SANTO DOMINGO
My father was greatly disappointed when Congress, under the whip of
Charles Sumner, quashed President Grant’s plan for the annexation of
Santo Domingo by refusing to ratify the treaty signed by Grant and the
Dominican president, Baez. The friends of annexation, however, still had
hopes of bringing the little republic under the eagle’s wing; it was
probably in this interest that President Baez invited my father to
revisit Santo Domingo in the winter of 1872 and bring his family with
him. On the ninth of February, the day of a terrible blizzard, I sailed
from New York with my father, mother, and a gay company of girl cousins
and friends. Our steamer, the old _Tybee_, was a small crank tub; the
twelve days’ passage was more uncomfortable than any ocean crossing I
have ever made. My journal records that on the second day out I had not
yet taken off my boots, and that on the fifth I was undressed for the
first time since sailing. The captain, a quaint Yankee skipper of the
old school, was so touched by my suffering that he sent two sailors to
carry me from the “Black Hole of Calcutta”, six feet by eight, where
three of us languished, to his own breezy deck cabin. Here I soon began
to pick up. My strongest impression of the voyage is of the beauty of
the Gulf Stream, crossed in cloudless weather. The intense blue of the
sea, the golden gulf weed, the dazzling color of the sky were my first
taste of tropical splendors.
“I am sure that water really is blue,” I said to the captain. “That
color cannot be merely the sky’s reflection.”
“Here, boy! Fill a bucket over the side and show it to the young lady.”
The water in the bucket close at hand looked like any other, save for a
strand of floating gulf weed.
“They do say,” the captain volunteered, “that the yarns about mermaids
grew out of some sailor’s mistaking that gulf weed for a girl’s hair.”
Among the passengers were several interesting people; Colonel Fabens of
Salem, an idealist, interested like my father in the uplift of the
Dominicans and convinced of the future importance to our country of the
splendid harbor of Samana Bay; Judge O’Sullivan, a mysterious man, who
either was, or assumed to be, very deaf, and yet knew everything that
was whispered on the ship; and whose interest in annexation was more
practical and not quite so disinterested as Colonel Fabens’ and my
father’s. Germany was even then plotting against American influence in
the island, and a few years later German intrigue brought about a
revolution that sent Baez into exile, and placed a very inferior man in
his place. A group of young naval officers on their way to join their
ship, the _Nantasket_, at Puerta Plata, were pleasant additions to the
company. One of these, George W. DeLong, later became famous as an
Arctic explorer. At this time DeLong was twenty-eight years old, tall,
blond, with a firm, underhung jaw, the veiled blue eyes of a dreamer,
and a spirited bearing that somehow set him apart from the other young
officers.
The twelfth day after leaving New York the _Tybee_ dropped anchor in the
harbor of Puerta Plata. Lieutenant DeLong was in the boat that took us
ashore. I remember his sympathy with our delight at the picturesqueness
of harbor, landing place, and town. Mount Isabella rose steeply from the
shore, its lower slopes fringed with fan and coconut palms, the upper
reaches dark with the rich foliage of the mahogany, satinwood, mango,
and logwood trees. The color of the sea was now like molten emerald,
sapphire, and turquoise. In spite of these shifting jewel tints, looking
down from the little boat the water was crystal clear. It seemed as if I
could reach out my hand and pick up the coral on the yellow sands,
fathoms below. The white belly and cruel jaw of a shark appeared below
us, and the hand was quickly withdrawn.
Three days later we sailed into the harbor of Santo Domingo, to find
midsummer weather, a land breeze scented with the perfume of unknown
fruit and flowers. Our captain pointed to the mighty stump of an ancient
tree on the bank of the Ozama River.
“The folks here claim Columbus tied his boat to that tree first time he
came ashore. He set great store by this island, gave it the name of
Espanuela, which, I reckon, means little Spain.”
I remembered my father’s writing me, a year before:
“This is one of the most beautiful islands of the world, ever warm, ever
clad in rich foliage, ever abounding in luscious fruits.”
A white handkerchief fluttered between the iron bars of a
seaward-looking window, high up in an old gray stone building:
“A welcome from the prison,” the captain murmured. “Poor Peynado, he
always salutes the _Tybee_ when she comes and as she goes; he’s shut up
for some political business, I’m told.”
“Do many ships touch here?” I asked.
“Only a few coasting craft like the _Alice_ there; you’ll get no news,
neither letters nor papers, till I bring them to you six weeks from now;
not even a telegram; there’s no cable!”
This gave our adventure a delightful tinge of aloofness. We slept on
board that night, and the next morning watched our belongings carried
ashore,--trunks, band-boxes, tables, chairs, beds, mosquito nettings,
and a grand piano. My father did not love music, but it was part of the
family creed that Mama could not exist without a piano. “She shall have
music wherever she goes!”
Our arrival had a quasi-official character; we were the guests of the
President, who had lent my father one of the presidential palaces for
our residence. The palace was built Spanish fashion around a patio. A
wide corridor surrounded the court on the second story, from which
opened our living rooms. A guard of honor, half a dozen ragged soldiers
and their horses, were lodged on the ground floor. I still remember the
strong impressions of this, my first day in a foreign country. I can see
the picturesque streets of the oldest European city in the new world,
for many years the most important place in the Western hemisphere. Its
character and language are Spanish, its people of mixed blood are of
every shade of complexion, their manners truly Spanish, courtly, grave,
and kindly.
We landed on the morning of the twenty-second of February; that evening
we celebrated Washington’s Birthday by a dinner at the hotel. There were
speeches, red fire, toasts, and a general jollification. The _Tybee’s_
officers and passengers were all present, as well as the few Americans
established at Santo Domingo, among whom were a Mr. and Mrs. Shumacher
and a couple by the name of Gabb. The men all wore white linen, the
women white muslin.
The two months that followed were among the most delightful of my life.
We enjoyed a series of calm summer days, only broken by an occasional
violent thunder shower in the afternoon. Very quickly the old palace
became homelike with flowers, birds, and friendly visitors at every hour
of the day and evening. Grave men, like Don Leonardo Delmonto, the land
agent, Señor Gauthier, the Secretary of State, Curriel, the Minister of
War, who came to consult with Papa; lonely men, exiles from every corner
of the world, who came to talk with Mama, and a shoal of girls and boys
who came to play and dance with “las muchachas” (the girls)!
Our day usually began with an excursion to the bathing beach. The first
trip was made in an antediluvian hack, the only vehicle in the city;
after that we rode our little Dominican ponies, Arabians with the _paso
Castiliano_, a sort of delicious canter, the best imaginable gait for a
warm climate. The bathing place was a beautiful little basin under a
beetling crag; the sands were fine and gold-colored, the water warm as
the Lido in August. We might not venture to swim outside this basin on
account of sharks. On the way home we halted at a coconut grove, where a
tall, barefoot boy swarmed up a palm tree and brought down fresh green
coconuts, still cool with the night’s dew. He bored a hole in the rough
outer shell with a gimlet; the fresh coconut milk glug-glugged into the
tiny calabash I carried at my saddlebow, and I drained a draft that is
the nearest thing to nectar I have known.
There were often guests at the eleven o’clock breakfast, where many
native dishes were served. We came to like the cassava bread, the rice
cooked in coconut milk, the fried plantains, and the orange wine. The
cuisine was a combination of Creole and Spanish cookery, much to my
liking. The long table was spread in the open corridor with the big
columns, between which swung gilded cages with bright plumed birds and
porous earthenware jars in which our drinking water was cooled. Ice was
a luxury, reserved for great occasions. Every day some of our new
friends sent a basket of wonderful strange fruit, sapotes, custard
apples, caweelias, endless varieties of bananas; the best of these I
have never seen since,--a tiny yellow kind, called the fig banana.
After breakfast came the Spanish lessons; indeed these went on most of
the day, for our young friends could speak no other language and we were
soon all chattering like magpies. In the evening Papa read Don Quixote
aloud, so it was in a truly Spanish atmosphere that I first learned to
love the great Don and all his company. At four o’clock, when the sea
breeze sprang up, the horses were brought round and the whole party rode
out into the country, attended by a large escort. Whatever else our
Dominican friends lacked, they had plenty of time to devote to us. There
was always at least one Cabinet officer in our group of cavaliers.
Our longest expedition was to the little town of San Cristoval, five
hours distant from the capital. We started at four in the morning by
bright moonlight and rode through the sleeping town. At the city gate a
sentinel challenged:
“Who goes there?”
“_Amigos._”
“What is your errand?”
“We escort the _convita_ of American visitors to San Cristoval.”
The sentinel seemed dissatisfied. Just then Señor Curriel, the fiery
little Minister of War, rode up and gave the watchword. The sleepy
soldier called his two companions from the guardhouse, and the three
oddly equipped figures, dressed in seersucker, with palm-leaf hats,
stood at attention as we clattered through the gateway and out to the
bridle path that led to San Cristoval. The journey was full of small
adventures; we were caught in a violent thunder storm and drenched to
the skin, my saddle girth broke, my reins gave out and were replaced by
a pair made from a clothesline borrowed at an _estancia_, where we
halted for a few minutes. So much stands out clear, in the full
limelight of memory; the rest of the trip is dim and shadowy. I remember
that San Cristoval was a poor little place, with a miserable apology for
a hotel where we ate; that we slept in hammocks in a native _bohie_, a
hut made of palm wood and thatched with palm leaves; that we were
enchanted with the beauty of the country, the friendliness of the
people, and the glory of the tropical moonlight nights.
During Holy Week we haunted the old gray stone cathedral, where for
centuries the body of Columbus had lain beneath the chancel. The
ceremonies of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday were full of
interest, for I had never before been inside a Catholic church.
Shortly after our arrival, the _Nantasket_ came to Santo Domingo,
bringing Lieutenant DeLong and the other young officers whose
acquaintance we had made on the _Tybee_. We gave a ball for the officers
and the townspeople, the large rooms of the palace serving excellently
for the festivities. The American officers danced with the pretty
Dominican girls, who wore fireflies in their dark hair for jewels; for
ribbons garlands of flowers twined about their waists and shoulders.
The day after the ball I experienced my first earthquake. It was a
breathless afternoon, and I was taking the inevitable siesta. As I lay
asleep under my mosquito bar, I heard a low rumbling sound, unlike
anything I had ever known before. I recognized it as instinctively as
the horses screaming in their stalls below. I sprang up and rushed to
the open corridor to see the great stone columns shaking like palm trees
in a wind. That night I saw visions; the figure of a nun stood for a
moment at the foot of my bed, looked at me intently, then vanished. Her
place was taken by a young soldier with a mass of blond hair blown back
like a plume; he too looked hard at me, then melted from my sight; last
I saw the face of a friend lying in her coffin. When the _Tybee_ arrived
with mails from home, she brought the news that this friend had died.
We said good-by to Santo Domingo very regretfully. We had fallen under
the spell of the Antilles. There was something almost virginal about the
island with its primeval forests of precious trees, mahogany, logwood,
and many another whose name I have forgotten. The population was of the
scantiest; whole tracts of forest land had never known a woodsman’s ax.
There were very few foreigners. We had stumbled by chance upon this
happy isle; it had no place in travelers’ tales or guidebooks; its
silver sands knew no tourists. We had found a bit of Spain transplanted
in the fifteenth century to an enchanted isle of the Caribbean Sea. The
founder, Bartholomew Columbus, brother of Christopher, died here in
1515. Sixty years later the great English adventurer, Sir Francis Drake,
sacked the city, which from that day to this, save for the inevitable
revolutions and the perennial squabble with its big, black, half-savage
neighbor, Hayti, has known a slumberous existence. The Spanish language
has absorbed the dialects of the gentle natives, so dear to Columbus,
and the Spanish blood has kept the mixed population from relapsing into
the semi-barbarism of Hayti.
When I think of the people I knew there, the kindly Dominicans, the
American planters, and business men thrown together in that remote
corner of the world, one figure stands out, clear-cut and apart from all
the rest,--George DeLong, the arctic explorer. He was a vigorous,
ambitious man, full of discontent with the small chance of advancement
the navy then offered. Dissatisfied with the slow promotion from rank to
rank, he was already casting about for a chance to distinguish himself.
The next year brought his opportunity. He obtained permission to join
the arctic exploration expedition led by Captain Braine, in 1873, and
proved himself so capable that in the year 1879, when James Gordon
Bennett fitted out the ill-fated _Jeannette_ for her trip to the arctic,
DeLong was given command of the expedition. The cruise of the
_Jeannette_ is one of the most thrilling chapters in the history of
arctic discovery. The ship sailed from San Francisco for a three years’
voyage, and proceeded to Cape Serdze Kamen in Siberia, whence she
steamed northwards until beset by ice. For two years she drifted in the
terrible ice pack, always farther and farther north, until she was
crushed by the ice, and the party were forced as a forlorn hope to take
to their sledges and make a long journey across Siberia. In the last
extremity they took refuge in a cave, where DeLong and his fourteen men
slowly starved to death. The story of every day’s trial is told in great
detail in DeLong’s journals. The men died like heroes, dominated to the
last by the courage and spiritual superiority of their leader. The story
is a magnificent example of discipline and devotion to duty in the face
of the most cruel suffering. When DeLong felt he was dying, with his
last remaining strength he threw the precious journal in which he had
made his last record over his head far into the interior of the cave,
where it was protected, and found by the relief expedition he knew would
be sent in search of him. They found him lying with his arm still above
his head, his hand pointing to the journal that gave his story to the
world and won for him that fame for which he had so hungered!
Before sailing for his first arctic trip DeLong came to see us at our
house in South Boston. I still remember his enthusiasm for the
adventure. What is the magnet that draws so many high-spirited,
courageous men to the doom that still awaits the majority of arctic
explorers, in spite of Nansen and Peary? I have talked with DeLong,
Shackleton, Peary, and the Englishman, Leigh Smith, of their arctic
experiences, and in each case have felt a certain quality they all
possessed in common, something remote and stellar that seems to set them
apart from their fellows and makes them, perhaps, sensitive to the
steady pull of the polar magnet.
Admiral Schley, in describing his expedition for the relief of Greeley,
once told me that during the last lap of his voyage, in order to make
greater speed, he blew his way through the ice with dynamite. When he
found Greeley and his men, there was not twenty-four hours’ life in any
of them. If he had not put on that extra spurt of speed, he would have
come too late.
“What made you think of using the dynamite?” I said.
The Admiral answered with an inscrutable look. I saw that I had touched
the edge of one of those mysteries men do not talk about to a chance
acquaintance, even a young lady, at a dinner party.
From Santo Domingo we set sail for Cuba, then a province of Spain, ruled
by a despotic Spanish governor, who was cordially hated by the Cubans.
All the offices of trust or power were held by Spaniards, who had come
to Cuba bent on making their fortunes and caring little for the
development of the beautiful island intrusted to their care. The Cubans
to whom my father brought letters were mostly planters, farmers, or
lawyers. With the exception of a few navy officers, I do not remember
having made the acquaintance of a single Spaniard.
I was fortunate in making friends with a famous Cuban belle under whose
protection I caught some glimpses of the _beau monde_ of Havana. In the
afternoon I drove with her in a _volante_ on the fashionable _paseo_; in
the evening we drove again through the gaily lighted plaza, the center
of the city’s social life. The _volante_ would draw up outside one of
the chief _cafés_; here ices were served to us as we sat in the
carriage, which was quickly surrounded by a group of young men. A
certain handsome officer, named Antonio Sarabria, paid us distant and
respectful court in true Spanish fashion. For several afternoons and
evenings he followed our carriage in a cab, and when we stopped for ices
sent us each a bouquet of gardenias with his compliments. We visited a
Spanish warship, the _Saragossa_, lying in the harbor near the Moro
Castle. Though the officers were friendly and hospitable, the visit
proved a disappointment, for I had vainly hoped to find Antonio Sarabria
on board! The same afternoon we were made welcome on a Prussian
man-of-war, where a pompous young German officer did the honors. He
spoke English fairly well but had an irritating habit of answering every
remark with, “Why, of course they are,” or “Why, of course it is!”
I remember a visit to our fair friend at her own house. She received us
in a perfumed boudoir where the toilet apparatus, basin, pitchers, mugs,
as well as combs and brushes, were of handsome wrought silver. The Cuban
beauties, with their _mate_ skins and languorous eyes, dressed in the
latest Paris fashion except on Sundays, when at mass the mantilla took
the place of the bonnet. The only religion tolerated by the government
was the Roman Catholic. With my friend I visited the cathedral, where
for a second time I stood beside a tomb of Columbus; this mausoleum
really contained the Great Adventurer’s dust, brought here from Santo
Domingo in the year 1796. In Havana I saw my first convent, where the
nuns showed me a _crêche_, and explained the working of the cradle,
which at night was turned outward into the street to receive the little
foundlings committed to their care.
My father meanwhile was making a thorough study of the work of the newly
formed _Sociedad Economica_, whose object was the improvement of public
education and popular industry. I remember his saying that not a tenth
part, even of the children of free parents, received any education
whatever. Current literature can hardly be said to have existed in Cuba
at this time. There were a few daily and weekly papers, rigidly
censured, and as far as we saw, little other reading matter.
We made several expeditions from the capital, visiting Matanzas, where
we stayed at the Golden Lion, a pleasant hotel, and were shown the
sights by Mr. Hall, the American Consul. The visit to the great caves
whose entrance lies three hundred feet below the earth’s surface made a
deep impression upon me. The stalactites hanging from the roof of the
cavern, the stalagmites rising from the floor to meet them, were of the
color and texture of yellow alabaster. I dreamed so often of this cavern
that it is now inextricably confused with my childish ideas of Aladdin’s
Cave. At Matanzas we saw a large plantation worked by Chinese coolies
whose condition, little better than slaves, roused my father’s
indignation. Of an expedition to Toledo Marinao I remember little save
the visit to the sugar factory. The slender record of my journal says:
“Our _cicerone_ was kind Mr. Salmon. We saw a great many Chinese,
as well as negro slaves; the former are much the best workers and
are, I believe, more valuable. We saw the whole process of
sugar-making, from the grinding of the cane to the final packing of
the white sugar.”
Our departure from “the Havana” was hastened by an incident, for which I
was to blame. I accompanied my father on a visit to the prison. Here we
saw huddled together in a miserable cell a group of boys of about my own
age; one indeed was much younger, being only fourteen years old. These
poor lads were under a sentence of death for a trifling offense, the
desecration of the grave of some official who had oppressed the people.
The boys had broken or overturned the tombstone on one of the Cuban
holidays, as their part of a political demonstration against the
tyranical Spanish officialdom. I was so much wrought up over the fate of
these youths that I talked unguardedly about them to my friends and
later managed to send to the prison a gift of tobacco and fruit. In
consequence of this expression of sympathy, my father received a warning
from the Cuban authorities, and without waiting for a second hint, he
bundled us out of Cuba and over to Key West, much to my regret. Havana,
with its bullfights, cock fights, Spanish officers, languid beauties,
water ices, and guava marmalade, was an attractive place to a young
traveler on her first journey!
My journal reads:
Key West, May 9, 1873.
Arrived here at about five A.M., after a nearly sleepless and
utterly wretched night. Passed the flagship _Worcester_ and three
other navy ships, the _Canandaigua_, _Bache_ and _Terror_. Papa had
important business with Admiral Lee, and we were very much afraid
the flagship was about to sail as she was getting up steam. It
proved she was only coming up to the wharf. Papa was much relieved.
My journal makes no further mention of my father’s business with the
Admiral. It gives a list of every officer on board the ships, from the
captain to the youngest midshipman, and detailed accounts of the hops
and other festivities the hospitable officers arranged for us on board
and on shore. Reading over the record all these years after, certain
phrases suggest to me that my father’s business with the Admiral was
connected with those poor boys under death sentence in the Havana
prison. I know he never forgot them, and I believe that he made an
effort to secure American intervention on their behalf.
We had turtle steak for dinner at Key West, turtle stew for supper,
turtle hash for breakfast! That is all that I remember of the place, at
this time our most important naval station in southern waters.
After leaving Key West we stopped at Cedar Keys and broke the journey to
Boston into several stages, stopping at Savannah, Charleston, and
Norfolk. At the latter place we visited the _New Hampshire_, described
in my journal as, “A splendid old line-of-battleship, with four decks. I
rang the fire quarters, and was alarmed at the rushing and scattering of
the officers and men. They all tore about the ship, putting out the
supposititious fire. The first stream of water came from the hose just
two minutes after I sounded the alarm.”
We called the journey from the South to the North “Our jaunt with
Spring”, for we traveled hand in hand with her, halting when she halted,
pushing on with the first roses and strawberries all the way from
Florida to Massachusetts, to find the best of both in our own garden.
This, my first experience of foreign travel, was doubly precious because
I was thrown so much with my dear father. During our four months’
absence from home we were constantly together. He taught me how to
travel, to take the open road with an open mind and an open hand, not a
bad rule for the journey of life and an invaluable one for a young
traveler, who like Kipling’s soldier, takes as his motto;
For to admire and for to see,
For to be’old this world so wide--
It never done no good to me,
But I can’t drop it if I tried!