The Project Gutenberg EBook of A summer on the borders of the Caribbean sea., by J. Dennis. Harris This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: A summer on the borders of the Caribbean sea. Author: J. Dennis. Harris Release Date: October 31, 2016 [EBook #53418] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SUMMER ON THE BORDERS *** Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive) cover Contents. Some typographical errors have been corrected; a list follows the text. (etext transcriber's note) A SUMMER {1} ON THE BORDERS OF THE CARIBBEAN SEA. BY J. DENNIS HARRIS. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. NEW YORK: A. B. BURDICK, PUBLISHER, No. 145 NASSAU STREET. 1860. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by J. DENNIS HARRIS, In the clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. ADVERTISEMENT. Through the columns of leading journals in New York, St. Louis, and other localities, we have had occasion to acknowledge the fact that the political views which gave rise to the present volume, though comparatively new, have generally met the approval of distinguished statesmen and philanthropists, North and South.[A] The following note from the venerable Mr. Giddings indicating the proposition, is but one of a large number which we have received from various parts of the country:— Jefferson, Ohio, July 13, 1859. My Dear Sir:—I am heartily in favor of Mr. Blair’s plan of furnishing territory in Central America for the use of such of our African brethren as wish to settle in a climate more congenial to the colored race than any that our government possesses. I hope and trust you may be successful in your efforts. Very truly, J. R. GIDDINGS. J. D. Harris, Esq. The subjoined, respecting the work itself, is from Mr. William Cullen Bryant, by whom, in addition to Mr. George W. Curtis, a portion of these communications was reviewed:— Roslyn, Long Island, August 26, 1860. Dear Sir:—I have looked over with attention the letters you left with me, and return them herewith. It appears to me it will be very well to publish them. Of the Spanish part of the island of San Domingo very little is known—much less than of the French part; and the information you give of the country and its people is valuable and interesting. I am, Sir, Respectfully yours, W. C. BRYANT. Mr. J. D. Harris. CONTENTS. Introduction vii DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. LETTER I. {2} {3} {4} {5} From New York to Puerto de Plata—Smoothness of the Voyage—Hayti in the Distance—The Custom-House Officers— Description of the Standing Army—Unparalleled Scenic Beauty 13- 19 LETTER II. Want of Information—One side of a Question—The other side—Causes of the decline of the Spanish Colony—Subsequent history 20- 30 LETTER III. Corpus Christi—The Farm of the Fugitive Slave 31- 35 LETTER IV. First Ride in the Country—Pastorisa Place 36- 41 LETTER V. Valley of the Isabella—Customs of the People—A Call for Dinner 42- 50 LETTER VI. On the way to Porto Cabello—Antille-Americana—Immigration Ordinance 51- 61 LETTER VII. Proposed American Settlement—A Picture of Life—Tomb of the Wesleyan Missionary 62- 67 LETTER VIII. Summary of Dominican Staples, Exports, and Products 69- 75 REPUBLIC OF HAYTI HIS TO RIC AL S KETC H. LETTER IX. State of Affairs previous to 1790 76- 83 LETTER X. Affairs in France—Case of the Mulattoes—Terrible Death of Ogé and Chavine 84- 92 LETTER XI. Tragedy of the Revolution—A Chapter of Horrors (which the delicate reader may, if he pleases, omit) 93- 104 LETTER XII. Tragedy of the Revolution, continued—Rigaud succeeded by L’Ouverture—L’Ouverture duped by Le Clerc 105- 115 LETTER XIII. The War Renewed—“Liberty or Death”—Expulsion of the French—Jean Jacques Dessalines, First Emperor of Hayti—The Aurora of Peace—Principal Events up to present date—Geffrard on Education 116- 127 GRAND TURK’S AND CAICOS ISLANDS. LETTER XIV. An Island of Salt—Honor to the British Queen—Sir Edward Jordan, of Jamaica—A Story in Parenthesis—The Poetry of Sailing 128- 137 BRITISH HONDURAS. LETTER XV. Off Ruatan—The Sailor’s Love Story—Sovereignty of the Bay Islands—English vs. American View of Central American Affairs 138- 150 CONCLUSIVE SUMMARY. LETTER XVI. Concise Description of the Spanish Main—Dominicana Reviewed—The magnificent Bay of Samana—Conclusive Summary 151- 160 APPENDIX. {6} The Anglo-African Empire—Opinions of distinguished Statesmen and Philanthropists 161- 179 INTRODUCTION. The free colored American, of whatever shade, sees that his destiny is linked with slavery. Where his face is a crime he can not hope for justice. In the country which enslaves his race he can never be an acknowledged man. That it is his native country does not help him. The author of this book is an American as much as James Buchanan. He is more so: for the father of Mr. Buchanan was born in Ireland, and the father of Mr. Harris was born in North Carolina. But the one becomes president; the other is officially declared to have no rights which white men are bound to respect. The intelligent colored man, therefore, as he ponders the unhappy condition of his race among us, perceives that, even if slavery in the Southern States were to be immediately abolished, his condition would be only nominally and legally, not actually, equal to that of the whites. The traditional habit of unquestioned mastery can not be laid aside at will. Prejudice is not amenable to law. There is a terrible logic in the slave system. For the proper and safe subjugation of the slave there must be silence, ignorance, and absolute despotism. But these react upon the master; and the difficulties and dangers of emancipation, as the history of Jamaica shows, are found upon the side of the master and not of the slave. The law might establish a political equality between them, but the old feeling would survive, and would still exclaim with the San Domingo planters when the French Assembly freed the mulattoes in 1791, “We would rather die than share our political rights with a bastard and degenerate race.” The free colored man, wishing to help himself and his race, may choose one of several methods. If he dare to take the risk, he may try to recover by force the rights of which force only deprives him. But his truest friends among the dominant race will assure him that such a course is mere suicide. In a war of races in this country his own would be exterminated. Or he may say with Geo. T. Downing, “I feel that I am working for the people with whom I am identified in oppression, in securing a business name: I shall strive for my and their elevation, but it will be by a strict and undivided attention to business.” Or he may believe with Jefferson, “Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people [the colored] are to be free: nor is it less certain that the two races equally free can not live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion, have drawn indissoluble lines of distinction between them.” This latter opinion is shared by many intelligent public men in this country, of whom Francis P. Blain Jr., of Missouri, Senator Doolittle, of Wisconsin, and Senator Bingham, of Michigan, are the most conspicuous. They believe that the emigration of free colored people, protected by the United States, into some region of propitious climate and beyond the taint of prejudice against color, would have the most important practical influence upon the question of emancipation in this country, and of the consequent restoration of the colored race to the respect of the world. It is not surprising that a docile and amiable people enslaved by nearly half the States,—legally excluded from many of the rest, and everywhere contemned, should believe this, and turn their eyes elsewhere in the fond faith that any land but their own is friendly. The author of this book is of opinion that under the protection of the United States government a few intelligent and industrious colored families could colonize some spot within the Gulf of Mexico or upon its shores, and there live usefully and respected; while gradually an accurate knowledge of the advantages of such a settlement would be spread among their friends in the United States, and, as they developed their capacities for labor and society, not only attract their free brethren to follow, but enable the well-disposed slaveholders to see an easy and simple solution of the question which so deeply perplexes them, “What should we do with the emancipated slaves?” But neither Mr. Harris nor his friends, so far as I know, anticipate the final solution of the practical problem of slavery by emigration. They do not contemplate any vast exodus of their race; for they know how slowly even the small results they look for must be achieved, since the first condition is the protection of the American government. Mr. Harris thinks that the island of Hayti or San Domingo, in its eastern or Dominican portion, offers the most promising prospect for such an experiment; and this little book is the record of his own travel and observation upon that island and at other points of the Caribbean sea. It contains a brief and interesting sketch of the insurrection of Toussaint L’Ouverture, a story which incessantly reminds every thoughtful man that slavery everywhere, however seemingly secure, is only a suppressed, not an extinguished, volcano. I commend the book heartily as sincere and faithful, quite sure that it will command attention not only by its intrinsic interest and merit, but as another silent and eloquent protest against the system which, while it deprives men of human rights, also denies them intellectual capacity. I think we may pardon the author that he does not love the government of his native land. But surely he and all other colored men may congratulate themselves that the party whose principles will presently control that government repeats the words of the Declaration of Independence as its creed of political philosophy. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. New York, September 1st, 1860. A SUMMER ON THE BORDERS OF {7} {8} {11} {12} {13} THE CARIBBEAN SEA. LETTER I. Dominican Republic. FROM NEW YORK TO PUERTO DEL PLATA—SMOOTHNESS OF THE VOYAGE—HAYTI IN THE DISTANCE—DESCRIPTION OF THE STANDING ARMY—UNPARALLELED SCENIC BEAUTY. “Is John departed, and is Lilburn gone? Farewell to both, to Lilburn and to John.” Hudibras. T was a mild, showery morning on the 19th of May, 1860, that the brig John Butler, on board of which we were, left her dock at New York and anchored off the Jersey Flats. From this point we enjoyed the pleasantest and decidedly most satisfactory view of the great commercial city and its environs. The many white-sailed vessels and finely-painted steamers plying in and out the North and East rivers, and between the bright green undulating slopes of Staten and Long islands, presented a picturesque and animated scene, quite in contrast with the dark walls and stately steeples of the city which arose beyond. More delightfully refreshing nothing could have been. Altogether, the fine air and characteristic scenes of New York bay amply repaid the inconvenience of remaining all day in sight of the great metropolis, without being jostled in its streets or snuffing the peculiar atmosphere that pervades it. On the morning of the 20th we sailed out of the bay, passed Sandy Hook, and were at sea. The sky was clear, and the ocean calm. Betwixt the novelty of being at sea for the first time and the dread of that sickness which all landsmen fear, but know to be inevitable, I was kept in a state of moderate excitement which effectually annihilated those sentimental sorrows which one is expected at such times to entertain. The first vessel we met coming in was the Porto Plata, from this city, and owned by a German firm on the corner of Broadway and Wall street, New York. Her cargo, I have since learned, consisted principally of mahogany and hides. Our mornings were passed mostly in studying the Dominican language, which, as nearly as I can analyze it, is a compound of Spanish, French, English, Congo, and Caribbean—but, of course, principally Spanish. The afternoons were spent in fishing, and catching sea-weed, watching the flying-fish, or in looking simply and silently on the ever-bounding sea, which was in itself an infinite and unwearying source of irrepressible delight. A comparatively quiet sameness characterized the voyage. With bright clouds pencilling the sunset sky, a fresh breeze stiffening the sails, and the ship gliding smoothly over the buoyant waves, the sensations were at times exceedingly exhilarating, and even supremely delicious. But there were no dead calms, no terrific storms. To-day was the pale blue sky above, and the deep blue ocean rolling everywhere around; and to-morrow the sky was equally as fine, and the same dark heaving ocean as boundlessly sublime. Had there been a storm, if only for description’s sake! But the poetry ceased. We were now in the latitude of the regular trade-winds, with which every man is supposed to be as certainly familiar as he is with a school-book, or the way to church. Where were the winds? Wanting—from the south and east when they should have been from the west, and vice versa. As for their reputed regularity, they were no more regular than a sinner at prayers. Four successive days we averaged about one mile an hour, and this was in the trade-winds! For the honor of all concerned, however, I will say (on the point-blank oath of our captain) that such a thing never occurred before, and, as he expressed it, “mightn’t be again in a thousand years.” I thought of an old man who once went travelling, and when he returned he was asked what he had learned. He said, simply, “I was a fool before, but by travelling I found it out.” The astounding thunderstorms you hear about in the West Indies were all gone before we got here; so were the whirlwinds. After a sail of twelve days, a long, dim, bluish outline, as of a cloud four hundred miles in length, stood out above the waves. Soon, with a glass, could be distinguished the regularly rising tablelands and lovely green valleys, the dark mountains standing in the background. I was at once agitated with all the anxieties of hope and fear. We were approaching the eventful shores of San Domingo, embracing as it does the Dominican and Haytien republics. But however thrillingly interesting its past history may have been, the practical question was whether the present state of affairs here would not be found unsatisfactory, and the climate hotter and less healthy than was desirable, or whether the luxuriant indications of opulence and ease I now beheld might not prove to be more captivating than expected, and the climate even more delightfully salubrious than I had dared to anticipate. I watched the lingering sunlight, wrapping the clouds, the mountains, and the sky into one glowing and refulgent scene, with all the enthusiasm of which my soul was capable; but the sun went quietly down, and the supper-bell reminded me of a fresh-caught mackerel. The sun and the land will come again to-morrow, but the mackerel disappeared forever. Morning did come, and with it came the pilot (black). We entered the “port of silver” (Puerto del Plata). The harbor is a poor one; but if there be one thing on earth deserving the epithet “sublime,” it is the surrounding scenery. We anchored, and there awaited the coming of the custom-house officers. The officers came—some white, some colored—and with them Mr. Collins, an American gentleman to whom I was addressed. He received me liberally, invited me to stop with him, promising to show me around the country, introduce me to the General, (black,) and do a variety of other things decidedly un-American, but very gentlemanly indeed. It was Saturday afternoon when we went ashore, and it so happened there was to be a government proclamation. In due time the drum struck up, and down came the standing army, looking for all the world like a parcel of ragamuffin boys playing militia. I counted {14} {15} {16} {17} {18} them, and I think there were four drummers, two fifers, and two lines of soldiers—thirteen in a line. Some were barefooted, others wore shoes; some of their guns had bayonets, and others none. The manner in which they bore them compared with the foregoing suggestions, and so on to the end of this ridiculous scene. Dominicana has a government—so poets have empires. In passing through the streets one is compelled to observe the non-progressive appearance of everything around him. There lie the unturned stones, just as they were laid a century ago. The houses are generally built one story high, with conical-shaped roofs, for no other reason than that that is the way this generation found them. Mr. Collins, who is a bachelor, lives in an airy two-story house, with a charming verandah running its whole length, cool and delicious, and surrounded by the sweetest fruit-trees outside of Eden. I found myself perpetually exclaiming, “Oh! what beautiful, bright roses!” what this, and what that, until I felt shamefully convicted of my own enthusiastic ignorance. I need not repeat the traveller’s story, for the certainty of exposure is sure. Look at a wood-cut and say that you have seen Niagara, but don’t read Harper’s picture-books and suppose you have any idea of Haytien floral beauty.[B] Of course I have not been here long enough to know whether it is a fit place for a man to live in, or for a number to colonize, and I am well aware, when the question of politics comes up, it turns on a very different pivot; but by all that is magnificent, lovely, exquisite, and delicious in its vegetable productions, I do set it down a perfect paradise. LETTER II. Dominican Republic. WANT OF INFORMATION—ONE SIDE OF A QUESTION. HERE is no school-boy but remembers, when tracing the history of Columbus on his perilous voyage across the sea in search of a new world, how eagerly he watched each favorable indication of bird or sea-weed, and ultimately with what rapture he greeted the joyous cry of land; nor who, looking back through the vista of centuries past, but brings vividly to mind the landing of Columbus, the simplicity of the natives, the cupidity of the Spaniards, and their insatiable thirst for gold. But further than this—further than a knowledge of a few of the most striking outlines of the earlier history of Hayti, or Hispaniola—there is generally known little or nothing; little of the vicissitudes and sanguinary scenes through which the peoples of this island have passed; nothing of the “easily attainable wealth almost in sight of our great commercial cities;” nothing of its sanitary districts peculiarly conducive to longevity. On the contrary, erroneous and exaggerated notions prevail, that because it is not within a given circle of isothermal lines it must necessarily be fit for the habitation only of centipedes, bugbears, land-sharks and lizards. Indeed, it has been well said there is perhaps no portion of the civilized world of which the American people are so uninformed; and, in fact, so anomalous and apparently contradictory to the generally received impression does everything appear, that I almost despair of these papers being regarded as other than humorously paradoxical. I am standing now on the line of 19° 45´ of north latitude, or but 20° 15´ south of the city of New York, and but 3° of longitude east, a distance not greater, I think, than by river from St. Louis to New Orleans, a distance frequently made by steamers within four days, and a distance which may be travelled over on railroads in the States at the rate of three times a week! Yet there are many persons who, were you to speak to them concerning this portion of the American tropics, you would find, regard it as being somewhere away on the coast of Africa, and the voyage hither long and tediously disagreeable. It is in reality but a small pleasure trip. This is one side; but the great lesson of the world’s experience is that there are two sides to every question. THE OTHER SIDE. On the other hand, it may well be asked, if this be the Eden of the New World, why its flowers should be “born to blush unseen,” and its “gems of purest ray” remain hidden in its hills; or, to speak less classically, why the country should lie so long a comparative terra incognita, producing generations of indolent men and women, excelling only in superstition, idleness, and profound stupidity. In the “Silver Port,” the port in which we entered, vessels get within a quarter of a mile of land; then lighters take the cargo half the remaining distance, and from thence ox-carts convey it to the shore, when a comparatively small outlay of ingenuity, capital, and labor would make it a respectable harbor. The men generally dress—those that dress at all—in cool white linen, Panama hats, and light gaiter boots. They look nice; but the red-turbaned, often bare-stockinged, loosely-dressed women are shocking. “Know then this truth, (enough for man to know,) Virtue alone is happiness below.” Soon after we arrived, a dark, brown-skinned, and as handsome a looking man as I ever saw, came on board as watchman. For my particular benefit, I suppose, the captain inquired if he had a wife; to which he replied, in broken Spanish, “Two—one is not a plenty.” A large portion of the cargo of the vessel in which I came consisted of lumber for the erection of a storehouse. The same vessel will be freighted back with timber of a superior quality. Indeed, the shores are lined with yellow-wood and mahogany; but it is not sawed. A gentleman is reported to have built a house in one of the interior towns which would have cost in Northern Ohio about $800, at a cost of $25,000. Inquire why this is so—why this listless inactivity prevails—and you receive the answer, “Well, waat is the use?” or, as Tennyson has it, “Vot’s the hods, so long as you’re ’appy.” The “apathy of despair” has not reached here, but the apathy of stupidity is incurable. CAUSES OF THE DECLINE OF THE SPANISH COLONY. {19} {20} {21} {22} {23} I am aware that many persons, among them our finest writers on “Civilization—Its Dependence on Physical Circumstances,” attribute the cause of the island’s decline from its ancient splendor, and the consequent supine indifference of the natives, to the effeminating influences attending all tropical climates; and, without prejudice, I believe such would be very greatly the case in a very large portion of the tropical world; but it is a libel on Hayti and Dominicana. The country is as healthy as Virginia, and, except in its excessive beauty and fertility, resembles much the state of North Carolina. “Nobody dies in Port-au-Platte,” they say; but I should be sorry to find it true. I trace the cause in the country’s history, as I think the following brief glance will show, for much of which I am indebted to W. S. Courtney, Esq., and his essay on “The Gold Fields of St. Domingo.” We will say the civilized history of the country began with the Spaniards in 1492. The inhabitants, at the time of its discovery by Columbus, were a simple-minded, hospitable, and kind-hearted people, the fate (unparalleled suffering) of whom I have no disposition to record. The studious reader of American history will shudder at the bare recollection of the predatory scenes and excessively inhuman and bewildering iniquities of which they fell the victims, and which, if perpetrated now in any part of the world, “would send a thrill of horror to the heart of universal man.” Montgomery, I think it is, expresses their fate touchingly, and in a nut-shell, thus: “Down to the dust the Carib people passed, Like autumn foliage withering in the blast; A whole race sunk beneath the oppressor’s rod, And left a blank among the works of God!” The Spanish colonists brought with them, of course, the Spanish language, customs, laws, and religion, which language, customs, and religion prevail to this day. They were exceedingly prosperous through a long series of years. They built palatial residences, cultivated sugar and tobacco farms, erected prodigious warehouses, established assay offices, and worked the mines on a grand but unscientific scale. The mines are supposed to have yielded from twenty-five to thirty millions of dollars per annum, and the exports of sugar and other productions showed a corresponding degree of prosperity. In about 1630 the island began to decline. The natives had been driven and tortured to the last degree, and the heroic Spaniards began to look around for other countries to conquer, other people to enslave. They discovered Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. The most glowing and captivating accounts went forth of the incalculable wealth of those countries in silver and gold, and multitudes abandoned their homes and haciendas and flocked thitherwards, in the hope of realizing wealth untold. Plantations and mines that had been producing immense revenues were abandoned to waste and desolation, and the population of the island was reduced one half from this one cause alone. Meanwhile, the French had established themselves on the western part of the island, and the present Haytien territory was ceded to France in 1773. The remaining Spaniards introduced African slaves to supply the place of natives, and with this labor they were enabled to recover somewhat of their ancient thrift. Soon after this, the revolt in the French portion of the island occurred, and many of the Spanish slaves left the territory to join the standard of their revolutionary brethren. Besides this, whenever the French royalists drove the revolutionary forces back into the mountains, and cut off their supplies, the latter entered the Spanish territory, helped themselves to what they needed, destroyed the haciendas, carried off cattle and crops, and if they were resisted, as they sometimes were, they slaughtered the Spaniards as they do hogs in Cincinnati, Ohio, set the cities on fire, and left behind a grand but terribly universal ruin. The history of San Domingo was never completely written, and if it were, would never find a reader. But stand here on these shores, with a rising panorama of half the scenes enacted by these revolting and infuriated slaves, and there is not a planter in the Southern United States, who, for all the wealth Peru, Mexico, and St. Domingo could produce, would be willing to return home and remain there over night. Finally, Dessalines, that extraordinary prince of cut-throats, entered the Spanish territory, slaughtered the French, laid waste the country for leagues, carried off the remaining slaves, and so bewildered and astounded the Spanish residents that they gathered up what movable wealth they could and left the country, “some for Mexico, some for Peru, while many returned to Spain.” Such are the principal and to me satisfactory causes which history assigns for the decline of the island’s thrift, which had reached an unparalleled degree of prosperity and an unsurpassed grandeur and magnificence, with a rapidity unrivalled in the annals of the world. SUBSEQUENT HISTORY. For the gratification of your many readers, I will continue this homœopathic sketch of the island’s history up to the present time. In 1821 the Dominican portion (which embraces about three-fifths of the island, but having, I think, not more than one-fourth of its population) declared itself independent of the Spanish crown, but was shortly after subjugated by Boyer, the President of the Haytien Republic. In 1842 a revolution in Hayti caused Boyer to flee, and Riviere assumed the presidency. Two years after, the Dominicans overpowered Riviere, and on the 27th of February, 1844, reëstablished their government, or rather the present government of Dominicana. The main features of their constitution are, that each district or canton choose electors, who meet in preliminary electoral convention, and elect for four years the President and other administrative officers, and a certain number of counsellors, who constitute a congress. The President, Pedro Santana, is a mixed blood of Spanish and Indian descent, and is emphatically regarded as a most estimable personage. Baez, the former President, is said to be of mixed French and African lineage; in short, there is no difference on account of color. In 1849, Solouque, the President of Hayti, contrary to the wish of many Haytiens, undertook to conquer the Dominicans, and bring them unwillingly under his despotic sway. He entered the territory with five thousand men, but was met at Las Carreas, and disastrously defeated by General Santana, “with an army of but four hundred men under his command.” This is the truth, or history is a lie. {24} {25} {26} {27} {28} {29} For this brilliant achievement Santana received the title of “Libertador de la Patria,” and seems to be admired, comparatively speaking, after the manner of our “liberator” and Father of his country. (Bah!) But a small portion of the Haytiens, as I have before observed, sympathized with President Solouque in his abortive attempt to carry out the “Democratic” policy of territorial expansion. And when General Geffrard was proclaimed President, it is said the populace demanded pledges that he would not pursue the policy of his predecessor in this regard. “It is not at all probable that any organized attempts of the Haytiens to recover possession of the Dominican territory will ever again be made; so that henceforth there will be no more annoyances of this sort.” Such are the views and opinions of eminent men, who have given this subject some attention;[C] but in the opinion of the writer, as is generally known, the destiny of the island is union; —one in government, wants, and interest, brought about by the introduction of the English language, and by other peaceful and benignant means; such language, wants, and interests to be introduced by the emigration hither of North Americans,—some white, but principally colored. England, France, and many other independent nations of the world, have acknowledged and formed liberal treaties with the weak little Republic, but I hope you do not suppose the government of the United States could be guilty of anything that looks like generosity. God grant that I may never die in the United States of America! LETTER III. Dominican Republic. CORPUS CHRISTI. ETWIXT midnight and daylight this morning I was lying sleeping and dreaming under the halcyon influences of the lingering land breezes, when suddenly a harmonious sound of partly brass and partly string instrumental music rang upon the air. It appeared just as music always does to any one in a semi-transparent slumber—not quite awake nor yet asleep—when, as everybody knows, it is sweet as love. One boom from the cannon, and I stood square on my feet; and, as it is not very remarkable here to see persons dressed in white, the next moment I was out on the verandah. There went a jolly crowd, promiscuous enough, but apparently as light-hearted and happy as mortals get to be, and which to a slant-browed contriving Yankee is a poser. They had thus early begun to celebrate what is called Corpus Christi, which, according to all fair translation, I should think means Christ’s body. But any thing about it after that I am entirely unable to say. It would seem to require a good deal to understand all the Catholic ceremonies. Talk about their being ignorant! I never expect to learn so much while I live. All business houses were closed for the day, and Dominican, French, American, and other colors were flying from their respective staffs. Altars were erected in various streets, with numerous candles burning within, and bedecked with parti-colored flags and flowers. They were really prettily and tastefully arranged. In short, it was an American 4th of July, except this: to each of these altars marched the throng of people headed by the priest. The priest said prayers in “Greek.” The people understood, and all knelt down in the street, men, women, and children, but of course principally women. THE FARM OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE. A party of us went out to see Mr. Smith, a fugitive slave, whose energy and well-directed enterprise had attracted some attention heretofore. He is not so fine looking a man as I expected to see. He is under five and a half feet in height, limps a little, and is altogether but little in advance, to use a most contemptible Americanism, of his “kind of people” in the States. He speaks no Spanish, and for that matter very little English; but he has a will of his own, and a determination to do something, which gives him an advantage over half a dozen persons who go to school to lose their common sense. Mr. Smith was a slave in South Carolina; was brought by sea to Key West, and there hired out to work for a Republican government. He and some other of his fellow-slaves, including his wife, took sail-boat, set sail, and after suffering almost incredibly from sea-sickness and want of food, finally reached New Providence, which he had previously learned to be an English colony. He proceeded to declare his intention to become a British subject, and went to work; but wages being low, he concluded to remove to Dominicana and go to farming. He purchased a piece of land near the town of Porto Plata, and with the assistance of his “help-mate,” (which in this country means a wife,) soon cleared the land of its tropical undergrowth, and planted it in corn and potatoes. In breaking up the ground he used a plow, a startling innovation here, but which produced most salutary results. A neighbor of his has since bought one. So great was the yield of Mr. Smith and his wife’s crop that in little more than a year’s time they have a house and forty acres of land all paid for, and a new crop worth over five hundred dollars, which will soon be ready for market. This may not seem very remarkable to any one who has never seen a sand-hill, nor yet been to Canada; but to me it is a miracle. My object in mentioning this fact, however, is, to state that Mr. Smith also planted a few seeds of Sea-Island cotton, the product of which has been sent to New York and pronounced worth 14c. per pound. Now, there are numbers of colored men recently from the Southern States skilled in, and some who have made small fortunes by, the cultivation of cotton, at perhaps not more than eight or nine cents per pound, when, too, it had to be replanted every year. It produces here without replanting almost indefinitely, but it is safe to say seven years. The query is this: give half a dozen such men as Smith a cotton-gin ($350), send them out here, and would they not accomplish more for the elevation of the colored race by the successful cultivation of cotton, in eighteen months, than all the mere talkers in as many years? The meanest thing I have been obliged to do, and the greatest sin I have committed, has been the registering my name as an {30} {31} {32} {33} {34} {35} American citizen. I presented myself to the United States consul (whose son and clerk, by the way, is a mulatto). The nice correspondence of Mr. Marcy was produced, not with any evil intent at all, but just to show what indefinable definitions there are between colored and black and white and negroes as American citizens. I should like to find out how a man knows he is an American citizen! There are members of Congress who can no more tell this than they can tell who are their fathers. As for Mr. Corwin’s talk about enforcing the laws, he may thank Heaven if he is not yet arrested as a fugitive slave. Since the above was written, I understand the courts of Virginia have decided that an Octoroon is not a negro. Now, then, if an octoroon is not a negro, is an octoroon a citizen? And if an octoroon is not a negro, is a quadroon a negro? LETTER IV. Dominican Republic. FIRST RIDE IN THE COUNTRY—PASTORISA PLACE. YANKEE is known by the shortness of his stirrups;” so they say here, and I do not know that the criticism is at all too severe. Except Willis and one or two others, who of the Americans know any thing about riding? The Dominicans are good on horseback. In fact, it is their boast that they can ride or march further in two days than Americans want to go in a week. On the other hand, if “Los Yankees” had this country they would soon fix it so that a man could go over it all before the Dominicans got breakfast. Señor Pastorisa, (of the firm of Pastorisa, Collins & Co., formerly of St. Thomas,) who married a native, is mounted on a cream-colored horse, (cost $300,) and wears behind him a sword in a silver-gilt case. Every male person wears a sword of some kind, even though it prove to be as useless as an old case-knife. It is an old, superannuated, hundred-years-behind-the-age custom; yet in some instances serves as their Court of Appeals. No one disturbs you, and you are expected to be as well behaved; but if not, the difficulty is generally settled at the sword’s point, and there it ends. How magnanimous even is this rude mode of settling disputes when compared to that of the one-sided, blaspheming, defrauding den of thieves called a court of justice in the States! Coming from a land where men kill each other without warning, instead of a sword which I would not know how to use, I buy a pair of holsters for horseman’s pistols, throw them across the saddle, and am ready. Now there may be no pistols in these holsters, of course, but what is the difference so long as they are supposed to be there? I take it as one of the grand lessons which the world’s history teaches, that men are far more afraid of supposed and imaginary dangers than of those they know to be real. The number of backsliding sinners and snake-story witnesses are innumerable. We were now at the base of the St. Mark’s mountain, which rises just back of the town of Porto Plata. The so-called road was no road at all. There were little narrow trenches running between the rocks, fit for pack-mules, but scarcely wide enough to allow one’s feet to pass. Up the mountain we came poco á poco. While passing these rocks the sun poured down with an intensity not previously experienced. But I had never been an alderman, and was not fat enough to melt; indeed, it might as well have shone on a pine knot. Ere long the sun hid behind a cloud, the thunder muttered a little, but pretty soon, as if by way of repentance, there came a restorative shower of tears. (Thank Heaven! the nigger question vanquished the sun.) Nothing is so calculated to make a man vain as a mountain shower. You enjoy its ineffable sensations yourself, while below you behold the poor valley fellows sweating in the sun. Or it may be they are drowning wet below, and you basking in the clear sunshine above. Either way, you are bound to rejoice and to look with contempt on the silly ones who make themselves miserable by regretting and whining over things that are in themselves unalterable, and need no change. The wise repine not. Over the mountain and beside a stream, with limes scattered plentifully around, we stop a moment for refreshment. Lemonade is cheap, one would think; the limes are as free as the water. Had nature furnished the sweetening as well, we should have had a river of lemonade. Here country settlements begin again, called estancias, which, if you will get a blackboard and a piece of chalk, I will explain. Mark off, say four acres of land, clear it up—let the fruit-trees stand, of course—enclose it, but plant nothing therein. In the centre of this piece erect a shanty. This much is called a conuco. Now go through the woods, say a mile and a half, clear up four acres more and plant tobacco. The next year or two this will be gone to weeds; you then (not knowing the use of a plow) go another half mile, clear up another piece and plant a new crop. The old place has gone to wreck, the new place is in its vigor; but neither is in sight of the house. This together is called an estancia, and I should have said before meant a farm, but it does not mean a farm in English by a good deal. At this point we leave the “road,” and, under full gallop half the while, take through the wood, guided by a dim path which winds over the hills and down the dales with as careless an indiscrimination as ever road was trodden by a prairie herd. L’Ouverture’s feats or Putnam’s celebrated escape would do to read about, but this was reducing the thing to practice. Five miles’ gallop over a level plain—thirty miles in all—and we have reached Pastorisa Place: it is a perfect Arcadia. During leisure moments I shall probably look back to this day’s ride and to these enchanting scenes as one of the “gilt letter” chapters of my life; but at present, after a bath, the rapidity with which fried plantains, pine-apple syrup, and scorched sweet milk will disappear, would do a dyspeptic Northerner good to see! The property comes by Señora Pastorisa. She is, perhaps, five-and-twenty. Her eyes are as bright and dark as even Lord Byron could have wished them to be. Her complexion is that of a clear ripe orange. The place is extensive, containing say nineteen thousand acres, in a valley five miles wide, fenced in on either side by a spear of mountains, with a limpid stream running through the centre. Mocking-birds enliven every thing; parrots and paroquettes go around in droves, screaming and squawking like a very nuisance. Back of the house is a grove appropriated to honey-bees. They swarm on every log. (There were certainly over one hundred swarms.) Honey is considered of but little value anywhere in the mountains, and is often wasted in the streams, the wax only being preserved. {36} {37} {38} {39} {40} {41} This comes of having pack-mules and goat-paths instead of wagons and wagon-roads. Señor Pastorisa had informed me before of his desire to quit the town and improve his farm. All he needed was men who understood farming on the American plan. He has a plow, and intends harnessing an ox to-morrow to try the experiment of plowing. Now, it is clear that to plow the ground very successfully he will need at least a yoke of oxen—which he has, all but the yoke. This I would undertake to make, though I never did such a thing in my life, and always had a horror of an ox-yoke, anyway; but lo! there are no tools. So Señor Pastorisa needs hands, but with a very little a priori reasoning it will be seen there are other things needed quite as much. One is a road. There is a natural outlet to the valley—there must be. The stream before the door makes towards the Isabella river. The Isabella empties into the sea, of course. I forgot to say Señora Pastorisa is “a little tinged”—the handsomest woman in the world. LETTER V. Dominican Republic. VALLEY OF THE ISABELLA—CUSTOMS OF THE NATIVES—CHAPTER ON SNAKES—A CALL FOR DINNER. “Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime; Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime; Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine, And all save the spirit of man is divine?”—Byron. HERE had been one or two invigorating showers previous to our ride down the valley of the Isabella, and so there remained a great deal of slippery clay along the narrow pathways, which paths lay usually on the very verge of some mountain slope, embankment, or more exciting precipice. To have come off with only one or two bones broken, I should have been perfectly satisfied. We forded the river with impunity, crossed and recrossed it again, and finally came to as level a bottom plain as wheel ever rolled on. The valley of the Isabella is as handsome as a park. The river itself is not so large as Longfellow’s “Beautiful River,” but it is much more deserving the name. Apropos, every old homestead has its particular title, such as the “Mocking-Bird,” “Humming-Bird,” “Crebahunda,” and a variety of others for which there is no adequate translation. The legends attending them are frequently the most exquisite. Considering, therefore, the remarkable history, exquisite legends, and extraordinary traditions of the country, I am bound to say, should there be sufficient emigration in this direction to produce a poet of the Hiawatha school, I should be sorry for the laurels of Mr. Longfellow. There are one or two parts of “Hiawatha,” however, for which I hope to retain a relish. The houses and cultivation along our way are in keeping with the estancias before described. The men are comparatively neat in appearance, find them where you will. The women are frequently good-looking, but seldom spirited. The prevailing question seems to be, How low in the neck can their dresses be worn? and the answer is, Very low indeed! White Swiss is worn as dress, and when seen on a handsome woman is like Balm of Gilead to the wounded eye. The wife does not usually eat at the table with her husband. She sees that his baths are ready, and at times even that his horse is fed, and at meal-times either takes her plate on her lap or awaits the second table. This is not from want of respect on the part of either; it is their stupid custom. Should “los Americanos” ever run a stage-coach up this valley, and two or three of these fellows have to climb on top for the sake of giving one lady an inside seat, they will comprehend somewhat better for whose convenience the world was made. June 14th.—Señor Pastorisa fell ill to-day, and is now lying in a hammock. This gives me an opportunity to extol the hammock, which is too excellent a thing to pass unnoticed. It consists mainly of a net-work of grass, netted something like a seine, twice the length of a person or more, and fastened at the ends with cords sufficiently strong to hold the weight of any one. These cords are tied to the limb of a tree or the rafters of a house, and there you swing as happy as any baby ever rocked in a tree-top. It is sufficiently light to be carried in saddle-bag, and is altogether indispensable. The señor’s fever is also my excuse for pencilling down notes more minutely than I otherwise should. I can, of course, give you a description of but few things singly. The palm-tree ought to be one. This remarkable tree grows without a limb, smooth and regular as a barber-pole, from forty to sixty feet high. At this point it turns suddenly green, and puts out two or three shoots. Around these grow its berries, which are used for fattening pork. Each of these shoots furnishes monthly a rare peel or skin, which is used for covering houses, for packing tobacco, and for making bath-tubs, trays, and other articles of household furniture. The body of the tree is used for weather-boarding. It rives like a lath, the inside being pithy, somewhat like an elder. Its leaves are twelve feet long, and bend over as gracefully as an arch. In the centre of the top springs out a single blade, like the staff of a parasol. This was made (one would think) for mocking-birds to dance on. The most useful tree in the world, its usefulness is excelled by its own beauty. The valley of the Isabella is a grove of palms. One cannot but remark how preposterous are the snake stories which the vulgar relate respecting the West Indies and tropics generally. The world does not contain another thing so brazenly destitute of the least common sense. In all this rambling through the woods, over the hills, and along the streams, the most harmful thing I have seen is a honey-bee—not even a dead garter-snake! While on board a vessel off the coast one day, a sailor threw overboard a hook and line, and in the course of time caught a young shark. It was as wicked a little thing as I ever saw, and strong as a new-born giant. The sailor struck it over the head with a stick, {42} {43} {44} {45} {46} when it snapped the hook and flounced around the vessel. In short, he killed it, and proceeded to dress it for breakfast. “Going to eat a shark?” I inquired. “Why not?” “Good heavens! I thought they were the worst things in the world.” “You eat duck,” said he; “what’s nastier than a duck? Shark’s clean—swims in a clean sea.” I afterwards tasted a piece: it was coarse, and the idea that its mother might some day eat me, made the thing disgusting; but it learned me a lesson I shall not very soon forget. An Irishman is afraid to go to America on account of its frogs; a Frenchman makes a dish of them. One man eats rats, and another cats. Now, to suppose there were no reptiles whatever in the country, or none peculiar to its bays and inlets, would be simply absurd; and when we get to the coast, I should be sorry to miss seeing some lazy old crocodile sunning in the sand. Should it have seven heads, however, I shall very likely catch it, and send it straight to Barnum; but if not, why, as Banks would the Union, let the snaky thing slide. Your “Allergater in de brake” song may do for the Southern States, with their rhythmetical-and-stolen-from-the-African-coast slaves; but to apply it to this country would disgrace the most idiotic “What-is-it” ever imported. Of naturally wild quadruped animals there is not so much as a squirrel. Birds are without number. Stanley is himself again! One and a half hours’ ride, two fords of the river, (rising,) and we are at the mouth of the f...