CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA
About January 1, 1895, Richard accompanied by his friends Somers
Somerset and Lloyd C. Griscom, afterward our minister to Tokio and
ambassador to Brazil and Italy, started out on a leisurely trip of
South and Central America. With no very definite itinerary, they
sailed from New Orleans, bent on having a good time, and as many
adventures as possible, which Richard was to describe in a series of
articles. These appeared later on in a volume entitled "Three Gringos
in Venezuela."
January, 1895.
DEAR FAM:
On board Breakwater at anchor. You will be pleased to hear that I am
writing this in a fine state of perspiration in spite of the fact that
I have light weight flannels, no underclothes and all the windows open.
It is going to storm and then it will be cooler. We have had a bully
time so far although the tough time is still to come, that will be
going from Puerto Cortez to Tegucigalpa. At Belize the Governor
treated us charmingly and gave us orderlies and launches and lunches
and advice and me a fine subject for a short story. For nothing has
struck me as so sad lately as did Sir Anthony Moloney K. C. M. G.
watching us go off laughing and joking in his gilded barge to wherever
we pleased and leaving him standing alone on his lawn with some papers
to sign and then a dinner tete-a-tete with his Secretary and so on to
the end of his life. It was pathetic to hear him listen to all the
gossip from the outside world and to see how we pleased him when we
told him we were getting more bald than he was and that he would make a
fine appearance in the Row at his present weight. He had not heard of
Trilby!!
We struck a beautiful place today called Livingston where we went
ashore and photographed the army in which there was no boy older than
eighteen and most of them under ten. It was quite like Africa, the
homes were all thatched and the children all naked and the women mostly
so. We took lots of photographs and got on most excellently with the
natives who thought we were as funny as we thought them. Almost every
place we go word has been sent ahead and agents and consuls and custom
house chaps come out to meet me and ask what they can do. This is very
good and keeps Griscom and Somerset in a proper frame of awe. But
seriously I could not ask for better companions, they are both
enormously well informed and polite and full of fun. The night the
Governor asked Somers to dinner and did not ask us we waited up for him
and then hung him out over the side of the boat above the sharks until
he swore he would never go away from us again. Griscom is more
aggravatingly leisurely but he has a most audacious humor and talks to
the natives in a way that fills them with pleasure but which nearly
makes Somers and I expose the whole party by laughing. Today we lie
here taking in banannas and tomorrow I will see Conrad, Conrad,
Conrad!! Send this to the Consul. Lots of love.
DICK.
SAN PEDRO--SULA--February, 1895.
MY DEAR FAMILY:
The afternoon of the day we were in Puerto Cortez the man of war
Atlanta steamed into the little harbor and we all cheered and the
lottery people ran up the American flag. Then I and the others went
out to her as fast as we could be rowed and I went over the side and
the surprise of the officers was very great. They called Somers and
Griscom to come up and we spent the day there. They were a much
younger and more amusing lot of fellows than those on the Minneapolis
and treated us most kindly. It was a beautiful boat and each of us
confessed to feeling quite tempted to go back again to civilization
after one day on her. Their boat had touched at Tangier and so they
claimed that she was the one meant in the Exiles. They told me that
the guide Isaac Cohen whom I mentioned in Harper's Weekly carries it
around as an advertisement and wanted to ship with them as cabin boy.
We left the next day on the railroad and the boys finding that two
negroes sat on the cowcatcher to throw sand on the rails in slippery
places bribed them for their places and I sat on the sand box. I never
took a more beautiful drive. We did not go faster than an ordinary
horse car but still it was exciting and the views and vistas wonderful.
Sometimes we went for a half mile under arches of cocoanut palms and a
straight broad leafed palm called the manaca that rises in separate
leaves sixty feet from the ground. Imagine a palm such as we put in
pots at weddings and teas as high as Holy Trinity Church and hundreds
and hundreds of them. The country is very like Cuba but more luxuriant
in every way. There are some trees with marble like trunks and great
branches covered with oriole nests and a hundred orioles flying in and
out of them or else plastered with orchids. If Billy Furness were to
see in what abundance they grew he would be quite mad. It is a great
pity he did not come with us. This little town is the terminus of the
railroad and we have been here four days while Jeffs the American
Colonel in the Hondurean Army is getting our outfit. It has been very
pleasant and we are in no hurry which is a good thing for us. It is a
most exciting country and as despotic as all uncivilized and unstable
governments must be. But we have called on the Governor of the
district with Jeffs and he gave us a very fine letter to all civil and
unmilitary authorities in the district calling on them to aid and
protect us in every way. I am getting awfully good material for my
novel and for half a dozen stories to boot only I am surprised to find
how true my novel was to what really exists here. About ten years ago
---- disappeared, having as I thought drunk himself to death. He came
up to me here on my arrival with a lot of waybills in his hand and I
learned that he had been employed in this hole in the ground by a
railroad for two years. I remembered meeting him at Newport when I was
still at Lehigh, and last night he asked me to dinner and told me what
he had been doing which included everything from acting in South
America to blacking boots in Australia. His boss was a Pittsburgh
engineer who is apparently licking him into shape and who told me to
tell his father that he had stopped drinking absolutely. His colored
"missus" sat with us at the table and played with a beetle during the
three hours I stayed there during which time he asked me about ---- who
he said had ruined him. He told me of how ---- had done and said this,
and the contrast to the thatched roof and the mud floor and the Scotch
American engineer and the mulatto girl was rather striking. I never
had more luck in any trip than I have had on this one and the luck of
R. H. D. of which I was fond of boasting seems to hold good. That man
of war, for instance, was the only American one that had touched at
Puerto Cortez in TEN years and it came the day we did and left the day
we did. We saw a big lithograph of Eddie Sothern in a palm hut here so
we went before a notary and swore to it and had three seals put on the
paper and sent it him as a joke. We start tomorrow the 22nd so you see
we are behind our schedule and I suppose you people are all worried to
death about us. We will be much longer than six days on our way to
Tegucigalpa as we are going shooting and also to pay our respects to
Bogran the ex-president and the man who is getting up the next
revolution. But we take care to tell everyone we are travelling for
pleasure and are great admirers of Bonilla the present president.
Somers and I are getting on famously. He is a very fine boy with a
great sense of humor and apparently very fond of me. We had five men
counting Jeffs who we call our military attache and Charwood and four
drivers and eleven mules so it is quite an outfit. In Ecuador with one
more man it would constitute a revolution.
DICK.
SANTA BARBARA--January 25, 1895.
DEAR FAM:
We are not at Tegucigalpa as you observe but travelling in this
country. "As you see it on Broadway " and as you see it here are two
different things. We have had five days of it so far and rested here
today in order to pay our respects to General Bogran the ex-president
of the Republic. It is still six days to Tegucigalpa. The trip across
Central America will certainly be one of the most interesting
experiences of my life. It is the most beautiful country I have seen
and the most barbarous. It is also the hottest and the most
insect-ious and the dirtiest. This latter seems a little view to take
of it but it means a great deal as the insects prevent your doing
anything in a natural way; as for instance sitting on the grass or
sleeping on the ground or hunting through the bushes. It is pretty
much as you imagine it is from what you have read, that covers it, and
I have discovered nothing new by coming to see it. I only verify what
others have seen. The people are most uninteresting chiefly because
they are surly to Americans and do not make you feel welcome. I do not
mean that I did not do well to come for I am more glad that I did than
I can say only I have not, as I have been able to do before, found
something that others have not seen. I never expect to see such a
country again unless in Africa. If you leave the path for ten yards
you would never get back to it except by accident and you could not get
that far away unless you cut yourself a trail. In some places the mail
route which we follow and over which the mail is carried on the backs
of runners is cut in the rock and we go down steps as even as those of
the City Hall and for hours we travel over rough rocks and stones and a
path so narrow that your knees catch in the vines at the side. The
mules are wonderfully sure footed and never slip although they are very
little, and I am pretty heavy. The heat is something awful. It bakes
you and will dry your pith helmet in ten minutes after you have soaked
it in water. But the scenery is magnificent, sometimes we ride above
the clouds and look down into valleys stretching fifty miles away and
see the buzzards half a mile below us. Then we go through forests of
manaca palms that spread out on a single stem sideways and form arches
over our heads with the leaves hanging in front of us like portiers or
we cross great plains of grass and cactus and rock. The best fun is
the baths we take in the mountain streams. They are almost as cool as
one could wish and we shoot the rapids and lie under the waterfalls and
come out with all the soreness rubbed out of us as though we had been
massaged. We went shooting for two days but as they had no dogs we did
not do much. I got the best shot of the trip and missed it. It was a
large wild cat and he turned his side full on but I fired over him.
Somers and I spent most of the time firing chance shots at alligators,
but they never gave us a good chance as the birds warn them when they
are in danger. One old fellow fifteen feet long beat us for some time
and then Somers and I started across the river to catch him asleep. It
was like the taking of Lungtepen. We had our money belts around our
necks and our shoes in one hand and rifles in the other. The rapids
ran very fast and the last I saw of Somerset he was sitting on the bank
he had started from counting out wet bank notes and blowing the water
out of his gun barrel. I got across all right by sticking my feet
between rocks and put on my shoes and crawled up on the old Johnnie.
He smelt of musk so strong that you could have found him in the dark.
I had, a beautiful shot at him at fifty yards but I was too greedy and
ran around some rocks to get nearer and he heard me and dived. I shot
a macaw, one of those overgrown parrots with tail feathers three feet
from tip to tip. I got him with a rifle and as Griscom had got his
with a shotgun I came out all right as a marksman although I was very
sore at missing the wild cat. We sleep in hats and we sleep precious
little for the dogs and pigs and insects all help to keep us awake and
I cannot get used to a hammock. The native beds are made of matting
such as they put over tea chests, or bull's hide stretched. Last night
I slept in a hut with a woman and her three daughters all over fifteen
and they sat up and watched me prepare for bed with great interest. I
would not have missed this trip for any other I know. I wanted to
rough it and we've roughed it and we will have another week of it too.
We have some remarkable photographs and the article ought to be most
interesting. Bogran proved to be a very handsome and remarkable man
and we had a very interesting talk with him. From Tegucigalpa we will
probably go directly to Venezuela across the Isthmus of Panama and not
visit another Republic. We have all travelled too much to care to
duplicate, and that is what we would be doing by remaining longer in
Central America. A month of it will be enough of it and we will not
get away from Amapala before the first of February. We are all well
and happy and dirty and sing and laugh and tell stories and listen to
Griscom's anecdotes of the aristocracy as we pick our way along. So
goodbye and God bless you all.
DICK.
TEGUCIGALPA, CENTRAL AMERICA.
February 1st, 1895.
4th, 1895.
DEAR FAMILY--
Here we are at last, the trip from Santa Barbara where I last wrote you
was made in six days. It was not so interesting as the first part
because it was very high up and the tropical scenery gave way to
immensely tall pines and other trees that might have been in
California, or the Rockies. The Corderillas which is the name of the
mountains we crossed are a continuation, by the way, of the Rockies,
and the Andes but are not more than 4,000 feet high. We had two very
hot days of it in the plains of Comgaqua where there was once a city of
60,000 founded by Cortez but where there are not now more than 6,000.
The heat was awful. We peeled all over our faces and hands and dodged
and ducked our heads as though some one were biting at us. My saddle
and clothes were so hot that I could not place my hand on them. At one
village we heard that a bull fight was to be given at the next fifteen
miles away, so we rode on there and arrived in time to take part. They
had enclosed the plaza with a barricade of logs seven feet high, bound
together with vines. They roped a big bull and lassoed him all over
and then a man got on his back with spurs on his bare feet and held on
by the ropes around the bull's body and by his toes and threw a cloak
over the bull's eyes when ever it got too near any one-- They stuck it
with spears until it was mad and then let the lassoes slip and the bull
started off to tear out the torreadors. I thought it would be a great
sporting act to kodak a bull while it was charging you and so we all
volunteered to act as torreadors and it was most exciting and funny.
It was rather late to get good results but I got some pretty good
pictures of the bull coming at me with his head down and then I'd skip
into a hole in the wall. The best pictures I got were of Somers and
Griscom scrambling over the seven foot barriers with the bull in hot
chase. We all looked so funny in our high boots and helmets and so
much alike that the savages yelled with delight and thought we had been
engaged especially for their pleasure. Our "mosers," or mule drivers
treated us most insolently but we could not do anything because Jeffs.
had engaged them and we did not want to interfere with his authority
but at a place the last day out one of them told Jeffs. he lied and
that we all lied. He had lost or stolen a canteen of Griscom's and
they had said we had not given it to him. Jeffs. went at him right and
left and knocked him all over the shop. There were half a dozen
drunken mule drivers at the place and we thought they would take a hand
but they did not. That night Jeffs. thought to try us to see what we
would have done and left us bathing in a mountain stream and rode on
ahead and hid himself behind a rock in a canon and lay in ambush for
us. We were jogging along in the moonlight and Somerset was reciting
the "Walrus and the Carpenter," when suddenly Jeffs. let out a series
of yells in Spanish and opened fire on us over our heads. Somerset was
riding my mule and I had no weapons, so I yelled at him to shoot and he
fell off his mule and ran to mine and let go at the rock behind which
Jeffs. was with the carbines. So that in about five seconds Jeffs.'
curiosity was perfectly satisfied as to what we would do, and he
shouted for mercy. We thought it was a sentry or brigands and were
greatly disappointed when it turned out to be Jeffs. We got here last
night and a dirtier or more dismal place you never saw. We had
telegraphed ahead for rooms but nothing was in order and we were lodged
much worse than we had been several times in the interior where there
was occasionally a clean floor. This morning we wrote direct to the
President, asking for an interview or audience and did not ask our
Consul to help us because Jeffs. had asked him in our presence to come
meet us and he said he would after he had done talking to some other
men, but he never came. Before we heard from Bonilla however, we
learned that the Vice-president who has the same name was to be sworn
in so we went to the palace along with the populace in their bare feet.
We sat out of sight but the English Consul who was the finest looking
person in the chamber--all over gold lace--saw us and asked that we be
given places in front, which the minister of something asked us to take
but we objected on account of our clothes. Somers had on a flannel
suit that looked exactly like pajamas and lawn tennis shoes. But as
soon as the ceremony was over they insisted on our going in to the
banquet hall and in spite of our objections we were there conveyed and
presented to Bonilla who behaved very well and after saying he had
received our letters but had not had time to read them left us and
avoided us, which was what we wanted for we looked like the devil. We
met everybody else though and took the English and Guatemalian Consuls
back to our rooms and gave them drinks and then we went to their rooms,
so the day went very pleasantly. The President sent us a funny printed
card appointing an audience at eleven to-morrow. It is exactly what
you would imagine it would be, the soldiers are barefooted except about
fifty and the President leaned out of the window in his shirt sleeves
after the review and they have not plastered up the holes in his palace
that his cannon made in it just a year ago to-day, when he was fighting
Vasquez, and Vasquez was then on the inside and Bonilla on the hills.
I forgot to tell you that this morning a boy about sixteen years old,
with a policeman's badge and club came to our window and talked
pleasantly with us or at us rather, while we shaved and guyed him in
English. Finally we found that he had come to arrest Jeffs. so we told
him where Jeffs. was but he preferred to watch us shave and we finished
it under his custody. Then we went to the Commandante and found that
the mosers had had Jeffs. arrested for not paying them on their arrival
at Tegucigalpa, as we had distinctly told them we would not do but at
San Pedro from where we took them, on their return. It was only a
spite case suggested by Jeffs. thrashing their leader. The Commandante
gave them a scolding and we went out in triumph.
February 4th--
Your cable received all right. We were very glad to hear. We have
decided to go on by mules to Manaqua, the Capital of Nicaragua, and
from there either to Corinto or to Lemon on the Atlantic side. We had
to do this or wait here ten days for the boat going south at Amapala.
It is moonlight now so that we can avoid the heat of the day.
Yesterday we went out riding with the President, who put a gold
revolver in his hip pocket before he started and made us feel that
uneasy lies the head that rules in this country. He had two horses
that had never been ridden before, as a compliment to our powers, the
result was that the Vice-president's horse almost killed him, which I
guess the President intended it should and the horse Griscom rode
backed all over the town. He was a stallion and had never been ridden
before that day. Mine was a gentle old gee-gee and yet I felt good
when we were all on the ground again. The British consul gave Somers a
fine reception and raised the flag for him and had the band there to
play "God Save the Queen," which he had spent the whole morning in
teaching them. Griscom and I called on our Consul and played his
guitar. We bought one for ourselves for the rest of the trip.
I want you to do something for me: keep all the unfavorable notices you
get. I know Mother won't do it, so I shall expect Nora to make a point
of saving them from the waste-paper basket. If there is not a lot of
them when I get back, I will raise a row.
DICK.
MANAQUA--NICARAGUA--February 13, 1895.
DEAR FAM:
I had a great deal to tell you, but we have just received copies of the
Panama Star and have read of the trolley riots in Brooklyn, a crisis in
France, War in the Balkans, a revolution in Honolulu and another in
Colombia. The result is that we feel we are not in it and we are all
kicking and growling and abusing our luck. How Claiborne and Russell
will delight over us and in telling how the militia fired on the
strikers and how Troop A fought nobly. Never mind our turn will come
someday and we may see something yet. We have had the deuce of a time
since we left Tegucigalpa. Now we are in a land where there are bull
hide beds and canvas cots instead of hammocks and ice and railroads and
direct communication with steamship lines. Hereafter all will be
merely a matter of waiting until the boat sails or the train starts and
the uncertainties of mules and cat boats are at an end. It is hard to
explain about our difficulties after we left Tegucigalpa but they were
many. We gave up our idea of riding here direct because they assured
us we could get a steam launch from Amapala to Corinto so we rode three
days to San Lorenzo on the Pacific side and took an open boat from
there to Amapala. It was rowed by four men who walked up a notched log
and then fell back dragging the sweeps back, with the weight of their
bodies.
It was a moonlight night and they looked very picturesque rising and
sinking back and outlined against the sky. They were naked to the
waist and rowed all night and I had a good chance to see them as I had
to lie on the bottom of the boat on three mahogany logs. By ten the
next day we were too cramped to stand it, so we put ashore on a
deserted island and played Robinson Crusoe. We had two biscuits and a
box of sardines among five of us but we found oysters on the rocks and
knocked a lot off with clubs and stones and the butts of our guns.
They were very good. We also had a bath until a fish ran into me about
three feet long and cut two gashes in my leg. We reached Amapala about
four in the afternoon. It was an awful place; dirt and filth and no
room to move about, so we chartered an open boat to sail or row to
Corinto sixty miles distant. You see, we could not go back to
Tegucigalpa until the steamer arrived which is to take us South of
Panama and we could not go to Manaqua either and for the same reason
that we had sent back our mule train and we would not wait in Amapala
partly because of fever which had been there and partly because we
wanted to get to Corinto where they have ice and to see Manaqua. The
boat was about as long as the Vagabond and twice as deep and a foot or
two more across her beam. There were four of us, five of the crew and
two natives who wanted to make the trip and who we took with us. It
was pretty awful. The old tub rocked like a milk shake and I was never
so ill in my life, we all lay packed together on the ribs of the boat
and could not move and the waves splashed over us but we were too ill
to care. The next day the sun beat in on us and roasted us like an
open furnace. The boat was a pit of heat and outside the swell of the
Pacific rose and fell and reflected the sun like copper. We reached
Corinto in about twenty four hours and I was never so glad to get any
place before. The town turned out to greet us and some Englishmen ran
to ask from what boat we had been ship wrecked. They would not believe
we had taken the trip for any other reason. They helped us very kindly
and would not let us drink all the iced water we wanted and sent us in
to bathe in a place surrounded by piles to keep out the sharks and by a
roof to shelter one from the sun. Corinto proved to be all that
Amapala was not; clean, cool with very excellent food and broad beds of
matting. I liked it better than any place at which we have been, we
came on here the next day to see the President and found the city hot,
dusty and of no interest. There is an excellent hotel however and we
had a talk with the President who was a much better chap than Bonilla
being older and more civilized. Of course there is absolutely no
reason or excuse for us if we do not get control of this canal. If
only that it would allow our ships of war to pass from Ocean to Ocean
instead of going around the horn. The women are really beautiful but
that has nothing to do with the canal. Tomorrow morning we return to
Corinto as Somers and I like it best. Griscom would like to go on
across by the route of the canal which would be a good thing were we
certain of meeting a steamer at Simon or Greytown, but the Minister who
went last month that way had to wait there sixteen days. So, we will
probably leave Corinto on the 17th or 20th, there are two steamers, one
that stops at ports and one that does not. They both arrive together.
I do not know which we will take but--this letter will go with me. Up
to date I think the trip will make a good story but it will have to be
a personal one about the three of us for the country as it stands is
uninteresting to the general reader for the reason that it DUPLICATES
itself in everything. But with our photographs and a humorous story,
it ought to be worth reading and I have picked enough curious things to
make it of some value.
February 15,--Corinto.
We are back here now and rid of that dusty, dirty city. You would be
amused if you saw this place and tried to understand why we prefer it
to any place we have seen. There is surf bathing at a half mile
distant and a good hotel with a great bar where a Frenchman gives us
ice and the sea captains and agents for mines and plantations in the
interior gather to play billiards. Outside there are rows of handsome
women with decollete gowns and shining black hair and colored silk
scarfs selling fruit and down the one street which faces the bay are a
double row of palms and the store where two American boys have a
phonograph. They are the only Americans I have met who have or are
taking a dollar out of this country. They play the guitar and banjo
very well. One of them was on the Princeton glee club and their
stories of how they have toured Central America are very amusing. Lots
of Love.
DICK.
S. S. Barracouta--Off San Juan
February 21, 1895.
DEAR MOTHER:
Today I believe is the 21st. We are out two days from Corinto off San
Juan on the boundary of Costa Rica and lie here some hours. Then we go
on without stopping to Panama arriving there about the 25th. On the
28th we take the steamer to Caracas. We will be at Caracas a week and
then go straight home. But in the meanwhile we will have got one mail
at Colon when we go there to take the boat for Caracas and glad I will
be to get it. We have had a summary of the news in the Panama Star and
a bundle of Worlds telling all about the trolley strike and that is all
except Dad's cable at Tegucigalpa that we have heard in nearly two
months. I am very sorry that the distances have turned out so much
longer than we expected and that we had that unfortunate ten days wait
for the steamer. I know you want me home and I would like to be there
but I do not think I ought to go without seeing Caracas. It helps the
book so much too if one runs it into South America for no one in the
States thinks much of Central and does not want to read about it. At
least I know I never did. We have had a most amusing time with the two
phonograph chaps. One of them has been an advertising agent and a
deputy sheriff and chased stage coach robbers and kept a hard-ware
store and is only twenty-five and the other has not had quite as much
experience but has been to Princeton, he is 23. The mixture of
narratives which change from tricks of the hard-ware trade to dances at
Buckingham Palace and anecdotes of Cliff House supper parties at San
Francisco are very interesting. I am going to write a book for them
and call it "Through Central America with a Phonograph" or "Who We Did,
and How We Done Them." We sing the most beautiful medleys and
contribute to the phonograph. I had to protest against them announcing
"Her Golden Hair was Hanging Down her Back" by Richard Harding Davis
and Somerset kicked at their introducing "God Save the Queen" as sung
by "His Grace the Duke of Bedford" which they insist in thinking his
real title and his name; if he would only confess the truth. You
cannot have any idea of how glad I am that I took this trip, just this
particular trip, not for any interest it will be to the gentle reader
but for the benefit it has been to me. All the things I was nervous
about have been done and should I get nerves again as I suppose I
always will in one form or another I can get rid of them by remembering
how I got rid of them before during this most peculiar excursion. For
though I and we all told the truth about being well, we were in a most
trying place at times and the ride we took and the sail to get away
from possible fever was very much of a strain. I do not see how
Griscom kept up as he did for he was an invalid and very nervous when
he started. But he showed great sporting blood. It was much better
having three than two and he furnished us with much amusement at which
he never complains. His artlessness and his bad breaks which keep us
filled with terror make the most entertaining narratives and he tells
them on himself and then keeps on making new ones. One night Jeffs
came down with fever through bathing in the mountain streams, a
practice which did not hurt us but which natives of the country cannot
do in safety, and I confess I was scared. Jeffs pulled through in a
few days. It was odd that the man who had lived here eleven years
should have been the only one to give up throughout the whole trip and
he was a good sport, too.
I will have the Central American stories all done or nearly so by the
time we reach New York which is one of the comforts of this over
abundance of sea voyages. I have the lottery story nearly written and
am wondering now if Bissell will let me publish it. Would it not be a
good idea to have Dad, if he knows him, explain about how I went South
to write it and just what it is and get his official sanction or shall
I write or get the Harper's to write when I get back. The lottery
people in joke offered $10,000 if they could write the story
themselves. And sometimes I wish they would for it is the hardest kind
of work. I do not want to advertise their old game and yet I cannot
help doing it, in a way. We put in at Punta Arenas and I found a woman
looking at us with an opera glass and shortly after she sent out to say
she knew me and that she wanted me to come up. It seemed I met her in
Elizabeth, New Jersey with Eddie Coward where she was playing in
private theatricals. Since then as a punishment no doubt she has lived
here and her husband is Minister of the Navy with one gun boat. This
trip is very hot and I sleep on deck and look up at the stars and the
light on the jib and the smoke spoiling the firmament. It makes you
feel terribly far away from the centre of civilization in front of the
fire and you all trying to make out where we are at. I hope you know
more about it than we do.
It is the worst country for getting about that I ever heard of. It has
revived my interest and belief in all such beautiful things as buried
treasures and hidden cities and shooting men against stone walls and
filibusters. There are not many of these stories but every man tells
them differently so they have all the freshness of a new tale. There
is no ice on this boat or lemons or segars. It is the first time so
they say that it has happened in twelve months, but after this it must
be better. At Panama they fine the ice man $1000 every day his machine
breaks and so we have hopes. I feel so very, very selfish off down
here and leaving you all alone and it makes me lose my temper more than
usual when all these delays occur but I promise to be good hereafter
and we will be together soon now by the end of March sure and I hope
you will not miss me too much, as much as I miss all of you. Sometimes
I wish you could see some of these islands and the long shadowy sharks
and the turtles, there are thousands of turtles as big as tubs just
floating around like empty bottles, but I have never on the whole taken
a trip when I so seldom wished that the family were around to enjoy it.
It used to hurt me during the Mediterranean trip but there is not much
that would please you in this outfit. I like it because I am satisfied
to go dirty for weeks at a time and to talk to the engineer or the
queer passengers and to pick up stories and improve my geography but I
do not think the scenery would compensate either Nora or you or Dad for
the lack of necessities and CLEANTH. When we were crossing the
continent I don't believe I had a spot on me as big as a nickel without
three bites on it, all sorts of bites, they just swarmed over you all
sizes, colors and varieties. They came from dogs, from the sand, from
trees, from the grass, from the air. The worst were little red bugs
that lay under the leaves called carrapati's and that came off on you
in a hundred at a time. And there were also "jiggers" that get under
your nails and leave eggs there. Some times we could not sleep at all
for the bites and you had to carry a brush to brush the carripats off
every time you passed through bushes. It's the damnedest country I was
ever in now that I have time to think of it. The other day I was going
in to bathe and the sand was so hot that I could not get to the
breakers and so I went yelling and jumping back to the grass and the
grass was just one mass of burrs, so I gave another yell and leaped on
to a big log and the log was full of thorns. That's the sort of
country it is. And then after you do make a dash for the surf a shark
makes a dash for you and you don't know what you are here for anyway.
It had its humorous side and it was very funny, especially as it never
turned out otherwise, to see the men scamper when the sharks came in.
They never scented us for ten minutes or so and then they would swim up
and we would give a yell and all make for the shore head over heels and
splashing and shrieking and scared and excited. There would always be
one man who was further out than the rest and he could not hear on
account of the waves and we would all line up on the beach and yell and
dance up and down and try to attract his attention. But you would see
him go on diving and playing along in horrible loneliness until he
turned to speak to some one and found the man gone and then he would
look for the others and when he saw us all on the shore he would give
one wild whoop out of him and go falling over himself with his hair on
end and his eyes and mouth wide open. I saw one shark ten feet long
but we would have died of the heat if we had not bathed so we thought
it was worth it. That's over now because we cannot get any more sea
bathing. Just around Panama. Finest place seen yet.
RICHARD.
PANAMA, February 28th, 1895.
DEAR MOTHER:
Griscom has awakened to the fact that he is a Press correspondent and
is interviewing rebels who come stealthily by night followed by spies
of the government and sit in Griscom's room with the son of the Consul
General, as interpreter. Somerset and I refuse to be implicated and
sit in the plaza waiting for a file of soldiers to carry Griscom off
which is our cue for action. There is a man-of-war, the Atlanta, the
one we made friends with at Puerto Cortez, lying at Colon and so we
feel safe. We may now be said to be absorbing local color. That is
about all we have done since we left Amapala. And if it were not that
you are all alone up there, I would not mind it. I would probably
continue on. We know it now as we do London or Paris. We can
distinguish sea captains, lawyers in politics, commandantes, oldest
residents, gentlemenly good for nothings, shipping agents and
commission dealers, coffee planters and men who are "on the beach" with
unerring eye. We know the story of each before he tells it, or it is
told by some one else. The Commandante shot a lot of men by the side
of a road during the last revolution, first allowing them to dig their
own graves and is here now so that he can pay himself by stealing the
custom dues, the lawyer politician has been to Cornell and taken a
medical degree in Paris and aspires to be a deputy and only remembers
New York as the home of Lillian Russell. The commission merchants are
all Germans and the coffee planters are all French. They point with
pride to little bare-foot boys selling sea shells and cocoanuts as
their offspring, although they cannot remember their names. The sea
captains you can tell by their ready made clothes of a material that
would be warm in Alaska and by them wearing Spanish dollars for watch
guards and by the walk which is rolling easily when sober and pitching
heavily toward the night. The oldest resident always sits in front of
the hotel and in the same seat, with a tortoise shell cane and
remembers when Vasquez or Mendoza or Barrios, or Bonilla occupied the
Cathedral and fired hot shot into the Palace and everybody took refuge
in the English Consulate and he helped guard the bank all night with a
Springfield rifle. The men who are on the beach have just come out of
the hospital where they have had yellow fever and they want food. This
story is intended to induce you to get rid of them hurriedly by a small
token. Sometimes out of this queer combination you will get a good
story but generally they want to show you a ruined abbey or a document
as old as the Spanish occupation or to make you acquainted with a man
who has pearls to sell, or a coffee plantation or a collection of
unused stamps which he stole while a post-office employee. Our chief
sport now is to go throw money at the prisoners who are locked up in a
row of dungeons underneath the sea wall. The people walk and flirt and
enjoy the sea breeze above them and the convicts by holding a mirror
between the bars of the dungeons can see who is leaning over the
parapet above them. Then they hold out their hands and you drop
nickels and they fail to catch them and the sentry comes up and teases
them by holding the money a few inches beyond their reach. They climb
all over the crossbars in their anxiety to get the money and look like
great monkeys. At night it is perfectly tremendous for their is only a
light over their heads and they crawl all over the bars beneath this,
standing on each other's shoulders and pushing and fighting and yelling
half naked and wholey black and covered with sweat. As a matter of
fact they are better content to stay in jail than out and when the
British Consul offered to send eight of them back to Jamaica they
refused to go and said they would rather serve out their sentence of
eight years. This is the way the place looks and I am going to
introduce it in a melodrama and have some one lower files down to the
prisoners. DICK.
After some not very eventful or pleasant days at Caracas, Richard
sailed for home and from the steamer wrote the following letter:
March 26th--On board S. S. Caracas.
DEAR CHAS:
Off the coast of God's country. Hurrah! H---- did not come near us
until the morning of our departure when he arrived at the Station
trembling all over and in need of a shave. But in the meanwhile the
consul at Caracas picked Griscom and myself up in the street and took
us in to see Crespo who received us with much dignity and politeness.
So we met him after all and helped the story out that much.
There is not much more to tell except that I was never so glad to set
my face home as I am now and even the roughness of this trip cannot
squelch my joy. It seems to me as if years had passed since we left
and to think we are only three days off from Sandy Hook seems much too
wonderfully good to be possible. Some day when we have dined alone
together at Laurent's I will tell you the long story of how Somers and
Gris came to be decorated with the Order of the Bust of Bolivar the
Liberator of Venezuela of the 4th class but at present I will only say
that there is a third class of the order still coming to me in Caracas,
as there is 20 minutes still coming to Kelly in Brooklyn. It was a
matter of either my getting the third class, which I ought to have had
anyway having the third class of another order already, and THEIR
GETTING NOTHING, or our all getting the 4th or 5th class and of course
I choose that they should get something and so they did and for my
aimable unselfishness in the matter they have frequently drunken my
health. I was delighted when Somers got his for he was happier over it
than I have ever seen him over anything and kept me awake nights
talking about it. I consider it the handsomest order there is after
the Legion of Honor and I have become so crazy about Bolivar who was a
second Washington and Napoleon that I am very glad to have it, although
I still sigh for the third class with its star and collar.
The boys are especially glad because we have organized a Traveller's
Club of New York of which we expect great things and they consider that
it starts off well in having three of the members possessors of a
foreign order. We formed the club while crossing Honduras in sight of
the Pacific Ocean and its object is to give each other dinners and to
present a club medal to people who have been nice to and who have
helped members of the club while they were in foreign parts. It is my
idea and I think a good one as there are lots of things one wants to do
for people who help you and this will be as good as any. Members of
the club are the only persons not eligible to any medal bestowed by the
club and the eligibility for membership is determined by certain
distances which a man must have travelled. Although the idea really is
to keep it right down to our own crowd and make each man justify the
smallness of the club's membership by doing something worth while. I
am President. Bonsal is vice president. Russell treasurer and Griscom
Secretary. Somerset is the solitary member. You and Sam and Helen and
Elizabeth Bisland are at present the only honorary members. We are
also giving gold medals to the two chaps who crossed Asia on bicycles,
to Willie Chanler and James Creelman, but that does not make them
members. It only shows we as a club think they have done a sporting
act. I hope you like the idea. We have gone over it for a month and
considered it in every way and I think we are all well enough known to
make anybody pleased to have us recognize what they did whether it was
for any of us personally or for the public as explorers. On this trip
for instance we would probably send the club medals in silver to
Admiral Meade, to Kelly, to Royas the Venezuelan Minister for the
orders to the Governor of Belize, to the consul at La Guayra and to one
of the phonograph chaps. In the same way if you would want to send a
medal to any man or woman prince or doctor who had been kind,
courteous, hospitable or of official service to you you would just send
in a request to the committee. Write me soon and with lots of love
DICK.
In April, 1895, Richard was back in New York, at work on his South and
Central American articles, and according to the following letters,
having a good time with his old friends.
NEW YORK, April 27, 1895.
DEAR CHAS:
I read in the paper the other morning that John Drew was in Harlem, so
I sent him a telegram saying that I was organizing a relief expedition,
and would bring him out of the wilderness in safety. At twelve I sent
another reading, "Natives from interior of Harlem report having seen
Davis Relief Expeditionary Force crossing Central Park, all well.
Robert Howard Russell." At two I got hold of Russell, and we
telegraphed "Relief reached Eighty-fifth street; natives peacefully
inclined, awaiting rear column, led by Griscom; save your ammunition
and provisions." Just before the curtain fell we sent another,
reading: "If you can hold the audience at bay for another hour, we
guarantee to rescue yourself and company and bring you all back to the
coast in safety. Do not become disheartened." Then we started for
Harlem in a cab with George and another colored man dressed as African
warriors, with assegai daggers and robes of gold and high turbans and
sashes stuck full of swords. I wore my sombrero and riding breeches,
gauntlets and riding boots, with cartridge belts full of bum cartridges
over my shoulder and around the waist. Russell had my pith helmet and
a suit of khaki and leggins. Griscom was in one of my coats of many
pockets, a helmet and boots. We all carried revolvers, canteens and
rifles. We sent George in with a note saying we were outside the
zareba and could not rescue him because the man on watch objected to
our guns. As soon as they saw George they rushed out and brought us
all in. Drew was on the stage, so we tramped into the first entrance,
followed by all the grips, stage hands and members of the company. The
old man heard his cue just as I embraced him, and was so rattled that
when he got on the stage he could not say anything, and the curtain
went down without any one knowing what the plot was about. When John
came off, I walked up to him, followed by the other four and the entire
company, and said: "Mr. Drew, I presume," and he said: "Mr. Davis, I
believe. I am saved!" Helen Benedict happened to be in Maude Adams'
dressing-room, and went off into a fit, and the company was delighted
as John would have been had he been quite sure we were not going on the
stage or into a box. We left them after we had had a drink, although
the company besought us to stay and protect them, and got a supper
ready in Russell's rooms, at which Helen, Ethel Barrymore, John and
Mrs. Drew, Maude Adams and Griscom were present.
DICK.
NEW YORK, November, 1895.
DEAR MOTHER:--
The china cups have arrived all right and are a beautiful addition to
my collection and to my room, in which Daphne still holds first place.
What do you think Sir Henry sent me? The medal and his little black
pipe in a green velvet box about as big as two bricks laid side by side
with a heavy glass top with bevelled edges and the medal and pipe lying
on a white satin bed, bound down with silver--and a large gold plate
with the inscription "To Richard Harding Davis with the warmest
greetings from Gregory Brewster--1895"-- You have no idea how pretty it
is, Bailey, Banks and Biddle made it-- It is just like him to do
anything so sweet and thoughtful and it has attracted so many people
that I have had it locked up-- No Burden jewel robbers here-- My
friend, the Russian O---- lady still pursues me and as she has no sense
of humor and takes everything seriously, she frightens me-- I am afraid
she will move in at any moment-- She has asked me to spend the summer
with her at Paris and Monte Carlo, and at her country place in Norfolk
and bombards me with invitations to suppers and things in the meantime.
She has just sent me a picture of herself two feet by three, with
writing all over it and at any moment, I expect her to ring the bell
and order her trunks taken up stairs-- I am too attractive-- Last night
I dined with Helen and Maude Adams, who is staying with her. I want
them to board me too. Maude sang for us after dinner and then went off
to see Yvette Guilbert at a "sacred concert" to study her methods. I
went to N----'s box to hear Melba and we chatted to the accompaniment
of Melba, Nordica and Plancon in a trio--the Ogre, wore fur, pearls,
white satin and violets. It was a pink silk box. Then I went down to
a reception at Mrs. De Koven's and found it was a play. Everybody was
seated already so I squatted down on the floor in front of Mrs. De
Koven and a tall woman in a brocade gown cut like a Japanese woman's--
It was very dark where the audience was, so I could not see her face
but when the pantomime was over I looked up and saw it was Yvette
Guilbert. So I grabbed Mrs. De Koven and told her to present me and
Guilbert said in English-- "It is not comfortable on the floor is it?"
and I said, "I have been at your feet for three years now, so I am
quite used to it"--for which I was much applauded-- Afterwards I told
some one to tell her in French that I had written a book about Paris
and about her and that I was going to mark it and send it and before
the woman could translate, Guilbert said, "No, send me the Van Bippere
book"-- So we asked her what she meant and she said, " M. Bourget told
me to meet you and to read your Van Bippere Book, you are Mr. Davis,
are you not?"-- So after that I owned the place and refused to meet
Mrs. Vanderbilt.
Yvette has offered to teach me French, so I guess I won't go to
Somerset's wedding, unless O---- scares me out of the country. I got
my $2,000 check and have paid all my debts. They were not a third as
much as I thought they were, so that's all right.
Do come over mother, as soon as you can and we will meet at Jersey
City, and have a nice lunch and a good talk. Give my bestest love to
Dad and Nora. How would she like Yvette for a sister-in-law? John
Hare has sent me seats for to night-- He is very nice-- I have begun
the story of the "Servants' Ball" and got well into it.
and lots of love.
DICK.
The following letter was written to me at Florence. The novel referred
to was "Soldiers of Fortune," which eventually proved the most
successful book, commercially, my brother ever wrote. Mrs. Hicks, to
whom Richard frequently refers, is the well-known English actress
Ellaline Terriss, the wife of Seymour Hicks. Somerset is Somers
Somerset, the son of Lady Henry Somerset, and the Frohman referred to
is Daniel Frohman, who was the manager of the old Lyceum Theatre.
Early in November, William R. Hearst asked my brother to write a
description of the Yale-Princeton football game for The Journal.
Richard did not want to write the "story" and by way of a polite
refusal said he could not undertake it for less than $500.00. Greatly
to his surprise Hearst promptly accepted the offer. At the time, I
imagine this was by far the largest sum ever paid a writer for
reporting a single event.
December 31st, 1895.
New York.
The Players.
New Year's Eve.
DEAR CHAS:
I am not much of a letter writer these days, but I have finished the
novel and that must make up for it. It goes to the Scribners for
$5,000 which is not as much as I think I should have got for it. I am
now lying around here until the first of February, when I expect to
sail to Somerset's wedding, reaching you in little old Firenzi in
March. We will then paint it. After that I do not know what I shall
do. The Journal is after me to do almost anything I want at my own
figure, as a correspondent. They have made Ralph London correspondent
and their paper is the only one now to stick to. They are trying to
get all the well known men at big prices.
I have had such a good time helping Mrs. Hicks in Seymour's absence.
She had about everything happen to her that is possible and she is just
the sort of little person you love to do things for. She finally
sailed and I am now able to attend to my own family.
The Central American and Venezuelan book comes out on February lst.
Several of the papers here jokingly alluded to the fact that my article
on the Venezuelan boundary had inspired the President's message. Of
course you get garbled ideas of things over there and exaggerated ones,
as for instance, on the Coxey army. But you never saw anything like
the country after that war message. It was like living with a British
fleet off Sandy Hook. Everybody talked of it and of nothing else. I
went to a dinner of 300 men all of different callings and I do not
believe one of them spoke of anything else. Cabmen, car conductors,
barkeepers, beggars and policemen. All talked war and Venezuela and
the Doctrine of Mr. Monroe. In three days the country lost one
thousand of millions of dollars in values, which gives you an idea how
expensive war is. It is worse than running a newspaper. Now, almost
everyone is for peace, peace at any price. I do not know of but one
jingo paper, The Sun, and war talk is greeted with jeers. It was as if
the people had suddenly had their eyes opened to what it really meant
and having seen were wiser and wanted no more of it. Your brother,
personally, looks at it like this. Salisbury was to blame in the first
place for being rude and not offering to arbitrate as he had been asked
to do. When he said to Cleveland, "It's none of your business" the
only answer was "Well, I'll make it my business" but instead of
stopping there, Cleveland uttered a cast iron ultimatum instead of
leaving a loophole for diplomacy and a chance for either or both to
back out. That's where I blame him as does every one else.
Sam Sothern is in Chicago and we all wrote him guying letters about the
war. Helen said she was going to engage "The Heart of Maryland"
company to protect her front yard, while Russell and I have engaged
"The Girl I Left Behind Me" company with Blanch Walsh and the original
cast.
We sent Somerset a picture of himself riddled with bullets. And Mrs.
Hicks made herself famous by asking if it was that odious Dunraven they
were going to war about.
My article was a very lucky thing and is greatly quoted and in social
gatherings I am appealed to as a final authority.
The football story, by the way, did me a heap of good with the
newspapers and the price was quoted as the highest ever paid for a
piece of reporting. People sent for it so that the edition was
exhausted. The Journal people were greatly pleased.
Yvette Guilbert is at Hammerstein's and crowds the new music hall
nightly, at two dollars a seat. Irving and Miss Terry have been most
friendly to me and to the family. Frohman is going to put "Zenda" on
in New York because he has played a failure, which will of course kill
it for next year for Eddie, when he comes out as a star. I have never
seen such general indignation over a private affair. Barrymore called
it a case of Ollaga Zenda. They even went to Brooklyn when Eddie was
playing there and asked him to stage the play for them and how he made
his changes and put on his whiskers. Poor Eddie, he lacks a business
head and a business manager--and Sam talks and shakes his head but is
little better. Lots of love and best wishes for the New Year.
DICK.