ST. THOMAS AND ITS PAST
St. Thomas is very beautiful when seen from a distance, with its
gray-green mountains rising above the sea, mottled with soft mauves of
shadow and dazzling silvery sunlight—a mass of opalescent tints, as
though the hills were carven from a giant pearl shell. And as the
harbor opens to view, and the little town of Charlotte Amalie is seen
spreading fanwise up its three hillsides in triangles of soft buff,
creamy white, and red, it seems a bit of the Mediterranean detached and
transplanted here in the Caribbean.
But it must be confessed that the enchantment is mainly loaned by
distance, for St. Thomas is a barren, arid island. Charlotte
Amalie—shut in by the hills—is unbearably hot; there is but one level
street, and while steep lanes, often ascending in stairways, lend
picturesqueness to the place, they are most discouraging thoroughfares
on a sweltering tropical day. Moreover, St. Thomas, having ever been a
world’s mart, a free port depending entirely upon commerce, has not the
foreign, fascinating atmosphere we find in many of the islands.
Its people, a marvelous potpourri of nationalities, of necessity have
become remarkable linguists, with a smattering of virtually every
civilized tongue, but they are neither picturesque nor interesting.
On such a cruise as ours, however, this Virgin Island possession of
Uncle Sam’s could not well be passed by, although, truth to tell, its
piratical associations are somewhat meager and of questionable
authenticity.
I had seen this famed source of bay-rum under both Danish and American
rule, in rain and in shine, in war and in peace; in prosperity with a
forest of masts in its snug harbor, and, again, devastated by
hurricanes, its shores strewn with tangled wrecks of countless vessels.
But never before had St. Thomas appeared to me just as it did when,
passing Sail Rock in the lee of the land, we entered the harbor and
dropped the Vigilant’s anchor before Charlotte Amalie.
I was looking at it now from a new point of view. I was blind to the
great coaling-piers, to the gaunt dry-dock, to the fact that
gray-painted cruisers and big liners rode upon the glassy surface of
the harbor, that the Stars and Stripes flew from the mastheads and
flagstaffs, that motor-cars scurried along the waterfront street. I was
trying to visualize St. Thomas as it had been two centuries and more
before, when ships with lateen yards, high poops, and wall-sided hulls
pierced with cannon ports had swung to anchor before the town; when
roistering crowds of fierce-whiskered, besashed sea-rovers with
cutlasses at their belts and bandanas on their heads had swaggered
through the steep and crooked streets; when the little pink
“Christian’s” fort beside the quay had been looked upon as a real
fortification, and the Danes had not been above receiving the corsairs
with open arms.
It is not a difficult matter to imagine Charlotte Amalie’s streets
filled with buccaneers, for after a few encounters with boatmen,
beggars, guides, and gamins the average visitor will be convinced that
the pirates still haunt the place in spirit if not in body. Maybe the
freebooters’ traits have been passed down in their blood that flows to
some extent in the veins of a large proportion of the Virgin Islanders;
but, however that may be, the present inhabitants of St. Thomas know
little and care less about piratical history or relics.
And an investigation of the contents of the shops in Charlotte Amalie
will lead one to think that much of the buccaneers’ loot still remains
in stock after a lapse of two centuries or more. Such juxtaposition of
odds and ends from all quarters of the world, it would be hard to
duplicate in any other port upon the planet.
Predominant, and everywhere in evidence, are the two items inseparably
associated with St. Thomas,—jipijapa hats and bay-rum,—although I
understand that since my last visit to the island the Volstead law has
shown its effects even on bay-rum. But formerly—at any rate, until its
acquisition by Uncle Samuel—St. Thomas was more famous for its bay-rum
than for anything else; bay-rum and St. Thomas were synonymous around
the world. Charlotte Amalie reeked of bay-rum: every ragged negro one
met upon the streets besought one to purchase it, and from mysterious
pockets or other receptacles produced a bottle or two; every shop was
filled with it, and the bumboats that flocked about every incoming and
departing ship were laden with it. And, strangely enough, very little
bay-rum is or was made in St. Thomas. To be sure, it was adulterated,
bottled, and labeled there, but the oil itself, the distilled extract
of the aromatic bay-tree, was largely produced in St. John. Not one
person in a million has ever heard of St. John, perhaps the most
charming island of the Virgins, and yet it is really the home of the
bay-rum which made St. Thomas famous. Such are fate and the effects of
publicity; and as the St. Johnians ultimately reaped a goodly portion
of the profits, I do not suppose they ever complained.
If the visitor to St. Thomas could not be cajoled or nagged into
purchasing bay-rum, then the islanders at once pressed upon him their
next most famous commodity, the jipijapa or Panama hats. Somehow the
visiting public was imbued with the idea that Panama hats could be
purchased more cheaply in St. Thomas than elsewhere, and despite the
fact that very few of the St. Thomas head-coverings ever saw the
Isthmus of Panama, and still fewer ever were made in far-off Ecuador
(the home of the bona-fide Panama), tourists, seamen, and other
visitors to St. Thomas invariably stocked up. It made no difference,
apparently, whether the hats were made in the neighboring Virgins or in
Porto Rico; as long as they were bought in St. Thomas the purchasers
reasoned that they must be genuine and cheap. Even the braided paper
affairs made by the Japanese were often passed off on the unsuspecting
and gullible tourists as real Panamas—whatever that may mean. Of
course, St. Thomas being formerly under Danish rule and a free port,
many articles which were subject to high duties in the United States
were to be had in the island at bargain prices, but Monte Cristi Panama
hats were not among them.
In the good old days before our country and all its colonies became
Saharas, St. Thomas was noted up and down and roundabout the islands
for its liquid refreshments. Not only was there the justly famed St.
Croix rum, but countless other beverages were procurable there, brought
from every liquor-producing country on the globe, in addition to
several native concoctions that were not to be laughed at, especially
after a few glasses with the jovial Danes on a holiday. Oddly enough,
inhabitants of tropical lands, especially the West Indies, consume
incredible quantities of alcoholic drinks and seem to thrive upon them.
Indeed, it is a source of pride among the islanders that their native
islets consume more alcohol per capita than any other lands, and there
is always a keen rivalry between Barbados, Bermuda, and Demerara in
this respect. But I had never heard that St. Thomas strove for first
honors and when, on one occasion, I inquired of a huge blond-bearded
St. Thomas Dane why this was so, he informed me in all seriousness that
as the St. Thomas people consumed more than all the others combined, it
was beneath them even to mention the question. Surely it must make the
old buccaneers squirm in their graves to think of St. Thomas, of all
places, being dry, dry as old Dead Man’s Chest with its one bottle of
rum to fifteen men, at least on the surface, though I know there is
many a cask, bottle, and keg stored safely away in private stocks for
the proper drinking of a skoal when occasion arises.
But to return to the shops of Charlotte Amalie and their strange and
motley contents. Here, with the bay-rum, jipijapa hats, and dried
corals and starfish, are French perfumes, picture post-cards, and seed
necklaces. Miscellaneous hardware, groceries, tinned goods, cloth, and
bric-à-brac are inextricably mixed. A salesman searches among piles of
cordage and bundles of rowlocks to find a pair of shoes or a package of
patent medicine, for every shop in Charlotte Amalie, save the drug
stores, is a little of everything with nothing in its place. I remember
seeing a pair of very old-fashioned skates dangling rusty and forlorn
outside a shop one blistering December day. Curious to know how such
things happened to be in the island, or to whom the proprietor expected
to sell them I entered and inquired. Imagine my amusement and surprise
when I was solemnly informed that they had been there for years, that
no one knew exactly what they were used for, but, in the words of the
chocolate-colored shopkeeper:
“I am aware that they are significant of the holiday season, and so I
hang them outside regularly each year as an indication to passers-by
that my Christmas stock of merchandise is on sale.” Truly, an original
method of advertising!
In another shop a pair of strange slipper-like objects, unlike anything
I had ever seen, were displayed. The owner of the shop, without
appearing to think it at all curious, told me they were from Lapland,
and, perhaps with a faint hope of making a sale, thereupon rummaged
among his stock of countless years’ standing and proudly produced a
pair of moth-eaten Eskimo boots! Had he brought forth a full suit of
armor or the skeleton of a buccaneer, I could scarcely have been more
astonished. But after all, when we come to think of it, it is not so
remarkable, for both Greenland and St. Thomas were Danish colonies, and
no doubt some far-cruising Dane brought the reindeer-skin
foot-coverings here on one of his trading voyages. We may laugh at the
Dane for not realizing that such things were hardly suitable for
everyday wear in the Virgin Islands, but is his mistake any more
ridiculous than that of our own countryman who shipped a cargo of
warming-pans to St. Kitts, or our own United States Senator who, when
about to start on a mission to Porto Rico, asked a friend if the people
there had means of heating their houses in winter?
Far more interesting than the shops, however, and a spot which every
visitor who is interested in maritime matters should see, is the
“ships’ graveyard” at Krum Bay, near the harbor entrance.
Here, for countless years, have been towed the disabled, storm-beaten
ships condemned as unworthy of repair, and here they have found their
last port, their final resting-place. Stripped of rigging and other
fittings, they have been burned for the copper they contained; but
though they are lost forever, though history makes no mention of them,
though their very names have long since been forgotten, yet they still
live on, perpetuated in their figure-heads which have been saved and,
while sadly neglected, are prized as relics.
There is something pathetic, almost tragic, in these dumb and lifeless
figures lying there exposed to the elements, their once-gay paint and
gilt tarnished, faded, and flaked off by storm and wind and sun. They
seem almost like tombstones, as indeed they are—monuments to dead and
gone ships that once proudly plowed the seven seas and the five broad
oceans. Only carven effigies, perhaps, but all that remain to tell of
stately hulls and towering pyramids of canvas, of lofty trucks and
clipper bows, of craft that, disabled, maimed, battered, and wrecked,
have left their bones here in St. Thomas at Krum Bay.
Looking at these reminders of a bygone day, one can visualize the ships
of which they formed a part, can almost identify the craft beneath
whose soaring bowsprits these figures once gazed forth across the
tumbling, foam-flecked brine. Here, leaning against a cocoanut palm, is
a Roman legionary, his short sword broken at the hilt as though in some
hard-fought battle, his shield dented and bruised, and his wooden face
seamed and scarred. Faded, weather-beaten, and forlorn, he is still a
martial figure. He has fought more battles, has seen victory in more
hard-won fights than ever soldier of Cæsar,—battles against the
elements, struggles between lashing, storm-flung waves and puny
man,—and while in the end the sea was victorious, yet we know that the
stern-visaged warrior fought a good fight and bore the brunt of battle
always in the foremost rank, ever there with threatening falchion at
the bows. Massive, heroic he is, and we feel sure that in years gone he
looked proudly, defiantly upon the sea from some ship of war or
privateer with grinning ports along her sides.
Close by, coquettishly peeping from behind a pile of junk, is a very
different figure, a female form with doll-like, simpering face, long,
flowing hair, and clinging draperies. Upon her cheeks are still patches
of pink, as though she had but freshly rouged; her skirts and low-cut
bodice still are gaudy with red and yellow, and we can see that once
her wooden tresses were of raven hue. Looking at her, we can
reconstruct the ship she graced, we can see the bluff-bowed, wallowing,
honest merchantman, and we feel sure, could we but look upon the stern,
we should see, painted across her counter, “Polly” or “Betsy” or
perchance even “Mary Ann.”
Near this lady, with her fixed wooden smile that has withstood the
tempests of centuries, a sailor lad in glazed hat lurches drunkenly,
propped up by an iron post just as his living counterpart no doubt was
supported many a time after a glorious night ashore. Now his eyes are
fixed in an unwinking stare upon raven-haired Polly, while behind him,
with outflung arm, one shapely foot spurning a carven shield, poises a
Victory. A masterpiece she, albeit her wings are sadly clipped and
disrespectful insects have pitted her classic features with their
borings until she looks as though she had suffered from smallpox. But
the finely chiseled draperies, the perfectly proportioned, softly
rounded limbs speak eloquently of beauty long since faded, of expert
craftsmanship. All who love ships must pause before her in reverence,
for once she flew gracefully at the sharp prow of some famous
clipper-ship, a grayhound of the sea, a fabric such as never will be
seen again,—the very acme of Yankee shipbuilding skill. A craft with
sky-piercing masts, vast tapering yards, and acres of billowing canvas,
the clipper was the queen of transatlantic liners, and proudly she
flaunted the Stars and Stripes for all the world to see.
And something of an epitome of St. Thomas’s history and St. Thomas’s
trade is this graveyard of the ships. As each old sailing-craft was
towed to its funeral pyre at Krum Bay the island took a step nearer its
doom, for with the passing of the old West India trade, with the
discarding of crossed yards and square sails, St. Thomas’s greatness
departed. Never again will her harbor be filled with a forest of masts
flying the flags of every maritime nation.
Perchance under the United States Government she may be more stable
than heretofore: she may suffer less from lack of cash and a mother
country’s interest. Coaling-docks and grimy colliers will attract a
certain number of hideous tramps and spotless liners to her harbor;
tourists may spend a few hours and a few dollars in quaint Charlotte
Amalie, but never again will this port be world-famed as of yore.
But even so,—even though the island’s romantic past is little more than
tradition, with the old days gone forever; even with the omnipresent
marines and Fords upon the streets and the American flag flying over
the old pink fort,—St. Thomas is still a charming resort with its three
hills rising like pyramids of multicolored, red-roofed buildings, its
gray-green mountains over all, its blue sky and bluer waters and its
brown, black, and yellow good-natured, care-free inhabitants, who,
though the blood of pirate chieftain or old Viking may run in their
veins, one and all proudly proclaim themselves “Americans.”
Of all things in St. Thomas, the most cherished, even sacred, to the
natives, and invariably the first to be pointed out to the visitor, is
the famous “Blackbeard’s Castle” at the apex of the hillside town of
Charlotte Amalie.
Perhaps old Blackbeard never dwelt in the tower that bears his name,
any more than Bluebeard of the inquisitive wives built or occupied the
neighboring structure which bears his name. Indeed, there is no denying
that Blackbeard’s Castle bears a striking resemblance to an old stone
windmill tower. But the skeptics who have pointed this out and have
scoffed at the beloved legend of the St. Thomians have overlooked the
fact that even if the tower was originally only an unromantic
cane-mill, there is no valid reason why Teach should not have made use
of it. Dutch windmills were built, used, and abandoned years before the
famous pirate saw the light of day, and a cylindrical tower of massive
stone, whether designed for a windmill or otherwise, was an ideal
structure for a freebooter’s dwelling and fortress, and was admirably
adapted to defensive tactics.
In fact, between the two, I would far rather have been within that
tower on the hill than in the squat pink fort, in case of attack in the
days when muzzle-loading guns and round shot were in vogue, and the
fact that Blackbeard’s Castle bears a family likeness to a windmill
proves or disproves nothing. Everywhere in the West Indies one finds
Spanish, French, Dutch, and even English towers built for forts and as
much like that upon this St. Thomas hilltop as peas in the same pod.
Right on the splendid Malecon in Havana there is one; several are
scattered about Puerto Plata, Macoris, and other towns in Santo
Domingo. They may be seen in a more or less ruined state all up and
down the Antilles and the Main, and yet no one has the temerity to
suggest that they were once windmills! Why, then, should any one try to
destroy this almost sacred tradition of St. Thomas? Why try to rob the
islanders of that one reminder of the buccaneers? No, let us not be
doubting Thomases, but rather be thankful that this old-time haven of
the pirates still retains at least one landmark that links it with the
past.
And there is no reason why Blackbeard should not have dwelt in St.
Thomas in those days of his prosperity. All the Virgin Isles—Danish,
Dutch, and British—were safe refuges for the pirates, retreats wherein
they could lie in peace, where they could refit and careen their craft,
could secure supplies, could exchange their loot for gold and silver
currency, and could gamble and carouse to their hearts’ content.
Very canny were the thrifty islanders in thus opening their doors to
the freebooters. It protected them from attack, and it insured a lively
trade. And they well knew that whatever they paid in good pieces of
eight and golden onzas for plundered goods would eventually return to
their own pockets over bars and gaming-tables, for the pirates were
free spenders and money ever burned holes in their pockets. So we may
feel sure that St. Thomas has sheltered many a pirate ship and many a
famous or infamous buccaneer, especially in the great harp-shaped bay
to the west of Charlotte Amalie, and separated from the harbor by a
rocky peninsula. Here the pirates were wont to lie in wait for
unsuspecting merchantmen bound through the Virgin Passage between the
island and neighboring Porto Rico, until, to save their faces, the
Danish authorities were compelled to request their welcome but
disreputable guests to confine themselves to more peaceful pursuits
while in Danish waters or else betake themselves elsewhere.