Kitabı oku: «Equatorial America», sayfa 4
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 manœuvres. 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 nearly impenetrable region. The pampas lie between the Andes and the Atlantic Ocean, stretching southward from northern Brazil to southern Patagonia, affording grass sufficient to feed innumerable herds of wild cattle, but at the extreme south the country sinks into half overflowed marshes and lagoons, resembling the glades and savannahs of Florida.
The largest river in the world, namely, the Amazon, rises in the Peruvian Andes, within sixty miles of the Pacific Ocean, and flows thousands of miles in a general east-northeast direction, finally emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. This unequaled river course is navigable for over two thousand miles from its mouth, which is situated on the equatorial line, where its outflow is partially impeded by the island of Marajo, a nearly round formation, one hundred and fifty miles or thereabouts in diameter. This remarkable island divides the river's outlet into two passages, the largest of which is a hundred and fifty miles in width, forming an estuary of extraordinary dimensions. The Amazon has twelve tributaries, each one of which is a thousand miles in length, not to count its hundreds of smaller ones, while the main stream affords water communication from the Atlantic Ocean to near the foothills of the Andes.
We are simply stating a series of condensed geographical facts, from which the intelligent reader can form his own deductions as regards the undeveloped possibilities of this great southland.
Our own mammoth river, the Mississippi, is a comparatively shallow stream, with a shifting channel and dangerous sandbanks, which impede navigation throughout the most of its course; while the Amazon shows an average depth of over one hundred feet for the first thousand miles of its flow from the Atlantic, forming inland seas in many places, so spacious that the opposite banks are not within sight of each other. It is computed by good authority that this river, with its numerous affluents, forms a system of navigable water twenty-four thousand miles in length! There are comparatively few towns or settlements of any importance on the banks of the Amazon, which flows mostly through a dense, unpeopled evergreen forest, not absolutely without human beings, but for very long distances nearly so. Wild animals, anacondas and other reptiles, together with many varieties of birds and numerous tribes of monkeys, make up the animal life. Now and again a settlement of European colonists is found, or a rude Indian village is seen near the banks, but they are few and far between. There are occasional regions of low, marshy ground, which are malarious at certain seasons, but the average country is salubrious, and capable of supporting a population of millions.
