CHARLOTTE AMALIE. ST. THOMAS
I.
After the long stretches of ocean, you from the North will find that
there is something positively cosy about these dear islands. You tuck
your head under your wing with the parrots at night, off one island,
and, the next thing you know, it's morning, the sweet land-breeze steals
in through the port-hole, and you're up with the monkeys off another
island--perhaps more enchanting than the last. Why, it seems not half
the trouble going from port to port that it is to make fashionable calls
in the great city, and such a lot more fun.
But speaking of parrots and monkeys: the only ones we have seen thus far
were some very solemn little creatures which have been brought to the
ship for sale,--poor captives, chained and unnaturally pious, sitting
alongside their black captors.
We have not heard a single bird-note since leaving the North. Is it
possible that there are no song-birds here, and in fact no birds of
plumage left about the settlements? We fully expected the latter, but
not a glimpse have we had of them,--no, not even in the forest along the
Ozama, did we distinguish a single bird-note. Can it be that the
plume-hunters for our Northern milliners have ranged through all these
sunny islands? Ah, my friends of the feather toques and the winged
head-gear, what have we to answer for? It all seems so empty without the
birds where trees and flowers grow so gladly; just as if Nature's feast
were spread to empty chairs. After all, how fondly we do love that
particular expression of creation with which we are long familiar! My
heart reaches out in homesick yearning for the notes of our dear
Northern songsters. How brutal are the details of the "march of
civilisation!"
From San Juan, Puerto Rico, to St. Thomas it was only a night's journey,
and I am sure, had we been so disposed, we might have touched some
other islands equally lovely on the way. But there must be some time for
rest,--even though Little Blue Ribbons said she did not want to sleep
(she knew she couldn't), and Sister thought it a great waste of valuable
experience not to make all the ports there were. Nevertheless, when
morning came and the sun was wide awake, I had no little trouble in
arousing the children.
And now it came to pass that all those threatenings and fitful tears and
dire forebodings of the day before were simply whims and weather jokes.
The sea fell into a gentle calm, and on St. Thomas there never shone a
brighter sun or blew a sweeter breeze; and we realised that at last we
were under the lee of that smiling windbreak of the Caribbean--"The
Windward Islands." Getting our anchor early, we moved from our first
stopping-place, well out in the harbour, over to the wharves; where the
huge piles of coal rose up before the port-hole, with other ranges of
piles, like mimic mountains, farther on, while we were so close to the
dock that I could see the gangway being lowered, as I bent over the
sleepy little girls.
[Illustration: THE HARBOUR
Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas]
"Look, children!" I said,--"look, wake up, you're losing so much!" And
they rub their pretty eyes and want to know what's the matter.
"Here we are, dears, at St. Thomas, the coaling-station. Daddy is
waiting for us. I'll go up on deck. Send word by Rudolph if you want me
to help with the ribbons."
So I hurried up the after companion stairs. Close to our side were the
mammoth piles of coal, from which we were to make requisition; off about
a mile to the other side of the great amphitheatre lay Charlotte Amalie
(the chief city of the Danish Islands), making for herself as beautiful
a picture as one could wish. We were in a superb harbour, with high,
dome-shaped hills embracing us on either side, and the little city of
Charlotte Amalie to the right of us on the beautiful slopes above, like
a white lady reaching out her jewelled hands in gracious welcome.
Whatever tales of buccaneer and pirate, of scuttled galleons, of buried
treasure, of maidens fair, of romance, I had ever heard, came hurrying
back to me in that delicious spot; and when the Castles of Bluebeard,
and that erstwhile king of pirates, Blackboard, came into view, it
seemed truly as if we ought to fly at our main-truck the black flag with
the skull and cross-bones, and run out the cold bronze nose of a
"long-tom" over our bulwarks, just to add the finishing touch.
The little girls and I were simply determined to let romance run riot in
Charlotte Amalie. We would eat pomegranates and wear flowers in our
hair; we would dream dreams on Bluebeard's turret, and win into smiles
his villainous, wrinkled, old ghostship. But, firm as was our purpose,
it required no small effort to keep it uppermost in our minds. We
thought Daddy would certainly be dragged into the water before he had
engaged his shore boat. He was howled at, pulled at by the sleeves,
jerked at by the coat, by great roaring blacks, fairly gnashing their
teeth in impotent rage at Daddy's indecision. But who could decide in
such a mob? We were beckoned, at last, to come along, and picking our
way down the ladder, plumped ourselves into "Champagne Charlie's" boat,
leaving "Uncle Sam," "Honest William," "Captain Jinks," and a score of
others screaming a medley of imprecations and their own praises in a
mad scramble for the next victim.
We were not only beset by those in the boats, but also by a swarm of
semi-amphibious imps,--not little imps by any means, but huge, muscular,
bronze Tritons, who pursued, with wonderful rapidity, "Champagne
Charlie's" catch, and clung to the gunwale of our boat, and dove
underneath and about us, wholly indifferent to our terror at the thought
of being capsized. They howled, they swore with Southern abandon because
we would not throw them pennies to dive for; and away off lay the little
White Lady--the beautiful Charlotte Amalie. What a naughty lot of
children she had! Daddy told "Charlie" that if he would not hurry us out
of that mob, he'd not get a penny for his trouble, and Daddy used
forcible English, too; for, strange to say, English is the common as
well as the official language of the Danish West Indies. But I must not
mislead you. It's not your English or my English they use; it's a funny
kind of jargon; a baby talk disguised by Scandinavian intonations and
besmirched by generations of African savagery. Sometimes you think you
understand it, and then you think you don't, and again you wish you
hadn't--so there you are.
Well, "Charlie" is at last aroused and a few good strokes of his oars
free us from the vermin and bring us into less troubled waters. On the
way across the land-locked harbour we passed a Danish man-of-war, a
Russian frigate, a Venezuelan cruiser, a little schooner-rigged sailing
"packet," which carries the mail to other islands, and a number of
powerfully built trading schooners; still nearer shore, there was a fine
floating dry dock, where a very shapely little schooner--evidently once
a yacht--was out of water being repaired.
II.
[Illustration: HILLSIDE HOMES
Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas]
As we stepped on land and walked up under the shade of mahogany and
mango trees, while the boatman's fees were being struggled with, it
seemed to me that I had never walked in so clean a street, or stood in
such delicious shade. Oh, it was so clean and cool and beautiful! The
macadamised streets were sprinkled and moist, the houses were all
white and green, hugged close by high-walled gardens overflowing with
flowering vines,--in particular that marvellous _Bougainvillia_, which
flourishes in such triumphant splendour over these tropic walls; and
everywhere the odours were sweet. The sky, as it glistened through the
heavy, glossy mangoes, was as blue as blue can be, and the women
carriers of water moved with rapid, noiseless tread, bearing their
burdens upon their turbaned heads, and the little children offered us
flowers. I find, as I write, that my mind constantly reverts to the
cleanliness of the place. First, I said: "Oh, how charming!" and then,
"Oh, how clean!" but, before I proceed further, you should be told that,
the widely followed example of Spain--mother of the picturesque--is not
responsible for this delightful condition of things, for in the
Spanish-speaking islands, alas! it is otherwise!
Just here I must make a confession. I couldn't tell you of the petty
blemishes on the time-furrowed brow of wonderful old Santo Domingo--no,
I could not, for there were those tears that for centuries had worn
their cankering way across the face of the weary old Mother
Church,--and then the long-suffering bell, and the tired, sad-faced
sun-dial! No, I could not tell you then; and now that the memory of
those tears comes to me again, I hardly feel it in me to confess to you
after all. No, I never can! Those half-forgiven regrets could be told
only to the dispassionate bells of the City of the Holy Sunday; you
shall never hear them.
Yes, Charlotte Amalie's face was clean. She wore a fresh pinafore and a
green frock, and her bonnet was pink and starry white; and she was very
prim and quiet, was the Lady Charlotte, despite her merry, laughing
eyes. But the little lady has a funny lot of children. She doesn't mind,
though--not she. She folds her hands, and shakes her pink and white
bonnet, and makes no apology. A funny lot of children she has indeed:
blond pickaninnies and black babies,--black whites with kinky hair and
white blacks with straight hair, all higgledy-piggledy, and they all
speak a blond pickaninny's language. Charlotte Amalie herself, when in
state, speaks real English, and some of her officials Danish and French,
as well. Her little daily paper, which came to us wet from the
press,--_Lightbourn's Mail Notes_,--was printed in English; so you see
her ladyship knows the real world-language when she sees it, even if she
is a foster-child of Denmark and burdened with the everlasting curse of
Ham.
[Illustration: IN CHARLOTTE AMALIE
St. Thomas]
III.
While some of the party were writing postal cards and letters in a cool,
flowery retreat, reached by devious shady passages and looking out into
an open court, known as a post-office, I strolled up the quiet street to
the first turning, where the cross road came to an abrupt, but very
beautiful end in a little white chapel, sheltered by waving palms. There
seemed to be but one main street, which followed the shore awhile and
then went loitering off up the hill in a most indifferent manner.
The houses, with one story in the rear and two in the front, were built
on the hillside, so that the chapel before me--well up on the slope--was
approached by a long flight of stone steps. Snow-white columns upheld
the simple portico, and the royal palms rose higher and higher from one
terrace to another, their regular trunks like stately shafts of stone,
until their warm plumes met over the golden cross. The picture, with
chapel and palms and terraces and flowers and delicately wroughtiron
gateway, was so compact, that it seemed as if some one just a little
bigger than myself might tuck the whole affair right into a pocket for a
keepsake.
Turning slowly about to look for the children, I glanced through the
half-open blinds of a house on the corner, and there met a pair of very
engaging eyes, which besought me in the universal language, to come in
and see what there was for sale. The eyes belonged not to a maiden, but
to a tiny, stoop-shouldered Spanish-Danish-English woman, who fluttered
about in great excitement at the prospect of a sale. Strangers do not
drop from the sky every day in these remoter of the West Indies. I
bought a piece of needlework, and my change, in St. Thomas silver and
Danish copper, was brought me by a regal old negress, in a voluminous
red calico gown, standing out like the "stu'nsails" of a full-rigged
ship, flying as her proper colours aloft, a brilliant green and yellow
bandanna. My! but she was tall--six feet, it seemed, and she smiled all
over her face with the meaningless good-nature of her race. What teeth
she had left were glistening white. By the way, why is it that on these
islands you find so many women, and not necessarily old women by any
means, but girls from fourteen up--both white and black--with many of
their teeth gone? Has the American dentist yet untrodden fields?
Black Susan salaamed me out, and seeing Daddy and the little girls ahead
of me, I followed the clean--I repeat, clean--narrow street, as it wound
up the well-tilled hillside to "Bluebeard's Castle."
IV.
It was a long, hot walk, that climb, in spite of the good breeze and the
white umbrella's shade, and we stopped a number of times on the way up
to cool ourselves, and, incidentally, to envy the carriage of the brisk
and leathery old women, who came striding past us up the hill, with
great water-cans on their heads and water-jugs in their hands, stolidly
indifferent to the hot sun and the heavy burdens they were carrying. It
comes to me now that I did not see a young negress in the whole town,
but this was explained on our return to the ship.
It was next to impossible to be keen enough to appreciate fully the
remarkable vegetation and flowers and animal life all about us. The
flowers seemed hung at the wrong end, and all the vegetable world
strange and topsy-turvy; even some insects that we saw seemed quite
outlandish. For a long time, as I sat between two rusty old cannon,
dangling my feet with most awful irreverence over Bluebeard's fortress
wall, I kept my eye on an old bumblebee--a black and yellow pirate that
bumbled of the peaceful present and the strenuous past; but even the
every-day bumblebee was twice as big as he had any right to be, and he
had the deep-drawn drone of a sleepy country parson. Then, just as the
bumblebee hummed himself out of sight into the heart of a deep red
_hibiscus_ nodding its heavy head at me from the top of the wall, out of
the mouth of one of Bluebeard's piratical cannon there peeped two
shining, yellow eyes in a little green body, and they stared at me, and
I stared at them, each most curious about the other, until the
inspection became rather embarrassing, and I rapped on the rusty,
weather-worn old murderer, and away scampered Mr. Eyes, back with the
ghosts and memories--all dying together. A little green lizard, with
life for a wee bit of awhile; an ancient cannon of curious shape,
rusting, but outliving a little longer; a great gray rock underneath,
disintegrating piece by piece, going back again into the universe; and
an immortal soul in a human body; are we all part and parcel of the same
cosmic dust?
Twenty cannons dropped into the heavy embrasured masonry of Bluebeard's
wall looked down with grim irony upon a pious, self-complacent,
twentieth-century gunboat, entering thus unchallenged their own waters.
Whether it was the lizard rustling among the grasses inside the cannon,
or whether it was a reawakened pirate's ghost, I shall not venture to
assert; but there certainly came to me a whisper which translated itself
into the most disdainful reproach of our much-vaunted humanitarianism. I
tried to explain to this little voice that nowadays we had reduced the
killing of men to a science; that it was less painful to be blown to
pieces by dynamite shells from a torpedo-boat than to be hacked to
pieces by a pirate's cutlass, therefore, more honourable, and that
fighting was still necessary because diplomacy was too young to be
weaned. But from certain mysterious sounds, very like the chucklings of
an old man, I thought best to beat a retreat. Besides there were Daddy
and the little girls waving to me from the top of the sturdy old
watch-tower, so I gathered my umbrella, hat, and basket, and put to
flight the flock of geese which had been examining my umbrella with
long-necked curiosity. They, little caring for the sanctity of my
far-reaching thoughts, went hissing and squawking down the hill in a
most irate humour. I took a long breath, pinched myself to get awake,
and started up the steep tower steps.
[Illustration: CHARLOTTE AMALIE FROM "BLUE BEARD'S CASTLE"
St. Thomas]
From the top of this tower of "Bluebeard's Castle" (kept in repair by
the Italian consul, whose residence is here), one could look out across
the pretty town to the rival fastness of old "Blackbeard," crowning
another hill of surpassing beauty. A road, white and smooth and shaded
with palms, clung caressingly about the white-crested bay, and I longed
to follow it. Yonder another road struggled up a hillside, through
sugar-cane and fruit-trees, and tumbled off somewhere on the other side.
I longed to follow that one, too. Another, white and edged with
tamarinds and oranges, wandered off somewhere else, and I wanted to go
there. But the last carriage had clattered off, and it was too hot to
walk "over the hills and far away;" so, after a long quiet feast of the
glory about us, we leisurely made the descent, and were again among the
cannon crowning the ancient parapet. We strolled along down the steep
winding highway, stopping now to trim our hats with flowers, gathered
with much difficulty from behind a prickly hedge, and then to look with
rapture upon the scene below, and again to talk about it all. The sun
beat down upon our heads, but we did not mind that, for the cooling
breeze came up from the sea, sweetly and gently, as if it loved us, and
the mountains and the earth were oh, so richly clad, and the eyes so
content with seeing and the nostrils so glad with the fragrant air!
V.
I wondered then why we Americans should not settle the matter at once
with Denmark. As I understand it, there were negotiations for the
purchase of these islands approved by General Grant, then President, in
1867; but, for some reason, the proposed treaty with Denmark was not
ratified by Congress, and the little island was forgotten; but since the
recent growth of our navy and the necessity for its constant care of the
Caribbean Sea, and especially now that we seem destined to become
sponsors to an Isthmian canal, the island of St. Thomas comes again to
the front as one of the most desirable possessions the United States
could have in these waters. The harbour of Charlotte Amalie is so
protected by mountains and guarded by bold islands, with deep water
inside, and an unimpeded channel from the sea, that, with sufficient
fortification, it could be made absolutely impregnable, a West Indian
Gibraltar, and at the same time a most valuable and protected station
for naval supplies, docks, and the like.
[Illustration: ON THE TERRACE
Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas]
I do not believe in war, battle, or bloodshed, but I do most forcibly
believe in the present necessity for our policy of expansion,--not alone
because of the advantage to ourselves, but as well for the good of the
yet unborn West Indians; and if we can extend our power through
diplomacy and peaceful measures, I should be glad to see "Old Glory"
floating over all the Greater and Lesser Antilles, provided--and this is
the terrible _if_--that the present mixed and degenerate population
could be miraculously reformed or removed.
In the case of Charlotte Amalie, there seems to be among the educated
middle classes a sincere desire for American supremacy, and, although
there is some opposition--largely sentimental--from leading Danes, the
only important points that have arisen seem to be the question of how
much we are to give, and whether certain influences in Denmark will
permit the confirmation of a treaty for the transfer of the islands to
the United States. I was told that the price suggested was somewhere
about $5,000,000. This, I presume, does not include the rest of the
Danish possessions among the Virgin Islands; but, while we are
interested, why not take in the whole family; St. Thomas, St. John, St.
Croix, and the other small islands adjacent?
Will the Germans try to block our acquisition of this group? The
Kaiser's subjects talk fair enough, but they unquestionably want St.
Thomas--and who knows?
All through this day our fellow passengers, the German officers, were
very busy making photographs and writing notes, and their interest even
went so far as to lead to the suggestion by one enthusiastic Teuton that
some day the German flag would fly over this beautiful harbour--but that
was a slip of the tongue, and no doubt he would gladly have recalled the
hasty remark a moment later.
There is truly no limit to the possibilities of these islands, if only
the natives can be taught the value of their soil and the Adam-given
necessity of labour. Here the mango grows; the mahogany, tamarind,
guava, orange, lignum vitæ, cypress, bay, cocoanut, pomegranate, fig,
and palms of all varieties--rare woods and rich fruits. Vegetables would
grow more freely if only tilled and encouraged a bit. The export for
which St. Thomas seems famous is its bay rum, made from the bay leaves
and berries, brought mostly from Lesser St. John's Island, and distilled
in great stills well-nigh filling the fragrant cellars of several of
Charlotte Amalie's largest establishments.
[Illustration: COALING OUR SHIP
Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas]
VI.
"I'll give you a quarter if you'll throw Mary in!" shouted one of the
passengers from the rail of our ship to a great powerful negro, the
bully among bullies of a crowd of blacks which swarmed as thick as bees
on the pier close to our moorings.
"Mary" was one of several hundred negro girls who had been coaling our
ship since early morning. All day long, the endless procession of
short-skirted, straight-backed, flat-hipped, bare-legged, bandannaed
negresses, carrying on their heads the baskets of coal to be emptied
through the coal-chutes or into a barge, had gone on amidst deafening
roars of laughter, insane oaths, and noiseless tread. The barge, when
filled, was towed alongside the vessel and unloaded into our starboard
coal-bunkers. The port bunkers were filled direct from the dock by
similar baskets of coal dumped into the port coal-chutes.
We were watching the black children from the deck, and Paterfamilias
turning to me, said, in a wholly justified tone: "There, now, my
reformer, you see a practical working example of equal rights for women!
It means equal or greater labour, as well, and a sad breaking down of
all womanliness. The women do the work and the men loaf around at home
to spend the money." "Do you mean to infer, my dear, that if we women in
America had equal suffrage, you men would stay at home and wait for the
money we earn? Surely I'd never believe it of our American men--never!"
Whatever other men would do, the negroes of St. Thomas certainly did not
do the work, as far as we could see. There were a few fellows who helped
with the barge, and who handled the shore boats, but the heavy loads
were borne on the heads of the women, and they appeared to be in every
way equal to the occasion. We were witnessing a marvellous exhibition of
endurance, for the sun was by no means gentle, and the baskets of coal
weighed well up toward a hundred pounds each, but they were carried with
the ease of so many feathers, with a light, active step, from morning
until evening, without cessation.
"Throw her in and I'll give you a quarter!" Mary was a young girl, black
as night, with a hard, cruel, unsmiling face, and the restless watching
eyes of a wild animal. She, too, had been carrying coal all day, and
when her work was done, she, with some fifteen or twenty others, had
followed along the dock to the ship's bow, where pennies were being
tossed to the pier by some of our plethoric passengers. A coin would fly
through the air, drop on the pier amidst a scrambling, wriggling pile of
howling negroes, with legs and arms and heads in a hopeless heap. Mary
fought well; she already had a mouthful of pennies; she was as swift as
thought, and as merciless of the others as the unfeeling elements. It
was easy to see that she was a match for any man in the crowd, and it
was easy, too, to see that, when the promise of "a quarter"--a mighty
pile of money to those poor children--was held out to the one who should
throw her into the water, there was more willingness to get the money
than to approach Mary. She knew enough English to take in the situation,
and stood there on the pier, not ten inches from the edge, with her bare
arms folded, her thin, powerful legs tense, her head thrown back with
defiance in its motionless poise, her fierce eyes rolling from side to
side, watching for the first who would dare approach her.
One more word from the ship, and Mary was caught around the waist by a
black giant who had been waiting his chance. In an instant, she seemed
to grow a foot taller. She made a plunge for the man's throat,--bent him
down, down, down, with her eyes fiercely terrible; and there she held
the unhappy creature until he begged for mercy, and amidst cheers from
Mary's admirers, slank away out of sight. Her spring was so sudden, so
silent, so fierce, that I could not think of her as being human; she was
more of the wild beast than one of her Ladyship's children. And yet we
cheered for Mary, too, and she it was who won the quarter.
I wish the Lady Charlotte would look after her children better.