November 14th.
The fourth day out was in some respects the most interesting. All the
forenoon we had Cuba on our right and most of the forenoon and part of
the afternoon Hayti on our left; and in each case green, jungly shores
and bold mountains--two great, beautiful, venomous tropic islands. These
are historic seas and Mother and I have kept thinking of all that has
happened in them since Columbus landed at San Salvador (which we also
saw), the Spanish explorers, the buccaneers, the English and Dutch
sea-dogs and adventurers, the great English and French fleets,
the desperate fighting, the triumphs, the pestilences, of all the
turbulence, the splendor and the wickedness, and the hot, evil, riotous
life of the old planters and slave-owners, Spanish, French, English,
and Dutch;--their extermination of the Indians, and bringing in of negro
slaves, the decay of most of the islands, the turning of Hayti into a
land of savage negroes, who have reverted to voodooism and cannibalism;
the effort we are now making to bring Cuba and Porto Rico forward.
To-day is calm and beautiful, as all the days have been on our trip. We
have just sighted the highest land of Panama ahead of us, and we shall
be at anchor by two o'clock this afternoon; just a little less than six
days from the time we left Washington.