SANTO DOMINGO
I.
"There's nothing in the least to be afraid of, Mother, nothing in the
least. Why, see, even his Excellency doesn't mind." It was Sister who
spoke, but even so there was a kind of unearthly qualm creeping over me
as I made my way cautiously down the ladder and waited until a generous
swell from the big outside sent the ship's boat within stepping
distance, and then, with a jump, made for the vacancy next to Little
Blue Ribbons. When one is on dry land, fear of the water seems so
unreasoning that the timid soul speaks of it in a half-apologetic
manner; but never yet when landing in an open boat in an exposed
harbour, where the mighty roll of the ocean lifts and drops and there
seems but a veil between the great world above and the great world
beneath--never yet have I been able to take the step from steamer to
boat with any real sensation of pleasure.
We had been skirting the southern shore of the great island of Haïti or
Santo Domingo since sundown the night before, and at daybreak the word
flew around that we were off Domingo City. We must have left all the
sunshine with the happy darkies in Port-au-Prince, for, as we glanced
from our port-holes, we saw nothing but a tumble of leaden water under a
gray sky--just water and sky. Domingo City lay to the other side.
Once ready for the day and out on deck, we were met by a gloomy world.
Heavy banks of clouds piled on one another as if determined to hide the
sun. There were no dancing, rollicking little harbour waves that
morning; they were ugly and sullen ground swells, and told of heavy
weather somewhere by their grumbling, threatening heavings. A stiff wind
blew, for we had come to the region of the "Northeast Trades," and it
was no laughing matter to lower the boats and land us safely, especially
with such clumsy boats' crews. There is practically no harbour at Santo
Domingo, the capital of _la Republica Dominicana_; that is, no harbour
for deep-keeled craft. The Ozama River affords a safe inner harbour for
light-draught vessels, but on account of a bar at the entrance to this
charming stream,--upon whose shores the historic old city slumbers,--we
were forced to anchor in the open roadstead and take the ship's boats
for land.
The fear which had so troubled me when we first left the solid decks of
our good ship was soon forgotten as we approached the City of the Holy
Sunday,--Santo Domingo,--fairy godmother at the christening of Western
civilisation, the first to feel the pulse of those undying souls whose
spirits spanned the centuries to come!
I recall how I looked with all my eyes and with all my soul at the
wondrous picture opening before me as we swung into the river entrance,
and wondered if I could keep its beauty for ever. Could it be more
lovely, more enchanting, more mysterious under a white sun shining from
out a motionless blue heaven? Who shall say? Old! Old! Kissed by the
winds of centuries, Santo Domingo rests upon the brow of a verdant
plateau, and stretches its sinuous arms dreamily beyond the hills on the
shore. Great red rocks, in whose rifts glossy ferns and graceful vines
have sought safe harbour, break the roll of the sea into a thousand
glistening clouds of spray, enveloping the summit of the cliff in a
translucent mist. Like a weather-worn, decrepit, but stately warrior,
the ancient fort, with massive towers and mossy turrets and bastions and
broken walls, still holds its guard over the harbour; and as we passed
from the sea into the placid Ozama River, the enchanting view of Santo
Domingo arose in full sight. Cloaked in a faintly shimmering mist, under
a gray, tumultuous sky, the ancient city rose to greet us as a dreamy,
nebulous siren of the sea. Crumbling ruins of ancient stone stairways
led from the fort through a water-gate to the river; down those mossy
flights I could all but see a gay troop of Spanish cavaliers approaching
their quaint old galleons moored hard by. Truly it was an enchanted
city; asleep, untouched by the hand of man since the days of its first
great builder; asleep, moss-grown, hoary, throbbing still with the
dying passion of mediævalism.
[Illustration: THE OLD FORT AT THE RIVER ENTRANCE
Santo Domingo]
II.
Contrary to our prearranged plan, we decided, upon landing, to engage a
carriage. Just why, I hardly knew, but there was a subtle power at work
in the mind of one of our party, and although it has never been hinted
at since then, in calmly going over that carriage-hiring I think I begin
to read the riddle. We had left our French at Haïti, and this was our
first experiment on this voyage with Spanish, and I suspect some of us
were anxious to see how Cervantes's language--_la idioma
Castellana_--would work when it came to such a common-place proceeding
as the hiring of a carriage.
We came off with colours flying, and took seats in a vehicle made some
twenty-five or fifty years ago (quite modern as compared with those of
Port-au-Prince), bumped up the steep stony hill, under an old archway,
and had our first glimpse of the solid Spanish architecture of Santo
Domingo. Everything was interesting; the balconies upheld by graceful
supports of wrought iron; the neat appearance of the low-roofed, white
and blue washed houses; the ever-beautiful palms and banana groves seen
in vistas across the river; even our driver was a source of interest,
for I expended my entire vocabulary of Spanish--few words indeed--upon
that youth, all to no purpose. All he did was to look dazed and answer,
"_Si, señora_" to everything, hit or miss, until we came to the
Cathedral, when, just to make it right with my conscience for having
been the innocent cause of all his awful lies, I asked him, pointing to
the building, which could be nothing in the mind of a sane man but a
cathedral, if that was the Cathedral, and he said: "_Si, señora_," and I
felt relieved.
[Illustration: A CLOSER VIEW OF THE OLD FORT
Santo Domingo]
No description can convey to your mind an adequate impression of the
beauty of this wonderful old cathedral, for one needs colour, colour,
colour, everywhere for its proper setting. It is built of the yellowest
of soft porous stone, to which time has bequeathed a luminosity, the
brilliancy of which no language can rightly picture. It is purely
Spanish in its style, depending for its beauty entirely on its symmetry
of form and not on extraneous ornamentation; it is built rather low to
withstand frequent earthquakes, and from its solidity and simplicity
and directness of construction has a charm which few of the later
Spanish cathedrals possess. Time has laid her kindly hands upon this
temple of God gently--ever so gently, and through many a lifetime has
fulfilled the priestly office of consecration.
I sat down in the shade, for, as we left the carriage, a big cloud
tumbled over by mistake and the sun laughingly plunged headlong through
the mist before the quarrelsome elements had time to gainsay. With
Little Blue Ribbons close by, and Sister and our Spanish Student
disappearing within the arches of the Cathedral, I sat there on the base
of one of the great pillars at the doorway, and filled my eyes with the
beauty of the strong, graceful arches overhead, in whose time-worn
curves hung the ancient bells, beautiful bronze bells, now green with
age, still pealing forth the praise of God as in the days of Columbus's
followers.
Down the weather-worn and sun-ripened sides of the Cathedral were long
streaks of black, like the silent tears of centuries, shed for glories
now no more. Was it not enough to rest there, where one could look at
the bells and wait for the quiver of the long tongues, ringing out the
hour of mass, and catch the thrill of the mottled gray and blue sky
sifting its mellow light through the ancient towers? There are some
things so absolutely satisfying that it seems an arrant sacrilege to be
discontent and want for more. But Little Blue Ribbons, with the
impatience of childhood, began to tug at my hand, and the dear old bells
must have gone asleep, for with all our longing they hung there covered
by their deep, green silence, and Little Blue Ribbons said we would have
our waiting all for nothing. For nothing is it, dear one, to forget the
stress of living for awhile, and let one's spirit drop into the peace of
a sleeping bell?
III.
We found that the interior of the Cathedral had a very new, clean face,
having been recently "restored" and whitewashed; thus being out of
harmony with the venerable exterior; however, some one remarked, it was
"gratifying to see that the Dominicans appreciate their ancient
monument." That complacent remark struck the ear awry, like the whine of
a deacon's report at a Sunday-school convention. Appreciate? Why, the
people of Santo Domingo worship this spot! It is the one place of
interest to them; it is the one thing they ask the stranger if he has
seen; it is the centre of their life and love,--that ancient pile of
yellow glory,--for are not the ashes of their great _Cristobal Colon_
guarded there? Would that we Americans had any relic we held as
sacredly!
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL AND THE STATUE OF COLUMBUS
Santo Domingo]
So I suppose we ought not to quarrel with the Dominicans over the new
coat of whitewash, for they meant it well, but we can at least wish they
hadn't cleaned house so thoroughly. Within those walls rest the bones of
Columbus after their many disinterments and post-mortem wanderings--so
it is claimed; but whether these are the bones of Columbus, or of some
one else, who can say? What does it matter? Somewhere about one hundred
years ago,--in 1795,--'tis said, when this island was ceded to the
French, the Spaniards took Columbus's bones back to Spain. Later these
mortal fragments were returned to Santo Domingo, in accordance with his
expressed wish that they finally be buried in this his beloved
birthplace and funeral-pyre of his cherished hopes in the New World;
which wish had been once before honoured in the first removal of the
remains to the then Spanish colony. Sealed in a leaden casket they were
imbedded in masonry under the stone floor of the cathedral chancel, and
there was no attempt to disturb them until about 1878, when they were
_presumably_ removed to Havana to be re-interred there, and, as the
Spaniards stoutly maintain, again disinterred from their resting-place
in the cathedral at Havana and hurried away to Spain just before the
American occupation of Cuba, there to receive the sad honour of a costly
mausoleum in Seville. But a few years ago a second box was discovered,
buried fast in ancient masonry and cement, about three feet from the
place in which the first one was found; and this leaden box, the
Dominicans claim, holds the real bones of the real Columbus, for they
stoutly maintain that the other box contained the bones _Diego Colon_,
nephew to Columbus, or, as some say, his son,--not _Cristobal Colon_,
our Columbus--and the inscription on a silver plate found inside
seems to bear out the authenticity of the later discovery, as does also
the location of this second casket and the pains taken to render it
secure. Whosesoever bones they were, I was in the proper frame of mind
to venerate them, and it was with a feeling of deep awe and pathos that
I stood before the much-disputed leaden box, now enshrined in gold and
silver, and covered by a very gorgeous white marble tomb, newly made in
Barcelona. The box is about a foot and a half long, one foot high, and
one foot wide--rather a small space for so great a man as Columbus, but
then,--
[Illustration: Copyright, 1901, by Detroit Photographic Co.
RUINS OF CASTLE BUILT BY DIEGO COLON
Santo Domingo]
"Imperial Cæsar, dead, and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away."
And so the Dominicans had a very beautiful and lofty and modern monument
built in Spain and brought across the water to San Domingo, as a fitting
shrine for their great treasure. With many minarets and dainty arches
cut from snowy marble, and ornate with carvings and gilt, it stands more
as a monument to the faithful loyalty of the Dominicans than to the
memory of that valiant discoverer. He was a world soul. He belongs to
all time, as do all the great. The march of Western civilisation is his
monument. The Dominicans plan to erect a building which they deem
worthier this work of gold and marble than is the sad old cathedral
Columbus founded,--worthier the sacred leaden box; but could there be a
more fitting sanctuary for the great Genoese, than within these ancient
walls whose beginnings he directed and which rose after death in direct
fulfilment of his ambition?
We found built into the wall a huge cross, rudely hewn of wood, which
the stories say was set in a clearing in a little plain by Columbus,
before the year 1500, to mark the place where his great church should
stand. This primitive cross was afterward built into the wall itself.
How constantly memories of the great discoverer hover about these walls;
for it was in Santo Domingo that Columbus was imprisoned by his jealous
rivals, and thence at last he was taken in chains to Spain, where he
died, and hither again came his weary bones.
[Illustration: WHERE COLUMBUS PLANTED THE CROSS
Santo Domingo]
How pathetic, yet how characteristic, is this grim example of the
Spaniard's reverence for the past, even if that past may have been so
cruelly dishonoured! Columbus, the poor Genoese dreamer; Columbus, still
the crazy explorer, but upheld by royal hands; Columbus, the fêted and
flattered discoverer of new worlds, giving to Spain greater riches than
she dreamed; Columbus, the victim of jealous gossip and intrigue, bound
in chains and finally dying,--broken and disgraced. Columbus, in ashes
these four hundred years, guarded in pomp, and convoyed by great ships
in this final retreat, step by step, from the empire he founded! For
with each successive loss of her rich holdings in the New World, Spain
has tried to carry with her in her retreat, these precious relics, until
the name Columbus, framed in dishonour, disaster, and defeat, has become
to her almost a pain. How tragic that Spain should strain to her heart
with fierce jealousy, as the last but most precious remnant left of all
her American possessions, the few crumbling bones of Columbus!
We left the Cathedral reluctantly, but as the day was moving rapidly on
we were anxious to see as much as possible of the city; so we reëntered
the carriage and drove to the _Correo_ to post letters and get some
money changed. While Daddy was in the post-office, I endeavoured, with
my four Spanish words, to make our driver understand that I wanted him
to move along to the corner, so that we might look out over the river,
but he only smiled and said: "_Si, señora_," and went on putting up the
rubber curtains to keep out the unexpected shower that had blown up from
nowhere. So I sat there in despair, for I did want to get that view, but
I did not want to get wet. At that moment, seeing my predicament, a
gentleman approached the driver and told him just what to do, and then
disappeared into the post-office. When the Spanish Student returned, he
was accompanied by my kindly interpreter, to whom we were presented.
"Sister," says the smiling Daddy, "this is Señor Alfredo P---- A----,
private secretary to the President, and he has most kindly offered to
show us about the city." We all bow to the señor, and I wonder if he is
really the private secretary, or a private humbug, waiting around to
ensnare us. Shame upon my suspicion! May that moment of doubt be for
ever fruitless in the process of my gradual regeneration!
Señor Alfredo was one of the handsomest men I had ever seen. And this I
say not in the enthusiasm of a first meeting, but after carefully
weighing my words. Señor Alfredo was dark, and our man blond, so there
could be no comparison between dissimilar types and no cause for
jealousy, and then I said that the señor was _one_ of the handsomest.
That "_one of the_" should make all the difference in the world. The
señor was simply one of the procession of nature's adornments in which
you are marching. There, now, may I go on, and may I say just what I
wish of the señor without offence?
The señor had been educated in New York City, and his English was most
charming; it had the grace of a rich Spanish accent, and the correctness
of a scholar. I hesitate to tell you of the señor's charms, lest you
think them over-abundant,--impossible in any one man, and you might not
enjoy the day in old Domingo, and that would be an unhappy state, truly.
The señor's first question was: "Have you seen the Cathedral?" Yes, we
had seen it in our way, but possibly not in his. Then he dismisses the
disappointed coachman, and we follow the señor again to the worshipped
temple, and have its wonders revealed to us by one who knew every stone
in its construction. After long prowling around, through cloisters and
shrines, and after hunting up the place in the chancel where those poor
old bones were disinterred, and carefully comparing the former
hiding-places of each of the disputed caskets, we leave the cathedral
and wander about Domingo City. The señor guides us, not at our request,
but of his own free will, to all the places of interest in the city; and
then to the old fort which we had seen on our arrival. I should have
been quite satisfied to have stayed there all day, looking from the
massy turrets out to sea, but the señor was solicitous that we should go
about with the officer in command of the fort, and see everything of
interest. Old as it is, it is still used by the army; the native
military school and the naval academy both being within its walls. The
smart-looking men presented arms as we passed from the gateway into the
street again, and we took pleasure in telling the commandant how much
better his troops appeared than the ridiculous Haïtien soldiery. This
seemed to please both of our friends, for the Dominicans apparently have
a feeling of contempt for their neighbours of the Negro Republic, and
rightly, too, judging from what we saw.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE FORT AND MILITARY SCHOOL
Santo Domingo]
Then, we walked and walked and walked, up one narrow street and down
another, catching numerous glimpses of most entrancing gardens through
the half-way opened doors. We asked for the daily paper, and were taken
at once to the office of the _Listin Diario_, whose editor was the
brother of Señor P---- A----. He and our Spanish Student had, to them,
an interesting conversation about the political situation in Santo
Domingo and in Venezuela; and after having promised to dine with us on
the boat at six o'clock, we continued our walk in and about and all
around, until, much to our surprise, we were taken into a cool, big
courtyard, up a wide flight of worn stone steps into the señor's home.
There we met his wife and children, listened to beautiful native dances
sympathetically played on the piano by the señor; we rocked in the
ever-present Vienna bent-wood chair, talked to the parrot, played with
the baby, and drank cocoanut milk from the green cocoanut, and lived to
drink from many more. The cocoanut, when used for milk by these Southern
people, is cut quite green, before the solid meat has formed and when
all is liquid within, and is said to be most healthful. Of our party,
the adventurous man and children liked it very much, but the cautious
woman a very little. Then we made our _adieux_, not without the promise,
however, that the señor would meet us at three o'clock for the trip up
the Ozama River in the ship's boats.
All day the clouds were reeling heavily in bulky, black heaps, now and
then dropping down upon our innocent heads torrents of spattering rain.
But we were not to be discomfited by a rain-shower, for were we not
prepared? We left the ship with but one umbrella, the white one with the
green lining, but as we bade the señor "_Adios_," a sudden shower called
forth his best silk umbrella. He was insistent, and there was nothing to
do but for Daddy to tuck Sister under his wing, accepting the señor's
offer, and for Little Blue Ribbons to trot along by my side, under the
Haïtien umbrella. And the green lining proved fast green; it did not
run, not a particle!
[Illustration: LOOKING ACROSS THE PLAZA
Santo Domingo]
By three o'clock, Domingo City was a veritable _Port Tarascon_, and it
seemed that Daudet must have been here before he wrote of his poor
drenched French _émigrés_. The rain still fell. It ran down the streets
anywhere it pleased; it dripped off the ruined roof of Diego's Palace;
it scampered down the awning of the German Legation; it stood in little
pools on the terrace overlooking the river; it trickled down the face of
the timeless old sun-dial, and made the long seams on its face dark and
wet, as if from tears.
What bliss if we could only have set our watches by the hour told on the
Dominican sun-dial! But there was no sun and consequently no time.
I have an inspiration! It has just come to me. Now my course is plain;
now I know what I shall do with the little girls. I have often longed to
obliterate for them the thought of time. I have wanted them to grow into
a feeling of possession of all the time there ever can be,--countless
ages and ages of time, with never a shadow of hurry lurking about; with
never a doubt but that the days will be long enough in which to live
their fullest measure of happiness. I shall invoke the aid of the gods,
in whose arms rests so peacefully this "Island of the Blest," and they
shall build for me an enchanted palace somewhere,--perhaps not just
here, but somewhere. I think I shall leave that to the little girls, but
it shall be an enchanted palace, all overgrown with sweetbrier and moss,
and roundabout shall be a garden--a dear garden, with violets and lilies
and arbutus and anemones--and then the trees,--there shall be no end of
them!--maple and ash, and slender birch and elm, and linden and--but it
seems to me I hear you wondering that we should leave out the palms and
the breadfruit and banana and citron. I know it does not seem just as it
should be, but I am afraid, if we had the palms and the breadfruit, we'd
never feel really at home in our palace, and, of course, we must feel at
home even in an enchanted palace. We could have two palaces if we wanted
to, and have the palms in the company palace, and the cool, sweet maples
we could have for our very own. Yes, that is it! That's what we'll do!
In the midst of the garden, we will have a Dominican sun-dial, an exact
reproduction of this one. I shall make a sketch of it before we move a
step further, and it shall he chipped and worn and sun-baked and
tear-stained, and it shall look centuries old. Then there must be a
Dominican sky; half-sun and half-shade. And then, don't you see, the
little girls will never know the time at all,--only just as the clouds
run off for a frolic. And I shall arrange an indefinite supply of such
weather, and that's just where we'll all live. Yes--Daddy and all the
dear ones, and it will be such a relief not to be obliged to wind our
watches.
"Mother!" said Sister, coming up back of me and peeping under the white
umbrella which Little Blue Ribbons was holding resolutely over my head
while I sketched; "Mother! what is it you're drawing?"
"Do you need to ask? Can't you see it's the sun-dial?"
"Oh! I thought it was the boy out there in the rain."
IV.
What can the señor do without his best umbrella? Will he take the black
umbrella of his wife's aunt? No, he will not take the black umbrella of
his wife's aunt, dear Mr. Otto, he has taken the umbrella of his wife's
sister, we will say, to adhere to tradition; but, to tell the truth, I
could never say whose umbrella the señor borrowed, but when he appeared
he was really so beaming under the dark covering over him, that I quite
forgot to ask him whose umbrella it was.
Ah! what would the señor think if he should ever read these words? Would
he forswear the friendship? We should sincerely beg forgiveness, for we
would sooner never see the walls of Domingo again than to lose the
señor's good-will.
[Illustration: ALONG THE OZAMA
Santo Domingo]
The excursion up the Ozama was a world of delight from beginning to end.
The Ozama is one of God's most perfect little rivers, deep and rather
narrow, winding through an enchanting country. The shore is outlined for
miles by never-ending mangroves, and on the higher upper banks are the
breadfruit, and palms, and a world of unknown trees and fruits. Had
there been no palms, no breadfruit or mangroves, it would have been
enough joy to me to know that up this self-same river in centuries
long since dead, there had swept the doughty keels of Columbus's crazy
little ships. But the Spanish Student was not so easily satisfied; he
wanted to know things; how much mahogany and ebony and _lignum vitæ_ was
gotten from the outlaying country, and what sort of dyewoods they
exported. The señor gave much valuable information, but not much more
than the natives themselves, who came gliding down the stream in
dugouts, having in tow one or two or three mahogany logs. Who says that
all the true Santo Domingo mahogany was cut generations ago? There was a
constant and silent passing of these dark craft, for the most part with
but a single occupant. Sometimes a woman in the bow, half-buried by a
cargo of plantains, bending over a pot of some sort, would be cooking on
an improvised camp-fire built on earth above the plantains; and thus
busy--one at the fire, the other at the paddle--she and her black mate
would slip along out of sight under the dark mysterious shadows of the
mangroves, closely hugging the shore.
Not far from the city, the señor pointed to a mighty tree, one of the
most gigantic of the tropics, a _ceiba_, to which it is said Columbus
made fast his ships. There was no reason to doubt the statement, and,
besides, it is so much pleasanter to believe such natural things than to
be for ever doubting. And why should not Columbus have made his ships
thus fast? The _ceiba_ looked a thousand years old. Who knows but that
it is even older?
A little way down the stream and closer to the city, there was a spring
of sweet cool water, and above it a stately canopy of stone, built by
Bartholomew Columbus,--Christopher's brother,--and called "The Fountain
of Columbus."
Oh, such a day, under the rocking, tumbling clouds, ever moving, ever
changing, moulding, blending from black to gray and billowy white, under
fitful showers and sudden baths of sunlight! It was a dream day of
sleeping bells and timeless dials and ruined towers and enchanted
palaces, with the bones of poor old Columbus beating time to the hopes
of the ambitious San Dominicans of to-day.
Evening came, and we were at dinner on the boat with our delightful
friend from the shore, drinking to the prosperity of the Dominican
Republic, and to the hope that Señor P---- A---- might live to be
President of his beloved country. But, alas, how many Presidents they
have to have in these Spanish "republics" to round out the tally with
Destiny!
It seemed to me that, for my part, if all Spaniards were as gracious, as
hospitable and genuine as our new-found friend, there would never have
been a Spanish-American War.
And so next day we sailed away, leaving the City of the Holy Sunday
wrapped in peace and good-will; but who can tell the day or hour when
the land may again be devastated by revolution?