LONELY ISLES
From Anegada to St. Martin is, in the vernacular of the buccaneers, a
“passinge longe sayle,” a run of nearly one hundred miles across the
heaving Atlantic rollers surging in through the Anegada Passage. But to
one who loves the sea, the tang of salt spray high-flung by a plunging
bow, and the heave of a tossing deck, it is a glorious sail. The
Vigilant made fine weather of it, and sixteen hours after low-lying
Anegada dropped below the horizon astern Anguilla rose like a cloud
above the sea before us.
Anguilla, or the “Eel,” was no doubt frequented by the buccaneers, but,
as far as I know, there is nothing authentic to connect them with the
island, and it holds but little interest. Its thirty-six square miles
of brush and salt-grass have been abandoned to the negroes, who find it
difficult to gain a livelihood. They do, to be sure, raise a few cattle
and ponies, as well as donkeys; and, being forced to subsist on the
meager rations nature has provided, these four-footed Anguillans are
living examples of the survival of the fittest. They are noted
throughout the neighboring islands for their hardiness, though they are
diminutive beasts.
Passing Eel Island by, we headed for St. Martin, the one island of all
the Caribbees which has the distinction of being under two flags at the
same time. In days long past, when Briton, Don, Frenchman, and
Hollander, as well as Dane and Swede, slit one another’s throats over
these bits of land, it was not uncommon for the islands to be in the
possession of several nations in rapid succession. In fact, in those
days it must have been difficult for the struggling inhabitants to know
to what king or emperor they owed allegiance, for they were never quite
sure, when they retired at night, what flag they would see flying above
the fort and government house the next morning. It was a question of “O
say, can you see” what banner is there? Often, within the space of as
many days, they would be under British, French, and Dutch colors in
turn. Often, too, one fort would be under one flag and another fort
under another, or a portion of the island would be occupied by the
troops of one nation and another part by the soldiers of a different
power, while at times two nations agreed temporarily to hold an island
in partnership, each keeping to its own side of the fence, so to speak;
or by common consent an island was rejected by all and regarded as
“neutral territory,” the powers deciding that it was not worth the
bloodshed necessary to hold it.
But gradually the islands became the acknowledged possessions of the
various European nations, and only St. Martin remained through the
centuries a land divided within itself, with the French flag flying
from one port and the Dutch banner from another.
In the northern part the French rule, their half of the isle being a
dependency of Guadeloupe, while the southern half acknowledges
allegiance to the Netherlands. It would be hard to say whether France
or Holland owns the better portion of the island, but unquestionably
there are more people under the Dutch flag than under the French.
Marigot, the port and capital of French St. Martin, is a charmingly
pretty town, and the greater number of the three-thousand-odd subjects
of France dwell within its confines. Philippsburg, the Dutch capital
and port, is less populous, but the Dutch subjects altogether number
fully five thousand. Of course there is no hard-and-fast boundary
between the two, no trocha or barbed-wire fence stretching across the
island. No doubt the easy-going natives bother very little as to
whether they dwell under one flag or another, and drift back and forth
at will, or as their occupations demand, from West Indian France to
Antillean Holland. There are few of the islanders who do not speak the
Creole patois, and as the common language of the Dutch West Indies is
English, and virtually all St. Martians speak what passes for that
tongue, their dual linguistic troubles are almost nil.
Scenically, St. Martin is lovely. It is mountainous, its loftiest
summit, Paradise Peak, rising nearly two thousand feet above the sea.
The surface of the island is delightfully varied, with rolling conical
hills, broad valleys, deep gorges, and, near the shores, immense
salt-water lagoons. It is for the most part fertile, and its
inhabitants—at least those in Dutch territory—industriously cultivate
the land. Many of its hills and mountains are luxuriantly forested. The
big lagoons serve the natives as salt farms or pans, and the production
of salt, the crops grown, the raising of cattle, donkeys, and poultry,
and the yield of the fisheries provide a steady if not munificent
income, so that the St. Martians are comparatively prosperous.
Quite the reverse is the condition of the neighboring island of St.
Bartholomew,—or, as it is always called, St. Barts,—within whose lovely
harbor of Gustavia the Vigilant dropped anchor after her splendid run
from Anegada.
St. Barts is diminutive, barely eight square miles in area, hilly, with
one of its so-called “mountains” rising to one thousand feet. It is
wholly destitute of springs or streams, far from fertile, and
deplorably poverty-stricken—literally out at elbows. Its people
(virtually all negroes and mulattoes) number about three thousand, and
so wretchedly poor is their island, with so little in the way of
opportunity or employment, that the bulk of them are scattered up and
down the Antilles laboring for a livelihood, or, in their sloops,
carrying cargoes from port to port or plying a fisherman’s trade.
Although St. Barts is a French dependency, nearly all its inhabitants
speak English, and they are noted throughout the northern islands as
industrious workers. Among them at times one sees fair-haired,
blue-eyed individuals—weird-looking creatures at first sight, seemingly
albino negroes with their pale eyes and flaxen wool, but merely the odd
result of the commingling of Swedish and African blood, for St. Barts
for many years belonged to Sweden. Not until 1878 did the Swedes
relinquish this one possession of theirs in the Caribbees and turn the
almost worthless bit of land over to France. Swedish blood still crops
out, not only among the negroes but in the few “poor whites” who claim
St. Barts as their native land, and Sweden’s lost sovereignty is
perpetuated in the name of the island’s one port, Gustavia.
However, like many another island of the Caribbean, St. Barts has seen
better days. Back in the good old times Gustavia’s streets were almost
literally paved with gold and its inhabitants fairly rolled in wealth.
Here, as to few others of the Virgin Islands, flocked the buccaneers,
for at St. Barts that most cruel and murderous of pirates, Montbars the
“Exterminator,” established his headquarters. So great was the fear he
and his fellows inspired in all that no nation or official dared move
finger to molest him and his gang. Wild was the life that ebbed and
flowed in St. Barts in Montbars’s day. Gustavia’s harbor swarmed with
swift, long-sparred pirate craft; in the sheltered coves the buccaneers
repaired and refitted their ships; under the palms along the beach
their rude shelters of sail-cloth were raised, and here after many a
long cruise and desperate battle they came to divide their loot and
squander it.
What a scene they must have presented, what a picture of lawlessness,
as, gathered in the shadows of the palms, with chests of plate, coffers
of jewels, and bales of satins, brocades, and velvets on the hard sand
before them, they watched narrowly as their captains apportioned the
treasures they had won by murder, rapine, and torture. And there too,
upon the sand,—wild-eyed, disheveled, with blanched, tear-stained
cheeks,—were their human loot, girls and women, wives and daughters of
Spanish grandees, tenderly nurtured ladies torn shrieking from their
murdered loved ones’ arms, to be auctioned off like cattle here on St.
Barts’s shores,—souls to be bartered and gambled for, toys to amuse
their black-hearted captors for a space ere being cast into the gutter
or to the sharks. Surrounded by his brutish, blear-eyed crew, the
pirate captain stood, a weather-beaten, mahogany-faced rascal, his
long, ragged moustache and tangled mop of hair adding to his wild
appearance, a cocked hat set rakishly upon his head, with bedraggled
plume drooping upon his shoulder. His blood-stained ruffled shirt, open
at the throat, revealed a hairy tattooed chest, and his long-skirted,
gold-laced coat of crimson showed a round hole and a dark stain upon
the breast, where some pirate’s bullet had ended the life of the
garment’s former owner. His voluminous trousers of vivid blue, ending
at the knees, exposed his stanchion-like legs clad in green silk
stockings, while a heavy pair of Cordovan shoes with huge silver
buckles covered his feet. His arms crossed upon his chest, a cocked and
loaded pistol grasped in each hand, with hawk-like, piercing eyes and a
sardonic smile he watched his men growling, wrangling, and cursing over
the portion of loot meted out to them by the one-eyed, scar-faced
boatswain.
Dumping a chest of coins upon a sheet of tarry canvas, this fellow
would count them out in piles, one for each man, and to every coin he
tossed on the piles for the crew he would throw five upon that which
formed the captain’s share. Pieces of eight crudely struck from silver
bullion, dull-golden onzas, castellanos, doubloons, guineas, louis
d’or, oddly shaped “cross money,” in turn were divided. Then came
ingots of gold and bars of silver; altar-pieces and chalices; dishes of
beaten gold, jeweled girdles, rings, and bracelets; necklaces of pearls
and emeralds—a collection worth a king’s ransom. And these, after the
glowering chieftain had taken his pick, were gambled for by the tossing
of coins or with dice, for so varied and miscellaneous was the loot
that to apportion the articles fairly was impossible. Last of all came
the women; and then, as the great sun, in a sea of gold and blood,
dipped below the horizon and the swift-falling tropic night wrapped the
island in a mantle of black, torches flared, ribald songs rang out over
the waters of the tranquil harbor, blasphemies and drunken curses
mingled with women’s screams, and debauchery held sway.
Such scenes, in the time of Montbars and his fellows, were of daily and
nightly occurrence in St. Barts, and the island and its more peaceable
and thrifty inhabitants waxed rich. But at last there came a reckoning.
The nations, outraged by the effrontery of the pirates, joined forces
to wipe them from the seas, and after many a gory battle the lairs of
the buccaneers were cleaned up. Here and there a pirate ship still
sailed the Caribbean and flew the black flag. On jungle-covered,
out-of-the-way cays whose ownership had never been determined, the
remnants of the Brethren still had secret retreats. From hiding-places
among the reefs or landlocked coves those who survived dashed forth to
murder and to pillage unsuspecting merchantmen, but the power of the
buccaneers was broken. Like jackals they prowled about the Caribbean,
and the Virgin Islands knew them no more.
Without the buccaneers, St. Barts continued to prosper. Within
Gustavia’s harbor swift privateers took the place of pirate ships. From
this safe retreat the Americans sailed forth to settle scores with many
a British merchantman,—and corvette, for that matter,—and while England
strove to retain her revolting colonies in North America, and the
United States was being born, vast stores of riches, brought by the
privateers, accumulated in St. Barts.
But, though it was a neutral port and Sweden’s banner flew above the
fort, the English had no compunctions about violating another nation’s
rights, to benefit their own cause. Holding that might made right,
Admiral Rodney swept down with his frigates upon Gustavia and sacked
St. Barts of more than two million dollars’ worth of merchandise. Then,
for a time, the island lived on the fruits of its past, but ever losing
ground, ever falling behind, ever becoming poorer, ever getting
shabbier and shabbier, until to-day one could scarcely find as many
copper cents in St. Barts as the British found dollars.
And the worst of it is that the island, like many of its moribund
neighbors, seems to hold no promise of a future. There seems to be no
industry that can retrieve its fortunes, no possibility of making it
pay, for it is handicapped by nature. It cannot compete with the
larger, more fertile and prosperous islands (who themselves are always
in debt); its town is tumbling about its people’s ears, and there is a
steady exodus of its inhabitants to more flourishing lands.
While St. Barts is most interesting historically, and was for so long a
haven of the buccaneers and the headquarters of one of the most
notorious and bloodthirsty of pirate chieftains, yet there are upon the
island few if any reminders of the good old days. Of course, there are
tales of hidden pirate treasure,—the natives even going so far as to
assert that Montbars himself secreted vast sums in the caverns along
St. Barts’s coast,—and a few years ago an earthen jug full of ancient
coins was dug up on the outskirts of Gustavia. But, unfortunately for
romance, the coins were not pieces of eight and doubloons, as all
self-respecting pirate hoards should be, but Swedish and Dutch; and
undoubtedly, instead of having been buried there by a thrifty
buccaneer, they had been put away for the proverbial rainy day by some
worthy and peaceable as well as foresighted citizen.
Even the old-fashioned, corroded cannon that one can find in nearly any
of the islands seem totally lacking here, for so poverty-stricken and
hard put to it have the people been that any such weighty pieces of
metal have long since been taken from their resting-places and disposed
of for junk, to eke out the resources of the natives.
But we should have a warm spot in our hearts for the little island,
despite its lack of interest or attractions and its threadbare present.
Had it not been for St. Barts and certain of its neighbors, where our
privateers could lie, and from which they could prey on British
shipping and harass British men-of-war, the result of our ancestors’
brave efforts to throw off the British yoke might have been very
different.
By the same token, we should think kindly of and doff our hats to St.
Eustatius, whose magnificent volcanic cone rose majestically before the
Vigilant five hours after she had spread her wings and sailed out of
Gustavia’s harbor. It was here at “Statia,” as it is always called,
that the Stars and Stripes—or, rather, its earlier prototype—was first
saluted by the guns of a foreign power. And a pretty mess that courtesy
made for stout old Governor De Graaf, for it brought the British under
the redoubtable Rodney down upon this isle and resulted in the ruin of
Statia.
It was in November, 1776, that the fort at Orangetown (Statia’s only
port) roared out its thunderous salute to the banner of the new
republic as it flew from the masthead of the Andrew Doria of Baltimore,
one of a fleet of privateers that found friends and safety in the
Dutch, Swedish, and Danish isles and did so much to help the cause of
the American colonies. Like St. Barts, Statia, during our Revolution,
proved a godsend to our privateers and merchantmen, for it was not only
a neutral island but a free port as well. Hence, at a time when
England’s high-handed and short-sighted colonial policies had almost
ruined commerce in the West Indies, virtually all trade between Europe
and the American colonies became diverted to the tiny volcanic isle of
Statia. Then, when the French threw in their lot with our fore-fathers,
they too flocked to the Dutch port, until St. Eustatius became the
richest and greatest center of commerce in the New World and rivaled
the most famed marts of trade in the Old World as well. Ships flying
the flags of all nations steered their course for Statia; the roadstead
before Orangetown was a forest of masts and yards; immense warehouses
and docks lined the waterfront, and the place became a vast storehouse
and trading-post, a maritime and commercial exchange, such as the world
had never seen before.
Often before little sun-bathed Orangetown fully two hundred ships would
ride at anchor, and back and forth between them and the shore a steady
stream of boats plied, heavily laden with goods from every corner of
the earth. The streets were filled with crowds of stevedores, slaves,
merchants, and sailors. Bales, boxes, and barrels overflowed the giant
warehouses and were piled mountain-high along the thoroughfares and on
the beach, and merchants and buyers, unable to find accommodations, set
up their business in the open air, with packing-cases for chairs and
tables and sail-canvas awnings for roofs.
And to Statia also flocked the privateering craft from Portland, Salem,
Boston, New York, Baltimore, and countless other ports. Here they
repaired and refitted, here they disposed of captured prizes and loot,
and here they were welcomed with open arms by the thrifty Dutch.
Perchance, had the Statians and their cosmopolitan visitors confined
themselves to legitimate trade, the British might have said or done
nothing, even though De Graaf saw fit to recognize the new-born
republic officially by a salute to its flag. But the island had gone
money-mad, and not only did Statia become temporarily the world’s
greatest center of commerce, but, in addition, it became a brazenly
open dêpot for contraband of war, while, to add insult to injury, the
Dutch made no bones of convoying American privateers with their
men-o’-war, and did not hesitate to grant Dutch papers to American
merchantmen. Thus matters stood until at last the English decided that
something must be done, and on February 3, 1781, Rodney swept
unexpectedly down on Statia and, meeting with scarcely a show of
resistance, took possession of the town and all it contained, to say
nothing of over a hundred and fifty merchant ships lying in the harbor
at the time.
It was a prize which would have made the greatest buccaneer of them all
turn green with envy, for the loot consisted of over twenty-five
million dollars’ worth of goods, to say nothing of the ships. As it was
manifestly impossible for the British fleet to carry off this treasure,
and as Britain could ill afford to lose over five million pounds
sterling so easily obtained, the invaders promptly inaugurated the
greatest auction sale ever known, and there in Orangetown sold to the
highest bidders that vast accumulation of merchandise which had poured
from the ends of the earth into the little port.
Then, having seen the last of the goods taken away and the last ship
sail, Rodney pocketed his millions in the name of the King of England
and, feeling that it had been a good job well done, hoisted anchor and
bore away for other adventures.
The blow was one from which Statia never recovered. To-day the ruins of
the immense warehouses and docks are everywhere in evidence along the
waterfront of Orangetown; from hoary old Fort Orange quaint cannon
point their silent muzzles seaward through a tangle of weeds upon the
parapets from which they roared out their welcome to the Doria’s flag
so many years ago; the tower of the church wherein Mynheer De Graaf
attended services still stands above its ruined walls, and scattered
over the island are the remains of princely mansions and vast estates.
But the island and its port are almost as dead as the sturdy old
Dutchmen sleeping beneath the great carved headstones in the cemetery
on the hill.
Seen from the sea, Statia is very beautiful, with its two thousand-foot
symmetrical cone rising in a magnificent sweep from the water, and with
its northern slopes stretching into hills and plains that once were one
vast luxurious garden. Statia’s soil is exceedingly fertile and in the
olden days an enormous income was derived from its plantations of cane
and indigo, sugar and cotton, and from its orchards of fruit. But
to-day there is little cultivation carried on, and the population of
nearly one quarter of a million inhabitants has dwindled to a scant two
thousand, most of whom are mulattoes or blacks.
The port of Orangetown is attractively picturesque, part of it
straggling along just above the reach of the lazy waves and part
clambering up a steep hill to where, three hundred feet above the sea,
the Dutch flag still flies from its staff above the fort. For one who
desires to escape from the noise and strife and worries of great cities
and modern life Statia would be an ideal retreat, for its climate is
excellent, it is extremely healthful, and anything and everything may
be grown to perfection in its rich volcanic soil. Otherwise it is but
another of those sleepy isles made famous in history and now content to
bask in the tropic sun and dream of its past.
Far more interesting is Statia’s neighbor to the west, a massive
sheer-sided volcanic peak upjutting from the tumbling sea for nearly
three thousand feet—the most remarkable island, the most topsyturvy,
astonishing bit of land in all the seven seas, and known as Saba. Like
Statia, Saba is Dutch, and, among its many other distinctions, it is
the only island in the Antilles that has never changed hands and that
has no bloody stories of battles or of ruthless slaughter of the
aborigines to mar its history.
Saba’s feet are bathed in water thousands of fathoms in depth, its head
is veiled in clouds thousands of feet in the air, its coast is
forbidding, hemmed by thundering surf and beetling cliffs. It has no
harbor, no anchorage, and no landing-place worthy of the name; and yet
it supports a thrifty, happy, healthy population of nearly two thousand
souls whose everyday lives, whose occupations, and whose habitat all go
far to prove that it is indeed “hard to beat the Dutch.”
Viewing the island from the sea, one would scarcely dream that a human
being dwelt upon this mid-sea pinnacle, but a thousand feet above the
water, snugly hidden in an extinct crater as though dropped from the
clouds, is a delightfully neat, pretty, and typical Dutch village,
which, with the habitual upsidedownness of the Sabans, is called “The
Bottom” because it is at the top!
Completely out of the world is Bottom, and yet it is doubtful if any
town on earth can boast that so large a percentage of its people have
traveled far and wide. For, incongruous as it seems, nearly all the
able-bodied Saban men are sailors by choice and profession, and, from
early manhood until declining years force them to forsake the sea, they
roam the ocean highways as officers of great sailing-ships and liners.
But ever when done with sailoring they return to spend their old age in
their strange island home, and from their lofty aery—which must remind
them of the masthead of a ship—pass their time watching the vessels
that ply back and forth across the Caribbean, but never stop to make a
call at Saba.
And to visit this remarkable ocean-girt scrap of Holland is not by any
means an easy matter, either. To reach it one must travel from St.
Kitts or one of the larger islands by sail-boat, and must choose
propitious weather or the voyage will be for naught. Then, if the sea
is fairly calm, the visitor lands, or “goes aboard,” as the Sabans say,
upon a steep bit of shingly beach on the southern shore of the island.
Here, close to the water’s edge, stands a wooden shack—the combined
custom-house and harbor-master’s office of this harborless isle, with
the flag of the Netherlands fluttering above it.
Near at hand a flight of roughly hewn stone steps leads upward toward
the clouds—the road or, as the inhabitants call it, “The Ladder,” from
the landing-place to the town. Eight hundred steps there are, a
veritable Jacob’s ladder; but the Sabans are accommodating and
hospitable, and if the stranger views with trepidation the
thousand-foot climb he can make the journey in comparative ease and
comfort seated in a rocking-chair lashed between a couple of oars and
borne upon the shoulders of herculean blacks.
The Sabans, however, think nothing of the climb, and carry up the
ladder every ounce of merchandise which comes to their island. It is
not unusual to see a colored Saban ascending the precipitous way with a
half-barrel of flour or a tierce of pork upon his or her head, and when
a cargo arrives these goat-like porters and portresses often make a
dozen or more round trips in a single day.
But at the end of the climb all else is forgotten in the view that
greets the traveler’s eyes. Spread like a map in a great green bowl,
surrounded on every side with towering peaks, are neatly walled,
carefully tended gardens, and in the center the toy village of white,
red-roofed houses separated by narrow lanes between cañon-like walls of
stone. Here, in a temperate climate of perpetual June, the fair-haired,
blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked people dwell, with a few yellow-brown and black
Sabans as well, and here, a thousand feet above the surf, they raise
potatoes, strawberries, and many Northern vegetables and fruits, as
well as all those of the tropics.
Indeed, aside from the incomes of their sailor laddies, the Sabans
depend largely upon the products of their gardens, and carry them
regularly to the market at St. Kitts. But they have many another
industry besides, and many a quaint and curious custom. Passing through
the streets, one may often see an elderly pair, who might have stepped
from some cottage in Holland, industriously brushing and polishing a
coffin in their dooryard, for the Sabans believe in preparedness; and,
knowing the futility and the uncertainties of life and the
inevitability of death, they keep their coffins ready for emergencies
and as much a part of their household furnishings as chairs or tables.
While the inhabitants of this strange little island are thoroughly
Dutch in appearance, the recognized language of Saba is English, and,
save among the older people, the tongue of the Netherlands is seldom
used.
Owing to the absence of so many of the men at sea, women seem in the
great majority at Bottom and like all the women of their race they are
never idle for a moment, and they keep their homes and village so tidy
and clean that one is convinced that here is the original “spotless
town.” In the intervals between scrubbing, dusting, washing, and
cooking the Saban women find time to make beautiful drawn-work and
lace, which find a ready sale and add many guilders and dollars to
their pin-money.
But all that has gone before pales into insignificance when we learn of
the leading industry of the Sabans, the work with which the youths and
older men occupy themselves, the business that makes the visitor pinch
himself to make sure he is not dreaming; for who in the world would
ever imagine that it is, of all things, boat-building! Yes; stanch,
seaworthy boats, renowned throughout the West Indies, are built here in
a crater a thousand feet above the sea, where every plank and timber
used in their construction must be carried on people’s heads up the
ladder of eight hundred stone steps! And when at last one of these
mountain-top boats is built, how, you may well ask, do the Sabans get
it down to the water? By the simplest method in the world: they let it
down the sides of the cliffs exactly as though their island were a ship
and they were lowering their craft from the davits!