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  EQUATORIAL AMERICA

  _DESCRIPTIVE OF A VISIT TO ST. THOMAS
  MARTINIQUE, BARBADOES, AND
  THE PRINCIPAL CAPITALS
  OF SOUTH AMERICA_

  BY

  MATURIN M. BALLOU

  [Illustration: Printer's logo]

  BOSTON AND NEW YORK
  HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
  The Riverside Press, Cambridge
  1892

  Copyright, 1892,
  BY MATURIN M. BALLOU.

  _All rights reserved._

  _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._
  Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.

  DEDICATED
  TO
  CAPTAIN E. C. BAKER
  OF THE
  _STEAMSHIP VIGILANCIA_
  WITH WARM APPRECIATION OF HIS QUALITIES
  AS A GENTLEMAN
  AND AN ACCOMPLISHED SEAMAN

  [Illustration: decoration]

PREFACE.

"I am a part of all that I have seen," says Tennyson, a sentiment which
every one of large experience will heartily indorse. With the
extraordinary facilities for travel available in modern times, it is a
serious mistake in those who possess the means, not to become familiar
with the various sections of the globe. Vivid descriptions and excellent
photographs give us a certain knowledge of the great monuments of the
world, both natural and artificial, but the traveler always finds the
reality a new revelation, whether it be the marvels of a Yellowstone
Park, a vast oriental temple, Alaskan glaciers, or the Pyramids of
Ghiza. The latter, for instance, do not differ from the statistics which
we have so often seen recorded, their great, dominating outlines are the
same as pictorially delineated, but when we actually stand before them,
they are touched by the wand of enchantment, and spring into visible
life. Heretofore they have been shadows, henceforth they are tangible
and real. The best descriptions fail to inspire us, experience alone can
do that. What words can adequately depict the confused grandeur of the
Falls of Schaffhausen; the magnificence of the Himalayan
range,--roof-tree of the world; the thrilling beauty of the Yosemite
Valley; the architectural loveliness of the Taj Mahal, of India; the
starry splendor of equatorial nights; the maritime charms of the Bay of
Naples; or the marvel of the Midnight Sun at the North Cape? It is
personal observation alone which truly satisfies, educating the eye and
enriching the understanding. If we can succeed in imparting, a portion
of our enjoyment to others, we enhance our own pleasure, and therefore
these notes of travel are given to the public.

                  M. M. B.

          CONTENTS.

          CHAPTER I.

                                                 PAGE

  Commencement of a Long Journey.--The Gulf
  Stream.--Hayti.--Sighting St. Thomas.--Ship
  Rock.--Expert Divers.--Fidgety Old Lady.--An
  Important Island.--The Old
  Slaver.--Aborigines.--St. Thomas
  Cigars.--Population.--Tri-Mountain.--The
  Negro Paradise.--Hurricanes.--Variety of
  Fish.--Coaling Ship.--The Firefly Dance.--A
  Weird Scene.--An Antique Anchor                  1

          CHAPTER II.

  Curious Seaweed.--Professor Agassiz.--Myth of
  a Lost Continent.--Island of Martinique.--An
  Attractive Place.--Statue of the Empress
  Josephine.--Birthplace of Madame de
  Maintenon.--City of St. Pierre.--Mont
  Pelée.--High Flavored Specialty.--Grisettes
  of Maritinque.--A Botanical
  Garden.--Defective Drainage.--A Fatal
  Enemy.--A Cannibal Snake.--The Climate          33

          CHAPTER III.

  English Island of Barbadoes.--Bridgetown the
  Capital.--The Manufacture of Rum.--A
  Geographical Expert.--Very English.--A Pest
  of Ants.--Exports.--The Ice House.--A Dense
  Population.--Educational.--Marine
  Hotel.--Habits of
  Gambling.--Hurricanes.--Curious
  Antiquities.--The Barbadoes Leg.--Wakeful
  Dreams.--Absence of Twilight.--Departure from
  the Island                                      51

          CHAPTER IV.

  Curious Ocean Experiences.--The Delicate
  Nautilus.--Flying-Fish.--The Southern
  Cross.--Speaking a Ship at Sea.--Scientific
  Navigation.--South America as a Whole.--Fauna
  and Flora.--Natural Resources of a Wonderful
  Land.--Rivers, Plains, and Mountain
  Ranges.--Aboriginal
  Tribes.--Population.--Political
  Divisions.--Civil Wars.--Weakness of South
  American States                                 68

          CHAPTER V.

  City of Pará.--The Equatorial Line.--Spanish
  History.--The King of Waters.--Private
  Gardens.--Domestic Life in Northern
  Brazil.--Delicious Pineapples.--Family
  Pets.--Opera House.--Mendicants.--A Grand
  Avenue.--Botanical Garden.--India-Rubber
  Tree.--Gathering the Raw
  Material.--Monkeys.--The Royal
  Palm.--Splendor of Equatorial Nights            94

          CHAPTER VI.

  Island of Marajo.--Rare and Beautiful
  Birds.--Original Mode of Securing
  Humming-Birds.--Maranhão.--Educational.--
  Value of Native
  Forests.--Pernambuco.--Difficulty of
  Landing.--An Ill-Chosen Name.--Local
  Scenes.--Uncleanly Habits of the
  People.--Great Sugar Mart.--Native Houses.--A
  Quaint Hostelry.--Catamarans.--A Natural
  Breakwater.--Sailing down the Coast            115

          CHAPTER VII.

  Port of Bahia.--A Quaint Old City.--Former
  Capital of Brazil.--Whaling
  Interests.--Beautiful
  Panorama.--Tramways.--No Color Line
  Here.--The Sedan Chair.--Feather Flowers.--A
  Great Orange Mart.--Passion Flower
  Fruit.--Coffee, Sugar, and Tobacco.--A Coffee
  Plantation.--Something about
  Diamonds.--Health of the City.--Curious
  Tropical Street Scenes                         138

          CHAPTER VIII.

  Cape Frio.--Rio Janeiro.--A Splendid
  Harbor.--Various Mountains.--Botafogo
  Bay.--The Hunchback.--Farewell to the
  Vigilancia.--Tijuca.--Italian
  Emigrants.--City Institutions.--Public
  Amusements.--Street
  Musicians.--Churches.--Narrow
  Thoroughfares.--Merchants' Clerks.--Railroads
  in Brazil.--Natural Advantages of the
  City.--The Public Plazas.--Exports             155

          CHAPTER IX.

  Outdoor Scenes in Rio Janeiro.--The Little
  Marmoset.--The Fish Market.--Secluded
  Women.--The Romish Church.--Botanical
  Garden.--Various Species of Trees.--Grand
  Avenue of Royal Palms.--About
  Humming-Birds.--Climate of Rio.--Surrounded
  by Yellow Fever.--The Country
  Inland.--Begging on the
  Streets.--Flowers.--"Portuguese Joe."--Social
  Distinctions                                   180

          CHAPTER X.

  Petropolis.--Summer Residence of the Citizens
  of Rio.--Brief Sketch of the late Royal
  Family.--Dom Pedro's Palace.--A Delightful
  Mountain Sanitarium.--A Successful but
  Bloodless Revolution.--Floral
  Delights.--Mountain Scenery.--Heavy
  Gambling.--A German
  Settlement.--Cascatinha.--Remarkable
  Orchids.--Local Types.--A Brazilian
  Forest.--Compensation                          201

          CHAPTER XI.

  Port of Santos.--Yellow Fever Scourge.--Down
  the Coast to Montevideo.--The
  Cathedral.--Pamperos.--Domestic
  Architecture.--A Grand Thoroughfare.--City
  Institutions.--Commercial Advantages.--The
  Opera House.--The Bull-Fight.--Beggars on
  Horseback.--City Shops.--A Typical
  Character.--Intoxication.--The Campo
  Santo.--Exports.--Rivers and Railways          217

          CHAPTER XII.

  Buenos Ayres.--Extent of the Argentine
  Republic.--Population.--Narrow
  Streets.--Large Public
  Squares.--Basques.--Poor Harbor.--Railway
  System.--River Navigation.--Tramways.--The
  Cathedral.--Normal
  Schools.--Newspapers.--Public
  Buildings.--Calle Florida.--A Busy
  City.--Mode of furnishing
  Milk.--Environs.--Commercial and Political
  Growth.--The New Capital                       244

          CHAPTER XIII.

  City of Rosario.--Its Population.--A
  Pretentious Church.--Ocean
  Experiences.--Morbid Fancies.--Strait of
  Magellan.--A Great Discoverer.--Local
  Characteristics.--Patagonians and
  Fuegians.--Giant Kelp.--Unique Mail
  Box.--Punta Arenas.--An Ex-Penal Colony.--The
  Albatross.--Natives.--A Naked
  People.--Whales.--Sea-Birds.--Glaciers.--
  Mount Sarmiento.--A Singular Story             271

          CHAPTER XIV.

  The Land of Fire.--Cape Horn.--In the Open
  Pacific.--Fellow Passengers.--Large
  Sea-Bird.--An Interesting Invalid.--A Weary
  Captive.--A Broken-Hearted Mother.--Study of
  the Heavens.--The Moon.--Chilian Civil
  War.--Concepcion.--A Growing
  City.--Commercial Importance.--Cultivating
  City Gardens on a New Plan.--Important Coal
  Mines.--Delicious Fruits                       297

          CHAPTER XV.

  Valparaiso.--Principal South American Port of
  the Pacific.--A Good Harbor.--Tallest
  Mountain on this Continent.--The Newspaper
  Press.--Warlike Aspect.--Girls as Car
  Conductors.--Chilian Exports.--Foreign
  Merchants.--Effects of Civil War.--Gambling
  in Private Houses.--Immigration.--Culture of
  the Grape.--Agriculture.--Island of Juan
  Fernandez                                      315

          CHAPTER XVI.

  The Port of Callao.--A Submerged
  City.--Peruvian Exports.--A Dirty and
  Unwholesome Town.--Cinchona Bark.--The
  Andes.--The Llama.--A National Dance.--City
  of Lima.--An Old and Interesting
  Capital.--Want of Rain.--Pizarro and His
  Crimes.--A Grand Cathedral.--Chilian
  Soldiers.--Costly Churches of Peru.--Roman
  Catholic Influence.--Desecration of the
  Sabbath                                        334

          CHAPTER XVII.

  A Grand Plaza.--Retribution.--The University
  of Lima.--Significance of Ancient
  Pottery.--Architecture.--Picturesque
  Dwelling.--Domestic Scene.--Destructive
  Earthquakes.--Spanish Sway.--Women of
  Lima.--Street Costumes.--Ancient Bridge of
  Lima.--Newspapers.--Pawnbrokers'
  Shops.--Exports.--An Ancient Mecca.--Home by
  Way of Europe.                                 355

      EQUATORIAL AMERICA.

          CHAPTER I.

     Commencement of a Long Journey.--The Gulf
     Stream.--Hayti.--Sighting St. Thomas.--Ship Rock.--Expert
     Divers.--Fidgety Old Lady.--An Important Island.--The Old
     Slaver.--Aborigines.--St. Thomas
     Cigars.--Population.--Tri-Mountain.--Negro
     Paradise.--Hurricanes.--Variety of Fish.--Coaling Ship.--The
     Firefly Dane.--A Weird Scene.--An Antique Anchor.

In starting upon foreign travel, one drops into the familiar routine on
shipboard much after the same fashion wherever bound, whether crossing
the Atlantic eastward, or steaming to the south through the waters of
the Caribbean Sea; whether in a Peninsular and Oriental ship in the
Indian Ocean, or on a White Star liner in the Pacific bound for Japan.
The steward brings a cup of hot coffee and a slice of dry toast to one's
cabin soon after the sun rises, as a sort of eye-opener; and having
swallowed that excellent stimulant, one feels better fortified for the
struggle to dress on the uneven floor of a rolling and pitching ship.
Then comes the brief promenade on deck before breakfast, a liberal
inhalation of fresh air insuring a good appetite. There is no hurry at
this meal. There is so little to do at sea, and so much time to do it
in, that passengers are apt to linger at table as a pastime, and even
multiply their meals in number. As a rule, we make up our mind to follow
some instructive course of reading while at sea, but, alas! we never
fulfill the good resolution. An entire change of habits and associations
for the time being is not favorable to such a purpose. The tonic of the
sea braces one up to an unwonted degree, evinced by great activity of
body and mind. Favored by the unavoidable companionship of individuals
in the circumscribed space of a ship, acquaintances are formed which
often ripen into lasting friendship. Inexperienced voyagers are apt to
become effusive and over-confiding, abrupt intimacies and unreasonable
dislikes are of frequent occurrence, and before the day of separation,
the student of human nature has seen many phases exhibited for his
analysis.

Our vessel, the Vigilancia, is a large, commodious, and well-appointed
ship, embracing all the modern appliances for comfort and safety at sea.
She is lighted by electricity, having a donkey engine which sets in
motion a dynamo machine, converting mechanical energy into electric
energy. Perhaps the reader, though familiar with the effect of this mode
of lighting, has never paused to analyze the very simple manner in which
it is produced. The current is led from the dynamos to the various
points where light is desired by means of insulated wires. The lamps
consist of a fine thread of carbon inclosed in a glass bulb from which
air has been entirely excluded. This offers such resistance to the
current passing through it that the energy is expended in raising the
carbon to a white heat, thus forming the light. The permanence of the
carbon is insured by the absence of oxygen. If the glass bulb is broken
and atmospheric air comes in contact with the carbon, it is at once
destroyed by combustion, and all light from this source ceases. These
lamps are so arranged that each one can be turned off or on at will
without affecting others. The absence of offensive smell or smoke, the
steadiness of the light, unaffected by the motion of the ship, and its
superior brilliancy, all join to make this mode of lighting a vessel a
positive luxury.

Some pleasant hours were passed on board the Vigilancia, between New
York and the West Indies, in the study of the Gulf Stream, through which
we were sailing,--that river in the ocean with its banks and bottom of
cold water, while its current is always warm. Who can explain the
mystery of its motive power? What keeps its tepid water, in a course of
thousands of miles, from mingling with the rest of the sea? Whence does
it really come? The accepted theories are familiar enough, but we place
little reliance upon them, the statements of scientists are so easily
formulated, but often so difficult to prove. As Professor Maury tells
us, there is in the world no other flow of water so majestic as this; it
has a course more rapid than either the Mississippi or the Amazon, and a
volume more than a thousand times greater. The color of this remarkable
stream, whose fountain is supposed to be the Gulf of Mexico and the
Caribbean Sea, is so deep a blue off our southern shore that the line of
demarcation from its surroundings is quite obvious, the Gulf water
having apparently a decided reluctance to mingling with the rest of the
ocean, a peculiarity which has been long and vainly discussed without a
satisfactory solution having been reached. The same phenomenon has been
observed in the Pacific, where the Japanese current comes up from the
equator, along the shore of that country, crossing Behring's Sea to the
continent of North America, and, turning southward along the coast of
California, finally disappears. Throughout all this ocean passage, like
the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic, it retains its individuality, and is
quite separate from the rest of the ocean. The fact that the water is
saltier than that of the Atlantic is by some supposed to account for the
indigo blue of the Gulf Stream.

The temperature of this water is carefully taken on board all well
regulated ships, and is recorded in the log. On this voyage it was found
to vary from 75° to 80° Fahrenheit.

Our ship had touched at Newport News, Va., after leaving New York, to
take the U. S. mail on board; thence the course was south-southeast,
giving the American continent a wide berth, and heading for the Danish
island of St. Thomas, which lies in the latitude of Hayti, but a long
way to the eastward of that uninteresting island. We say uninteresting
with due consideration, though its history is vivid enough to satisfy
the most sensational taste. It has produced its share of native heroes,
as well as native traitors, while the frequent upheavals of its mingled
races have been no less erratic than destructive. The ignorance and
confusion which reign among the masses on the island are deplorable.
Minister Douglass utterly failed to make anything out of Hayti. The
lower classes of the people living inland come next to the inhabitants
of Terra del Fuego in the scale of humanity, and are much inferior to
the Maoris of New Zealand, or the savage tribes of Australia. It is
satisfactorily proven that cannibalism still exists among them in its
most repulsive form, so revolting, indeed, that we hesitate to detail
the experience of a creditable eye-witness relating to this matter, as
personally described to us.

Upon looking at the map it would seem, to one unaccustomed to the ocean,
that a ship could not lay her course direct, in these island dotted
waters, without running down one or more of them; but the distances
which are so circumscribed upon the chart are extended for many a league
at sea, and a good navigator may sail his ship from New York to
Barbadoes, if he so desires, without sighting the land. Not a sailing
vessel or steamship was seen, on the brief voyage from the American
continent to the West Indies, these latitudes being far less frequented
by passenger and freighting ships than the transatlantic route further
north.

It is quite natural that the heart should throb with increased
animation, the spirits become more elate, and the eyes more than usually
appreciative, when the land of one's destination heaves in sight after
long days and nights passed at sea. This is especially the case if the
change from home scenes is so radical in all particulars as when coming
from our bleak Northern States in the early days of spring, before the
trees have donned their leaves, to the soft temperature and exuberant
verdure of the low latitudes. Commencing the voyage herein described,
the author left the Brooklyn shore of New York harbor about the first of
May, during a sharp snow-squall, though, as Governor's Island was passed
on the one hand, and the Statue of Liberty on the other, the sun burst
forth from its cloudy environment, as if to smile a cheerful farewell.
Thus we passed out upon the broad Atlantic, bound southward, soon
feeling its half suppressed force in the regular sway and roll of the
vessel. She was heavily laden, and measured considerably over four
thousand tons, drawing twenty-two feet of water, yet she was like an
eggshell upon the heaving breast of the ocean. As these mammoth ships
lie in port beside the wharf, it seems as though their size and enormous
weight would place them beyond the influence of the wind and waves: but
the power of the latter is so great as to be beyond computation, and
makes a mere toy of the largest hull that floats. No one can realize the
great strength of the waves who has not watched the sea in all of its
varying moods.

"Land O!" shouts the lookout on the forecastle.

A wave of the hand signifies that the occupant of the bridge has already
made out the mote far away upon the glassy surface of the sea, which now
rapidly grows into definite form.

When the mountain which rises near the centre of St. Thomas was fairly
in view from the deck of the Vigilancia, it seemed as if beckoning us to
its hospitable shore. The light breeze which fanned the sea came from
off the land flavored with an odor of tropical vegetation, a suggestion
of fragrant blossoms, and a promise of luscious fruits. On our starboard
bow there soon came into view the well known Ship Rock, which appears,
when seen from a short distance, almost precisely like a full-rigged
ship under canvas. If the sky is clouded and the atmosphere hazy, the
delusion is remarkable.

This story is told of a French corvette which was cruising in these
latitudes at the time when the buccaneers were creating such havoc with
legitimate commerce in the West Indies. It seems that the coast was
partially hidden by a fog, when the corvette made out the rock through
the haze, and, supposing it to be what it so much resembles, a ship
under sail, fired a gun to leeward for her to heave to. Of course there
was no response to the shot, so the Frenchman brought his ship closer,
at the same time clearing for action. Being satisfied that he had to do
with a powerful adversary, he resolved to obtain the advantage by
promptly crippling the enemy, and so discharged the whole of his
starboard broadside into the supposed ship, looming through the mist.
The fog quietly dispersed as the corvette went about and prepared to
deliver her port guns in a similar manner. As the deceptive rock stood
in precisely the same place when the guns came once more to bear upon
it, the true character of the object was discovered. It is doubtful
whether the Frenchman's surprise or mortification predominated.

An hour of steady progress served to raise the veil of distance, and to
reveal the spacious bay of Charlotte Amalie, with its strong background
of abrupt hills and dense greenery of tropical foliage. How wonderfully
blue was the water round about the island,--an emerald set in a sea of
molten sapphire! It seemed as if the sky had been melted and poured all
over the ebbing tide. About the Bahamas, especially off the shore at
Nassau, the water is green,--a delicate bright green; here it exhibits
only the true azure blue,--Mediterranean blue. It is seen at its best
and in marvelous glow during the brief moments of twilight, when a
glance of golden sunset tinges its mottled surface with iris hues, like
the opaline flashes from a humming-bird's throat.

The steamer gradually lost headway, the vibrating hull ceased to throb
with the action of its motive power, as though pausing to take breath
after long days and nights of sustained effort, and presently the anchor
was let go in the excellent harbor of St. Thomas, latitude 18° 20'
north, longitude 64° 48' west. Our forecastle gun, fired to announce
arrival, awakened the echoes in the hills, so that all seemed to join in
clapping their hands to welcome us. Thus amid the Norwegian fiords the
report of the steamer's single gun becomes a whole broadside, as it is
reverberated from the grim and rocky elevations which line that
iron-bound coast.

There was soon gathered about the ship a bevy of naked colored boys, a
score or more, jabbering like a lot of monkeys, some in canoes of home
construction, it would seem, consisting of a sugar box sawed in two
parts, or a few small planks nailed together, forming more of a tub than
a boat, and leaking at every joint. These frail floats were propelled
with a couple of flat boards used as paddles. The young fellows came out
from the shore to dive for sixpences and shillings, cast into the sea by
passengers. The moment a piece of silver was thrown, every canoe was
instantly emptied of its occupant, all diving pell-mell for the money.
Presently one of the crowd was sure to come to the surface with the
silver exhibited above his head between his fingers, after which,
monkey-like, it was securely deposited inside of his cheek. Similar
scenes often occur in tropical regions. The last which the author can
recall, and at which he assisted, was at Aden, where the Indian Ocean
and the Red Sea meet. Another experience of the sort is also well
remembered as witnessed in the South Pacific off the Samoan islands. On
this occasion the most expert of the natives, among the naked divers,
was a young Samoan girl, whose agility in the water was such that she
easily secured more than half the bright coins which were thrown
overboard, though a dozen male competitors were her rivals in the
pursuit. Nothing but an otter could have excelled this bronzed, unclad,
exquisitely formed girl of Tutuila as a diver and swimmer.

But let us not stray to the far South Pacific, forgetting that we are
all this time in the snug harbor of St. Thomas, in the West Indies.

A fidgety old lady passenger, half hidden in an avalanche of wraps,
while the thermometer indicated 80° Fahr., one who had gone into partial
hysterics several times during the past few days, upon the slightest
provocation, declared that this was the worst region for hurricanes in
the known world, adding that there were dark, ominous clouds forming to
windward which she was sure portended a cyclone. One might have told her
truthfully that May was not a hurricane month in these latitudes, but we
were just then too earnestly engaged in preparing for a stroll on shore,
too full of charming anticipations, to discuss possible hurricanes, and
so, without giving the matter any special thought, admitted that it did
look a little threatening in the northwest. This was quite enough to
frighten the old lady half out of her senses, and to call the stewardess
into prompt requisition, while the deck was soon permeated with the odor
of camphor, sal volatile, and valerian. We did not wait to see how she
survived the attack, but hastened into a shore boat and soon landed at
what is known as King's wharf, when the temperature seemed instantly to
rise about twenty degrees. Near the landing was a small plaza, shaded by
tall ferns and cabbage palms, with here and there an umbrageous mango.
Ladies and servant girls were seen promenading with merry children,
whites and blacks mingling indiscriminately, while the Danish military
band were producing most shocking strains with their brass instruments.
One could hardly conceive of a more futile attempt at harmony.

There is always something exciting in first setting foot upon a foreign
soil, in mingling with utter strangers, in listening to the voluble
utterances and jargon of unfamiliar tongues, while noting the manners,
dress, and faces of a new people. The current language of the mass of
St. Thomas is a curious compound of negro grammar, Yankee accent, and
English drawl. Though somewhat familiar with the West Indies, the author
had never before landed upon this island. Everything strikes one as
curious, each turn affords increased novelty, and every moment is full
of interest. Black, yellow, and white men are seen in groups, the former
with very little covering on their bodies, the latter in diaphanous
costumes. Negresses sporting high colors in their scanty clothing, set
off by rainbow kerchiefs bound round their heads, turban fashion; little
naked blacks with impossible paunches; here and there a shuffling negro
bearing baskets of fish balanced on either end of a long pole resting
across his shoulders; peddlers of shells and corals; old women carrying
trays upon their heads containing cakes sprinkled with granulated sugar,
and displayed upon neat linen towels, seeking for customers among the
newly arrived passengers,--all together form a unique picture of local
life. The constantly shifting scene moves before the observer like a
panorama unrolled for exhibition, seeming quite as theatrical and
artificial.

St. Thomas is one of the Danish West Indian Islands, of which there are
three belonging to Denmark, namely, St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John.
For the possession of the first named Mr. Seward, when Secretary of
State, in 1866, offered the King of Denmark five million dollars in
gold, which proposition was finally accepted, and it would have been a
cheap purchase for us at that price; but after all detail had been duly
agreed upon, the United States Congress refused to vote the necessary
funds wherewith to pay for the title deed. So when Mr. Seward
consummated the purchase of Alaska, for a little over seven million
dollars, there were nearly enough of the small-fry politicians in
Congress to defeat the bargain with Russia in the same manner. The
income from the lease of two islands alone belonging to Alaska--St.
George and St. Paul--has paid four and one half per cent. per annum upon
the purchase money ever since the territory came into our possession.
There is one gold mine on Douglas Island, Alaska, not to mention its
other rich and inexhaustible products, for which a French syndicate has
offered fourteen million dollars. We doubt if St. Thomas could be
purchased from the Danes to-day for ten million dollars, while the
estimated value of Alaska would be at least a hundred million or more,
with its vast mineral wealth, its invaluable salmon fisheries, its
inexhaustible forests of giant timber, and its abundance of seal, otter,
and other rich furs. A penny-wise and pound-foolish Congress made a huge
mistake in opposing Mr. Seward's purpose as regarded the purchase of St.
Thomas. The strategic position of the island is quite sufficient to
justify our government in wishing to possess it, for it is
geographically the keystone of the West Indies. The principal object
which Mr. Seward had in view was to secure a coaling and refitting
station for our national ships in time of war, for which St. Thomas
would actually be worth more than the island of Cuba. Opposite to it is
the continent of Africa; equidistant are the eastern shores of North and
South America; on one side is western Europe, on the other the route to
India and the Pacific Ocean; in the rear are Central America, the West
Indies, and Mexico, together with those great inland bodies of salt
water, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. It requires no argument
to show how important the possession of such an outpost might prove to
this country.

Since these notes were written, it is currently reported that our
government has once more awakened to the necessity of obtaining
possession of this island, and fresh negotiations have been entered
into. One thing is very certain, if we do not seize the opportunity to
purchase St. Thomas at the present time, England, or some other
important power, will promptly do so, to our serious detriment and just
mortification.

St. Thomas has an area of nearly fifty square miles, and supports a
population of about fourteen thousand. In many respects the capital is
unique, and being our first landing-place after leaving home, was of
more than ordinary interest to the writer. The highest point on the
island, which comes first into view from the deck of a southern bound
steamer, is West Mountain, rising sixteen hundred feet above the level
of the surrounding waters. Geologists would describe St. Thomas as being
the top of a small chain of submerged mountains, which would be quite
correct, since the topography of the bottom of the sea is but a
counterpart of that upon the more familiar surface of the earth we
occupy. When ocean electric cables for connecting islands and continents
are laid, engineers find that there are the same sort of plains,
mountains, valleys, and gorges beneath as above the waters of the ocean.
The skeletons of whales, and natural beds of deep-sea shells, found in
valleys and hills many hundred feet above the present level of tide
waters, tell us plainly enough that in the long ages which have passed,
the diversified surface of the earth which we now behold has changed
places with these submerged regions, which probably once formed the dry
land. The history of the far past is full of instances showing the slow
but continuous retreat of the water from the land in certain regions and
its encroachment in others, the drying up of lakes and rivers, as well
as the upheaval of single islands and groups from the bed of the ocean.

A range of dome-shaped hills runs through the entire length of this
island of St. Thomas, fifteen miles from west to east, being
considerably highest at the west end. As we passed between the two
headlands which mark the entrance to the harbor, the town was seen
spread over three hills of nearly uniform height, also occupying the
gentle valleys between. Two stone structures, on separate hills, form a
prominent feature; these are known respectively as Blue Beard and Black
Beard tower, but their origin is a myth, though there are plenty of
legends extant about them. Both are now utilized as residences, having
mostly lost their original crudeness and picturesque appearance. The
town, as a whole, forms a pleasing and effective background to the
land-locked bay, which is large enough to afford safe anchorage for two
hundred ships at the same time, except when a hurricane prevails; then
the safest place for shipping is as far away from the land as possible.
It is a busy port, considering the small number of inhabitants, steamers
arriving and departing constantly, besides many small coasting vessels
which ply between this and the neighboring islands. St. Thomas is
certainly the most available commercially of the Virgin group of
islands. Columbus named them "Las Vergines," in reference to the
familiar Romish legend of the eleven thousand virgins, about as
inappropriate a title as the fable it refers to is ridiculous.

Close in shore, at the time of our visit, there lay a schooner-rigged
craft of more than ordinary interest, her jaunty set upon the water, her
graceful lines, tall, raking masts, and long bowsprit suggesting the
model of the famous old Baltimore clippers. There is a fascinating
individuality about sailing vessels which does not attach to steamships.
Seamen form romantic attachments for the former. The officers and crew
of the Vigilancia were observed to cast admiring eyes upon this handsome
schooner, anchored under our lee. A sort of mysterious quiet hung about
her; every rope was hauled taut, made fast, and the slack neatly coiled.
Her anchor was atrip, that is, the cable was hove short, showing that
she was ready to sail at a moment's notice. The only person visible on
board was a bareheaded, white-haired old seaman, who sat on the transom
near the wheel, quietly smoking his pipe. On inquiry it was found that
the schooner had a notable history and bore the name of the Vigilant,
having been first launched a hundred and thirty years ago. It appeared
that she was a successful slaver in former days, running between the
coast of Africa and these islands. She was twice captured by English
cruisers, but somehow found her way back again to the old and nefarious
business. Of course, she had been overhauled, repaired, and re-rigged
many times, but it is still the same old frame and hull that so often
made the middle passage, as it was called. To-day she serves as a mail
boat running between Santa Cruz and St. Thomas, and, it is said, can
make forty leagues, with a fair wind, as quick as any steamer on the
coast. The same evening the Vigilant spread her broad white wings and
glided silently out of the harbor, gathering rapid way as she passed its
entrance, until feeling the spur of the wind and the open sea, she
quickly vanished from sight. It was easy to imagine her bound upon her
old piratical business, screened by the shadows of the night.

Though it no longer produces a single article of export on its own soil,
St. Thomas was, in the days of negro slavery, one of the most prolific
sugar yielding islands of this region. It will be remembered that the
emancipation of the blacks took place here in 1848. It was never before
impressed upon us, if we were aware of the fact, that the sugar-cane is
not indigenous to the West Indies. It seems that the plant came
originally from Asia, and was introduced into these islands by Columbus
and his followers. As is often the case with other representatives of
the vegetable kingdom, it appears to have flourished better here than in
the land of its nativity, new climatic combinations, together with the
soil, developing in the saccharine plant better qualities and increased
productiveness, for a long series of years enriching many enterprising
planters.

When Columbus discovered St. Thomas, in 1493, it was inhabited by two
tribes of Indians, the Caribs and the Arrowauks, both of which soon
disappeared under the oppression and hardships imposed by the Spaniards.
It is also stated that from this island, as well as from Cuba and Hayti,
many natives were transported to Spain and there sold into slavery, in
the days following close upon its discovery. Thus Spain, from the
earliest date, characterized her operations in the New World by a
heartlessness and injustice which ever attended upon her conquests, both
among the islands and upon the continent of America. The Caribs were of
the red Indian race, and appear to have been addicted to cannibalism.
Indeed, the very word, by which the surrounding sea is also known, is
supposed to be a corruption of the name of this tribe. "These Caribs did
not eat their own babies," says an old writer apologetically, "like some
sorts of wild beasts, but only roasted and ate their prisoners of war."

The island was originally covered with a dense forest growth, but is now
comparatively denuded of trees, leaving the land open to the full force
of the sun, and causing it to suffer at times from serious droughts.
There is said to be but one natural spring of water on the island. This
shows itself at the surface, and is of very limited capacity; the scanty
rains which occur here are almost entirely depended upon to supply water
for domestic use.

St. Thomas being so convenient a port of call for steamers from Europe
and America, and having so excellent a harbor, is improved as a depot
for merchandise by several of the neighboring islands, thus enjoying a
considerable commerce, though it is only in _transitu_. It is also the
regular coaling station of several steamship lines. Judging from
appearances, however, it would seem that the town is not growing in
population or business relations, but is rather retrograding. The value
of the imports in 1880 was less than half the aggregate amount of 1870.
We were told that green groceries nearly all come from the United
States, and that even eggs and poultry are imported from the neighboring
islands, showing an improvidence on the part of the people difficult to
account for, since these sources of food supply can be profitably
produced at almost any spot upon the earth where vegetation will grow.
Cigars are brought hither from Havana in considerable quantities, and
having no duty to pay, can be sold very cheap by the dealers at St.
Thomas, and still afford a reasonable profit. Quite a trade is thus
carried on with the passengers of the several steamers which call here
regularly, and travelers avail themselves of the opportunity to lay in
an ample supply. Cuban cigars of the quality which would cost nine or
ten dollars a hundred in Boston are sold at St. Thomas for five or six
dollars, and lower grades even cheaper in proportion. There is said to
be considerable smuggling successfully carried on between this island
and the Florida shore, in the article of cigars as well as in tobacco in
the unmanufactured state. The high duty on these has always incited to
smuggling, thus defeating the very object for which it is imposed.
Probably a moderate duty would yield more to the government in the
aggregate, by rendering it so much less of an object to smuggle.

Though the island is Danish in nationality, there are few surroundings
calculated to recall the fact, save that the flag of that country floats
over the old fort and the one or two official buildings, just as it has
done for the last two centuries. The prominent officials are Danes, as
well as the officers of the small body of soldiers maintained on the
island. English is almost exclusively spoken, though there are French,
Spanish, and Italian residents here. English is also the language taught
in the public schools. People have come here to make what money they
can, but with the fixed purpose of spending it and enjoying it
elsewhere. As a rule, all Europeans who come to the West Indies and
embark in business do so with exactly this purpose. In Cuba the
Spaniards from the continent, among whom are many Jews, have a proverb
the significance of which is: "Ten years of starvation, and a fortune,"
and most of them live up to this axiom. They leave all principles of
honor, all sense of moral responsibility, all sacred domestic ties,
behind them, forgetting, or at least ignoring, the significant query,
namely, "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and
lose his own soul?"

About one third of the population is Roman Catholic. The Jews have a
synagogue, and a membership of six hundred. They have a record on the
island dating as far back as the year 1757, and add much to the activity
and thrift of St. Thomas. No matter where we find the Jews, in Mexico,
Warsaw, California, or the West Indies, they are all alike intent upon
money making, and are nearly always successful. Their irrepressible
energy wins for them the goal for which they so earnestly strive. That
soldier of fortune, Santa Anna, formerly ruler of Mexico, when banished
as a traitor from his native country, made his home on this island, and
the house which he built and occupied is still pointed out to visitors
as one of the local curiosities. The social life of St. Thomas is
naturally very circumscribed, but is good so far as it goes. A few
cultured people, who have made it their home for some years, have become
sincerely attached to the place, and enjoy the climate. There are a
small public library, a hospital, several charitable institutions, and a
theatre, which is occupied semi-occasionally. The island is connected
with the continent by cable, and has a large floating dock and marine
railway, which causes vessels in distress to visit the port for needed
repairs. The town is situated on the north side of the bay which indents
the middle of the south side of the island. The harbor has a depth of
water varying from eighteen to thirty-six feet, and has the advantage of
being a free port, a fact, perhaps, of not much account to a place which
has neither exports nor imports of its own. St. Thomas is the only town
of any importance on the island, and is known locally as Charlotte
Amalie, a fact which sometimes leads to a confusion of ideas.

The reader need not encounter the intense heat, which so nearly wilted
us, in an effort to obtain a good lookout from some elevated spot; but
the result will perhaps interest him, as it fully repaid the writer for
all the consequent discomfort.

From the brow of a moderate elevation just behind the town, a delightful
and far-reaching view is afforded, embracing St. Thomas in the
foreground, the well-sheltered bay, dotted with vessels bearing the
flags of various nations, an archipelago of islets scattered over the
near waters, and numerous small bays indenting the coast. At a distance
of some forty miles across the sea looms the island of Santa Cruz; and
farther away, on the horizon's most distant limit, are seen the tall
hills and mountains of Porto Rico; while the sky is fringed by a long
trailing plume of smoke, indicating the course of some passing
steamship. The three hills upon which the town stands are spurs of West
Mountain, and the place is quite as well entitled to the name of
Tremont--"tri-mountain"--as was the capital of Massachusetts, before its
hills were laid low to accommodate business demands. On the seaward side
of these elevations the red tiled roofs of the white houses rise in
regular terraces from the street which borders the harbor, forming a
very picturesque group as seen from the bay.

Though it has not often been visited by epidemics, Mr. Anthony Trollope
pronounces the island, in his usual irresponsible way, to be "one of the
hottest and one of the most unhealthy spots among all these hot and
unhealthy regions," and adds that he would perhaps be justified in
saying "that of all such spots it is the hottest and most unhealthy."
This is calculated to give an incorrect idea of St. Thomas. True, it is
liable to periods of unhealthiness, when a species of low fever
prevails, proving more or less fatal. This is thought to originate from
the surface drainage, and the miasma arising from the bay. All the
drains of the town flow into the waters of the harbor, which has not
sufficient flow of tide to carry seaward the foul matter thus
accumulated. The hot sun pouring its heat down upon this tainted water
causes a dangerous exhalation. Still, sharks do not seem to be sensitive
as to this matter, for they much abound. It is yet to be discovered why
these tigers of the sea do not attack the negroes, who fearlessly leap
overboard; a white man could not do this with impunity. The Asiatics of
the Malacca Straits do not enjoy any such immunity from danger, though
they have skins as dark as the divers of St. Thomas. Sharks appear in
the West Indies in small schools, or at least there are nearly always
two or three together, but in Oriental waters they are only seen singly.
Thus a Malay of Singapore, for a compensation, say an English sovereign,
will place a long, sharp knife between his teeth and leap naked into the
sea to attack a shark. He adroitly dives beneath the creature, and as it
turns its body to bring its awkward mouth into use, with his knife the
Malay slashes a deep, long opening in its exposed belly, at the same
time forcing himself out of the creature's reach. The knife is sure and
fatal. After a few moments the huge body of the fish is seen to rise and
float lifeless upon the surface of the water.

A large majority of the people are colored, exhibiting some peculiarly
interesting types, intermarriage with whites of various nationalities
having produced among the descendants of Africans many changes of color
and of features. One feels sure that there is also a trace of Carib or
Indian blood mingled with the rest,--a trace of the aborigines whom
Columbus found here. The outcome is not entirely a race with flat noses
and protruding lips; straight Grecian profiles are not uncommon,
accompanied by thin nostrils and Anglo-Saxon lips. Faultless teeth, soft
blue eyes, and hair nearly straight are sometimes met with among the
creoles. As to the style of walking and of carrying the head and body,
the common class of women of St. Thomas have arrived at perfection. Some
of them are notable examples of unconscious dignity and grace combined.
This has been brought about by carrying burdens upon their heads from
childhood, without the supporting aid of the hands. Modesty, or rather
conventionality, does not require boys or girls under eight years of age
to encumber themselves with clothing. The costume of the market women
and the lower classes generally is picturesque, composed of a Madras
kerchief carefully twisted into a turban of many colors, yellow
predominating, a cotton chemise which leaves the neck and shoulders
exposed, reaching just below the knees, the legs and feet being bare.
The men wear cotton drawers reaching nearly to the knee, the rest of the
body being uncovered, except the head, which is usually sheltered under
a broad brimmed straw hat, the sides of which are perforated by many
ventilating holes. The whites generally, and also the better class of
natives, dress very much after the fashion which prevails in North
America.

This is the negroes' paradise, but it is a climate in which the white
race gradually wanes. The heat of the tropics is modified by the
constant and grateful trade winds, a most merciful dispensation, without
which the West Indies would be uninhabitable by man. On the hillsides of
St. Thomas these winds insure cool nights at least, and a comparatively
temperate state of the atmosphere during the day. Vegetation is
abundant, the fruit trees are perennial, bearing leaf, blossom, and
fruit in profusion, month after month, year after year. Little, if any,
cultivation is required. The few sugar plantations which are still
carried on yield from three to four successive years without replanting.
It is a notable fact that where vegetation is at its best, where the
soil is most rank and prolific, where fruits and flowers grow in wild
exuberance, elevated humanity thrives the least. The lower the grade of
man, the nearer he approximates to the animals, the less civilized he is
in mind and body, the better he appears to be adapted to such
localities. The birds and the butterflies are in exact harmony with the
loveliness of tropical nature, however prolific she may be; the flowers
are glorious and beautiful: it is man alone who seems out of place. A
great variety of fruits are indigenous here, such as the orange, lime,
alligator pear, moss-apple, and mango, but none of them are cultivated
to any extent; the people seem to lack the energy requisite to improve
the grand possibilities of their fertile soil and prolific climate.

We were reminded by a resident of the town, before we left the harbor of
St. Thomas, that the nervous old lady referred to was not entirely
without reason for her anxiety. Some of our readers will remember,
perhaps, that in October, 1867, a most disastrous hurricane swept over
these Virgin Islands, leaving widespread desolation in its track. The
shipping which happened to be in the bay of St. Thomas was nearly all
destroyed, together with hundreds of lives, while on the land scores of
houses and many lives were also sacrificed to the terrible cyclone of
that date. Even the thoroughly built iron and stone lighthouse was
completely obliterated. There is a theory that such visitations come in
this region about once in every twelve or fifteen years, and upon
looking up the matter we find them to have occurred, with more or less
destructive force, in the years 1793, 1819, 1837, 1867, 1871, and so
late as August, 1891. Other hurricanes have passed over these islands
during the period covered by these dates, but of a mitigated character.
August, September, and October are the months in which the hurricanes
are most likely to occur, and all vessels navigating the West Indian
seas during these months take extra precautions to secure themselves
against accidents from this source. When such visitations happen, the
event is sure to develop heroic deeds. In the hurricane of 1867, the
captain of a Spanish man-of-war, who was a practical sailor, brought up
from boyhood upon the ocean, seeing the oncoming cyclone, and knowing by
experience what to expect, ordered the masts of his vessel to be cut
away at once, and every portion of exposed top hamper to be cast into
the sea. When thus stripped he exposed little but the bare hull of his
steamer to the fury of the storm. After the cyclone had passed, it was
found that he had not lost a man, and that the steamer's hull, though
severely battered, was substantially unharmed. Keeping up all steam
during the awful scene, this captain devoted himself and his ship to the
saving of human life, promptly taking his vessel wherever he could be of
the most service. Hundreds of seamen were saved from death by the
coolness and intrepidity of this heroic sailor.

Since these notes were written among the islands, a terrible cyclone has
visited them. This was on August 18, last past, and proved more
destructive to human life, to marine and other property, than any
occurrence of the kind during the last century. At Martinique a sharp
shock of earthquake added to the horror of the occasion, the town of
Fort de France being very nearly leveled with the ground. Many tall and
noble palms, the growth of half a hundred years, were utterly demolished
in the twinkling of an eye, and other trees were uprooted by the score.

The waters of this neighborhood teem with strange forms of animal and
vegetable life. Here we saw specimens of red and blue snappers, the
angel-fish, king-fish, gurnets, cow-fish, whip-ray, peacock-fish,
zebra-fish, and so on, all, or nearly all, unfamiliar to us, each
species individualized either in shape, color, or both. The whip-ray,
with a body like a flounder, has a tail six or seven feet long, tapering
from an inch and over to less than a quarter of an inch at the small
end. When dried, it still retains a degree of elasticity, and is used by
the natives as a whip with which to drive horses and donkeys. In some
places, so singularly clear is the water that the bottom is distinctly
visible five or six fathoms below the surface, where fishes of various
sorts are seen in ceaseless motion. White shells, corals, star-fish, and
sea-urchins mingle their various forms and colors, objects and hues
seeming to be intensified by the strong reflected light from the
surface, so that one could easily fancy them to be flowers blooming in
the fairy gardens of the mermaids. The early morning, just after the sun
begins to gild the surface of the sea, is the favorite time for the
flying-fishes to display their aerial proclivities. They are always
attracted by a strong light, and are thus lured to their destruction by
the torches of the fishermen, who often go out for the purpose at night
and take them in nets. In the early morning, as seen from the ship's
deck, they scoot above the rippling waves in schools of a hundred and
more, so compact as to cast fleeting shadows over the blue enameled
surface of the waters. At St. Thomas, Martinique, and Barbadoes, as well
as among the other islands bordering the Caribbean Sea, they form no
inconsiderable source of food for the humble natives, who fry them in
batter mixed with onions, making a savory and nutritious dish.

St. Thomas is, as we have said, a coaling station for steamships, and
when the business is in progress a most unique picture is presented. The
ship is moored alongside of the dock for this purpose, two side ports
being thrown open, one for ingress, the other for egress. A hundred
women and girls, wearing one scanty garment reaching to the knees, are
in line, and commence at once to trot on board in single file, each one
bearing a bushel basket of coal upon her head, weighing, say sixty
pounds. Another gang fill empty baskets where the coal is stored, so
that there is a continuous line of negresses trotting into the ship at
one port and, after dumping their loads into the coal bunkers, out at
the other, hastening back to the source of supply for more. Their step
is quick, their pose straight as an arrow, while their feet keep time to
a wild chant in which all join, the purport of which it is not possible
to clearly understand. Now and again their voices rise in softly mingled
harmony, floating very sweetly over the still waters of the bay. The
scene we describe occurred at night, but the moon had not yet risen.
Along the wharf, to the coal deposits, iron frames were erected
containing burning bituminous coal, and the blaze, fanned by the open
air, formed the light by which the women worked. It was a weird picture.
Everything seemed quite in harmony: the hour, the darkness of night
relieved by the flaming brackets of coal, the strange, dark figures
hastening into the glare of light and quickly vanishing, the harmony of
high-pitched voices occasionally broken in upon by the sharp, stern
voice of their leader,--all was highly dramatic and effective.

Not unfrequently three or four steamers are coaling at the same time
from different wharves. Hundreds of women and girls of St. Thomas make
this labor their special occupation, and gain a respectable living by
it, doubtless supporting any number of lazy, worthless husbands,
fathers, and brothers.

After our ship was supplied with coal, these women, having put three
hundred tons on board in a surprisingly short period of time, formed a
group upon the wharf and held what they called a firefly dance,
indescribably quaint and grotesque, performed by the flickering light of
the flaming coal. Their voices were joined in a wild, quick chant, as
they twisted and turned, clapping their hands at intervals to emphasize
the chorus. Now and again a couple of the girls would separate from the
rest for a moment, then dance toward and from each other, throwing their
arms wildly about their heads, and finally, gathering their scanty
drapery in one hand and extending the other, perform a movement similar
to the French cancan. Once more springing back among their companions,
all joined hands, and a roundabout romp closed the firefly dance. Could
such a scene be produced in a city theatre _au naturel_, with proper
accessories and by these actual performers, it would surely prove an
attraction good for one hundred nights. Of course this would be
impossible. Conventionality would object to such diaphanous costumes,
and bare limbs, though they were of a bronzed hue, would shock Puritanic
eyes.

Upon first entering the harbor, the Vigilancia anchored at a short
distance from the shore; but when it became necessary to haul alongside
the wharf, the attempt was made to get up the anchor, when it was found
to require far more than the usual expenditure of power to do so.
Finally, however, the anchor was secured, but attached to its flukes
there came also, from the bottom of the bay, a second anchor, of antique
shape, covered with rust and barnacles. It was such a one as was carried
by the galleons of the fifteenth century, and had doubtless lain for
over four hundred years just where the anchor of our ship had got
entangled with it. What a remarkable link this corroded piece of iron
formed, uniting the present with the far past, and how it stimulated the
mind in forming romantic possibilities! It may have been the holding
iron of Columbus's own caravel, or have been the anchor of one of
Cortez's fleet, which touched here on its way into the Gulf of Mexico,
or, indeed, it may have belonged to some Caribbean buccaneer, who was
obliged to let slip his cable and hasten away to escape capture.

It was deemed a fortunate circumstance to have secured this ancient
relic, and a sure sign of future good luck to the ship, so it was duly
stored away in the lower hold of the Vigilancia.

That same night on which the coal bunkers were filled, our good ship was
got under way, while the rising moon made the harbor and its
surroundings as clearly visible as though it were midday. The light from
the burning coal brackets had waned, only a few sparks bursting forth
now and again, disturbed by a passing breeze which fanned them into life
for a moment. When we passed through the narrow entrance by the
lighthouse, and stood out once more upon the open sea, it was mottled,
far and near, with argent ripples, that waltzed merrily in the soft,
clear moonlight, rivaling the firefly dance on shore. Even to the very
horizon the water presented a white, silvery, tremulous sheen of liquid
light. One gazed in silent enjoyment until the eyes were weary with the
lavish beauty of the scene, and the brain became giddy with its
splendor. Is it idle and commonplace to be enthusiastic? Perhaps so; but
we hope never to outlive such inspiration.

          CHAPTER II.

     Curious Seaweed.--Professor Agassiz.--Myth of a Lost
     Continent.--Island of Martinique.--An Attractive
     Place.--Statue of the Empress Josephine.--Birthplace of
     Madame de Maintenon.--City of St. Pierre.--Mont Pelée.--High
     Flavored Specialty.--Grisettes of Martinique.--A Botanical
     Garden.--Defective Drainage.--A Fatal Enemy.--A Cannibal
     Snake.--The Climate.

Between St. Thomas and the island of Martinique, we fell in with some
floating seaweed, so peculiar in appearance that an obliging
quartermaster picked up a spray for closer examination. It is a strange,
sponge-like plant, which propagates itself on the ocean, unharmed by the
fiercest agitation of the waves, or the wildest raging of the winds, at
the same time giving shelter to zoöphytes and mollusks of a species,
like itself, found nowhere else. Sailors call it Gulf weed, but it has
nothing to do with the Gulf Stream, though sometimes clusters get astray
and are carried far away on the bosom of that grand ocean current. The
author has seen small bodies of it, after a fierce storm in the
Caribbean Sea, a thousand miles to the eastward of Barbadoes. Its
special home is a broad space of ocean surface between the Gulf Stream
and the equatorial current, known as the Sargasso Sea. Its limits,
however, change somewhat with the seasons. It was first noticed by
Columbus in 1492, and in this region it has remained for centuries, even
to the present day. Sometimes this peculiar weed is so abundant as to
present the appearance of a submerged meadow, through which the ship
ploughs its way as though sailing upon the land. We are told that
Professor Agassiz, while at sea, having got possession of a small branch
of this marine growth, kept himself busily absorbed with it and its
products for twelve hours, forgetting all the intervening meals. Science
was more than food and drink to this grand savant. His years from
boyhood were devoted to the study of nature in her various forms. "Life
is so short," said he, "one can hardly find space to become familiar
with a single science, much less to acquire knowledge of many." When he
was applied to by a lyceum committee to come to a certain town and
lecture, he replied that he was too busy. "But we will pay you double
price, Mr. Agassiz, if you will come," said the applicant. "I cannot
waste time to make money," was the noble reply.

The myth of a lost continent is doubtless familiar to the reader,--a
continent supposed to have existed in these waters thousands of years
ago, but which, by some evolution of nature, became submerged, sinking
from sight forever. It was the Atlantis which is mentioned by Plato; the
land in which the Elysian Fields were placed, and the Garden of
Hesperides, from which the early civilization of Greece, Egypt, and Asia
Minor were derived, and whose kings and heroes were the Olympian deities
of a later time. The poetical idea prevails that this plant, which once
grew in those gardens, having lost its original home, has become a
floating waif on the sapphire sea of the tropics. The color of the
Sargasso weed is a faint orange shade; the leaves are pointed, delicate,
and exquisitely formed, like those of the weeping willow in their
youthful freshness, having a tiny, round, light green berry near the
base of each leaf. Mother Cary's chickens are said to be fond of these
berries, and that bird abounds in these waters.

Probably the main portion of the West Indian islands was once a part of
the continent of America, many, many ages ago. There are trees of the
locust family growing among the group to-day, similar to those found on
our southern coast, which are declared to be four thousand years old.
This statement is partially corroborated by known characteristics of the
growth of the locust, and there are arborists who fully credit this
great longevity. It is interesting to look upon an object which had a
vital existence two thousand years and more before Christ was upon
earth, and which is still animate.

Each new island which one visits in the West Indies seems more lovely
than its predecessor, always leaving Hayti out of the question; but
Martinique, at this moment of writing, appears to rival all those with
which the author is familiar. It might be a choice bit out of Cuba,
Singapore, or far-away Hawaii. Its liability to destructive hurricanes
is its only visible drawback. Having been discovered on St. Martin's
day, Columbus gave it the name it now bears.

St. Pierre is the commercial capital of Martinique, one of the French
West Indies, and the largest of the group belonging to that nation. Fort
de France is the political capital, situated about thirty miles from St.
Pierre. It was nearly ruined by the cyclone of last August, a few weeks
after the author's visit. St. Pierre is the best built town in the
Lesser Antilles, and has a population of about twenty-five thousand. The
streets are well paved, and the principal avenues are beautified by
ornamental trees uniformly planted. The grateful shade thus obtained,
and the long lines of charming arboreal perspective which are formed,
are desirable accessories to any locality, but doubly so in tropical
regions. The houses are very attractive, while there is a prevailing
aspect of order, cleanliness, and thrift everywhere apparent. It was not
our experience to meet one beggar in the streets of St. Pierre. More or
less of poverty must exist everywhere, but it does not stalk abroad
here, as it does in many rich and pretentious capitals of the great
world. The island is situated midway between Dominica and St. Lucia, and
is admitted by all visitors to be one of the most picturesque of the
West Indian groups. Irregular in shape, it is also high and rocky, thus
forming one of the most prominent of the large volcanic family which
sprang up so many ages ago in these seas. Its apex, Mont Pelée, an only
partially extinct volcano, rises between four and five thousand feet
above the level of the ocean, and is the first point visible on
approaching the island from the north. It would be interesting to dilate
upon the past history of Martinique, for it has known not a little of
the checkered vicissitudes of these Antilles, having been twice captured
by the English, and twice restored to France. But this would not be in
accordance with the design of these pages.

St. Pierre is situated on the lee side of the island, something less
than two thousand miles, by the course we have steered, from New York,
and three hundred miles from St. Thomas. It comes down to the very
water's edge, with its parti-colored houses and red-tiled roofs, which
mingle here and there with tall, overhanging cocoa-palms. This is the
most lavishly beautiful tree in the world, and one which never fails to
impart special interest to its surroundings.

A marble statue in the Place de la Savane, at Fort de France, on the
same side of the island as St. Pierre, recalls the fact that this was
the birthplace of the Empress Josephine, born in 1763. Her memorable
history is too familiar for us to repeat any portion of it here, but the
brain becomes very active at the mere mention of her name, in recalling
the romantic and tragic episodes of her life, so closely interwoven with
the career of the first Napoleon. One instinctively recalls the small
boudoir in the palace of Trianon, where her husband signed the divorce
from Josephine. That he loved her with his whole power for loving is
plain enough, as is also his well known reason for the separation,
namely, the desire for offspring to transmit his name to posterity.
There is one legend which is always rehearsed to strangers, relating to
Josephine's youth upon the island. We refer to that of the old negress
fortune-teller who prognosticated the grandeur of her future career,
together with its melancholy termination, a story so tinctured with
local color that, if it be not absolutely true, it surely ought to be.
The statue, unless we are misinformed, was the gift of that colossal
fraud, Napoleon III., though it purports to have been raised to the
memory of Josephine by the people of Martinique, who certainly feel
great pride in the fact of her having been born here, and who truly
venerate her memory. The statue represents the empress dressed in the
fashion of the First Empire, with bare arms and shoulders, one hand
resting on a medallion bearing a profile of the emperor to whom she was
devoted. The whole is partially shaded by a half dozen grand old palms.
The group teems with historic suggestiveness, recalling one of the most
tragic chapters of modern European history. It seemed to us that the
artist had succeeded in imparting to the figure an expression indicating
something of the sad story of the original.

This beautiful island, it will be remembered, also gave to France
another remarkable historic character, Françoise d'Aubigné, afterwards
Madame Scarron, but better known to the world at large as Madame de
Maintenon. She, too, was the wife of a king, though the marriage was a
left-handed one, but as the power behind the throne, she is well known
to have shaped for years the political destinies of France.

St. Pierre has several schools, a very good hotel, a theatre, a public
library, together with some other modern and progressive institutions;
yet somehow everything looked quaint and olden, a sixteenth century
atmosphere seeming to pervade the town. The windows of the ordinary
dwellings have no glass, which is very naturally considered to be a
superfluity in this climate; but these windows have iron bars and wooden
shutters behind them, relics of the days of slavery, when every white
man's house was his castle, and great precautions were taken to guard
against the possible uprising of the blacks, who outnumbered their
masters twenty to one.

Though so large a portion of the population are of negro descent, yet
they are very French-like in character. The native women especially seem
to be frivolous and coquettish, not to say rather lax in morals. They
appear to be very fond of dress. The young negresses have learned from
their white mistresses how to put on their diaphanous clothing in a
jaunty and telling fashion, leaving one bronzed arm and shoulder bare,
which strikes the eye in strong contrast with the snow white of their
cotton chemises. They are Parisian grisettes in ebony, and with their
large, roguish eyes, well-rounded figures, straight pose, and dainty
ways, the half-breeds are certainly very attractive, and only too ready
for a lark with a stranger. They strongly remind one of the pretty
quadroons of Louisiana, in their manners, complexion, and general
appearance; and like those handsome offspring of mingled blood, so often
seen in our Southern States, we suspect that these of Martinique enjoy
but a brief space of existence. The average life of a quadroon is less
than thirty years.

Martinique is eight times as large as St. Thomas, containing a
population of about one hundred and seventy-five thousand. Within its
borders there are at least five extinct volcanoes, one of which has an
enormous crater, exceeded by only three or four others in the known
world. The island rises from the sea in three groups of rugged peaks,
and contains some very fertile valleys. So late as 1851, Mont Pelée
burst forth furiously with flames and smoke, which naturally threw the
people into a serious panic, many persons taking refuge temporarily on
board the shipping in the harbor. The eruption on this occasion did not
amount to anything very serious, only covering some hundreds of acres
with sulphurous débris, yet serving to show that the volcano was not
dead, but sleeping. Once or twice since that date ominous mutterings
have been heard from Mont Pelée, which it is confidently predicted will
one day deluge St. Pierre with ashes and lava, repeating the story of
Pompeii.

Sugar, rum, coffee, and cotton are the staple products here,
supplemented by tobacco, manioc flour, bread-fruit, and bananas. Rum is
very extensively manufactured, and has a good mercantile reputation for
its excellence, commanding as high prices as the more famous article of
the same nature produced at Jamaica. The purpose of the author is mainly
to record personal impressions, but a certain sprinkling of statistics
and detail is inevitable, if we would inform, as well as amuse, the
average reader.

The flora of Martinique is the marvel and delight of all who have
enjoyed its extraordinary beauty, while the great abundance and variety
of its fruits are believed to be unsurpassed even in the prolific
tropics. Of that favorite, the mango, the island produces some forty
varieties, and probably in no other region has the muscatel grape
reached to such perfection in size and flavor. The whole island looks
like a maze of greenery, as it is approached from the sea, vividly
recalling Tutuila of the Samoan group in the South Pacific. Like most of
the West Indian islands, Martinique was once densely covered with trees,
and a remnant of these ancient woods creeps down to the neighborhood of
St. Pierre to-day.

The principal landing is crowded at all times with hogsheads of sugar
and molasses, and other casks containing the highly scented island rum,
the two sweets, together with the spirits, causing a nauseous odor under
the powerful heat of a vertical sun. We must not forget to mention,
however, that St. Pierre has a specific for bad odors in her somewhat
peculiar specialty, namely, eau-de-cologne, which is manufactured on
this island, and is equal to the European article of the same name,
distilled at the famous city on the Rhine. No one visits the port, if it
be for but a single day, without bringing away a sample bottle of this
delicate perfumery, a small portion of which, added to the morning bath,
is delightfully refreshing, especially when one uses salt water at sea,
it so effectively removes the saline stickiness which is apt to remain
upon the limbs and body after a cold bath.

The town is blessed with an inexhaustible supply of good, fresh,
mountain water, which, besides furnishing the necessary quantity for
several large drinking fountains, feeds some ornamental ones, and
purifies the streets by a flow through the gutters, after the fashion of
Salt Lake City, Utah. This is in fact the only system of drainage at St.
Pierre. A bronze fountain in the Place Bertin is fed from this source,
and is an object of great pleasure in a climate where cold water in
abundance is an inestimable boon. This elaborate fountain was the gift
of a colored man, named Alfred Agnew, who was at one time mayor of the
city. Many of the gardens attached to the dwelling-houses are ornamented
with ever-flowing fountains, which impart a refreshing coolness to the
tropical atmosphere.

The Rue Victor Hugo is the main thoroughfare, traversing the whole
length of the town parallel with the shore, up hill and down, crossing a
small bridge, and finally losing itself in the environs. It is nicely
kept, well paved, and, though it is rather narrow, it is the Broadway of
St. Pierre. Some of the streets are so abrupt in grade as to recall
similar avenues in the English portion of Hong Kong, too steep for the
passage of vehicles, or even for donkeys, being ascended by means of
much worn stone steps. Fine, broad roadways surround the town and form
pleasant drives.

The cathedral has a sweet chime of bells, whose soft, liquid notes came
to us across the water of the bay with touching cadence at the Angelus
hour. It must be a sadly calloused heart which fails to respond to these
twilight sounds in an isle of the Caribbean Sea. Millet's impressive
picture was vividly recalled as we sat upon the deck and listened to
those bells, whose notes floated softly upon the air as if bidding
farewell to the lingering daylight. At the moment, all else being so
still, it seemed as though one's heartbeat could be heard, while the
senses were bathed in a tranquil gladness incited by the surrounding
scenery and the suggestiveness of the hour.

Three fourths of the population are half-breeds, born of whites, blacks,
or mulattoes, with a possible strain of Carib blood in their veins, the
result of which is sometimes a very handsome type of bronzed hue, but of
Circassian features. Some of the young women of the better class are
very attractive, with complexions of a gypsy color, like the artists'
models who frequent the "Spanish Stairs" leading to the Trinità di
Monti, at Rome. These girls possess deep, dark eyes, pearly teeth, with
good figures, upright and supple as the palms. In dress they affect all
the colors of the rainbow, presenting oftentimes a charming audacity of
contrasts, and somehow it seems to be quite the thing for them to do so;
it accords perfectly with their complexions, with the climate, with
everything tropical. The many-colored Madras kerchief is universally
worn by the common class of women, twisted into a jaunty turban, with
one well-starched end ingeniously arranged so as to stand upright like a
soldier's plume. The love of ornament is displayed by the wearing of
hoop earrings of enormous size, together with triple strings of gold
beads, and bracelets of the same material. If any one imagines he has
seen larger sized hoop earrings this side of Africa, he is mistaken.
They are more like bangles than earrings, hanging down so as to rest
upon the neck and shoulders. Those who cannot afford the genuine article
satisfy their vanity with gaudy imitations. They form a very curious and
interesting study, these black, brown, and yellow people, both men and
women. In the market-place at the north end of the town, the women
preside over their bananas, oranges, and other fruits, in groups,
squatting like Asiatics on their heels. In the Havana fish market, one
compares the variety of colors exhibited by the fishes exposed for sale
to those of the kaleidoscope, but here the Cuban display is equaled if
not surpassed.

St. Pierre has a botanical garden, situated about a mile from the centre
of the town, so located as to admit of utilizing a portion of the native
forest yet left standing, with here and there an impenetrable growth of
the feathery bamboo, king of the grasses, interspersed with the royal
palm and lighter green tree-ferns. The bamboo is a marvel, single stems
of it often attaining a height in tropical regions of a hundred and
seventy feet, and a diameter of a foot. So rapid is its growth that it
is sometimes known to attain the height of a hundred feet in sixty days.
Art has done something to improve the advantages afforded by nature in
this botanical garden, arranging some pretty lakes, fountains, and
cascades. Vistas have been cut through the dense undergrowth, and
driveways have been made, thus improving the rather neglected grounds.
One pretty lake of considerable size contains three or four small
islands, covered with flowering plants, while on the shore are pretty
summer houses and inviting arbors. The frangipanni, tall and almost
leafless, but with thick, fleshy shoots and a broad-spread, single leaf,
was recognized here among other interesting plants. This is the fragrant
flower mentioned by the early discoverers. There was also the
parti-colored passion-flower, and groups of odd-shaped cacti, whose
thick, green leaves were daintily rimmed with an odorless yellow bloom.
Here, also, is an interesting example of the ceba-tree, in whose shade a
hundred persons might banquet together. The author has seen specimens of
the ceba superbly developed in Cuba and the Bahamas, with its massive
and curiously buttressed trunk, having the large roots half above
ground. It is a solitary tree, growing to a large size and enjoying
great longevity. Mangoes abound here, the finest known as the _mango
d'or_. There is a certain air about the public garden of St. Pierre,
indicating that nature is permitted in a large degree to have her own
sweet will. Evidences enough remain to show the visitor that these
grounds must once have been in a much more presentable condition. There
is a musical cascade, which is well worth a long walk to see and enjoy.
Just inside of the entrance, one spot was all ablaze with a tiny yellow
flower, best known to us as English broom, _Cytisus genista_. Its
profuse but delicate bloom was dazzling beneath the bright sun's rays.
Could it possibly be indigenous? No one could tell us. Probably some
resident brought it hither from his home across the ocean, and it has
kindly adapted itself to the new soil and climate.

We were cautioned to look out for and to avoid a certain poisonous
snake, a malignant reptile, with fatal fangs, which is the dread of the
inhabitants, some of whom are said to die every year from the venom of
the creature. It will be remembered that one of these snakes, known here
as the _fer-de-lance_, bit Josephine, the future empress, when she was
very young, and that her faithful negro nurse saved the child's life by
instantly drawing the poison from the wound with her own lips. It is
singular that this island, and that of St. Lucia, directly south of it,
should be cursed by the presence of these poisonous creatures, which do
not exist in any other of the West Indian islands, and, indeed, so far
as we know, are not to be found anywhere else. The fer-de-lance has one
fatal enemy. This is a large snake, harmless so far as poisonous fangs
are concerned, called the _cribo_. This reptile fearlessly attacks the
fer-de-lance, and kills and eats him in spite of his venom, a perfectly
justifiable if not gratifying instance of cannibalism, where a creature
eats and relishes the body of one of its own species. The domestic cat
is said also to be more than a match for the dreaded snake, and
instinctively adopts a style of attack which, while protecting itself,
finally closes the contest by the death of the fer-de-lance, which it
seizes just back of the head at the spine, and does not let go until it
has severed the head from the body; and even then instinct teaches the
cat to avoid the head, for though it be severed from the body, like the
mouth of a turtle under similar circumstances, it can still inflict a
serious wound.

The fer-de-lance is a great destroyer of rats, this rodent forming its
principal source of food. Now as rats are almost as much of a pest upon
the island, and especially on the sugar plantations, as rabbits are in
New Zealand, it will be seen that even the existence of this poisonous
snake is not an unmitigated evil.

Crosses and wayside shrines of a very humble character are to be seen in
all directions on the roadsides leading from St. Pierre, recalling
similar structures which line the inland roads of Japan, where the local
religion finds like public expression, only varying in the character of
the emblems. At Martinique it is a Christ or a Madonna; in Japan it is a
crude idol of some sort, the more hideous, the more appropriate. The
same idea is to be seen carried out in the streets of Canton and
Shanghai, only Chinese idols are a degree more unlike anything upon or
below the earth than they are elsewhere.

It was observed that while there were plenty of masculine loafers and
careless idlers of various colors, whose whole occupation seemed to be
sucking at some form of burning tobacco in the shape of cigarette,
cigar, or pipe, the women, of whatever complexion, seen in public, were
all usefully employed. They are industrious by instinct; one almost
never sees them in repose. In the transportation of all articles of
domestic use, women bear them upon their heads, whether the article
weighs one pound or fifty, balancing their load without making use of
the hands except to place the article in position. The women not
infrequently have also a baby upon their backs at the same time.
Negresses and donkeys perform nine tenths of the transportation of
merchandise. Wheeled vehicles are very little used in the West Indian
islands. As we have seen, even in coaling ship, it is the women who do
the work.

The Hotel des Bains, at St. Pierre, is an excellent hostelry, as such
places go in this part of the world. The stranger will find here most of
the requisites for domestic comfort, and at reasonable prices. As a
health resort the place has its advantages, and a northern invalid,
wishing to escape the rigor of a New England winter, would doubtless
find much to occupy and recuperate him here. St. Pierre, however, has
times of serious epidemic sickness, though this does not often happen in
the winter season. Three or four years ago the island was visited by a
sweeping epidemic of small-pox, but it raged almost entirely among the
lowest classes, principally among the negroes, who seem to have a great
prejudice and superstitious fear relating to vaccination, and its
employment as a preventive against contracting the disease. In the
yellow fever season the city suffers more or less, but the health of St.
Pierre will average as good as that of our extreme Southern States; and
yet, after all, with the earthquakes, hurricanes, tarantulas, scorpions,
and deadly fer-de-lance, as Artemus Ward would say, Martinique presents
many characteristics to recommend protracted absence. A brief visit is
like a poem to be remembered, but one soon gets a surfeit of the
circumscribed island.

Our next objective point was Barbadoes, to reach which we sailed one
hundred and fifty miles to the eastward, this most important of the
Lesser Antilles being situated further to windward, that is, nearer the
continent of Europe. Our ponderous anchor came up at early morning, just
as the sun rose out of the long, level reach of waters. It looked like a
mammoth ball of fire, which had been immersed during the hours of the
night countless fathoms below the sea. Presently everything was aglow
with light and warmth, while the atmosphere seemed full of infinitesimal
particles of glittering gold. At first one could watch the face of the
rising sun, as it came peering above the sea, a sort of fascination
impelling the observer to do so, but after a few moments, no human eye
could bear its dazzling splendor.

Said an honest old Marshfield farmer, in 1776, who met the clergyman of
the village very early in the opening day: "Ah, good mornin', Parson,
another fine day," nodding significantly towards the sun just appearing
above the cloudless horizon of Massachusetts Bay. "They do say the airth
moves, and the sun stands still; but you and I, Parson, we git up airly
and we _see_ it rise!"

          CHAPTER III.

     English Island of Barbadoes.--Bridgetown the Capital.--The
     Manufacture of Rum.--A Geographical Expert.--Very
     English.--A Pest of Ants.--Exports.--The Ice House.--A Dense
     Population.--Educational.--Marine Hotel.--Habits of
     Gambling.--Hurricanes.--Curious Antiquities.--The Barbadoes
     Leg.--Wakeful Dreams.--Absence of Twilight.--Departure from
     the Island.

Bridgetown is the capital of Barbadoes, an English island which, unlike
St. Thomas, is a highly cultivated sugar plantation from shore to shore.
In natural beauty, however, it will not compare with Martinique. It is
by no means picturesquely beautiful, like most of the West Indian
islands, being quite devoid of their thick tropical verdure. Nature is
here absolutely beaten out of the field by excessive cultivation. Thirty
thousand acres of sugar-cane are cut annually, yielding, according to
late statistics, about seventy thousand hogsheads of sugar. We are sorry
to add that there are twenty-three rum distilleries on the island, which
do pecuniarily a thriving business. "The poorest molasses makes the best
rum," said an experienced manager to us. He might well have added that
it is also the poorest use to which it could be put. This spirit, like
all produced in the West Indies, is called Jamaica rum, and though a
certain amount of it is still shipped to the coast of Africa, the return
cargoes no longer consist of kidnapped negroes. The article known as New
England rum, still manufactured in the neighborhood of Boston, has
always disputed the African market, so to speak, with the product of
these islands. Rum is the bane of Africa, just as opium is of China, the
former thrust upon the native races by Americans, the latter upon the
Chinese by English merchants, backed by the British government. Events
follow each other so swiftly in modern times as to become half forgotten
by contemporary people, but there are those among us who remember when
China as a nation tried to stop the importation of the deadly drug
yielded by the poppy fields of India, whereupon England forced the
article upon her at the point of the bayonet.

Bridgetown is situated at the west end of the island on the open
roadstead of Carlisle Bay, and has a population of over twenty-five
thousand. Barbadoes lies about eighty miles to the windward of St.
Vincent, its nearest neighbor, and is separated from Europe by four
thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean. It is comparatively removed from
the chain formed by the Windward Isles, its situation being so isolated
that it remained almost unnoticed until a century had passed after
Columbus's first discovery in these waters. The area of the British
possessions in the West Indies is about one seventh of the islands. It
is often stated that Barbadoes is nearly as large as the Isle of Wight,
but the fact is, it exceeds that island in superficial area, being a
little over fifty-five miles in circumference. The reader will perhaps
remember that it was here Addison laid the scene of his touching story
of "Inkle and Yarico," published so many years ago in the "Spectator."

Though it is not particularly well laid out, Bridgetown makes a very
pleasing picture, as a whole, when seen from the harbor. Here and there
a busy windmill is mixed with tall and verdant tropical trees, backed by
far-reaching fields of yellow sugar-cane, together with low, sloping
hills. The buildings are mostly of stone, or coral rock, and the town
follows the graceful curve of the bay. The streets are macadamized and
lighted with gas, but are far too narrow for business purposes. The
island is about twenty-one miles long and between fourteen and fifteen
broad, the shores being nearly inclosed in a cordon of coral reefs, some
of which extend for two or three miles seaward, demanding of navigators
the greatest care on seeking a landing, though the course into the roads
to a suitable anchorage is carefully buoyed.

Barbadoes was originally settled by the Portuguese, who here found the
branches of a certain forest tree covered with hair-like hanging moss,
from whence its somewhat peculiar name, Barbadoes, or the "bearded
place," is supposed to have been derived. Probably this was the Indian
fig-tree, still found here, and which lives for many centuries, growing
to enormous proportions. In India, Ceylon, and elsewhere in Asia, it is
held sacred. The author has seen one of these trees at Kandy, in the
island of Ceylon, under which sacred rites have taken place constantly
for a thousand years or more, and whose widespread branches could
shelter five hundred people from the heat of the sun. It stands close by
the famous old Buddhist temple wherein is preserved the tooth of the
prophet, and before which devout Indians prostrate themselves daily,
coming from long distances to do so. Indeed, Kandy is the Mecca of
Ceylon.

A good share of even the reading public of England would be puzzled to
tell an inquirer exactly where Barbadoes is situated, while most of
those who have any idea about it have gained such knowledge as they
possess from Captain Marryat's clever novel of "Peter Simple," where the
account is, to be sure, meagre enough. Still later, those who have read
Anthony Trollope's "West Indies and the Spanish Main" have got from the
flippant pages of that book some idea of the island, though it is a very
disagreeable example of Trollope's pedantic style.

"Barbadoes? Barbadoes?" said a society man to the writer of these pages,
in all seriousness, just as he was about to sail from New York, "that's
on the coast of Africa, is it not?"

"Oh, no," was the reply, "it is one of the islands of the Lesser
Antilles."

"Where are the Antilles, pray?"

"You must surely know."

"But I do not, nevertheless; haven't the remotest idea. Fact is,
geography never was one of my strong points."

With which remark we silently agreed, and yet our friend is reckoned to
be a fairly educated, cultured person, as these expressions are commonly
used. Probably he represents the average geographical knowledge of one
half the people to be met with in miscellaneous society.

This is the first English possession where the sugarcane was planted,
and is one of the most ancient colonies of Great Britain. It bears no
resemblance to the other islands in these waters, that is,
topographically, nor, indeed, in the character of its population, being
entirely English. The place might be a bit taken out of any shire town
of the British home island, were it only a little more cleanly and less
unsavory; still it is more English than West Indian. The manners and
customs are all similar to those of the people of that nationality; the
negroes, and their descendants of mixed blood, speak the same tongue as
the denizens of St. Giles, London. The island has often been called
"Little England." There is no reliable history of Barbadoes before the
period when Great Britain took possession of it, some two hundred and
sixty years ago. Government House is a rather plain but pretentious
dwelling, where the governor has his official and domestic residence. In
its rear there is a garden, often spoken of by visitors, which is
beautified by some of the choicest trees and shrubs of this latitude. It
is really surprising how much a refined taste and skillful gardening can
accomplish in so circumscribed a space.

Barbadoes is somewhat remarkable as producing a variety of minerals;
among which are coal, manganese, iron, kaolin, and yellow ochre. There
are also one or two localities on the island where a flow of petroleum
is found, of which some use is made. It is called Barbadoes tar, and
were the supply sufficient to warrant the use of refining machinery, it
would undoubtedly produce a good burning fluid. There is a "burning
well," situated in what is known as the Scotland District, where the
water emerging from the earth forms a pool, which is kept in a state of
ebullition from the inflammable air or gas which passes through it. This
gas, when lighted by a match, burns freely until extinguished by
artificial means, not rising in large enough quantities to make a great
flame, but still sufficient to create the effect of burning water, and
forming quite a curiosity.

There are no mountains on the island, but the land is undulating, and
broken into hills and dales; one elevation, known as Mount Hillaby,
reaches a thousand feet and more above the level of tide waters.

One of the most serious pests ever known at Barbadoes was the
introduction of ants, by slave-ships from Africa. No expedient of human
ingenuity served to rid the place of their destructive presence, and it
was at one time seriously proposed to abandon the island on this
account. After a certain period nature came to the rescue. She does all
things royally, and the hurricane of 1780 completely annihilated the
vermin. Verily, it was appropriate to call Barbadoes in those days the
Antilles! It appears that there is no affliction quite unmixed with
good, and that we must put a certain degree of faith in the law of
compensation, however great the seeming evil under which we suffer. To
our limited power of comprehension, a destructive hurricane does seem an
extreme resort by which to crush out an insect pest. The query might
even arise, with some minds, whether the cure was not worse than the
disorder.

The exports from the island consist almost wholly of molasses, sugar,
and rum, products of the cane, which grows all over the place, in every
nook and corner, from hilltop to water's edge. The annual export, as
already intimated, is considerably over sixty thousand hogsheads. Sugar
cannot, however, be called king of any one section, since half of the
amount manufactured in the whole world is the product of the beet root,
the growth of which is liberally subsidized by more than one European
government, in order to foster local industry. Like St. Thomas, this
island has been almost denuded of its forest growth, and is occasionally
liable, as we have seen, to destructive hurricanes.

Bridgetown is a place of considerable progress, having several
benevolent and educational institutions; it also possesses railway,
telephone, and telegraphic service. Its export trade aggregates over
seven million dollars per annum, to accommodate which amount of commerce
causes a busy scene nearly all the time in the harbor. The steam railway
referred to connects the capital with the Parish of St. Andrews,
twenty-one miles away on the other side of the island, its terminus
being at the thrifty little town of Bathsheba, a popular resort, which
is noted for its fine beach and excellent sea bathing.

The cathedral is consecrated to the established religion of the Church
of England, and is a picturesque, time-worn building, surrounded, after
the style of rural England, by a quaint old graveyard, the monuments and
slabs of which are gray and moss-grown, some of them bearing dates of
the earlier portion of the sixteenth century. This spot forms a very
lovely, peaceful picture, where the graves are shaded by tree-ferns and
stately palms. Somehow one cannot but miss the tall, slim cypress, which
to the European and American eye seems so especially appropriate to such
a spot. There were clusters of low-growing mignonette, which gave out a
faint perfume exactly suited to the solemn shades which prevailed, and
here and there bits of ground enameled with blue-eyed violets. The walls
of the inside of the church are covered with memorial tablets, and there
is an organ of great power and sweetness of tone.

The "Ice House," so called, at Bridgetown is a popular resort, which
everybody visits who comes to Barbadoes. Here one can find files of all
the latest American and European papers, an excellent café, with drinks
and refreshments of every conceivable character, and can purchase almost
any desired article from a toothpick to a set of parlor furniture. It is
a public library, an exchange, a "Bon Marché," and an artificial ice
manufactory, all combined. Strangers naturally make it a place of
rendezvous. It seemed to command rather more of the average citizen's
attention than did legitimate business, and one is forced to admit that
although the drinks which were so generously dispensed were cool and
appetizing, they were also very potent. It was observed that some
individuals, who came into the hospitable doors rather sober and
dejected in expression of features, were apt to go out just a little
jolly.

The Ice House is an institution of these islands, to be found at St.
Thomas, Demerara, and Trinidad, as well as at Barbadoes. Havana has a
similar retreat, but calls it a café, situated on the Paseo, near the
Tacon Theatre.

The population of the island amounts to about one hundred and
seventy-two thousand,--the census of 1881 showed it to be a trifle less
than this,--giving the remarkable density of one thousand and more
persons to the square mile, thus forming an immense human beehive. It is
the only one of the West Indian islands from which a certain amount of
emigration is necessary annually. The large negro population makes labor
almost incredibly cheap, field-hands on the plantations being paid only
one shilling per day; and yet, so ardent is their love of home--and the
island is home to them--that only a few can be induced to leave it in
search of better wages. When it is remembered that the State of
Massachusetts, which is considered to be one of the most thickly
populated sections of the United States, contains but two hundred and
twenty persons to the square mile, the fact that this West Indian island
supports over one thousand inhabitants in the same average space will be
more fully appreciated. Notwithstanding this crowded state of the
population, we were intelligently informed that while petty offenses are
common, there is a marked absence of serious crimes.

One sees few if any signs of poverty here. It is a land of sugar-cane,
yams, and sweet potatoes, very prolific, and very easily tilled. Some of
the most prosperous men on the island are colored planters, who own
their large establishments, though born slaves, perhaps on the very
ground they now own. They have by strict economy and industry saved
money enough to make a fair beginning, and in the course of years have
gradually acquired wealth. One plantation, owned by a colored man, born
of slave parents, was pointed out to us, with the information that it
was worth twenty thousand pounds sterling, and that its last year's crop
yielded over three hundred hogsheads of sugar, besides a considerable
quantity of molasses.

England maintains at heavy expense a military depot here, from which to
draw under certain circumstances. There is no local necessity for
supporting such a force. Georgetown is a busy place. Being the most
seaward of the West Indies, it has become the chief port of call for
ships navigating these seas. The Caribbees are divided by geographers
into the Windward and Leeward islands, in accordance with the direction
in which they lie with regard to the prevailing winds. They are in very
deep water, the neighboring sea having a mean depth of fifteen hundred
fathoms. Being so far eastward, Barbadoes enjoys an exceptionally
equable climate, and it is claimed for it that it has a lower
thermometer than any other West Indian island. Its latitude is 13° 4'
north, longitude 59° 37' west, within eight hundred miles of the
equator. The prevailing wind blows from the northeast, over the broad,
unobstructed Atlantic, rendering the evenings almost always delightfully
cool, tempered by this grateful tonic breath of the ocean.

Trafalgar Square, Bridgetown, contains a handsome fountain, and a bronze
statue of Nelson which, as a work of art, is simply atrocious. From this
broad, open square the tramway cars start, and it also forms a general
business centre.

The home government supports, besides its other troops, a regiment of
negroes uniformed as Zouaves and officered by white men. The police of
Bridgetown are also colored men. Slavery was abolished here in 1833.
Everything is so thoroughly English, that only the temperature, together
with the vegetation, tells the story of latitude and longitude. The soil
has been so closely cultivated as to have become partially exhausted,
and this is the only West Indian island, if we are correctly informed,
where artificial enrichment is considered necessary to stimulate the
native soil, or where it has ever been freely used. "I question," said
an intelligent planter to us, "whether we should not be better off
to-day, if we had not so overstimulated, in fact, burned out, our land
with guano and phosphates." These are to the ground like intoxicants to
human beings,--if over-indulged in they are fatal, and even the partial
use is of questionable advantage. The Chinese and Japanese apply only
domestic refuse in their fields as a manure, and no people obtain such
grand results as they do in agriculture. They know nothing of patent
preparations employed for such purposes, and yet will render a spot of
ground profitable which a European would look upon as absolutely not
worth cultivating.

In any direction from Bridgetown going inland, miles upon miles of
plantations are seen bearing the bright green sugar-cane, turning to
yellow as it ripens, and giving splendid promise for the harvest. Here
and there are grouped a low cluster of cabins, which form the quarters
of the negroes attached to the plantation, while close at hand the tall
chimney of the sugar mill looms over the surrounding foliage. A little
one side, shaded by some palms, is the planter's neat and attractive
residence, painted snow white, in contrast to the deep greenery
surrounding it, and having a few flower beds in its front.

The Marine Hotel, which is admirably situated on a rocky point at
Hastings, three hundred feet above the beach, is about a league from the
city, and forms a favorite resort for the townspeople. The house is
capable of accommodating three hundred guests at a time. Its spacious
piazzas fronting the ocean are constantly fanned by the northeast trades
from October to March. Some New York families regard the place as a
choice winter resort, the thermometer rarely indicating over 80° Fahr.,
or falling below 70°. This suburb of Hastings is the location of the
army barracks, where a broad plain affords admirable space for drill and
military manoeuvres. There is a monument at Hastings, raised to the
memory of the victims of the hurricane of 1831, which seems to be rather
unpleasantly suggestive of future possibilities. Near at hand is a
well-arranged mile racecourse, a spot very dear to the army officers,
where during the racing season any amount of money is lost and won.
There seems to be something in this tropical climate which incites to
all sorts of gambling, and the habit among the people is so common as to
be looked upon with great leniency. Just so, at some of the summer
resorts of the south of France, Italy, and Germany, ladies or gentlemen
will frankly say, "I am going to the Casino for a little gambling, but
will be back again by and by."

The roads in the vicinity of Bridgetown are admirably kept, all being
macadamized, but the dust which rises from the pulverized coral rock is
nearly blinding, and together with the reflection caused by the sun on
the snow white roads proves very trying to the eyesight. The dust and
glare are serious drawbacks to the enjoyment of these environs.

As we have said, hurricanes have proved very fatal at Barbadoes. In
1780, four thousand persons were swept out of existence in a few hours
by the irresistible fury of a tornado. So late as 1831, the loss of life
by a similar visitation was over two thousand, while the loss of
property aggregated some two million pounds sterling. The experience has
not, however, been so severe here as at several of the other islands. At
the time of the hurricane just referred to, Barbadoes was covered with a
coat of sulphurous ashes nearly an inch thick, which was afterwards
found to have come from the island of St. Vincent, where what is called
Brimstone Mountain burst forth in flames and laid that island also in
ashes. It is interesting to note that there should have been such
intimate relationship shown between a great atmospheric disturbance like
a hurricane and an underground agitation as evinced by the eruption of a
volcano.

It should be mentioned that these hurricanes have never been known to
pass a certain limit north or south, their ravages having always been
confined between the eleventh and twenty-first degrees of north
latitude.

It appears that some curious Carib implements were found not long since
just below the surface of the earth on the south shore of the bay, which
are to be forwarded to the British Museum, London. These were of hard
stone, and were thought by the finders to have been used by the
aborigines to fell trees. Some were thick shells, doubtless employed by
the Indians in the rude cultivation of maize, grown here four or five
hundred years ago. It was said that these stone implements resembled
those which have been found from time to time in Norway and Sweden. If
this is correct, it is an important fact for antiquarians to base a
theory upon. Some scientists believe that there was, in prehistoric
times, an intimate relationship between Scandinavia and the continent of
America.

Though there are several public schools in Bridgetown, both primary and
advanced, we were somehow impressed with the idea that education for the
common people was not fostered in a manner worthy of a British colony of
so long standing; but this is the impression of a casual observer only.
There is a college situated ten or twelve miles from the city, founded
by Sir Christopher Codrington, which has achieved a high reputation as
an educational institution in its chosen field of operation. It is a
large structure of white stone, well-arranged, and is, as we were told,
consistent with the spirit of the times. It has the dignity of ripened
experience, having been opened in 1744. The professors are from Europe.
A delicious fresh water spring rises to the surface of the land just
below the cliff, at Codrington College, a blessing which people who live
in the tropics know how to appreciate. There is also at Bridgetown what
is known as Harrison's College, which, however, is simply a high school
devoted exclusively to girls.

The island is not exempt from occasional prevalence of tropical fevers,
but may be considered a healthy resort upon the whole. Leprosy is not
unknown among the lower classes, and elephantiasis is frequently to be
met with. This disease is known in the West Indies as the "Barbadoes
Leg." Sometimes a native may be seen on the streets with one of his legs
swollen to the size of his body. There is no known cure for this disease
except the surgeon's knife, and the removal of the victim from the
region where it first developed itself. The author has seen terrible
cases of elephantiasis among the natives of the Samoan group of islands,
where this strange and unaccountable disease is thought to have reached
its most extreme and repulsive development. Foreigners are seldom if
ever afflicted with it, either in the West Indies or the South Pacific.

We are to sail to-night. A few passengers and a quantity of freight have
been landed, while some heavy merchandise has been received on board,
designed for continental ports to the southward. The afternoon shadows
lengthen upon the shore, and the sunset hour, so brief in this latitude,
approaches. The traveler who has learned to love the lingering twilight
of the north misses these most charming hours when in equatorial
regions, but as the goddess of night wraps her sombre mantle about her,
it is so superbly decked with diamond stars that the departed daylight
is hardly regretted. It is like the prompter's ringing up of the curtain
upon a complete theatrical scene; the glory of the tropical sky bursts
at once upon the vision in all its completeness, its burning
constellations, its solitaire brilliants, its depth of azure, and its
mysterious Milky Way.

While sitting under the awning upon deck, watching the gentle swaying
palms and tall fern-trees, listening to the low drone of busy life in
the town, and breathing the sweet exhalations of tropical fruits and
flowers, a trance-like sensation suffuses the brain. Is this the _dolce
far niente_ of the Italians, the sweet do-nothing of the tropics? To us,
however defined, it was a waking dream of sensuous delight, of entire
content. How far away sounds the noise of the steam-winch, the sharp
chafing of the iron pulleys, the prompt orders of the officer of the
deck, the swinging of the ponderous yards, the rattling of the anchor
chain as it comes in through the hawse hole, while the ship gradually
loses her hold upon the land. With half closed eyes we scarcely heard
these many significant sounds, but floated peacefully on in an Eden of
fancy, quietly leaving Carlisle Bay far behind.

Our course was to the southward, while everything, high and low, was
bathed in a flood of shimmering moonlight, the magic alchemy of the sky,
whose influence etherealizes all upon which it rests.

          CHAPTER IV.

     Curious Ocean Experiences.--The Delicate
     Nautilus.--Flying-Fish.--The Southern Cross.--Speaking a
     Ship at Sea.--Scientific Navigation.--South America as a
     Whole.--Fauna and Flora.--Natural Resources of a Wonderful
     Land.--Rivers, Plains, and Mountain Ranges.--Aboriginal
     Tribes.--Population.--Political Divisions.--Civil
     Wars.--Weakness of South American States.

The sudden appearance of a school of flying-fish gliding swiftly through
the air for six or eight rods just above the rippling waves, and then
sinking from sight; the sportive escort of half a hundred slate-colored
porpoises, leaping high out of the water on either bow of the ship only
to plunge back again, describing graceful curves; the constant presence
of that sullen tiger of the ocean, the voracious, man-eating shark,
betrayed by its dorsal fin showing above the surface of the sea; the
sporting of mammoth whales, sending columns of water high in air from
their blowholes, and lashing the waves playfully with their broad-spread
tails, are events at sea too commonplace to comment upon in detail,
though they tend to while away the inevitable monotony of a long voyage.

Speaking of flying-fish, there is more in the flying capacity of this
little creature than is generally admitted, else why has it wings on the
forward part of its body, each measuring seven inches in length? If
designed only for fins, they are altogether out of proportion to the
rest of its body. They are manifestly intended for just the use to which
the creature puts them. One was brought to us by a seaman; how it got on
board we know not, but it measured eleven inches from the nose to the
tip of the tail fin, and was in shape and size very much like a small
mackerel. After leaving Barbadoes, we got into what sailors call the
flying-fish latitudes, where they appear constantly in their low, rapid
flight, sometimes singly, but oftener in small schools of a score or
more, creating flashes of silvery-blue lustre. The most careful
observation could detect no vibration of the long, extended fins; the
tiny fish sailed, as it were, upon the wind, the flight of the giant
albatross in miniature.

One afternoon, when the sea was scarcely dimpled by the soft trade wind,
we came suddenly upon myriads of that little fairy of the ocean, the
gossamer nautilus, with its Greek galleon shape, and as frail,
apparently, as a spider's web. What a gondola it would make for Queen
Mab! How delicate and transparent it is, while radiating prismatic
colors! A touch might dismember it, yet what a daring navigator,
floating confidently upon the sea where the depth is a thousand fathoms,
liable at any moment to be changed into raging billows by an angry
storm! How minute the vitality of this graceful atom, a creature whose
existence is perhaps for only a single day; yet how grand and limitless
the system of life and creation of which it is so humble a
representative! Sailors call these frail marine creatures Portuguese
men-of-war. Possessing some singular facility for doing so, if they are
disturbed, they quickly furl their sails and sink below the surface of
the buoyant waves into deep water, the home of the octopus, the squid,
and the voracious shark. Did they, one is led to query, navigate these
seas after this fashion before the Northmen came across the ocean, and
before Columbus landed at San Salvador? At night the glory of the
southern hemisphere, as revealed in new constellations and brighter
stars brought into view, was observed with keenest
interest,--"Everlasting Night, with her star diadems, with her silence,
and her verities." The phosphorescence of the sea, with its
scintillations of brilliant light, its ripples of liquid fire, the crest
of each wave a flaming cascade, was a charming phenomenon one never
tired of watching. If it be the combination of millions and billions of
animalculæ which thus illumines the waters, then these infinitesimal
creatures are the fireflies of the ocean, as the cucuios, that fairy
torch-bearer, is of the land. Gliding on the magic mirror of the South
Atlantic, in which the combined glory of the sky was reflected with
singular clearness, it seemed as though we were sailing over a starry
world below.

While observing the moon in its beautiful series of changes, lighting
our way by its chaste effulgence night after night, it was difficult to
realize that it shines entirely by the light which it borrows from the
sun; but it was easy to believe the simpler fact, that of all the
countless hosts of the celestial bodies, she is our nearest neighbor.
"An eighteen-foot telescope reveals to the human eye over forty million
stars," said Captain Baker, as we stood together gazing at the luminous
heavens. "And if we entertain the generally accepted idea," he
continued, "we must believe that each one of that enormous aggregate of
stars is the centre of a solar system similar to our own." The known
facts relating to the stars, like stellar distances, are almost
incomprehensible.

One cannot but realize that there is always a certain amount of
sentiment wasted on the constellation known as the Southern Cross by
passengers bound to the lands and seas over which it hangs. Orion or the
Pleiades, either of them, is infinitely superior in point of brilliancy,
symmetry, and individuality. A lively imagination is necessary to endow
this irregular cluster of stars with any real resemblance to the
Christian emblem for which it is named. It serves the navigator in the
southern hemisphere, in part, the same purpose which the north star does
in our portion of the globe, and there our own respect for it as a
constellation ends. Much poetic talent has been expended for ages to
idealize the Southern Cross, which is, alas! no cross at all. We have
seen a person unfamiliar with the locality of this constellation strive
long and patiently, but in vain, to find it. It should be remembered
that two prominent stars in Centaurus point directly to it. The one
furthest from the so called cross is held to be the fixed star nearest
to the earth, but its distance from us is twenty thousand times farther
than that of the sun.

We have never yet met a person, looking upon this cluster of the heavens
for the first time, who did not frankly express his disappointment.
Anticipation and fruition are oftenest at antipodes.

The graceful marine birds which follow the ship, day after day, darting
hither and thither with arrowy swiftness, lured by the occasional refuse
thrown from on board, would be seriously missed were they to leave us.
Watching their aerial movements and untiring power of wing, while
listening to their sharp complaining cries, is a source of constant
amusement. Even rough weather and a raging sea, if not accompanied by
too serious a storm, is sometimes welcome, serving to awaken the ship
from its dull propriety, and to put officers, crew, and passengers upon
their mettle. To speak a strange vessel at sea is always interesting. If
it is a steamer, a long, black wake of smoke hanging among the clouds at
the horizon betrays her proximity long before the hull is sighted. All
eyes are on the watch until she comes clearly within the line of vision,
gradually increasing in size and distinctness of outline, until
presently the spars and rigging are minutely delineated. Then
speculation is rife as to whence she comes and where she is going. By
and by the two ships approach so near that signal flags can be read, and
the captains talk with each other, exchanging names, whither bound, and
so on. Then each commander dips his flag in compliment to the other, and
the ships rapidly separate. All of this is commonplace enough, but
serves to while away an hour, and insures a report of our progress and
safety at the date of meeting, when the stranger reaches his port of
destination.

We have spoken of the pleasure experienced at sea in watching
intelligently the various phases of the moon. The subject is a prolific
one; a whole chapter might be written upon it.

It is perhaps hardly realized by the average landsman, and indeed by few
who constantly cross the ocean, with their thoughts and interests
absorbed by the many attractive novelties of the ocean, how important a
part this great luminary plays in the navigation of a ship. It is to the
intelligent and observant mariner the never-failing watch of the sky,
the stars performing the part of hands to designate the proper figure
upon the dial. If there is occasion to doubt the correctness of his
chronometer, the captain of the ship can verify its figures or correct
them by this planet. Every minute that the chronometer is wrong,
assuming that it be so, may put him fifteen miles out of his reckoning,
which, under some circumstances, might prove to be a fatal error, even
leading to the loss of his ship and all on board. To find his precise
location upon the ocean, the navigator requires both Greenwich time and
local meridian time, the latter obtained by the sun on shipboard,
exactly at midday. To get Greenwich time by lunar observation, the
captain, for example, finds that the moon is three degrees from the star
Regulus. By referring to his nautical almanac he sees recorded there the
Greenwich time at which the moon was three degrees from that particular
star. He then compares his chronometer with these figures, and either
confirms or corrects its indication. It is interesting to the traveler
to observe and understand these important resources, which science has
brought to bear in perfecting his safety on the ocean, promoting the
interests of commerce, and in aid of correct navigation. The experienced
captain of a ship now lays his course as surely by compass, after
satisfying himself by these various means of his exact position, as
though the point of his destination was straight before him all the
while, and visible from the pilot house.

How indescribable is the grandeur of these serene nights on the ocean,
fanned by the somnolent trade winds; a little lonely, perhaps, but so
blessed with the hallowed benediction of the moonlight, so gorgeously
decorated by the glittering images of the studded heavens, so sweet and
pure and fragrant is the breath of the sleeping wind! If one listens
intently, there seems to come to the senses a whispering of the waves,
as though the sea in confidence would tell its secrets to a willing ear.

The ship heads almost due south after leaving Barbadoes, when her
destination is, as in our case, Pará, twelve hundred miles away. On this
course we encounter the equatorial current, which runs northward at a
rate of two miles in an hour, and at some points reaches a much higher
rate of speed.

As eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so eternal scrubbing is
the price of cleanliness on shipboard. The deck hands are at it from
five o'clock in the morning until sunset. Our good ship looks as if she
had just come out of dock. Last night's gale, which in its angry turmoil
tossed us about so recklessly, covered her with a saline, sticky
deposit; but with the rising of the sun all this disappears as if by
magic. The many brass mountings shine with dazzling lustre, and the
white paint contrasts with the well-tarred cordage which forms the
standing rigging.

While the ship pursues her course through the far-reaching ocean, let us
sketch in outline the general characteristics of South America, whither
we are bound.

It is a country containing twice the area, though not quite one half the
amount of population, of the United States, a land which, though now
presenting nearly all phases of civilization, was four centuries ago
mostly inhabited by nomadic tribes of savages, who knew nothing of the
horse, the ox, or the sheep, which to-day form so great and important a
source of its wealth, and where wheat, its prevailing staple, was also
unknown. It is a land overflowing with native riches, which possesses an
unlimited capacity of production, and whose large and increasing
population requires just such domestic supplies as we of the north can
profitably furnish. The important treaty of reciprocity, so lately
arranged between the giant province of Brazil--or rather we should say
the Republic of Brazil--and our own country, is already developing new
and increasing channels of trade for our shippers and producers of the
great staples, as well as throwing open to us a new nation of consumers
for our special articles of manufacture. Facts speak louder than words.
On the voyage in which the author sailed in the Vigilancia, she took
over twenty thousand barrels of flour to Brazil from the United States,
and would have taken more had her capacity admitted. Every foot of space
on board was engaged for the return voyage, twelve thousand bags of
coffee being shipped from Rio Janeiro alone, besides nearly as large a
consignment of coffee from Santos, in the same republic. The great
mutual benefit which must accrue from this friendly compact with an
enterprising foreign country can hardly be overestimated. These
considerations lead to a community of interests, which will grow by
every reasonable means of familiarizing the people of the two countries
with each other. Hence the possible and practical value of such a work
as the one in hand.

By briefly consulting one of the many cheap and excellent maps of the
western hemisphere, the patient reader will be enabled to follow the
route taken by the author with increased interest and a clearer
understanding.

It is surprising, in conversing with otherwise intelligent and
well-informed people, to find how few there are, comparatively speaking,
who have any fixed and clear idea relative to so large a portion of the
habitable globe as South America. The average individual seems to know
less of the gigantic river Amazon than he does of the mysterious Nile,
and is less familiar with that grand, far-reaching water-way, the Plate,
than he is with the sacred Ganges; yet one can ride from Buenos Ayres in
the Argentine Republic, across the wild pampas, to the base of the Andes
in a Pullman palace car. There is no part of the globe concerning which
so little is written, and no other portion which is not more sought by
travelers; in short, it is less known to the average North American than
New Zealand or Australia.

The vast peninsula which we call South America is connected with our own
part of the continent by the Isthmus of Panama and the territory
designated as Central America. Its configuration is triangular, and
exhibits in many respects a strong similarity to the continents of
Africa and Australia, if the latter gigantic island may be called a
continent. It extends north and south nearly five thousand miles, or
from latitude 12° 30' north to Cape Horn in latitude 55° 59' south. Its
greatest width from east to west is a little over three thousand miles,
and its area, according to the best authorities, is nearly seven million
square miles. Three fourths of this country lie in the torrid zone,
though as a whole it has every variety of climate, from equatorial heat
to the biting frosts of alpine peaks. Its widespread surface consists
principally of three immense plains, watered respectively by the Amazon,
Plate, and Orinoco rivers. This spacious country has a coast line of
over sixteen thousand miles on the two great oceans, with comparatively
few indentures, headlands, or bays, though at the extreme south it
consists of a maze of countless small islands, capes, and promontories,
of which Cape Horn forms the outermost point.

The Cordillera of the Andes extends through the whole length of this
giant peninsula, from the Strait of Magellan to the Isthmus of Panama, a
distance of forty-five hundred miles, forming one of the most remarkable
physical features of the globe, and presenting the highest mountains on
its surface, except those of the snowy Himalayas which separate India
from Thibet. The principal range of the Andes runs nearly parallel with
the Pacific coast, at an average distance of about one hundred miles
from it, and contains several active volcanoes. If we were to believe a
late school geography, published in London, Cotopaxi, one famous peak of
this Andean range, throws up flames three thousand feet above the brink
of its crater, which is eighteen thousand feet above tide water; but to
be on the safe side, let us reduce these extraordinary figures at least
one half, as regards the eruptive power of Cotopaxi. This mountain
chain, near the border between Chili and Peru, divides into two
branches, the principal one still called the Cordillera of the Andes,
and the other, nearer to the ocean, the Cordillera de la Costa. Between
these ranges, about three thousand feet above the sea, is a vast
table-land with an area larger than that of France.

It will be observed that we are dealing with a country which, like our
own, is one of magnificent distances. It is difficult for the nations of
the old world, where the population is hived together in such
circumscribed space, to realize the geographical extent of the American
continent. When informed that it required six days and nights, at
express speed upon well-equipped railroads, to cross the United States
from ocean to ocean, a certain editor in London doubted the statement.
Outside of Her Majesty's dominions, the average Englishman has only
superficial ideas of geography. The frequent blunders of some British
newspapers in these matters are simply ridiculous.

It should be understood that South America is a land of plains as well
as of lofty mountains, having the _llanos_ of the Orinoco region, the
_selvas_ of the Amazon, and the _pampas_ of the Argentine Republic. The
llanos are composed of a region about as large as the New England
States, so level that the motion of the rivers can hardly be discerned.
The selvas are for the most part vast unbroken forests, in which giant
trees, thick undergrowth, and entwining creepers combine to form a