom I learned the following important story,
albeit, a love story. Important because it shows the correctness of that
theory which assumes this,--the infusion of Northern blood as one of the
means by which the more sluggish race of the tropics is to be quickened
and given energy, and also how these seductive southern zones induce
persons to sacrifice kindred, friends, and home, in order to live and
die under their soothing influences.
The story is this: Some years ago he had sailed from Boston to Balize
with a cargo of ice; was taken sick, and the captain of his vessel,
having made all possible arrangements for his comfort, left him in the
hospital to recover. He did so, and was just on the eve of going over to
Jamaica to get on board a vessel in which to return home, when up
stepped an elderly man, who accosted him in English and also in Yankee,
to wit: “Guess you are from the States?” to which Mr. Johnson replied,
of course, “You, too, I suppose?” The fact is, if you could not tell an
American away from home by his looks, his salutatory phrases are as
certain as an oddfellow’s password.
So Mr. Dickinson, the elderly gentleman, was from the States also, and
nothing would do but Mr. Johnson must accompany him to his home in
Ruatan, there to spend a few weeks for old acquaintance’ sake, and
meanwhile strengthen his health. He went; but Mr. Johnson coming from
the States had never seen so lovely an island, and certainly none so
prolific as Ruatan. He found oranges selling for one dollar per barrel,
and cocoa-nuts at a cent apiece; and that after being rowed a distance
of six miles. He found also that good milch cows could be bought for six
dollars each; and that upon one of the neighboring islands wild cattle
were to be had for the sport of catching. On Utille, another island,
also, almost in sight of Ruatan, is a settlement of whites, which,
though small, is in a very flourishing condition; both being tributary
to Ruatan. Altogether, he liked the appearance of things exceedingly.
Mr. Johnson not being one of your lazy visitors, soon began to make
himself useful by assisting his friend Mr. Dickinson in whatever he
might have to do; and so one day, with pants rolled up to his knees, he
went over to a neighbor’s to borrow some bags. This neighbor had a
pretty niece who lived in Nicaragua, which is just over the way, and who
was now on a visit to her uncle.
It was near dusk; his neighbor was not at home; but, with that careless
indifference which travellers in the tropics will appreciate, he walked
into the shanty, slightly nodded to some one he saw sitting in the
corner, and immediately stretched himself out in a hammock.
The timid girl, less frightened at this rude freedom than at the bushy
whiskers of the Northerner, answered his inquiries as to when her uncle
would be in, curtsied, and left the room; but in doing so she discovered
about the trimmest ancle and the neatest pair of stockings Mr. Johnson
had ever beheld. It fixed him. He could not sleep after that without
dreaming of the pretty feet, and, of course, pretty owner.
Mr. Johnson found business with his neighbor very often. The divinity
went over home; Mr. Johnson had business over there also; and with
genuine American grit obtained the old man’s consent, and actually
returned with his daughter.
Soon after this Mr. Johnson received from the States the mournful
intelligence of his father’s death, and, like a dutiful son, immediately
sailed for Plymouth to see his mother and sisters. His brother, equally
anxious with his mother and friends to have him stop at home, offered
him a situation as clerk in a lawyer’s office. But, alas! those pretty
feet! They had caused him to sacrifice his home; and although
shipwrecked in the attempt, he is now back in Ruatan, with no
expectation of ever meeting his Plymouth friends again during life. “I
told them,” said he, “she was not quite so white as some of them, but
she’s a darn sight better-hearted;” which is very probably a fact. Mr.
Johnson affirmed, also, that he could not be induced to leave Ruatan for
the income of the most princely merchant in Boston; but I make
allowances for a man who has a young wife with pretty feet.
Ruatan, as you are aware, is the principal one of the celebrated Bay
Islands, the sovereignty of which has been so long in dispute. Nor can I
settle the question as to whether the British claim is just or not; I
can only give it to you as I get it.
In the first place you must know there is what may be called _two
Honduras_. That is, the State of Honduras, and these Bay Islands with a
portion of the Musquito coast, constituting British Honduras, of which
Balize is the capital. This will relieve a great many blunders people
have perpetually fallen into.
When or by whom Ruatan was originally settled is now unknown. It was
discovered by the Spaniards, and was afterwards occupied as a military
post, but subsequently abandoned. Soon after the Emancipation Act took
effect in Jamaica and the other British isles, a number of these
emancipated slaves settled here, and the settlement is now multiplied to
the number of about three thousand.
It becoming necessary for them to have a government, they sent to
Jamaica for a magistrate to act as governor, voting him a salary of
three thousand dollars, and, being British subjects, of course looked to
Great Britain for protection. And so Great Britain claims the right to
protect them; and she does protect them.
It was off this island that the pirate Walker rendezvoused the present
summer; and from what I have said respecting the immigration hither of a
few white Americans, you will probably suppose there might be some
advantage taken of these islanders; but do not think it. Mr. William
Walker’s recent experience at Truxillo will probably induce him to
respect Ruatan.
Nevertheless, Ruatan is measurably affected, of course, by the
prosperity of the main land, and if the future administration of the
United States government is to be as weak and vacillating as the past
has been, it is difficult to say what is to be the end of these
invasions.
At present there is but little communication between this excellent
island and the United States. Thanks to your unjust policy, (wide-spread
infamy,) the natives can not be induced to look towards America, and so
can not see the difference between the Northern and Southern States.
This feeling has been heightened recently by the fact that a merchant,
who dealt in fruits with certain parties in New Orleans, went over there
on business. He was also a British magistrate, and took with him the
necessary papers to certify that fact. Hardly had he reached the shore
before he was arrested and taken to prison; and when he supposed to
estop their procedure by showing that he was a British magistrate, the
New Orleans constable replied: “If Queen Victoria were to come over
here, and she were black, I’d put her in jail!”
I am asked to point out, as I go along, what could be done whereby
persons could gain a competence? Any thing in the shape of work will
gain a competence,--the trouble being, in all these countries, that a
living is too easily gained. But fruits are the principal export. Could
a vessel be run between this and Baltimore, or any other respectable
port of the United States, it would pay beyond a peradventure. It would
also furnish the means of getting here safe the fruits from wasting, for
want of occasional vessels, and also supply news; which is an
inconceivable desideratum.
Land is offered at a shilling an acre; import duty is but two per cent.,
and exports free; which, considering the English language prevails, give
it a decided advantage as a place of settlement.
Ruatan is but thirty miles from Truxillo, Honduras, and one hundred and
twenty from Balize; and these are the only ways of getting here from New
York, at a cost of sixty dollars. For the want of such a vessel as I
have intimated, crops of oranges and limes are frequently swept into the
sea. The Pine-apples are large and of a superior quality. Walk out into
the grounds early in the morning, take a Machette and strike one open,
and nothing can give you an idea of their flavor except to imagine you
are sipping the nectar of the gods.
In the interior of the island are cocoa-nut groves, and other marks of
improvement, such as an old fortress hid away from the sea, which
clearly prove the island to have been anciently inhabited; but, like
many other interesting objects which the historian fails to comprehend,
by whom, or when, is left entirely to the conception of the poets.
“Gone are all the barons bold;
Gone are all the knights and squires;
Gone the abbot, stern and cold,
And the brotherhood of friars.”
ENGLISH _vs._ AMERICAN VIEW OF CENTRAL AMERICAN AFFAIRS.
It is but fair to say the Hon. E. G. Squier shows very clearly the
forced nature of the English claims, and that Ruatan rightly belongs to
Honduras. But then I should think Mr. Squier, or any other American,
would blush to talk about British _proclivities to piracy_.
The following are the views of Mr. Trollope (English) on the most
important of Central American affairs,[H] who probably also intends by
them to give Mr. S. a rap on the knuckles.
“As I have before stated, there was, some few years since, a
considerable passenger traffic through Central America by the route of
the lake of Nicaragua. This of course was in the hands of the
Americans, and the passengers were chiefly those going and coming
between the Eastern States and California. They came down to Greytown at
the mouth of the San Juan river, in steamers from New York, and, I
believe, from various American ports, went up the San Juan river in
other steamers, with flat bottoms, prepared for those waters, across the
lake in the same way, and then by a good road over the intervening neck
of land between the lake and the Pacific.
“Of course the Panama Railway has done much to interfere with this. In
the first place, a rival route has thus been opened; though I doubt
whether it would be a quicker route from New York to California if the
way by the lake were well organized. And then, the company possessing
the line of steamers running to Aspinwall from New York has been able to
buy off the line which would otherwise run to Greytown.
“But this rivalship has not been the main cause of the total stoppage of
the Nicaraguan route. The filibusters came into that land and destroyed
every thing. They dropped down from California, or Realego, Leon,
Manaqua, and all the western coast of Nicaragua. Then others came from
the South-eastern States, from Mobile, and New Orleans, and swarmed up
the river San Juan, devouring every thing before them.
“There can be no doubt that Walker’s idea, in his attempt to possess
himself of this country, was, that he should become master of the
passage across the Isthmus. He saw, as so many others have seen, the
importance of the locality in this point of view; and he probably felt
that if he could make himself lord of the soil, by his own exertions and
on his own bottom, his mother country, the United States, would not be
slow to recognize him. ‘I,’ he would have said, ‘have procured for you
the ownership of the road which is so desirable for you. Pay me by
making me your lieutenant here, and protecting me in that position.’
“The idea was not badly planned, but it was of course radically unjust.
It was a contemplated filching of the road. And Walker found, as all men
do find, that he could not get good tools to do bad work. He tried the
job with a very rough lot of tools; and now, though he has done much
harm to others, he has done very little good to himself. I do not think
we shall hear much more of him.
“And among the worst injuries which he has done is this disturbance of
the lake traffic. This route has been altogether abandoned. There, in
the San Juan river, is to be seen one old steamer, with its bottom
upwards, a relic of the filibusters and their destruction.
“All along the banks tales are told of their injustice and sufferings.
How recklessly they robbed on their journey up the country, and how they
returned to Greytown--those who did return, whose bones are not
whitening the lake shores--wounded, maimed, and miserable.
“Along the route traders were beginning to establish themselves; men
prepared to provide the travellers with food and drink, and the boats
with fuel for their steam. An end for the present has been put to all
this. The weak governments of the country have been able to afford no
protection to these men, and, placed as they were beyond the protection
of England or the United States, they have been completely open to
attack. The filibusters for a while have destroyed the transit through
Nicaragua; and it is hardly matter of surprise that the president of
that land, the neighboring republic, should catch at any scheme which
proposes to give them back this advantage, especially when promise is
made of the additional advantage of effectual protection.
“To us Englishmen it is a matter of indifference in whose hands the
transit may be, so long as it is free and open to the world; so long as
a difference of nationality creates no difference in the fares charged,
or in the facilities afforded. For our own purposes I have no doubt the
Panama line is the best, and will be the route we shall use. But we
should be delighted to see a second line opened. If Mr. Squier can
accomplish his line through Honduras we shall give him great honor, and
acknowledge that he has done the world a service. Meantime we shall be
very happy to see the lake transit reëstablished.”
* * * * *
There is no hope for the Central American States except by intervention
on the part of some government capable of protecting them.
LETTER XVI.
Conclusive Summary.
CONCISE DESCRIPTION OF THE SPANISH MAIN--DOMINICANA REVIEWED--THE
MAGNIFICENT BAY OF SAMANA--CONCLUSIVE SUMMARY.
Thus have I endeavored to seize on whatever might seem to be of
importance, and at the same time interesting to such of your readers as
desired to have some more general information respecting tropical
America.
I am aware that I have not analyzed the soil, nor (so long as it
produced well) have I cared whether it was “composed of the _débris_ of
these limestones and lava mountains,” or “tempered by the decaying
vegetation of the centuries past.” Nor have I entered into any essay to
show how the lofty sierras of Honduras differed from those of Nicaragua,
or those of the islands from the Spanish Main. It would be easy to give
you a chapter stating that “the summits of some of them are of hard
sandstone or granite; some are covered with layers of mould of different
colors and density, sometimes mixed with stones of different degrees of
hardness, and more or less calcinable; and some of them of various
vitrifiable substances.” But I take it that the way to make a thing
useful is also to have it agreeable. Who reads, for example, Mr. Wells’
well-written but ponderous “Travels and Explorations in Honduras”?
Central America, by common assent, not only realizes in its geographical
position the ancient idea of the centre of the world, but is in its
physical aspect and configuration of surface an epitome of all the
countries and of all climes. “High mountain ranges, isolated peaks,
elevated table lands, and broad and fertile plains, are here grouped
together, relieved by beautiful lakes and majestic rivers; the whole
teeming with animal and vegetable life, and possessing every variety of
climate from torrid heat to the cool and bracing temperature of eternal
spring.”
On the Atlantic slope rain falls in greater or less abundance for the
entire year; vegetation is rank, and the climate damp and
proportionately insalubrious, while the Pacific slope and the elevated
regions of the interior are comparatively dry and healthy.