HAVANA TO PANAMA
I
THE AMERICAN IN CUBA
I have known few more curious sensations than that of crossing in a
single night from Florida to Cuba: leaving the New World at ten p.m. and
arriving at six a.m. in the Old World. For Havana is distinctly an Old
World city—more so, I am told, than some of the cities of modern Spain.
From the moment the steamer passes between Morro Castle and La Punta,
and skirts beneath the grey and pink cliffs of the huge idle fortress of
La Cabana, one feels that one has left behind the region of the
Immature, and entered upon that of the Over-ripe.
I am not going to attempt a description of Havana, with its
many-coloured, swarming Southern life; its arcaded side-walks; its huge
windows, all barred with ornamental ironwork, at which a great part of
the social life of the city is carried on; its narrow business streets,
the Calle Obispo and Calle O’Reilly, in which the frequent awnings
stretched from house to house create a rich golden shade; its grey old
cathedral; its cool green patios framed in the gloom of high-arched
gateways; its handsome, rather commonplace, modern squares; its Prado
and its esplanade, where the restless purple waters of the Gulf of
Mexico fling up, every now and then, white pillars of spray. Except for
its splendid harbour, the city has no great advantage of situation,
being placed on low hills, and surrounded by others not much higher. The
chief impression it leaves on the mind is that of opulent colour—often
garish where the hand of man has held the brush, but, where Nature has
her own way, in tree, shrub, soil, ocean, and sky, indescribably and
inexhaustibly gorgeous. A painter of the temperate zone would here throw
away his palette, except, it may be, for the wonderful blue distances,
of which, on the outskirts, one has now and then a glimpse.
[Sidenote: A Paradise Regained.]
From all that I could see and hear in Cuba, I felt thoroughly convinced
that American intervention had amply justified itself, and that this
noble island, after all its miseries and distractions, was now in a fair
way to become as prosperous and happy as, by its natural advantages, it
is entitled to be. The splendid work of cleansing and sanitation which
the Americans have done in Havana I more fully appreciated after a brief
inspection of a couple of unsanitated Spanish-American towns—Cartagena
and Barranquilla. But cleaning-up and road-making, and the organization
of public services, are not all that the Americans are doing. In the
Cuban guide-book it was significant to note the number of places which
owed their fame to having been the scene of this or that massacre or
military execution. It would be premature, perhaps, to say that all that
sort of thing is past and done with; but there will certainly not be
much more of it; the United States will see to that. I am bound to
confess that here, in my opinion, the Republic has “taken up the white
man’s burden” very efficiently and in a very true sense.
The sense of prosperity was very strongly borne in upon me in Vedado, a
suburb of Havana, whither I went to call upon an American gentleman,
resident for many years in Cuba, to whom I had an introduction. Vedado
is a great sun-baked stretch of ground between the low hills and the sea
to the west of Havana, where handsome bungalow-villas are rising in
great numbers. As yet it is in a somewhat raw and ragged condition; but
there is evidence of wealth and activity on every hand.
[Sidenote: The Cuban Colour-Line.]
My primary object in visiting Mr. Ogden (as I shall call him) was to
inquire into the relations of the white and coloured races in Cuba.
“It is very obvious,” I said, “in the streets of Havana, that, if there
is any colour-line here, it is not drawn anything like as strictly as in
the Southern States. I see a good many black policemen; and there are
black motor-men and conductors on the street-cars. Among the passengers
in the cars there is no distinction of colour. In the Colon Cemetery, as
I came down here, I noticed that, among the thirty heroes commemorated
on the Firemen’s Monument, four seemed to be pure negroes; and there
were negro traits in six or seven more. Is there really no colour
discrimination at all?”
“In the sense of legal disability,” said Mr. Ogden, “there is none.
Socially, of course, there is a good deal, though no hard-and-fast
barrier is raised between the races. Each family, each individual, draws
the colour-line according to taste. But, naturally, there is a tendency
for the pure white to exclude the unmistakably coloured.”
“Would a white man lose caste on marrying a coloured woman?”
“Oh, very distinctly. I could tell you of several instances.”
“But there is no serious friction—no feud—between the races?”
“At present, no; but I’m not at all sure that a race problem may not
declare itself when the new Constitution comes into force in February
next. We shall then have the negro in politics; and that is how trouble
always arises.”
“You fear a Cuban repetition of the Reconstruction time?”
“Yes, indeed I do. The negro is susceptible to every sort of political
machination. Every carpet-bag demagogue can make a tool of him, and that
the Cuban white men won’t stand for.”
“Meanwhile, however, there is no trouble? You have not any such Reign of
Terror here as there is some parts of the Southern States?”
“No. Outrages on women are practically unknown here.”
“And how do you account for the difference between Cuba and the Southern
States in respect to this class of crime?”
“Well, sir, I’m a Southern man myself, and all I can say is that the
nigger here don’t seem to me the same as he is at home. I believe it is
partly a real difference of race. [Sidenote: The Pick of the Basket.]
You see, most of the slave-ships used to touch at Havana before they
went on to Charleston or New Orleans; and the Cuban planters used to
make a study of the different races and tribes, and select the best
types. The daughter of a very wealthy planter—she’s an old lady now—has
told me all about it. They knew precisely the qualities of the different
breeds. Some were best fitted for body-servants, some for field-work,
some for handling stock, others for educating and making clerks and
book-keepers of. So, you see, the Cubans got the pick of the basket, and
only the lower class—the mere brawny animals—got to the United States.”
This theory did not strike me as wholly adequate to the case, nor did
Mr. Ogden pretend that it was. But there may be something in it, and I
commend it to the notice of students of negro ethnology.
“By-the-by,” Mr. Ogden continued, “there is a curious African survival
among the negroes here—a sort of semi-religious society called the
Ñanigo, which indulges in strange rites of its own, and occasionally in
assassination.”
“When you say ‘semi-religious,’ do you mean Christian or pagan?”
“Oh, pagan entirely. The members are generally tattooed or decorated
with scars and cicatrices. They come greatly to the front in Carnival
time, when they parade the streets, carrying a sort of illuminated
pagoda and making strange noises by grating gourds.”
[Sidenote: The Political Situation.]
The talk then strayed to politics, and Mr. Ogden gave me a no doubt
one-sided, but evidently sincere, view of the situation.
“I take it,” said I, “that Cuba is now peaceful and contented?”
“Oh yes, fairly so,” said Mr. Ogden; “but capital is still shy of coming
in, until the political condition is more stable.”
“What was the reason of President Palma’s downfall?”
“The sole reason was that he was too good for them—too honest, too
scrupulous. Ninety-five per cent. of those who took active part in the
revolution of 1906 were negroes, and the rest were, with very few
exceptions, men of no standing whatever, either political or social.
“The revolution was largely worked by the editor of a popular paper, a
very able man whose sole moral quality is a total lack of hypocrisy. He
said quite frankly, ‘In the old days I was always in touch with the
Spanish Governor, and all sorts of good things came my way. Now, on the
other hand, there’s nothing doing, and it don’t suit me.’ For a short
time I ran the English page of his paper for him; and once, when he
wanted me to put in something that I knew to be a blazing lie, I said to
him, ‘I wonder how you can reconcile it with either your principles or
your policy to print such an utter falsehood.’ He slapped his right
pocket, and said, ‘My principles are here;’ his left pocket, ‘and my
policy here.’
[Sidenote: Engineering a Revolution.]
“The chief of the secret service had warned Palma for some time that a
revolution was brewing—that there was open talk in the cafés of his
assassination or deportation. He only said, ‘Why, what is there to make
a revolution about? Our credit is good, our public works are going
forward, prosperity is spreading. Where should the revolution come
from?’
“A party of men were suborned to enter the barracks of a company of
rural guards, shoot all the men in their sleep, and seize their arms.
This was to be the signal for a general rising; but the bandits were
left in the lurch by their friends. Orders were given to take them alive
or dead—preferably dead. Unfortunately they were taken alive, and have
all been released by Mr. Taft, on the plea that their offence was
political.
“Then a man got up a revolution in a remote province; which meant that
he set a lot of niggers looting stores and carrying off canned salmon,
and calico, and boots and shoes. A friend of his in Havana went down to
find out the reason of this revolution. The leader explained that he had
7000 dollars of gambling debts which he couldn’t pay; and for that sum
he would order off the revolution. The friend said: ‘You can’t have
7000, but I know of 3000 dollars allotted for a purpose that can stand
over; I think I can get you that, and you can make a composition with
your creditors.’ The leader agreed to this proposal, but Palma refused
to sanction the deal, and the rising went on, and spread, and became
serious.
“Palma confessed to me that the only troops he could rely on had only a
few rounds of ammunition. [Sidenote: A Foreign Legion.] ‘Why, then,’
said I, ‘there’s only one thing to be done—we’ll telegraph to the Colt
Manufacturing Company for twenty machine guns and a million rounds of
ammunition; and I’ll organize the men to work them.’ Palma held up his
hands in protest. ‘A million rounds! Why, that’s enough for a war!’
“The Colt Company could only deliver ten machine guns, but those we got;
and I organized a foreign legion. It contained Americans, Englishmen,
Frenchmen, Germans, Italians—450 men in all. We were just ready for
business when Mr. Taft arrived with the Peace Commission; and what
followed I have never understood, and don’t understand to this day.
“We went on board the _Des Moines_ to wait on Mr. Taft. He said to me,
‘Mr. Ogden, I understand you are an American citizen—then what are you
doing in that uniform, and under arms? And that man there? And that man
there?’ I replied, ‘Mr. Taft, I have lived in Cuba twelve years. This
gentleman is an Englishman—he has been fifteen years here. This
gentleman is French—he has been twenty years here. We have wives and
children here; and we have formed ourselves into a foreign legion,
because we think we have a right to protect our families and to preserve
the peace.’
“‘What do you want me to do?’ said Mr. Taft. [Sidenote: Muzzling the
Machine-Guns.] ‘The very thing you won’t do,’ said I. ‘How do you know?’
he said. ‘I’m a reasonable man, and I’m here to do something. How do you
know it mayn’t be what you want?’
“‘Well, sir,’ said I, ‘we want you to sit still, and smoke your cigar,
and do nothing.’
“‘For how long?’
“‘For twenty-four hours—at most for forty-eight.’
“‘And meantime,’ said he, ‘you propose to keep the peace by committing
an act of war?’
“‘It won’t be war, sir,’ I said. ‘These people can’t stand up for a
minute before machine guns. It isn’t in them. In the first place, they
haven’t more than six or eight rounds of ammunition apiece, and you know
you can’t make war with six rounds of ammunition. But I don’t care
though they had a million rounds—they simply cannot stand up. There’s no
reason why they should. There’s no patriotism, no principle among them.
They’re merely out for a little loot. If you tie our hands, and give the
country over to this gang, Cuba will stink to heaven before many months
are over.’
“But it was no use. Palma had to go, and now we don’t know what lies
before us.
“It isn’t that the Cubans aren’t fit for political life. Many of them
are, perfectly. But with the ignorant negro and low white vote, there is
no saying what may happen.
“I wish to heaven President Roosevelt had just added a few words of
postscript to his message to the Cubans. If he had only said, ‘Though we
intend that Cuba shall have honest self-government, we don’t propose to
put up with revolutions,’ all would have been well.”
II
A GAME FOR GODS
A cloudlessly hot Sunday afternoon in Havana—I am lounging in the Parque
Central, when I observe a poster announcing that a game of “Jai Alai” is
at that moment in progress. The very intelligent “Standard Guide to
Havana,” sold by Mr. Foster (the Cook of Cuba), notes this “famous
gambling game” as one of the sights of the city; so I charter a cab, and
jog through the baking streets to the “Frontón” in which it is played.
You first enter a long and evil-smelling hall, with various refreshment
bars, like the lower regions of a hippodrome; and then you pass into the
“Frontón” itself. Imagine an amphitheatre sliced in two at its
longitudinal axis; one half retained, with its shape unaltered, to serve
as the auditorium; the other half converted into a titanic racquet
court, 175 ft. long, 36 ft. deep, and (I imagine) something like 40 ft.
high. The long wall, of course, fronts the audience, the two short walls
close in the ends. The floor of the immense court is made of smooth and
almost shining concrete; the walls are of stone, painted chocolate
colour, and the long wall is marked off by perpendicular lines into
seventeen compartments. The purpose of this I did not understand, for
play takes place, not against this back wall, but up and down the whole
length of the great court. Imagine, now, the great auditorium, tier on
tier, filled with a vast crowd of excited, shouting, cheering men (there
were only about a dozen women present), while bookmakers in red Basque
caps move up and down in front of the first tier of seats, and permeate
the higher tiers as well, yelling the odds in their raucous voices. As a
vehicle for betting “Jai Alai” is generally recognized as “a curse to
the community,” and the American Governor has been much blamed for
tolerating it. But in itself,—as an exercise of skill, endurance,
strength, agility, and grace—I do not hesitate to call it out and away
the finest game I ever saw.
Readers who have been to Spain may recognize this as the Basque game of
pelota. [Sidenote: “Partido” and “Quiniela.”] I had heard its name; but
certainly its extraordinary merits had never reached my cars. Probably
it is too difficult for the ordinary amateur; the professionals whom I
saw are engaged at large salaries, and showed marvellous skill. But as a
mere spectacle I should think it would prove attractive anywhere.[73]
The game is perfectly simple to understand, and there is never a dull
moment in it, except the few moments of rest which the players allow
themselves. Here is my guide-book’s account of it:—
Attached to a leather gauntlet worn by the players is a long, narrow,
curved basket or cestus (_cesta_) from which the ball is hurled and in
which it is caught. The small ball (_pelota_) is of indiarubber
covered with leather, and weighs about four ounces. The players are
distinguished by their dress as whites (_blancos_) and blues
(_azules_). Two games are played. In one, called a _partido_, two
blues play against two whites. In the other, called _quiniela_, five
players participate, one against another in succession, until the
winner shall have scored the game of six points.
-----
Footnote 73:
Since writing this I have learnt that pelota has been played both in
London and at the St. Louis Exhibition, apparently without much
success. Surely it was somehow mismanaged.
-----
The _quiniela_ seemed to me more graceful and beautiful than the
_partido_, or foursome, if not quite so exciting. The players wear the
simplest costume—white drill trousers and either white or blue shirts.
For a long time I was puzzled to think what familiar object the “cesta”
recalled to me; but at last I hit on it—the thing is for all the world
like those wicker guards which linkmen put over hansom-wheels, to save
the gowns of ladies in alighting. The basket is, I take it, about two
feet long. When a player lets his arm drop from the shoulder, the tip of
the “cesta” is about level with his ankle.
Now, how shall I describe the actual play? It is racquets enormously
magnified, and carried to an almost superhuman pitch of skill. Only once
does the player touch the ball with his hand, and that is in leading
off. [Sidenote: Playing the Game.] Standing about the middle of the
court, he drops the ball on the floor, catches it with his “cesta” in
the rebound, and sends it whizzing against the end wall. It flies back
like a streak of lightning, and instantly one of the other side has it
in his “cesta,” makes two or three leaps to give himself impetus, and
hurls it again at the end wall. This time it is not improbable that he
has put such force into his cast that the ball rebounds the whole 175
feet, strikes the opposite wall, and flashes down to the floor. Then one
of his opponents must be ready to take it on the hop, and, reinforcing
its movement, to send it flying once more against the end wall, of
course doing his best to “place” it awkwardly for the other side. I have
seen the ball returned thirty times in a single rally; but the average
number would probably be some twelve or fifteen. And almost every catch
and return seemed an incredible feat of skill. Just consider: here is a
space of 6300 square feet, and only two players on each side—in the
_quiniela_ only one. What astounding rapidity of eye and agility of limb
it must take to be always at the right spot to catch a little demon of a
ball, that tears flashing about the court like a thing possessed! And
the men are almost always at the right spot. They may misplace the ball
or send it “out;” but it is the rarest thing for the ball to escape them
entirely. They run, they leap, they make the most amazing whirling
strokes; if the ball comes very low, they fall down, and often hurl it
with the greatest accuracy from the most unconventional positions on the
ground. Not once but hundreds of times that afternoon did I see things
done that looked absolutely impossible. Perhaps their variety of
resource is their most astonishing quality. But, wonderful as it all is,
it is still more beautiful. With all their rapidity, their grace is
perfect, like that of lithe, resilient, feline animals. If anything more
marvellous or more graceful was done at the Olympic games, then the
Greeks were athletes indeed.
Certainly, if one wanted to gamble, “Jai Alai” provides an intensely
exciting method of doing so. [Sidenote: The Fluctuating Odds.] In one
_partido_ that I saw it seemed at first that the “blancos” entirely
outclassed the “azules.” They gained about 8 points to their rivals’
3—the game being 30 up. But gradually the blues crept forward, until at
14 they tied. Then the whites spurted, and presently the score was
24-19. But again the blues pulled themselves together, and at 26 they
again tied. The whites, however, were the better team, and in the end
won by 2 points. Of course, at every fluctuation of the score, the odds
varied: when the twenties were reached the betting became fast and
furious, and both bookmakers and their “clients” shouted themselves
distracted. But there is no reason in the nature of things why this
exquisitely beautiful game should be “soiled with all ignoble use.” How
amazing is the brutality of taste that can prefer the bull-fight to
pelota!
III
A FRAGMENT OF FAIRYLAND
Allowing time for a few hours’ stay at Matanzas, the journey from Havana
to Santiago di Cuba occupies two days and a night. At Matanzas, a town
in itself of no great interest, it is well worth while to climb to the
hermitage of Montserrate, which overlooks to the westward the Yumuri
valley, a great semicircular basin in the hills, and to the eastward a
magnificent sweep of sea and shore. The endless colonnades of palm-trees
give to the distant slopes an exquisite tone of silver-blue such as I
have never seen anywhere else. On the whole, however, the Cuban
landscape, as it presents itself between Havana and Santiago, is rich
and spacious rather than specially beautiful. Its characteristic aspect
is that of wide and fertile plains, with ranges of high hills, or low
mountains, in the distance, dappled with the shadows of the clouds; but
in the central province of Camaguëy the hills disappear, and the plains
become rather uninteresting, and to a considerable extent unimproved.
The general impression of fertility is very striking. The soil is often
of such a rich red or chocolate colour that it seems as though an artist
need only mix a little oil with it and transfer it to his canvas. The
species of palm which prevails in Cuba has an unfortunate tendency to
bulge in the wrong place, and assume a bottle-like contour, which is
fatal to the beauty of the individual trees. Patches of inextricable
jungle are not infrequent in the central districts, and suggest a use
for the huge, broad cutlasses—the _machetes_—with which the negro
peasantry are generally armed. As the line bends southward to Santiago,
I fancy that the scenery becomes more mountainous and picturesque; but
we ran through it in the dark. I retain only an impression of dense
forests jewelled with myriads of fire-flies, while some sort of cricket
or cicala made a pleasant tinkling sound, as though of running water.
Santiago I take to be one of the hottest places in the universe.
[Sidenote: Santiago to Kingston.] It is set in a vast basin of splendid
hills, the bottom of the basin being formed by the lake-like expanse of
the historic harbour. The gulf or fiord so narrows towards its mouth
that no sign of the open sea is visible, and no breath of sea breeze
seems ever to stir the mirror-like surface of the lake. The red roofs of
the town climb up the hill from the water’s edge, and seem to glow and
flame in the fierce sunlight. One envied the little brown and yellow
urchins running about stark naked in the shady side-streets. If they
wore anything at all, it was a necklace—an amulet or charm, as I
conceive.[74]
-----
Footnote 74:
In Havana I more than once saw mothers or nurses driving about in
cabs, with children entirely naked save that they wore shoes and
socks! A curious inversion of European custom.
-----
From Santiago I took ship for Jamaica on the S.S. _Oteri_, the most
uncomfortable vessel on which I ever set foot. It belongs, I am told, to
the Cuba Eastern Railroad, which is largely an English company. Surely
it would pay them to assign a habitable ship to the service, and thus
encourage travellers to adopt this otherwise delightful route.
Over the passage I draw a veil. We wound our way down the narrow neck of
the fiord (sacred to the memory of the heroic Hobson), passed under the
bluff crowned by the bastions of Morro Castle, and plunged into the
rollers of a marvellous sapphire sea. From that time, I remember nothing
for about eighteen hours, except the truly infernal heat of a grimy
little oven, facetiously described as a stateroom. Next morning, when I
came on deck, the blue mountains of Jamaica were towering over us, and
we were heading for the low spit of Port Royal, which forms, as it were,
the breakwater of Kingston Harbour.
Of Jamaica I shall say very little, for the simple reason that my
feelings concerning it are beyond expression. [Sidenote: The City
Desolate.] The burden of my message is, “Go and see it.” Until you have
crossed the Blue Mountain range of this incomparable island you do not
know what Nature can achieve in the creation of pure beauty. In Italy
Nature is helped out by art, by architecture, by the magic of antiquity,
by all sorts of historic associations; and it would, of course, be
ridiculous to under-value these advantages. Here beauty has no such
adjuncts; if it is enhanced at all by the intervention of man, it is by
mere accident. Comparison, then, is futile; but with the liveliest
memory of many of the loveliest scenes in Italy, I say deliberately that
I did not know what pure beauty meant until I visited Jamaica.
But I did not learn it in Kingston. Rebuilding had scarcely begun in
that luckless city, which can at no time, I fancy, be very attractive.
It was, to put it briefly, the abomination of desolation. The heat in
the long, straight streets was torrid; and all the mortar that ought to
have been in the house-walls was blowing about in the form of scorching
and stinging dust-clouds. So I presently shook the dust of Kingston, not
so much off my feet as out of my eyes and lungs, and (under the advice
of kind friends at King’s House), set forth on a short tour, of which
the first stage was a railway journey to Port Antonio.
Never shall I forget that afternoon. [Sidenote: A Midsummer Day’s
Dream.] Perhaps it impressed me the more because I had not been led to
expect anything unusually beautiful. Between Kingston and the old
capital, Spanish Town, the route was of no great interest; but no sooner
had the train passed Spanish Town, and begun to creep up into the hills
which form the backbone of the island, than I found myself in a valley
of enchantment. A gorge rather than a valley—a winding, Highland glen,
with a clear blue river flowing musically down its rocky bed, and a
white road following the curves of the stream. Everywhere were glorious
forest trees and slender palms—very different from the paunchy Cuban
species—with an underwood of the richest tropical growths. The banana
groves, sometimes mixed with orange trees, were numberless, and at
almost every turn huge clumps of feathery bamboos were mirrored in the
stream. The giant limbs of the forest trees were often clad for their
whole length with the tender green of thick-clustering ferns. As for the
temperature, it was perfection. I can only describe it by a
contradiction in terms—very warm and yet beautifully cool—whereby I mean
that, though the thermometer was doubtless high, the delicate freshness
of the air, the clearness of the water, and the depth of the green
shadows through which we were running, produced a perfect illusion of
coolness. Slowly as the train meandered along, it went far too fast for
me. I was tortured by a desire to linger, to get out and walk, to fix in
my mind some of the ever-shifting aspects of beauty. Presently—all too
soon—we reached the top of the pass and began to wind down the wider
valley on the other side. Beneath jag-toothed mountain walls in the grey
distance, spread a labyrinth of crinkly hills, all tending to a
pyramidal form, and many of them crowned with red-roofed cabins or
wattle huts. Down their corrugations flowed exquisitely limpid brooks,
and up their sides climbed forests of broad-leaved bananas. On every
hand were palms, oranges, and brilliant flowering shrubs. It gave one an
odd little shock to see at a wayside station, amid all this wealth of
tropical colour, a patch of homely British vermilion in the shape of a
mail-cart inscribed with the familiar “E.R.” At times the train would
plunge into tunnels, just long enough to afford a pleasant pause in the
overpowering feast of beauty; then out again to serpentine along amid
fairy dells and dingles each lovelier than the last. As we drew
downwards, the noble mountain background began to flush in the evening
light; and at last we ran out into the wide bed of a torrent debouching
in a sweep of purple sea. This was Annotto Bay; whence the line skirts
round headland after headland of the romantic coast to the bright little
town of Port Antonio.
Here I spent a perfect tropical day. [Sidenote: At Port Antonio.] The
great American caravanserai on the promontory between the two bays was
closed; so I went to the pleasant little Waverley Hotel on the neck of
land at the base of the promontory. Through the still hot hours of
blazing sunlight, I sat in the airiest of attire on a shady verandah,
writing some of the foregoing pages, while the vulture-like “John Crows”
wheeled solemnly around, in sedulous devotion to their craft of
scavenging. The waters of the smaller bay were lapping at my feet; and I
looked out over their blue expanse to a little red-and-white light-house
on the opposite head-land, and the white walls of an American
millionaire’s villa gleaming through a forest of palms. In the cool of
the afternoon, I climbed to a small plantation on the top of a hill some
seven or eight hundred feet high, almost perpendicularly overhanging the
town. Nothing more glorious can be conceived than the falling of the
purple twilight over the innumerable folds of the foothills filling the
bottom of the great basin of mountains to the south; while northward lay
the measureless expanse of the sleeping Spanish Main. It was a scene of
sheer enchantment. I lingered until the great stars began to blaze in
the crystal deeps of heaven; then took my way downward, unutterably
moved, as by some august and gorgeous ritual. In the town, the lamplight
was glowing through the walls of the houses—for here, as often as not,
the walls are of pivoted slats which open and close like Venetian
blinds. The streets were swarming with a dusky throng, and a band of
black Salvationists was making an unholy clatter under the star-sown
silences.
But I must cut short my Jamaican raptures, and not attempt to express
the inexpressible. Starting from Buff Bay the next morning, at seven
o’clock, under the guidance of a negro whoso regal name was Clovis, I
rode all day long up a valley of paradise, into the heart of the
mountains. [Sidenote: A Valley of Paradise.] Sometimes, when the road
skirted a ravine, we would look down a hundred feet or so, and see
shining brown bodies plashing about in the silver pools, flecked with
sunlight through the overarching palms. More than once, in some
sequestered nook, we came upon a negro family party performing an
elaborate go-to-meeting toilet—for it happened to be Sunday, and the
road was populous with worshippers, all of whom gave us a grinning
good-day. While we took our midday rest at a hospitable plantation, half
ruined by the earthquake, a deluge of rain came down and lasted over an
hour; but when we rode forward—now on a mere bridle-path winding along
the sides of often precipitous gorges—it was wonderful to see the clouds
rolling up like giant curtains from the glittering mountain-sides. On we
clambered over the watershed, and a little way down the southern valley,
to the plantation of Chester Vale, 3000 feet high. There I spent several
delightful days of work and mountain wandering, on which I must not
allow myself to enlarge. Almost every afternoon—for it was the rainy
season—there came a tropical downpour. But rain itself, in this climate,
is a thing of beauty and of joy; and as for the lifting of the clouds
and breaking through of the evening sun, who shall describe the
splendours of the spectacle? Perhaps the most beautiful of all my
experiences was an early morning ride from Chester Vale along the ridge
to Newcastle, on my way back to Kingston. Such ferns, such exquisite
wild flowers, as lined the path, I have seen nowhere else; and the view
from our shady fringe of the forest, over the sunbathed valley fading
away to the northern sea, was sumptuous in the extreme.
I cannot better sum up my impressions of Jamaica than by saying that
there was scarcely an hour of my brief stay in the island which I would
not willingly have prolonged indefinitely. Again and again—many times in
the day—I would feel, “Why cannot the sun stand still? Why must this
marvellous moment pass away before I have absorbed a hundredth part of
its beauty? Why is there no means of ‘fixing’ on the memory, as on a
photographic plate, the details of this heavenly scene?” We have all, I
suppose, experienced these moments of exasperation at the tyrannous
march of time; but I have never known them come crowding upon me as they
did in Jamaica. In a very real sense, the island is too lovely; one is
sated, surfeited with beauty. I should hesitate to live there, lest
perchance I should sicken of Nature’s prodigality. But for a month or
two, or for a winter, nothing could be more fascinating. And Jamaica, in
my experience, has few or none of the usual draw-backs of the
tropics—poisonous insects, snakes, and so forth. It is the nearest
conceivable approach to an earthly Paradise. It is a fragment of
Fairyland.
To confess the truth, I was too much occupied in sheer enjoyment of life
during my stay in Jamaica to pursue with any ardour my researches into
the race-problem. [Sidenote: Black, White, and Coloured.] But I saw
enough to realize the heaven-wide difference between this black
community, administered by a benevolent but scarcely qualified
despotism, and the piebald democracies of the Southern States. There
were in Jamaica, in 1905, 15,000 whites, ten times as many “coloured”
people (that is to say mulattoes), and nearly 630,000 blacks. In other
words, the white population of the island is smaller than that of Rugby,
the non-white population is larger than that of Manchester and Salford.
There are fifty-five non-whites to every one white. Moreover, the terms
of the enumeration point to a characteristic difference between the
United States and Jamaica. In America, every one with the smallest
strain of African blood is black, though he may, in fact, be as white as
George Washington. “Coloured man” and “negro” are synonymous, there
being no legal, social, or statistical distinction between the pure
black and the mulatto. We have seen how impossible it is to arrive at
anything but a merely conjectural estimate of the relative numbers of
the pure and mixed breeds. But in the West Indies “coloured” means “not
black” as clearly as it means “not white.” The “coloured” population is
a middle class between the white aristocracy and the black proletariat;
and whereas in America there is almost complete solidarity of feeling
and interest between the mulatto and the negro, I am told that in the
West Indies the “coloured” man despises the “nigger,” and feels himself
immeasurably his social superior.[75]
-----
Footnote 75:
“To create an intermediate classification as in Jamaica, and to divide
the population into ‘white,’ ‘negro,’ and ‘coloured’ is but to
increase the confusions and complexities of the problem ... the
irritation between the coloured and negro classes being often quite as
great as that between the negro and the white.”—E. G. Murphy, “The
Basis of Ascendancy,” p. 43.
-----
This means that no real race-problem exists in Jamaica. There may be a
certain amount of marginal friction and unpleasantness where the
coloured population, the intermediate stratum, touches the black basis
of society on the one hand, and the white upper-crust on the other; but
these difficulties are not essentially different from those which
necessarily arise in any community which includes a large class of
indeterminate social standing. There is, in fact, none of that race
rivalry which declares itself where two races are practically equal in
numbers and theoretically equal in political status. The integrity and
the social position of the white race are absolutely unthreatened. They
are, like the English in India, a small body of “sahibs” in a non-white
country. The situation in Jamaica, in fact, has scarcely an element in
common with that of the Southern States.
There are, I believe, some slight stirrings of democratic ambition, and
of resentment at their lack of political rights, among the Jamaican
populace—especially in the small class of urban negroes. [Sidenote: Let
Well Alone?] It would be absurd for me to offer an opinion as to whether
they have any substantial and practical grievance. But I confess I could
not work up any enthusiasm for the “elevation” of the Jamaican masses.
Beyond a little better sanitation, I do not know what they want. They
seemed as happy as South Sea Islanders, and much more tenacious of life.
Both the coloured population and the black population have nearly
doubled within the past half-century. From the point of view of the
white employer, no doubt, it is highly desirable that, as Mr. Booker
Washington puts it, they should “want more wants:” more civilization
would mean more stability and industry, with less inclination to
“prædial larceny.” But from the point of view of the black man himself,
the benefits of progress seem far more questionable. I read without the
appropriate sense of horror that “not more than half of the native
population is effectively reached by religious and educational
influences,” and that 60 per cent. of the births are illegitimate. It
seems to me that the Jamaican negro enjoys all the advantages of the
primitive life without its disadvantages, whereas the American negro
(broadly speaking) is subjected to all the evils of civilization, while
he receives but a disproportionate share of its benefits.
IV
THE PANAMA CANAL
When, in New York, I was handed a sailing-list of the Royal Mail Steam
Packet Company’s boats, I observed that their first port of call, after
Jamaica, was Colon. In vain I hurriedly searched the map of the
Caribbean Sea, hoping to disguise my ignorance. I had to pocket my
pride, and inquire, “Where is Colon?” Afterwards I discovered that Colon
was a place of which I had often heard under its earlier name of
Aspinwall; for my father, one of the Californian Argonauts, had twice
crossed the Isthmus of Darien in the old days.
Under no conceivable name would Colon be an attractive place. It is
situated on flat ground (formerly an island) at the bottom of a little
bag of a bay; it consists of the ordinary jerry-built two-storey houses
of a more or less improvised tropical sea-port; its fringe of palms is
meagre and mangy; and it is backed by low and featureless wooded hills.
But, as we steam slowly up to the jetty, what is this cluster of some
twenty or thirty neat new houses, under a grove of palm-trees away to
the right? There is something odd about them, something dark and
blind-looking; they seem to have neither windows nor doors. After a
little searching of spirit, I realize what they suggest to me—they are
like a row of giant meat-safes.
And there, at the point of the spit of land, is a statue—a group of two
figures. Now I know where I am, for I have been reading things up a
little. This must be the statue of Columbus embracing an Indian maiden,
presented by the Empress Eugénie in the palmy days of French ambition
regarding the Isthmus; and the houses behind it must be those of the
American officials in the settlement of Cristobal, a suburb of Colon.
One soon learns to appreciate the “screened” houses of the Canal Zone,
with their verandahs enclosed in an impervious veil of wire gauze. But
outwardly, and especially at a distance, they are not things of beauty.
Three minutes in the broiling streets of Colon were quite enough for me.
I have seen frontier settlements before now; and Colon, though it has a
sort of a history, is at present, to all intents and purposes, a
frontier settlement. “Do you know Port Said?” a resident said to me;
“Well, this place is just about 50 per cent. wickeder.” I think the
resident (with pardonable partiality) exaggerated a little; but the
aspect of Colon, even by day, was quite sufficiently sinister.
Besides, I had an important introduction to present at Panama; so I took
the first train thither. This railway, or at any rate a railway more or
less on the line of this one, was built in the ’fifties, and is said to
have cost a life for every tie (_Anglice_, sleeper). Literal-minded
persons question this statement; to me it seems entirely probable. For
if ever there was a pestiferous-looking region, it is this land of swamp
and jungle and blood-red river. Though I knew that science had
practically annulled the evil spell that had so long rested on it, there
were still places which I could scarcely look at without a shudder.
Of course the Canal works, and the settlements of the workers, give an
air of great animation to many points on the line. But apart from these
I saw not a single sign of life on the whole route; not a square inch of
cultivation, not a man or woman who looked like a peasant of the region;
only a few undaunted cattle browsing here and there in the swamps. And
every here and there, to add to the desolation, lay great pieces of
machinery—travelling cranes, trucks, even engines—overturned by the
wayside and half submerged in jungle. They were relics of the French
fiasco, the abandoned impedimenta of De Lesseps’ Moscow. I have seen few
more tragic spectacles.
Here let me say, however, that intelligent Americans speak with great
respect of their French predecessors. “Consider the difficulties they
had to deal with,” a high official said to me—“difficulties that we have
had practically swept away for us! They knew nothing of tropical
hygiene, and malaria and yellow fever had it all their own way with
them. They knew nothing of cold storage, and the problem of supply was
practically insoluble. Considering all these circumstances, it is
wonderful what they did, and did well. If it bears a small proportion to
the £50,000,000, more or less, that were sunk in the enterprise, you
must remember that probably not half that sum of money ever got to the
Isthmus. Their material was all excellent. We use a considerable amount
of it to this day. We have dug many of their locomotives out of the
jungle, and found them practically as good as new. When we took over the
business, there was a great outcry over the £8,000,000 we paid to the
French Company. People said it was grossly extravagant; but we have
found that the bargain was a good one.” Despite all alteration of plans,
I gather that about half the excavation actually made by the French has
proved, or will prove, useful.
As one leaves the station at Panama, one fears that it is to prove a
second Colon. [Sidenote: A Sanitary Campaign.] Here are the same
two-storey shanties, half of them, it would seem, drinking-bars, and the
other half miscellaneous stores, kept by the ubiquitous Ah Sin and Wong
Lee. But after half a mile or so of this Hispano-Americano-Chinatown,
the Avenida Central leads one into the moderately old and not quite
uninteresting Spanish city, with its Plaza, its twin-towered Cathedral,
and its fort. And when you get to the fort, you find yourself on the
central promontory of one of the most beautiful bays in the world; but
of this more anon, from another point of view.
The towns of Panama and Colon are specially excluded from the Canal
Zone—the strip of territory extending five miles on each side of the
Canal, which the United States has bought from the Republic of Panama
for £2,000,000. But even in these two towns the Americans have
undertaken the work of paving and sanitation; the outlay to be repaid
by instalments extending over fifty years. So they have repeated here
the drastic cleaning-up which they have effected in Havana, even
outraging the feelings of the natives by abolishing the domestic
rain-water butt, the breeding-place of the “Anopheles” and “Stegomyia”
mosquitos—disseminators, respectively of malaria and yellow fever. It
is mainly, though of course not entirely, by waging war upon these
insects that the now almost perfect sanitation of the Canal Zone has
been secured. And it is in order to exclude them from the happy home
that all the I.C.C.—Isthmian Canal Commission—houses are “screened”
with wire gauze.
To one of these houses, in the suburb of Ancon, I drove in the early
afternoon, and presented my introduction, which was honoured with true
American cordiality. Once within the gauze fortification (and the door
shuts behind you with a spring, lest you should inadvertently admit a
casual Anopheles) you find yourself in a delightfully arranged tropical
house, with dining-room and drawing-room opening off a central hall, and
with the spacious verandah affording what is equivalent to another suite
of rooms. It is built entirely of hardwood, painted in white and shades
of green, and is as cool and airy as heart can desire. From within, the
“screen” is scarcely noticeable; in the normal Panama weather, indeed,
it merely softens agreeably the glare of the sun outside.
“Is this,” I asked, “the famous house that was built in some incredibly
short space of time?”
“Yes,” said my host, laughing. “That story has got around a good deal,
but it has the merit of being true. When the house was begun, I saw that
the workmen were simply dilly-dallying over it and making no way. I
spoke to our chief, Colonel Goethals, about it, and he came over and
looked at the preparations, so far as they had gone. He said to the
overseer: ‘This house must be finished and ready for occupation on the
15th of November’—just six weeks ahead. The overseer pulled a very long
face, and said, ‘I’ll do my best, sir.’ ‘That was not my order,’ said
Colonel Goethals. ‘I did not tell you to do your best—I told you to have
the house finished.’ And finished it was, in just thirty-six working
days.”
After taking me for a most interesting drive in the environs of Ancon,
my host was compelled, by a previous engagement, to leave me to myself
for the rest of the evening. [Sidenote: “A Peak in Darien.”] I did the
obvious thing, which was to climb Ancon Hill at sunset. To do so you
have first to wind your way through the beautifully situated hospital
buildings, all, of course, carefully screened in gauze. Straying a
little from the proper road, I came across a lumber-yard, outside of
which I was a little startled to find a pile of some fifty coffins of
assorted sizes. These, too, might, I thought, have been “screened”
without disadvantage to the spirits of the community.
A stiff climb of about half an hour brought me to the top of Ancon Hill,
and disclosed one of the loveliest views I have ever seen. Immediately
below lay the town of Panama on its promontory. To the left a huge bay
curved outward, with a magnificent sweep, and beyond it range on range
of mountains grew ever dimmer and more distant as they faded away into
South America. To the right of Panama lay the smaller bay of La Boca, in
which the canal will actually debouch, studded with beautiful
mountainous islands, not at all unlike those of the bay of Naples, on a
smaller scale. It was a glorious scene; and a white American cruiser
lying out in the anchorage gave a pleasant touch of life to it.
Observe that I have said “to the left” and “to the right” of Panama, not
to the south and to the north; for the orientation here is extremely
puzzling. I naturally expected to see the sun set over the Pacific; but,
to my great surprise, there seemed to be no sun in the heavens in that
direction. Yet the light proved that a sunset was going on somewhere;
and, turning inland, I found the luminary engaged in sinking behind the
mountains of the Isthmus—to the eastward it seemed to me. A study of a
large-scale map may show the reason for this paradox—I shall not attempt
to expound it.
The Isthmian Canal Commission has built and runs a delightful tropical
hotel at Ancon, called—heaven knows why—the Tivoli. [Sidenote: The
Tivoli Hotel.] Even the negro waiters wear at their belt the brazen
badges or checks showing their numbers on the I.C.C. pay-list. Salaries
are paid to numbers, not to names. Many of the labourers have no
ascertainable, or no spellable, name; many change their names as the
fancy strikes them; but their badge identifies them at once.
The telephone in my bedroom rang at 5.30 the next morning, for I had to
catch a train at 6.35 to meet my Ancon friend at Culebra, several
stations down the line. On the way, I saw a gang of black convicts
working at an embankment. The black and white stripes of their trousers
were conspicuous: less conspicuous the chain attaching one leg of each
man to a large bullet. A negro in khaki uniform stood sentry over them
with fixed bayonet.
There is, it appears, surprisingly little serious crime in the Zone.
There are three district judges, who, sitting in banc, form a supreme
court. Trial by jury has recently been introduced, on the theory that
the Constitution follows the flag. Two cases have been tried by jury: in
the first a white man was acquitted who ought (said my informant) to
have been found guilty; in the second, a negro was (justly) convicted
with promptitude and despatch.
After breakfast at the delightful house of one of the officials at
Culebra, my kind cicerone and I sallied forth to visit the famous
Culebra Cut. But, while waiting for our motor to appear, he showed me
two of the characteristic institutions of the Zone.
[Sidenote: A Club House.]
The first was an I.C.C. Club House—a spacious and admirably arranged
recreation-home, containing a library, reading and writing rooms,
billiard-room, gymnasium, skittle alley, and theatre for amateur
performances and minstrel shows.
“The great enemy we have to fight,” said my friend, “is not the climate,
and still less disease, but the monotony of the life. You cannot get
good work out of discontented and homesick people—you cannot even retain
their services. So it has been one of our most essential tasks to
organize amusements, and make the leisure time of our people agreeable.
This Culebra club-house is one of four already built, at the cost of
about £7000 apiece. The others are at Empire, Gorgona, and Cristobal;
and we have four or five more in contemplation.”
“And to whom are the club-houses open?”
“To all Gold Employees; and the dues are only one dollar a month.”
The Gold Employee means, on the face of it, the man or woman whose
salary is calculated in United States currency, while the Silver
Employee is the labourer, white or black, who works at so much an hour,
calculated in the currency of Panama, in which a dollar is equal to just
half the American or gold dollar. But to all intents and purposes, so
far as I could make out, the Gold Employee is the white American, the
Silver Employee is everybody else. There are 6000 American employees of
the Commission; and, counting officials of the Panama Railway and women
and children, there are altogether about 12,000 Americans on the Zone.
The total number of employees varies considerably, but is somewhere
about 40,000.
The second institution to which my friend introduced me was a Commissary
Store, of which there are half a dozen in the Zone. In this large and
roomy building commodities of every description are dispensed to
employees of the Commission. I say dispensed, for nothing is bought for
money. [Sidenote: A Socialistic Store.] Everything is paid for by
coupons various values, issued to employees alone—the object being to
ensure that none but they shall benefit by the institution. As the
region is almost wholly unproductive, everything has to be imported from
New York, New Orleans, and other points of the United States, from one
to two thousand miles distant—the “perishables” being handled by a
magnificent system of cold storage. As everything is supplied virtually
at cost price, the Canal employee on the average pays for what he
consumes rather less than he would in New York.
“But, my dear sir,” I said, as we left the Commissary Store, “this is
sheer unmitigated State Socialism.”
“I know it,” he replied, “but I have always thought that Socialism under
Carlyle’s ‘benevolent despot’ would be no bad thing. And we flatter
ourselves that, in the I.C.C., the benevolent despot has, for once, been
discovered.”
Our motor had by this time appeared—a motor running on the railroad—and
we set off. [Sidenote: The Culebra Cut.] First we ran down the ordinary
passenger track to Las Cascadas; and there, by means of an ingenious
portable turntable, we faced about and got ourselves switched on to
rails leading to the Cut. Times out of number had our motor-man to jump
off and turn the points so as to run us into a siding while some huge
“dirt train” rumbled past. The rule is that everything must give place
to a “business” train. Only for the President of the United States was
the line cleared.
Up in the North, an old soldier of the Union, now one of the most
delightful of scholars and critics—why should I not name Professor
Lounsbury?—had said to me, “I thought that the charge of Pickett’s
Brigade, on the third day at Gettysburg, was the greatest sight that I
ever had seen or would see; but the Culebra Cut really rivalled it.” I
was curious to see where any analogy could lie between two such
disparate spectacles; and, frankly, I could find it only in the
cannonade of dynamite through which we had occasionally to run. But
unquestionably the Cut is a wonderful spectacle, a tremendous
demonstration of human and mechanical energy.
It is simply the transformation of a mountain into a valley. Imagine all
the biggest railway cuttings you have ever seen ranged into a sort of
giant stairway, along the two sides of a great prism-shaped valley; and
imagine all these cuttings, at a dozen different levels, being daily and
hourly deepened by an army of machines and men. The activity is
enormous. Here we have whole companies of drills of various kinds boring
the rock to be charged with dynamite; a little farther on we pause at a
given signal, and presently come five or six detonations, one after the
other, like a sharp discharge of artillery. The usual charge is about
three hundred pounds; but on one occasion twenty-three tons were used in
a single explosion, to blow away a whole hillside. When the ground has
been loosened, or “fired,” as they call it, along comes that mammoth
earth-eater, the steam-shovel, with its attendant train of dirt-cars,
digs its shining steel teeth into the hillside, and munches it up at the
rate of five cubic yards to a mouthful. These giant mouthfuls it spits
out again one by one into the flat “Lidgertwood” cars on the adjoining
track, five or six mouthfuls (I forget the exact number), constituting a
carload. The train of some fifteen cars is, in fact, a long platform on
wheels; for iron aprons join car to car and make the platform
continuous. The cars, moreover, have but one side, so that, when the
train arrives at the dumping-ground, a sort of steam plough is dragged
by a cable along its whole length, and its huge burden of rock and soil
is discharged in a very few minutes. For another consistency of soil, a
tilting form of dirt-car is used. In short, no possible time- or
labour-saving device is neglected. Even the shifting of temporary
railway tracks, which is constantly required, is effected by a machine,
which lifts whole sections of rails and “ties,” and deposits them in
their new location.
Along the whole length of the Cut we made our way, zig-zagging from
level to level. [Sidenote: Engineering Difficulties.] When we were in
the very bottom of the “prism,” and the two sides of the eviscerated
mountain were towering above us, I inquired what was to be the ultimate
surface level of the water, and found that the surface level had not yet
been reached by many feet.
For about half its length, the Canal will not have the aspect of a canal
at all, but of a great lake. The low lands of the northern side of the
Isthmus are to be entirely flooded by the damming at Gatun of the
Chagres river. This lake-reservoir will have a surface area of about one
hundred and ten square miles, and will serve as a regulator of the water
supply. For instance, such a sudden rainfall as would cause the Chagres
river to rise thirty-five feet in twenty-four hours, will raise the
water in the dam only about three inches.
It is whispered in Colon that there is still one great engineering
difficulty in the way of the enterprise, and that is to find an adequate
foundation for the huge Gatun Dam. Whether such a difficulty exists I
cannot say, but, if it does, I am very sure it will be overcome.
Croakers also declare that it is well known that the proposed width of
the locks at Gatun and La Boca (100 feet) will be quite inadequate for
the greater Dreadnoughts and Lusitanias of the future, but that the
engineers dare not tackle a larger “proposition.” These are very likely
the idlest of rumours. The quidnuncs of Colon do not observe the
admirable resolution adopted by the Cristobal Women’s Club, namely,
“That every club-woman in the Canal Zone constitute herself a committee
of one to foster favourable instead of adverse criticism of the
conditions of the Zone and of the Isthmus of Panama.”
[Sidenote: A Triumph of Organization.]
We had just dodged our way through the Cut, when the eleven o’clock
whistle sounded, and work ceased for the “noon hour” of eleven to one,
essential in this climate. We were thus enabled to make a pretty clear
run into Panama. A recent rainfall had left some standing water along
the line, and wherever we saw a pool we saw, too, a negro treating it
with a can of crude petroleum. The mosquito has indeed a poor time of it
in the domain of the I.C.C.
Regretfully I bade my hosts farewell and took the 5.30 train for Colon.
As the twilight fell, about midway across the Isthmus, I saw, on the
same patch of green, one set of negroes playing baseball, and another
set playing cricket. The latter were, of course, Jamaicans, asserting
their privileges as citizens of the British Empire. This, I am told,
they are very apt to do, in and out of season. The moment they consider
their dignity outraged, their retort is, “Let me tell you, sah, I am a
British subject.” And, truly, for men of their hue, it is better to be
British subjects than American citizens.
It was at Colon, the same evening, that I heard those questionings as to
the engineering success of the Canal which I have recorded above.
Neither of its scientific nor of its political aspects do I profess to
judge; but I am much mistaken if the organization of the enterprise be
not an achievement of which America has good reason to be proud.
INDEX
Amalgamation of races, 56, 215, 217. (_See also_ “Miscegenation.”)
Alderman, E. A., 74, 76, 77, 154, 192, 218
Ancon Hill, Panama, 282
Armstrong, General S. C., 48, 117
Atlanta, Georgia, 135
” Compromise, 51, 113, 208
” Police Court, 148
” Riot, 52, 136, 206
” University, 140
Baker, Ray Stannard, 5, 18, 64, 105, 224
Baltimore, Maryland, 16
Biological argument, 227
Birmingham, Alabama, 126
“Black Belt,” The, 67
“Blind Tigers,” 147, 151
Boll-Weevil, The, 77
Bratton, Bishop, 43, 71
Bruce, P. A., 191
Buttrick, Wallace, 77
Cable, G. W., 87
Calhoun, William P., 211
Canal Zone, The, 280
” ” Club Houses in, 284
” ” Commissary Stores in, 285
Chain-gangs, 33, 99
Charleston, South Carolina, 176
Chicago, 3, 7
Child labour, 18, 90
“Clubs” and alcohol, 147, 150
Colon (Aspinwall), 276
Colour-Problem, Reality of, 9, 197
“Coloured Man,” in Jamaica, distinct from negro, 272
Convict labour, 96
Cooper, Edward E., 226
Cuba, 23, 247, 263
” Colour-line in, 250
” Revolution in, 253
Culebra Cut, Panama, 287
Demonstration farms, 79
Deportation of negroes, Proposed, 235
Discrimination, 5, 40, 70, 74, 97, 127, 139, 162, 176, 234
Dispensary system, 153
“Dooley, Mr.,” 146
Du Bois, W. E. B., 30, 33, 45, 52, 56, 61, 75, 99, 140, 162, 208
Dumas, Alexandre, 226, 231
” ” Fils, 46
Education, 17, 22, 25, 43, 76, 104, 128
” Academic, 17, 50, 122, 141
” Agricultural, 76
” Compulsory, 78, 128
” Industrial, 17, 50, 57, 109, 119, 192
” Board, General, 76
Equality, Political, 9, 72
” Race, 43, 231
Ethnological argument, 217
Finot, Jean, 219
Florida, 177
Florida East Coast Railway, 178, 180
Frissell, H. B., 119
Foraker, Senator, 107
Gatun Dam, Panama, 289
Goethals, Colonel, 281
“Grandfather clause,” 171
Graves, John Temple, 238
Hampton Institute, 48, 114
Havana, 23, 247, 257
Hookworm, 3, 194, 202
Immigration, European, 133, 196
Indians, American, 123
” Asiatic, 183
Instinct, 8, 9, 16, 71, 201, 217
Isthmian Canal Commission, 280, 283
Jacksonville, Florida, 177
“Jai Alai,” 257
Jamaica, 265
“Jim Crow Car,” 70, 131, 139, 234
Justice, Administration of, 96
Kingston, Jamaica, 265
Knapp, S. A., 79
” Arthur, 81
“Lilywhite Policy,” 34, 171
Louisville, Kentucky, 29, 36
Lynching, 24, 26, 33, 139, 169, 216, 235
” Statistics of, 27
McKinley, Carl, 235
Marriage of white with black, where legal, 5
Massacre, Possibility of, 206
Matanzas, Cuba, 263
Memphis, Tennessee, 38, 59
Miami, Florida, 179
Miller, Kelly, 101, 161, 215, 223
Miscegenation, 64, 132, 214, 231
Montgomery, Alabama, 64, 94
Mosquitos, “Anopheles” and “Stegomyia,” 280
Mulattos, 108, 129, 213, 225, 230
” do not “breed straight,” 63
” separate class in Jamaica, 272
Murphy, Edgar Gardner, 26, 30, 35, 60, 77, 95, 101, 105, 190, 216, 273
Negro and Jew, 215
” and Prohibition, 149, 195
” as domestic servant, 18
” barbers, 30
” “Body odour” of, 144
” churches, 139, 163
” crime, 26, 28, 100, 142, 200
” Cuban, 251
” disfranchisement, 34, 171, 212, 234
” education, 17, 22, 25, 43, 104, 174
” homes, 32, 35, 53, 156
” Inferiority of, 221
” Instinctive feeling towards, 8, 144, 183
” in the North, 7, 209
” Jamaican, 272, 290
” labour unnecessary to South, 211
” lawyers, 31, 36, 98
” loyalty during Civil War, 25
” morality, 64, 139, 214
” mortality, 193, 205
” Northern feeling towards, 3, 14, 21, 209
” Numbers of, 16, 93, 189
” peonage, 102, 234
” policemen, 169
” precocity, 129
” professional men, 33
” Progressive, 142
” religion, 34, 74, 139 ” State, A, 237 ” Rural, 69, 193
” taxation, 104, 169 ” thrift, 54, 175 ” Urban, 69, 193
” vitality, 189 ” wealth, 32, 33, 35, 157 Negrophobia “not matter of
colour,” 144 New Orleans, 87, 153 New York, 7, 15, 195
.sp 1
.ix
Old Point Comfort, 114
Olivier, Sir Sydney, 200, 203, 227
Page, Thomas Nelson, 25, 27, 33, 138, 193, 207, 209
Palma, President, 252
Panama Canal, 276
” City, 279
” Isthmus of, 278
“Pan-mixture,” 219
Patterson, Professor, 106
“Pelota,” 257
Peonage, 102, 234
Philadelphia, 21, 195
Phillips, Dr., 127
“Poor Whites,” 3, 18, 195
Population, Proportion of black to white, 16, 93, 189, 196
” Increase of negro, 36, 189, 196
Port Antonio, Jamaica, 268
Prohibition, 146
Race Antipathy, 143, 198, 207
Railway Stations, 126
Rape, 22, 24, 59
Reconstruction Period, 33, 43, 56, 60, 138
Rockefeller, John D., 77, 84, 194
Roosevelt, President, 13, 107, 227, 256
Royce, Professor, 198
St. Augustine, Florida, 178
Santiago di Cuba, 264
Segregation of Negroes, Proposed, 233
Slavery, 3, 25, 32, 230
Slave-trade, 201, 220
Smith, W. B., 27, 129
Southern States an Anglo-Saxon community, 218
Southern States a “white man’s land,” 204, 229
Southern States, Poverty of, 77, 105, 202
Southern States, Religion of white population, 73, 143, 154
Southern States, Wealth of, 76
Stone, A. H., 23, 93, 97, 157, 188, 190, 211, 243
Street-car episodes, 11, 30, 93, 176
Taft, President, 254, 255
Timber, Waste of, 20, 135, 179
Thomas, William Hannibal, 33, 144, 193
“Toothbrush, Gospel of,” 54, 70
Turner, Herbert, 119
Tuskegee, 49, 107, 116, 141
Vicksburg, Mississippi, 68, 85
Virginia Hot Springs, 19
Washington, Booker T., 35, 42, 45, 48, 65, 69, 97, 121, 192, 196, 208,
215, 274
Washington, Mrs. Booker, 108
Washington, D. C., 4, 6, 11, 16
Wells, H. G., 199, 201
West Indies, British, 188, 200, 203
“White Negroes,” #125, 170, 174, 223
PRINTED BY
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and
are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.
The following issues should be noted, along with the resolutions.
163.12 he s[et/aid]. Replaced.
181.9 but all are st[r]angely contorted Inserted.
272.31 in the West Indies “coloured[’/”] means Replaced.
273.19 none of that[,] race rivalry Removed.
274.24 “prædial larcen[c]y.” Removed.