LIBRARY OF CONGRESS DDDD14m7ST '^'^^^ias^^'v.v^;, :J;--- ■ V^,* ,s^<^^ "^^ •^,-. ^6 '" o-^ s^""',. :*i s^'V .^v . s-^ A '^_ **.^: I ^ ' ^^'^ ■^o M P ^M " xO .-»» ^. ^^v -0 ^-.#' •^^v ^ % -^> .>^^'%, '■^^ J O V ^<- v-'^ ^: ■:.^ :^.K'%,.^ '€ %,# xO-r. -^^ ;J Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/cruiseofmontaul. :•~^ TROWS PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, NEW YORK. MR. JOHN R. PLATT THE GENIAL '-UNCLE JOHN," WHOSE JOYOUS PRESENCE ENLIVENS THESE PAGES, AS HIS UNFLAGGING CHEERFULNESS ENHANCED THE PLEASURES OF A HAPPY VOYAGE, I DEDICATE THIS COLLECTION OF LETTERS, DESCRIBING THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. PREFACE. This book grew out of a postage-stamp. Possibly the reader may think it might better have remained in embryo, but the mischief is done, and I have written the opportunity for mine enemy — if I have one. A few of these letters were published, at the time of their receipt, in the Utica Observer and Utica Herald. The suggestion that they ought to be collected in a book so tickled my self-esteem that I yielded to the implied flattery ; but not until I had consulted my friends, Mr. E. Prentiss Bailey and Mr. S. N. D. North, editors, respectively, of the journals named, whose favorable opinion reinforced the ap- peal to my vanity. Even then I had such misgiving that personal partiality biased their judgment, that I did not decide until the matter was submitted to Mr. Richard H. Stoddard, the poet and accomplished man of letters ; but when his authority confirmed the commendation of the other competent judges I ventured to exhibit my smaU wares, shifting a portion of the responsibihty of presentation from my own, to abler, shoulders. These screeds have no literary pretension. They are vi PREFACE. simply light, gossipy, and perhaps trifling, narrations of what I saw, enveloped in desultory commentaries, without much orderly arrangement and, therefore, inartistic in the book- making view. But I have no pride of authorship, and shall be grateful if they find even a moderate share of accept- ance. It is proper to say that I alone am accountable for the somewhat peculiar views advanced in discussing various topics (which, I know, run counter to the generally-accepted opinions), and that my voyage-companions are not respon- sible for them ; neither are my sponsors, whose encourage- ment presents me at the font of literature. In the advocacy of my opinions, I am prone to manifest a certain, degree of boldness, which may not always be politic, but I invite for them the same degree of criticism I apply to differing views. I act on the principle that everything should be weighed in an unprejudiced scale ; that facts, and not mere assertions, ought to form the basis of intelligent opinion ; that clamor should not be accepted as argument ; and that it is well to heed the counsel of St. Peter: "Be always ready to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason for the hope that is in you." I have taken the liberty of using names with great free- dom, in order to give interest to the dry details of a voyage. I trust I have mentioned no name (whether of those we met, or of others, introduced by way of illustration) the owner of which will find cause for offense in its employment. I PREFACE. Vii may have written at times with a sharp-pointed pen, but it was dipped in no rankhng ink. I am afraid to acknowledge with how much diffidence I launch my first book venture ; I shall not be surprised if it goes down, yet I hope for some propitious breeze of kindly consideration. If I am pardoned for this transgression, I will promise not to offend again — at least until I shall have secured an indulgence from the reading world. J. McQ. New York, November 4, 1884. CRUISE OF THE SCHOONER YACHT MONTAUK, N. Y. Y. C. Rear-Commodore S. R. Platt, Owner. Sailed from Pier 3 N. R., February 21, 1884, at 8.45 a.m. Returned (anchored off Stapleton) May 3, 1884, at 1 1. 40 P.M. SALOON. Rear-Commodore S. R. Platt, N. Y. Y. C. {Land a?id Water Cluh"). Mr. John R. Platt, N. Y. Y. C. {Olympic Club). Mr. Thomas B. Asten, N. Y. Y. C. {Olympic Club). General James McQuade, N. Y. Y. C. {Carlton Island Club). OFFICERS AND CREW. Captain Peter N. Breitfeld Sailing- Master. M. L. BuTTKE Mate. Richard Zauk Boatswain. Charles Goldon Quartermaster , Paul Weirauch " Olaf Paulson Able Seaman. John Peterson " Albert Hoch , " DiEDRICH BoRNEMAN " August Frata " Louis Krouser Steward. Albert Derr Messroom Steward. William Mayo ,' Cook. Wilhelm Becker Bov. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. Outward Bound, . . . i Prefatory Apology — Postage-stamps — Renowned Travelers : Sind- bad, Gulliver, Munchausen, Marco Polo, the Jesuits — Prester John — The Fog — Fortune in Misfortune — The Compass — Pro- longed Send-off^Departure — The Direct Course — A Smiling Sea, J-13 CHAPTER n. Washington's Birthday, .14 The Banquet — Toasts — The Day we Celebrate — The City of New York — The Army and Navy — Woman — The Growl of the Hur- ricane, .... 14-26 CHAPTER in. The Storm, . . .27 No Poppy-juice — Meteorology — Laying to — A Disturbance — Queer Fancies — Optical Delusion — Life Insurance — My Own Funeral — The Flute— Mont Cenis — Old Theatres — The Banshee — A Daughter's Devotion — Corked-up — Seasickness — Depression — The Convent Bell, 27-41 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. PAGE A Harbor Reached, 42 Still Below— A Dilemma— Short Commons— Under Bare Poles- Monsieur Tonson come again— 29.50— The Barometer Watch— A let up— Gulf-weed — Flying- fish — Ash Wednesday — Ber- muda Light — Hamilton Harbor, 4^-5° CHAPTER V. Bermuda, . .• • • ■ 5^ Bermuda — Settlement — Government — Departed Glories — Reh- gion — Revenues — Exports and Imports — Climate — Vegetables — Flowers — Water — Fruits — Dock-yard, .... 51-64 CHAPTER VI. Hospitable Bermuda, 65 Letter-writing — Laziness — In re Darrelli — Festivities — Prospero's Grot — The Mess Dinner — Benny Havens, Oh! — Uncle John — The Happy Valley — Lily Bower — At Home — The Hand- Clasp, .......... 65-83 CHAPTER VII. At Sea, 84 A Frustrated Conspiracy — Getting Away — A Tortuous Channel — Description of Yacht — A Lazy Life — Lounging Occupation — Cloud Scenery — Amusements — Sartorial — Pills — Detergent, 84-97 CHAPTER VIII. Basse Terre, 98 An Abortive Sunrise — Washing Decks — Sea-ditties — A Shanty Song — Sombrero — Saba — The Rock-sail — St. Eustatius — St. Chris- topher — Basse Terre — The Yankee Jack-knife — Hurricanes, Floods, and Pestilence — Dulce-dommn, .... 98-112 CONTENTS. Xi CHAPTER IX. PAGE St. Kitt's, 113 Iced-water — Teeth — Tonsorial — Sharks — Roses — Pelicans — A Drive — Religions — St. Patrick's Day— Wonderful Adventures with Monkeys, ......... 1 13-125 CHAPTER . X. Among the Islands, . . ... . . . . . 126 Lunacy — The Old Fire-Laddie — St. Patrick's Day Orations : Ire- land : A Brave Girl : Michael Ouigley : A Heroic Woman — Montserrat — Ethiopian Celts — Guadaloupe — The Caribs — Wind-Rainbow — Dominica — St. Pierre — A Great Loss, . 126-146 CHAPTER XI. The Lone Bird, 147 CHAPTER XII. St. Pierre, . . . .■ 157 The Flag of Our Union — The Alliance — St. Pierre — Negroes — Re- ligion — Fish — Blanchisseuses — A Dazzling Costume — A State Dinner — Symposium — A Soldier No More — Fireworks, . 157-168 CHAPTER XIII. Martinique, 169 The Empress Josephine — Morne Rouge — Holy Ground — Jardin des Plantes — The Fer-de-lance — Sunday Inspection — Dejeiliier-din- atoire — The Loyal Legionier, ...... 1 69-1 81 xii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIV. PAGE Sunday in Martinique, 182 Tropical Fruits— A Full Day's Work Sunday— Vespers— The Club — The Opera — II Trovatore — A Midnight Visit — Reminis- cence — Lily-Pansy — The Heart's Rain-drop, . . , 182-190 CHAPTER XV. Musical Musings, 191 ' Our Chum — Thoughts on Music — Ballads — Plagiarism — " Wearing of the Green" — "Sweet By and By" — " Aileen Aroon " vs. " Robin Adair "—" Nearer, My God, to Thee"—" Groves of Blarney" — " Home, Sweet Home" — -The Spanish Main^ — Gulf ofParia — Sunset, 191-209 CHAPTER XVL Port of Spain, 210 Discovery of Trinidad — Busy Port of Spain — Race Types — Coolies — Political Ignorance — Vulgarisms in Language — Botanical Gardens — An Impertinent Bird, ..... 210-219 CHAPTER XVn. Trinidad, 220 Singing-birds — Taxidermy — Metempsychosis — " Keb, Sir ! " — Pi- ratical Attack — Button-hole Oratory — French Courtesy — Pitch Lake — Asphalt — Flying Oysters — Future of Trinidad, 220-228 CHAPTER XVHI. Through the Caribbean Sea, . . . : . . . 229 Salutamus — A Corkonian Gaul — The Dragon's Mouth — Columbus — An Apology — The Trade-winds — Navigation — Dead-reckon- ing — A Timely Warning— Old Fogies — A Tender Hour — The Same Old Moon — Serenade — Uncle John Romantic — Gam- mon, ........... 229-243 CONTENTS. XUl CHAPTER XIX. PAGE CURAgOA, • • ^^'^ The Pilot— Fortifications— The Dock— Peddlers— Custom House— The Church— Geneva — Roman Organ — Jewish Synagogue- Commerce— Pirates — Smugglers —Vegetation— Water— Goats —Municipal Division — Fw Jneriics — Streets — Romeo and Juhet —Vessels— Venezuela — Slavery— Negroes— Dialect— So- 1 ... 244-261 long, "^ CHAPTER XX. CURAgOA, Continued, ^ ^ Peter Stuyvesant— Government— Orthoepy— Mr. Gaertse— Wages —Straw-plaiting — Grosira — Venomous Reptiles — Cactus— Zuikertiuntze-A Frugal Repast— Fireworks— The Governor —A Glass of Wine — Religion — Sunday Observance — Light Clothing— A Tableau— Historical Sketch— Arcadia, . . 262-281 CHAPTER XXI. Religious Services, 282 Bird and Beast— Pretty Pets— Misty Fancies— A Cruel Wrong- Palm Sunday— The Thrilling Sea— Church Service— Ave Sanc- tissima— Prayer— The Sailor's Yarn— Resurgam, . . 282-297 CHAPTER XXII. Port Royal— Kingston, 298 A Carib Canoe— Port Royal— The Boatswain's Dulcet Cry— Fish- serenade— Kingston — Streets— Rodney : Nelson — Market — Shadowy Horse — Soldiers — Drive into Country — Virgil— Sugar-making— Rum— The Passover— Good Friday— The Jews — Nasus Hebraicas, -9^-3 ^ 3 xiv CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXIIL PAGE Jamaica, 3^4 Historical — Buccaneers — Representative Government — Emancipa- tion — Native Americans — The Suffrage — Educational and Prop- erty Qualifications — Humbug — Population — Productions — Coolies — Cemeterial — Religious Divisions — Imports and Ex- ports — Luxurious Bosh, • 3i4-3'3i CHAPTER XXIV. Into the Gulf of Mexico, 332 A Short Sail — Filibusters — Sirens — Sailor's Hornpipe — The Lone Fisherman — New Line to Havana — Easter Sunday — A Miracle — Gulf of Mexico — Gallic Downfall — Chin-music — Havana, 332-340 CHAPTER XXV. Sunday vs. Sabbath, . . . ■ 341 Exordium — The Decalogue — The Sabbath — Douay vs. King James — The Gospels — Sunday — Constantine — The Reformation — Luther, Calvin, Melancthon — Augsburg Confession — Queen Elizabeth — Old Puritans — New England — Modern Puritans — The Legal Sabbath — Rest and Recreation — Faith — Perora- tion, 341-358 CHAPTER XXVI. Havana, . 359 The Streets — Soldiers — Pohcemen — Yellow Fever — The Foul Har- bor — Vglunteers — A Minder — Aguero — Political — Morro Castle — ^Jelly-fish — A Night Scene — Domestic Cigars — Whistling- Milk — Oxen — The Spanish Yoke, ..... 359-372 CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER XXVII. PAGE Cuban Customs, 373 Slavery — Shopkeepers — Convicts — Cigars — Lotteries — Sunday — The Cathedral— A Full Day's Work— Bull-fights— The Pilgrim- age — Succotash — Echoes of Travel — Beautiful Faith — The Ger- mans — Emblems — Catalans — Exit Romeria, . . . 373-391 CHAPTER XXVIII. Mr. Poynings Roggster, . . . ' . . . . .'392 CHAPTER XXIX. Florida, 406 Departure from Havana — Cuba Pobre — Rotten Currency — Fish- ing — Mourning Pharos — St. Augustine — Jacksonville — Palatka — A Gentle Swear — A Cow Railroad — Minorcans — Fruitful Florida, .......... 406-419 CHAPTER XXX. Home Again, 420 A Red-letter Day — Song of the Legion — Homeward Bound— The Maypole — Drunkenness — Temperance vs. Teetotalism — The Bible — False Prophets — Mohammedanism — The Bishop's Tem- perance Sermon — Puns — Erasmus in Praise of Folly — The Montauk Song — Finis, ....... 420-441 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. Lord Bateman was a noble lord, A noble lord of high degree ; He shipped himself on board a ship, Some foreign country he would see. CHAPTER I. OUTWARD BOUND. Prefatory Apology — Postage-stamps — Renowned Travelers : Sindbad, Gulliver, Munchausen, Marco Polo, the Jesuits— Prester John— The Fog— Fortune in Misfortune— The Compass— Prolonged Send- off— Departure— The Direct Course — A Smiling Sea. Hamilton, Bermuda, February 28, 1884. When I accepted the invitation of my kind friend, Commo- dore Piatt, to accompany him in his yacht on a winter's cruise to the West Indies, you asked me to write you from beyond the seas, so that you might receive letters embellished with foreign postage-stamps. I was somewhat nettled at this request to drop a line merely to hook up varied postal de- signs from abroad, for it implied incapacity to make my cor- respondence interesting, assuming that all the value would be on the outside, like a new hat on the head of a dude ; so I resolved, in a spirit of pique, to essay the writing of letters that would have intrinsic value as well as outside stamp at- tractions. 2 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. Whether I shall succeed is problematical. My literary- ability is of doubtful merit, and if I have any skill at all it is not in the line of description ; at least I have never made an attempt in that direction, and have grave distrust of powers which have not been exercised by, nor subjected to the test of, experience. I have traveled in many lands, but never wrote anything from them save infrequent laconic epistles to the family, containing nothing important except requests for further remittances. But I shall make an effort on this cruise (the greatest effort of my life) under an extraordinary stimu- lus. I shall dip my pen in the fountain of deep affection, and bring loving inspiration to the surface of these letters. If I fail to make them entertaining, you will at least receive the objects of your desire — the postage-stamps. If you should happen to find anything attractive, I shall be fully recom- pensed, in whatever pleasure you may derive from their peru- sal, for the pains I shall take to render them worthy your acceptance. It is possible that I may be able to present some jottings of personal observation not absolutely devoid of novelty, as few, except those who have visited them, are familiar with the West Indies. Europe is so well known, through the multi- tude of descriptions by tourists, that it is difficult to pick up anything noteworthy in its well-gleaned fields ; but we are comparatively so uninformed regarding the islands I am about to visit, that something may be found to communicate not altogether trite and common-place. I have had a thrilling ex- perience already ; nothing remarkable in the occurrence itself, for the winds have blown and the waves have rolled ever since "the Spirit moved upon the face of the waters," but it was a novel encounter with a hurricane in a smaller vessel that I had ever been in before during a gale. The attempt to convey an idea of the little unpleasantness through OUTWARD BOUND. 3 which we passed will involve my experimental effort at de- scription, and if I succeed, I shall be encouraged to proceed with less difficult subjects. Not that I would be presump- tuous enough to venture upon describing a storm at sea, for it would require an able writer to portray by adequate ex- pression that sublime exhibition of majestic force. I shall simply tell you how I felt about it. I do not expect in this brief voyage to meet with wonder- ful adventures, such as are recorded in the veracious chron- icles of Sindbad the Sailor, or Gulliver's travels. I take occa- sion to remark here that, when a boy, before the days of dime novels and the trashy compounds that now supply the youthful mind, I devoured the pages of Gulliver. I never believed all the marvels contained in Swift's great work. I regarded Gulliver as some graduate of Trinity College, Dub- hn, sent out as a special correspondent, by an enterprising newspaper, on a poHtical survey, who drew upon his imagina- tion to offset the drafts on his publisher. It is now generally conceded — except out in Kansas, where they still read the agricultural columns in farmers' journals — that the adventures of Baron Munchausen are fabulous. Mungo Park told the truth, perhaps, about the compassionate negro women ; but I never credited the description of certain animals by Vol- taire. The voyages of Captain Cook are full of interest ; and funny things were "did" by Captain Kidd "as he sailed." The invasion of Mexico by Cortez afforded material for nar- ratives of absorbing interest ; only excelled in modern times by the thrilling adventures of the daring Sergeant Bates, who fearlessly invaded the United States with a United States flag, and ran the risk of having it seized for debt at a village tavern. Pizarro is a figure enchanting to the young reader, who is afflicted by the sorrows of Cora. The travels of Father De Smet among the Indians be- 4 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. yond the Rocky Mountains, are highly entertaining ; as are the accounts of the discovery of Peruvian bark by the Jesuit missionaries in Paraguay. It is the bark of a tree. Rome was saved by the hissing of geese, but it remained for the Jesuits to work a miracle and make a tree bark to chase away fever. It may have been a deception, however, for there is a story told (possibly an invention of the Pope Joan order) that the bark was produced by one of their own Or- der, an Irish priest named Ouinquin, suffering from the influ- enza. He is supposed to have been a relation of a sailor nicknamed Tar Ouin, a beastly fellow, mentioned unfavor- ably by Shakespeare and other chroniclers of the times, but who, if he lived in our day, would probably become a candi- date for the Legislature on the Reform ticket. There are cer- tain antiquated notions about the sanctity of the marital rela- tion which, in the progress of the age, require readjustment. Some, however, readjust themselves without regard to law. I don't expect to see anything in my travels so strange as the land described by Prester John, in his letter to the Em- peror Manuel Comnenus, which is supposed to have been written by his private secretary, one Morey. The Morey letter is still preserved in the tomb of Barnum as a meinento mori. I shall not give all the marvelous things he says in this letter of Prester John, for the Morey writes, the less I believe, but here are some extracts. He commences mod- estly enough : " John, Priest by the Almighty power of God and the Might of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, to his friend Emanuel, Prince of Constantinople, greet- ing, wishing him health, prosperity, and the continuance of Divine favor." His household service was performed by a small staff, con- sisting of the following servants : OUTWARD BOUND, 5 "Seven kings wait upon us monthly, in turn, with sixty- two dukes, two hundred and fifty-six counts and marquises ; and twelve archbishops sit at table with us on our right, and twenty bishops on the left, besides the patriarch of St. Thomas, the Sarmatian Protopope, and the Archpope of Susa. Our lord high steward is a primate and king, our cup-bearer is an archbishop and king, our chamberlain a bishop and king, our marshal a king and abbot." The palace in which " our Supereminency " resides is par- tially described as follows : " Ceilings, joists, and architrave are of Sethym wood, the roof of ebony, which can never catch fire. Over the gable of the palace are, at the extremities, two golden apples, in each of which are two carbuncles, so that the gold may shine by day, and the carbuncles by night. The greater gates of the palace are of sardius, with the horn of the horned snake inwrought, so that no one can bring poison within." " The other portals are of ebony. The windows are of crystal ; the tables are partly of gold, partly of amethyst, and the columns supporting the tables are partly of ivory, partly of amethyst. The court in which we watch the jousting is floored with onyx, in order to incrtuse the courage of the combatants." This description of his house maybe exaggerated. There is always a little latitude given in these matters. Perhaps this was an advertisement of sale on a mortgage given to his plumber to pay for stopping a leak in the water-pipe. The territory of Prester John contained a variety of ani- mals, as will be seen by the following list, which reads like one of Faughpore's menagerie posters : " Our land is the home of elephants, dromedaries, camels, crockadiles, meta-collinarum, cametennus, tensevetes, wild apes, white and red lions, white bears, white merles, crickets, 6 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. griffins, tigers, lamias, hyenas, wild horses, wild oxen, and wild men, men with horns, one-eyed, men with eyes before and behind, centaurs, fauns, satyrs, pygmies, forty-ell-high giants, Cyclopses, and similar women ; it is the home too of the phenix, and of nearly ah living animals. We have some people subject to us who feed on the flesh of men and of prematurely born animals, and who never fear death. When any of these people die, their friends and relatives eat him ravenously, for they regard it as a main duty to munch human flesh. Their names are Gog and Magog, Anie, Agit, Azenach, Fommeperi, Befari, Conei-Samante, Agrimandri, Vintefolei, Casbei, Alanei. These and similar nations were shut in behind lofty mountains by Alexander the Great, tow- ard the North. We lead them at our pleasure against our foes, and neither man nor beast is left undevoured if our Majesty gives the requisite permission. And when all our foes are eaten, then we return with our hosts home again." This is an economical way to dispose of prisoners ; it saves the cost of transportation and maintenance. Instead of being compelled to maintain them, they maintain you. Had this system been in operation during our war, we would not now be compelled to endure the infliction of flatulent political orators who ruthlessly "proceed to state and relate how our poor prisoners suffered at Andersonville." In the list of monsters I find no mention of the accident-insurance agent. He must be a modern animal. Would that he were of the Megatherii or Plesiosauri. I fancy that Prester John was a mythical potentate, al- though the indefatigable traveller Sir John Mandevil explains his priestly title, and Marco Polo identifies him with a Tartar Khan. Uncle John (no relation of Prester John) remarked that if the description of this truculent despot be correct, he must have been a hard case ; a sort of austere Khan. I OUTWARD BOUND, 7 don't know what he meant ; it was some poor pun, I suppose. My main reason for doubting the existence of this mighty- monarch is the claim put forth in this extract from his letter : " All riches such as are upon the world, our Magnificence possesses in superabundance. With us no one lies, for he who speaks a lie is thenceforth regarded as dead ; he is no more thought of, or honored by us. No vice is tolerated by us." Surely this must be a forgery. The idea of a country where nobody lies. We cannot grasp it in our favored land, where nearly everybody lies ; except railroad managers who become millionaires. , It is evident that Ireland was within his dominions, for he says, *' Our land streams with honey, and is overflowing with milk. In one region grows no poisonous herb, nor does a querulous frog ever quack in it ; no scorpion exists, nor does any serpent glide among the grass, nor can any poisonous animals exist in it, or injure any one." Yet, in the face of this, the Irish St. Brandan sailed away from the land of my forefathers in search of Paradise, and found it somewhere east of Ireland. The Green Isle itself would have been selected as the site of Paradise but for a climatic obstacle : the snake who tempted Eve couldn't live on Irish ground. I mention this to rebut the claim put forth by certain over-zealous members of the Land League, that Ireland was actually the Garden of Eden until the landlord came in. As St. Brandan found Paradise in the East, there is no use of my looking for it in the West Indies. Besides, my paradise nearer home is good enough for me. You must not expect me to discover Atlantis or the For- tunate Isles, for I shall be too busy, keeping an eye on the steward to see that he has the mineral-water box packed with ice, and jealously watching the cook lest he delay the dinner; 8 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. which duties devolve on me as navigator of the ship's saloon. Still I shall send you something that may vary the dull ex- panse of news in the Utica newspapers, regarding the color of Reuben Snif kin's new barn on Quality Hill, the quantity of doughnuts contributed at Elder Silas Tartough's donation- party at Empeyville, or conveying the startling intelligence that Ellie Dodkins had gone to spend two days with Daisie Schlunker at Log City, You know we intended to sail on the nth of February, and the yacht was at the dock that day, with stores aboard, patent-leather pumps packed, and everything ship-shape, ready for the voyage. I provided a sou'wester (a head cover- ing of oiled silk, something like a poke-bonnet with a long cape, a sort of cross between a coal-scuttle and a sun-um- brella), water-proof boots (the maker wants me to mention his name here, but I won't), and a heavy india rubber overcoat, formerly lyricised as hooptedoodendoo. I have not worn them yet, but I feel the nautical influence of possession, and already speak of north as " noathe," and no longer verdantly talk of going down-stairs to take something. All we needed for a start was a nor' west wind (we don't say northwest in the navy) and the lifting of a pertinacious fog, which stuck like a book-peddler, or a porous plaster to a gauze undershirt in August. We waited patiently for ten days, but the fog didn't lift as much as a shoveler in the street-cleaning brigade ; nor did the wind shift, but was as obstinate as Carl Schurz in his adherence to one political party. That nor'wester sulked away up in Alaska or somewhere else, utterly disregarding our bland invitations to pay us a visit east and join in a send- off. We had a send-off every day ; our friends congregating in hilarious numbers, devouring the ship's stores, and wishing us bon voyage with kindly fervor and unabated enthusiasm which seemed to grow with what it fed upon. That send-off OUTWARD BOUND. 9 became as monotonous as the Mulligan letters, sermons de- scribing the novel horrors of intemperance, or diatribes on the infamy of Governors who pardon men improperly sen- tenced so as to override our liberties with convict votes. Undaunted by the unpropitious weather, our visitors contin- ued to throng to the send-ofF, making away with edibles, bib- ables and fumibles, and heartily promising to call again to-morrow, with an alacritous cheerfulness and sympathetic vigor that evinced the greatest interest in our detention. We were enabled during this sluggish period to feel the force of La Rochefoucauld's apophthegm, that we always derive more or less consolation from the misfortunes of even our best friends. Yet we found much comfort in these visits, without which our stay, tied up to the dock, would have been ex- tremely dull, dreary, and disagreeable. The tie that bound us so long to that send-off was a strong one, not easily broken. The delay, although vexatious to the voyagers, had its compensation for me, as it enabled me to attend a ceremony where my presence was particularly desired by those inter- ested. It was a coincidence worthy of attention, that the very afternoon of this event the wind veered around suddenly, coming out of the northwest, the skies cleared, and we were permitted to depart, as if the weather had been waiting for this event before giving us a clearance to sail. Whether this was a providential interposition, as was claimed by some pious ladies who had assailed Providence with prayerful im- portunity, I am unable to say. I have not the ear of the Court, and am not consulted regarding the framing of decrees at Special Term ; but it certainly was remarkable that the clearing of the sky and. the performance of this ceremony were coincident. It was regarded as an auspicious omen, not only because the opportune detention rendered my par lO THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. ticipation possible, and spared the disappointment that ab- sence would have caused ; but because of the superstition connected with the old saying, " Happy the bride the sun shines on." I bought a compass. Not a large one, for I am not strong enough as a mariner yet to wrestle with a full-sized instru- ment, but a miniature affair, to hang on my watch-chain as a charm. I can getpoints in navigation on that compass ; I could see them as soon as I put it on. What is a sailor without a com- pass ? Having shipped behind the mast, that guide became indispensable. Without it, I might have lost my bearings in tacking up Broadway, and strayed into Trinity Church in- stead of the Stevens House, or gone ashore at the City Hall, and been wrecked on promontorial Hubert O. Thompson. At length, on the twenty-first day of February, A.D. 1884, the good schooner yacht Montauk, flying the broad pennant of Rear Commodore Samuel R. Piatt, New York Yacht Club, left her berth, at Pier 3 North River, and sailed away. As we were towed out of the slip before nine o'clock, it was too early for our friends to give us the final send-off; for which extensive preparation had been made, with full-dress rehear- sals and consumption of genuine properties, every day for nearly two weeks. As they were not present to receive any- thing else, we gave them the slip ; that is, we left it behind, and they can occupy it if they pay wharfage. That send-off was hnked sweetness (with a dash of bitters and bit of lemon- peel) long drawn out. It must be adhering to the vicinity of South Ferry yet. It certainly did not come off. It may be wandering around there like an uneasy ghost, crowned with faded flowers and smelling of rum and tobacco. After suc- cessive adjournments from day to day, when the time came for the sine die motion, there was no one on the dock to make it. We had often welcomed the coming guest, but there was OUTWARD BOUND. II none to speed our parting. As there were no starters in the stand to give us the send-off, we went off on our own hook, to Sandy Hook. It was bitter cold as we sailed down the Bay, and we only remained on deck long enough to acknowledge the farewell salute from Miss Walke's flag at Cliff Cottage ; when, as it was "a nipping and an eager air," we went below, eager to utilize the proper facilities afforded there for nipping. We knew, however, that many hours would 'not elapse before the heavy clothing would be thrown aside and we would be lux- uriating in sun-baths, shirt-sleeved and straw-hatted. Soon after the tug-boat cast off, the nor'wester, which had blown tingling blasts all the way down when we didn't need its help, treacherously deserted us, and we dawdled along for some hours in a calm. A moderate breeze sprang up in the after- noon, and we started lazily on the direct course, S.S.E., for Bermuda. There had been a great difference of opinion regarding the adoption of this short course instead of the longer one usually taken — down the coast to Cape Hatteras, thence across to the islands. Strong arguments were offered for both, but the weight of opinion was decidedly in favor of the coast route. When it was learned that Commodore Piatt had characteristically determined to keep on the straight path, there were many dubious shakes of the head and prognosti- cations of disaster among the sea-going cognoscenti. One newspaper, which contained a description of the yacht, pre- dicted that if this course were pursued there would be " divine services aboard the Montauk ; " which was true in any event, as religious observance is habitual with us on a cruise. This prediction, however, contemplated ministrations in extremis. The foreboding came near being right, but not quite. It was a tight squeeze ; but the Montauk is too proud 12 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. to go down in anything but a hurricane of the first magni- tude. It must be first-class, A i. No second-rate gale can make her yield, if you please. The claim in favor of the coast route is, that in case of heavy weather some accessible port might be made, while by the direct course, in the event of a hurricane, disablement, or serious accident of any kind, the yacht would be on a com- paratively unfrequented waste of waters, out of the track of vessels, far from succor, ' except such as fortunate chance might bring. That this objection was well founded, is evident from the fact that during our seven days' voyage to this port we saw no vessels. Perhaps I can explain the difference in routes in this way : Suppose you were on the northwest corner of Washington Square and desired to go to Fourth Street. Taking the direct course, you would go through the square transversely, instead of going along Waverley Place and down University Place, which would be the usual course, to make it analogous to this description of the Hatteras route. In one case, you would have the houses along the street for refuge should ac- cident happen ; in the other, you would be in the open square, with only those near who happened to be passing. It may be that the adoption of the direct course showed more courage than discretion, but I am glad we took it, for during three days the seaworthiness of the Montauk was demonstrated by extreme tests to which yachts are rarely subjected ; fully justifying the confidence of Commodore Piatt, who, relying on her stanchness and buoyancy, disregarded ominous warnings and sailed straight for Bermuda. The Montauk is a new boat, not yet two years old, and while she had exhibited unequaled saihng qualities, many yachting qidd-nuncs prophesied that she might do well enough in sum- mer-cruising waters, but would fail if she encountered heavy OUTWARD BOUND. 1 3 seas, to meet which keel-boats were better adapted by their construction. We can now laugh at the croakers. She has come out of the test triumphantly, and, while renowned as an unrivaled swift sailer, can claim to be quite as good as an able sea-boat. A noble yacht is the Montauk. If she were not, I might not be here to write you this letter. We sailed along under a clear sky Thursday, not making much headway, but basking lazily in the sunshine. It blew quite fresh at night, making it necessary to reef the mainsail. Sleep was difficult, owing to the unaccustomed motion, and the lee-boards were required, but toward morning the wind moderated, and Friday opened delightfully warm and balmy. We sat on deck, without overcoats, and enjoyed keenly the beautiful spectacle. There were no high waves running, but the sea pulsed in smiling ripples ; the dark blue expanse, re- lieved by gleams which burst out in unending repetition,, was like some vast plaque of oxidized silver, from the indented laminations of which rays of reflected light glinted in multi- tudinous sparkles. CHAPTER II. WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY. The Banquet — Toasts — The Day we Celebrate — The City of New York — The Army and Navy — Woman — The Growl of the Hurricane. Hamilton Harbor, February 28, 1884. It was Washington's Birthday, and we observed the Feast of the Father of his Country in due and ancient form. Being but the second day out, we had abundance of delicacies aboard, which had escaped the ravening touch of the send- off, to eke out the " salt-horse " and " dandy-funk " on which we poor sailors suffer. The bill of fare was excellent. Our steward, Louis Krouser, is well up in the duties of his most important office, and the cook, venerable Doctor William Mayo, aged sixty-nine, descendant of an African prince, is a chef worthy to wear the cordon bleu in the kitchen of an am- bassador (always saving and excepting the American). After the cloth was removed, toasts appropriate to the occasion were offered and responded to in the usual manner. In offering the first toast, "The Day we Celebrate," the Commodore said : " Gentlemen: In proposing this sentiment I beg leave to premise by congratulating you upon the propitious breezes that are wafting us gently to our first harbor of destination. Before our departure some fears were expressed by anxious friends that, owing to continuous fogs and adverse winds, we might experience rough weather in the Gulf Stream, but we WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY. 1 5 have entered it without observing any unusual commotion. We have not been compelled to take the ordinary precautions and set the table-racks, for here we are, gliding along on an even keel as comfortably as if seated around a table in the Gilsey House. I am happy to say that there is assurance of continued good weather." (Here I mumbled a feeble protest, based upon a cloud- observation I had taken in the afternoon, but in my fresh seamanship I dared not assert too boldly the conviction I en- tertained ; which will be referred to further on.) The Com- modore continued : " The day we celebrate is a theme for the loftiest inspira- tion of the poet, the orator's most impassioned rhetoric, the grandest efforts of the painter's pencil. I cannot do justice to Washington, and shall not dwell at length upon his colos- sal figure in history. Although he owned slaves, drank rum, and played cards, this truly great and good man, like Deacon Richard Smith, had none of the blemishes which un- fortunately disfigure the private characters of many in public life. His slaves were well fed, well clothed, well treated ; he was kind to them, and indeed occupied toward them a sort of patriarchal relation. His rum was good ; none of your modern simulations and D. T. blendings, and he played a good game of whist. He was a soldier stanch and firm, who could not be beguiled into going in on a weak hand, nor could he be raised out if he held them strong. Take him for all in all, we shall not probably look upon his like again in the presidential chair : I do not intend to become a candi- date. Washington himself could not hope for success in these days, and for the same reason that I would decline the nomi- nation, even were I dragged to the Lupercal by Keely's motor — he could not tell a lie. "This owner of slaves, drinker of rum, and player of cards ; l6 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. this great soldier, wise statesman, incorruptible patriot, and dignified and courtly gentleman, will forever hold the highest place in the regard of his countrymen, as fast as they arrive from Ireland and Germany. Who can estimate the magni- tude of the boon conferred on mankind by the event we are met to commemorate ; for which the world' is indebted in some degree to his worthy parents, Mr. and Mrs. Washing- ton ; to whose memory I beg leave to return the sincere thanks of this gathering. For this purpose, as poor old Sam Glen of the Herald used to say, let us ' gather.' <* If their son had not been born, or had turned out to be a daughter, there would be no city of magnificent distances ; no monument to mark the tardiness of niggardly recognition of greatness under a Republican form of government ; no Boss Shepard, by whom virulent partisan journals could 'point a moral and adorn a tale' of injustice and inapprecia- tion. If Washington had not been born, there would have been no Capitol bearing his name to enframe the Honorable Peleg Slobber, our distinguished member of Congress ; and form a background to display the shining virtues of Senator Vorean. Gentlemen ! fill your glasses to the first regular toast : The day we celebrate, which gave us a Washington, to fill the world with the glory of his patriotism, and estab- lished a Republic so that Slobber might draw his pay regu- larly as an M.C., and Vorean display the beauties of Christian statesmanship." The next regular toast was : " The City of New York ; a refuge for the oppressed of all nations, the western reftighiin peccatornmr The Commissioner was called upon to respond. He read from notes, which were renewed from time to time as they fill Dew. He said : " I thank the distinguished presiding officer and this vast WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY. 1 7 assemblage for the honor conferred in selecting me to re- spond to this toast when there are present so many better qualified than I to do it justice. Who can do justice to New York? Not the judges of the criminal courts and police magistrates ; there are not enough of them. Nor do we want equal and exact justice to all in its fullest extent. In our young country we must facilitate immigration, we must fos- ter and encourage an increase in the number of inhabitants, so as to develop our resources, and the strict administration of justice would have the effect of depopulating our beautiful city. We have a beautiful city, clean, well paved ; carefully swept, and garnished with chijfonnieres of hoopless old ash-barrels ■a.ViA jardinieres filled with cabbage-stalks and potato-parings. Look at our sweet-smelling public places and interior parks, the ventilators of over-charged atmospheric fetidness. Let us wander, in leafy seclusion, through shady paths, in the sylvan coverts of the Battery, where, with no discordant sound of jarring traffic to disturb our contemplations, we can enjoy the beauties of nature, soothed by the warblings of sweet birds filling the air with melodious iron-filings. Let us watch Strephon and Chloe and Hezekiah and Amaryllis, innocently disporting amid the far-reaching groves, in uncon- scious ignorance of the worldly wickedness that prowls out- side the precincts of this Arcadian retreat. The gentle shep- herds no longer pipe upon oaten straws, but the voice of the accordeon is heard in bosky echoes ; likewise doth the en- trancing strain of the hand-organ replace the plainings of the whispering lute. Then do musical cranks abound. The shepherd wears not as of yore bunches of gay ribbon at his knee, but there may be a deftly-embroidered patch on the quarter-deck of his corduroys. Nor doth the shepherdess coquettishly shorten her gown to display a shapely leg en- cased in dainty stockings, quaintly clocked with colors bright ; 1 8 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. but she flasheth the Parisian diamonds of the Bowery, and twirls the spinning wheel of the shin-scraping baby-wagon. Now do nymphs on roller-skates glide gracefully over the green sward of asphalt, and fauns frohcsome emerge from trellised fountains to gambol with dryads among the rose- bushes ; while the aborous benches in the pastoral scene are filled with shepherd " crooks." See our breathing-places for the poor ! Look at breezy St. John's Park ! " In what other city can be found such beneficent public institutions ? We have Tammany Hall, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Museum of Anatomy, the Shepherd's Fold, and the Association for the Erection of a Pedestal for the Bartholdi Statue of ' Liberty Enlightening the World ' under a bushel of mortar, contributed after much arduous solicitation by the generous American people, in recognition of what France did for us in the War for Inde- pendence. Bartholdi exegit cere monumentum perennius. His design will outlast the pedestal brass, which, notwith- standing frantic appeals, doesn't seem to be forthcoming. '' Speaking of brass, I am reminded of the Tax Commis- sion, which assesses property with that liberal disregard of relative values adapted to the wants of a free people, particu- larly that portion that shirks off the tyrannical yoke of taxa- tion. " Gentlemen, did time permit, I could dwell for hours on the beauties of New York. Consider our devotion to the fine arts ; our statue of Lincoln, our great picture-galleries, open for all — Harper's, Leslie s, Puck's, and Judge's. Look at our Clubs ! Where will you find one so willing and powerful as the New York policeman's ? But I cannot enumerate all these sahent features which prove that a government of the people, for the people, by the people, finds its most perfect development of botching the charter by rural legislators, in WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY. 1 9 the great and good city of New York, together with the County of the same." The Commissioner's remarks were received with tremen- dolis applause, for it was evident he " knows how it is him- self," and can confidently challenge an answer to the imper- tinent governmental interrogatory. What are you going to do about it ? To me was assigned the task of responding'to the third regular toast : "The Army and Navy." I said : " Fellow-voyagers ! It is with unfeigned reluctance that I approach the consideration of this theme, of such over- whelming magnitude that I doubt my ability to do it justice. Whether we view the Army of the United States, in its en- tirety, through a small field-glass, or in detachments, pursu- ing industrious deserters, it is, like General Jackson in the song, * an honor to the country and a terror to the foe.' There have been larger armies, but none that have received more attention in Congressional debates, and been made the recipients of more profuse renewals of the assurances of dis- tinguished inconsideration. When I think of the imposing proportions of that grand army, my soul swells with pride. Even now, with comparatively little turbulence, there are in some places as many as three privates and a corporal to a hundred miles, massed along the frontier to protect it from the depredations of Indians on the sutlers' stores. For what is the army without the sutler ? it is principally sutler. In the soldier, we have a sutler friend ; and, than the Indian, where can be found a subtler foe ? "It is almost unnecessary to say that our magnificent Navy commands the admiration of the world ; and that por- tion of New Jersey situated on Chesequakes Creek, where it might all ride with ease and safety were it not for the Bergen Point mosquitoes, against which iron-clads afford no adequate 20 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. protection. The voyages of that briny old sea-dog, Secretary Chandler, from Newport to Martha's Vineyard, fill volumi- nous annual departmental reports with matter far more inter- esting to the naval contractor than recitals of the heroic deeds of La Perouse, Van Tromp, Drake, Nelson, and Paul Jones. What would our navy be without the contractor ? It is prin- cipally contractor. It affords an example of economical and effective expenditure, prudently placed " where it will do the most good," before election, not paralleled by any of the great maritime powers, from Saxony to Bohemia. They may pilfer us on other appropriations, but they cannot Robeson our Navy." Here the Commodore interrupted and said severely that politics was interdicted on the yacht, that we were off for pleasure, like the man going to Europe without his family, and did not want the American bane of partisan discussion introduced. I made a suggestion about using the bane to get rid of the Roach in our war-vessels, but the Commodore indignantly shouted silence ! so I silenced. The rest of that speech — in which I intended to sail in on frugal appropria- tions of the River and Harbor Bill for dredging Cohoes Falls, and placing the rivers of John Brown's tract, and the West Canada Creek harbors in proper defensive condition — was drowned in the Commodore's rebuke, and is lost forever to an admiring reading public. The last regular toast was " Woman." Uncle John was chosen to respond to this, as no one else present was so well qualified, from long years of familiarity with the topic. It required some effort to induce him to undertake the response, for, he said, a woman requires nobody to speak for her ; she is able and willing to do it for herself. Then, the speeches thus far were in a mocking vein, and he could not treat this subject facetiously. It was customary at pubHc dinners to WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY. 21 say witty things and crack jokes about the ladies, but he couldn't bring himself to speak lightly of them. He was an old fogy, with obsolete ideas, who retained that respect for women which seems to be lost in the sneering coarseness of this epoch of emasculated dudery. Upon our assurance that jocularity would not be expected, that he might be as sedate as he pleased, and wouldn't be considered out of place were he as solemn as a deaf man at the Opera, he consented to speak, and responded with elo- quent feeling, showing plainly that under the snow-laden foliage of his frosty pow lay verdant tenderness and manly devotion to woman. After some hesitation. Uncle John commenced : " Ladies and gentlemen " (When reminded that there were no ladies present, he said, "There are always ladies present in our hearts, and I am going to speak from my heart ! " — a gallant remark of the gay old squire of dames that evoked loud applause, as we all felt the sweet presence when he spoke.) " Mr. Chairman, I feel that I am not qualified to do jus- tice to this subject. I approach it with some trepidation, for I am a married man, and one is apt to be placed in a false position by these discussions. If he is calm, critical, just, and unimpassioned, he renders himself liable to the imputa- tion of evincing the cold cynicism of disillusioning experience, of manifesting the proverbial contempt bred of familiarity ; if, on the other hand, he is exuberant and unstinted in his admiration, he incurs the suspicion of extolling a cynosure, of pretending to generalize while having in view some partic- ular object of enthusiasm, in whose regard he feeds the flick- ering light that burns before the shrine of beauty. Then there 's a row in the family. In this remark I desire to have it understood that I am strictly impersonal. Those who 22 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. know me need no assurance that I am incapable of giving the slightest cause for matrimonial infelicity. Indeed I might claim to be worthy of being regarded as Caesar's wife's brother. " But I am going to be serious in these remarks. Levity grates harshly when women are in question. It is the bad habit to be facetious in the post-prandial treatment of a toast which deserves the first place, but, for some traditional rea- son, is offered last, and comes in when the audience is tired and requires jocoseness to stimulate flagging interest. I shall be serious, and, instead of trying to be funny and flippant, I shall express my hearty, honest, earnest appreciation of the admirable attributes of woman, w^hich exalt her so far above the coarser nature of man. " In his rebuke of the exceptional haughtiness of a proud beauty, Tennyson says : ' Howe'er it be it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.' " History abounds with instances of invincible heroism , of fortitude and endurance of misfortune by women, fit to rank with the achievements of mighty conquerors. Woman is noble because she is good ; her simple faith, which clings unalterably even to unworthy objects, makes her superior to man, who is often to her a tyrant and a deceiver. Women are true and loyal ; they are never traitors. The speaker who preceded me treated the army in a ridiculous sort of a way, but I may be permitted, with grave earnestness, to draw an illustration of woman's fidelity from the late war for our Union. The women of the North were uncompromising ad- herents to the Union, there were no secessionists among WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY. 23 them ; the women of the South beheld unappalled the horrors of war, and were wilHng, patient, and uncomplaining sharers in the sufferings and privations that attended adhesion to the Lost Cause. In the North, women were faithful to the right; in the South, loyally devoted to politically disloyal fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons, they were faithful to the wrong. They clung to their respective standards with unswerving tenacity ; until one floated in triumph, and the other, tattered and torn, trailing in the dust of defeat, was picked up and clasped to the constant heart of the ever faithful Southern woman. "There were many on both sides worthy to rank with Joan of Arc, though they did not don cuirass and helmet and lead mailed warriors in the fray. It required an effort of heroism to part with beloved ones who took up arms to en- gage in bloody conflict and run the hazard of cruel war. Where in all language is there such a compendium of the better emotions of our nature as the word Moth/^r. She was of heroic mould who said, ' It is hard to part with my first- born ; but go, my son ! do your duty to our country, and may a mother's blessing attend you wherever you may go ! ' As the sentinel paced his weary round, while the night wind dis- tilled the odors of Virginian forests ; and the air was vocal with myriads of insects hymning lauds to the Creator ; and the stars shone down serenely radiant — that mother's blessing was around and about him ; more fragrant than the perfume of the trees ; the words, echoing in the ear of memory, more tuneful than the subdued harmonies of the night ; and the recollection of tears that sparkled in loving eyes while pro- nouncing the parting benediction, pure as the holy light from heavenly dome above. " But it is not in the heroic view that woman appears in the most admirable light. It is in the sacred retreat of do- 24 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. mestic life that she shines. She is like the glow-worm that emits its radiance in the shade, remote from pubhc view, but pales in the garish light of selfish worldliness. Here we find the tender mother, the loving wife, the dutiful daughter, the patient, untiring nurse. How often does woman's heart bear up bravely against miseries under which man's would sink ; how many temptations are resisted before which man's would yield ! ' Oh woman, in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy and hard to please. And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made. When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou ! ' "The name of Florence Nightingale has become famous in every civilized land ; it is a synonym of merciful self-abne- gation. There is a multitude of unrenowned Florence Night- ingales in every war; and they walk among us, through peaceful paths, every day, unnoticed and unknown. The Geneva Cross is the labarum of the grand army of benev- olence. The volunteer hospital nurse is held in grateful re- membrance by those who experienced the solace of her be- nign presence. We cannot pay too much reverence to the holy sisterhood whose lives are dedicated, in the name of re- ligion, to the cause of suffering humanity ; who relinquish the pleasures of the world, and abandon their own proper names, to merge themselves in the unidentified designation of ' Sister,' for the purpose of ministering to the poor and afflicted. The maimed or fever-stricken occupant of the bed which charity provides, tossing in pain, sees approach a form clad in sombre raiment, and soon the gentle offices of her vo- cation alleviate his sufferings, and the cool touch of pious fin- WASHINGTON S BIRTHDAY, 25 gers on his burning brow seems to soothe with healing influ- ence. And if it happens that all these efforts are ineffectual to prolong the payment of the last debt, there bends over the stricken couch a saintly figure, and the glazing eyes of the dying man reflect an angelic presence, impressed upon them when they re-open in the brightness of the world beyond. The unsymmetrical folds of that shapeless black gown are the chrysalis husk, which some day will burst into glory, re- vealing beneath the enfolded seraph wings, that will spread to bear aloft a triumphant soul, buoyed with sustaining good deeds done on earth. " Mr. Chairman, out on the wide sea, surrounded by voracious waters, at the mercy of spiteful winds, far from home, family, friends and companions, we think more seri- ously than we are apt to do amid the distracting pleasures and turmoil of shore occupation, I have treated this toast with a gravity not suited perhaps to the joyous abandon of a feast, but in a manner congenial to my own feelings. I re- spect and honor womankind. I offer as a sentiment : The Sister of Charity and the volunteer hospital nurse — imper- sonations of self-sacrificing womanly compassion ; their uni- forms are the outward and visible signs of the innate nobility of the true woman." That Uncle John had struck a vibrating chord was mani- fest in the sympathetic silence that followed his remarks. We retired from the table, touched and softened. There were no more toasts, for we were but four voyagers, and each had performed his allotted duty. Before the conclusion of the last speech there were unmistakable signs of a storm brewing, which would soon burst upon us, an ironical comment on the Commodore's complacent felicitations of assured continu- ance of fine weather. I had my joke at his expense, you may be sure. I don't often miss a chance. A threatening growl 26 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. was heard coming over the sea, as if a lion were giving notice that he was about to come out of his den ; there was an un- steadiness among the glasses on the board, which we knew were not deceptive waverings that came from looking at the bottles, for we are not prone to over-indulgence ; we could hear the sailors on deck taking in sail, and there was every indication of a nasty night. We turned into our berths, si- lently and soberly, still feeling the influence of Uncle John's soul-felt tribute to Woman. CHAPTER III. THE STORM. No Poppy-juice — Meteorology — Laying to— A Disturbance — Queer Fan- cies — Optical Delusion— Life Insurance — My Own Funeral — The Flute — Mont Cenis — Old Theatres — The Banshee — A Daughter's Devotion — Corked-up — Seasickness — Depression — The Convent Bell. Hamilton, Bermuda, February 29, 1884. The soothing influence that attended us when we turned in was " not poppy nor mandragora " that could medicine us to that sweet sleep inferentially promised by the Commodore in his rose-colored anticipations of smooth sailing. We were soon in a state of topsy-turvitude that murdered sleep. Our heads had hardly softly sought the pillow when the gale, that had been menacing for some time, struck us with great fury. The skirmishers had been sent out before, and we felt the scattering fire while yet at table, but now the attack was made in force. We had a doleful experience following the feast of the nativity of Washington, notwithstanding the enthusiastic Commodore's complacent promises of lullaby winds and cradling waves. They were not a bit like the cra- dle, but had more promise of the grave. We sat down to dine Friday evening at six, and didn't go on deck again for any considerable length of time, until Sunday morning at ten o'clock. During that time we were close prisoners, guarded by im- placable winds and rough waves with unremitting vigilance. 28 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. We performed an enforced forty hours' devotion, in retreat ; Quarante oro, quarantined by old Neptune. I venture to suggest, without much fear of contradiction from my fellow- prisoners, that, mildly speaking, it was not comfortable. I am going to set up as a meteorologist. I have estab- lished quite a reputation for weather wasdom. But why shouldn't I ? Who ought to know about weather so well as the Utican ? Where is there more weather to be found ? Besides no true Utican will permit his native place to be excelled in any respect, and it must now take high rank as the home of the weather-wise, as wellas the harbor of poli- ticians from other haunts of the world who settle there to be- come Governors, United States Senators and Members of Congress. Friday afternoon, as I emerged from the compan- ion-way, I saw a thin streak of ragged cloud in the south- eastern sky, which looked like a fragment, with a frayed edge, torn off from a larger piece. I remarked that I thought it in- dicated a storm, but my landsman opinion evidently met with no consideration, as the sky was clear in every quarter, although there were some small blurs of fleeciness discernible near the western horizon. My prognostic not being received with the favor with which an opinion on any subject coming from the home of statesmen and sages is entitled, I belayed my tongue and shut my prophetic mouth, simply suggesting, apologetically, that I was born on the shores of the Erie Canal, and ought to know something about the sea. Shortly afterward, I ventured to remark to the sailing-master, with becoming diffidence, that he would have to double reef the mainsail again to-night. He thought not, but said, with a sailor's characteristic caution, that he could not tell. Soon the clouds began to gather threateningly in the western sky, which assumed a vaporous appearance, with the water eleva- tors, showing their divergent ladders, strongly marked ; and THE STORM. 29 the sun went down behind a bank of coppery clouds, with lurid, menacing glare. There were no positive indications of close proximity to a storm even then ; indeed, when we sat down to our frugal Washington's Birthday repast, the wind lulled, and we ate our dinner in happy unconsciousness of the imminent hurricane. It blew hard the night before, but then it was clear and starlight, while now the sky was overcast with sullen, lower- ing clouds ; the barometer fell with alarming rapidity ; the sea looked angry and rose with threatening surge, and it was evident, to say the least, that a hard blow was coming on. At midnight it blew a gale, and it was found necessary to " lay to." This laying to is resorted to when it is found that the vessel is unable to carry sail on account of the dangerous wind and high-running waves. It is done by furling the sails, except some small bit of canvas, to give steerage-way, and pointing the vessel directly in the teeth of the wind. Thus the only resistance offered is by the hull, masts, and rigging, and the wind has but comparatively little to take hold of, the craft remaining stationary, except that she may drift stern- ward in a current made by the gale. A low vessel has an advantage, in not presenting so much surface for the assaults of the wind. I can illustrate this process of laying to by an umbrella. Suppose you are out in a strong Avind, with an umbrella raised. If it is so violent that you cannot hold it safely, you close the umbrella, which is furling sails. If you point the ferrule straight at the wind, your umbrella is " laying to." I have experienced some heavy storms at sea, in the north and south Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the English Channel, and elsewhere, and have been in squalls on Lake Ontario that were not to be sneezed at, but this excelled anything that I had ever met before. Theretofore I had been on larcfe 30 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. steamers of two or three thousand tons burden, with decks towering above the sea, beyond the reach of waves unless they ran extraordinarily high ; but here we were on a little yacht one hundred feet long and twenty-five in breadth at the widest point, with a deck exactly four feet above the water- line. When you think that the waves were running fifteen or twenty feet high, and that the wind was blowing a fierce gale, you may imagine that the deck of the Montauk was not a pleasant place to be. I wasn't there, however. I was below in the saloon with the other voyagers. We had no particular inclination to be on deck, and if we had, its gratification would have been attended with much difficulty. It was a wonder how the sailors could maintain their footing even to do what little they had to do with all the sails furled. I have not the power to describe that storm. If you can imagine in the howling wind a continuous roar such as one hears at Niagara Falls, with a beating on the masts and rig- ging sounding like a train of railroad cars in motion, inter- spersed with frequent booms like the discharge of cannon when huge waves struck forward, and rushed in tumultuous torrents, seething, lashing, foaming, the spiteful floods seem- ing as if seeking to tear something venomously, you might form an idea of the babel of unpleasant sounds which filled our ears as we lay below in the saloon, with the skylight cov- ered with boards under layers of strong canvas screwed to the deck, the hatches battened down, and everything sealed tight to keep out the water. If I may use the simile, we made a sort of water sandwich. Underneath, with a few planks be- tween us and the mighty ocean, the angry waves, lashed into fury, struck at our vessel with untiring persistency ; over- head, the deck was covered with streams of water from the seas, shattered into spray that broke constantly over the bul- warks, causing her to tremble in every joint ; the flood surg- V/ I .1 ' li^ THE STORM. 3 1 ing, advancing and receding, forward and aft, shifting from side to side until it found an outlet through the scuppers. Then the fearful din outside was re-echoed within by the creakings and groanings of the joiner- work, filling the saloon with all kinds of queer noises, whistles and sighs and moans, some- times sharp and petulant, at others taking the tone of hushed, whispering voices. One might imagine that they were wails and lamentations for a coming disaster ; the keening of the Banshee commingling with the screechings of malignant water-demons. Strange fancies came to us, while we lay, tossed by the vexed seas, in the closed saloon, the turned-down wick of the ceiling-lamp hghting with shadeful indistinctness, casting around vague shadows of weird, shuddering aspect. It is impossible to sleep soundly grasping the lee-board to keep in the berth, but one occasionally drops off in an uneasy doze, when phantasmagorial troops come riding through the brain, in quick succession, like the figures on the revolving toy held before a mirror, minghng in heterogeneous contact. Nearly everybody is familiar with optical delusions created by objects seen in an imperfect Hght, particularly at night ; how garments, hung over the backs of chairs, become figures apparently substantial ; how flickering gleams on the wall take varied conformations, graceful and beautiful, familiar and homely, or extravagant, grotesque and bizarre. I ex- perienced one of these effects which had every appearance of reality. On account of the greater warmth of the saloon, which was heated by a stove, we occupied the flanking berths in it, instead of sleeping in our state-rooms. My room is on the port quarter aft, opening from the companion-way, in the direct line of vision from the forward starboard berth where I lay. The door was open and a lantern, swing- ing outside, dimly revealed the interior. Awaking from a 32 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. troubled drowse, the first thing that met my eye was this room, in which I saw, distinctly and clearly-defined, the fig- ure of a nun kneeling in prayer, with folded hands, and veiled head bent forward in attitude of supplication. I was startled ; just coming out of a doze, with confused faculties, obscured by the clinging mists of sleep partially dispelled. I looked intently : there was the figure plain and palpable. I knew there was no person in the room, and that it was not, therefore, a real presence with changed appearance caused by the cloudy light ; nor was it a phantasm, for my nerves were not shaken in the least by the somewhat appalling situ- ation, and I was as calm and self-possessed, though appre- ciating the danger, as if I were in my bed on land. I lay there some time, watching the shape, endeavoring to make it change to the view, but in vain. I would shut my eyes and re-open them quickly, but beheld again the suppliant nun in precisely the same position. At length I quit my berth and crawled over to the room to learn what material composed such a remarkably distinct deceptive impersonation to the fancy. The inside of the room is painted white, the bedding is of the same color, and the apparition was created in this way : I had thrown a long overcoat carelessly on the high berth, so that it hung down in front of the drapery, and, in the relief of staring white back- ground, it assumed the appearance of a kneeling figure, when seen across the saloon. I did not disturb it, but returned to see if it would appear the same when revealed in the knowl- edge of what caused the similacrum. Re-entering my berth, I looked again, and there it was, without the slightest change. It was such a remarkable verisimilitude that it possessed a sort of fascination, and I spent a long time looking at the shape, straining my eyes and shifting my position in the en- deavor to make it conform to what I knew it to be — an over- THE STORM. 33 coat spread on a white coverlet. Had I been prone to accept supernatural appearances, I might have believed when I first saw the figure that it was some benignant guardian shape sent to protect me in the surrounding perils ; or the water- wraith warning of disaster. Many well-authenticated " ap- pearances " have no more foundation than this figment of the imagination. And yet who knows but that, far away, some nun may have been praying in her dreams, and the aspira- tions took form and shape in my room ? Who knows ? I suppose if one were lost at sea the life insurance com- panies would offer no objection to paying the risk, if the requisite permit had been obtained to sail, which involved the consent of the Company to go down. They are never exacting in these matters. After one has paid premiums for inany years they never set up a quibbling defence to cashing the prize drawn by a lucky number. The proof of loss is the rub. If we all go down in this gale, how would the loss be proved ? We couldn't very well swear for each other, as I fancy the Governor hasn't appointed any notaries-public for Davy Jones' locker. There is no Senator from that district to procure the appointment. A queer idea strikes me, as a piece of possible bad luck. I have made posthumous provision for a moderate collation to veteran soldiers and friends upon their return from my funeral, by and by, and it occurs to me that if I am lost at sea the entertainment could not come off as advertised ; which would be hard on the boys. Then, too, I have been noted for my faithful attendance at funerals, and it would be a cruel stroke of unkind fortune if, after having been present at so many obsequies of others, I should be denied the privi- lege of attending my own funeral. That little sound, like the note of a flute, coming timidly out of the mast-case, reminds me of Miller, from whom I 3 34 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. took music-lessons. He was a shaky old chap, who had been a musician in the British Army, and played liquid notes with true vinous quaver. I remember the first tune I essayed — after disastrous contention with scales and exer- cises, where they had the worst of it — " My love is but a lassie yet." I was faithful to that lassie. I failed to win her, but I never courted another tune. How these long-forgotten trifles come back when we lie awake all night ! The mind seems to leap backward and forward, annihilating both time and space without the slightest regard for the unities. I was nearly thrown out of my berth by a sudden lurch while half asleep. The covering had fallen off, and, as the fire was out, I felt cold. I imagined I was again undergoing my coldest experience — crossing Mont Cenis in the coupe of a diligence at night. I dreamt that the lurch of the ship was the diligence-wheel striking a stone in the rocky pass. I pulled up the clothing and was warm again. What a wonder- ful thing is a dream ! The events of days flash through the brain in an instant. Actual occurrences move slowly, like sound, the dream must travel as quickly as light. The Park Theatre was burned down finally about the time roaring Jack Scott played at the Bowery, and made nearly as much noise as Forrest when he made Rome howl. I don't remember the old Park, but I can recall Burton, in Palmo's Opera House, on Chambers Street, with Harry Placide in the " Old Guard," and John Brougham playing Captain Murphy Maguire in the " Serious Family." Mary Taylor was the great favorite in Mitchell's Olympic ; snug little box, home of farce, vaudeville, and operetta, with George Holland, that " rascal Jack" Dunn, Walcot, the Mestayers, and Isher- woods. I don't know what makes me think of theatres now ; I ought to have churches in my mind. But man is perverse. Perhaps this is my last act and I am about to make an exit, THE STORM. 35 in a grand tableau without any audience. Well, I will get the best of the life insurance companies, if I do. I have been trying it, at great pecuniary loss, for years, but I may have the bulge on them in this swelling sea. I wonder if there is such a thing as the Banshee attached to old Irish families. It is a belief very generally accepted in Ireland. The Banshee is a spirit who assumes the shape of a woman, and her duty is to warn the family of which she is a retainer, of approaching misfortune. The music of the song of the Banshee is given in Mrs. Hall's sketches of Ireland ; a cor- rect notation of the v/ail, which forms the theme for the keen or death-cry furnished by old women at funerals. Somebody must have heard the lament who understood music and put down the notes. I have heard it several times to-night. Ac- cording to the old bardic verse : The Banshee mournful wails In the midst of the silent, lonely night, Plaintive she sings the song of death. The Banshee may be seen as well as heard, but only by the person on whom she specially waits. She always appears in a white robe, or I might have taken the apparition in my state-room for the family attendant. That is, if I am entitled to one, but it is probable the spirits don't emigrate. They would be of no use in this country. We couldn't make Ban- shee aldermen. I have no desire to see mine yet awhile, but if she comes I can't help myself Let her come ; it will be all the same to Vanderbilt and me a hundred years hence. Women exhibit more fortitude than men. I have been thinking of the wonderful nerve displayed by a young girl not long ago. Her mother lay unconscious, with the shadow of apprpaching dissolution on her features. The loving 36 , THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. daughter knelt by her bedside and, as the Hfe-stream slowly- ebbed, to meet the turn of flood-tide to eternity, she read the form of prayer for the dying prescribed by her church ritual. She was her mother's favorite child, bound to her by the strongest affection. She recited the prayers for the depart- ing soul in tones clear, distinct, and firm -as if she were read- ing the ordinary services of the day, without the heart-break- ing accessories which made her performance of this religious duty, sustained by exalted faith, a marvel of self-control. Even when she came to the agonizing words, hi maims tttas, Doniine — " Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit" — her voice pronounced the sentence without faltering inflec- tion, though the mighty effort required to maintain her com- posure was manifest. Kyrie eleison ! CJiriste eleison ! Not until the physician said, " All is over ! " did she betray her an- guish, but then she gave way to her overwhelming sorrow, and burst into a flood of heart-bleeding tears. The spectacle of this young girl — with loving eyes glancing from the book of prayer to her mother's face, gradually fading into the ashy hue of death — restraining the manifestation of her poignant grief so that she might properly perform the offices prescribed by her belief, was a sublime exhibition of the invincible power of religious faith. We have little faith in these times. Who can discern the line that divides faith from superstition ? It would be well if we had more superstition of the right kind. I can hear the pumps working occasionally, but they find Httle water in the hold. The Montauk is exceptionally strong-timbered ; she is not hable to spring aleak. But an anticipated terror haunts us. Amid the tramphng and shouting on deck, we dread lest we hear the cry of Man over- board ! That is our only fear. We lie here below, battened down, corked up as if in a bottle. We can float even if the THE STORM. 37 sticks are taken out of the yacht by the hurricane. Grant said something about Butler being bottled up, but he could get away after some fashion. We can't ; there is no place to go. We can't go ashore. I wish we were in the Dutch Gap Canal rather than the Gulf Stream, What an awful sight is the sea, lashed into fury ! Look- ing out, through a small aperture in the canvas covering the companion-way hatch, at the heaving masses of surging black water, we can see fitful apparitions of crested foam flying by, Hke sheeted ghosts gibbering malignly. This gale is so violent that some of the crew are seasick. The old cook, a veteran sailor, who prepares the hot coffee for the watch — all are on duty now — has been compelled to He down. He may heave too. Seasickness is the most dis- tressing of ailments. It is difficult to explain the sensations one experiences floundering in this slough of despond. It is so overpowering that, after the first contortionate encounter, the wretched victim sinks into a helpless state of inertness and lassitude, and becomes perfectly indifferent as to what may happen. The affliction is a happy combination of nausea, yellow fever, pneumonia, epizooty, cholera morbus, chilblains, toothache, inflammatory rheumatism, ephialtes, malaria, acetic acid, gall, Limburger cheese, mining stocks, and temperance lectures, which makes the unfortunate possess- or feel that life has become a burden, which he would gladly throw off had he the strength to reach the ship's side. There is no appetite, nor any place to put it. Seasickness is sole tenant in possession, occupying all the premises. Were one able to eat it, the food, like a Fenian orator, couldn't be kept down. Nor would it come up smiling, as a plucky pugilist after losing a round, Ati contraire. A man seized and possessed in fee-simple of all and singular the right, title, and interest in and to a full-sized, able-bodied seasickness, is op- 38 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. pressed with more property than he can get rid of on favor- able terms. He can't even quitclaim. He feels as if he were plunged in the crater of a volcano ; submerged beneath an iceberg of ten thousand thousand tons bergden ; he is a frightful example of gaping vacuity ; he is a mixture of Scylla and Charybdis ; he is Sisyphus rolhng marbles ; he is Prometheus bound, with the eagle preying on his vitals and finding there nothing worth preying for. He is a howling wilderness. The seasick man has a great deal on his mind and nothing on his stomach. He is an aching void. He has swallowed the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. He is in a state of total depravity. He hates his friends, and detests young onions, sliced with cucumbers in vinegar. The man who first ate boiled mutton, raw, with capers, or invented mint-sauce for roasted lamb, must have been seasick. He wonders why he was born ; and is in such a flimsy, dilapi- dated, limp, and demoralized condition, that he wouldn't have courage enough to refuse his name for a book on the war, sold only by subscription. As an alternative misery, he would consent to serve as an inspector of election, although he couldn't hold the appointment, and would soon have to throw it up. The man genuinely seasick is lost to all sense of honor, and would eat with his knife, devour underdone veal, or pour molasses on codfish-balls. He would peddle lightning-rods, or infallible cures for catarrh, make love to Erinnys, and quote the Sign Post in politics. It is an ex- treme surmise, hardly within the range of probability, yet such is the dementation of seasickness, that the miserable sufferer may become so far lost to a sense of propriety as to read a President's message aloud, at the breakfast-table, in the bosom of his own family. A story is told of a captain going around among his passengers, during a violent storm, and warning them to pre- THE STORM. 39 pare, as the ship would go down in an hour. " Good gra- cious ! " exclaimed one, writhing in the travail of seasickness, "must I live an hour longer ! " I told this story to Uncle John, as a cheerful and enlivening narrative, suited to our condition — shouting it in his ear as we clung temporarily to the sideboard — and when I remarked that, to the captain's suggestion, the seasick passenger demurred, the veteran yachtsman said, " Of course ; he couldn't help himself ; it was spontaneous ; he inal-de-mered." This is the most atrocious pun I ever heard ; but I excuse him. Still it was hardly fair to take advantage of me in a hurricane. Uncle John would have his joke if a wave were hovering over us, like the rock suspended over Tantalus, threatening to descend and crush in the deck of our little yacht, atomical in this vast expanse of water. I have imagined all this seasick business. I know nothing by experience. I am proof; something above proof, for I am always in high spirits. I have never been seasick under any circumstances. Once upon a time I was crossing the English Channel in one of the cockle-shell steamers that ply between Calais and Dover, and there were but two pas- sengers unaffected by the short chopping sea which is such a provocative of the malady — I and a bagman from Man- chester. We sat forward, under the half-deck, and smoked, greatly to the disgruntlement of the pewter-mug malades. We were out of the way, to be sure, but they can stand any- thing better than tobacco, to which they have an unconquer- able aversion. It is nearly as bad as a politician's explanation of the tariff question, which nobody can stand. I don't hanker after seasick experience, so as to be able to describe it. None in mine, if you please ; it isn't nice. It can be de- scribed by the imagination. This is such a description ; an eidolon, like the figure I saw in my state-room, anent which 40 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. Uncle John remarked that it had no business to be eidolon around there frightening people. Nobody is so deserving of compassion as the seasick, yet nobody receives less sympathy. It is a " dem'd moist unpleasant body," as Mantilini says, but everybody ridicules the subject. There is no remedy for seasickness. Champagne, brandy, and other stimulants are held in high repute, but there is no effectual cure. Many nostrums have been prepared, but none of them prove gen- uine ; the compounds all turn out spurious. The sleighing must be fine near Utica now. I would rather be driving my black mare, Viola, through upper Gene- see Street, with a wolf-skin robe to keep us warm, in the bright, frosty, exhilarating air, properly charged with oxy- gen, than groping here, " cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, bound in to saucy doubts and fears," in the unelastic atmosphere of the saloon, with no ventilation, except through the stove- door, which is left open for that purpose. It is depressing, do what we may to simulate jollity ; and we have a strain of the Mark Tapley blood among us. We cannot, however, constantly entertain cheerful thoughts as guests, though we may strive to bar out all others. The melancholy will come uninvited and force their way in. The mind often undergoes some strain, which leaves it for a long time sensitive to dejecting influences, which it feels first in the abraded strand of recollection. I think of one now. A husband was sent for hurriedly to come to the bedside of his sick wife. He did not know that she was dangerously ill until his arrival, when he found her unconscious. She lay in a comatose state for five days, during which he eagerly hung over her with wistful gaze, yearning for a moment of con- sciousness that would enable her to hear him say good-by before she started on the last journey. But this boon, so fervently prayed for, was not granted. She was unconscious THE STORM. 41 to the last, and died without recognizing her long-time com- panion, whose mind during these weary five days was stretched relentlessly on the rack of torturing anxiety. The mind may wear scars. There are mental afflictions as hard to bear as physical sufferings, for they are always with us. The illness of the body may yield to medicine, but who can "minister to a mind diseased," and " pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow? " That thunderous booming of the waves recalls Malvern Hill, with the massed artillery plunging slaughterous missiles through Magruder's gallant column of venturesome Confeder- ates, who paid a fearful penalty for their temerity. The drumming of the rigging is beating the long-roll to meet a night attack. But I will not indulge these dismal reflections. Rather let the thoughts be joyful and happy. I can find in these crackling noises, that fill the saloon with apparent discord- ance, cheerful sounds ; for everything depends on the man- ner in which we receive impressions ; the mould in which we cast them. Therefore will I be deaf to Cassandra. I will hear no notes of evil, but these whispers will be to me soft murmurs, flying over the boisterous waves and finding a resting-place in the ark, sweet-voiced messengers, bringing fond remembrance from dear ones on land. I will hear in these whistles the song of the oriole on embowered Rutger Street, the trilling of the robin from the venerable old elms of Broad Street, and the flutter of bright wings, circHng around the fountain where birds sip in Chancellor Square. But above all will I hear the mellow tone of holy convent bell, pealing out, from cloistered retreat, a reverent invitation to join in the prayers constantly ascending for all that dwell on land, or sail in ships on the sea. CHAPTER IV. A HARBOR REACHED. Still Below — A Dilemma — Short Commons^Under Bare Poles — Mon- sieur Tonson come again — 29.50 — The Barometer Watch — A let up — Gulf-weed — Flying-fish — Ash Wednesday — Bermuda Light — Hamilton Harbor. Hamilton, February 29, 1884. We lay through that raging night, buffeted about as if the sea-king were kicking and cuffing us spitefully for venturing to cross his domains in such an insignificant vessel while he was in bad humor. Keeping in our berths was a matter at- tended with much difficulty, tumbling, posturing, and con- tortion, and it might have been with some swearing, had we been addicted to the profane habit of our countrymen, many of whom interlard conversation with oaths without any apparent necessity for their emphatic employment. Expletives are common everywhere, but we excel in downright hard swear- ing ; profanity for the sake of being profane, without mean- ing any harm. In some places oaths are employed for terms of endearment, as Senator Nye once explained to Charles Sumner. In the United States, one may be regarded as a gentleman even if he swears and chews tobacco. The deck was hardly a comfortable place. There is not much fun in crouching on slippery planks, holding on like grim death, or being lashed, which is the only safe precau- tion ; to say nothing of the constant showers of spray whirl- ing overhead ; so we made the best of it and kept in our A HARBOR REACHED. 43 berths. To brace up required some skill in equitation ; we could not read because of the general shakiness, and smoking was forbidden by the lack of adequate ventilation. This con- dition lasted until about four o'clock in the afternoon of the next day, when, after laying to for seventeen hours, we found ourselves in a dilemma. The wind, which had been blowing from south-by-east, shifted and came out of the northwest with equal violence. Here was a complication ; we were struck between wind and water. The yacht couldn't carry sail with such a gale blowing, nor could she be laid to in the direction contrary to that she had occupied, for the sea was running very high from the southward, and if she turned about and pointed northwest she would take the waves over the stern and run the risk of being swamped. It was a perplexing mo- ment for the sailing-master, who had to decide quickly. Were it possible to lay to on the other quarter without being pooped, wearing ship would be attended with difficulty, and something unpleasant might happen if the yacht broached to. Then he found that the vessel was not long enough to " reach " as the sea was running, so there was nothing for it but to buck into the waves, run under bare poles and take the chances. A^ bit of canvas was set, a reefed fore-staysail about as big as a Deerfield pocket-handkerchief, and off she started before the wind, breasting the sea gallantly, driving her bowsprit into the advancing waves and rising like a duck, shaking herself as she emerged and casting the waves con- temptuously on either side. She reminded one of a noble Newfoundland dog plunging into the surf. It was a grand sight : the huge waves advanced, towering far above the yacht as if they would overwhelm her, and just as it seemed ,that she was about to be engulfed, she would lift up her head and the threatening waves would glide harmlessly under the keel. Peerless yacht Montauk ! 44 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. A little of this went a good way with us ; it was a splendid display, but we didn't stay outside in the storm ; we knew enough to come in when it rained. The usual attention was not paid to the cuisine during that forty hours below. The table was not spread. There were several sets of dishes in the steward's pantry, but no dishes set on the table. Too much knocking about for unguyed crockery. ' Then I don't think we had much appetite, notwithstanding we took considerable exercise on an empty stomach. Fortunately we had a good dinner PViday, as we ate nothing Saturday except some chicken-soup, served in teacups at the berth-side. This was the only meal between Friday's dinner and breakfast Sunday morning. Nothing is so good for the health as abstinence ; we all eat too much. After nightfall, the head-sea went down under the northwest gale, and rose in the opposite quarter, but, as we were scudding before the wind, and the sea was running with us, we moved along with comparative comfort. Sunday, the wind lulled, but the waves ran high and looked sullen and treacherous, oppressed by the gloomy clouds. All through Monday we made but little progress, the wind being light, but at night the gale set in again from the southeast with greater violence than it exhibited Friday and Saturday. We knew then that it was a circular storm, a windy Monsieur Tonson come again, and that it must be a hurricane, which caught us somewhere within its radius. The wind blew at least sixty miles an hour. I didn't go on deck to hold up a wet finger as an anemometer, but the sailors said that facing it they could hardly hold their breaths. I had been reading up the hurricane question. The yacht's library contains a large collection of maritime works, among them some books published by the Government, giving information regarding tides and currents, with valuable meteorological observations. I flatter myself I am well up in storms. I learned that when A HARBOR REACHED. 45 the barometer fell to 29.50 it indicated a hurricane, and one of the books gave directions how to escape from the vortex. This is not the regular season, but I thought one might be out on the road, taking a strolling tour, vagrantly flying around loose in these parts — a hurricane tramp as it were. It was possible that one might have been left over from last fall's stock and put in among the spring goods by mistake. The grave question was the state of the barometer. This was watched with as much solicitude as the election returns from an October State, It is situated in the companion-way over the saloon door. We took observations of it with long wax tapers. At midnight the glass was falling fast. Occa- sionally a spectral figure, in pajamas, could be seen stumb- ling along — like some white-robed sinner, taper in hand, making an expiatory pilgrimage — peering anxiously at the barometer. About two o'clock Tuesday morning, things be- came what is popularly described as " mixed." The wind howled like a Mississippi camp-meeting feeling the " power ; " the roar was deafening, and all the experiences of Friday night were renewed, only a little more so. At three o'clock, Uncle John, who was at that moment the rueful Knight of the taper, keeping watch and ward over the barometer, ex- claimed : " The glass has gone down eight points in fifteen minutes ; it is now at 29.50," This was the hurricane Rubi- con. This crucial point passed, we had the vortex business, I had been studying up, on hand. It oppressed me. In my life I had faced some difficulties successfully. I had taught clodhoppers to salute officers in the military style, I had drilled political torch-bearers, but I doubted my ability to handle a vortex. Then, for the first time that dolorous night, the Commo- dore appeared on the scene. He has a large cabin of his own, with a wide double-bed, and, having more lee-way, can 46 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. be knocked about with less discomfort than if he were in an or- dinary berth, with not so much space to pay out when a blow comes on. He had been thrown out on the floor of his room nevertheless, and appeared at the door of the saloon before reentering his berth. Said he, with the laconicism of an old salt, " You are looking at the wrong glass." Libbiamo ! Si- lence. We look at the other glass. In point of fact, we look into two of them. Then, with observant taper light, I ap- proach the barometer and gaze at it, mournfully, reproach- fully. The needle hovers over the fateful point 29.50. It oscillates tremulously, as if restrained by some better impulse before taking another downward step in the path to destruc- tion. I breathe upon it. It flutters doubtfully at receiving the communication from the other glass. It doesn't go below 29.50, but remains fixed there, and shortly after, feeling the influence of the spirits, shows an inclination to ascend. That glass of old Oscar Pepper was too strong for the weather- glass. The hurricane is averted. We are saved ! We lay to for eight hours, but the gale blew itself out be- fore morning, like a stump-speaker whose supplies are cut off by the committee. That night there were three watches, all on duty at once ; the starboard and port watches on deck, and the barometer watch below. After breakfast we found a heavy sea on, but it was subsiding slowly. The day was cloudy, and, as no observation could be taken, we were un- certain as to our position. No observation had been had since Friday ; this was the fourth day of the sun's obscura- tion. Theretofore the yacht had been sailed by dead reckon- ing, and, as the allowance for drifting during the gales was necessarily guess-work, we could not determine where we were with precision. Masses of gulf-weed floated by, speci- mens of which were fished up, and some of them are enclosed in this letter. The gulf-weed does not come from the Gulf, A HARBOR REACHED. 47 as its name would imply, but grows in the great Sargasso beds at the bottom of the Atlantic, somewhere in the vicinity of the Azores, or propagates itself floating, a habitat for in- digenous parasites, crabs, and mollusks. We found some tiny Crustacea clinging to the branches we took aboard, which had probably embarked on a voyage to Europe but came to grief in mid-ocean. I send you some of these diminutive mol- lusks, they are something like the crabs we find in oysters. I am not enough of a naturalist to describe the various living things found in the interstices of the weed. Besides, I am not writing an encyclopedia, and don't pretend to convey much information in these letters. They are principally per- sonal experiences and gossip, with an occasional fact thrown in, like the infrequent raisin in plum-duff. You must go to the books for knowledge. You can simply get an idea of what the gulf-weed is by the sprig I send. A full branch is very pretty, with its slender, graceful stalks, bearing yellow berries, something like the mistletoe. We saw a good many flying-fish darting over the waves, singly and in groups, like swallows skimming the surface. At night the steward was smoking a cigar forward when one of these fish flew on deck, attracted by the glow. Perhaps it only came aboard to ask the steward for a light, but he didn't view it in that light, and brought the fish to us. It is shapely and, with wings expanded, not unlike the swallow in appearance. As the next day was Ash-Wednesday, and I make maigre (the way we did at the gray old College de Ste. Hyacinthe) , the steward offered to cook it for me as a bonne bouche, but I re- fused. In the first place, I couldn't indulge in any luxury, even piscatorial, on the first day of Lent, and then the pretty fish looked so imploring, quivering in the steward's grasp with a frightened look in its glittering eyes, that I couldn't find it in my heart to eat it. I would as soon have 48 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. thought of eating a singing-bird. It would give me indiges- tion. Wednesday opened bright and fair, and we bowled along riglit merrily under unclouded skies, with zestful enjoy- ment enhanced by past tribulation. We often met that venturesome little mariner, the nautilus, riding over the waves, as confidently as if he were a great ship, instead of a bit of fragile shell with a membraneous pink sail. He always goes in ballast, never carries cargo, and is himself his only passenger, and by the time he reaches the other side he must be a dead-head at that. He didn't hail us as we passed, not even to ask us where the National Com- mittee had decided to hold the next convention to nominate a candidate for President to take a mud-bath. The sailors call this odd little shell the Portuguese man-of-war ; why, I could not learn. Although observance is not obligatory at sea, we kept Ash-Wednesday with conventional rigor. We are scrupu- lous about recognizing all the feasts, and do not always forget the fasts, though they seem to have a looser hold on the re- mindful conscience. Yes, we observed Ash-Wednesday re- ligiously. We had codfish pates for breakfast, and boiled cod with egg-sauce for dinner. Toward evening, anxiety set in as to our whereabouts. The observations showed that we could not be far from Ber- muda, but a slight chronometric variation might send us so far westward that we would fail to see the light, and pass the islands in the night. The group is not large, and may be easily missed, particularly where you have been working by dead-reckoning for four days, laying to twice in hurricanes, where allowance for drifting has to be made by conjecture. However, the anxious consultation that was going on between the sailing-master and a conferree (shall I mention him ? no, A HARBOR REACHED. 49 modesty forbid ! it is sufficient to say that he owned a com- pass), was interrupted by the look-out crying, " Light on the port bow, sir ! " We had made Bermuda hght. We lay off St. George's all night, and the next morning were boarded by a pilot, who said that the breeze was good but nearly ahead, and he doubted whether we could make up through the crooked channel of Hamilton Harbor until it shifted. The sailing-master asked him where we were to go, and when the marking buoys were pointed out, simply said that we could get there. And so we did, greatly to pilot Peter's astonishment, who had never seen a vessel sail so close on the wind, or come about in little more space than her own length. " I never see'd nothin' like that before, and I'm an old sailor," was his admiring comment. Yet Peter refused to take our sheet-iron stove for his pilot fee. Away then — by the sturdy fortifications of St. George's, the hospital glimmering white in the transparent air ; through sparkling waters of pale-green tint, looking like a tray of mixed diamonds and emeralds flashing in the agitation of some unseen power ; past Ireland Island, where the mam- moth floating-dock loomed up like some mighty marine monster stranded on the beach — until at length we dropped anchor in Hamilton Harbor. Hardly had we rounded to, when a resonant voice came hailing out, and a hand waved in friendly recognition from the shore. It was the hearty greeting of a member of the New York Yacht Club, Captain F. W. J. Hurst, who had arrived by the New York steamer a few days before, and now stood on the dock, offering us wel- come such as a warm, enthusiastic nature like his is capable of extending. He is an old resident of Bermiuda, and soon came aboard, with some of his relatives of the Darrell family, a few of whom will be mentioned hereafter. Our appearance was an agreeable surprise to Captain Hurst, who encountered 4 50 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. the first hurricane I have mentioned while on the steamer, and surmised that we had been blown off our course, and would be heard from somewhere in the West Indies. Our friend Captain E. E. Chase, owner of the yacht Clio, N. Y.Y.C., who was visiting the island with Captain Hurst, also came aboard. After examination by the -Health Officer, the Com- modore went ashore, reported at the Custom House; called upon the U. S. Consul, was put down at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, and in a few hours we were made to feel en- tirely at home in hospitable Bermuda. CHAPTER V. BERMUDA. Bermuda — Settlement — Government — Departed Glories — Religion — Revenues — ^Exports and Imports — Climate — Vegetables — Flowers — Water — Fruits — Dock-yard . Hamilton, March 3, 1884. Bermuda is a queer old place. It is a group of islands, popularly supposed to number three hundred and sixty-five, corresponding numerically with the days of the year, as our old negro pilot, Peter Smith, informed us when he came aboard. As this exact number is allotted to groups in other parts of the Avorld, it is given probably without exactitude ; still there are over a hundred islands in the group, the largest. Long Island, containing the principal town of Hamilton, which gives the name to the harbor in which we are anchored. St. George's, on the other side, is fortified by a formidable armament, which looks imposing as we enter, from the sea, the channel which it commands. Ireland Island is the most important, as here is the naval station, with extensive arsen- als and workshops. It was formerly a convict station, but has not been used as a penal settlement for twenty years past. The fine roads, many of them hewn out of the solid rock, which are everywhere in these islands, were mainly the work of convicts. The islands, rising grimly out of the sea, remote from the mainland (the nearest point being Cape Hatteras, six hundred 52 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. miles distant), were originally a coral formation. The action of the waves, throwing sand upon them, caused masses to be piled up, which atmospheric influences converted into lime- stone, covered in time with soil and vegetation. This Hme- stone is soft, though not friable, and is quarried with hand- saws. It is strange to see a man digging the cellar of his house v/ith a saw, and erecting the superstructure from the product of his excavation. The houses are roofed with the same stone, and, as a rule, are whitewashed all over, pre- senting a vivid glare, not ungrateful when peeping out isolated from amid verdure, but somewhat monotonous and trying to the eye when grouped. Viewed from the deck of a vessel in harbor, the village of Hamilton, bathed in moonlight, en- hancing its pallor, reminds one of the cemetery of Pere la Chaise, with its massive tombs staring out, ghostly mansions in a veritable city of the dead. But here the comparison ends ; for Hamilton, sleeping placid in the silvery light, has a great, warm, noble heart pulsing generous red blood beneath its outward paleness. Then there is no tomb of Abelard and Heloise for weeping lovers' pilgrimage. Bermuda is too proper to tolerate such vagaries. Bermuda is the oldest English colony. The islands were discovered by Juan Bermudez, a Spaniard, whose vessel was wrecked on the reefs, twenty-three years after the discovery of America by Columbus. Twelve years afterward, Camelo made an abortive effort to settle the islands for Spain. In 1609, ninety-four years after the discovery by Bermudez, Sir George Somers was shipwrecked here, and remained several months, when he sailed for Virginia. Virginia being in great necessity, he volunteered to return to Bermuda to obtain a supply of provisions for suffering Virginians. He died here in November ensuing. General J. H. Lefroy, twice Governor of Bermuda, caused a tablet to be placed in the wall near his BERMUDA. 53 monument in St. George's (named after him) containing this inscription : " Near this spot was interred in the year 1616 the heart of the heroic Admiral Sir George Somers, Kt., wlio nobly sacrificed his life to carry succour to the infant and suffering plantation, now the State of Virginia. To preserve his fame for future ages near the scene of his memorable shipwreck, 1609, the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of this colony, for the time being, caused this tablet to be erected 1876." The government of the colony was administered by the Bermuda Company until 1687, when it was dissolved, and Sir Richard Robinson was appointed Governor by the British Crown. There is a large number of officials, imperial and colonial, whose names make quite an imposing array in the pages of the " Bermuda Almanack," a valuable compendium, statistical, and historical, published by Mr. Lee, of the Ber- in?ida Royal Gazette, a newspaper founded over fifty years ago. The Governor's whole salary amounts to $15,000, in- cluding, I suppose, his pay as an officer of the British Army; of which $3,500 is paid by the Colony. The next largest salary is that of the Chief Justice, $3, 500 and fees. In looking over the list, I find that the poorest paid officer is the Solicitor- General, Richard D. Darrell, who is marked " No salary." If scholarly attainments and attractive personal attributes constituted the requisites for official place, there would be no position, howsoever eminent, beyond Mr. Darrell's deserts, nor any that he would not dignify and adorn. And were re- muneration commensurate with merit, his emoluments would be exceedingly large. The Governor of Bermuda is appointed by the Crown, as are colonial officials generally, but there is a pretense of rep- resentative government, in a House of Assembly, consisting of thirty-six members, elected septennially, four from each 54 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. parish, by qualified voters. Happy land ! where an election is held but once in seven years. The number of voters is 968 — 675 white and 293 colored. Thus there is one repre- sentative for every 27 voters. In Smith parish there are 49 quahfied voters, each Member of Assembly from that pre- cinct representing 12 electors, with one extra as a reserve. With a like ratio of representation, the State of New York would have an Assembly of 100,000 members, and a Sen- ate of 25,000. Shade of Buddy Parns ! defend us from any increase in the existing membership. The resident population of Bermuda, according to the census of 1881, is 13,948 — 5,384 white, and 8,564 colored. In addition, are som.e hundreds connected with the military and naval establishments. Stationed here at present, are the Second Battalion (84th) York and Lancaster Regiment of Foot, and some companies of Artillery and Royal Engineers. This is the headquarters of the British Naval Station for the western hemisphere, the fleet in the waters consisting of four- teen vessels of various sizes, ranging from the armor-plated, double-screw ship, Northampton, 7,630 tons, to the gunboat of 430 tons. Among these is a Confederate ram captured during our civil war. Here are no manufactures, no evidences of mechanical occupation, no chimneys reeking with the sulphurous breath of toiling machinery. We saw a steam-engine in the carpenter- shop of Mr. Jackson, who not only runs the carpenter's horse, but a livery stable as well. His main business seemed to be the construction of burial cases from the native cedar, which apparently makes an attractive, comfortable, and satisfactory coffin. Although the climate is a great promoter of longevity, there is an occasional death in Bermuda. Mr. Jackson, who is an intelligent gentleman of color, of mixed race, with pleasing manners and address, showed us a backgammon board, which BERMUDA. 55 contained many variegated specimens of the cedar. Speak- ing of the colored population, which largely outnumbers the white, except when it comes to voting, the colored people are ordinarily quiet, orderly, temperate, and industrious. Nearly all the manual labor is performed by them, and there are no other domestic servants. They are the pilots, boat- men, coachmen, cooks, chambermaids, waiters, and gardeners. The whites are merchants, doctors, lawyers, and priests. Formerly there was much shipping at this port, but it has nearly vanished ; the merchant vessels owned numbering less than a dozen, with not more than a hundred manners. Things were different in the lush days of blockade-running during our civil war, when Bermuda was a favorite resort of the runners. Then it was crowded with adventurous sailors, and the ap- pearance of the bold privateers, who thronged the streets, scattering dollars with lavish hand, must have suggested shadowy recollections of old-time stories of dashing buc- caneers, sailing among the West Indies, and ravaging the Spanish Main. They were calculated to bring to mind the wondrous feats of Morgan and Black Beard, which fas- cinated our boyhood's days in the "Pirate's Own Book," and made the hair stand on end in that dimly-remote period when there was hair to stand. This, of course, with- out the blood-stains M^hich mark the record of piratical ex- ploits ; for the modern privateer was a most inoffensive, mild- mannered gentleman, in guileless pursuit of the honest dollar, who felt cotton and tested tobacco instead of handling cutlass and boarding-pike. No doubt blockade-running was remu- nerative to Bermuda, a convenient way-station where seafarers stopped for refreshments, and there would be little regret felt, perhaps, if another scrimmage were to break out which would bring her advantageous position to a profitable market. In the matter of wrecking, she presents superior attractions, 56 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK, her coral reefs extending far out to embrace, siren-like, the unwary ship, while the tortuous channel of entrance can only be threaded by experienced native pilots. But there are not many wrecks around in these degenerate days of steam navi- gation. Indeed, Bermuda, not to put too* fine a point on it, may be described as- quiet. Hamilton Harbor is no longer white with sails, nor do the wharves exhibit the bustling ac- tivity of a seaport town. Front Street is almost deserted, and where 'urst, the gay blockade-runner, adorned the side- walk with debonair presence, lethargic trade flows in unevent- ful currents through commonplace, sluggish channels. It would seem as if nothing could be quieter than Hamilton on secular days, but the acme of repose is attained on Sunday, which is observed rigidly, with almost Puritanical severity, notwithstanding the affiliation of nearly the whole population with the Church of England. Perhaps this sabbatical tone is owing, in some measure, to the fact that Bermuda was settled about the time of Puri- tan ascendancy in England, the formal incorporation of the Bermuda Company, which administered affiiirs for seventy years, having been made under letters-patent granted by James I. These colonists would be astonished to drop into Chicago, of a Sunday, and see the theatres open and the res- taurants arid drinking saloons in full blast. The absence of governmental bigotry is evinced in the grant of $50 per an- num to every one hundred persons of each denomination ; the Established Church receiving $5,000; the Wesleyan, $850 ; the British Methodist Church, $400 ; the Presbyterian, $350 ; the Roman Catholic, $200, and the Reformed Church of England, $200. The rectors of the Church of England re- ceive an annual allowance of $700. The religious profession of the inhabitants is as follows : Church of England, 10,000 ; Wesleyan Methodist, 1,672; British Methodist Episcopal, BERMUDA. 57 752 ; Presbyterian, 686 ; Roman Catholic, 391 ; Reformed Church of England, 208 ; other denominations, 236, It will thus be seen that the entire population of 13,948 is classified according to some religious profession. Evidently there are no atheists nor free-thinkers. A prudent eye watches that allowance of fifty cents a head. As brusque Dr. McCraith used to say, with reprehensible irreverence : " Religion, what is it ? Domhins Vobiscum ; down with your money ! " This would be a paradise for timid souls who live in constant terror of papal aggression. If, as was suggested by the New York Herald, some years ago, the Pope should quit Rome and es- tablish his See in the Western world, it is not probable that Bermuda would be selected ; as a residence with a contiguous parish of 391 worshipers, and an allowance of $200 per an- num would hardly afford opportunity for elaborate displays of the stately ceremonial of the Church of Rome at the Holy See. In a religious regard, the English Government afi'ords a favorable contrast to the Italian, England supports, Italy robs, the Church. Bermuda has a tariff on importations. There is a duty of four shillings a gallon on spirits, and twenty per cent, ad -va- lorem on wines. The revenue of the Colony from importa- tions in 1883, was $123,875, of which $62,910 was from liquors; $2,665 tobacco and cigars; $1,210 beef cattle, and $54>75o from all other sources. Falstaff 's estimate of the proper proportion of bread to sack would seem to be carried out in these figures, showing the relative receipts from impor- tation of spirits and beef. For the year 1882, the total value of imports was $1,400,- 000 ; exports, $450,000 ; showing a balance of trade against the colony of $850,000, The greatest disparity is in the English trade, for while England exported to Bermuda $300,- 000, she imported in return but $6,000. The United States 58 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK, did better. We sold the colony $900,000 worth, and bought to the amount of $500,000. But it must be borne in mind that England sends large sums for the maintenance of her military and naval establishments, which in turn maintain Bermuda to some extent. In 1883, the value of vegetables exported was : Onions, $253,000; potatoes, $122,500; tomatoes, $35,000; arrow- root, $2,600; beets and other vegetables, $4,500. The ar- rowroot is said to be the best in the world, yet, as will be seen by the extent of exportation, the production is compar- atively insignificant. The onion comes to the front as the Bermuda specialty, with the potato a good second in the race. One sees onion beds everywhere. The spade is the agricul- tural implement in general use. Reapers, mowers, binders, tedders, and other labor-saving devices have no use here. There is but little grass for the mower to mow ; no grain for the reaper to reap ; no sheaves for the binder to bind. Even Uncle David Gray's potato-digger would hardly be utilized ; the fields are not large enough for its ambitious grasp, which extends beyond pent up Utica and broad Marcy to fresh fields of illimitable extent. The potato patches are situated in nooks. It looks as if there had been a rain of vegetables, which ran down the stony hillsides in rivulets and gathered into onion ponds in the hollows. After all, the most valuable plant in Bermuda is the British Army and Navy. The climate is salubrious, particularly in the winter months, when the growing vegetation affords a contrast to the snow-clad hills of our rigorous Northern clime. Trees attain no considerable altitude, but bear the somewhat stunted appearance incident to places subjected to high winds. The principal timber tree is cedar, which has a grain of diversified beauty. This material is used in building the Bermudian boats, which have some celebrity from their peculiar rig. BERMUDA. 59 There are palmettoes, tropical trees, and some found in the temperate zone. Indeed, in its appearance and products, Bermuda is a sort of connecting link between the temperate and tropical; with characteristics -of both, but with the ex- clusive features of neither. There is an exuberance of flowers, particularly roses, which are of extraordinary variety. The wonderful display of geraniums would excite the envy of even Sam Lane Florus. The water is brackish. There are no springs, and rain- water is used almost exclusively. Perhaps this accounts for the sparing use of this fluid as a beverage. We saw the fa- miliar tumbler, found invariably on the American dinner ta- ble, but soon learned that it was not intended for water. It was a beer glass. One of the dinner habits here is to serve beer, after the usual courses of wine, before dessert. No doubt it is a good digestive, like the hot whisky punch which is in- troduced at the same stage at Irish dinner tables — the " hot wather and matayreals." Water being such an expensive luxury, the frugal Bermudian, with his simple tastes, is fain to content himself with whisky, wine, or beer. Strange how rapidly we heeded the scriptural injunction, and did in Ber- muda as Bermudians do. The facility with which we fell into their habits, reflects credit upon our capacity of assimilation, and we manifested the greatest philosophy in becoming recon- ciled to our aqueous deprivation. Facilis desceiisus ! The water taken aboard the yacht to supply the exhaustion of our New York store cost three cents a gallon. Requiring a large quantity of ice, it was furnished at twenty dollars a ton. The usual price, when purchased at retail, is at the rate of forty dol- lars, or two cents a pound. In our voyage to the West In- dies, we shall be prudently careful of water, and use it only for the purposes for which a kind Providence designed it for mankind — cooking- and washins: Notwithstanding; the ab- 6o THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. stention from the use of water as a beverage, I am informed that drunkenness is a rarity in Bermuda. Possibly the igno- rance of prohibitory legislation may have some bearing on this noteworthy exemption from a crying evil in our own land. But there may be a change in this regard. I see by the "Bermuda Almanack" that there are some lodges of Good Templars established for the promotion of teetotalism. They might import a few drunkards for planting. But I don't think they could raise a crop. Planting, by the way, is the best use a drunkard can be put to. The Bermudians may not be entirely abstemious, but they are certainly temperate. There are no intoxicating liq- uors produced on the island. Soda-water is manufactured to some extent — for diluting brandy. There is no danger of a drought, however, for there is stored here a quantity of American whisky — 90,000 barrels, exported by the distillers to evade the payment of internal revenue tax just before the expiration of the bonded period. An effort was made to tax this whisky for the benefit of the Colony, but it failed. Among the surmises as to the moving cause of the incendiar- ism which recently destroyed the handsome parish church or cathedral, was a suspicion that its contiguity to the ware- house where this whisky is stored might secure a wholesale unloading of watered stock on the insurance companies. This suspicion was as unfounded, no doubt, as the popular attribution of the nefarious act to Fenianism, which is a bug- bear among cis-Atlantic English Colonies, "to fright the isle from its propriety." I took occasion to say that my sym- pathies were entirely with the cause of Irish nationalism, but I believed this charge was unjust. I was well acquainted with some Fenians, and was confident that the cause of Ireland did not demand the destruction of the churches of England. For the future I felt assured. I knew that the personal friend- BERMUDA. 6 1 ship for me of a gentleman in Utica, N. Y., would prompt him to heed my intercession and " let up " on Bermuda, as a recognition of the kindness extended to his townsman. The drives through Bermuda are delightful. Roads, per- fectly smooth, with no dust, wind among deep cuts through solid rock, affording sea-views of ever-shifting attractiveness. I have never seen anything like the diversified tints of the water, varying from a peculiar delicate light blue to the dark ultramarine, alternating, as the water is deep or shoal, with shimmering colors of green. The foliage, while not showing the tender verdure seen at home, is not without beauty. The substantial stone walls bordering the road are covered with trailing vines, laden with scarlet, white, and pink blossoms ; and oleander hedges, geranium beds, and rose trees abound in gorgeous display. I question, however, the abundance of fruits said to be found here. Except the banana and the date, or fig, so called, I failed to find any large supply of fruits. The climate is adapted, no doubt, to the growth of the strawberry, and it might be cultivated, but it is not ; which is a pity. Good old Dr. Boteler said, a couple of hun- dred years ago, " Doubtless God could have made a better berry ; but doubtless God never did." I would rather have the apple orchards of our Clinton hills than all the fruit-trees in Bermuda. We witnessed a battalion drill of four companies of the garrison, under command of Major Luck. The movements were not much different from those practiced in our service, though the commands were simplified, and better on account of their brevity. The bayonet exercise, by battalion de- ployed at skirmishing intervals, was admirably performed. I have never seen it better done, except, perhaps, by the Fifth New York Volunteers (Duryea Zouaves), noted for its proficiency in this drill. 62 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. The most interesting point in Bermuda is Ireland Island, containing immense workshops for naval repairs, and the famous floating-dock, Bermuda, the largest in the world, capable of docking the greatest vessel in any navy. It was built in England, and towed across the Atlantic by two men- of-war. To place it in position, 1,200,000 cubic feet of sand and coral were dredged up. It is 381 feet long, and there are in it no less than 3,000,000 rivets. The ship of war Tene- dos, of about 2,000 tons burden, was in dock while we were there, and it looked like a small vessel in the dwarfing em- brace ot the mammoth dock. We lunched with Captain Clapp, Royal Navy, an officer in charge, who had sent his steam-launch to convey us to the yard. Captain Clapp, a model British naval officer, is also an enthusiastic yachtsman and Commodore of the Bermuda Club. A dingey race took place while we lay in the harbor. The Bermudians are not given to brevity in the matter of titles ; and the imposing magnitude of its name, " The Royal Hamilton Amateur Dingey Club," is in inverse ratio with the size of the boats of this organization ; the maximum length permitted being fourteen feet, one inch. Ordinarily these races are quite exciting and attended with ludicrous mishaps. The peculiar rig, with the mast set forward, ren- ders the dingey liable to take headers into the waves and go under if the sea should be running high. The race in ques- tion was tame, the wind not blowing fresh enough to cause any of the accidents which give zest to the lively contests. These little boats are handled with much skill. The Government House, the Governor's official residence, was under a self-imposed quarantine on account of the illness of one of General Gallwey's children, but the General paid a visit to the yacht, accompanied by his son (a fine young offi- cer, his A. D. C. and private secretary) and his daughter, BERMUDA. 6S regarding whom I took the liberty of respectfully suggesting, to her brother, that she was beautiful and graceful enough to be taken for an American girl. The Lieutenant, however, would not admit our national superiority, but stoutly main- tained English supremacy, saying that Rotten Row, in Hyde Park, would afford an exhibition of charms unequaled in the world. But, although an intelligent young man, he is not well educated in this important matter ; he has never been in the United States. He intends to visit us one of these days, and if he should, I will have him come to Utica. There he will find how greatly he is mistaken. The Governor is a man of varied knowledge, thoroughly conversant with public matters throughout the world, and particularly well informed in American affairs. He was in the United States during the war, but Secretary Stanton de- nied him the facilities he desired to witness our operations. The General did not know how to obtain favors from the War Department. He ought to have procured the influence of some political shouter or shoddy contractor to aid him. The Governor appears to be in high favor with the Bermudians. I have no doubt, however, that the popularity of his admin- istration (enhanced by his agreeable manners and charming family surroundings) is aided to a considerable extent by the efficiency of the Colonial Secretary, Hon. Cavendish Boyle, who administers his office with ability that would be marked in a more important position. The superiority of the well-regulated English Civil Ser- vice system, to our disjointed, erratic way of doing things, is illustrated in his case. Men are trained to diplomatic and governmental service, and are transferred from one place to another, as occasion requires. Appointments depend in some degree upon political influence, and administrative changes involving distribution of patronage, but the abom- 64 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. inable doctrine, " to the victors belong the spoils," applied to subordinate positions, does not obtain. With us, whenever there is a change of administration, every "leader" in the victorious ranks, who can run a ward caucus successfully, be- comes a candidate for something, or rather anything, from Secretary of the Treasury, to sweeper in a Government. build- ing. Civil service in England is genuine ; with us it is a base pinchbeck imitation, a good deal like the high-sounding pro- fessions in political platforms, and protestations of windy demagogues. The difficulty is that our public men lack the courage to disregard the clamors of the office-seeking mob. CHAPTER VI. HOSPITABLE BERMUDA. Letter-writing — Laziness — In re Darrelli — Festivities — Prospero's Grot — The Mess Dinner — Benny Havens, Oh ! — Uncle John — The Happy Valley — Lily Bower — At Home — The Hand-Clasp. On Board Montauk, at Sea, March 9, 1884, Lat. 31.49 N., Lon. 63.51 W. I HAD intended to write you again before leaving Hamilton Harbor, but lavish Bermudian hospitalities interposed insur- mountable obstacles. I might say, they erected barriers of mountainous generosity, although the expression may ap- pear exaggerated to those who have not been enabled, by experience, to appreciate the appositeness of the simile. What with dinners, luncheons, drives, " moist" chats at the Club, visits to the barracks and dock-yard ; together with reciprocal entertainment aboard the yacht, to the limited extent afforded by shore preoccupation, we barely have had time to meet our engagements, with none to spare for letter- writing. Besides, no one who has not felt the laziness of sea-voyaging can understand the effort required to write. When, for example, one embarks on a steamer for Europe, he collects a small library of books — mainly of the light liter- ary complexion — and provides ample store of writing ma- terials, with suitable blanks for memoranda, jottings, journals of travel, observations, and data for interesting communica- tions to friends " we have left behind ; " but the chances are 5 66 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. that not a letter will be written aboard, and hardly a book read. But on a steamer there is the acceptable excuse of looking after the ladies on deck, placing chairs, arranging shawls and rugs, encircling — ahem ! — when the ship " heels," and paying those general and particular little attentions ob- ligatory at sea; while we, having no ladies on board, can offer no such pretext for epistolary negligence, and must frankly attribute it to the real cause — laziness. I hope these desultory scribblings may be intehigible ; and, although dis- jointed and shapeless, not uninteresting. At any rate, they possess the novelty of being written at sea, and if there should be nothing fresh in them, please bear in mind that the sea is always brackish. After boring you with all the dry statistics contained in my last letter, I may be pardoned for introducing here some notes of personal experiences, which may not be of much in- terest to you, but were vastly entertaining to our party while in progress. The afternoon of our arrival at Bermuda, we were invited by Mr. Henry Darrell to drive to Cavendish, the residence of his father, formerly Chief Justice of the Colony, who had a little party to celebrate the fifty-eighth anniversary of his marriage. As we drove along a road that wound through the grounds, and approached the house (the only one in Ber- muda from which the sea is not visible), a charming sight met our eyes. In a lovely, tree-shaded glade, a number of young ladies and gentlemen were playing tennis and a sort of game something like our base-ball, and the scene was strikingly like a rural view in England. Beneath the spread- ing branches of a tree near the house, a table was spread with suitable refreshments, of which the guests partook at their convenience. We were presented to the Chief Justice, a venerable, well-preserved, suave gentleman, whose eighty- HOSPITABLE BERMUDA. 6/ eighth birthday was close at hand, and his wife, a handsome, cheerful, stately old lady of eighty-one, who stood by his side, entering with hearty zest into the youthful enjoyment of the generations of their descendants by whom they were surrounded. We took a glass of wine with the aged couple, and couldn't help but be impressed with the exceptional length of time that they were permitted to live together, in placid communion, unclouded by care, exemplifying, in an eminent degree, the beauties of domestic life. The Darrell connection seems to be a large one in Ber- muda, and, from the dignified Chief Justice, "full of wise saws and modern instances," to the "Infant" of Mr. John H. Darrell, Jr., redolent of spirits and vivacity — " babe in the house, a well-spring of pleasure " — they appear to be a truly happy family. In the evening we dined with Mr. Henry Darrell, who lives in a quaint, commodious house, two hundred years old, full of nooks and crannies that would delight the heart of that unreasonable, pessimistical old fogy who writes on musty topics in the Utica newspapers, finding nothing to suit him now-a-days. The obsolete four-posted bedsteads and cedar chests of drawers, of veritable antique pattern, would be things of beauty and joy to him, although he would resent the absence of dust, to which Mr. Darrell's sister, and housekeeper, appears to have an unconquerable aversion. Our host sat at the head of his bounteous table and carved, in the good old-fashioned way, spicing the delicious dishes with frequent bon-inots and funny stories, for he is a witty ra- eonteiir, with copious store of anecdote, foreign and domes- tic, at the command of his ready tongue. He lives, like a fine old English gentleman, on his own estate. He men- tioned, with much complacency, that on the table were di- verse products of his own farm — the fowls were from his barn- 68 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. yard, the vegetables fresh plucked from his garden, the fish caught that day on his own fish- farm, in pots set in front of the shore Of his demesne, and the flowers grew invitingly around the latch-string that hangs outside his hospitable porch. It must be admitted that the wines were not of home vintage, but of choice importation — a whiff from the open mouth of a special bottle of Santa Cruz rum came like a reminiscence of the halcyon days when a famous cellar in Utica responded to the calls of Aaron Burr, the venerable ex-mayor, contemporary of James Crumley, and other gentle- men, all of the olden time, who wore ruffled shirts and knee breeches. The exceptional coolness of the evening (it must have been nearly as cold as a May day in New York) afforded a pretext for lighting the unusual fire, which shone upon us with homelike gleam when Ave returned to the cheerful draw- ing-room. We found that the post-prandial cigar, an indis- pensable adjunct to the American feast, is not an habitual sequence to the Bermudian dinner. Universal smoking is not a feature here. We met many men who did not smoke at all, and but few are cigar-smokers, the pipe and cigarette furnishing fumiferous indulgence to the votaries of tobacco. After a brief acquaintance with it, I don't wonder that the Bermudian cigar finds small favor. Proffers of entertainment greatly exceeded the capacity of acceptance during the period allotted for our stay. The British Army and Navy officers vied with colonial residents on -the extension of kindly attention. A dinner given by Mr. F. W. J. Hurst, at which Capt. Chase and Mr. D. S. Apple- ton, of New York, and Mr. Bloor, of Philadelphia, were present, was most enjoyable, and fully maintained the reputa- tion held by the jovial host in the city of his adoption. Lady Commerell, wife of Vice-Admiral Sir John E. Com- merell, in command of the naval station, sent us cards for HOSPITABLE BERMUDA. 69 her reception, and being unable to accept, our regrets were sent by one of the quartermasters, a spruce young sailor, in yacht uniform. Admiralty House being distant, he procured a carriage and was driven up there ; the sight of a sailor, in full seaman's rig, riding in solitary grandeur, being something of a novelty. Somebody suggested that a bicycle would have been a more stunning vehicle for nautical service. Then he would have been taken for part of the United States Navy. Mr. Boyle and Lieut. Gallwey gave a dinner at the Club, with a capital menu, but particularly pleasant in its con- genial characterization. It sparkled with wit, humor, sen- timent and song, Avery late game of pool was .engaged in after dinner, which was played differently from the American game, each player having a special object ball \ but one of our party came off triumphantly, winner of two shillings. Thus did he inflict retributive financial justice upon Bermuda for harboring blockade-runners during our war ; and, as there were some English army officers participating, give the tail of the British lion a severe twist, maintaining de- fiantly the honor and glory of the American qtieiie. Who will dare to say after this that the billiard tables of the Fort Schuyler Club were set up in vain ? The table was not of moderri pattern, but a broad, verdant expanse, across which Friede could not be discerned without a telescope. It was aptly compared to a tennis-court, with marbles for balls. Ac- cording to custom, all games are played for a stake, to make them interesting. With us, the hazard, however small, would constitute reprehensible gambling. We have some crude and erroneous ideas, which are in gradual progress of correction, among intelligent and cultivated persons who have oppor- tunities to observe the manners and customs of other lands. It is habitual in England always to play for a stake of some kind. In a game of whist, ladies play for sixpenny or shilling 70 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. counters, in which they see no impropriety. Imagine ladies in the United States sitting at a table and — gambling ! Proh p7idor ! the pew-door would come down on them with a ven- geance. Unfortunately, boisterous extremists and addle-pated fanatics have too much clamorous influence in directing public opinion with us. They drown the quiet voice of moderation and good-sense. Great is pretense, and the blatherskite is its prophet ! The fanatic sees no difference of demerit between moderate drinking and drunkenness ; and, in his eyes, playing for a small stake, to enhance the interest in an amusement, is abominable equally with professional gambling, cheating at cards, reckless improvidence, and ruinous infatuation with a vice. His argument is that if cards and dice were not used, there would be none of these deplorable evils of gaming. True, and so if there were no water, men couldn't commit suicide by drowning. They would have to resort to some other mode of exhibiting insanity ; they would have to cut their throats or hang themselves. Then the fanatic would prohibit ropes and razors. The dinner of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club deserves more than passing mention. It was given on an island be- longing to the Club, which is fitted up with all conveniences for a recreative retreat. Here the members assemble and enjoy themselves to their heart's content. As one of them remarked, they are remote from prying curiosity, and can indulge in hilarity without bated breath. Green turtle be- came the piece de resistance. The noble reptile was served in all the most approved styles, turtle soup, turtle steak, and turtle fins, the latter an esteemed delicacy. We ate so much of these that we were imable to do justice to other toothsome viands. But it is not an every-day dish with us. The good-natured turtle is not in the habit of sprawling along the shore of Staten Island, inviting somebody to HOSPITABLE BERMUDA. 7 1 catch and eat him, as it is his benevolent custom in Ber- muda. The President, Mr. Richard D. Darrell, presided over the jolly yachtsmen with a graceful tact that added much to the unflagging gayety of the symposium. The responses to numerous toasts were apt and to the point; the remarks of the Commodore, Uncle John, and the Commissioner being notably pertinent and well-timed. Uncle John responded for the Ladies, and an effort was made to induce him to explain the hand-clasp, for the use of the natives after his departure, but it failed. In these things he never gives anything away. About midnight, we left this joyous island, under a bright moonlight, with a spanking breeze, in club yachts, full of turtle, and with abundant material for pleasant recollections of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club. We drove out to the residence of Mr, Allen, U. S. Con- sul, situated on the ocean side, six miles from Hamilton ; a charming islet, connected with the main island by a short bridge over the narrow stream that creates the insular dis- severance. This might well be the spot (it is somewhere in Bermuda) where the entranced eyes of Ferdinand beamed revealingly upon the unenlightened virgin heart of Miranda and quickened it into loving fruition. " Thy banks with peonied and UUed brims, Which spungy April at thy hest betrinis, To make cold nymphs chaste crowns." Caliban no longer resides here, but a large monkey served to do the monster business. We met, at luncheon, Dr. and Mrs. Brower, of Utica, and some other American visitors, who had been invited to join us. Mr. Allen has a taste for ichthyology, and his aquarium contains some curious specimens, among them the brilliant angel-fish. A curious creature is the trunk-crab, which 72 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. packs up its claws and marches off like a belle preparing for a season at the sea-shore. The operation of this shell-fish is a reminder of the man who lifts himself up by the waistband of his trousers. We went to the sea-shore, the boundary of Mr. Allen's property, and saw the growing coral. It is not of the valuable variety, like the pink and red of the Mediter- ranean, but the ordinary gray madrepore. Mr. Allen has been Consul here for twenty-three years, and we heard many expressions among the inhabitants of the hope that a change of administration would not effect his re- moval. Those simple islanders are not aware that it is our patriotic duty as freemen to rally on the colors every four years and try to turn the rascals out. The man who is out, inspired by a lofty sense of duty, always regards the man who is in as a rascal. We haven't succeeded in turning them out to any extent for the past twenty-five years, but we shall accomplish our disinterested object in time. Everything comes to him who waits, even though he waits unwillingly. We outside patriots are singing, " There's a good time com- ing, boys ; wait a little longer. " A change will come. The desire for a change, like Hope, springs eternal in the human breast. Hope has fooled us several times, but she can't do it much longer. We dined with the Mess of the Eighty-fourth, and nothing could excel the cordiality with which we were received. The dinner was excellent, served on the mess-plate of the regi- ment, massive and elegant, appropriately inscribed, bearing on each piece the regimental crest. It is customary when an officer leaves the regiment, or is transferred, to present a piece of plate to the Mess, and the accumulations of years form a large and handsome service. In accordance with their rule, the only toast offered at table was the Queen, which was received with the usual antiphon, God bless her ! HOSPITABLE BERMUDA. ']'i^ As a stanch republican, it is my duty to frown on queens in the abstract, but I Hke to see the honest and loyal enthu- siasm displayed by these soldiers for their sovereign, so I joined in heartily and said, " The Queen, God bless her ! " though she is not My Queen. Mine is uncrowned. After leaving the table, there was a social gathering in the mess-room, which was a most refreshing and profitable sea- son, as the deacons say after a revival, if the plate " pans out " satisfactorily. Unconstrained soldierly, festal fervor prevailed. A toast to the United States Army was accom- panied by hearty cheers, and one of the guests, who had seen a little service in the army while fighting was going on, was called upon to respond. He said that in the crest of this regiment he found an analogy which permitted him to refer to the present condition of our country, but lately rent by the war for the Union. It bears a reminder of fierce civil con- flict, buried long ago in the history of a past century, but the whilom badges of antagonism now form an emblem of unity, and the white rose of York and the Lancasterian red com- bine, in alternate leaves, in the arms of the Eighty-fourth Regiment, forming, with the green laurel that crowns the record of the gallant command, a rainbow of promise of future amity. So with our own land, but a short time ago divided by warring forces. Now, contention has passed away, and the lofty pine of Maine and the palmetto of South Car- olina are swayed by the same breeze of peaceful unity, breathing the assurance of uninterrupted harmony among our confederated people for evermore. At the conclusion of his short speech, in answer to a per- sistent call, he sang the army song of " Benny Havens, Oh ! " the British officers joining enthusiastically in the chorus, although it was the rebel tune of " The Wearing of the Green." 74 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. BENNY HAVENS, OH! WRITTEN FOR THE SOCIETY OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. Air — Wearing of the green. f2E Pour forth, a full li- ^h%-=^- i^Eszitb* zs=.-s=i)=ir----^- F=^=l^: i^-Hji-^-aH- B '0-^^ z^n^^to:^ f?^^=S=S^E ^ ba-tion now To Far - ra - gut the brave, The i - dol of the Na - vy and The J— 13^=3=5 — J— J ^: =1=1: --4- * ^- ^ IS ^1^^^ p-F^" -gi — i^- :^r- 1^ S^5EE :S=it pqs;=qs=> — Nf=is i=S:* tS=S=S=S- iff=S: Krqs=: 1*=:1^=J5: 3i=*=z*i rul- er of the wave; He's gone aloft,lashed in his shroud,Where soon we all must O^" m^\ ---^=■^■=z^- iiipi i:q5^ :?i= >=— = U=J HOSPITABLE BERMUDA. 75 ^ ^ !g-" E:p=pi =:a!:z=tz=Efez=t2- =^^iii^ll=i?=i^=^il >; He's wait- ing there to wel-comeus With Ben - ny Ha-vens, oh'! ]=T^==^^ -^'- =i- _^ __ __^ ._^ ■S^ ^ -ar -*- -*- ii^ 1^^= Chorus. Soprano and Alto. __»-«_Cjj « a» » — '^•— T «>— L» g — g g — Lg -^— 1^ tlUM^^^Z With Ben-ny Ha-vens, oh ! With Ben-ny Ha-vens, oh ! He's waiting there to Tenor and Bass. fi^ m r* ^ — ^ ^—r^-^—^—r^ ^ * «— r*- tt*=:t«=ti: -u u k- —I* — r* •— i!= t^-p- PI ^— C* l-Bi — I— CZ L* « « 3 Piano. J^'" -•I- -m- -9- -«- ^g * 3^^ ai=ai=«i= --s^-s-- 5t lit lit lA:^^=d^ 53 iS^ii =^=:i #1 * -*- -itf wel-come us With Ben-ny Ha-vens, oh ! w^t 3^= 111 ;b*=t«=tz: :t2=te=t«=t*: Beneath his daisy shelter-tent, In calm repose Meade lies, The stars he wore so brilliantly Are transferred to the skies, 'j6 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. Where, in the Army of the Blest, For evermore they glow Upon a private in the ranks With Benny Havens, Oh ! Choriis. We'll cherish in our memory green. The gallant Sedgwick's name. He lay down in a mantle of Imperishable fame, To waken when the Reveille Shall summon friend and foe To everlasting brotherhood With Benny Havens, Oh ! Chorus. With wreath of immo7'telle , the grave Of Sumner's fitly crowned, As through the echoing halls of time His glories still resound ; The page of truthful history Fresh honors will bestow; He'll, hand in hand, by Reynolds stand With Benny Havens, Oh ! Chorus, At Burnside's bier we drop a tear For soldier sunk to rest ; A knightly soul has reached its goal 'Neath Hooker's honored crest ; In warlike lays, we'll chant the praise Of trusty Fighting Joe, Until the day we serve for aye With Benny Havens, Oh ! Chorus. HOSPITABLE BERMUDA. 77 Upon the James, the Rapidan, And Rappahannock's shore, We lost heroic soldier friends, On earth to meet no more ; But when the angel trumpet shall The last Assembly blow. We'll find them in the shining host With Benny Havens, Oh ! Chorus. Mid ghostly wails, the cypress trails Dark plumes on Malvern's height, With plaintive thrill, the whippoorwill Pipes for a spectral fight ; See Morn advance, with radiant lance And Chanticleer's bold crow. Back to the sky the shadows fly With Benny Havens, Oh ! CJwrtts. While gathered at the festive board, Will yet remembered be The Army of the Cumberland, And of the Tennessee ; The broad Potomac with their flood Unites in loving flow — A mighty tide of comradeship With Benny Havens, Oh ! Chorus. The summer wind sighs softly through Atlanta's lovely vale, A fragrant hymn of requiem, McPherson to bewail ; 78 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. O'er Thomas, on Mount Ida's slope, Sweet roses incense throw ; Deep in our hearts are both enshrined With Benny Havens, Oh ! Chorus. Down under battle-mounds that fleck Fair fields with ghastly green, The busy worm, on tireless loom, Weaves, in celestial sheen. From warp of blue and woof of gray, Robes white as driven snow ; The uniform for Judgment Day Of Benny Havens, Oh ! Chorus. When life's campaign is at an end, And we are mustered out. The Yankee cheer and Rebel yell Will mingle in one shout ; We'll greet our late antagonists, And then no more shall know, Nor Union nor Confederate With Benny Havens, Oh ! Chorus. For our noble first comm.ander. We crush a cup of wine, To sprinkle on the laurels bright That round his deeds entwine ; To the well-beloved chieftain Let bumpers overflow, May he live long to sing the song Of Benny Havens, Oh ! Chorus. HOSPITABLE BERMUDA. 79 Among the songs sung was one by Major Santi, Deputy Commissary- General (to the accompaniment of his guitar, touched with much taste and expression), which struck me as being a really clever " skit," showing the impatience of the loving nephew waiting for his inheritance. It was a trav- esty on Moore's well-known lines from the " Fire Worship- ers," and as I had never seen it in print, Major Santi was good enough to give me a copy. UNCLE JOHN. I never loved a young gazelle, Because as how I never tried, And if I had, I know full well The poor young creature would have died. My old and wealthy Uncle John, I've known him long, I've loved him well, But still he will go living on — I wish he were a young gazelle. I never had tree, fruit, or flower. But if I had, \f ithout a doubt, , Some cruel frost, or wind, or shower Would just have come and snuffed them out. I've dearly loved my Uncle John, From childhood to the present hour. But still he will go living on — I wish he were tree, fruit, or flower. I've often heard that death destroys Whilst still they're innocent and young. The good, the nice, pure little boys, And spares the biggest rogues unhung ; Whene'er I see my Uncle John This solemn thought occurs to me, As Uncle John goes living on — How wicked Uncle John must be ! 80 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. We were loath to part with our agreeable hosts when the time came, and, at their earnest solicitation, we deferred our retirement until an hour when those who go to bed early were taking their second nap. I will confess that during this symposium the hatred of " England's cruel red," which ought to burn fiercely in my Celtic breast, was but a puny and lag- gard flame. But it will revive when I return, and listen to a speech or two from my friend the State Senator, calculated to fire the Hibernian heart. Long, long ago, I read Johnson's " Rasselas." It was so long ago that I have forgotten what it was about, the story having been crowded out of my mind by the light literature of this period — census reports, health statistics, the Congres- sional Globe, and such entertaining reading matter — but I re- member that there was a happy valley in it ; and so there is in Bermuda. General Hastings, a gallant officer from Ohio, in our army, was badly wounded at Winchester, fighting under Sheridan. He suffered severely for many years, a rifle-ball remaining in his leg until quite recently. He tried wintering in various places, but found none that agreed with him so well as Bermuda. He has spent the winters here for six years past, and has become the owner of extensive property, advantageously situated on the sea-shore, his handsome resi- dence, looking like a marble front, standing on a command- ing eminence a short distance inland. Here, not far from the house, is Cameron Valley, where nestle his extensive lily- beds, divided into five plantations by hedges of oleanders, which serve the double purpose of marking boundaries and sheltering the fragile flowers from blighting winds. The beds are in progressive stages of development ; from the spherical bulb imprisoning the corolla, and the partially unfolded calyx— a dress of green with white trimmings — to the sil- very blossom, with graceful outspreading leaves, guarding I J HOSPITABLE BERMUDA. 8l the golden stamen. The bed containing the developed flow- ers looked as if covered with a quilt of pearly whiteness, on which deft fingers had embroidered dainty designs of lucent splendor, in bewildering repetition of exuberant beauty. General Hastings' success in his first efforts to cultivate this Easter-lily encouraged him to engage in wholesale pro- duction, and he now sends large quantities of bulbs to New York, England, and Holland, where they find a ready mar- ket. This year he expects to raise 300,000 lilies. His lame- ness prevented him from going with us, so Mrs. Hastings, accompanied b)' a young American lady, her visitor, acted as our fitting guide to this fairy lily-vale. With her own hands, she gathered a large quantity of lilies, which were used in the decoration of the Montauk for the reception next day, and, although on that occasion the saloon was actually smothered in flowers, the lily was given the place of honor, and every one who entered saluted a single lily placed above the door. Commodore Piatt gave an At Home on the Montauk the second day before sailing. Miss Gallwey, Miss Hurst, Mrs. Brower, and others sent aboard flowers in great abun- dance, and these, supplementing the lilies, gave the saloon of the yacht the semblance of a bower. Indeed we gave it the name "Lily Bower," which it will retain during the voyage at least. Colonel Simpson, of the 84th, kindly sent the Reg- imental Band to play on deck, and all the accessories of a re- ception were present, including a bountiful supply of suit- able refreshments. There was a general acceptance of the invitations sent out, and the guests numbered several hundred, among them many British army and navy officers with their families, and numerous American visitors. The guests were brought aboard on a steam-tug, and the manner in which Uncle John did the honors in transit was the theme of feeling 6 82 THE CkUISE OF THE MONTAUK. comment. The Uncle John hand-clasp will long survive in fair Bermudian minds, a cherished tradition of an inimitable manifestation of chivalrous gallantry, administered gently, with delicate tenderness and courteous deference. The hand- somely-dressed ladies, interspersed with gentlemen in parti- colored costumes, relieved by the bright mass of red-coated musicians stationed on the forward deck, made it a pic- turesque subject for the photographer, who took a view which I send you. The At Home proved to be a distin- guished success, comparing advantageously, I am told, with a similar reception given by Lady Brassey aboard the Sun- beam. Even were I unmindful of the old adage about the odious- ness of comparison, I would be at a loss did I venture to make an estimate of the relative attractiveness of the ladies of the several nationalities who honored us with their pres- ence. While our own fair countrywomen are always entitled to first place, it must be acknowledged that the English and Bermudian ladies were worthy rivals, and some of them even showed claims to precedence worthy of consideration. It must be borne in mind, however, that we were not in Utica ; there, rivalry would have been hopeless. The great event of modern times in Bermuda was the visit, last year, of H. R. H. the Princess Louise. It forms a theme of constant consideration, and the 'Mudians roll the oft-re- peated recital of incidents under their loyal tongues with great relish. The calabash tree of Tom Moore, beneath which he wrote many verses when he was a public function- ary here, has withered into insignificance since the royal- ad- vent. The place where the Princess landed is held as hal- lowed ground, and the Island has become a sort of sacred soil — it is the Lisula Sanctorum of the West. The amiability and gracious manners of the Princess won the hearts of her HOSPITABLE BERMUDA. 83 subjects, and she is entitled, beyond question, to the un- stinted praise bestowed upon her. It has just occurred to me that my letter is getting lono-, and there is a sameness about its tone which will make it tedious. It is a rambling sort of a thing, with too much of the personal in it perhaps, but I could not repress the feel- ings which prompt this expression of grateful recognition of Bermudian hospitality and courtesy. The climate of Ber- muda is one of the best in winter ; still, I could find lands with much greater physical attractions. But as a frank, hon- est, genial, hospitable people, well-educated, cultured and re- fined, it would be difficult to find the superior of the inhabit- ants of this island, comparatively isolated from the great world of fashion. Up to the 28th of February, Anno Domini, 1884, the great event of Bermuda had been the visit of the Princess Louise. Since that day I doubt whether the visit will main- tain its super-eminence. To suggest how it was supple- mented by a greater event would test our modesty of pre- tension. But up to that red-letter day, the hand-clasp of Uncle John was unknown in Bermuda. CHAPTER VII. AT SEA. . A Frustrated Conspiracy — Getting Away — A Tortuous Channel — De- scription of Yacht — A Lazy Life — Lounging Occupation — Cloud Scenery — Amusements — Sartorial — Pills — Detergent. On Board Montauk, at Sea, March 12, 1884, Lat. 24' 32° N., Long. 59' 59° W. With firm resolution and unbending will to enforce it, we are enabled to overcome the temptations that beset our path through life. The difficulty is in the application of it, as Captain Cuttle, Catlin, or some other sage and philosopher, wisely remarked concerning the efficient administration of a mustard-plaster, the unsparing rod that keeps the child from spoiling, a city government, or something of that sort. We managed, at last, to escape from Bermuda (although you haven't escaped yet, as you see I persist in writing about it), eluding the tenacious grasp of persistent friendly ministra- tions ; and it was not easily shaken, you may be sure. We escaped, despite the job put up to detain the Commodore, on a trumped-up charge for some fancied violations of non-exist- ent harbor laws, alleged, on the complaint of Mr. Boyle, the genial and clever Colonial Secretary, papers being prepared in due form, imposingly endorsed " On Her Majesty's Ser- vice." We even evaded the vigilance of the police force, which has been greatly augmented recently on account of the Fenian scare. Including the chief and assistant, it is now a formidable and awe-inspiring body of three full-grown men. AT SEA. 85 To escape required a great effort of will-power ; as the mes- merist said to the Brevet Corporal when he tried to persuade him that an experimental half-dollar, which he placed in his hand illustratively, was red hot, which Bob didn't feel, and thus retained and pocketed the coin. I have read somewhere of a bailiff who boarded a vessel to libel it, and was carried off to sea, papers and all ; and so with us. The Commodore ac- cepted service of the generous effort to detain him, and then sailed away, carrying the futile writ of ne exeat, to be pre- served among the agreeable recollections of our visit as the only abortive effort of Bermudian hospitality. Shortly after noon, then, on March 8th, we weighed an- chor in Hamilton Harbor, hoisted sail, saluted the colors of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club (accompanying the salute with cheers, which came back stoutly re-echoed from the balcony of the Club House), and so, regretfully, left Bermuda. We sailed away in fine style. It was a cloudless day, and the wind, though light, was in the right quarter for a favor- able " slant," with the Hamilton shore to leeward, giving the spectators assembled to see us off a fine view of the graceful vessel, as she swept by in conscious strength and beauty. Scarcely was the anchor hoisted to her bow, when she moved off as if, instead of lying idle in port for ten days, with her sails furled, she had kept them filled with wind, stowed away, canned, as it were, ready to start at the word go. She might be compared to a dog that had been lying down, rising, turning half around, and then starting off briskly on a trot. We saluted the American flag with the prescribed honors while passing the office of the U. S. Consul. Cap- tain Chase accompanied us, wath Mr. Trimmingham, Rear Commodore of the Bermuda Club, and a son of Mr. Richard Darrell, a genuine young sea-dog, who can sail his dingey with the best of them, and "take a swim" — which is 86 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. the 'Mudian euphemism for sinking one of these plucky- little boats in a race — without a growl. We were guided out by black Peter Smith, the same pilot who brought us in. Being a pilot, and a black Peter, he is probably connected with blue-peter, the flag raised when a vessel is about to sail. At any rate, he is an old-salt Peter. No doubt, too, he is re- lated to the Smith family. I judge so from his name. He quit us at St. George's, receiving a handsome gratuity, in addition to the " ten bob " given him for conveying ashore the gentlemen who accompanied us thus far. Sailing through it again, we were enabled to appreciate more fully how nar- row and crooked is the channel that leads to Hamilton harbor of safety. It doesn't carry out the scriptural simile. It is narrow, but not straight — a sort of half-and-half — like some professors of religion. We had expected to take a tugboat to tow us out, but managed to get along without one ; for to sail both in and out the harbor unaided was a feather in the cap of the already profusely-beplumed Montauk. Perhaps you may be interested in the description of the vessel in which we are cruising to West Indies and the Span- ish Main ; in a jog-trot, humdrum sort of way, so unadventu- rous as hardly to afford matter for a readable letter ; always saving and excepting the violent gales heretofore mentioned, which were not entirely devoid of interest to those who were staring in the face an impending possibility of satisfying, by personal observation, any curiosity they might have regard- ing the contents of the locker down below. The Montauk is a schooner yacht of 87.52 tons, Custom House register, but 200 tons carpenter's measurement. She is a centre-board vessel, having under her, amidships, what is called a centre-board, which may be lowered or raised at will from the deck. The English call it a false-keel. When sail- ing before the Avind it is raised, but when close-hauled it is AT SEA. 87 let down to the full extent, thus affording a resistant power which keeps the vessel steady and up to her work. The draught of water, without the board, is nine feet, with the full board down, twenty-one feet. There is great difference of opinion among yachtsmen as to the relative merits of keel and centre-board, the English having no faith in the board, while Americans are divided in their views. The main ob- jection advanced to the centre-board craft is that she is not well adapted to meet heavy weather at sea, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the Montauk, which is a representative boat of her kind, has not only done the fastest sailing in races, but, during the first week of this voyage, has demonstrated her stanch, sea-worthy qualities in the sever- est tests. During the strong gales experienced in the Gulf Stream she never shipped a green sea. The Montauk is 104 feet long, 251^ feet beam in the wid- est part amidships, sharp forward, and with a clean run aft. Her mainmast is 104 feet from deck to truck. The deck is four feet above water-line, and bulwarks eighteen inches over the deck, thus making the rail 5^ feet above the water. The saloon is 18 feet by 12, clear of berths. The owner's room, about amidships on the starboard side, is luxuriously fitted up, with a wide bed and all appropriate adjuncts. Off his room is the bath-room, where one may bathe either in salt or fresh water, the salt water running in from the sea, through a faucet beneath the water-line. On the opposite, or port, side, is another state-room of smaller size ; and the sailingmaster's quarters, a wash-room, and steward's pantry. There are also two state-rooms in the quarter aft, opening from the companion-way. The saloon contains four commo- dious berths. Forward of the steward's pantry is the cook's galley, and beyond that, a light and comfortable forecastle for the sailors' occupancy. 88 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. The saloon is finished in solid mahogany, carved, except the ceilings, which are white, picked out with gold, the panels being exquisitely wrought in minute circles, applied with a delicate camel's hair brush, producing the efifect of a flash of gold. The mast-case has carved on it a leviathan, with the first verse of the forty-first chapter of Job : " Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook ? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down ? " Flanking this case, are shelves filled with books. Side-boards of handsome carved mahogany are in the corners. The hangings are of heavy Japanese silk, embroidered with the leviathan design. Chairs and sofas are covered with silk seal-plush containing the yacht monogram. The chandelier consists of three massive bronze lamps, suspended beneath the skylight from the mouth of a figure representing a dolphin. Silver, cut-glass- ware and china are all marked with the name Montauk, as is the linen of every kind. There are capacious lockers everywhere for stowage. Electric-bells, communicating with the steward's pantry, are in each state-room and saloon-berth. There is also an electric.-bell on the quarter-deck. The deck-fittings, hatches, coamings and skylights are solid ma- hogany, the side-gratings and stanchions, polished brass. She carries two boats, the Commodore's four-oared gig, twenty-four feet long, and a large cutter. The Montauk was launched in May, 1882 ; won the Bennett challenge cup in the New York Club regatta the next month, and the prize of her class ; and in the following August won the Goelet $1,000 prize, over the Newport course, and won it again the next 5^ear. She has made the fastest time ever made over the New York Yacht Club course. We lead a very lazy life aboard the yacht. This is about the routine : We turn out (you mustn't say get out of bed at sea) about eight o'clock — eight bells ; then go on deck, or AT SEA. 89 rather poke our heads out of the companion-way (the stair- case leading to the quarter-deck), and survey the situation, having, perhaps, a little chat with the quartermaster at the wheel. We are robed tout d'tme temie, and it is pleasant to be able to dawdle around so extensively deshabille, without being frost-bitten, in the month of March. After lounging a while, we eat some fruit, or drink a bottle of Congress-water, and munch a crust of bread, with a cup of coffee. Some, following the health-giving example of our robust forefathers, take an appetizer, but this is optional, though usual. There is no compulsion about it, but you must. It is like the com- plaint of the British sailor when asked if attendance at prayer was compulsory in the navy. "Oh, no," said he, "you needn't go ; but if you doesn't, they stops your grog." We breakfast at ten, and, if so inclined, take a biscuit and bottle of beer, or a glass of wine, at two o'clock. Dinner is served at half-past six ; and then on deck for a smoke, remaining until we turn in, about eleven, except on moonlight nights, when midnight finds us still on deck, reveling in the glories of that solemn and tender time. Interspersed in this programme are games of dominos and backgammon, with some reading, little writing, much sm_ok- ing, and unlimited " chaffing," in which Uncle John is fore- most, an adept in every pastime, as he is in the useful arts. I have been discomfited by him at dominos. But back- gammon hath its victories no less renowned than dominos, as I have learned in some encounters with the Commodore, from which I retired crowned with the laurels of defeat. But I have challenged these victors to a game in which I am an expert, although I have never played it ; I have loudly asserted my superiority, and challenged them to play lawn-tennis aboard the yacht. There is where I have them. I even in- sinuate that the reason there is no lawn-tennis set in the ship's 90 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. stores (there is everything else) is that they are afraid to play with me, and afford me an opportunity to display my won- derful skill. I haven't ventured to set up a similar claim in regard to the manly and clerical game of croquet. I feared that I might be covered with confusion by the exposure of my unfounded pretension to skill in this game likewise. I distrusted the inexhaustible resources of the great Domino- can. I feared that if I claimed to be able to play the game, Uncle John would bring me to grief by finding somewhere in his kit a croquet-set. A finer sail than our run from Bermuda thus far it would be hard to experience. True, we meet some head-winds, which compel us to take a circuitous course, thus prolonging the voyage, but to-morrow or the next day we shall strike the trade-winds, and after that there will be easy sailing to St. Kitt's. Then we have no schedule time ; no impatient passengers to grumble ; we carry no mails, nor females (old joke) to get seasick ; our cargo will not spoil ; we have an ample supply of water, and can only get short in case of ac- cident preventing us from making a harbor. The weather is delightful ; the sun shining brightly, save when he passes for a moment behind the numerous detached clouds that swarm in fragmentary, fantastic shapes, sailing with Proteus in his flittering galiot through realms of ethereal space. Reclining, shirt-sleeved, in comfortable extension- chairs on the quarter-deck, lulled by the rippling water gurg- ling melodiously along the sides, as if responding with cheer- ful welcome to the salutation of the entering prow — the salt-scented breeze tempering with invigorating infusion the sensuous tropical breath that comes from the torrid South, la- den with fragrant anticipation of gorgeous flowers and luscious fruits — is the perfection of luxurious indolence. Nor does it ever become monotonous. One never wearies of lookine; at AT SEA. 91 the waves as they rush swiftly by, irradiating, dancing in foamy swirls, or racing up in laughing undulations in our wake as if to catch on ; just touching the rudder, and then reced- ing playfully, gathering force for another effort to reach the deck. This, however, they are unable to seize on, for we never ship seas on this craft. Forgive the execrable pun. It is not mine. I cannot tell a lie. 'Tis Uncle John's. Then there is constant occupation, watching the shifting cloud-transformation scenery ; pointing out to each other the familiar, fanciful, and weird shapes they assume. There are Hamlet's camel, weasel, and whale, of course ; but we see many other things "too numerous to mention," like the diseases that succumb to James' pills. We see trees, fruits, and flowers ; oaks, elms, maples, sunflowers, hollyhocks ; haystacks, corn-fields, mowing-machines, pug-dogs, ducks, game-cocks, wine-glasses, pulpits, hobby-horses, bonnets, bicycles, coffins, spinning-wheels, punch-bowls, lobsters, tally-ho coaches, altars, pianos, frying-pans, Brooklyn bridge, combs, " the herald Mercury new lighted on a heavsen-kiss- ing hill," detergent, hurricanes, lunatic-asylums, walking- sticks, cucumbers, cradles, waterfalls, gripsacks, village-carts, church-steeples, cranks, black-silk stockings, Irving Cliff, Juliet in the moonlight, ballot-boxes, battle-flags, stock-in- dicators, pitchforks, hop-poles, alligators, cigars, swords, wash-tubs, locomotives, hand-organs, the baby elephant, old women sweeping the sky ; and a broad unfolded page of heraldic emblazonments — lions, tigers, bears, griffins, castles, swords, shields, harps, scallop-shells ; with angelic shapes and horrent forms ; fair maidens, dudes, monsters ; con- formations graceful and grotesque; " Gorgons and Hydras, and chimeras dire." Uncle John thought he could trace, in fleecy elusiveness, the lineaments of a man who owed him a thousand dollars, 92 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. but the face was behind a cloud ; v/here it is apt to remain, as Uncle John doubts if he will ever see that thousand dollars again. ~ There is other employment of time. Looking at the clock in the companion-way ; noting the changes in the barometer, whether the glass sets fair, or indicates a coming storm ; prognosticating the weather from wind and cloud in- dications ; comparing pocket-compasses with the binnacle and remarking " how does she head ? " guessing how many knots she is making, and viewing the patent-log to decide bets on speed ; watching the flying-fish skim along between wind and water, and arguing a philological point as to whether they should be described as " flocks" or " schools ; " wondering how many miniature Crustacea are stow-aways on the floating gulf-weed ; observing how the sun sets, whether clear, promising fair weather, or, ominously, in a bank of clouds, like a deluded depositor ; then going below occasion- ally to drill in seamanship, which consists in practicing an operatipn that may be performed with a variety of materials in different ways. The method is easily acquired by lands- men, who have a similar process on shore. At sea it is called " splicing the main-brace." It has divers designations ashore, regulated by the dialectical usages of the community. In the Carlton Island Club, which is a sea-going organization, it is called by the saline navigators, in their dry, sententious sailor phrase — " hoisting." When we feel like taking a watch below, we have other sources of amusement. There is reading, for example, with a handsome library of well-selected books to choose from — which nobody reads. We have no time for such nonsense. There are no daily papers delivered aboard ship, and the great American people has fallen into the habit of reading nothing but newspapers. The reason, no doubt, is that we are AT SEA. 93 devoted seekers after truth, and where can it be found in such immaculateness as in the columns of a poHtical newspaper ? It is said that truth may be found in the bottom of a well, but few journalists take the trouble to get down there. Per- haps it is owing to their aversion to water. Still they are always talking about getting at the bottom facts. We sometimes play cards, euchre being the favorite game ; for, strange to say, there are on board four Americans, neither of whom plays poker or chews tobacco. Yet they are reasonably patriotic, and love their country— when it doesn't cost anything. Backgammon — " three hits or a gam- mon to see who shall buy the lemonade," i.e., undertake the exhausting labor of touching an electric-bell to summon the steward — is another favorite ; but the great game, the mag- nus opus of Uncle John, is dominos. Here he comes to the front as an invincible champion who unhorses all opponents. He is a brave man indeed who ventures to tackle the great American dominost, with the cer- tainty of defeat staring him in the face. My presumption in this regard was justly punished by oft-repeated castigations, for I am one of those obtuse persons who doesn't always know when he is whipped. Among his versatile accomplish- ments, there is none in which Uncle John stands so pre-em- inent, unconquered and unconquerable, as in his masterful handling of the ivories. He has justly earned the title he wears with proud satisfaction. Old Double-Six, It is a matter of regret to me that Uncle John never encountered the re- nowned triumvirate, Barnum, Hinman and McOuade, in the days when they ruled Utica with a strong hand, devoting patient hours to closing their columns of oblong pieces, de- ploying, forming square, and blocking out the doubles. He would have found in them foemen worthy of his steel, but among their degenerate descendants he encounters but puny 94 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. and contemptible antagonists. Perhaps if he had met these venerable manipulators they might still be living, for to play with Uncle John is a new lease of life. No wonder he es- tablished the fame of the hand- clasp among the belles of Ber- muda. The man who can distinguish the numbers on the face of the domino by feeling the ivory back, must be en- dowed with a delicacy of touch irresistible in beauty's grasp. I don't know how we could get along now without " Uncle John," a respectful and affectionate designation bestowed on him as a term of endearment, for he is not many years the senior of his brother, the Commodore ; but with his unvarying good-temper and kindness, this seems to be his most fitting appellation — typical of benevolence and thought- ful consideration for others. An old yachtsman himself, for many years owner of a crack vessel of the New York squadron, he is fully informed as to all the requirements of a sea voyage and his equipment is complete in every par- ticular. From needle and thread, which he handles with the dexterity of the Fair Maid of Perth, to the restless hammer, which the Gow Chrom himself could not swing more nicely vigorous, he seems to encompass everything in his outfit. He has clothing adapted to every change of temperature, and in the matter of scarfs and neckties, his varied assortment would excite the envy of a first-class haberdasher. I came out strong myself in the shoe and slipper line, wearing a different pair every day for some tfme ; and when the variety was exhausted, changed ends and went in for head covering ; having a diversified collection, from the various grades of soft felt, silk and rubber, embracing in the category a formidable sou'wester and a knit nightcap — but the overwhelming and dazzling array of neckties in Uncle John's repertoire para- lyzed me. I gave it up, acknowledging a dismal failure in the clothing trade, and became a bankrupt in style, and can AT SEA. 95 never take the benefit of any act without the consent of Uncle John, my principal creditor. In days gone by, I was reputed to be the possessor of some style, but my glory has departed. I never fully understood the extent of the decadent change that time has wrought until I encountered Uncle John. There has been nothing equal to it since that mirror of deportment, CJieveiixlier Francois Lippen, ava- lanched the colored barber from Syracuse. I must claim the credit, however, of having made a good fight, and didn't give up until I was attacked in my own specialty. When Uncle John paraded a white felt-hat, of ancient vintage, mellow-tinted with years, and flavorous of conquest in the shadowy past on the fashionable "above Bleecker Street" promenades, I knew that further resistance would be in vain, and surrendered at discretion. I abjure pretension to dress now and forever. Not even the tasteful, artistic, and becom- ing habiliments of the ex-mayor, who dug the Mohawk River and sets the fashion in dress for modish tailors, will tempt me to emulate his example of well-fitting and carefully chosen garments ; in which varied fresh hues are blended in charming confusion with the subdued tints of time-honored over- employment ; and the obsolete pattern jostles with new textures of economical ready-made design ! Ah ! if I had but one of his unique cravats of the old Hardenbroek No. 2 epoch ; even a discarded one (no, he never discards them) — if I had one of these with which to meet Uncle John, I need not now be dragged in ill-clad vanquishment at his sartorial chariot wheels. As it is, I renounce style forever. No more ! I have taken the pledge. With his other meritorious attractions. Uncle John is well up in medicine ; and, as we have no surgeon on board, he prescribes right and left from his store of remedies, large enough for an army hospital. My assumption of the title of g6 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. M.D. is rejected; notwithstanding I have been connected with quarantine and lunacy, and ought therefore to be well up in both sanity and insanity. We have a well-supplied medicine-chest belonging to the yacht, but that is of the allo- pathic complexion, while Uncle John isahomceopathist. No- body knows how to administer the dose prescribed by allo- pathy, while Uncle John is as skillful as Hahnemann himself. Still we go in for discipline, and if we are to be dosed, insist upon the regular ship's medicine-chest, according to the num- ber and direction ; so between the rival schools of allopathy and homoeopathy we consult neither and take no medicine. The result is, we are all well, except Uncle John, who is not going to take the trouble of bringing medicine aboard for nothing, and affects a slight illness in order to demonstrate the efficacy of his own prescriptions. It must be admitted, however, that he is not a homoeopathic bigot. He yields to a limited extent on the question of pills, and is a great advocate of the virtues of those made according to the formula of Dr. James, by a prescription which has been handed down among the traditions of the Woodmarket. Uncle John always keeps them on hand. Through love of my old home, as soon as I learned that they were made in Utica, I took some of the pills myself, although I needed no medicine at the time. I don't know what they are intended for ; I didn't find out. The other guest of our princely host is an old friend of Uncle John's, now holding a responsible place in the govern- ment of New York City. They formerly owned a yacht to- gether, and were chums when members of the Volunteer Fire Department in its palmy days. Their reminiscences of stir- ring incidents, when the old department was in its glory, are highly interesting, and serve to while away many an hour be- fore we turn in at night. It would be hard to find four voyagers who get along bet- AT SEA. 97 ter together than we do. We discuss rehgion and politics without rancor, air a great deal of knowledge of law, physic, and divinity, and descant learnedly on fashion and the musical glasses. What we don't know about seamanship might be learned from the cook of an Erie Canal lake-boat, who is a seafaring man. There is but one thing to mar in the slightest degree our perfect harmony ; but a shadow will intrude even in the best-regulated and brightest circles. Notwithstanding their intimate friendship for years, there occasionally crops out a jealous feeling between Uncle John and the Commis- sioner, which is painful to the Commodore and myself. This baleful influence is — dominos. Uncle John, who is fertile in preparations, has another special compound, for which he claims great erasive and puri- fying virtues. It is called detergent, and he claims that, if given a fair trial, it would clean out the Philadelphia city gov- ernment, or make the Utica Gulf (redolent of Governor's veto) smell sweet. It is good for almost every purpose except eating, and I am not sure that he would not recommend it, for depilatory as well as detersive powers, against hairs in country-hotel butter. One evening closing in cloudy and unpleasant, the Commodore gravely asked Uncle John if he wouldn't please bring a pinch of detergent on deck and clean up the nasty weather. . 7 CHAPTER VIII. BASSE TERRE. An Abortive Sunrise — Washing Decks — Sea-ditties — A Shanty Song — Sombrero — Saba — The Rock-sail — St. Eustatius — St. Christopher — Basse Terre — The Yankee Jack-knife — Hurricanes, Floods, and Pestilence — Dulce-domutn. St. Christopher (St. Kitt's), March i6, 1884. Often, when at sea heretofore, have I promised myself a first-class view of sunrise, but something always happened, or didn't happen, to prevent this enjoyment. Usually the insignificant obstacle was iny failure to get up in time. It is not so easy to " rise up William Reilly " on a passenger steam- er ; but there is comparatively little difficulty aboard a yacht, particularly when one occupies a state-room aft, when all that is necessary is to turn out from the bunk into the companion- way, and then, in three steps, the deck is reached. Besides, the preliminaries of toilet arrangement, putting up the back hair and curling the front, are not de rigiieur. There is a Spartan simplicity of attire maintained, not customary where there are many observers on deck. I had, on rare occasions, seen the sunrise on shore — returning from parties, traveling by rail, or attending early church service — but a full-dress sunrise at sea I had never witnessed, although many oppor- tunities had offered during years of travel. So I determined to secure a front seat — like a church elder at a " Black Crook " performance away from home — and take in an uninterrupted view of the gorgeous spectacle. I had been so derelict in BASSE TERRE. 99 attendance at the levees of his solar majesty all my life, that I resolved to make reparation by early presence at this late day (repenting, like the elect member who goes straight to heaven by the eleventh hour, gallows air line) and therefore arranged to be called in season. Accordingly I was notified one morning by the Commis- sioner — whose expansive and handsome presence occupied a considerable portion of the quarter-deck, airily arrayed in voluminous envelopment a la mode de lit — that the sun was about to rise, and would be glad to see me on deck. I mounted the companion-way, protruded my ivory bang through the opening, and saw, lighting up the eastern sky, a faint pink suffusion, the precedent promise of the advent of the god of day (which I take it is the correct reportorial style, according to the late lamented Micawber). I waited patiently for a long time, but no sun appeared. I couldn't have displayed more patience had I been like some young fellow waiting outside a church-door, while the clergyman preached a long-winded evening sermon at his best girl in- side. Meantime the moon was yet shining refulgent, high above the western horizon ; holding her own with true fem- inine pertinacity, bright as if she Avere engaged for just one more waltz before retiring. The pink suffusion continued, with fluttering suspicion of a crimson flush, like a trace of raspberry syrup in a circus lemonade, but still the sun lingered below the sea, as if reluctant to appear, blushing at being caught with his rays down, in the morning by the bright light. I think I waited two decollete hours to see that sun rise, and then withdrew. I suppose that, on account of some derangement of scenery, the performance for my special ben- efit has been postponed until a more favorable occasion. The lact is, the faint reflection came an hour or so before the sun was ready to turn out, and the Commissioner, whose habits do lOO THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. not make him familiar with early morning appearances, being unaware of that atmospheric peculiarity, treated me as a sluggard and waked me too soon. When the luminary did rise, he was smothered behind a pillow of cloud which hid him from view until long after breakfast. Perhaps he took his own breakfast in bed. But I saw some delicate tints of green, saffron, ashes-of-roses, red, yellow and ecru, which fully repaid my devotion to his worship, the sun, for they gave me glowing ideas for a scarf, before which I purpose to make Uncle John pale his ineffectual fires, when I return to New York, where silks are cheap. The Persians at Ispahan salute the rising sun with flour- ish of trumpets. I won't adopt that cult unless it is changed to the setting orb, to suit my convenience, Pompey said that more worship the rising than the setting sun, but he had in view the distribution of offices. I'll stay with the minor- ity ; I feel more at home. I haven't essayed the sunrise act since this failure, and, as it is doubtful if I make another ef- fort, you may imagine, if you please, all kinds of eloquent and felicitous descriptions and credit them to me. One can always describe better without seeing. Then the imagina- tion is not clogged by the trammels of accuracy, as are the utterances of agitators, reformers, editors, revivalists, auc- tioneers, and members of Congress. I think I should recog- nize the face of the morning sun if I should happen to see him, though when we met 'twas in a cloud. However, if I am behind in attendance at the lever dit soleil, I make it up by being punctual at the cotichce. While I may not see him rise, I am always on hand at sunset. Speaking of rising, I had the best of the sailors that morning. They didn't have the opportunity to waken me, as is their spiteful usage. It is their barbarous custom to stamp around overhead, disturbing my innocent slumbers, BASSE TERRE. lOI dashing water over the deck, scraping, scrubbing, sanding, and cavorting in various cleansing eccentricities, greatly to the detriment of that beauty-sleep, which I have been prac- ticing assiduously since boyhood, without noticing any ap- preciable improvement in my personal appearance. If in- dustrious and prolonged beauty-sleep in the morning could make one handsome, I would be a Mohawk Valley Antinous. It is strange how evil habits become confirmed by indul- gence. Scarcely has daybreak, with ill-timed officiousness, intruded on peaceful slumbers, when the sailor seizes bucket and broom, and attacks the deck with the ferocity of a tidy housewife in cleaning season. Happily that comes but twice a year, while here it is an every-day vicious habit. If it should rain all night, up comes Jack in the morning, sloshing around with the impartiality of an undiscriminating shillalah at Donnybrook Fair. I asked the mate one morning, when they were scrubbing the deck after hours of flooding rain, why they were engaged in such an obvious work of super- erogation — employment severely discountenanced in the Thirty Nine Articles, He said it was to wash off the fresh water. The sailor has no respect for fresh water — except in grog. I don't see why they can't scrub the deck at night. Then my sleep wouldn't be broken quite so much. Since the general employment of steam in navigation, the habits of sailors have naturally changed so as to conform, in some degree at least, to the existing condition of sea service. The old Jack tar, with his natty blue jacket, immaculate white trousers, flowing neckerchief, and jaunty tarpaulin hat, is being merged in the greasy stoker. The dust, smoke, cinders and soot of the steamship make sad havoc with the purity of white duck ; the stiff tarpaulin has no place in the sweltering confines of the boiler-room and coal-bunker ; everything is done by machinery ; the anchor is hoisted by I02 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. steam, the sails set by steam, and even the vessel steered by steam. William and Black-eyed Susan belong to the stage, and the oil-stained sailor of to-day is but a grimy representa- tive of the airy and romantic jolly tar, who danced the sailor's hornpipe, wielded a heavy cutlass as if it were a toothpick, and blasted his eyes, and shivered his timbers, and avasted, and ahoyed, in days of yore. As steam has so largely superseded manual labor, the sea-songs with which sailors used to keep time Avhen pulling and hauling in com- bined and simultaneous effort, are dying away in faint echoes, and soon they will only mingle with the discredited strains of the nearly forgotten mermaid. True there are navies to keep up the old standard, and sailing vessels and yachts to maintain the recollection and traditions of the blue jackets, but they are fast being smothered by steam. Occasionally we hear some of the familiar chants, but "Ranzo," " Haul Away, Joe," and " Knock-a-man-down," rarely animate the sailor in this period of maritime degeneracy. Of course sea- men have to be educated in their vocation, but the sailor has become something like the mechanic. Large manufactories and mills, with complex labor-saving apparatus, have done away measurably with the journeym_an who served his time as an apprentice to an experienced master. Machinery not only works, but thinks, and the machine-feeder takes the place of the skilled mechanic. The sea-songs of Dibdin and others were really made for landsmen, and are different from the sailors' chants proper, which were of other material ; like their working toggery, expressive and matter-of-fact. Prosody received but scant consideration, but the rhymes were a sort of rugged doggerel, with a refrain strongly accentuated, which served as a signal for all to pull away together. They were called Shanty songs, from the French word chanter, to sing, and many of 1 BASSE TERRE. IO3 them are familiar, having been incorporated in magazine articles and published in books. One of the sailors aboard the Montauk, who has been in the West Indies, furnishes the following example of a Shanty song, which is evidently the composition of some one possessed of a better ear for rhythm than the ordinary cJianteur, as the measure is reasonably ac- curate. The refrains, Largy Kargy and Weeny Kreeny, are evidently corruptions of Spanish words, probably intended for Largo Cargo and B2iena Carina — big cargo, and good httle girl : We're bound for the West Ingies straight, Largy — Kargy, Haul away O — h. Come lively, boys, or we'll be late, Weeny — Kreeny, Haul away O — h. We'll have rum and baccy plenty, Largy — etc., Cocos, yams, and argy-denty,' Weeny — etc. No more horse "^ and dandy funky,^ But St. Kitten's roasted monkey. We'll go fiddle with black Peter, Dance all night with Wannereeter.* At Kooreso ^ we'll get frisky, Throwing dice with Dutch Francisky. When we've found the pirate's money, We'll live on shore eating honey. Wear big boots of allygator. Taking Nance to the thayayter. We'll bunk no more with cockroaches, Largy — Kargy — Haul away O — h, But ride all day in soft coaches, Weeny — Kreeny, Haul away O — h. ^ Aguardiente. ^ Salt horse, i.e., corned beef. ^ Dandy funk, a cheap mess of old biscuit and molasses. ^ Jtianita. ^ Curacoa. 104 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. The delicious moonlight nights made our run from Ber- muda to St. Kitt's a voyage of pleasant remembrance, afford- ing a delightful contrast to the first week out of New York. We were on one tack (that is without shifting sails) for sixty hours ; an unusual length of time, which prompted the Com- missioner to remark that Uncle John must have been using above, the tack-hammer which he swings with such muscular dexterity below. We sat on deck until after midnight, offer- ing incense of fragrant cigars to the serene moon, and pity- ing the poor fellows on shore, who were probably shuddering in bleak March winds, their nostrils filled with the whirling pulverizations of dirty New York streets, or suffering from the catarrh-charged slush of aqueous Utica. Thursday morning, March 13th, we sighted the first land after leaving Bermuda, the Sombrero lighthouse, on a phos- phatic island, which at once suggested to Uncle John the efficacy of James' pills, while the Commissioner thought that the Company working the fertilizer might find a valuable agent in detergent. Next we neared Saba, a mountainous island, on which we could discern no habitations, as we passed to the windward, and the only village is on the lee- ward side ; a little nest hollowed out of the mountain's breast by some volcanic convulsion ; a thousand feet above the sea, reached by flights of steps. The inhabitants, who are all sailors, build boats on the wooded declivities and slide them down to the beach. These Dutch islanders are simple, fru- gal, and industrious, hold no ward caucuses, have no relig- ious revivals, attend no reform meetings, and are quite happy and contented. As we approached, we saw, in the distant sea beyond, a sail which we supposed was making for the island. Glasses were brought to bear on the object, and various conjectures were offered as to the character and course of the vessel ; one declaring that she was a fore-and- BASSE TERRE. 105 after, another that she was square-rigged ; one that her course was to the southward, another that she was bound north. Two other sails were afterward discovered, closer to land, which also secured a share of curious attention. We won- dered that the first sail made so little progress, if moving in the same direction with us, or receded so slowly, if sailing on a contrary course ; until after a time the sharp eye of the sailing master (who had himself been deceived at first) solved the mystery. He discovered that what we mistook for sails were rocks, the first one far remote from the shore. Here was an opportunity for the Commissioner to indulge in phil- osophic reflections, such as every little incident out of the usual course causes him to frame ; drawing morals for our edification. " How aptly," said he, " does that rock illus- trate the fallacy of human theories, and the vanity of enthu- siastic hopes and aspirations, particularly in the fresh exu- berance of youth ! How we look with hopeful eyes upon the vessels of imagination which we launch on the sea of life, freighted with joyous anticipation, expecting them to return argosies, laden with riches, or, with swelling sails, gliding proudly into the harbor of Fame. What cargoes of love, what stores of friendship, are carried by prosperous gales in these aerial ships of the mind ! How often do we make bril- liant promise of what we Avill do when our ship comes in ; but alas ! the ship conies not, and the golden prow and silken sails, when we near them, turn out to be but barren rocks of disappointment ! " Whereupon the fanciful Commissioner, with the tristful visage of a bull broker in a bear market, went below and spliced a melancholy main-brace. Then Uncle John queried if that rock-sail didn't belong on a stone- boat. But at this rate we shall never reach St. Kitt's, which has been gradually looming up with beckoning invitation for I06 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. hours. Evidently it is as hard for you to get to the West Indies in my letters, as it was to get away from Bermuda — an unconscionably long and tedious epistolary excursion, I admit. Let us sail on, then, by St. Eustatius, hke Saba, a Dutch island, with a frowning fortress and a governor. The fortress is an excuse for a governor, and what would a gov- ernor be without a fortress. It is different in New York. There the governor is strongly entrenched in the hearts of a grateful and admiring people. No cards ! There is but one small town on St. Eustatius — Orangetown — named probably after the Prince of Oranges. We could hear no dreadful note of preparation for the approaching anniversary of Ire- land's patron saint, and could see no stove-pipe hats acquir- ing festal polish for the occasion. They must be all Orange- men there. We reached St. Kitt's, despite the philosophic head- winds of the Commissioner. I observe that, as Voltaire said, " Providence always favors the heaviest battalions,'.' so the winds and waves have a philosophy of their own, and pay no attention to the profound vaticinations of a New York politician. After sailing along the shore for a long time, ap- parently near and yet afar, we at length made the red light of St. Kitt's, described in the books as visible fifteen miles, but which we ascertained, when daylight came, was merely a red lantern, hung out of the second story of the Custom- house, not much more brilliant than the light borne by the leader of his gang in an election procession. Feeling our way, cautiously as a chap behind the garden wall who knew that the old man was on the lookout for him with a blunder- buss loaded with rock-salt, we were enabled to cast anchor in the roadstead, at ten o'clock at night. The optical effect as we sailed by the mountainous shore was remarkable. The dark, beetling masses, streaked with white where sugar-cane BASSE TERRE. lO/ fields belt the mountain-side, seemed as if they were but a stone's throw distant, and yet they were four or five miles away. Sometimes the hills looked as if they were coming down to meet us, and we felt as if we could almost step ashore, I don't know how to account for this. It is some atmospheric condition, but I am not well enough versed in physics to have sufficient knowledge of these phenomena to explain them. Uncle John tried to account for the purity of the air by a surmise that the monkeys habitually used James' pills, but I couldn't understand how they procured them. Felix Hornung has no trade here. Otherwise I might have acquiesced, for I stand by home production on all occasions. We had alternate bright skies, with the moon shining mildly, and sudden showers of rain, which came unannounced, and burst in on us like fellows who invite themselves to luncheon. Sometimes the fleeting showers hardly showed the cloud from which they dripped, and the celerity with which they came and went could only be excelled by the alacrity of an office- seeking patriot, adapting himself to the fluctuating principles of a successful party. But we were in the West Indies at last, and we turned in, all to dream of the vernal freshness that would adorn our own fair land when we came sailing back again ; and my com- panions, of the fond welcome that awaited them when they returned to their loved ones at home. The scene which met our eyes as we came on deck this morning was pecuHarly grateful, succeeding a week at sea, with its unrelieved glare of waters, not a sail appearing to vary the monotony of view. It is remarkable that during all our voyage from New York we have seen but one sail by daylight, although several were reported passing at night. But they may have been spectral shapes of ships, foundered at sea and never heard from, still haunting the wave in I08 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. ghostly anxiety to send messages to expectant homes. Per- haps the Flying Dutchman is cruising in endless expiation hereabouts, but we are not fated to meet the blasphemous Vanderdecken. As the gifted John Boyle O'Reilly says in his poem : " They'll never reach their destined port, they'll see their homes no more : They who see the Flying Dutchman never, never reach the shore." The Montauk was launched under an auspicious star, and christened by a hand that could not fail to bring the good- fortune which has already made her a proverbially lucky boat. The town of Basse Terre, the principal settlement of St. Kitt's, is situated on the sea-shore, from which rise, at a short distance, high mountains, in verdure clad ; the encircling fields of sugar-cane looking like bands of pale green velvet swathing the swelling sides ; while the lofty peak is enveloped by a translucent vail of filmy vapor, gracefully undulating in the fresh morning breeze, which fans into coolness the sun- shiny air. The red roofs of low houses, standing out in the village against a background of green fields, has a most picturesque effect (it is always grateful to see " the green above the red ") ; while the groups of negroes, in variegated dress, gathered, in observant, chattering conclave, along the wharf, give animation to the picture. On a promontory, commanding the anchorage ground (there is no harbor, but a roadstead, partially land-locked) is the site of a battery, once a formidable menace to the incoming mariner, now abandoned, and, like an old veteran who has been used and set aside, of no consequence ; a mere signal-station to guide, in peaceful routes, the trading merchantman, enriched by the profits of past wars. Brimstone Hill, fifteen miles distant, on BASSE TERRE. IO9 the Caribbean side, is another point formerly fortified. It is now dismantled, and, being remote from the settlement, is garrisoned by hordes of monkeys, who swarm in the surround- ing forests. What a commentary on the mutability of affairs ! This erstwhile frowning fortress, bristling with destructive armament, defended by impregnable works, so strong as to cause it to be named " The Gibraltar of the West Indies," is now abandoned to capering monkeys, who gibber in its para- lytic bomb-proofs, and swing prehensile, in mocking gambols, through its toothless casements. In our own country the knavish ape sometimes invades the War Department, and " plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven as make the angels weep," even while the land is yet perilous in the grap- ple of internecine conflict. We were rowed ashore in the gig of the Commodore, and called first at the Custom-house (simply a matter of courtesy, for a special permit from the Secretary of the Treasury makes this a United States vessel, exempt from entry and clear- ance), and then at the office of the American Consul, Mr. De Lile, whom we found to be a pleasant gentleman, a native of the island, of French descent. He has succeeded his late father as Consul, and is thus a diplomat by inheritance. In his ofiice we saw a familiar object which betrayed the Amer- ican presence, and showed the freedom of mutilation enjoyed under the starry banner of our own country. It was a desk, carved in the well-known style that gave evidence that the Yankee jack-knife had been there. The desk was a reminder of home ; it was like the ranz-des-vacJies of the Swiss, or the Irish shamrock. We at once felt at home Jn the Consul's office ; the flag of the free floated over our heads, and we sat at the friendly, whittled board of our native land. Mr. De Lile accompanied us to the telegraph office, where we sent a cipher message to New York. Including address no THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. and signature, it contained four words, and cost $9.60. I fancy that the march of cheap telegraphy is not in this direc- tion, and that there is not much business done at that office. One day's busy work would absorb the yearly revenues of St. Kitt's. Passing through the public square, we saw the Berkeley fountain, a handsome and useful memorial to a former Presi- dent of the island. The President, it may be stated, derives his title from presiding over the Council, clothed with certain executive functions. He is appointed by the Crown. So is the Council. It is a mere shadow of representative govern- ment. We called upon the acting President, Mr. Eldridge, who gave us much valuable information regarding St. Kitt's, and the neighboring islands of Nevis and Antigua, at the latter of which is stationed the Governor who controls the three colonies confederated under one administration. Mr. Eldridge showed us at the Government House a piece of board which demonstrated the tremendous force of a hurricane. It had been torn off the Catholic church, during the tornado of 1 87 1, carried a long distance, and driven through four thicknesses of heavy plank, intruding about two feet within the building wall. It had been left there as a curiosity. This showed the power of a Church Board — in a hurricane. St. Kitt's has enjoyed its share of afflictions. In 1880, a sudden night flood from the mountains — a cloud-burst, prob- ably — swept away a portion of the town, and drowned two hundred and forty persons. Judge Semper told us of a young man, occupying a fine house in the devastated district, who Avas awakened in the night by a friend of his, captain of a vessel lying at anchor, who insisted upon his accompany- ing him aboard, to take a glass of grog in the cool moon- light. The gentleman was loath to go, and it was only on the captain declaring that he would beat the door in if he BASSE TERRE. Ill refused, that he at length reluctantly consented, leaving his servant in the house. When he returned in the mornine, not a vestige of the edifice was to be seen on its foundation ; but some distance off he recognized the iron gate of his fence, the only article recovered. His servant was never heard of again. Those who believe in special providences might find in this incident a moral of some kind. Perhaps an occult influence (I fancy it was rum) compelled the cap- tain to persist in his importunity, after his friend had mani- fested a strong disinclination to accompany him, and thus saved a life by his pertinacity. Here is an anecdote to off- set the Sunday-school story of the bad little boy drowned while fishing on the American Sabbath. I hope, however, that drummers for new books, and insurance brokers, will not take advantage of this recital and use it against me pro- fessionally hereafter, insisting upon my taking something for luck. A few years ago the island suffered a loss of about five thousand from cholera. The bodies of the victims were buried in great trenches near the sea-shore, and the action of the waves is gradually uncovering the remains, skulls and bones being washed out occasionally by the encroaching waters. There is no assortment of plagues, hurricanes, or floods on hand at present, but there is a large supply of measles, epi- demic, but not particularly virulent. Antigua presents su- perior claims to distinction, having some two thousand five hundred cases in stock. St. Kitt's, too, is behind in the mat- ter of earthquakes. Its efforts in this line have been weakly unsuccessful. Of the twenty-eight thousand inhabitants, about two thou- sand are white, and if it should enter the heads of the blacks to get up a strike some time, they could make it unpleasant for the poor white trash. I rise to remark that this is not in- 112 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. tended for a hint to meddling agitators to come down to this island and kick up a row in the interest of reform. There are no regular troops here, and but one company of volun- teer cavalry ; consisting of a few men, too widely scattered to be available in an emergency. The police force is all black, and the men are clean and well dressed, civil and in- telligent enough. They receive $12 a month pay. Taking into consideration its many attractions, St. Kitt's is beyond question a most delightful place to live away from. CHAPTER IX. ST. KITT'S. Iced-water — Teeth — Tonsorial — Sharks — Roses — Pelicans — A Drive — Religions — St. Patrick's Day — Wonderful Adventures with Monkeys. Basse Terre, St. Kitt's., March i8, 1884. There is a small park in the upper part of the town, con- taining handsome palm-trees, flowering white-cedars, and tropical plants. A cactus tree, twenty-five feet high, is curi- ous, but not so much so as a banyan, which already over- shadows a large space, and is gradually spreading its roots so as to interfere with the fountain in the middle of the park. .It has but one trunk, however, as the pendents, which reach down from the limbs and take root, becoming trunks in turn, and putting forth fresh offshoots, are cut off as they appear. Otherwise the tree would in time engross the whole park — a sort of mother-in-law, bringing in other members of the family. The trunk would be invaluable during the fashionable season at Saratoga. Basse Terre is copiously supplied with water from the mountain springs ; with a superabundance at times, as before stated. It is carried through pipes with hydrant attachments, and there are sewers, which we saw them flushing as we passed through Cayon Street. The fire department is a sim- ple organization. The hose carriages are men's shoulders, the reels of hose being borne on the head. I have known 114 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. firemen to carry reels inside their heads, but this is an outside conveyance — a water carriage. The other kind of reel was not. No ice is used here. It doesn't grow, and the demand will not warrant importation. Water for drinking purposes is kept in porous earthen vessels, like the old Spanish jars — or Egyptian, for that matter — and is cool enough. Drinking iced- water profusely is a vicious American habit. It impairs digestion and injures the teeth. Hence we have worse stom- achs and teeth than any other people. A Bermudian gentle- man, speaking of this dental inferiority, said that he attri- buted it to iced-water and confectionery. He told how he was in New York, a few years ago, during the cold winter when the East River was frozen over, and persons crossed on the ice to Brooklyn. The morning after his arrival, he was shivering in bed and rang the bell. A servant answered out- side his chamber-door, and he heard the tinkle of ice. Open- ing the door, a pitcher of iced-water was thrust at him. " What the deuce do I want of this ? " said he, " I'm nearly frozen already. Bring me some hot water for shaving." The idea of iced-water when the thermometer ranged in the vi- cinity of zero was to him ludicrous. He was compelled to bribe the hall-boys not to bring it to him when he rang the bell. We use too much ice. We ice everything, freeze vege- tables, and destroy the delicate perfume of fruit by over-icing. The hod carrier drinks iced-water as he mounts the ladder ; and some stupid persons, who regard every novelty as a re- form, conceived the idea of distributing it in pails to the poor of New York, to keep them from squandering their money on champagne /r«///. The teeth of the negroes are good, here as everywhere. I jocosely offered a young dusky, with a magnificent set of teeth, a thousand pounds for them. He declined, saying that the money would be no good to him without his teeth. Thus ST. KITT'S, 115 do the improvident negroes reject the golden opportunities within their reach of becoming miUionaires. A httle barber's shop, at which the Commodore (who is justly vain of his personal appearance) stopped to have his hair cut, was the most diminutive tonsorial emporium and sanctum of the artist in capillarity I have ever seen. It held but two persons besides the impresario perriLcchiere. It was such a shop as one sees in Pompeii. I wasn't permitted to enter, because — as the Commodore bald out at me when he assumed the sacrificial chair of denudation — there was too little hair in the small room already. The barber gave him a careful cut, parting the herbage in a thin line behind, which, expanding near the crown into a spherical baldness, looked like a palm-tree — a slender trunk and spreading upper devel- opment. Uncle John styled it the tropical palm-tree cut. It will soon become familiar to the Fifth Avenue Sunday promenade, where it will surely achieve great social conquests. During the August cruise of the New York Yacht Club it will be irresistible. The negro women seem to greatly outnumber the men. We saw no white women in the streets, but plenty of black, who are coarse, repulsive creatures. They speak English in a sort of gibberish, difficult to be understood by those un- familiar with the patois. The Basse Terre dialect is a sort of Basseterred English. As we walked along amid the multi- tude of fruit hucksters, we were addressed as " werry purty genlemen," whereupon it was observed that the portly Com- missioner carried his head a trifle higher, with the conscious- ness that striking manly beauty was not unappreciated by the fair sex of Basse Terre. We had provided an extensive supply of elaborate fishing tackle, intending to capture quantities of the speckled beau- ties (I believe that is the usual description offish — dried cod Il6 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. and such — in the newspapers), to eke out the provision of salted fish in our sliip's stores, but thus far had been unable to lure any of the inhabitants of the briny deep (another favorite rural-journalistic expression). The wary dolphin shunned our seductive squid, trawling astern, and the flying-fish only came aboard when he blundered in his flight, like a bank president ignorant of extradition treaties with foreign lands. But we were rewarded at last for our piscatorial investment. We caught a big fish — a shark. He was an ugly-looking fel- low, about six feet long, and, when hauled on deck, seized a belaying-pin thrust in his jaws, with the muscular action of a Frankfort Hill charcoal-man munching peanuts at a circus. The sailors put a slip-noose around his tail and hoisted him to the boat-davits, where the Commodore administered a dose of pellets from his revolver which soon settled the shark's hash, and made him matter for a negro chowder. The negroes eat stewed shark, but roasted monkey is their great delicacy. Uncle John claimed that the pistol was loaded with Cockle's pills, which are sure death. There is a strong rivalry between them and James' pills among us, both medicines having determined advocates. Sharks are numerous hereabouts. They are as thick as shyster lawyers around a Police Court. A few weeks ago, a dead mule was towed out for bait, and a shark eighteen feet long captured. If this success attended an ordinary St. Kitt's animal, what would have been the result if one of our re- nowned pos^-de/hwi army mules had been employed ? With some braying examples of this kind for bait, a shark a hun- dred feet long at least ought to be taken. Yet I suppose it ought to be a dead bait — the army mule is, for that matter. Sunday morning, mellow sounds of the church-going bell came out over the water, waving invitation, before we had breakfasted. We let them wave. M. DeLile sent aboard a ST. KITT'S. 117 great basket of roses, among them some fine specimens of tlie Mare'cJial Niel. They were large and fragrant, but seemed to lack the dewy freshness of our exquisite flowers at home. Abraham Brooks, gardener in charge of the public park, also sent us some choice products of floriculture. Brooks does not sneer at the gardener's "claims of long de- scent." Although a black man, he is a lineal descendant of " the gardener Adam and his wife," and a blood relation of Baron Tennyson D'Eyncourt. With these flowers, we re- placed the lilies that had adorned the saloon, our Lily Bower, from Bermuda. We were loath to part with these souvenirs, but they had withered. Though the tangible flower may wither, the lily emblem will never fade from memor}^ Skimming over the roadstead surface, glistering in silvery flashes under the sunbeams, were numerous pelicans, diving beneath the waves as some unwary fish approached the sur- face, and arresting the malefactor for violating the Sunday law. The pelicans are strong-winged, aquatic birds, with bills as long as those of attorneys in a contested will case, and they were evidently foraging for their breakfast. I suppose, as this is a sabbatical region, the pelicans do no cooking on Sunday, but eat cold victuals. 'Tis the early bird that catches the worm, and, as these prowlers were up betimes, it is prob- able that they had already caught the too previous worm, and were using it for fish bait. A cormorant receiver couldn't gobble a wrecked corporation with greater ease, by allow- ance of the Court, than these sea-hawks swallowed the fish whole. They must be favored with powerful digestive or- gans, unimpaired by the habitual use of Cockle's pills, the gourmand's after-dinner persuader. In the afternoon, we drove out among the mountains, passing several extensive sugar estates. The principal ex- port of St, Kitt's is sugar, though there is considerable pro- Il8 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. duction, and some consumption, of shocking bad rum. The roads are excellent, but the scenery not particularly interest- ing. The drive along the crest, overlooking the sea-coast to windward, affords a view of the ocean, spread out as far as the eye can reach — and farther — but we have become familiar with that appearance, and it is no novelty. Fruit trees are plenty. At one place, out in a settlement among the moun- tains, near the Moravian church, from the steeple of which a flag was flying, we saw cocoa-palm, orange, lime, mango, and bread-fruit trees growing side by side. We met a few whites, in carriages, and a great many negro pedestrians on the road. The negroes appeared to be clean, generally well dressed — white being the favorite color — and they were cheer- ful and polite, invariably touching their hats when we met. There was an assortment of head-coverings, as varied as lay- ers of boarding-house butter. We encountered but one reg- ulation black silk hat, a venerable tile, about contempora- neous with the style of the ex-mayor's funeral hat — vintage of 1804, The younger children were clad in garments too abbreviated for adaptation to the latitude of Paris Hill in December ; but all wore a holiday look, and some nothing else. Many were, no doubt, going to, or returning from church. The population of St. Kitt's is Protestant, the whites (ex- cept a few Catholics, of French and Portuguese blood) attend- ing the Church of England, while the blacks are Wesleyans and Moravians, There are not a hundred Catholic negroes on the island. The growth of Peter's pence here must be stunted and unproductive, and the drippings of the sanctuary flaccid. Much religious enthusiasm prevails among the ne- groes, and to this is due the prevalence of the Methodistical form of worship. Talking back is permitted in the Episcopal Church, it is true, but the response is limited by irksome re- ST. KITT'S. 119 straints ; while in the Wesleyan, it is a sort of free fight with the devil, and every one has a right to pitch in. There is no doubt but that this facihty of demonstration is conducive to religious enthusiasm. The Methodist is very much in earn- est. A washerwoman (who informed us, as a matter of per- sonal interest to Uncle John, in whom she discovered a pious affinity, that " de countenans was de index ob de mind ") edified us greatly by her glib elucidations of the true Chris- tian doctrine. She, too, had suffered for conscience sake. For some time a resident of St. Thomas (the Danish island), where her worldly affairs were more prosperous than at St. Kitt's, her sensitive feelings were so shocked by the band playing in the Square Sunday afternoons that her soul be- came black with horror. She shook the dust of profane St. Thomas from her voluminous feet, and returned to her native isle, where the odor of sanctity permeates the Sabbath day with pungent African redolence. St. Kitt's is famous for monkeys. " Don't you want to buy a monkey ? " is a favorite inquiry of the truant boy. We saw none during our drive. We went along roads where they sometimes appear, but they were probably attending afternoon service, or remained within doors, and, if they saw us, were shocked at the profanation of the day, driving out for recreation. The monkey is doubtless a highly religious personage, who wouldn't endanger his salvation by shuffling dominos Sunday, or playing waltzes on the piano to pro- voke divine wrath. Yesterday being St. Patrick's Day, the Commodore or- dered the yacht to be decorated with flags (called " dressing ship"), in honor of the anniversary. The significance of the holiday apparel was well understood ashore. Mr. Eldridge noticed it when he paid us a visit, and seemed to regard it as nothing unusual ; although I thought it a handsome thing 120 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. in the Commodore (who, unfortunately, has no Irish blood in his veins, and doesn't belong to the Land League) to think of paying this tribute to the memory of Ireland's patron saint, who, it may be stated in passing, was a cousin of my ancestors. Judge Semper, puisne Judge of St. Kitt's, whom we had met the day before, sent us a bountiful supply of fresh fruits and vegetables, which were quite toothsome, particularly the Brussels sprouts, tender as a boarding-school miss. At din- ner, while the first regular toast — " The Day We Celebrate" ■ — was being drunk, the ever-ready Commodore was inspired to dash off the following epigram : The Judge has sent aboard some fruit And garden-sauce to thrate us, Our motto and the day they suit, You find them Semper praties. I wondered whether the Rose, Shamrock and Thistle Society of Utica was sitting down to supper, after the good old fashion, or whether the second-growth Hibernian Vice- President would be too lazy to order the representative of bonnie Scotia to " flee awa" and make preparations for the feast. We did the best we could. We remembered friends at home in our potations, wet the shamrock, and sang the "Wearing of the Green." I had a green flag waving over my state-room door all day ; and at night I dreamt of Kil- larney, and rode through the Gap of Dunloe on a hard-trot- ting pony. I had intended not to mention that two toasts were offered and responded to at dinner. Uncle John insisted upon hav- ing one of them proposed, so that he could compare his mag- nificent effort at the Washington's Birthday dinner with whatever I might say, inadequately, on the same topic, I think he is a little vain of his success, and wanted an oppor- ST. KITT'S. 121 tunity to compare notes to my disparagement. I wouldn't consent, however, unless he agreed to speak to the toast of the day, which he did, and two speeches were made instead of one. He said we wanted no more any way, as the Com- modore and Commissioner couldn't speak well enough for St. Patrick, although they might do for George Washington. I fancy that Uncle John was a little foxy in the matter, and not only wanted to put me down, comparatively speaking, but desired also to show us that he could be facetious if he pleased, though he was greatly in earnest in his last effort. He made a good oration, and I told a couple of stories in illustration of what he said in his other speech about heroism, which required no aid of words, for the incidents themselves were interesting without rhetorical adornment. Uncle John has promised to write out his remarks for me, and if he does, I will send them in one of these letters with my own. I do not wish to deprive him of the full benefit of the glory he has earned by making a better speech than I can. A British mail steamer arrived in port to-day from South- ampton, having touched at St. Thomas. It brought one letter for us, forwarded from that point to the Commissioner, containing news from home. It was a protest on a promis- sory note endorsed for a friend. This steamer goes as far as Trinidad. The line receives a subsidy of ^95,000 per annum. It was originally ^200,000 sterling. Government subsidies are unpopular with us, but — as crapulous Hirondelle re- marked, touching the propriety of using the abbreviation D. D. against his name on the police record — a great deal may be said on both sides, if you have money to hire a good lawyer. This Island, like all the West India group, is of volcanic origin, and extinct craters are to be seen in several places. The highest is Mount Misery, 4,300 feet above the sea, the 122 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. peak of which is generally hid in clouds. We couldn't see it ; but the Commodore remarked that it wasn't worth while ; we saw misery enough in New York without coming to the West Indies to find it. Our sailing-master was- anxious to see monkeys in their homes, and trudged off, guided by some boys, in search of the animals ; for whom sailors evince a strange partiality. Upon his return, he reported that the exploration had been in vain ; he saw plenty of wild goats, but no monkeys, though he heard them chattering in the woods. The Commissioner, however, who had gone ashore unaccompanied, claimed that he had been more successful. " Monkeys ! " said he, " why, I saw droves of them up Monkey Mountain, where I drove with my French friend, Mr. Menteur. Wending our way along the road, we made a sharp turn, and came suddenly upon a group, which seemed to be awaiting us. The leader, a venerable old monkey, with a white moustache, and black dress-coat, advanced, and, tak- ing off his hat — " "Come now," interrupted Uncle John, "what are you giving us? That's too strong altogether; monkeys don't wear hats." "Fact, I assure you, gentle- men," replied the Commissioner, in his suave, Board-of-Ap- pointment-monthly-meeting manner, " it was a stove-pipe hat of Geninuine make. The wearer was probably a visitor from Montserrat, where the native black population speaks Irish, and he probably borrowed it from somebody who had been in the procession to-day. As I don't speak English when traveling abroad, where nobody ever takes me for an American, I said nothing, but simply acknowledged the salute by touching my hat, after the manner of Paddy Burns at the Patriarchs' Ball. The patriarchal monkey held out a paper, which I took, and found to be a petition for the passage of a prohibitory liquor law, for the reason that there was too much ST. KITT'S. 123 of ' the crater ' in St. Kitt's. A younger member of the tribe, with a short black pipe in his mouth, pushed the old fellow aside, rather angrily, and handed me a card, on which was written, in the ancient Celtic character, ' better lava crater alone.' Evidently there was a difference of opinion among them ; and yet the monkeys ought to have been unanimous for prohibition, for a drunken monkey always makes an ass of himself. " I was soon surrounded by a concourse of the tribe of Cebidae, who thrust into my hand papers of different shapes and sizes, and of varied complexion ; some fresh as the blush- ing debutante at her coming-out party, others frayed, tattered, and soiled as the reputation of an Ohio politician. I didn't retain these papers, but I remember the contents of some of them. " There was a petition for the appointment of Jocko, Chairman First Ward Committee, as Inspector in the Custom House ; prospectus of a Company to work the Baby Mine, capital stock ten millions of pounds sterling, to be perma- nently invested and retired as a sinking fund ; tickets tor the raffle of a butter-dish at a church fair ; votes for a pair of worked slippers, to be presented to the most popular clergy- man at Christmas ; portrait of Pyke, candidate for President of Monos Mountain ; card of Adolphe Singe, Perrnqnier Frangais, shave five cents, with a glass of lager and a cigar thrown in ; copy of the Illustrated News, containing photo- graphic view of an earthquake, taken while the earth was trembling, by our own artist, sent out expressly for the occa- sion, at great expense ; subscription paper for foreign mis- sions to convert the Roman Catholics of Martinique to Chris- tianity ; check on the Canal Bank at Albany ; ivory ball, marked 16, looked like the pocket edition used at the Schuyt Forler Club ; circular of Francis Murphy, temperance lee- 124 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. turer and brother in Christ — terms moderate ; subscription for Parnell Fund. " Then there was a lot of handbills and placards, which had evidently been torn from rocks and trees : Use Gorman's Co- coaine ; Try Nurbett's Sapolio ; Setting Moon Stove-polish ; Scorner's Safe Cure for Sunburn — go out when it rains ; Seal of North Carolina in red wax ; Pogers & Reet, embroidered Snow-shoes ; Bargains in Dry Goods, at Bowen McNamee & Co.'s; A.T.Stewart, Laces and Embroideries, Broadway, west side, above Chambers St. ; Use Detergent — removes mountains ; Try James' Pills — cures hams ; Meeting of Mozart Hall Committee, season of moonshine ; Florida Water — good for corns ; Pond's Extract — for drawing teeth ; Trask pam- phlet against use of tobacco ; Smith's Toy Pistols — warranted sure ; Smoke the Five-cent Symplocarpits ; Torrents of Aperi- ent, and many others. " I saw one debilitated old monkey riding a donkey, on which there was a pannier, with a sack slung across. One side seemed to be bulging out with a load, while the other was collapsed and wrinkled, apparently empty, and yet they balanced, as if equally heavy at both ends. Upon examina- tion, I found that one end of the bag held twenty cocoanuts, while the other contained a scrap of paper with a paragraph from a Governor's message. "The venerable leader, first taking a white necktie from his pocket, which he put around his neck, pointed to what seemed to be a large house in a field near the roadside, and beckoned me to follow him. I did so, and, much to my sur- prise, found that the imposing structure was a pile of books — the Revised New Testament, with leaves uncut. " Now, gentlemen, I see by your looks that you don't be- lieve me. I anticipated as much from your own constitu- tional infidelity, which makes you doubters. But here is the ST, KITT'S. 125 evidence. I bought some of the raffle-tickets and brought them with me, feehng certain that you would question my word. Look at them ! Ecce t abides fortunes ! I produce the corpus delecti in court, and anybody that wants to may commence a prosecution for violation of the law against gambling." Here the Commissioner plunged his massive hand into a capacious pocket, and produced some bits of figured cards, which he handed to the Superior of the Order of Domino- cans. "Ha! ha! "shouted Uncle John, looking at them, " Ha ! ha ! I have you now. These are some of Simpson's pawn tickets, dated February, 1884. They represent that old oroide watch and plated chain you raised money on to defray your expenses on this cruise." The Commissioner shrank abashed. He was detected. He had put his hand in the wrong pocket. CHAPTER X. AMONG THE ISLANDS. Lunacy — The Old Fire-Laddie — St. Patrick's Day Orations : Ireland : A Brave Girl : Michael Ouigley : A Heroic Woman — Montserrat — ■ Ethiopian Celts — Guadaloupe — The Caribs — Wind-Rainbow — Do- minica — St. Pierre — A Great Loss. St. Pierre, Martinique, March 21, 1884. As I was going to St. Kitt's, I met a man who'd lost his wits. " Where are my wits ? " he asked of me. " Perhaps you'll find them in the sea." As I was coming from St. Kitt's, I met the man who'd lost his wits. " Pve found my wits," he said to me, " Beneath the moonshine in the sea." These are nursery rhymes by Uncle John. Apparently they have no meaning, and are, therefore, the genuine article. I fancy, however, that they are intended as sarcasm, and that I am the object, for the Boanerges of dominos remarked that any one who could write such nonsense as my scribblings must have lost his wits. His suppositive comment impHed that I had become moon-struck, in midnight meditations on deck, during these glorious nights of the past week. He was good enough to make a partial retraction afterward, knowing that I took his remark to heart, for I had a guilty conscious- ness that he was not far astray in his estimate of my mental condition. There is such a thing as acquiring lunacy by ab- AMONG THE ISLANDS. 12/ sorption. I have been associated with Managers of an Insane Asylum, and dementia may be predicated of a willingness to serve in that office. He took advantage, however, of the opportunity afforded by my expressing a favorable opinion of the homoeopathic system of medicine, to say patronisingly that I had recovered my mind. I suppose it was on the principle of similia, similibus curantur — there is so much moonshine in medicine. For that matter, there is a large admixture in ah the connate learned mystifications v/hich rule the world : law, physic, and divinity. The French Consul, Monsieur Derivin, came aboard while we lay at Basse Terre. Although he speaks English fluently, he afforded the Commodore an opportunity to con- verse in French, which the gallant flag-officer utters with intense activity and profound accentuation at appropriate festive occasions. St. Kitt's was originally a French island, but it has been in English possession over two hundred years. It is now- French only in territorial nomenclature. All the streets and places, as well as the sugar estates, have French names, but are not in French possession. The estates have retained the designations given them by owners expelled generations ago, and succeeded by those of another race, speaking a different tongue. Had an American Common Council been in con- trol, the names would have been changed many times ere this. Water of superior quality was furnished at a reasonable rate: about three-fourths of a cent a gallon, including the cost of delivery aboard. I testify to its superiority, not from personal knowledge, but from information and belief. It was brought alongside in a hghter, and pumped from casks through the yacht's hose. The operation was superintended by the Commissioner and Uncle John, whose experience as 128' THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. fire laddies (I ' believe that's the newspaper designation : it's either laddies or ladders) came in, to play away No. 41 ! They were like old war-horses at the sound of the bugle-call. The gurgle of the water, flowing through coupled lengths of hose, aroused the slumbering ardor of the disbanded volunteer ; and to see Uncle John stamping around the deck, recalled the glorious period of his flame-subduing victories, when, as Foreman of Engine 28, his resonant trumpet was the fiery Excalibar of the Department. In my last letter I promised to send you the responses to the two toasts offered at dinner on St. Patrick's Day, if Uncle John would write his out ; and he has just brought the notes to me in an unintelligible shape. They are scrawled on the backs of discharged envelopes, washing-lists, and tailors' bills, in such confusion that I can scarcely decipher them. But I will do the best I can. Here is the speech : " Mr. Chairman : I doubt my ability to do justice to this subject. The English have been trying to conquer Ireland for several hundred years, and I could hardly be expected to get away with her in one night. I might if I were in Con- gress, and could put the Green Isle in an appropriation-bill. I have great regard for Ireland, and for Irishmen, particularly if they are women. I regard the Irish as the handsomest race in the world, and it always makes me angry to see the caricatures in the illustrated newspapers which are so grossly unjust to a people that, for physical strength, endurance, comeliness, and quick, native wit, is not equaled by any, un- less it be the American, and that is a mixed race, largely Celtic in composition. The denizen of the rural districts, who has never traveled, and who forms his idea of the Irishman from the caricature, and not from personal obser- vation, will not agree with me, but my assertion is true never- theless. AMONG THE ISLANDS. 1 29 *' I will not speak of the ancient glories of Ireland during her golden age, when the arts and sciences flourished ; when there was an advanced state of civilization, as can be seen by the picturesque ruins, showing the highest order of architec- ture, which abound on the island. The origin of her peculiar round-towers is unknown, the hordes that overran the island having, not only partially obliterated the marks of culture and refinement, but totally destroyed the records, so that her early history is lost, and only comes down to us in fragmentary tradition. But though the remote past is shrouded in ob- livion, there are modern examples of greatness, springing up under repressive persecution, that show what Ireland would be were she an independent nation, * great, glorious, and free, first flower of the earth, first gem of the sea.' " With all the disadvantages under which she has labored, she has produced some of the most eminent men in our day. The greatest English-speaking orators were Burke, Sheridan, and O'Connell. There were others who, while they do not rank with these incomparable masters of language, hold a distinguished place as rhetoricians. Before the legislative union with England, the Irish Bar was unrivaled in its display of brilliant forensic eloquence. Who can peruse the works of the genial essayists, Goldsmith and Steele, the pungent satires of Swift and Sterne, the poetry of Moore, the novels of Lever, Grifiin, Banim, Lover, Miss Edgeworth, and Carle- ton, without being impressed with the genius that sur- mounted all the obstacles interposed to intellectual develop- ment. As for soldiers, the Irishman is naturally a fighter. The only man that ever lived able to cope with Napoleon Avas an Irishman. It is unnecessary to particularize the Irishmen who fought for America, for wherever there is fighting going on in any part of the world, in the armies of France, Spain, Austria, or any of the great military powers, there I30 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. you will find Irishmen. They supply the Stage with a large proportion of its best actors ; they excel in all the ornamental arts. " The Irish are expansive travelers. You find them in every land mentioned in history, ancient or modern, sacred or profane. They gave their names to countries whither they emigrated ; history and geography combine to perpetuate the record. Some of the Books of the Old Testament are named after an ancient Irish family, the Maccabees. Judas McCabe was a valiant warrior in his time ; so was Alexander of Mac- Edonia (probably the name was McDonagh, spelt improp- erly). Then there was the famous O'Dyssey, written by an Irish schoolmaster, H. O'Mer, member of an elder branch of the Greek family. Among the early colonists from Erin were the MacRobii, who settled in Ethiopia. They got into a little quarrel with the aboriginals, which is kept up by their descendants, for the Hibernian and the Ethiopian are yet to be found arrayed on different sides politically. They were in Asia as well, the MacCrones being a powerful sept. The MacCrones were no doubt a branch of the Cronins of Slieve- namish, who adopted the aristocratic Mac, when they emi- grated and settled among those who didn't know whether they were entitled to it or not. It is popularly supposed that the macaroni of the Italians takes its name from them, but it is an error. That delicious food was invented by an Irish baker from Nockamavaddy, named Michael Rooney (Mickey Rooney for short), who accompanied Pope Adrian to Rome and conferred this inestimatable boon on Italy. But the Italians never would give the Irish any credit. They inter- fere with them whenever they get a chance. The McCanns of Tartary (improperly spelt Khan) have alwa^^s cut a« fine figure, with an immense following. The invincible chieftain Mark O'Mahony, made a raid into Germany and subjugated AMONG THE ISLANDS. 131 a warlike tribe, compelling the vanquished to adopt his name and call themselves Marcomanni. " The most magnificent queen the world ever saw, barrino- Sheba, who had some relations with King Sol O' Mon ; or Semiramis (I acknowledge that she wasn't Irish) was the Egyptian Clelia, familiarly known as Cle. O'Patra. Shake- speare wrote a play about her and Tony, a Roman lover. Some persons ' don't believe that Shakespeare writ that play,' but they are cranky theorists, afflicted with Bacon- mania, a sort of mental trichinosis. " The Irish have spread all over the world, except Boston, where few of them are to be found. They reached the ut- termost limit of the Western Hemisphere. Terra del Fuego was discovered by an Irish giant, Pat. O'Gania, and his pos- terity are known as Patagonians ; only they don't know how to spell their own names, but transpose the o and the a. They live on the Straits of McGellan. The Micmacs are in Canada. The Irish family of O'Regon went early to the western coast, and named a river which flows into the Pacific Ocean. Then there are the MacKinaws in the interior west (a corruption of the McNalls) ; and in New York State we have the tribe of O'Neidas. " Among the renowned physicians of antiquity was Mac- Haon, son of Esculapius, who must have married an Irish wife ; and the child took his mother's name as preferable to the plebeian cognomen. Mac probably used his father's as a prcenomen, and had his business cards, printed by a type-writer: Esculapius McHaon, M.D. Office hours op- tional. " As statesmen, the Irish stand pre-eminent. It is well understood that the Democratic and Republican organizations of New York and Brooklyn are controlled, respectively, by John Kelly, John J. O'Brien, and Hugh McLaughlin, aided 132 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. by the tremendous voting power of the Mac-Hines. This political influence is felt as far off as Japan, where the rank of the despotic ruler is designated by an Irish name. It was originally O'Macquade, but the Japanese shifted the prefix to a suffix ; and properly, too, for the genealogical O', mean- ing grandson, naturally follows Mac, which means son, and a grandson is not apt to be born before his father. So, instead of the former Omaquade, the Emperor is known as the Mi- quado of Japan. The Irish rule everywhere except in their own country. " I could go on at great length to demonstrate the all- engrossing expansion of the Irish in the direction of offices, but I dislike to occupy the time of this distinguished convo- cation. I will conclude by offering a sentiment, which needs no words of adulation, ' The Irish Woman ; ' and call upon my friend, the honorable representative from Ireland, who wasn't born in his native land, to respond." I said (with an imported Killarney blush, mantling to the crown of my brow, like the morning sun rosily suffusing the Matterhorn) : " Mr. Chairman : After the brilliant philological, geographical, historical, and archeological essay of my learned, flowery, and gallant friend, the flame-subduing Archivist, I have some hesitation in speaking, for I know that comparison with his splendid achievement would redound greatly to my oratorical disadvantage. I doubt my ability to do justice to this subject. This is a chronic disability with the after-dinner speaker, as you have learned by its modest repetitive asser- tion. I suspect Uncle John has a selfish motive underlying his call upon me, but I will utilize it, notwithstanding his dis- ingenuousness. ' We can often put questionable appliances to good use. The bronze door that once swung in a sensual heathen temple now adorns a portal in the central shrine of pure Christianity. I distrust the sardonic smile that faintly AMONG THE ISLANDS. I33 touches Uncle John's mocking lip, but I will employ his ironical invitation to say something responsive, in the same vein of thought which marked his treatment of the topic at our last feast. I will give other illustrations of the just truth- fulness of his felicitous tribute to the heroism of woman. I not only agree with him that in moral courage she is vastly superior to man, but I believe that in physical bravery she is not inferior. We often read in the newspapers of the deter- mination displayed by women in facing burglars, but the ex- amples of men's daring are not so abundant. I am sure that the becoming timidity of bearing in woman proceeds more from instinctive delicacy, sensitive refinement, and regard for the proper conventionalities of society, than from any lack of intrepidity. " An incident came within my knowledge, a short time since, which carries out this view, and although a rare occur- rence, because of the exceptional attendant circumstances, it will serve to typify the stoutness of heart that may lie within a fragile form. " Out in the northern wilds of the Adirondacks, remote from a settlement, is a mountain retreat, occupied as a summer home by a gentleman and his granddaughter, and frequented by hunters, and those seeking the health that a balmy atmos- phere, spiced with gum-distilling trees, bears on healing wings. Two visitors had been out hunting, far from this re- treat, in a dense forest, containing but an imperfect and indefinite trail. They became separated, and as night ap- proached, the younger, appreciating the necessity for keep- ing the faint trail in view while daylight lasted, hastened his return, supposing that his companion would take the same course. He reached the retreat about nightfall, but the elder sportsman, less vigorous, unable to bear up under fatigue, lagged behind, and had not arrived when the occupants of 134 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. the house retired. But one did not retire ; a young girl who had spent months exploring the wilderness and knew how dif- ficult it would be for a person unfamiliar with its recesses to follow the feeble trail. "At a late hour, she called up her colored maid to accom- pany her, and donning a huntress dress, sallied forth, rifle in hand, into the darkness. She took the precaution to send a stable-boy with a boat up the adjacent lake, to be used in case an accident had happened which would render its em- ployment necessary. No one in the house knew of her inten- tion ; no one else had the thoughtfulness to entertain it, nor the courage to put it in execution. " Attended by her maid, then, she plunged fearlessly into the gloomy forest, fording streams, clambering over rocks, and forcing a way through thick undergrowth, on her merci- ful mission. After a long search, a faint response came to the hailing-call she kept up, and her view-halloo was feebly echoed from a clump of bushes ; where she found the object of her search, exhausted, dazed, unable to move without assistance. The boat was called and soon arrived at a con- venient vicinity, and after the application of restoratives, the sufferer was placed in it and carried to the retreat, arriving about daybreak. " Night in the wilderness is a shivering time at best. Gaunt trees outstretch uncanny limbs in shadeful dejection ; rebel- lious twigs, forced aside in finding a path, strike back in the face with startling sting ; the air is filled with frightful vague- ness, more oppressive because the shadowy influence takes no definite form. There are but few who are not cowards in the dark : " ' Like one that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And, having once turned round, walks on And turns no more his head.' AMONG THE ISLANDS. 1 35 " We may reason, but fear is deaf to reason. How many are there who would like to spend the night in a church- yard, and yet it is a holy place where evil spirits may not come. Not the dangers that are palpable, but the unknown and unseen are the most trying to the nerves. There are shudderous terrors of ambiguity. " I regard that night-journey in the primeval forest, by a delicate, tenderly-nurtured young lady, as an admirable ex- hibition of the intrepid resolution that makes heroines, and I put it on record as an example of woman's bravery. " But the toast is to the Irish woman, and my heroine is a slender young American girl, with a healthy mind in a healthy body, invigorated by exercise in the open air and the innocent freedom of the salubrious forest. "The Irish woman is brave, honest, unselfish, and self- sacrificing. The attributes which commanded the respect of successive invaders of Ireland formulated the saying, Hibeniis ipsis Hiberniores, for it was the commanding influence of Irish women that made the settlers of various nationality ' more Irish than the Irish themselves.' One of the super- stitions of the ancient Irish was that a child's disposition would be influenced by the first object on which its hand was placed, and it was the custom of the brave mothers of that heroic race to cause a sword to be placed in the hand of the new-born male child, so that valor should be the prevailing characteristic in life. " The episode I am about to present is such a striking in- stance of fortitude that I am sure I shall be indulged in occu- pying some little time in its relation. *' During the Rebellion of 1798, a secret insurrectionary organization, having for its object disenthrallment from Eng- lish rule, existed throughout Ireland. In the town of Kil- kenny, there lived a well-to-do woolen-draper named Michael 136 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. Quigley, a reputable business-man, living with his family, a wife and three children, in apartments over his shop, in the main street, directly opposite the Court House, where a per- manent court-martial was in session to try, with drum-head haste, those accused of complicity in the rebellion. Quigley was Secretary of the Section of United Irishmen having their headquarters at Kilkenny. Through the instrumentality of spies and informers employed by the Government, his official connection with the revolutionists was discovered, and, one day, while at his counter, he was arrested and hurried to the Court House for trial ; having barely time, as he passed out of his home, to whisper to his wife, ' May God be with you always ! ' He was tried within an hour, found guilty, sen- tenced to be executed the next morning, and committed to prison. " It was customary to carry ouf these sentences on the spot — there was short shrift for the insurgents — but an ex- ception was made in the case of Quigley, in order to give him time to consider a proposition made to pardon him if he would reveal the names of the confederated conspirators. This temptation he spurned indignantly all through the night. He could not be induced to save his own life by the betrayal of his trust and the imperilment of others. Early in the morning, he managed to convey to his wife a communication, written on his shirt-collar. It was this laconic message : * I will die ; I will not be a traitor.' " The bereaved wife received the message, cowering be- side a desolate hearth-stone, surrounded by her weeping, terror-stricken children. She was a poor weak woman. She thought of the horrible fate awaiting her husband, to be hung within sight of his own door. She felt the impending shadow of the ghastly gallows, falling, a dread shape, athwart her threshold, smothering her heart beneath a frightful pall. She AMONG THE ISLANDS. 1 37 thought of her children about to be thrust forth on the cold charity of the world, perhaps to die of want by the wayside, for confiscation of all goods and chattels was one of the pen- alties of treason to the English Government, The natural promptings of nature would be to say to her husband, ' Save yourself ! save us ! save your wife and children from despair ; what is all the world to us without you ! ' " But what was her answer, conveyed to Quigley by the same favoring hand that brought his implied interrogation ? To the noble declaration of the husband, ' I will die ; I will not be a traitor,' she made this sublime response : 'Better make ojte widow than one hundred.' " An incident was connected with the execution of Michael Quigley which is interesting to those of his faith, who under- stand the importance attached to the administration of the rites of the Church in extremity. He had asked for the visi- tation of a priest, but this request was curtly denied. * Death without benefit of clergy,' was the savage punishment for his offense. He was not bereft of this consolation, however; Directly opposite the jail-door, before which the gallows stood, was an arch containing a small room, in which was a window. By a circuitous route, a priest and two pious men entered this room unperceived, and remained concealed there, to act upon a preconcerted signal. As Michael Quigley was led forth to execution, he bent his head and repeated the prescribed words of the act of contrition. Then he lifted his eyes to the window in the archway, and as he did so, the curtain was slightly raised ; he bent his head again, and at that moment the concealed priest administered the form of absolution of the Church ; which fell on the heart of Michael Quigley like the dew from Heaven, reviving, strengthening, full of ineffable consolation. And, fortified with this benediction, the hero mounted the scaffold and 138 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. met a patriot's death with the undaunted firmness of a mar- tyr. " As Michael J. Barry wrote : " But whether on the scaffold high Or in the battle's van, The fittest place where man can die Is where he dies for man ! "Should Ireland ever achieve her independence, and be peopled by free men and free women, there should be erected in the town of Kilkenny, a noble monument, lifting its head to the skies, proud of this inscription, ' I will die ; I will not be a traitor : ' and beneath it, in letters of gold, gleaming lustrously for all time in ' the light of Freedom's day,' this other legend, to commemorate woman's heroism, ' Better make one widow than one hundred.' " We sailed from St. Kitt's the morning of the i8th, with a clear sky and fair wind ; passing Nevis, which has nothing of interest to recommend it except good mutton. But we didn't come abroad for chops and saddles. We can get them at Washington Market ; and I know the Alsatian would furnish quite as good mutton ; though perhaps not so sheep. (No charge !) If we should return this way, we may visit the island to test this reputed excellence — revenons a nos moiit07is, as it were. I had a great desire to visit the island of Montserrat, and regretted that the two weeks' detention from fogs and head- winds at New York forced us to give the go-by to points where our arrival was awaited, no doubt, with breathless anxiety. Montserrat has an especial claim to consideration ; I had a consanguineous yearning to press its volcanic soil. The steward informed me that a large contingent of the ne- groes on the island speak the Irish language ; adhering to it AMONG THE ISLANDS. 1 39 with stubborn pertinacity, stoutly resisting English lingual invasion. The story told is that, many years ago, a slave ship was captured by a British cruiser, and the slaves landed on the island, in charge of a master-at-arms who chanced to be an Irishman. He taught them his native tongue, which they have scrupulously retained to this day ; affording an ex- ample of patriotic constancy that puts to shame the Fifth Ward of Utica, where Gaelic has tamely yielded to Saxon aggression, until it is now rarely heard, save on election day, when John O'Davy's mellow brogue incites his compatriots to vote the Republican ticket, early and often. If we could get up an emigration from Montserrat to St. Lawrence County, the political complexion of that Cimmerian precinct might be changed. It always has been intensely black, but an infusion of Montserrat would enlighten it some. This would offset the colonization of Indiana from Kentucky. Here is a point for the consideration of the infrequent Demo- crat of the St. Lawrence. My good old father, of happy memory, who regarded every man as a brother, no matter what his color or creed, had a quaint way of addressing his colored brethren as " smoked Irishmen." It was regarded as a bit of facetious- ness on his part, but I find now that the appellation was to some extent literally correct. This island is peopled with smoked Irishmen. The heart of the Honorable Dennis Burns, of Sligo — whilom adept legislator, now learned philomath, engaged in encouraging the revival of Gaelic among the Knickerbockers of New York — would swell with pride could he but wander amid these forest-clad declivities, and hear the soft Corkagian Doric floating, in affinitive modulation, through the green groves of Montserrat. Savotirneen deelisJi. CitsJila machree. Fion Slan. Nabocklish ! Guadaloupe is a large French island, which has a town of I40 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. considerable importance, Point a Pitre, with a good harbor; which we decided not to enter, as Martinique is the most noted island under French government, and we could there get a better idea of the manners and customs of Western France. There is a famous volcanic mountain here, with a crater-peak five thousand feet high, called the Souffriere. The summit is rarely seen, being almost constantly enveloped in clouds. Guadaloupe was discovered by Columbus, at the same time with Dominica, and was named after Our Lady of Guadaloupe, in accordance with a vow made to some monks of Estrama- dura. It was here that the Spaniards found vestiges of can- nibalistic habits, and concluded that the inhabitants were the fierce Caribs who devastated the islands of their gentler and more peaceful neighbors. The name cannibal came from here. These warlike Caribs made predatory excursions in their big canoes for hundreds of miles. Their weapons were bows, and arrows of shell poisoned with the juice of a certain herb. It was their habit to make descents on the islands, carry off the handsomest and youngest of the women, whom they kept as servants, and capture the men, to be killed and eaten at leisure. Commenting upon this gentle peculiarity of the noble savage, Uncle John said that eating the men showed a perverted taste, when the women would be more tender and succulent. He accounted for it by surmising that the Caribs must have lived at cheap boarding-houses and acquired a fondness for bull-beef. While passing Guadaloupe, we wit- nessed a magnificent sight ; an immense rainbow, gorgeous in vivid prismatic hues, majestic in arching encompassment ; its base resting apparently at the foot of a towering moun- tain, while the span extended far over the peak until lost in the sea beyond. It covered with iridescent glory the rugged mountain side, dimly visible through a diaphanous robe, AMONG THE ISLANDS. 141 which smoothed the ungainly angles into graceful lines, beau- tifying with tinted embelUshment the unsightly irregularis ties. '• Ah ! " said the Commissioner (crossing his hands behind his back after the manner of Napoleon at St. Helena), " how that rainbow, enchanting to view, but delusive and evanes- cent, typifies the vanity of human pursuits ! We gaze upon the radiant mists with pleasure, but they are ephemeral like all the blandishments of life. What are pleasures but rain- bows ? They disappear with indulgence, and leave nothing behind, save, perhaps, vain regrets." "Excuse me. Commissioner," I interrupted, " there I think you are wrong. Some joys that we've tasted leave unfading rainbows in the heart." "True," rephed the reviser of assessed real estate valua- tions, " but we are material beings, after all, and cannot live on fancy. The rainbow gazers are visionary, unpractical and unsuccessful. Vapor, howsoever, resplendent, is not to be compared to roast beef in a nutritious point of view. It is decidedly comfortable to draw a check (that will be honored) for the butcher's bill." "There spoke the practical, common sense utilitarian," said I; " it resolves itself into bank stock, bonds and mort- gages, houses and lands. As for railroad stocks, many of them are of rainbow composition, and nothing more. Yet the man of imagination has certain pleasures denied to him who is completely engrossed in the sordid accumulation of pelf. The only advantage possessed by the money-grasper is his pachydermatous insensibility, his obtuseness and crass ignorance, which protect him from the pains that men of finer and more sensitive organization may feel." " A tough hide is a useful thing in the rough-and-tumble fights of the world," remarked the Commissioner. 142 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. " Still," said I, " the rainbow is, as you say, a fit emblem of disappointment. It affords, too, an illustration of the un- reliability of appearances and the proneness to error in esti- mates of our neighbor. How often does the rainbow throw a deceptive glamour ! We look at a man just as we view that liill-side. In the softening, roseate tinge, it appears bright and smiling, while were we able to see it through the reveal- ing medium of reality, we might discern some gloomy cave, in which black care sits like a ravening wolf laired in its secret heart. It is hard to know what is in another's breast. A man may be brave, self-reliant, carrying his own burden, in reticent strength, without seeking a friendly resting-place to lean upon for compassionate relief, yet inwardly grief-stricken and despondent. The lip may laugh jocund glees without, while sorrow vibrates voiceless dirges in sunless recesses Avithin. Bright flowers float on the surface of the tarn which holds bitter waters brooding in darkling depths be- low." " These be goot worts, as doughty Sir Hugh Evans says," interposed Uncle John, somewhat impatiently; "but what kind of toffy are you spreading ? " I took no notice of the ungracious interruption, but con- tinued, in my own simple, unpretentious, monosyllabic lan- guage. "You are right, though. Commissioner. We ought to be practical and common sense. Away with romance ! A bus le Trouvere ! Vive /' Avare ! Vogue la gaVere ! Let us turn the honest penny ! A penny saved is a penny earned ! A penny a day is £\. lOs. ^d. a year. Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Hurrah for B. Franklin ! Don't let us waste time in enjoyment ! Let us be economists ! Of what use flowers, lights, and incense in re- ligious observance ? We can pray without them. Why have AMONG THE ISLANDS. I43 balls, parties, and festivals ? Waste of time and money. What is the use of music ? There is no sound so sweet as the clink of gold. Why inhale the perfume of joyous life ? Sell the ointment and give to the poor ; but give nothing un- less from the proceeds of somebody else's ointment. Don't let us look up at the luminous rainbow in the sky ; cast our eyes down, and we may find a farthing rolling in the muddy gutter ! " " Yes," said the Commissioner, " and if you were hungry you would be glad to pick it up. You might starve looking at rainbows." " It is an old superstition," I added, "that whoever traces the rainbow to its foundation finds a crock of gold. I fear that is where my treasure lies. I have been looking for it many a day beneath visionary arcs, which receded as I ap- proached, and vanished entirely before I could stake out the foundation-place of my fortune. Yet the time spent in fol- lowing these enchantments is not lost. One still has the rainbow memories. ' 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.' " "That's all very fine," growled the Commissioner, " but it won't pay the rent." " And," added Uncle John, " talk's cheap, but it takes money to buy ice-cream for your girl." This was the argicmentum ad horn. It brought the matter home with telling force. I capitulated, remarking, " Right you are, brethren ! But I won't give up my rainbow never- theless. Perhaps my fortune is before me now — in Guada- loupe. But it's just my luck ; we're not going to land there. However, I'll coin a couplet for you. Commissioner, which you may give to the New York Sim. The editor is a scholar, and won't attribute it to some statesman who palms off quo- tations as originalities ; which he can do with impunity, as 144 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. the American public rarely reads books. This is yours, and you may take a patent on it : " Who would his fortune surely make, Must quickly rainbow views forsake." " I don't know how it is with the rest of you," remarked the Commodore, " but my throat is a little dry through the ears. We have been grumbling about not having enough of wind, but it seems to be blowing a tongue-gale on this quar- ter-deck." D esc en da ut us . For many days past, we have been looking for the oft-be- praised, benignant trade-winds, which are said to blow with unvarying steadiness from one quarter in these latitudes. We had formed of them an idea of the rainbow stripe, but experi- ence has pricked the prismatic bubble. They were reported as gentle gales, which filled the sails with constant breeze to glide o'er seas, uninterrupted by vexing storms, entirely ex- empt from loitering calms. Yesterday this budding anticipa- tion of halcyon wavelets was nipped. It was a series of alternate calms, when the yacht hung motionless "as a painted ship upon a painted ocean," and sudden bursts of wind which set us tossing and plunging like the Sunday buggy over a Hoboken pavement. We could hardly remain in our berths during the night, and when the wind lulled in the morning there was a sullen calm, succeeded by another outburst, that kicked up as much disturbance as a handsome clergyman of affectionate habits in a well-regulated sewing- society. We had all this disagreeable variety while passing Dominica (a British island, interesting from its boiling lake, and scenery of unsurpassed grandeur), but at length, after weary bufifetings, we dropped anchor in the roadstead of St. Pierre, Martinique. A mass meeting was held and a resolu- tion adopted unanimously that the trade-winds were a hum- , AMONG THE ISLANDS. 145 bug. The Commissioner suggested that perhaps the trades had organized a Trades' Union, and were on a strike ; but Uncle John thought the Commissioner had swallowed them in his early morning walks on deck. This was not a reason- able hypothesis, however, for, under ordinary circumstances, the trade-winds are unchanging, while the Commissioner often changes his breath. Our first visitors after the pilot left, were naked negro children, seated in the bottoms of short boats, looking like coffins cut in two ; proposing to dive after silver coin, and afford us some water-color studies in African anatomy. For- tunately they were all boys. We threw a few pieces over- board, which they seized with great dexterity before they were many feet below the surface. These natant-gymnasts refused to dive for coppers, for they knew we were just arrived and had in our possession none of the copper coin current in Martinique ; but the sailing-master played a successful trick on them. He wrapped an English halfpenny in tin-foil and threw it in the water, where it was seized at once as a glitter- ing prize. The sailing-master is a financier. He engaged in a little financial legislation on his own account, and passed an act making foreign copper a legal tender. Greatly to our regret, the Commissioner left us here, offi- cial engagements compelling him to return to New York, where Mayor Edson pined for his concurrent presence at Cabinet councils. Before leaving, he had an opportunity to go ashore, where his commanding presence elicited the usual encomiums from ready-tongued brunettes, engaged in the sale of fish. He bought a broad-brimmed Panama hat^ of true curvilinear beauty, upon which we held a council of the navy, and decided that it was becoming to his florid and ex- pansive style of comeliness ; quite an appropriate tile to roof the magnificent, first appearance, moustache which, carefully 146 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. nurtured by invigorating sea air, and watered by trade-wind spray, had attained an extraordinary extent of hirsute luxuri- ance. During the hot July days next summer, that hairy thatch will inspire with awe the street Arabs of the City Hall Park, who will take the wearer to be some rich sugar-planter from the West Indies, who sold out last year, and will impor- tune him for backshish. We shall miss the Commissioner during the rest of our voyage, for a more intelligent, genial, companionable gentle- man it would be hard to find. Fortunately for his comfort, the British steamer Barracouta, which plies between New York and the tropics, came into port the day of our arrival, and we found that the purser was Major J. E. Colville, for a long time Superintendent of Quarantine at New York. In his company, the Commissioner cannot fail to have a pleasant returning voyage. We went aboard with him and spent some hours tasting the hospitality of Captain Evans, and left him with great reluctance, for his departure causes a vacancy in our little circle which we cannot but look upon regretfully. There is a spice of selfishness, too, in the feeling, for now that Uncle John has no formidable antagonist in his favorite game of dominos, he will dominate us with inexorable and despotic success. As the Barracouta sailed, she swept around the yacht, firing a gun and dipping her colors, to which we responded with the same ceremonial. And so we lost our agreeable mess- mate, who, after undergoing the discomforts and perils of the tempestuous Gulf Stream, was forced to leave before he could enjoy the favoring winds and smiling waves which we feel sure will attend us through the rest of our cruise in the trop- ics. Prosperous gales attend thee, and take thee safely to a joyful home, good friend and jolly companion ! CHAPTER XI. THE LONE BIRD. St., Pierre, March 21, 1884. Like other old sailors, we tarry messmates of the saloon are imbued with the superstitions that obtain in the forecastle ; many of which are familiar to the reading world, and some to the larger world that finds no time to read. Coleridge has made one of these the theme of his immortal poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." "At length did cross an albatross ; Thro' the fog it came ; As if it had been a Christian soul, We hailed it in God's name." " In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine ; While all the night, through fog smoke-white, Glimmered the white moonshine." " ' God save thee, ancient mariner, From the fiends that plague thee thus ! Why look'st thou so ? ' ' With my cross-bow I shot the albatross.' " . The second day after we sailed from Bermuda, Uncle John — who is detailed for duty to do the early rising act for all the voyagers — going on deck, as is his wont, to sniff the breeziness of misty morn, discovered a bird perched on the foremast. It could not be an albatross so far north, and it 148 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. had no aquatic appearance ; so he surmised that it must be some land bird, which, weary on the wing, had sought this rest- ing-place. It may have been allured by the savory odors that exhaled through the open hatchway of the cook's galley, where the "Doctor" was engaged compounding some little trifles of beefsteak, mutton-chops, ham and eggs, corned beef hash, stewed kidneys, muffins, wheat-cakes, and buttered toast, for the simple breakfast, of a few plain, light dishes, which he provides daily to appease our languid matin appetite. Evi- dently it was not a pigeon, for no glossy reflections came from burnished neck in the rays of sunshine which streamed over it, as it sat, mute and immovable, on the mast-head, not even prinking and arranging its plumage, as is the custom of birds, and young ladies going out for a promenade. The bird was of a dusky color, unrelieved by a bright feather, sombre as a religious recluse ; and it remained through the livelong day, in mournful isolation, like an honest man at a political convention. It never moved a wing, not even when Uncle John startled the sea-gulls with the exultant cry of Domino ! when the Commodore held a count of 104 blocked out in his hand. No one was able to guess at the species to which the visitor belonged. All surmises were rejected at once, except the suggestion that it might be a bird which formerly had its habitat in the festive coverts of the old Seventh Ward, New York, known as the Filakoo. This hypothesis received some consideration until the Commis- sioner, who is an east-side archivist, remarked that the Fila- koo bird was an extinct variety of the night-singer, only pre- served now, in cobwebbed recesses, among faded memories, in the traditionary lore museum of Old Rounders. As our foretopmast had been unshipped for the voyage, no topsail could be bent, and the sailors having, therefore, no occasion to go aloft, the bird was left in undisturbed posses- THE LONE BIRD. 149 sion of the stumpy stick which replaced temporarily the ab- sent spar. It appeared to be not only deaf and dumb, but blind, paying no attention to anything that occurred. Even the vivid flashes from resplendent scarves that gleamed along the deck in Uncle John's wake, like phosphorescent trails in the furrowed sea, failed to arouse it to the effort of esthetic contemplation. The boatswain's whistle, piping to meals, was unheeded ; loud clapping of hands died away unnoticed, like unsolicited advice ; and vociferous shoo-shoos proved bootless. As a matter of course, it was safe under the aegis of superstition, for no one dared fire at the intruder. But for this, the Commodore would soon have brought it down, for he is a famous shot with a revolver, and once put four bullets out of five in the head of a dead shark, hung up to the davits — and yet he was nearly two feet distant. The steward sprin- kled crumbs on the deck every evening, but they failed to tempt the solitary, who might be called an anchorite had it settled on the anchor instead of the mast-head. As it could see none of the bits thrown for food, it might be described as a ce-nobite. Uncle John said this, but he was wrong. Ceno- bites do not dwell alone, while our bird was a sort of a sea- faring Simon Stylites. The poor wanderer was the object of much curious solici- tude. It seemed to be like the little soldier, bewailed at the Oriskany centennial celebration, who, " a hundred years ago to-day did come, with his drum, and was scalped by the In- dians, with tomahawk and gun, so far away from home, my boys, so far away from home." Here was an object of tender compassion ; and Uncle John,, who was the original discoverer and claimed a patent, was full of theories regarding the age, sex, color, nativity, and previous statistical condition of the immigrant, who had sought the protection of the Montauk, a flag-ship of New York's pleasure navy. It was not an exile ISO THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. of Erin, for no land bird could fly so far across the Atlantic, were its wing as strong as Tim Campbell's hold on the Demo- cratic party, and as untiring as the pertinacity of a booth- skirmisher at a church fair. The Commissioner became greatly interested in the for- tunes of this mysterious fugitive, and, after a day or two, re- solved to try the effect of a personal appeal. He is an accom- plished rhetorician, having studied oratory in a renowned school, the RepubHcan General Committee of New York City, cheek by jowl with Colonel Karl Spencer and Senor Tomaso Murphy : peripatetics of the Fifth Avenue Hotel bar Ly- ceum, although sometimes Platonists of the Academy of Mu- sic at ratification meetings. " I'll try a little verse on that in- truder," said the Commissioner. " Let us see whether a hun- dred lines or so, in the persuasive and conciliatory, burial-of- factional-differences tone, will have any effect on the bolter." Striking his most effective, large-chested attitude, and with the " deestrick " ore rotundo of a born leader of the primary ballot-box, the Commissioner addressed the bird thus : Oh ! whence com'st thou, sad, silent bird ? What vernal breeze thy pinion stirred To waft thee to us, gentle guest ! Why art thou here ; what is thy quest ? Fly'st thou from balmy 'Mudian grove, Where flowering cedars scent the air (With rose-geranium perfume share). Far from thy native haunts to rove ? Didst perch on tree of calabash, Where Thomas Moore once found a mash, And made his limpid verses flow ? True, his fond essay was no go, Yet Thomas was a famous beau. " From rise of morn till set of sun," Hast " seen the mighty Mohawk run ;" Watched mournful cypress trailing low, And fireflies in dank myrtle glow ; THE LONE BIRD. 151 Hast heard Canadian boatmen row ; With other strains by Moore ditto ? — If not, thou'rt but a songster slow ! Borne by fierce Hatteras' hateful gale, Didst thou, unwilling, hither sail, Torn from thy home in ole Carline, Beneath the honeysuckle vine. Where murmuring lovers' souls entwine ; Where mocking-birds their throats attune, And whippoorwills sing to the moon ? Or from the rice plantations' flood, With Sambo paddling in the mud ; Or from the Georgian cotton fields, Where generous nature stuffing yields To line the nest of callow young Who live, like lawyers, on the tongue ? Or from Floridian everglade, Where Leon's fruitless search was made For priceless youth's perennial font (Now advertised as Sozodont) ; Didst hold on orange bough debate And try conclusions with thy mate ? Com'st thou from where tall palms upreach ; Or fly'st from maple, birch, and beech ? Hast heard melodious madrigals In whispering paths at Trenton Falls ? Or viewed dark clouds gemmed orbs distil To deck with beauty Frankfort Hill ? Or smelt the Schuyler new-mown hay ? On Deerfield slopes seen lambs at play ? Or merry Marcy maidens gay New cider strain for Uncle Gray ? Didst o'er the brink of fountain lean To lave in sulphured Hippocrene, Or, like a reckless pelican, Skim scented Richfield Helicon ? Didst find where dainty flowers meet? — Fair rose, pure lily, pansy sweet — Where mists on mossy bark unite To trickle down from verd'rous height, Fern-bordered streamlets crooning creep Where wintergreen red berries sleep 152 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. In leaf-enfolded nestling place, Like beauty's blush in love's embrace ? Hast skimmed Gowanus' noisome tide, By mud-scow flotsam rank supplied? Fouling the iron Taurus' line With jetsam, feline and canine. Hast viewed the Clifton rocky shore, Besprayed amid Niagara's roar ; At Saratoga, scanned the crowd, •Pretentious, vulgar, silly, loud ; Sought Newport, where grand airs we see Of cod-fish aristocracy ? Know'st thou where wreath of green hops crown The hills that swell above the town ? Hast felt o'er Jersey's buzzing plain Its nightingale's persuasive strain ; Heard young frogs' piping cradle song Mid tree-toads' midnight chirping throng ? Did odorous oils thy bill anoint At aromatic Hunter's Point ? Or cbm'st thou from the tropic isles Where sensuous summer blandly smiles ? Art dweller in that sunny clime Where Angostura, sugar, lime, Kind providence yields, for avail To blend matutinal cocktail ? Dost thou the weltering mango sip, And beak in chirimoya dip. From pulpy grapes the juice express ; Of pink guava make a mess ; Salad of avocado pear, With fruits and vegetables rare ? Hast seen the St. Kitt's monkey rude In antics show much latitude ? Viewed nose-ringed coolies, scanty clad, Serve heathen gods in Trinidad ? Heard Lady Jane Smith dances call At Dignity Barbados' ball ? Or com'st thou from the Spanish Main Where peace and plenty seldom reign ; From Orinoco's emptying streams. From forests of gigantic trees. THE LONE BIRD. 1 53 Illumed by swift-winged glancing beams ; Where humming-birds are thick as bees — And all the atmosphere around Is charged electric with bright sound. Hoy I entiendo Casiellano, Mira ! mucJio crumb en inano. Du hast nicht Schweizer Kase, mast high, Furfreundinn, bier und pretzel, fly ! Come o'er the sea, birdling, with me, Shule, ma bouchal, colleen machree. Viens-tu de Martinique, noire France, Oil morde vefieniieux fer-de-lance? Or art thou baleful bird malign. Blown up from equatorial line ? Art thou a faithless spouse, expelled By jealous fury, and compelled Away from bed and board to hie. Vinculo niatrirnonii? Dost thou an injured rival shun At threatening mouth of empty gun ? Did wickedness thy voyage steer ; Art thou some feathered, fierce sea-wolf, Some vagabond, rude buccaneer ; Some ruthless parrot of the Gulf? Or, sipping too much potent dew, Didst wander here in tipsy " flew ? " List to my silvery, dulcet voice (Mistake me not for John C. Noyes), And answer make, in accents clear, What dost thou, lonely birdie, here ? To which the sullen, moping bird, answer made him never a word. This prolonged silence caused much anxiety about our visitor, who began to appear as something uncanny. It neither ate nor drank, so far as we could discover, but seemed to be repeating the idiotic effort of Tanner. It neither sang when we sang (but we didn't wonder at that, if it had any ear for music) nor did it dance when the boatswain piped. It 154 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. never chirped ; and was as reticent as an unwilling witness in a case of crim. con. The sailors on port-watch thought they could hear strange, buzzing noises in the direction of its perch after midnight, but they were not certain. It became a bird of evil omen. We thought that the Commissioner was getting nervous from dwelling on this matLvais sujet, and that his sorrow at leaving us was compensated in some degree by the prospect of relief from the vexatious association. As he came on deck to-day, to embark on the Barracouta, with gripsack in hand, containing the equipment with which he sailed from New York — three paper collars (one soiled), a pair of collodion cuffs, a clay pipe, cribbage-board. Tribune almanac, and some blank election returns — he cast his weather eye aloft, and said, with that winning inflection employed in controver- sies with Mayor Edson, " Well, old chappy, I'll soon be on the Barracouta, and then I'm quit of you." Hardly had he uttered these fateful words, when a dark object fell at his feet. Picking it up, he exclaimed, "By Jove ! (an expletive acquired in his sojourn among the 'Mu- dians) split my mizzen to 'gal'n 'sis, if it isn't a Fire Island mosquito ! I thought I recognized the familiar Bay Shore serenade one night when I was on deck, but attributed it to a strong wind playing through the rigging like an ^olian harp." Thus was the action of the strange bird accounted for. .She had been wintering in Bermuda for her health, to escape the inclemency of the northern clime, and recognizing in the Commissioner (who is a member of the Olympic Club) an old friend with whom she had perhaps shared the same dormi- tory in the club-house during sultry summer-tide, she followed him aboard, intending to accompany him on the voyage. Not knowing that he was about to start for home, his rude THE LONE BIRD. THE LONE BIRD. I 55 and thoughtless speech at parting gave her such a shock that the poor bird died of heart disease. Uncle John has great faith in the James pill. Some mali- cious person started a rumor that the bird came down at night and swallowed a James pill, found lying around loose, thrown away by a sailor on whom Uncle John had tried to work it off; but this is false, a story started by some rival patent medicine vendor. She died of heart disease ; did this ex- patriated Babylon bulbul. We gave the remains of the American bird of freedom to a colored man and brother, who came alongside, in a whole boat, and part of a calico shirt. Evidently he had no music in his soul ; an unromantic, comm.onplace son of Afric, who, if there had been a run on him, couldn't show more than four- teen per cent, of shirt, with no assets in the matter of trou- sers ; and a darky of cannibalistic propensities withal. He sold the wings of the dead exile for turtle fins, and, after cut- ting off a few steaks, converted the remainer of the carcass into terrapin stew. This brief episode is not put forth as a naked fact. I will admit that it is an invention, pure and simple, of the fecund brain of Uncle John, Rex Dominorwn. I make the admis- sion in order to deprecate any distrust that might attach to the rest of the veracious chronicle, were this flight of fancy launched as truth. Some credulous persons, such as believe in the efficacy of reform quackery, for example, might credit this if they were not warned. It is fabricated out of whole cloth, unless the buzzing of a mosquito in Uncle John's berth last night may be taken as a thread of the narrative. It is given as a specimen of the old-sailor yarns which he spins for our beguilement when kept below by bad weather. From the most trivial incidents doth he weave webs of delicate de- sign, quaintly fantastic as the meandering complications of 156 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. his bewildering shirt-fronts, brilliant as the coruscations of his wonderfully-involuted, labyrinthine cravats. When it is unpleasant on deck, and surfeit of dominos palls the sated appetite for diverting games, Uncle John diverts us by mak- ing game of himself. CHAPTER XII. ST. PIERRE. The Flag of Our Union — The Alliance — St. Pierre — Negroes — Religion- Fish — Blanchisseuses — A Dazzling Costume — A State Dinner — Sym- posium — A Soldier No More — Fireworks. St. Pierre, Martinique, March 22, 1884. The United States flag, floating from the man-of-war astern of which we were anchored at St. Pierre, presented a grate- ful sight. It seemed as if we were meetmg an old friend abroad ; a pleasure seldom enjoyed in this way, for our flag is as rare on the seas as gold-pieces in a poor-box. We ap- pear to be so fond of our brilliant ensign that we want to keep it at home ; and the richest and most powerful nation the sun ever shone on cuts but a sorry figure in shipping. This inferiority is the theme of platitudinous comment in the newspapers, and affords stump-speakers opportunity for crit- icisms of the opposing party, which, like most efforts of par- tisan oratory, amount to nothing, just as the fault-finders expect. The cause of the decadence in American ship-build- ing is something beyond ordinary comprehension ; at least nobody appears to understand the subject sufficiently to pro- pose an efficient remedy. I have read a good deal about it, and, in common with my countrymen, remain profoundly ignorant. In our affairs, the more discussion, the more igno- rance ; the more debate and legislative investigation, the more muddle in the public mind. It is a good thing for the poli- 158 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. ticians to have this grievance on hand. It furnishes prolific matter for denouncing the existing Administration, whatever it may be ; as Judge Grover used to say, going down to the tavern and swearing at the Court. I relegate this subject to the consideration of the wise and unselfish statesmen who govern us ; it is not a topic for the voyager, idling along, jot- ting down, for the perusal of indulgent friends, such trifling incidents of travel as come under his personal observation. It is a lamentable fact, however, that we have not attained the maritime ascendancy to which our national greatness en- titles us. I am not given to sentimentality, indeed am rather a matter-of-fact, unromantic person (it may occur to you from these letters that I am prosy withal), but there is some- thing in the stars and stripes floating out on the breeze, that stirs one up, not only as a reminder of home, but because it is an emblem of freedom, the hospitable sign of refuge for the oppressed of all nations. It is an invitation to fly from political oppression, to the oppression of Mrs. Grundy, the moral-reform societies, and crank associations. We might wish that its folds afforded the American citizen in every part of the world the same scrupulous protection the British flag gives the English subject, but we shall come to that all in good time. We are young yet, with crude ideas of personal rights, which we prate about but do not ap- preciate ; just as we preach temperance, morality, and hon- esty, without undue addictedness to either. However, it is a handsome piece of bunting (I was about to say " that old flag," which is rodomontade, for it is a new flag, of but a century's existence, although I am wilHng General Barnum should describe it as ** old glory " in his impassioned ad- dresses to the Grand Army of the Republic). It is endeared to me, not only as the flag of my native land, but through ST. PIERRE. 159 associations in the field, where ties were formed that bind brave and loyal hearts together ; and so I say, All honor to the flag of the Union ! The United States Steamship Alliance is a steamship carrying six guns, which has been cruising in these waters for the winter. She is the vessel that was sent to the Arctic regions in search of the ill-fated Jeannette. Captain Reed, the commander, visited the Montauk shortly after our arrival, and there was reciprocal extension of courtesies during all our stay in port. Martinique is the largest of the Lesser Antilles, and most important of the French West India Islands. It is over 50 miles long, and contains a population of 154,000, about 10,000 or 12,000 being white. It has two towns of importance, St. Pierre, the commercial port, and Fort de France, the capital, where there is a naval station and a garrison of soldiers. St. Pierre is built along the sea-shore, with a spur of habitations creeping up in the mountains, along the bank of a river which flows direct to the sea. Pelee Mountain is an extinct volcano, 4,000 feet high, an imposing mass of greenness, indented with ravines of darker shade, which mark the conduits of numerous springs, gushing from its bosom into cascaded rivulets. On an eminence overlooking the town, is a large statue of the Blessed Virgin, standing as a protecting guardian, robed in white, a sacred figure, benignant and serene. The houses of St. Pierre are of gray stone, with brown roofs, which have a pretty effect viewed from the water. The streets are nar- row, well paved with Belgian blocks, and clean. Water runs through the gutters on both sides, affording efficient surface drainage, but there are no sewers. Light refuse of all kinds is thrown into these convenient cleansing rivulets. One must keep a sharp ear for the old Edinburgh cry, " gardeyloo," for the inhabitants do not always take the trouble to go to the l6o THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. gutter to deposit cloacal contributions, but project them from afar, like an Indiana tobacco-chewer attacking a spittoon. Fountains are numerous, and the exuberant water supply- would delight the heart of a hydropathist. The negroes appear to be of superior type to those of St. Kitt's, better looking, cleaner, and more intelligent. Evident- ly there is a considerable admixture of white blood in the population. I am informed, however, that the color line is strictly drawn, the taint of negro blood, while no disqualifi- cation for political or mercantile association, operating as an insuperable barrier to social recognition. It is something like the caste distinction between professional, mercantile, and mechanical pursuits which obtains in our republican land. As a rule, the people are well dressed. Judging from their un- artificial contour, many of the negresses wear but one gar- ment, a long calico robe, with a sweeping train of con- ventional Charity Ball extent. The small children are more sparing in attire, so that, taking all together, they about strike an average in the quantity of material used between them. The laborers, as all through the West Indies, are negroes. The dignity of labor is not regarded with that fond admiration which possesses the soul of the lawyer candidate for office about election time in New York. In the narrow streets, are to be seen carts laden with casks, propelled by hand, not the light porter's wagon, but genuine drays with shafts. But it takes several negroes to a dray. Everybody seems to be busy, but nobody in a hurry. No movement is to be seen here like the feverish palpitation of Broadway, between the City Hall and Wall Street, during business hours. Perspira- tion may be induced without effort. Fortunately, though it is excessively hot, there is always a coolish breeze blowing, which renders the atmosphere tolerable in the shade. The ST. PIERRE. l6l men wear white linen suits, and the favorite head-covering is the Panama hat, though the East-Indian pith helmet is seen occasionally. There are no glass windows, simply apertures in the wall, with wooden shutters in shops to close when business is over. The number of drinking-places bears evidence that water is not the favorite beverage. It may be because it is not expensive. We are prone to underrate what is cheap. Licenses are issued by the Ferme, as the internal revenue department is styled, and the number of the debit is painted on the outside of the build- ing licensed. Anybody can get a license who will pay for it. There are no nonsensical restrictions ; there are no drunkards to be seen. We saw some curious placards on the walls. On one door was a large handbill, of white paper, with staring black letters, containing this pious aspiration : O Marie, cojigiie sans pc'che\ priez pour nous ! while the adjoining building, devoted to the sale of liquors, had for its sign : Aiix amours de Bac- chus ; a curious neighborly conjunction of the spiritual and the spirituous, of heathen and Christian worship. Another had an eulogistic inscription to President Paul Grevy for some act of patriotism. St. Pierre contains several churches, one a venerable Cathe- dral, somewhat dilapidated, undergoing reparation. They are all Catholic. But few, if any, Protestants live in Marti- nique. Here is a great field for the missionary. It is a hack- neyed old joke, revived by every fresh traveler in France, that even the little children of Paris speak French ; but it really strikes an American as strange to be in a place where the in- habitants, ninety per cent, colored, all speak French and wor- ship in the Catholic Church. Whether the salutary influence of the priests has anything to do with the superiority of these islanders to those under English rule, is a nut for theologians to crack. I refer it to Bishop McQuaid, of Rochester, and l62 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. Bishop Doane, of Albany, and will abide by their unanimous decision. I suppose there must be Jews here, for much business is done, and where you find commerce there will the children of Israel be gathered to have a controlling share in its man- agement. Some coolies are to be met, but they are not so numerous as in the island of Trinidad, further south. Ice is dear, costing $40 a ton, the usual price in the West Indies. The telegraph is an expensive medium of communi- cation. Four words to New York cost us $11.60, an increase of forty cents a word on the St. Kitt's tariff. The fish-market, a paved space near the shore, with two or three frail open structures, has a large supply offish, many of them curiously and brilliantly marked. The tropical fish do not compare, in variety and flavor, with those found in northern waters. Women control the fish-market. The draw- ing of seines near the shore, directly in front of where we lay at anchor, afforded us much amusement. It was usually at- tended with great vociferation, and attracted all the boys bathing in the vicinity, who lent a hand as volunteers and added to the turmoil without charge. Sometimes the draught was a case of vox et preterea nihil : a large investment of voice — net result, nothing. Walking for exercise, in the road that winds along the side of a mountain abutting the shore, we came upon an extensive Martinique laundry ; a narrow, shallow stream, with a rocky bed, fed by springs from the hill-sides. In this big wash-tub a number of black blanchisscuses, wading in the water that reached above their ankles to an extent indefinite to our averted eyes, were engaged pummeling doomed articles, upon which they wreaked vengeful purification. They laid the garments on sacrificial stones and pounded away with the vehemence of a Sullivan, holding his antagonist " in chancery." JARDIN DES PLANTES, ST. PIERRE. ST, PIERRE. 163 They seemed to have a spite against the objects under their harsh manipulation. I am sure they had against some un- fortunate under-garments I entrusted to their tender mercies in a moment of confiding weakness. They were terribly knocked up when returned to me, about in a condition of a neophyte Son of Malta who had just experienced Xho. peine forte et dure, traversing the rugged path which led to the dis- enthrallment of persecuted nations. " I should be afraid," said Uncle John, with a shudder, " to trust my best colored shirts, of the morning-glory, convolvulus, grapevine, and night-blooming cereus pattern, to those inconsiderate washer- women." " Well, you might be," remarked the Commodore, *' if you were not afraid, yourself, your linen would certainly come back a-frayed." The usual fine was at once imposed, which the Commodore paid as soon as we returned to the yacht. This is his receipt in full. I detest puns. " Just to- think," remarked Uncle John, plaintively, "those ignorant creatures might save all that trouble of pounding by putting an ounce of detergent in the source of the river every morn- ing." Returning the visit of Captain Reed, we found in his cabin the English Consul ; a fine old Irish gentleman, paying an official visit, in full uniform or court-suit ; coat, with collar and cuffs elaborately embroidered, chapeau and sword. I never have seen a complete inventory of the adornments which formed the basis of that oft-quoted array of " Solomon in all his glory," but I fancy it might be found in the bill of dress of the English Consular service. It reminded me of the mys- tic show-window of a dealer in Masonic regalia. It is proper to say that the court-dress was quite becoming to the good- looking, dignified wearer, but it afforded a striking contrast to the parsimoniously plain uniform of the United States ser- vice. l64 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. The Commodore invited the officers of the Alliance to dine with him, and the invitation was accepted by Captain Reed, Lieutenants Rich, Reynolds, Wright and Gulick, and Ensign Rose. In honor of the occasion, the steward exercised his in- genuity to get up a dinner as elaborate as the means at his command would afford, and the success was complete. He made it a sort of memorial feast, with his dishes of American names; and with the aid of Hors d' CEuvres , various wines, confections and fruits, to fill in, swelled the bill of fare into quite respectable proportions. It assumed a national aspect, befitting a dinner given to naval representatives of our coun- try abroad. I send the menu, copies of which, on the yacht cards, em- blazoned with the cross signals of the club and the Montauk, were preserved by the officers as mementoes of the enter- tainment : Welcome, Officers of the Alliance! MENU. March 21, 1884. Little Neck Clams, meinoire de New York. Chablis. Terrapin Soup, Baltimore style. Sherry, Montilla, i860. Boiled Fish, Cape Cod Sauce. Boiled Potatoes, Jersey Peachblows. Still Moselle, Zeltinger. Roast Turkey, Newport Stuffing. Boiled Onions, botiqtiet de Weathersfield. Green Peas, Norfolk. Baked Sweet Potatoes, St. Augustine. Champagne , Montauk, preniier cru. Broiled Squabs on Toast, Philadelphia style. Lettuce Salad, Boston Dressing. Claret, Chateau Mauvezin. ST. PIERRE. 165 Plum Pudding, Hartford Sauce. Sherry, Montilla, 1845. Wine Jelly, Catawba. Blanc-manger : Charlotte Russe. Bonbons : Candied Pensamiento, Ruesorelle, Callecabana. Fruits. Cheese (from Oneida). Coffee. Cognac, Otard & Cie. Vino Americano, Old Fort Schuyler Malt Rye. Yacht Montauk, St. Pierre, Martinique. It is sufficient to say of the dinner that the guests seemed to enjoy it, and we lingered at the table until the murmuring waifs of cool night breeze, floating down through the wide ventilator overhead, invited us to take our coff'ee and cognac on deck. We spent some hours most agreeably, singing songs, telling stories, and relating funny personal experiences. Cap- tain Reed has been an indefatigable collector of jokes and bon- mots, which he exhibits with the enthusiasm of the virtuoso in facetiae. One of the attractive features of our session on deck was the character of the songs sung. They were mainly negro melodies, popular ere opera boiijfe had vitiated our taste for simple harmonies, " Dearest May," " Old Folks at Home," " Fare you well. Ladies," and other familiar strains of the olden time. These frank and breezy sailors, cruising around the world, are not up to all the slang cockneyisms and in- nuendoes of the vulgar concert-saloon variety, but bring back the days of Christy, Campbell, and Buckley, in the honest songs which they sing, with soul in them. One of the guests on the Montauk sang, at the Commo- dore's request, a little song, to the air of " Kathleen O'More," which has not been published, and I send it to you. The music is plaintive. i66 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. A SOLDIES. NO MORE. WRITTEN FOR POST JOHN F. MCQUADE, NO. I4, G. A. R., UTICA, N. Y. hi-R— Kathleen O'More. Andante. _ _ -m- ^ ^ _«_-ff: -1— ^ -^-r- g:. %t. --r=:^^z=-5=1!z:Ei =^P= i*:=*^r*^Si i^=i no - bly " fit in - to the war," And nev - er was dis-mayed ; Who i =(• — m- --m — 1»- -- f—f- :U=t: nev - er was dismayed, brave boys, Nor wallted oflF on his ear ; =n^=d^=pd^3z==^= d=S- ===S= =I=S= •iS^- =I=S: ==1= B f ::s=l- :S=ii =S=S: gal - lant U - nion sav - er was The gal - lant Le - gion - ier. Chorus. ^ — I F*: -j_ J* I \-^=s — I — -jsqq :l==S=i: — *-V The loy - al, loy - al, loy - al, ley - al Loy - al Le - gion-ier, The :^- :if=:5= ■*- -*- ■*- -*- :^«c:q==|s±q; ::is=p: pp4=p=|= ■— P- "H S — « m — '-m m — m -« — ^ m m m — m m — « — m i^-— *-"-S-— S- «-— *--^— *- 5-— 5--^— -S-'i-— i^3g.-^: =E=f: t=l==l= S U I U I MARTINIQUE. 179 =te ;=:t= — p ?— : loy - al, loy - al, loy - al, loy - al Loy - al Le - gion-ier; He "z:=^iz:^z=^=S^=*=z«!=*z:E*= t=1=l5=::li =f5=^= t=-F^=^FtS=i.=^=|=t}=i=l-ft^?^=^=i gr=p # — *— 1-^ g — g- •# — , , , — — I — d==t=:t=i &z[=!z=^!=d= l=:t= r: =1=1= > I =P=FS= =t*=t: =P=»= =S=e: :3?=1 =ta=t: takes a drink,when he is asked, Of vvhis-key, wine, or beer z^—fr. -^-J=i =is= 5- --g=-^=— f— g:— ig-t^-jr -S- -•- -•- -m- .-J: :g: i^: :^ ij: s— r 35=1= # 1^ E^^E =S=il= =s==s= gay and fes - tive " so - jer " Is the Loy - al Le - gion - ier ; A ff =!s;=P S=f=I= ^—^^^—%-^—.^:r^—4 ^=t -(• — I* 1«= =t=:=t= -^ 1 1 1 1 -B m 01 m «• =2- — :*. — a. — *— ■=*: ==53 i8o THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 1==^ g|g^^|g^ gay and fes - tive "so - jer" Is the Loy - al Le - gion-ier. =^=1^=^- K:=S= ^s±=^z 35E3: r:[==1I :^=;il= ■) 01 01 01 ®t A' -S * i r =P= When this cruel war was over he laid down his canteen, And soon upon Fifth Avenue was daily to be seen, Arrayed in Devlin's stunning suits, he gaily did appear. And " maslied " tlie girls both left and right — this Loyal Legionier. C/iorus. He drives a dog-cart in the Park, he borrows from a friend — Though always on the borrow, he nothing has to lend — And when the ladies see hiin pass, they cry out. What a dear ! Quite fond of admiration is the Loyal Legionier. Chorus. He is deep in Fred De Bary's books, and Park & Tilford's too : He eats soft clams at Parker's ranche, at Dorlon's takes a stew ; His checks are in the Gilsey till, his notes are far and near ; He pays like Ancient Pistol, does the Loyal Legionier. Chorus. So piously he goes to church, and always enters late — He slides in after the Deacon has passed around the plate ; A pilgrim at the Brunswick shrine, he seeks the cafe rear, To "find a man " to worship with the Loyal Legionier. Chorus. Republican of Stalwart type, yet stanch Half Breed likewise ; He stands up for Old Tammany, with Irving Hall he lies ; The County Democratic bark he stoutly aids to steer — No hide-bound partisan is he, the Loyal Legionier. Chorus. MARTINIQUE. l8l His corns are cut by Madame Pray, his fingers manicured, His cheeks berouged are every day — thus is a blush secured ; His teeth are false, his moustache dyed, he squints with glass-eyed leer, His wig is jute, his scarf-pin " snide," this Loyal Legionier. ' Chorus. He takes a flyer in the street, and when he wins he pays ; If he happens to be short, he'll " settle one of these days," Should brokers for more margin call, he scorns the cry to hear. He's one of the boys fears no noise, this Loyal Legionier. Clioriis. At length, when all his cash is gone, and credit near run out, He joins the Prohibitionists, to rant and tear and shout ; He sings with Sankey, and with Moody reads his title clear, To Murphyize and sell wind pies, this Loyal Legionier. Chorus. When all his plants have run to seed, and cheek is found no go. He seeks a situation with great Barnum's moral show ; Or deep in Colorado's mines he ends his' bright career, Then all at last with him is ore, the Loyal Legionier. Chorus, CHAPTER XIV. SUNDAY IN MARTINIQUE. Tropical Fruits — A Full Day's Work Sunday — Vespers — The Club — The Opera — II Trovatore — A Midnight Visit — Reminiscence — Lily- Pansy — The Heart's Rain-drop. St. Pierre, March 23, 1884. The variety of fruits to which we pay attention at breakfast is extensive. I cannot remember the names of all we have tasted at different times — not a la mode de V Alliance , squeezed into a glass, but in their natural skins, as the Irish serve po- tatoes. This, I may remark in passing", is the true artistic style of cooking the potato ; boiled to the stage of meali- ness, and served with the jacket on, unbuttoned just enough to show the white shirt beneath. The following were some of the fruits tested : Orange, lemon, lime, banana, grape, musk-melon, fig, water-melon, date, pine-apple, sapadilla, mango, pomegranate, guava, sweet tamarind, shaddock, granadilla, alligator-pear, sour-sop, sugar-apple, star-apple, marmi, and custard-apple. Of these, it is hardly necessary to say, the orange is the best, the golden apple of Hesperides ; the next, according to my taste — always excepting the pine — is the mango, which is hard to eat because of its stringiness and immense core, but it it fine-flavored and juicy ; so much so that it is a com- mon saying that to eat mango one must roll up the sleeves SUNDAY IN MARTINIQUE. . 183 and sit near a tub. The sapadilla is small and sweet, apple- shaped, with two large black seeds ; the custard-apple resem- bles in appearance the puffy light balls children play with, and the contents look like brains ; it is a delicious fruit, eaten by scooping out with a spoon. The avocada, or alligator-pear, makes an excellent salad ; the star-apple is palatable; but the guava, from which the jelly of commerce is made, is rather insipid. Uncle John remarked that it was like the bar-room of a country-tavern — full of " seeds." The shad- dock is an immense orange, with a more pronounced acid, leaving a slight bitter after-taste ; and the melons are not as good as ours. Indeed, none of the tropical fruits are equal in delicate flavor to the strawberry, peach, apple, and pear of the temperate zone. We went ashore this afternoon and attended vespers at the cathedral. The congregation was large, with the relative proportion of white and black in the population maintained ; or, if there was any disparity, the blacks had the advantage in percentage of worshipers. Upon invitation of Mr. Arnoux, we visited the Cercle or Club, which has a roomy house, with cool, stone floors, large, airy apartments, and an open court with a fountain. Nu- merous tables were occupied by gentlemen playing billiards, cards, and dominos, smoking and drinking. It is unusual to see the game of dominos played at our fashionable clubs ; that noble encounter of skill being consigned by our festive blue-bloods to the plebeian purlieus of lager ; but Uncle John, who is not imbued with absurd notions, saw in the favor ac- corded this noble game an evidence of intellectuality, which commended the Martiniquese to him as a community of ele- vated tastes and superior refinement. He declined to take a hand himself, for it was Sunday, and he retains certain scru- ples, implanted in childhood, and not entirely eradicated by l84 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. mature knowledge and the enlightement of travel abroad, but we could see his eyes glisten as he watched the combatants, and longed for an encounter with the Frenchmen, who would soon have become captive to his "bow and his spear had his Puritan blood permitted the desecration of the Sabbath day of Cotton Mather, David Dudley Field, and the Penal Code of New York. Among the officers whom we met here was a promising young lieutenant, who will make a mark in the naval profession if he can conquer the shrinking timidity and bashful reticence which must operate greatly to his disadvan- tage in this pushing, grasping world. In a verbal encounter with the Commodore, whose belt is garnished with many a tongue scalp, he came off triumphant. That young man has a future before him. This party of officers kindly presented us with tickets to the opera. We had some conscientious scruples about lis- tening to unsacred music Sunday night ; but the spirit of courtesy which animates the true gentleman and inspires him never to refuse to take something when asked, forced us to do violence to the feelings of the Young Men's Christian As- sociation. I hope that none of my friends, who post their books and write business letters furtively between the church services, or who peep out through the closed curtains to criticise their neighbors' new bonnets, or stab their reputations with cowardly innuendo, on the Holy Sabbath Day, will be scan- dalized by this admission. True, we went to the opera Sun- day night, but we offer the plea in abatement that we were away from home. We were like deacons from rural churches in New York City, who taste the iniquities incognito ; or teetotalers traveling in Europe, forced to drink wine because the water does not agree with them. A good many things may be done when one is away from home. Then everj'-- body goes to the Sunday opera at Martinique, but everybody SUNDAY IN MARTINIQUE. 1.8 5 was not there this time. It is Lent, and some ascetics (igno- rant idolaters, worshipers of images ct id) denied themselves the pleasure during the penitential season. And I may re- mark parenthetically that many loyal souls view with alarm the increasing tendency to make Lent fashionable in New York, to use flowers at Easter, and indulge in other papis- teries ; machinations of the subtile Jesuits, intended to en- thrall the conscience, and bind the people, hand and foot, in the toils of superstition. I used to hear something like this twenty odd years ago, and as there is more reason for it now than there was then, I sound the alarm. Rally on the Sab- bath-school ! It was a motley and heterogeneous assemblage at the St. Pierre Opera House. Spectators going to the play, well- dressed ladies with their attendants ; negroes, men, women, and children ; peddlers, soldiers, policemen, and a variety of outsiders, jabbering and gesticulating, were gathered in the large elevated paved court, in front of the spacious building, reached by a flight of steps from the street. One had to shoulder a way through the crowd. A confusion of sound invaded \.h.Q foyer, through the open windows, and penetrated to the boxes when doors were opened to admit the air. Boxes were pretty well filled, but evidently not with the fashionables. Some of them were occupied by half-breeds, and there was a sprinkling of negroes. There was a large audience in the parquet and upper circles. The interior was dark, not altogether owing to the complexion of the audi- tors, but to the absence of gas. We are so accustomed to briUiant light at home that oil illumination seems inade- quate. I believe there is no gas used in the West In- dies, except at Kingston and Havana. A large chande- lier which lighted this theatre was let down between the acts to be trimmed. l86 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. We found that the opera, Verdi's " Le Trouvere," was to be preceded by a drama, " Le Medecin des Enfants," which, like all five-act French plays, was stupid and dreary. We could hear imperfectly and understood little, except M'sieu ! when one shoulder-shrugger was denounced by another fel- low, who was down on him for some cause that could not be ascertained until the end of the fifth act. We left early and started to return to the yacht, determined not to countenance Sabbath-breaking when we couldn't understand the play. Meeting some acquaintances outside, we reconsidered this pious resolve, and remained until the appearance of the Troubadour, passing the time meanwhile in promenading the foyer, admiring the exaggerated ear-rings of the oleaginous negresses who presided over the buffet ; with occasional ex- cursions to outlying wineshops, to see a man we expected to find there, and who didn't come. Here I might stop and moralize on the temptations that be- set the path of the righteous-minded, the pitfalls set by genial naval officers, and the allurements of Satan generally ; but I refrain. I will save my homily and give it to my friend the Doctor, for his next two hundred and fifth annual sermon to young men. About II o'clock, the curtain rose on the first act of " II Trovatore." The chorus singers were principally white (as the Alderman said, when asked by the Inspector of Election where he was born, "principally in Ireland"), with an ad- mixture of black, something like a bag of white beans with a few black ones thrown in. It was funny to see these colored chorus singers. Manrico vvas passable, with a robust voice ; Aziicena fair, and Eleanora^ with a good method, had seen better days on the stage ; the orchestra was poor, and the choruses fairly rendered. As the opera threatened to last un- til one or two o'clock in the morning, we left after the first SUNDAY IN MARTINIQUE. 1 8/ act. The outside crowd was still quite large as we jostled through. The dark mixture, with an occasional white dot, was loud-voiced, demonstrative, and appeared to strange eyes turbulent, but was really good-natured and well-behaved. There was no drunkenness. It was not at all like an Ameri- can crowd. As we sat on deck, smoking a ruminative cigar, some time afterward, a passing boat, which we hailed, proved to be the cutter of the Alliance, with some officers, returning to the ship, singing vociferously " The Loyal Legionier." They were promptly arrested for keeping open boat on Sunday, and taken aboard. After inflicting on them a few sacred songs, they were released on parole, and rowed away singing " Fare ye well, ladies, we're going to leave you now." As we had no ladies on board, they were probably serenading those we bear constantly in mind. We could hear the clear, reedy tenor of Paymaster McGowan, singing in the French vernacular Victor Hugo's exquisite Chantez, Dormez ; until the boat neared the Alliance — when discipline opened its mouth and swallowed melody. We remained on deck a short time after the officers left, to cool off before turning in, as is the habit, and watched the lights that glowed from the dark mountain-side. On the eminence gleamed two glaring range-lights, guiding the mar- iner to a safe anchorage. Directly underneath was a shrine of the Blessed Virgin, with a small lamp burning before it ; situated near a quaint old church, nearly in ruins, which we had seen by daylight. The lanterns of commerce, high- placed overhead, shone forth bold and confident, attracting attention from every quarter, while the light of faith twinkled tremulously in a recess below, requiring close scrutiny to be discernible. Uncle John, who did not go to the opera, said that if we 1 88 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. had remained aboard we would have heard sweeter music in the cathedral chimes that came from shore, filling the ear melodiously, while the night breeze fanned the cheek, than we could find in the thumping crash of kettle-drum, and harsh blare of trumpet in the orchestra of a heated theatre. Uncle John believes in observing Sunday after the manner of his forefathers. Our sympathetic friend, who is keenly alive to soul-stir- ring influences, is right. There is something sweet and touch- ing in a strain of music, stealing gently over the water ; and what other sound so soothing and harmonious as the chime of church bells, soft, rhythmic, and sonorous, voicing upon the listening evening air the solemn tones of holy vesper prayer ! They sweep over the heartstrings with a touch that evokes the tenderest emotions. They roll away from the tomb the stone that hides most precious memories, which appear, to the introspective glance, revealed in the light of other days. I sit alone in the silent night, watching the sleepless glim- mer of the star-like guardian of the shrine, and thoughts of vanished years come sweeping by ; some flower-shod, gliding with light and airy step ; some weighed down by clogging care, stumbling, heavy and grief-laden. And it seems to me as if these were louder in the ear, and that the patter of joy's tripping footfall is but faintly heard amid the tramping echoes of dull-paced sorrow. Many bright threads are shot through the dark web of reminiscence. I think of many charming objects ; I think of the two sisters whose contrasted beauty caused them to be named endearingly by the flowers they resembled ; and the lines which convey the description of this double flower, occur to me as they dwell in my mind. /)i,^',itu|t^ " f> SUNDAY IN MARTINIQUE. 1 89 Lily-Pansy. I love sweet Lily, lucent, fair, Serene, blue-eyed, with corn- silk hair, Teeth, seed-pearls white, peach-blow tinct cheek : Ought I another beauty seek ! I love sweet Lily ; Lily sweet. And yet I love sweet Pansy too, Though her clear eyes are gray, not blue. Her hair of deepest nut-brown shade — Dark-browed, dew-lipped, delicious maid ! I love sweet Pansy ; Pansy sweet. Can I love both alike, you ask ; To tell would be an endless task. Enough that round my soul entwined Sweet Lily-Pansy still I find. I love sweet Lily-Pansy sweet. Until for aye I sink to rest, I'll hug these flowers to my breast. Nor even Death's cold touch can part Sweet Lily-Pansy from my heart. I love sweet Lily-Pansy sweet. For when my spirit soars above, T'will bear this everlasting love, Enchrisomed for bright realms of bliss By pure, sweet Lily-Pansy kiss. I love sweet Lily-Pansy sweet. We have time for thought at sea, and must think whether we would or no, for we are without the usual employments which divert the mind from the march of brooding contem- plation. Thoughts come unbidden, like visitors to some temple, open to all, who throng the swinging portals in ever- shifting succession. Many are there that we would fain ex- IQO THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. elude ; many bearing burdens of disappointment, errors, blighted hopes and ambitions, which they lay at the door ; and none may enter without passing maimed regrets, mis- shapen projects, withered aspirations, and cripples of mis- spent time, begging the alms of charitable forgetfulness. It is hard to forget. Ah ! precious draught of nepenthe ! If we could but live our lives over ! If we could go back — sed nulla retrorsimi. Fortunately we have not the power of pres- cience or we would be plunged in a gulf of ever-present grief of anticipation. Musing with a distant object in view, one connects it in- sensibly with something in the past, which cannot be disso- ciated ; some thought that haunts with persistent recurrence. The twinkle of yonder taper before the shrine of holy mother- hood is reflected in the pool of memory as the vigil candle, shedding its blessed rays upon a face, beautiful in beatific repose, smiling in happy release from life's troublous journey ; one crossed hand of moulded whiteness holding the last tear-stained flower of earthly remembrance, the other — a stafiP and support in the path beyond the stars — grasping the Chris- tian emblem of salvation. But what is this ? A drop of rain upon my hand. Has a summer shower come up suddenly and unannounced ! I look above. There is no cloud in the twinkling midnight sky, not even a fleeting vapor to obscure the ethereal dome. It is an exhalation, drawn up from the fountain of the heart by the rays of reminiscent fancy, and, condensed in the cloud of sad memory, falling in crystal balm ; for it is a reminder of the well-beloved who remain. And so, good night ! CHAPTER XV. MUSICAL MUSINGS. Our Chum — Thoughts on Music — Ballads — Plagiarism — " Wearing of the Green" — "Sweet By and By"— " Aileen Aroon" vs. "Robin Adair "—" Nearer, My God, to Thee "—" Groves of Blarney"— "Home Sweet Home " — The Spanish Main — Gulf of Paria — Sunset. Port of Spain, Trinidad, March 26, 1884. We sailed from St. Pierre on the morning of the 24th, Such a firm friendship had been formed with the officers of the Alliance that we arranged to continue together as long as possible, and to this end the sailing orders of both vessels were conformed. The Alliance put to sea before the Mon- tauk, and soon became becalmed, but a light breeze favoring us, we were enabled in a short time to reach her vicinity, where in turn our sails flapped idly on the masts. The Alli- ance signaled a greeting, to which we responded with an invi- tation to come aboard, and in a few minutes Captain Reed and Lieutenants Rich and Gulick were alongside. While we were taking a cup of coffee in the saloon, a slight motion was felt, and Captain Reed, looking out of the companion-way, discovered that a breeze had sprung up. The yacht had con- siderable way on when the officers re-embarked in their gig, and they had a pretty long pull to their ship. We dipped our colors as a parting salute, and sailed away on the wave of answering recognition, with a cargo of recollections of pleasant days spent in the congenial companionship of gen- 192 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. tlemen who gracefully maintain the high character borne by United States Naval officers everywhere. The Alliance was bound for St. Lucia, on the leeward side. We were to pass the island on the way to Trinidad, but Lieutenant Rich, navigator of the Alliance, advised us to go to windward, if we were able to beat up between the isl- ands. This we accomplished without difficulty. Sailing close- hauled on the wind is the Montauk's " best hold," as she has frequently demonstrated in racing contests. The wind fa- vored us and we reeled off the knots as deftly as our grand- mothers spun yarn on their busy wheels. The Alliance was soon astern. She is not a fast ship at best, and as the Navy Department will not permit coal to be consumed when wind can be employed, she had to use sail. Wind is cheap — ex- cept in Congress, where it is an enormous expense to the country. It would seem as if all the economy within the control of our Government was saved for the Navy ; and ad- ministered in large doses. While Captain Reed was paying his parting visit, the Commodore jocosely offered him a tow, which he refused. As the Alliance pleasantly declined our tow, we kindly showed her our heels. After leaving these jolly tars, the antiquated ditties which we sang together in our festivities still rang in my ears, and musing over them I was reminded of the change in taste that follows increasing wealth, luxury, and refinement, producing that musical culture which demands the more elaborate and pretentious examples of harmonic art. Masses, operas, and oratorios, works of great masters, are the highest develop- ment of artistic vocalization, but these require large cities and rich communities for their exemplification. But the bal- lad comes from the people ; the melody which survives all the rough treatment of the inartistic voice and inaccurate ear — which lives through generations — springs up without MUSICAL MUSINGS. 193 cultivation. It is like the untutored warbling of the bird ; like the spring that flows spontaneously from the earth. Glees, madrigals, and choruses have their harmonized beauty, but the affecting strain is found in the simple ballad. It is an impulsive emotion, finding utterance through the medium of song, where words and melody seem fitted to each other indissolubly. Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun, said, a couple of centuries ago, that he " knew a very wise man that believed that, if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation." Ballads do not come from prosperity ; they are not born amid the dazzle and glitter of wealth, the engrossments of searing success. They are often the sighs of heart-soreness, the wails of sorrow, outpourings of grief, the coinage of af- fliction, fused in the crucible of misfortune, stamped with the die of anguish. They give vent to the tenderest emotions ; they are frank and truthful ; in them may be traced the un- derlying character of a people. Ireland is pre-eminently the land of ballads. No other country has produced so many beautiful airs. No other land has suffered greater oppression. She has been struggling for centuries against a superior force, to which she has never yielded, and against which she will continue to struggle — in- effectually perhaps — so long as there is a drop of true Irish blood flowing in Irish veins. As the patriotic ballad has it : " Then if the color we must wear is England's cruel red, Sure Ireland's sons will ne'er forget the blood that they have shed. You may take the shamrock from your hat, and cast it on the sod, But 'twill take root and flourish still, though under foot 'tis trod. When the law can stop the blades of grass from growing as they grow, And when the leaves in summer-time their verdure dare not show. Then I will change the color I wear in my caubeen, But till that day, please God, I'll stick to the wearing of the green." 194 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. One of the peculiarities of Irish music is the plaintive minor that runs through it, tinging even the jolly jigs, rol- licking reels, and heel-compelling strathspeys. Many of the most popular of our modern airs are adaptations of these melodies ; appropriated without credit, transformed and modi- fied ; oftentimes mutilated, for it is hard to improve on the originals, and almost any change is a disfigurement. An example of plagiarism (the failure to notice which, heretofore argues general ignorance of Irish music) is found in the popular Sunday-school hymn, " Sweet By and By ; " rather a nonsensical sort of composition so far as the words go, but pleasing and attractive in sound. It is taken from an old air, called " Sly Patrick," to which Moore wrote some verses, included in his collection of " Irish Melodies." The parody changes the notation and substitutes a strongly ac- centuated staccato for the flowing cantabile, 6-8 time, of the original. If you have a copy of " Moore's Melodies " with Sir John Stevenson's arrangement (my volume was pub- lished in Dublin, but I think there is an American edition), take the ballad, " Has Sorrow Thy Young Days Shaded," and play it staccato ; then play " Sweet By and By," slightly legato, and see if the theme is not the same, varied only in the effort to conceal the origin. This is the Irish melody : HAS SORROW THY YOUNG DAYS SHADED. K\^—Sly Patrick. MUSICAL MUSINGS shad - ed, As clouds o'er the morn-ing fleet ? . . . Too fast have those young days =ff=: :^--.e±L =B=P= a>-p: — ^—'- — S a W- :ff-=-=B — Sr^i |g=tfc^= Eff^^ffE* rr-*- tS--"*---Sr :«^=i=^; Hi p=q ^=1 '?^ :g-\ =^iz^wr=f ^=z»z fad - ed, That e - ven in sor-row were sweet. Does Time with his EpfE3E :ffz:~ff===z:Si t- Eg=i=«E :3=S: =P=ff= i*=S: 3^- iS=»= cold wing with - er Each feel - ing that once was dear ? , Then, = Ej — - tg- ifcis^bfct l^z::l^ff=zz= [i :SziE^EE^f^=iEF^EEr E^SE^ Pi IB E==:Steizz= =zff=zz^=;ff=^ 196 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. child of mis-for-tune, come hith-er, I'll weep with thee, tear for tear Has love to that soul, so tender, Been like our Lagenian mine, Where sparkles of golden splendor All over the surface shine. But if in pursuit we go deeper, All lured by the gleam that shone. Ah ! false as the dreams of the sleeper, Like Love, the bright ore is gone. Has Hope, like the bird in the story, That flitted from tree to tree With the talisman's glittering glory. Has Hope been that bird to thee ? On branch after branch alighting. The gem she did still display, And, when nearest and most inviting. Then waft the fair gem away. If thus the young hours have fleeted, When sorrow itself looked bright ; If thus the fair hope hath cheated, That led thee alonsf so light ; MUSICAL MUSINGS. 1 97 If thus the cold world now wither Each feeling that once was dear — Come, child of misfortune, come hither, I weep with thee, tear for tear. Now contrast with these exquisite words the namby- pamby language of " Sweet By and By," which, like too many hymns in the ordinary church collections, is puerile : "There's a land that is fairer than day : turn ti tum. In the sweet by and by, tum-ti-tum, we will meet on that beautiful shore, tum-ti-tum ; in the swee-e-eet by and by, tum-ti-tum, we will meet on that beautiful shore, tum-ti-tum." Poor old Ireland ! She has not only been ravished by invaders, despoiled and oppressed in every way, but even her songs have been pilfered. The boldest of all thefts of this kind is the air known to the world as " Robin Adair." This is a larceny pure and simple. The original is "Aileen Aroon " {Eibhlin a ruin), a very ancient Irish melody. By the interpolation of three notes, and a flourish which might be introduced ad libiUim in any song, poor Aileen Aroon changes her sex and becomes Robin Adair. The arrangement is the same in both pieces ; the measure three-quarters time and the key two flats. By dividing the crotchet notes, f, g, and a, of the refrain into dotted quavers, which give it a halting, jerking motion, ungainly compared with the smooth movement of the original, the change is effected. In "Aileen Aroon," the refrain ascends in a gradual, natural crescendo, soft and mellifluous, while in " Robin Adair," the three excrescent notes detract from the symmetrical simplicity, which is the great charm of the original. This is the old Irish air, with Moore's words : 198 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. ERIN! THE TEAR AND THE SMILE IN THINE EYES. Moderate ti7ne. W=^- z-z=k. ■ Air — A ileen A roon ffi^bS-^ 4±. :*ie*t5i-*t5L •i8**!ij*:» -t^ CS=:^: :^: i)?? I* — r- smile in thine Blend like the Rain p==*=|ii=^ic ^= bow that 15^- =i=*= s i?=*z=P: *^: ^ :?=3 =*=S= smile in thine Blend like the Rain — I — bow that :^sz=qi smile in thine eyes Blend like the Rain - bow that -^ !— z "- 1 1 1- Ii=S=fc -t—r W\ i^_J_^. i I :=z^-.^rz?±ifc::rSi MUSICAL MUSINGS. 199 -|5- =S=S- hangs in thy skies ! Shin-ing thro' sor-row's stream, Sadd'ning thro' C=1= =gs=&s= 3^^ 3 — =>._=]_ =p P=P; ^^ip— :i^i ?szi»: E^ES :f==t*=P= hangs in thy skies ! Shin - ing thro' sor-row's stream,Sadd'ning thro' lis: ^^ffl^ —^ --f.-^-- z^i^rzs'— P P^-- hangs in thy skies ! Shin-ing thro' sor-row's stream,Sadd'ningthro' =:F^i F==!= « — tH- ■v-« • — b«l* — r* — S ii^=: =*=&S=^S 3=3. Ifc^ Eff^ :^: PiJ r=s^ -^=w-- i=*=r- ^EEE pleasure's beam, Thy suns with doubt-ful gleam, Weep while they rise! ^1^ :|S=^= :te= :t: — i i'— I— pleasure's beam, with doubtful gleam. Weep while they rise! -X:-- :B-m. pleasure's beam, Thy suns with doubtful gleam, Weep while they rise ! ^^ 8z=Mz Its: ip=tps: ^=^ -M—^—^ -^-m- V^J r I I— — I— 1--1 I I iL I ! ~ rF O-a 200 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. Then the words of the old Irish lay are beautiful in the vernacular. I give three of the verses by Gerald Griffin : When like the early rose, Aileen aroon, Beauty in childhood glows, Aileen aroon. When like a diadem, Buds blush around the stem, Which is the fairest gem ? Aileen aroon. Is it the laughing eye ? Aileen aroon, Is it the timid sigh ? Aileen aroon. Is it the tender tone, Soft as the stringed harp's moan ? No ; it is Truth alone, ■ Aileen aroon. Who in the song so sweet ? Aileen aroon, Who in the dance so fleet ? Aileen aroon. Dear are her charms to me, Dearer her laughter free. Dearest her constancy, Aileen aroon. Here is a specimen verse of " Robin Adair " i What makes th' Assembly shine ? Robin Adair, What makes the ball so fine ? Robin Adair. What when the play was o'er, What made my heart so sore ? Oh ! it was parting with Robin Adair. MUSICAL MUSINGS. 201 It was bad enough to steal the music, but to clothe the air in such tawdry apparel as this was outrageous. The story told of the origin of the parody is this. The daughter of an English earl, riding in the country, was thrown from a carriage and had her leg broken. She was taken to an inn near the scene of the accident, and a physician was summoned, who happened to be an Irish doctor, named Robin Adair. He attended her until she recovered, and the peril of propinquity with handsome young Irishmen was attended with the usual result — she fell in love with the doctor. The rich young lady could not marry the poor physician, so the course of true love failed to run smooth, and they were forced to part. But during her illness the lady had often heard the doctor sing "Aileen Aroon " — which he had learned from his mother rocking his cradle — and the melody echoed in her constant heart, long after the seductive tones of the Irishman (who takes to love-making as naturally as a . duck to water) were silent to her ear. But I wish that the noble lady, who was doubtless a lovely woman like Bella Wilfer, had written some better lines when she appropriated this sweetest of mel- odies : which Handel said he would rather be the author of than of any of his masterly compositions. I once asked Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, after Arbuckle had played "Robin Adair" with unequaled grace of rendition, why the great cornetist didn't play "Aileen Aroon," without the superfluous notes, which would sound much better, partic- ularly as the mute was used. I remonstrated with him for acquiescing in the musical robbery of his native land by ad- vertising the name of the spurious imitation instead of the genuine melody. Gilmore said that he felt the justice of the criticism, but it was useless to protest. " Robin Adair " had got into the head of the public, and the intruder could not be driven out ; the masses know so little about music. 202 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. Then there is that fine old Scotch ballad, " John Anderson my Jo." This tune is plagiarized. It is the Irish drinking- song, " Cruiskeen Lawn," introduced with so much effect by Boucicault in the " Shaughraun," where it is sung to the har- monized arrangement of Jules Benedict. Sit down at the piano and play "John Anderson my Jo," then the " Cruis- keen Lawn," and see if they are not the same ! We have no American airs. Our soil doesn't grow music, and we are forced to import. We have transplanted " God Save the Queen," and rechristened it "America." This is sheer audacity and dishonesty. I have no patience with the Sabbath-school, public-building-dedication, and celebration business, where original lines are sung to the tune of " God Save the Queen," and the programme announces that the air is "America." There is no such tune (except Gilmore's). It is " God Save the Queen." Why not call it so ? Let us try to be honest in something. We can afford to be honest in music ; we don't deal in it to any great extent. It is well known, of course, that the " Star-spangled Ban- ner " was written by Key to the air of " Anacreon in Heaven ; " while "Yankee Doodle" goes back to the days of Oliver Cromwell, who was the original Doodle, satirized in the rhyme : Yankee Doodle came to town upon his little pony. Stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni. It may have been an unconscious plagiarism by Lowell Mason, but one cannot but be struck by the similarity of the air of the popular hymn, " Nearer, my God, to Thee," to Moore's melody, " Oft in the Stilly Night." There is nothing in music so effective as the ballad. One can hear the words as well as the air, and that is generally an inspiration. It is not made ; it grows. The delicious opera of " Martha," with its fine solos {a m' appari, for example), MUSICAL MUSINGS. 203 harmonious duets, and massive choruses, affords an example of this superiority. Nothing in it can compare with the interjected Irish melody, " The Last Rose of Summer." It is worth all the rest, and Flotow himself thought so. The scene where Lady Harriet, holding the rose in hand, sings this gem of song, and is joined by Lionel^ who blends his voice with hers, making a duet finale, is the most effective in the opera. When sung in full chorus, too, the theme produces a grand effect. The air, however, is not " The Last Rose of Summer." Moore wrote these words to the tune of "The Groves of Blarney." Per- haps this affords a good illustration of the peculiarities of Irish ballad music ; the quick transition " from grave to gay, from lively to severe ; " the intermingling of pathos and mirth, of soulful tenderness and jestful laughter; the co-ex- istent smiling lip and weeping heart ; for this air, of unsur- ,passed delicacy of expression and soft emotional feature, is a comic song. Here are some of the verses, written by Milli- ken: The Groves of Blarney, They look so charming, Down by the purlings Of sweet silent brooks, All decked by posies That spontaneous grow there, Planted in order In the rocky nooks. 'Tis there the daisy, And the sweet carnation, The blooming pink, And the rose so fair ; Likewise the lily. And the daffodilly — All flowers that scent The sweet open air. 204 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. Such walls surround her. That no nine-pounder Could ever plunder Her place of strength ; But Oliver Cromwell Her did pommel, And made a breach In her battlement. 'Tis there the lake is Well stored with fishes, And comely eels in The verdant mud ; Besides the leeches, And groves of beeches, Standing in order To guard the flood. There is a stone there, That whoever kisses, Oh ! he never misses To grow eloquent ; 'Tis he may clamber To a lady's chamber. Or become a member Of Parliament ; A clever spouter He'll turn out, or An out-an-outer, "To be let alone;" Don't hope to hinder him, Or to bewilder him. Sure he's a pilgrim From the Blarney Stone. Speaking of the proper name of this melody, I am re- minded of the argument I had with an intelligent army officer, of high rank, who insisted that the " Wearing of the Green" MUSICAL MUSINGS. 20$ was written to the West Point tune of " Benny Havens Oh ! " The modern words, first sung in this country by James Glenny in the play of " Arrah na Pogue," were written after Lieutenant O'Brien had composed "Benny Havens Oh ! " at West Point ; but the air itself is very old, and so is the song, which was a favorite rebel lay of the United Irishmen during the rebellion of 1798. And when I got to Paris, sure my lodgings I found chape, They knew I was United by the green upon my cape." It is the same air as " Irish Molly O," to which Thomas Davis, in 1848, wrote the song " The Green above the Red." Nothing appeals so strongly to popular favor as a simple and touching melody. Few knew that John Howard Payne was the author of several dramas of much literary merit, but all remember him as the author of" Home, Sweet Home." Yet the words themselves are commonplace ; thousands of better lines by unknown authors have appeared and attracted no attention. Payne heard an air in Sicily which caught his fancy, and he put some words to it, which made him famous. He did not compose the music, and the words have no poet- ical merit. It was simply his felicitous envelopment of the idea of home in a tender melody which made him renown. This tune, consecrated as it is to the altar of home, has a wonderful power over the sensibilities. It touches the very depth of emotion. Years ago, I was wandering, with aimless step, through the dark streets of an Italian city, one sultry summer night, enwrapped in that vague sense of depression that one is apt to feel in a strange land, alone and unknown, far from friends and acquaintances. As I sauntered into an obscure square, surrounded by houses of the prevalent gloomy style, frowning in the dim light, which cast no shadow, but brought out angles and projections in forbidding and 206 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. menacing shapes, I saw an irradiation streaming through an open window, forcing a brilliant pathway through the clouded night for the music that came forth on it, measured and har- monious — " Home, Sweet Home," played as a duet on soft breathing flutes. At once the sombreness became illumi- nated with the radiance of recollection, and there was a choking sensation in the throat which made the eyes wink sympathetically. I stopped and lingered long near the trans- figured spot, where a strain of music obliterated the sur- roundings, and transported absorbed thought, on tuneful wings, backward, across wide lands and vast seas, to the early home thousands of miles away. My rapt gaze would not have been surprised had it encountered in the musicians the forms of flutists of my boyhood recollections, Fargo, Pratt, and Lines, who played at Mechanics' Hall concerts in the days when Utica was famous for its excellence in amateur music. Yet this air had been played and sung by Italian peas- ants long before Payne was born. But his words have be- come inextricably interwoven with the melody ; and while the strain without the words would be a beautiful air and nothing more, and the words dissociated would hardly be worthy to be styled poetry, the two united make a combi- nation of melody and sentiment which have a stronger hold on the feelings of the English-speaking peoples than any other song in the language. " Home, Sweet Home ! " and now the thought comes to me as I write — where is mine ? We weathered St. Lucia in fine style, passed St. Vincent in the distance, and made our course for Trinidad direct. After the success in getting to windward so easily, we re- gretted that we had not arranged to touch at Barbados, where there is more population to the square mile than in MUSICAL MUSINGS. 20/ any other country in the world, except China ; and where we could see the Cuffy of ancient days in all his glory. There the poor white trash is tolerated, but does not occupy the commanding position held in the land of the free and home of the brave, where all men are born free and equal, even if some fail to continue so. The famous Dignity Ball, over which Lady Jane Smith presides with queenly grace and despotic rule, is in itself worth a visit to this island, which is the most English and self-sufficient of the West Indian de- pendencies. It is said that, in aristocratic quality and emi- nently high tone, the shadeful Barbadian patriarch's balls excel the shadowy assemblages that, long ago, flickered on the white-washed wall of Pete Williams' saltatory temple in the Five Points of New York. About noon the day after sailing, we came in view of the high mountains of Trinidad. Far away to the west, dimly visible, were the cloud-capped peaks of a spur of the Cordil- leras, which sets through Venezuela to the coast. We were at length off the coast of South America, the scene of strangely mixed history and fable, of bloodshed and rapine — the ro- mantic Spanish Main. Here black-visaged pirates despoiled mighty galleons of their treasures of gold and silver, and sank the ships after making the unfortunate passengers walk the plank ; or made incursions ashore, ravaging the estates of rich planters, cutting the owners' throats, and carrying off the lovely daughters ; firing pistols at random, and flourish- ing cutlasses with indiscriminating recklessness ; committing ^11 sorts of atrocities and raising the Old Scratch generally, to afford material for blood-curdling recitals that fill with hor- ror the minds of youthful readers absorbing the record of wonderful piratical adventures. Here are met the currents that flow from the many-mouthed Orinoco, through its delta, into the Gulf of Paria ; thence oceanward, offering obstruct- 208 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. ive resistance to entrance through the Dragon's Mouth, where strong favoring winds are required to aid the sail in its passage. The mate of the yacht told us that he had once lain off with his vessel fifteen days before he could get in through this baffling barrier. A smaller and more direct pas- sage can be made through the Ape's Mouth, which is a nar- row channel between the Island of Trinidad and a mountain- ous isle called Monos, or Monkey, Island, but the current setting through might drive us on the rocks if the wind should give out, so we determined not to run the risk. The cliffs on both sides are high masses of rock, and although the water is deep enough up to their base, we concluded that the longest way around was sometimes the shortest way across, and accordingly sailed through the Boca del Dragon — the name given to this surly entrance by Columbus when he dis- covered Trinidad, and still retained. A small, queer-rigged vessel, with three leg-of-mutton sails, was hugging the shore of Monos, and as we entered the Dragon's Mouth, the skip- per hoisted his jigger sail and put after us, thinking, proba- bly, that as the wind was light he would have the advantage and lead us into port. But much to his astonishment, no doubt, the Montauk sailed along and left him far astern. He wasn't used to see a schooner moving in that style, for yachts are not often met in these waters. The sun sank behind the Venezuelan hills in a brilliant haze, and for the first time in weeks we saw a sunset by land. We had often watched him extinguishing his flaming torch in the sea wave, but disappearing behind the promontory of Paria in a golden glory was a reminder of the sunsets at home. There was no succeeding twilight, however, such as we have ; that rosy link binding daylight and darkness to- gether in the tender obscurity of the most perfect hour of the day in our favored region. Here is no hour like that deli- MUSICAL MUSINGS. 209 cious time, for in this tropic clime night's dusky hand pulls down the shade as soon as sleepy Sol, tired with his daily round, has laid his head beneath the crimson hangings of his bed. At ten o'clock we dropped anchor in front of an array of lights, which, for aught we knew, might have been an illum- ination in honor of our arrival, but which we found this morn- ing were on the numerous vessels at anchor in the roadstead of the Port of Spain. And here we are at the island of Trin- idad, only six hundred miles from the equator. 14 CHAPTER XVL PORT OF SPAIN. Discovery of Trinidad — Busy Port of Spain — Race Types — Coolies — Political Ig- norance — Vulgarisms in Language — Botanical Gardens — An Impertinent Bird. Port of Spain^ Trinidad, March 28, 1884. Trinidad was discovered by Columbus during his third voyage. He sailed from the Cape Verd Islands, intending to reach the equinoctial line, but when in the fifth degree of lati- tude north, became becalmed in the torpidity which prevails in the region contiguous to the equator, known among sailors as the " Doldrums." Suffering greatly from the heat, which was so intense as to melt the tar and open the seams of his ships, causing them to leak, he was forced to seek a harbor as quickly as possible in order to repair damages. With this intention, he kept to the north and west, and, after much anx- ious sailing, sighted land on the 31st of July, 1498. He was reduced to great straits when the welcome land appeared. There was not more than one cask of water remaining in each ship. He had resolved to name the first land he beheld in honor of the Blessed Trinity, and as the triple summits of these mountains presented themselves he regarded the appear- ance as providential, and devoutly named the island La Trin- idad. From here he sailed to the Gulf of Paria, and along the coast of South America, which he supposed at first to be an island, not knowing that he had discovered the great Western Continent. Indeed he died without this knowledge. PORT OF SPAIN. 211 Careful examination of the indications caused him to change his first opinion, and he came to the conclusion that this vast territory was an extension of the eastern Asiatic continent. The writings of scientific men predicated this opinion. It was based on the hypothesis, generally accepted by geog- raphers, that but one-seventh of the earth was water, and his erroneous judgment was natural in this view, particularly as it had the authority of a corroborative assertion in one of the books of the Old Testament. Geographical knowledge in those days was largely interwoven with fantastic speculations and ingenious theories spun from the imagination. Port of Spain presented a busy appearance when we came on deck the morning after arrival. Many sails were in the harbor, or roadstead, for such it is ; large steamers were lying at anchor, and the bustle and animation showed this to be a seaport town of some consequence. Before turning out, we could hear the negro laborers loading a vessel in the vicinity, singing shanty songs, which sounded not unmelodiously as the rude chorus, muffled in music-clothing indistinctness, shuffled down through the companion-way to our drowsy ears. The first duty upon going ashore was to telegraph notice of our arrival, so that an anxious and inquiring world might be informed at the earliest moment of our important where- abouts. There was a slight increase over the Martinique rate, four words to New York costing $11.76. Ice was bought at thirty dollars a ton, though two cents a pound is the usual price. Water was furnished aboard at a cent a gallon. I make this note of the cost of water, ice, and telegraphy, not because it is of any particular interest to you now, but for reference in case you should have a yacht built on the Erie Canal, and sail away in search of adventures, to form a pre- text for inconsiderate infliction of long letters on suffering friends. 212 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. Two unsightly hulks are in the harbor, used as coal-yards. The fuelforsteamer use is a mixture of coal and pitch, pressed into square blocks, easily handled and stowed, and giving a strong heat. It comes from England. The population of the Port of Spain is a motley mixture of English, French, Spanish, Chinese, negro, and Hindoo, with an occasional Arab ; speaking a babel of tongues, a patois with a French-Spanish foundation predominating. I thought I could hear the lijigiia franca of the Mediterranean frequently. The Algerines are escaped convicts from the hulks of Cayenne, a refuge of sinners, convicted and uncon- victed, in French Guiana. They are villanous-looking repro- bates, who would not scruple to cut a throat for a dollar. The United States Consul informed us that they all want to go to America, but our Government forbids their immigra- tion. Therefore if any of them reach our shores, with a view to utilize their early rascal experience by engaging in railroad enterprises in Wall Street, they will have to be smuggled in as cigars or boxes of tin. Probably no port presents a greater variety of race types. It reminds one of Marseilles. The most novel to the traveler is the Hindoo coolie, with turban and two scant cotton gar- ments, just sufficient to comply with the demands of decency ; dark, silent, unsmiling, yet mild and amiable enough. The coolie women, becomingly draped, with abundant hair, reg- ular features, and flashing black eyes, are not uncomely. They wear much jewelry, many bracelets and bangles on the ankles, wrists and arms, sometimes extending above the elbow ; heavy ear-rings, and pendents in the nose, overhanging the lip. Osculation must be attended with some difficulty, as Uncle John remarked in his practical way. A strange orna- ment is a gold bead screwed into the nostril, just as a lady with us wears a jewel in the lobe of the ear. PORT OF SPAIN, 213 These coolies are brought over from Hindostan, under governmental supervision. The Indian Government watches their embarkation to prevent the degeneration of this emigrant system into a slave-trade, which it might become if not properly guarded. On their arrival, the coolies are indentured for five years to planters who desire to employ them, at a specified sum, payable part in cash and part in rations. It is a sort of servile condition, but not slavery ; indeed, the in- dentured apprentice to a master-mechanic formerly held in the United States an analogous relation to his employer. At the end of five years, the coolie is free to do as he pleases, either to reindenture himself, for not more than a year — the maximum period permitted — or to seek employment else- where. After ten years' residence, he is entitled to a free passage back to Hindostan. Many avail themselves of the privilege, others exchange it for a Government grant of ten acres of land, which is the equivalent right. The coolies are frugal, temperate, and economical. They accumulate their savings during the period of indentment, and subsequent voluntary employment, which become comparatively large sums in Hindostan, when they return. Unfortunately, the coolies are not Christians, or they might be regarded as good citizens. They never get drunk ; nor do they steal ; they are quiet and orderly ; chaste and devoted to their families. But they know nothing of the Board of Domestic Missions, and never contributed a penny to societies for the support of re- pentant sinners, who, after squandering all their own money in debauchery, reform, with blatant protestation, and live joyfully upon the alms of the ninety and nine which need no repentance. These well-behaved pagans are steeped in pro- foundest ignorance of politics. Uncle John asked an aged and venerable Hindoo, becomingly arrayed about his loins with a suggestion of small pocket-handkerchief, if he knew 214 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. who was elected Mayor of Utica, a few weeks ago. He pre- tended not to understand ; but I have a shrewd notion that he may have been some conspirator of high caste engaged in an independent citizen's movement, which he did not want to give away, as the slang saying goes. I may have done him injustice ; it is possible that he was not trying to hood- wink Uncle John, but I am always suspicious of the indepen- dent citizens' movement, which is ordinarily a delusion and a snare. I was myself ignorant of the result of that important event, the charter election in the nucleus of politics, where sage statesmen sit oracularly enwrapped, but I could get no information, though I inquired of the boatmen in every port. Think of one being in a benighted country where nobody knows who is Mayor of Utica ! Yet when one comes to think of it, that is often a problem with the constituency that elect- ed the incumbent. Despairing of getting political information from the heathen coolie, I asked a heathen Chinee if he were personally ac- quainted with any of the renowned leaders of the American people — Thomas F. Bayard, Henry Ward Beecher, L. E. Pinkham, John Kelly, or Warner Zafeguer. He listened unmoved. Evidently I made no impression on John China- man. He didn't understand English. That may have been the reason. I then tackled a negro on the dock, who listened because he thought I wanted to hire a boat when I spoke of water. I asked him, in my blandest, First-Ward-caucus manner, what he thought of the chemical analysis of the limpid flood of dusky West Canada Creek; whether in his opinion the organic matter was present in deleterious propor- tion ; whether rocky comminution would injure the quality of picnic lemonade ; whether the Hinckley's Mills exuviae impregnated the stream to an appreciable infusion ; whether — but he interrupted me before I could complete the Civil PORT OF SPAIN, 215 Service examination, and said, " Don't know nuthin' about it, Cap ; I drinks rum." The Cimmerian ignorance of this parti-colored people is lamentable. I presume a large proportion of the variegated population doesn't even know whether the Roosevelt bill has passed ; and take no interest in the great contest between Mayor Edson and Commissioner Asten about the salary of a clerk in the Tax Ofhce, which shakes Johnny O'Brien's parish to its centre. I thought I saw a man who looked as if he were in favor of Tecumseh for President. He was a Carib Indian. He may have been a descendant of the King of the Cannibal Islands. I had a notion to ask him some questions about Robinson Crusoe, and how he kept Good Friday on the neighboring island of Tabago, but refrained, from prudential motives, not entirely disconnected with the integrity of my cuticle. I wanted to inquire if his name were Hokey-Pokey- Winkey-Wang, but he had a wicked look in his eye, and I have grown stout during this voyage, and feared to run the risk of conversion into an Irish stew, such as the Coroner sings about, in " The Regular Army, Oh ! " The coolie system is the substitution of free labor under indenture for the abolished slavery, and it would seem to work well. Something of the kind was necessary to insure the cultivation of the land, for the negro will not work if he can avoid it, while whites cannot labor in the cornfields. I was told in Cuba some years ago that white labor was em- ployed there successfully, but I doubt if it can be utilized to any considerable extent. A good many Chinese are to be seen in Trinidad, who are peaceable and harmless, minding their own business in un- puritanical fashion. The negroes are insolent and unpleasant persons to deal with. As a rule, the negro women are gross, ungainly, and repulsive. The boatmen are a truculent lot, 2l6 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. nearly as bad as the ill-mannered " cabbies" of London. The population is about ten per cent, white. Drinking resorts are numerous, but we saw no evidence of drunkenness. Uncle John claims that he saw a sign, " International Drunk- ery." Doubtless the proprietor wanted to show that he was no bigot, with race prejudices, but was willing to sell his fluids to anybody who would pay. They call things by their right names here, as is the English habit. What is described in the advertisement as a grog-shop, would be a saloon or sample-room with us, while the cook-shop, with our fondness for high-sounding words, would be a restaurant. The Eng- lish draper is with us a dry-goods merchant ; the railway station is a depot ; the shop, a store ; the engine driver be- comes a locomotive engineer, and the lift is an elevator. But we understand English better than the English themselves ; at least I have seen it so stated in the newspapers. Americans habitually exhibit vagaries in language, which may be attributed in some measure to the slovenliness of hasty newspaper writing, and the carelessness of superficial readers, who undervalue the salubrity of draughts from "the well of English undefiled," and insensibly acquire the cor- ruptions of inaccurate expression. Eternal vigilance is the price of good English. With us, women are ladies, while men are mere men. Thus we read in advertisements that salesmen are called for, but the fair employees of the store ! resent the appellation of woman (which the Saviour of Man- kind used) and exact the designation of lady. They are salesladies. Ridiculous ! If salesmen, why not saleswomen ? Think of changing the wording of Holy Writ and making the angelical salutation read, Hail, full of grace ! Blessed are thou among — ladies ! Then the vulgarism of " gents ; " although this is rare. " Help," as the comprehensive synonym for servants, is not PORT OF SPAIN. 217 often heard now, except among the uneducated, and the aged, who retain the traditions of the ignorant period from which we are beginning to emerge. But everywhere we hear the insufferable abbreviation of " pants " for pantaloons. Abbre- viated pantaloons are breeches. Then it is not a solid Eng- lish word, but an Italian derivative, and although the use of pantaloons is permissible, the cutting short is reprehensible. Trousers is the correct word. I have seen in Broadway signs reading, " Gent's pants and vests," descriptive of men's trou- sers and waistcoats. In English mercantile nomenclature, the articles known as pants and vests are of the feminine gender. Let Joan have the pants then, but permit Darby to wear his own trousers. Another vulgarism, which is a concession to American pruriency of thought, styles a game-cock a fighting rooster. A cock is a cock and a hen is a hen, and both are roosters. Think of changing a common proverbial expression and speaking of "the * rooster ' of the walk." Or reading in the Bible, when Peter denied his Lord, " the rooster crew." The refinement of prurient vulgarity is reached by fastidious la- dies who fear to employ the term "legs," and use limbs instead. I make it a rule when I hear one speaking of limbs, to ask, " which limb, Madam, the arm or the leg ? " Having descended into a verbal limbo, I will remain hid- den from the indignant sight of salesladies, gents, roosters, and help. We had read in the guide-books glowing accounts of the beauty of Port of Spain, its broad avenues and shady trees, but I failed to see its attractions. The Marine Square has fine trees, among them some stately Palmistes, but the only moist thing about it is the fountain, all the surroundings being dry and dusty. Near this Square is the Catholic Cathedral, the most imposing building in the place. The 2l8 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. population of Trinidad is about seventy per cent. Catholic. There is nothing inviting about the buildings or streets. The scavengers are the unsightly turkey-buzzards, such as one sees in Charleston and Savannah, called here the corbeau, or vulture. Through the considerate kindness of Mr. Towler, United States Consul (an English gentleman who, by the way, resided for many years in Geneva, and is a friend of Judge Folger), we were granted the privileges of the Union Club during our stay. It occupies temporarjT* quarters until a new house can be built, the former club-house having been burned recently, under circumstances that give color to the suspicion that one of the members sleeping there was robbed and murdered, and the building fired to hide the crime. The Colonial Club also sent cards, but we had no opportunity to avail ourselves of the privileges extended. An attractive feature of Port of Spain is the pleasure ground, open to the public, called the Botanical Garden, sur- rounding the residence of the Governor in the environs. The terminus of the tramway is but a short walk from the entrance to these grounds, which are handsomely laid out, flowers oc- cupying the space in front, while in the rear are shady walks winding through specimens of luxuriant tropical vegetation. The show of flowers is not remarkable for variety, but there is an abundance of plants and trees, banana, orange, pineapple, bamboo, cabbage-palm, giant locust, and — especially beau- tiful from its dentate leaf — the fern-palm. These arborous paths are not without attractiveness, but in the oppressive hot air one contrasts them with the pine-cone carpets of nor- thern woods, with the soft murmurs of cascading waters sweeping coolly through the fragrant aisles, while the robin carols in the leafy choir overhead — and looks forward longing for the time when he can exchange this languid breath of the enervating tropics for the exhilarating ozone of. the tern- PORT OF SPAIN. 219 perate clime, dispensed by my numismatic friend, Michael Moore. There is but one singing bird here, which put an imperti- nent question to us as we neared the gardens. I asked a ne- gro, who was watering his horse at a fountain outside, what was the name of the bird. His answer sounded like chick- adedee, but in a moment, by listening closely, I found that the bird song was the French, Qiiest-ce qti'il dit, which, as you know, is pronounced, with clipped sound, " Kesskedee." The imitation of this interrogatory is perfect. Uncle John was relating at the time how 29 Hose saved Mayor Opdyke's house from the mob in 1863, and I called his attention to the question put by the bird, which might be construed into the fashionable slang, What are you giving us ? but he declined to answer, saying that it was none of the foreign bird's busi- ness. Besides, he couldn't answer it in its own tongue, as he had left all his French behind in Rue St. Hyacinthe, Marche St. Honore, with a cocker who wasn't satisfied with a h.dX(- ix'A.KiC pourboire because he was an American, and was, there- fore, expected to be generously vulgar in ostentatious gratu- ities. I then suggested that the Commodore might answer, as he has a voice of peculiar softness, gurgling and bird-like. He essayed one of his favorite quotations from Longfellow, and the birds were silent. That settled them. The inquisi- tive Qu'est-ce qiiil dits heard enough. CHAPTER XVII. TRINIDAD. Singing-birds — Taxidermy — Metempsychosis — " Keb, Sir ! " — Piratical Attaclc — Button-hole Oratory — French Courtesy — Pitch Lake — Asphalt — Flying Oysters — Future of Trinidad. Port of Spain, March 28, 1884. Few singing birds are found in the tropics. There is a law now against bird shooting, which will protect some of the fine feathers, but there were never many voices to slay. The fashion ^f wearing birds in bonnets has resulted in great havoc among the gay-plumed, particularly humming-birds. Still I suppose sparrows, chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, and dye-stuffs supply many of the handsome South American birds the ladies wear. At the photographer's, where we bought some views, was a case containing birds, fishes, and reptiles, found here and in neighboring Venezuela. The tarantula and centipede were among them. The taran- tula is a large, hairy, loathsome spider, venomous but not necessarily fatal ; while the bite of the centipede is sure death unless an antidote is administered in good season. The specimen in this collection was about nine inches long ; a dis- gusting object, appropriate encasement of a venomous dispo- sition. If nature, had arranged that the slanderous tongue of man should be sheathed in like characteristic indication of disposition, we would know better what malignant two-legged reptiles to avoid ; what to crush when they crossed our path. TRINIDAD. 221 In the case were many elegant birds, prepared for sale. One, a light blue and white, was especially attractive from its delicate shape and cerulean color ; a sort of embodiment of the idea of virginal purity. There was a number of sheeny throated humming-birds, and looking at these beauteous mummies in the sarcophagus of the taxidermist, I could not but regret the prevalence of a fashion that involved the kill- ing of these flashing jewels of the air. The aboriginals for- bade the slaughter of the innocents, for they believed that, in the transmigration of souls, departed Indians returned in them ; materialized spirits revisiting the place of their early sojourn. I fully sympathized with this poetic superstition when I saw the glossy atoms of feathered symmetry, stuck on wires in a dealer's show-case, in juxtaposition with stuffed snakes and lizards, and bottled tarantulas, scorpions, and cen- tipedes. It was trading in sublimated beauty, prostituting ethereality to sordid earthliness. I inveighed with eloquent fervor against the whims of fashion, which tore these pretty birds from Parian groves, where they dwelt unseen save by the infrequent hunter, to perch admired in the head- gear of some pretty girl, promenading Fifth Avenue, with face as radiant as the shining plume in her jaunty hat. I lauded feelingly the Indian metempsychosis, and bewailed the sacrificial hard-heartedness of modish millinery ; then — I bought the birds. I know some fair brows that will adorn harmoniously these lustrous pinions ; some masses of sunny hair in which the transmigrating humming-birds would choose to nestle, had they the power to select their place of abode in the future state. To use a common expression, I don't take much stock in the tropical flowers. They are gaudy and flaring, and lack the indescribable tenderness of our buds and blossoms. The roses are large and luxuriant, but they seem blowsy com- 222 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. pared with" the moist delicacy of our northern product. Nor do we see the pure white Hhes and violets, which would wither in the consuming breath of this heated atmosphere. -In my view, there is more beauty in a modest little pansy- bed at home, than in all the glaring gorgeousness of tropic flowers. Coming out of the garden, we met the sailing-master on the lookout for strange sights. He had heard wonderful snake stories ; among other things was told that hereabouts a serpent had swallowed a man. Uncle John told him that it was more likely the man had swallowed a snake — at the in- ternational drunkery. We saw no snakes. There may have been some about, but we were not fishing for snakes that day. A three-mile track race-course adjoins the Botanical Gardens. The enclosure held a large number of cattle feed- ing. We were told that it was a common pasturage for the public use. When we reached the dock to embark, there was a large crowd gathered, not in honor of the New York Yacht Club, but the Royal Mail steamer was about to sail for Southamp- ton, carrying a distinguished passenger in the person of the Governor, who was off for six months, thus avoiding the hot weather and September hurricanes. Had he known of our intended arrival, he might have postponed his departure un- til the next steamer, for it is hardly possible that any con- sideration except the most urgent business would have pre- vented him from embracing an opportunity to test the virtues of James' pills. The passengers for the steamer, anchored far out, were conveyed in small boats by the rude boatmen, who were clamorous with harsh solicitation. It was not as noisy, however, as the Grand Central station at Forty-second Street, on the arrival of an express train, when the welcom- ing assemblage is shouting an invitation to Mr. " Keb, sir," TRINIDAD. 223 to take a ride. The negro is often turbulent and unruly. At the village of San Fernando, up in the mountains, there was a serious riot last month. They revolted against the pro- hibition to carry torches in the carnival season ; the military and police were called in, and the emeute caused the loss of several lives. A quartermaster had in his possession, when we returned, a small shovel-nosed shark with the peculiar shaped snout of the species. I asked him how he picked up the fish, when Uncle John interpolated, " Why ! with a pair of tongs, of course; shure the shovel and tongs to aich other belongs." Uncle John is a grate joker. It is a coal day when he gets left. In the evening, as we sat on deck smoking, we were boarded by a pirate. A long, low, black piratical-looking craft appeared on the starboard bow, and a negro jumped aboard and seated himself on the anchor, or rather anchored himself on the seat. It seems that he was a mutineer who had en- gaged in an altercation with the captain of a coal-lighter — which the strange vessel proved to be — and sought sanctuary on the yacht deck to evade condign punishment. A wordy argument ensued, and as there appeared to be no prospect of a cessation of hostilities, he dared not return to the deck of the collier, but, as it floated off, sprang overboard from the anchorage, and swam to the rudder of the lighter, which he clutched, still maintaining the argument with the skipper. They did not come to terms, for we could hear the contest prolonged in the dark distance, the coal-black rudder-bar- nacle interspersing expostulations with loud cries of " Po- lice ! " No policeman answered (he never does, according to popular belief), but it is probable there were no lives lost. Too much talk for that. Another adventure of a more pacific nature was met the 224 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. same night. The Commodore had gone aloft (in a deck easy- chair) to count the stars after Uncle John and I, who keep good hours, had endued our night-caps. A boat, rowed by two wandering minstrels singing " Old Folks at Home," approached, and the Commodore, taking the song for a sere- nade to his guests, who are never so much at home as when in bed, invited the gondoliers to come aboard. He extended to them the hospitable entertainment for which the Montauk is famed, and talked to them for a few hours in the saloon, while we remained churlishly in our state-rooms. At length they escaped, but evidently in a weary state, for their sing- ing after they left sounded faint and demoralized. They were two agreeable gentlemen, and it is to be hoped that no permanent bad effect followed their visit. Uncle John insists that they will be affected with deafness ; but this is sheer envy. Even the most generous and magnanimous nature has a taint of weakness. Uncle John's frailty is jealousy of the Commodore's superior powers of button-hole oratory. A French man-of-war, an armor-plated ram, anchored in the harbor, afforded an opportunity for a pleasant inter- change of courtesies. It is customary for vessels in port to hoist colors at 8 o'clock in the morning, and lower them at sunset. Yachts take the time for colors from an American man-of-war, when present, and we applied the rule here to the Frenchman, regarding him as an American for the nonce. Thus, the evening after our arrival, we waited until the French colors were lowered, when ours came down simulta- neously. The next morning at 8 o'clock, the Quartermaster stood ready, halliards in hand, to hoist colors with the Frenchman, but none went up. After waiting some little time, the American colors were hoisted on the yacht, when at the same instant the French colors fluttered in the breeze. This was repeated every day while in port ; we took colors TRINIDAD. 225 from the French vessel, and he from us, alternately. He took off his hat to us — a mile distant — in the morning, and we doffed ours to him in the evening. It recalled the story of Fontenoy, when, as the antagonistic forces approached, the commander of the English Guards, removing his chapeau, said, " Gentlemen of the French Guard, fire ! " To whom his chivalrous enemy replied, " The French Guard never fires first ; " whereupon the EngHsh delivered their volley. The days of chivalry are past, but French courtesy still exists. A small steamer runs from Port of Spain to La Brea, forty miles distant, situation of the famous pitch-lake, which contains an inexhaustible supply of asphalt. This wonderful bituminous sheet has an area of nearly one hundred acres, between elevations close to the hill-top. It is a broad sur- face of pitch, seamed with small channels of water. The pitch is dug from the hardened top, and the quantity taken away is constantly replenished by the soft asphalt oozing up from below, which becomes hardened by the evaporation of its constituent oil in the sun. Night supplies the exhaustion of day. The method of skimming the great bowl may be il- lustrated by comparing it to a pond, from which blocks of ice have been cut, and the water solidified again by the action of frost ; the difference being that heat is the agent in one case and cold in the other. Some power below constantly forces the asphalt to the surface — perhaps nature uses a tuning-fork to keep up the pitch. It was supposed formerly that the deposit was subject to volcanic action, but recent investigation disproves this theory. The accumulation is simply vegetable matter, which, in the process of degeneration, becomes melted by the hot tropical soil into mineral pitch and asphalt, instead of being trans- formed, by hardening influences, into peat and coal, as it would be in Ireland or Pennsylvania. Asphalt is sometimes IS 226 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. called Jew's-pitch. I don't know why. Perhaps the blind bigotry which consigns the Hebrew to the bottomless pit has something to do with this designation. Trinidad asphalt has become an important article of com- merce. It is largely used in the unequaled pavements of Paris. The patch on Fifth Avenue, near the Worth monu- ment, the best bit of pavement ever laid in New York City, is of this material. In 1595 Sir Walter Raleigh, in search of El Dorado, touched at La Brea, en route to the mythical territory, and calked his ships v/ith the pitch found here, declaring it to be superior to that of Norway. He had some fighting with the Spaniards in possession, in which he held the advantage, but didn't remain long on the island, for he would not be di- verted from his pursuit of gold. There is a savor of romance about this malodorous pitch when we connect it with Sir Walter Raleigh, the handsome soldier, poet, historian, in- trepid adventurer, the accomplished courtier and favorite of Queen Elizabeth. Better for Raleigh that he had thrown his cloak over a fissure in the steaming lake of La Brea, than in the puddle to save the silken shoon of the virgin Queen from being soiled. Good Queen Bess, albeit she did some heavy work in the cause of religion, roasting papists and noncon- formists at Smithfield, was a pretty hard character ; in her jeweled stomacher, embroidered farthingale, and voluminous ruff. She is always represented with a great ruff in the con- temporaneous portraits. Certainly she was the female rough of the period ; and was hard on poor Raleigh, who died un- daunted in the bloody Tower of London, writing on the wall of his cell, the night before execution, this couplet to the snuff of his candle : Cowards fear to die ; but courage stout. Rather than live in snuff, will be put out. TRINIDAD. 227 Trinidad was Spanish until 1796, when Spain declared war against England, and great naval battles were fought in West Indian waters, between English, French, Spanish, and Dutch fleets. The following year, Admirals Hussey and Abercrombie sailed through the Boca del Dragon and ap- peared near Port of Spain, with twenty men-of-war and a large array of soldiers. The Spanish Admiral, Apodoca, cooped up with but four frigates, finding resistance useless, burned his ships and fled to the Spanish Main. Chacon, the brave and noble Governor of Trinidad, capitulated ; and so Trinidad passed under English rule, where it has remained ever since ; and is likely to unless O'Donovan Rossa should put dynamite in the coffee of the Governor some fine morn- ing. The oysters growing on trees, which Columbus found, transmitted that pernicious habit to the descendant and pen- dent bivalves of the present day. The roots of the mangrove extend into the water, and to these the oysters cling, to be plucked like fruit. They are not good, but small and cop- pery, like the oysters I tasted in Naples, O'Neil would laugh at them. But where do we find good oysters outside of the United States ? Not even the vaunted " native " of Carling- ford, the famed " poldoodies of Burran," can approach in savory succulence the New York oyster. Uncle John said that this must be a queer country, where the oysters keep lean, flying around, roosting on trees, instead of lying quietly in their beds, to get fat, like Captain Joe Elsworth's in Prince's Bay. We had no mosquitoes aboard. We were anchored too far from shore for them to reach us with their little bills. Then they may have thought it a waste of time to attack those who had passed the ordeal of the New Brunswick " skeeter," nourished in the classic shades of Rutgers, with 228 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. commendable animosity toward full-blooded followers of the Pope. The Trinidad knight-errant would lose his laurels in abortive emulation. Besides he doesn't sing. Dr. DeWolf told us, however, that although a small insect, he has a fine, silent touch in surgery, which can be felt if not heard. Still, without an appalling bugle, the mosquito is robbed of half his terrors. His sound is like artillery ; it frightens more than it hurts. Port of Spain is destined to become a place of great com- mercial consequence ; the most important, perhaps, of all the West Indian ports, except Havana. Trinidad is rich in pro- ducts. The principal exports are sugar, cocoa, and pitch. They are now cultivating coffee extensively, and have for the first time more than enough for home consumption. A com- plete revolution has been established in the manufacture of sugar. Formerly the raw material was shipped to New York and elsewhere to be refined ; now, by the modern appliances, it is prepared completely for the market at the usines. I can remember when quantities of sugar-canes were brought to New York, and chewing cane was a favorite refreshment of the street boys. Sugar was ground in the mills, then com- mon. But all this has changed, and the prosperous days of sugar-refineries of the ordinary grades, remote from the plan- tations, are numbered. We regretted that time did not per- mit us to accept the invitation of Mr. Agastini, one of the most influential men in Trinidad, to spend a few days on his extensive estate, where we might have witnessed the produc- tion of sugar on the largest scale. The proximity of Trinidad to Venezuela, to which a line of steamers runs, gives it a great advantage in the South American trade, and its fertility and large territory, with in- creasing products, will in time place it in a commanding po- sition in the tropics. CHAPTER XVIII. THROUGH THE CARIBBEAN SEA. Salutamus — A Corkonian Gaul — The Dragon's Mouth — Columbus — An Apology — The Trade-winds — Navigation — Dead-reckoning — A Timely Warning — Old Fogies — A Tender Hour — The Same Old Moon — Serenade — Uncle John Romantic — Gammon. On Board Montauk, at Sea, Lat. 12° 44' N., Long. 67° 18' W., March 31, 1884. We left Port of Spain on the morning of March 29th, with a Hght breeze that sent us along gently, in an easy, graceful, deliberate, and dignified manner becoming a yacht of elegant leisure ; not rushing out of port with the hurried fussiness of the busy trader compelled to work for a living. Our course was varied slightly to enable us to pass around the French man- of-war at anchor in the roadstead, with whom we exchanged salutes. Recollections of Rochambeau fluttered in the folds of our dipping ensign ; the national flag that France helped us to raise over surrendered Yorktown. We doffed our caps to the officers gathered on her quarter- deck, and the responsive recognition was watched with great interest by Uncle John, who was anxious to learn the latest French style of hat-removal. He insists that the elbow con- tortion of the stiff"-necked Fifth Avenue automaton, which re- sembles the motion of a wooden toy figure jerked by a string, is not only inelegant, but that there is no authority for it in the canons of good taste or conventional etiquette. The salute of 230 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. poor Montague in "The Shaughraun" was the initiation of this muscular spasm, but Captain Molyneux was, for an English- man, graceful though unmilitary. Uncle John, who is a war- rior bold, having marched with uncut corns in the Seventh regiment bunion's pilgrim's progress during the Helderberg war, and smelt powder without taking a reef in his nose at the Astor Place riot — says that, properly, the hat should be raised from the head in salutation. The dudish motion is to pull the tile down in front of the countenance, like a cloud passing over the face of the sun, as if the wearer feared that the rays of his beauty would scorch the susceptible fair one who encountered his burning and enslaving gaze. " When I take off my hat to a lady," said Uncle John, " I want to see her ; to have my eye on her." " You want to beam on her, as it were " I remarked graciously. " No," replied the veteran gallant, "where ladies are in question, there is no beam in my eye." Thus smote he the flippant interlocutor. Clustered along the rail forward, were the French sailors, in their natty white jackets, gazing admiringly upon the yacht as she passed the iron-clad monitor, like a swan gliding by a scaly crocodile, and expressing their opinions with exuberant ejaculations and vivacious gestures. In order to do some- thing in a complimentary way, as well as to show my knowl- edge of language, acquired at Turner's French Academy in Utica, while at the same time indulging some vainglorious superiority over my messmates, putting on French airs, I. re- moved my chapeau de paille, and as the sunbeams glinted on the polished expanse of my enameled cranium, shouted, in the deep contralto tones of a Greenwich Street clam-peddler : Compatriotes ! Vive la belle France ! The response came, quick and distinct, in the lisping accents of the Provencal troubadour: " Iv ye see Tim Mulrooney, who keeps a she- been wid a roosterinit near Hahrlem Bridge, tell 'im 'is brud- THROUGH THE CARIBBEAN SEA. 23 1 der Mick is sarvin' his counthry aboord a Frinch ram ov wor. Hurroo for Ameriky ! " I had intended to sing a verse of the Mm'seillaise, re- questing the GaUic mariners to Aux armes citoyens and For-r- rmez vos battaillons, but upon consideration I concluded to postpone the chant until we sailed into the Cove of Cork. My messmates were to join in the refrain, but we all refrained. Out again through the fierce currents of the Boca del Dragon, skirting the promontory of Paria ! The limestone rocks that line the beach have intervals of whiteness washed into them by the surf, which remind one of the spring snow- drifts along the Hudson ; pure wreaths, safely encreviced in hillside ravines, until the melting breath of nearing summer finds them out, and they trickle reluctantly into stained afflu- ents of the grimy flood that sweeps below. The current aids us and we pass through the formidable dragon's mouth without difficulty ; as easily perhaps as Jonah was evicted from his temporary tenement in the whale by a writ of ejectment issued by a district court civil jus- tice. We have reached the southern limit of our cruise ; we are turned to the north ; we are homeward bound. Not that we are going home directly, for a long detour to the west- ward must be made to reach Havana, but, with the turning of our prow, the home feeling will grow strong with my com- panions, and impatient longing will soon fret and fume, as unfavorable winds or thwarting calms delay our progress. As for me, I have no stimulus to this yearning impatience. As one views these shores, enveloped in the romance of history, he cannot but recall the wonderful adventures of the great Columbus, whose valor, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and devotion made the possessor of these admirable attributes an exemplar of virtuous endowments rarely combined in one person. That he should start on his first voyage of discovery 232 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. over the trackless ocean with but three small vessels, two of them caravels without decks, and overcome obstacles before which the ordinary man would have shrunk appalled, excites our greatest wonder. His own flag-ship was the only decked vessel. During the third voyage, when, coasting the Gulf of Paria, he discovered the waters in which we are now sailing, he complained of the unnecessary size of his vessel, nearly one hundred tons burden. Our yacht, which appears so small, is two hundred tons. But his vessels were built up with houses fore and aft. Still, he had not only to take a large quantity of stores for the considerable force of soldiers, with artillery and munitions of war, but he had horses and provender aboard as well. That such vessels could cross the Atlantic, and survive the autumnal hurricanes and tornadoes of this boisterous region, is marvelous. It seems almost in- credible that Columbus should possess the ability to surmount the formidable interposing barriers to success. But his in- domitable courage was fortified by religious convictions of the most exalted character. He was a devout enthusiast, who believed that he acted under divine inspiration, that his mis- sion was to Christianize the heathen, and extend the empire of the Church for the honor and glory of the Redeemer. His great purpose in life was the redemption of the Holy Sepul- chre. In his will, he enjoined on his son Diego, to devote a portion of his wealth to the conquest of Jerusalem. His relig- ious fanaticism animated to victory a career which was pro- ductive of incalculable benefit to mankind. Columbus was a great benefactor. But for his discoveries many of our eminent statesmen might still be trotting, bare- toed, through the savage wilds of Connemara, leaving shape- less footprints on the bogs of time. Notwithstanding his pious fervor, which was Catholic and idolatrous, Columbus might not be regarded by Oberlin University as a truly good THROUGH THE CARIBBEAN SEA, 233 man, but he was a truly great man. I regard him as, in some respects, a greater man than WilUam C. Kingsley or Ripley Ropes. Emerging from the Boca del Dragon, we point westward and, skirting the coast of Venezuela, make our course, in the Caribbean Sea, toward Curagoa, our sails filled with gentle breezes, wafted by the cooling wings of attendant zephyrs, through summer seas, enjoying, in its perfection, the poetry of motion. It is the highest duty to acknowledge an error ; to re- tract an unfounded statement, to render an apology when justice demands a correction. I apologize to the trade-winds. One of my splenetic outbursts in a previous letter contained an unjust reflection upon the habits of these benignant gales ; which I desire to retract, for, so far from being dissolute, they are most exemplary. I think I went so far as to say that the trade-winds were a humbug, like blustering and pretentious reformers. I thought they had got up a reform movement to change the even tenor of their way and make society miser- able with meddling disturbance. I take it back. They are admirable ; nothing could be gentler or more propitious. When I wrote before, they were suffering from indisposition ; they were in evil communication, which corrupts good man- ners, with some mountainous island associations, which, per- haps kept them out late at night, and ruffled their usual serenity. They were temporarily under a cloud, unable to make both ends meet, and that is calculated to create spleen, cause depression, and stir up bile. The sea was not well be- tween St. Kitt's and Martinique. It showed bad blood. Evi- dently it was suffering from boils. It appeared to be in hot water and I rashly attributed the discomposure to a reform in the trade-winds. I was wrong. The mischief was done by heated land-breezes, that came down through island val- 234 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. leys, with a predaceous rush, Hke college students on a base- ball lager-beer stand, or militia cavalry charging a baker's wagon. The trade-winds blow with unvarying constancy from one quarter, the year round, if they have a chance. They have it in the Caribbean Sea, where there is plenty of blow- room, and no perverse wind-breeders. Barring some spite- ful tornadoes which invade it in the hurricane season, every- thing is lovely and the goose may have a high old time with ease and safety. I offer to the trade-winds an humble apology. I take occasion to convey to them the assurance of my dis- tinguished consideration. I salute the trade-winds. The sky in the latitudes where these winds prevail is of modest neutral tint, with small detached clouds, mainly of indefinite, spherical shape, congregating more numerously near the horizon, but, seen elsewhere through the lucid space, floating in melting beauty, like seminary girls waltzing on a hot summer night. They reminded Uncle John of dainty crullers circling in a pan of melted lard. Could there be a more tasteful comparison ? But it was an inspiration of the summer season. Uncle John is part Scotch, and the sim- merle of the cruller " simmer" came to him naturally. To day the observation shows that we are in latitude I2° 44' north, longitude 6"]° i8' west ; that is, in round numbers, 750 miles north of the equator and 4.050 miles west of Green- wich, England. By looking at a map you will see where we are as I write. I mention this because it is probable that this letter, when you receive it, will not bear the post-mark of the place where it was written. The post-ofifice service of the Caribbean Sea is not regular. Everyone is his own mail-car- rier. At night it is a Star Route ; realms of Bhss, Uncle John remarked. It occurs to me that your sea experience thus far has been COOLIES, TRINIDAD. THROUGH THE CARIBBEAN SEA. 235 confined to threading the dsedahan channels of the Thousand Islands of the St Lawrence, where land-bearings are frequent and lee-shore rocks accessible. Perhaps you may be inter- ested in learning how the mariner steers his course on the ocean, and ascertains his position by the sun. I make no apology for my endeavor to explain it at some length here. I assume that you did not study navigation at school, and if you had, you would probably know little about it. Very lit- tle is learned at school. I trust that the explanation may not prove unintelHgible, although I appreciate the difficulty of conveying the idea by mere word description : The nautical instruments employed are the compass, quad- rant, sextant, and chronometer, with the thermometer, barom- eter, lead, and log as auxiliaries. The boiler, frying-pan, and gridiron belong in the cook's department, and are useful im- plements, but not indispensable to navigation ; although the cook is a seafaring man, to whom inquisitive passengers are often referred for information, regarding winds, tides, and fogs, by surly skippers crossing the Atlantic. The quadrant and sextant are similar, one being marked in quarters and one in sixths of a degree. The movement of the compass everybody understands. It is placed in the binnacle directly in front of the wheel, under the eye of the helmsman, who by it steers the ship's course. The chro- nometer is a finely-adjusted big watch, set by the time of Greenwich Observatory, England. With this, and the obser- vations hereinafter described, the longitude is ascertained. By looking at a map you will see the division of the globe by imaginary lines, drawn from pole to pole, and converging at these points, which are the longitudinal or meridian, and transverse lines, equi-distant, which are the latitudinal or parallel. To ascertain the longitude, the common or ship's time is 236 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. compared with the chronometer's Greenwich time, and the dif- ference between them shows the meridian, forming the basis of the calculation by which the ship's position is determined. You will see that on the map the meridian of Greenwich is marked O. The degrees of longitude east and west of this are numbered, and contain at the maximum sixty nautical miles each (sixty-nine statute miles), diminishing in width as they converge toward the poles. Thus longitude i E. is sixty miles east of Greenwich, longitude i W. is sixty miles west, longitude 2 W. one hundred and twenty miles west, and so on. There are four seconds in time to a mile, hence fifteen miles to a minute, 900 miles to an hour. To ascertain the longitude, you compare the ship's clock, common time, with the chronometer, and the difference in time shows the position in miles. For example, if you are west of Green- wich and it is noon by the ship's clock, and the chronometer marks five o'clock P.M., you know that you are five hours from the observatory, and as there are 1 5 degrees to an hour, you are in longitude 75° W. ; and 60 miles to a degree gives the position 4,500 miles west of Greenwich. This, however, must be worked out with the observations, according to tables prepared for that purpose, with the aid of logarithms, and adding or subtracting the sun's declination, varying with the ship's position toward the equator. These observations of the sun are taken at noon, if practi- cable, and at eight o'clock in the morning and four in the afternoon, for purposes of comparison. The latitude is ascer- tained in this manner : As noon time approaches, the navi- gator places the quadrant to his eye and looks toward the hori- zon, through a small aperture. An arrangement of colored glasses reflects the figure of the sun, which appears just above the horizon, ascending, the navigator bringing the reflection doAvn to the proper point of vision by the movement of a THROUGH THE CARIBBEAN SEA. 237 screw. When the sun reaches the meridian, or culminating point of ascension, it stops, wavers, and then begins to decHne. At this instant, the observation is taken, and, by figures marked on the quadrant, the navigator is enabled to determine the latitude, making the proper allowance for the point of view and the refraction of the sun's rays. Thus, having, with the chronometer and quadrant observations, ascertained the latitude and longitude, the ship's position is known by looking on the chart. These problems are worked out by tables prepared for the purpose, which give the apparent de- clination of the sun each day, varying with the position north or south of the equator. An observation taken from a ship absolutely on the equatorial line at the precise instant the sun crossed, would show an altitude of ninety degrees. This rarely happens, however. All these computations require careful and accurate fig- uring. I don't think I could work them out with certainty. Possibly the reason is that I don't know how. Yet I know some persons equally ignorant who would tackle them with entire confidence, even if they wrecked the ship. They are the public benefactors and busybodies who work out social problems, and solve all evils in agitation. I don't think I could work a ship. It is easier to work a free lunch route, which I am doing now in this cruise of the Montauk. Of course when land is in sight no sun observations are necessary. They are only required on the open sea where no land is in view to give bearings. When the sun is obscured, and no observation can be taken, the navigator must work what is called a dead-reckoning. This is accomplished by the log, an instrument put out astern, which indicates the num- ber of miles sailed, the compass showing the course. But this is not entirely reliable, for tides and currents increase or diminish speed, and in them the log would not register accu- 238 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. rately the distance progressed. A nice question arises as to the effect of currents upon the log. If the tide is running with the ship, the log would not be affected, but it would be with the current against it. If the current is running against the ship's course, and the speed is retarded to the extent of its velocity, the question arises, whether the log would indicate the actual number of miles progressed by the vessel, measur- ing from land points, or whether it would not in addition reg- ister the velocitous movement of the current which retarded progress. For example, if a ship were sailing with a ten-knot breeze against a five-knot current, what would the log regis- ter ? If anchored with the log out, and a five-knot current were running, the register would show five knots, although no progress was made. The problem then is, what would the current effect be on the log if the ship were imder sail against it. Would the current be registered on the log in addition to the actual distance progressed by the aid of the wind ? Then, if the log does register an excess of distance traversed, does the notation of current momentum increase or diminish relatively to the degree of velocity ? All of which nebulous conundrums are respectively sub- mitted to the gay gondoliers of the Erie Canal. Answers may be sent to the flag-officer of the State's scow. The dead-reckoning is, therefore, to a great extent, guess work, but the experienced sailor can ascertain his position by it with a considerable degree of accuracy. During our first week out, no complete observation could be taken for some days, and the yacht was worked by dead-reckoning, but we made the course to Bermuda with almost as much certainty as if the sun had been visible. The only error ascertained was in the too great allowance for drifting while the yacht was laying to during the hurricanes in the Gulf Stream. When an observation could be had, it was found that she had THROUGH THE CARIBBEAN SEA. 239 drifted but little, having held on to the sea with the tenacity of a bull-dog. It is no easy matter to force the Montauk to the rear. The working of the yacht during the period of ob- servation proved the able seamanship of the sailing master, Captain Peter N. Breitfeld. The system of dead-reckoning at sea is different from the Arizona method, where a debtor converts his running account into a dead-reckoning by shooting his creditor. Political par- ties are sometimes worked by dead-reckoning. One must go to sea to realize the importance of minute accuracy in keeping time. With a chronometer two minutes out of the way, one would make a mistake of thirty miles in position, which might be awkward if one were out at night without the latch-key. There are but few of the strongest first-class lights that can be seen thirty miles. The Highland lights at Navesink are said to be visible that distance, but a very good hand is required to see them. If making for a small island, it might be missed if the chronometer were wrong, unless the exact deviation were known. One is apt to be careless on this point ashore. A man says thoughtlessly, "My watch is two minutes slow," with- out reflecting that it puts him thirty miles away from where he thinks he is. We fail to appreciate the gravity of this matter. If, for example, I should start to drive to Whites- boro, and my chronometer were four minutes fast, I might find myself in Syracuse before I crossed the two-mile bridge. Then, too, in the matter of promissory notes. Through chronometrical derangement, they often fall due before the makers are ready to come to time. Some are never ready. They carry stop-watches. The moral of all of which is, we cannot be too particular about taking our timepieces fre- quently to the venerable horologer of the Woodmarket to have them resfulated. 240 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. We are fortunate in having the full moon to " roll on" and '■' guide the traveler his way " on our run to Cura^oa. Nothing could be more delightful than these glorious nights. No, instead of engrossing all this superabundant space our- selves, we might have company which would add to the de- light ; some gracious presence more in harmony with the delicious scene than the incongruous occupancy of three old fogies, who have no romance left in them ; dull materialists, utterly devoid of sentimentality ; thinking of their eating, drinking, smoking, and selfish creature comfort, instead of filling themselves with moonshine, and soaring away on the wings of fancy to realms where the soul is steeped in lethal obliviousness of the present, and memory fills the musing night with dreamy enchantments of the past. Silence sits on deck these moonlight nights. There are long breaks in the desultory conversation, ordinarily so brisk and animated; there is no chaffing, no joking ; the voice is pitched in a lower key : there are no sarcasms, no funny stories, no rol- licking songs. Occasionally a murmuring strain steals out as if unconsciously, some crooning tenderness, some fragment of a ballad, breathed under- voiced : "The Dearest Spot on Earth to Me," "Home Again," "Flee as a Bird" — some old-time melody that makes the moon appear hazy in the eye though shining lustrous from a clear sky. Perhaps it is " Blue-eyed Mary," or " Farewell, but whenever you wel- come the hour." There are no bacchanalianisms, no humorous ditties, no anacreontics, no lively glees or rattling choruses; but melody comes and sits beside us, in sober raiment clad, low-voiced and pensive. Loud tones would seem to jar the quiescent air, to grate harshly on the ear of listening night, attuned to tranquil harmonies. The only interruption is when one asks gently for a light for his cigar. The moon sails swiftly THE MONTAUK BY MOONLIGHT. THROUGH THE CARIBBEAN SEA. 241 through the sky, her progress niarked by fleeting clouds, shifting buoys in the azure sea ; while occasional translucent veils of vapor cover her face, through which argent rays out- shine prismatic — an aureola of transcendent beauty. Then the old expedient of holding communion with the absent by gazing on the same star at the same hour (which was practised by Enoch and Seth when they left their spouses for a night to attend a convocation of the Knights Temp- lar — and will continue so long as the world lasts) comes to mind, and the thought springs up that this same moon, which paves the Caribbean Sea with silver ripples, is shining serene over the mounds on a green hill far away, dropping in leafy infiltration through the branches of stout-limbed trees into luminous bleachings on the dark green grass. And it whitens the tombs in the cemetery, which do not appear so unat- tractive in this solemn light of meditation. Yes, this is the same moon that gleamed on the prow of Cleopatra's silken galley ; that lighted the conventual retreat of Heloise and the cloistered seclusion of Abelard ; that shone on Paul and Virginia, wandering hand in hand, chaste and innocent, near the sanctified cocoa-tree ; the same moon that on such a night molded the wooing words of sweet- tongued Lorenzo to fit the heart-framed ear of fair Jessica, There has been no change in the moon for lovers since "Adam dolve and Eve span." It is the light that illumed Paradise, and it will be the light of Paradise for all time. It is the same light that flooded broad meadow slopes, from which the night breeze came heavy-laden with the scent of new-mown hay, on the way back from the Falls, but vainly essayed to penetrate the kindly shades of the road that wound through obscuring forests in the favoring glade. It is the same light that made glorified mirrors of the window- panes at which you gazed long hours in rapt devotion ; or 16 242 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. before which the strains of the serenade ascended in worship- ing tone to the sanctuary they enclosed : Serenade, to a memory of the past. Good-night ! I 'neath thy casement sing — May angels fill thy pillow soft With plumage plucked from heavenly wing To bear thy holy dreams aloft. Sweetheart — Good-night ! Good-night ! stars smile in mirrored stream, While, over meadow's fair expanse, Benignant planets kindly gleam To light good fairies' midnight dance. Sweetheart — Good-night ! Good-night ! now glittering dew-drops deck The velvet bosom of the lawn, Fit jewels for thy snow-white neck. Bright as thy sapphired eyes at dawn. Sweetheart — Good-night ! Good-night ! the honeysuckle vine Spiced night-wind's odors, chaliced, sips, Its censer, swinging in thy shrine, Finds sweetest incense on thy lips. Sweetheart — Good-night ! Good-night ! when moonbeams chastely glide Within thy chamber's hallowed fane. May sainted spirits there abide And o'er thy stainless slumbers reign. Sweetheart — Good-night ! Good-night ! and if in darksome hour Some sound should startle, do not fear ! No evil may invade thy bower, A lover's heart stands sentry near. Sweetheart — Good-night ! THROUGH THE CARIBBEAN SEA. 243 Good-night ! when glowing glance of Morn Peers in thy blushing lattice-bar, The roses which thy cheek adorn Than this warm look more crimsoned are. Sweethe9.rt — Good-night ! Good-night ! as fond birds come to wake Their playmate in her downy nest, Breathe prayer seraphic for his sake Who wears thine image in his breast. Good-night, Sweetheart — Good-night ! "Ah," said Uncle John, with a ruminant sigh, "when I look at that moon, moving majestically through cerulean space like a stately ship full-rigged, I recall the time when the warm blood coursed in my youthful veins, swift as the water rush- ing through 29 Hose ; when all nature was smiling and gay. I think of those dulcet moonlight nights when two eyes could see for four, and four arms were but two for all practical pur- poses. This salt air is transformed in memory's condenser to the perfume of lilacs in Harlem Lane, or the freshness of dew sprinkled spruce-trees on the old Bloomingdale Road, and " " Gammon ! " interrupted the startling voice of the Commodore, breaking in on the plaintive clarionet-like notes of Uncle John, like the blare of loud bassoon heard by the wedding-guest in the Ancient Mariner — ' a gammon ! ' who will play three hits or a gammon for a drink of lemonade ? " The Commodore has no poetry in his soul ! To break up poetic reverie with backgammon ! Yet there is a great deal of gammon in poetry. CHAPTER XIX. CURAgOA. The Pilot — Fortifications — The Dock — Peddlers — Custom House — The Church — Geneva — Roman Organ — Jewish Synagogue — Commerce — Pirates — Smugglers — Vegetation — Water — Goats — Municipal Divi- sion — Vis Inertice — Streets — Romeo and Juliet — Vessels — Vene- zuela — Slavery — Negroes — Dialect — So-long. Cur Ago A, April 4, 1884. The appearance of Cura^oa, as we lay in the offing, on the morning of April 1st, brought to mind views in Holland. The place presented the appearance of a Dutch town, the houses had the same look, yellow-tinted, with white copings, and brown and red tiled-roofs. Before we landed, there could be predicated of this aspect, Dutch cleanliness, order, and neatness. One could almost imagine himself approaching Rotterdam or sailing in lazily from the Zuyder Zee. We had to wait for a pilot, as there is but one licensed for the port, but after a time a well-manned boat approached, and a quiet, self-po^essed negro stepped aboard to take charge of our entry. There was nothing remarkable about his handsome, portly person, unless it was the novel seaman- attire of Panama hat and embroidered slippers, in which he ignored the professional array of the pilot of our shores — a black plug hat and heavy boots. Uncle John looked at the slippers inquiringly, but observed nothing extraordinary about them, not even in size, though they were quite large ; nearly big enough for a Syracuse belle. We had handsomer CURA^OA. 245 designs in our combined exposition aboard. This knowledge was gratifying, for it would have grieved our glass of fashion and mould of form to find a black pilot excelling us in any point of dress ; even were he the petted of dusk beauty in the highest circles of colored Curacoan society ; the recipi- ent of as many favors as the much-beslippered popular cler- gyman in the holiday season. The harbor entrance is imposing, flanked by stone forts which, while they would offer but ineffectual resistance to iron-clads, are calculated to inspire terror, like the restive horses of militia-officers at a " general-training." We passed, through the frowning portals, by the Governor's yellow pal- ace, a handsome building with capacious balconies, before which guard Avas being mounted in a slovenly, perfunctory manner. There is abundant evidence of military occupation, in the forbidding guns — grinning black teeth in the harbor's mouth — and the soldiers who loiter in the streets, both, I believe, equally harmless. Adjoining the fort, on the right as you enter, is a dismantled water-battery, with two or three honeycombed guns, mounted en barbette, feebly lingering on the dilapidated walls, like tremulous autumnal flies clinging to a crumbling pie-crust. Near this is an interior fortifica- tion or citadel — containing a bombrproof, with elaborate in- terior passages — within which are the barracks for troops ; a poor lot of men as compared with our soldiers, or the armies of England, France, Germany, and Austria. The garrison consists of one company of whites, sent out from Holland, with an occasional black soldier, enlisted here. Fort Nassau, situated on a high hill further inland, is a strong work, mounting heavy guns, and important from its commanding position. It is used for a signal-station. These works are all old style, stone fortifications, ineffectual as de- fenses against armor-plated ships, which would knock them 246 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. into smithereens. Curagoa could make no prolonged resist- ance to any navy, saving, perhaps, that of the United States, which, Hke John Brougham's actor in Heaven, is no navy. It was formerly a walled town, but walls are no longer fash- ionable, except some disjointed relics, like those of Quebec, which are kept as curiosities, or the enclosure of Chester, England, used as a promenade, a sort of English wall-street. It is safer walking there than in the American Wall Street, which abounds in slippery places. Lubrici sunt fortiuKE cressus. We wanted to sail up into the lagoon, but the wind being light, the pilot determined to moor the yacht at the dock. There are no steam-tugs, and towing would have to be done by small boats. The boats which ply in the ferry between Willemstad and Otrabanda are of solid Dutch build, flat- bottomed scows, square-ended, propelled by an oar astern, with the motion called sculling. Few boats are to be seen with side oars used in the usual manner, nearly all are sculled. The Commodore was prompted to remark that these boat- men must do a great deal of head-work — they use their sculls so much. He paid his fine. I think I saw that joke in Joe Miller; or heard it aboard the Alliance. As it turned out, we might have gone into the lagoon and anchored there instead of tying up to the dock, to run the risk of being boarded by rats, cockroaches, and such " small -deer," from which infliction we have been fortunately exempt thus far, notwithstanding two weeks' foggy adhesion to Pier 3 N. R., waiting for a send-off. With the exception of three mosquitoes who paid us a short visit of courtesy, and not on business, at Martinique, and considerately retired early without taking something, contrary to the habit of the regu- lar visitor, we have had no insects of any kind on board. Whether this is due to the presence of detergent, as Uncle cuRAgoA. 247 John claims, the fear of James' pills, or whether it is a recog- nition of the exemplary conduct of the voyagers — the purity of life which envelops them and deters gentlemen of question- able habits from seeking their society — is a point that I am unable to determine. I leave it open to suspicion. Our arrival at the dock was watched with much interest by the crowd assembled, a concourse of unemployed, who gazed complacently on the sailors straining at the warping- hawser, and offered no objection to their perspiring as much as the effort demanded. One of the amiable characteristics of the idler is his willingness to let the other fellow sweat. Hardly had we made fast, when the dock swarmed with peddlers of carved knicknacks, fancy boxes, shell-work, birds, and straw-hats. Many of these were women, who carried their warehouses of merchandise on the head, as is the habit of sensible persons who have heavy burdens to bear. It was somewhat remarkable that the first display of wares was an assortment of vivid cravats, offered, by the black Autolyca who bore them, to Uncle John, in whom, with feminine in- tuition, she recognized a sympathetic purchaser. But she brought her goods to a poor market. It was carrying coals to Newcastle, or recommending Captain Williams to play clubs for trumps. There was nothing in her stock that ri- valed in splendor the gorgeous deposit which glows beneath in the depths of Uncle John's locker, like gems of purest ray serene the dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear. The first visit after landing was to the Custom House, ac- companied by Mr. Gaertse, a merchant to whom we had letters of introduction. He greatly facilitated our business, which was to impress upon the collector, Mr. de Veer, that the yacht's commission exempted her from entry and clear- ance and the payment of port-dues, compulsory on merchant- men. The infrequency of yacht arrivals (it is several years 248 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. since one was here before) rendered an examination of laws and treaties necessary, which resulted satisfactorily to the pleasant collector. We learned here that an error had been made in reporting us from the telegraph station. Our ensign was mistaken for the flag of the RepubHc of Hayti, and we were reported as a Haytian vessel. Possibly the telegrapher caught a glimpse of the Commodore's swarthy face, as he ap- peared on deck, with cheek darkly, deeply, beautifully bronze, from exposure to wind and weather. Or the official may have known that he was a Black Republican — munificent con- tributor to the hat passed around for soap in the cause of freedom. We omitted to telegraph our arrival to New York, as has been customary upon reaching other ports. Telegraphing is an extravagant luxury in the West Indies, and we are begin- ning to practice economy. Then there is no telegraph in C\xra.qoa. After leaving the Custom House, Mr. Gaertse kindly de- voted himself to showing us the public offices in the Govern- ment Square, the business-rooms being in the lower story ,_ and the Governor's residence in the apartments above. In the same enclosure is the Dutch Reformed Church. Mr. Gaertse, who is a deacon in this church — the State establish- ment of Holland — pointed out the curiosities of the plain and unpretentious old building. Inserted over the entrance, like a wart on the forehead, is a cannon-ball, fired at it, about a hundred years ago, when the English occupied the oppo- site shore of Otrabanda, and amused themselves by pitching balls at Willemstad, asserting their orthodoxy by apostolic blows and knocks on the Calvinistic church. This ball has probably been permitted to remain as a sign of the church militant ; after the fashion of Pompeiian sculptures over the door, indicating the business carried on within. The floor CURA^OA. 249 of the church is covered, to the depth of three or four inches, with fine white sand, which has the advantage of affording no refuge for carpet-bugs, and, as kneeHng is not part of the service, it furnishes a clean floor-cloth, leniently assuaging the clatter of late-arriving brogans. At first, one accustomed to the Yankee tavern might suppose it to be intended for tobacco chewers, but church-members do not chew tobacco here. They only drink, smoke, play cards and billiards, and dance on Sunday. There is no prohibition of the use of to- bacco, by a Conference, on religious grounds, as being con- trary to the teachings of the Bible, in which no permission is granted to masticate, but they choose not to chew, as Uncle John said. It isn't chic among gentlemen anywhere but in America. There is an elaborate enclosure for the Governor, and pews for the elders and deacons, but chairs for the general congregation, the vidgiLS, divided by an aisle through the middle, the women occupying one side and the men the other. A story is told of an English friend of ours who attended divine service and insisted on sitting among the women — like Achilles, only in his own shape — saying that he always sided with the ladies. In this division the line of demarcation between the sheep and the goats was suggested, A commendable feature of the service here is the omis- sion of passing the plate. As the government pays ex- penses, there is no necessity for taking up a collection, but after meeting is over the deacons stand at the door, holding bags in which those who choose may drop their offerings. There is no echo from the bottom of the bag, and nobody knows the weight of his neighbor's contribution, nor is it considered obligatory to give anything. It is different from the delightful little church, where Vestrym.an Josephus Ar- noldus levies contributions, like an ecclesiastical Rob Roy, 250 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. grimly passing the defiant plate, raiding the pews with stern impartiality, and looking daggers, at anybody who puts less than a quarter of a dollar in his sacerdotal sporran. In view of this unrevealing bag, which doesn't let the right hand of the deacon know what the left hand of the donor does, the copper currency of Curagoa is peculiarly adapted to church purposes. The small coin has the value of two-fifths of our cent. This insignificance of expenditure appeals strongly to the religionist of an economical turn, who finds it cheaper to go to church and put something in the bag than to stay at home and sm.ok& periqtie. During the terrible hurricane a few years ago, the tiles were lifted bodily, and a tidal wave setting in, the church was filled with water through the roof; converted temporarily from a Dutch Reformed to a Baptist church, by immersion. It contains a fine organ, built for the cathedral at Havana. While the war was in progress between Spain and Columbia, it was captured and brought here by a pious privateer to be placed in the Catholic church. It was found to be — like the surplices on the choir-boys at Grace — too high for the church, and as the Dutch Reformed congregation had a smaller instrument on hand, a trade was effected, and now the Catholic organ sounds within Protestant walls, while the Protestant accompanies the priest singing Mass. Can any- one say that the worship is less devout because of this change, that the tones of the Protestant organ do not blend harmoni- ously with the Adeste Fidelis, or that the strains of the Catholic do not fit (Sin fefte ^urg ift unfer @ott. If the angels can distinguish any inharmony between them, they have ex- ceedingly fine and critical ears for music. Little religious bigotry exists. The Government sup- ports the church, pays the salaries of ministers, and keeps the buildings in repair, but it pays the Catholic priest and cuRAgoA. 251 Jewish rabbi as well as the Protestant minister. In the Dutch Reformed church the sermons are preached in Dutch, and VioX. pap lament 0, the island dialect. After visiting many- countries, I have come to the conclusion that we are about as bigoted in the United States as they are anywhere. We talk more religion and believe less, we prate more about religious liberty and have less toleration of opinion, than any other people. Mr. Gaertse is intelligently liberal in his views, and is happily circumstanced : he is a deacon in the Dutch Reformed Church, his wafe is a Catholic, and he has a sister a nun. Thus he has a part-proprietary interest in various avenues leading to Heaven. Of the twenty-five thousand population of Cura^oa, but three thousand is Protestant. The negroes are all Catholics, the whites, Protestants and Jews. The most imposing structure on the island is the Catholic cathedral, not yet completed. The Orthodox Jewish synagogue is a large building, two hundred and fifty years old, containing some particularly handsome brass chandeliers, the branched-can- dlestick. The sexton who showed us around (I don't know his church title in Hebrew) had a countenance of the most pronounced Jewish type. He carried the exaggerated beak of an eagle ; indeed it was large enough for a doubloon. Perhaps the prow of an antique galley would describe it better. He didn't understand English and was unable to impart any information when, wanting to be polite, I en- quired of him courteously, as if I were addressing John Mc- Cullough in the Fifth Avenue Theatre : " What news in the Rialto ? " What he knows he knows, but he knows enough not to give his " knows " away. It would give him away, however, if he tried to pass himself off as a Connaught man in Mackerelville. Still his nose might be subjected to a few yards' excision with advantage to his personal appearance. 252 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. Then he would navigate better. With a heavy bowsprit, he carries too much head-sail ; he is down by the head ; that's what makes him shuffle along so round-shouldered. There is a split between the conservative Hebrews and the i-eformers of the new school, who have a fine synagogue of their own. The Jews are powerful here and control trade. Business brains will tell everywhere. Abe, Ike, and Jake are too sharp for Hans and Derick. You can't beat the Jews. The Christians are very jealous of them in a commercial way. The money-changers haunt the temple, and commerce lurks behind the cross. The island contains one Lutheran and one Dutch Reformed church, two Jewish synagogues, and four Catholic churches, besides a chapel attached to the convent. You see I give you a good deal of religious information in these letters. I rather run to that sort of thing. I would like to see somebody who knows more about sectarian divisions — or who cares less. I look into these as matters of profitable inquiry. Religion enters into all the affairs of life, social, domestic, and governmental. You know that in Utica per- sons who become rich, and want to get into " good society," must quit the Methodist Church and join the Episcopal. The commerce of Cura^oa is considerable, but it has fallen off in late years. It is an ^^/r^"/)^^ for Venezuela. Its products are light, nothing of consequence but dye-woods, peanuts, and divi-divi. In this last article of commerce it might get up a flourishing trade with Albany, where there is often com- plaint of the scarcity of "divvy" during sessions of the Legislature. The productions of Curagoa being unimportant, it buys and sells everything. It is a general broker and commission merchant between the Spanish Main and the rest of the world. The light duty on imports makes it practically a free port, while the exorbitant tariff of Venezuela, a sweeping cuRAgoA. 253 duty of thirty per cent., naturally encourages smuggling, which I fancy is carried on largely, despite the vigilance exer- cised for its suppression. The proximate free port to a coun- try so heavily protected makes it reasonable to suppose that the Curacoan, who pays but one and a half per cent, duty, has a neighborly feehng of sympathy toward the Venezuelan, who is expected to pay thirty — but doesn't. In olden time, Cura^oa was a great place for pirates, who cov.ld lurk in the lagoon, with their light-draught, swift vessels, and dart out and pounce upon the heavy merchantmen passing in the open sea. But there are no more swash-buckler corsairs ; the smuggler has taken the place of the buccaneer. The emanci- pating yf/2(5z^j^^r roller-skating, except when some strolling company eddies this way. After all, are they not happier, imvexed by the worryings and excesses of fashionable life. They make home a sanctu- ary. Mr. Gaertse enjoys the advantage of having a large stock of relatives to draw from for family reunions. He was born in Curacoa, and so was his father, and the family con- nection amounts to over two hundred souls. I said it was all very well, but I could beat that record badly. He struck me 266 THE CRUISE OF THE MOKTAUK. on my strong point, genealogy. I could figure up, direct and collateral, according to my comprehensive method — but never mind ! I won't go into details ; but if all my relations would vote for me I might be elected Charity Commissioner. The father of our host, a bluff, stalwart, retired skipper, twice made the voyage to Holland, in a schooner of eighty-five tons burden, without a chronometer ; once in forty, and once in thirty-six days. We saw a curiosity here in a feathered watch-dog, a speckled bird with a long bill, resembling the heron species, called a Dara, which sets up a tremendous clatter when a stranger enters the premises. It is a faithful guardian, making a shrill noise, something like that of a turkey-gobbler. Mr. Gaertse, with his consonants Dutch-softened, said it had a very Blaintive cry. In discussing domestic matters, suggested by the skill of the cook who prepared our fine dinner, we learned that the pay of a first-class cook is four dollars a month, and that ordinary, capable house-servants receive two dollars. The wages of a master carpenter or mason is sixty cents a day, the journeyman receives forty. The competent architect who designed, and superintended the erection of, Mr. Gaertse's house was liberally paid a dollar a day. The laborers in the salt-vats receive twelve cents a day, and a small ration of Indian corn- meal, imported from the United States, the com- mon food of the poor. This, too, despite the fact that they are liable to become blind by continuous working in the dazzling white salt. But the cost of living is proportionately cheap. There is a savings bank here, but the deposits must be very small. A large share of the female population appears to be en- gaged in plaiting straw-hats, of every variety and degree of value, from the fine, expensive Panama, to the coarse straw CURAgOA. 267 sold for a few cents. Thousands of women are to be seen, seated at windows, in doorways, and along the streets, with fingers busily occupied in this work. Nor are all those so employed visible ; there is a hidden force of women making hats in the seclusion of their homes, and disposing furtively of the products of their labor. They do not wish to have it known that they earn something for themselves, regarding female employment for pay in the same demeaning hght that it is viewed in our own aristocratic land. This has some- thing to do with the fashion of wearing long finger-nails, which largely obtains among the women. Of course the patrician long nail would prevent the finger from being used in plebeian straw-plaiting, hence there could be no suspicion of the possessor working surreptitiously. The straw for the Panama is brought over from the South American coast, in- deed nearly all the material, except for the very cheapest, is imported. I bought a handsome hat for one-sixth of what it would cost in New York. The women all appear to be busy ; the men seem willing to let them. No horses are to be hired, and we were indebted for the use of the best pair on the island to Captain Smith, who took us for a drive to the country-seat of- their owner, the Estate Grosira, a place having the characteristics of Pompeii in the arrangement of the house. The pavement of the cavcediitm is mosaic, of coral shells, the atrium is similar, and the only difference is in the penetralia, of modern appearance. We saw some curious masonry on the grounds, a large unfinished bath, of solid construction, after the Roman style, the pro- jector of which is unknown. The wells are like those seen in Palestine. The figure of Rebecca would have been entirely in keeping, but she wasn't there : Dinah was. Our guide told us that there were no snakes in Curacoa, but as he was speaking I observed one crawling in the grass through which 268 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. we were walking. It was a mite of a thing, not over two inches long, and I suggested, from its color, that it might be a young coral snake, but the Captain said that there were no venomous serpents here, and the bite of the coral snake is deadly. He put his foot on the reptile and broke it in two, when both parts wriggled off in different directions. There was a split in the party, each probably claiming to be regular. Though the island is deficient in the matter of snakes, it makes up in scorpions, tarantulas, and centipedes. Captain Smith told- us of an occurrence which was highly interesting to the participants for a few minutes. Entering his house one afternoon, his wife, recently arrived from the North, said to him that she thought she felt something on her back, and asked him to see if there was anything there, and if there was to remove it. She had on a light peignoir. Approaching, he found that the "something" was an immense centipede. Now this reptile will not bite unless it is touched, and the problem with the Captain was how to remove it without ex- citing it to inflict its poisonous wound. He was afraid to in- form his wife of its character, for in her terror she might make som_e motion that would produce the dreaded action, so, ap- parently careless in her view, he suddenly seized the reptile and covering cloth in his grasp, tore the peignoir from his wife's shoulders, and cast it on the ground. This centipede was the largest he had ever seen. It was probably lurking in the garment when his wife put it on. Centipedes do not take kindly to interviews. They are like defeated candidates for ofiice, interrogated as to the causes of disaster. The road through which we drove was most unattractive, level, smooth, and well-kept, but dusty, and bordered by un- sightly cactus-trees, which are employed as division-fences and hedges. They give a dreary look to the highway, with its jagged roadsides and sterile paths. These trees can be used I CURA^OA. 269 for no other purpose, the outer rim of wood cannot be worked, the pith will not burn, and the only merit I have heard claimed for it (which I forgot to mention in my last letter) is that it makes a cooling* embrocation in cases of fever. As there are many thousands of trees, with several gallons of febrifuge to a tree, and but few cases of fever, the supply largely exceeds the demand, and the cactus cannot, there- fore, be regarded as a valuable crop. In comparison, the Canada thistle is Hyperion to a satyr, for donkeys can eat it, while it isn't customary for the average donkey to go around with a portable forge to blow up a fire to simmer down cac- tus-juice into anti-febrile infusions. Then bees can sip sweets from the thistle blossom, and convert them into honey for Arabella Jane's luncheon ; likewise, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety ; it gives us, too, a handy quota- tion, " Nemo me iinpune lacessit " (used in some psoric connec- tion) — in fine, the thistle lays over the cactus by a large ma- jority. Some varieties of cacti, not trees, but plants and shrubs, produce gorgeous flowers, the graiidiflora for ex- ample. The aloe is of this family. Cochineal insects were formerly to be found on the leaves of some of these, but of late years they have dropped ofl", like Republican majorities since the war. The common cactus-tree, which fringes the roadway with abundant deformity, grows rapidly, without a root, a slip planted in the ground soon enlarging to a tree, holding on like a country cousin come to pay a short visit. We took a drive into the rural districts early in the morn- ing (as is the custom here, to avoid the heat of midday) with Mr. De Lima, some members of his family, and a party of friends ; visiting the estate of Mr. Jeudah Senior, called Zuikertuintze. (I wouldn't advise anybody to attempt to call it without holding a very strong hand.) We spent some hours in his orchard, a large plantation of fruit-trees, mango, 270 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. sapadilla, sweet-tamarind, and grape-fruit, but a melancholy place. There was no lively freshness about it, such as one finds in our verdant orchards, where the vivacious leaves seem to be full of willing life and animation. Here the trees have the appearance of languid indifference, seeming to grow in lethargic fruition, as if they complied reluctantly with an enforced exertion, a sort of slavery of effort, in which they take no interest, and only bear their burden under compul- sion. The dry, crackling turf is in marked contrast with the elastic, moist sward which spreads in velvet carpeting under our fruit-trees at horhe, grateful to the eye, springing respon- sive to the foot. A picnic would be out of place in this parched fruit grove. I observed overhead some dark clouds which, to my un- tutored mind, betokened rain, but one of the gentlemen present said that these deceptive vapors came up every day for months at a stretch, laden with rainy promise, but never discharging a shower. However, I was not far out of the way in my anticipation. Before we returned to the house, four or five drops of rain fell, greatly to the surprise of the party, which I took as a personal compliment. It was like eiving- me three cheers. The clouds discovered a resident of the humid valley region, and sent down this sprinkle to salute a visitor from juicy Fort Schuyler, where, in very moist seasons, it rains occasionally. In Mr. Senior's mansion we learned something about the milk in the cocoa-nut, the juice of the green fruit, which we drank for the first time. I have often heard the superiority of this beverage vaunted, but it failed to strike us as pala- table, on the contrary it was cloying, if not insipid. A dash of schnapps improved it some ; but I cannot conscien- tiously recommend it as superior to milk-punch, with " a little hair " of nutmeg on the frothy crown. The Gilsey cuRAgoA. 271 House Alderney, in charge of Dairyman Butler, gives better milk. We returned from Mr. Senior's Canaan, laden with milk in the cocoa, grapes, and fruits of different kinds, to Mr. De Lima's, where we breakfasted. The custom here is to take the meal at eleven o'clock, after the European, continental fashion, the first repast being a roll and cup of coffee. Mr. De Lima's house, which adjoins the Cathedral, is spacious, airy, and cheerful, the cooling trade-winds blowing into the easterly exposure of his dining-room windows every day in the year. It is sufficiently capacious to accommodate his numerous and interesting family, Avhich nearly filled the long table, at the head of which he sat, like a cheerful patriarch, with a long line of descendants on either side, interspersed on this occasion with guests, who did full justice to the sumptuous provision before them. The breakfast was served in courses, the first being a sweet soup, followed by zestful hung-beef, imported from Holland. Then came anchovies, which, Mr. De Lima remarked, were substituted for caviare. The Com- modore, pushing them over to me, said that they were an appropriate succedaneum — " caviare to the General." The demoralizing influence of Uncle John's facetiousness is affect- ing everybody. It will reach me next, and the first thing I know I shall be trying to get off jokes. I never sat down to a more lavish breakfast, for, in addi- tion to the solids, were fruits in profusion, wines of various kinds, liqueurs, and coffee. It was a full dejeihier- diner. Greatly to our regret, we were compelled to withdraw in the middle of the feast, before the tenth course had been served, as we had an engagement to call upon the Governor at noon. In the evening, Mr. and Mrs. Gaertse and Mrs. y'Bara dined with us aboard the yacht. Mrs. y'Bara is an American, 272 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. daughter of Judge Russell, formerly United States Minister at Caracas, and wife of General y'Bara, who, in one of the revo- lutions which Venezuela gets up for amusement every year or so, was expatriated, and is now a professor in a Boston college. No doubt he will get back in a revolution. They come around like the recurrent hobby-horses at Rockaway Beach. We had obtained the necessary permit from the Governor to dis- play fireworks, and after dinner we rowed, in the Commo- dore's gig, up to the lagoon, and saluted the Dutch man-of- war with an exhibition of colored fires, repeating the display in front of the Governor's palace. I asked our fair exile if she were not afraid that she would be taken for ■d.filibnstera getting up a counter-revolution of some kind, but she an- swered that with the United States flag over her head she was afraid of nothing ; a plucky response, but I disliked to cool her patriotism by saying that the stars and stripes af- forded slight protection to the citizen abroad, unless he hap- pened to be in the safe retreat of an Embassy. Yesterday Governor Van den Brandhof visited the yacht, accompanied by his family and an officer of his staff". They all speak English- well, the Governor fluently, and their pro- longed visit formed an agreeable episode. The Governor is a man of fine presence and courteous manners, and appears to be highly esteemed by the inhabitants. In appearance he resembles somewhat the late General Burnside. His estima- ble lady, a leading member of the Dutch Reformed Church, is noted for her piety, and is foremost in all good works. It will not be improper for me to relate here an incident of the visit, which illustrates how manners and customs aff"ect the appearance of an object, viewed from diverse stand-points, in different countries. A custom which is regarded as. perfectly proper and innocent in one land, becomes blameful in the discordant view of another. cuRAgoA. 273 While drinking a glass of wine with the Governor's party, the untraveled American idea suggested, no wine to chil- dren ; so Uncle John, addressing the Governor's lady, said : "Madam, shall I have the steward bring your son some lemonade? " It didn't occur to him that it would be right to offer wine to a lad of twelve years. " No, thank you," she replied, " I think he would prefer a glass of wine ; he is very fond of champagne." Think of it. Christian Mothers of America ! Hold up your hands in horror, ye epicene Crusaders of Ohio, cleaning out the infidel salooniers with brawny capra arms ! Shrink from the appalHng spectacle of a fond mother, a devout mem- ber of an evangelical Church, leading an edifying Christian life, an exemplar of domesticity and all womanly virtues — the first lady in the land, holding the poisoned cup to the lips of her innocent young son, encouraging him to worship the demon r-r-r-u-m by giving him a glass of champagne ! Carry the news to Lucy ! Proclaim it from the housetops of Fremont : there is a land where everybody drinks, and no- body gets drunk to make business for the reformers ! De- le7ida est Curaqoa ! The heterodox creed, which is fast encroaching on our faith, and loosing the bonds that held our forefathers to belief in the Bible, by lugging in unauthorized precepts of the Koran, finds no favor here. The people believe more majo- riim,. They are astonished when told that some Christians, with perverted ideas, regard drinking wine a sin, and it is hard to make them understand how Legislatures can pass laws to prohibit the manufacture and sale of spirituous liquors. One gentleman remarked that these places must be convict colonies of drunkards, where such prohibitive enactments were punitive laws. He couldn't understand why he should be deprived of his right to take a glass of wine because some- 274 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. body else made criminal use of an innocent instrument. But they are greatly behind the age, in slow, simple, honest, virtuous, religious Curagoa. They ought to come to the United States to find out what is true morality in business and politics ; to see our honesty in religion, legislation, bank- ing, and commerce, and admire our scrupulous virtue in social life. The religion of the blacks, as I have said before, is Cath- olic, of the whites, mainly Dutch Reformed, with some Lu- therans. The Dutch Reformed is the established Church, and, as they founded it, I assume that the Dutch understand their own doctrines. There is some doubt of their knowledge, however, growing out of the belief that obtains in the Dutch Reformed Church with us. The Governor is the magnate of the Church here. He represents the Netherlands, where it originated ; he occupies the biggest pew in the meeting- house, and is regarded as the member in the highest standing. If he is not orthodox, where can an exponent of the true faith be found ? The Governor gives his receptions Sunday nights, at which they have wine, cards, and dancing. Think of an elder in the Dutch Reformed Church in New York opening a small game after Sunday evening service ! that is, unless he did it under the rose, and nobody knew it but he and his pals, who wouldn't give it away to the deacons. In connection with this question, the thought occurs : does the Omniscient eye wink charitably at the tergiversa- tions of Curagoa, while keeping a sharp lookout over less- favored America, held to strict accountability. Possibly the Dutchmen who invented the Reformed Church and formu- lated its belief, don't know what their own faith is, as well as the Americans, who bought a piece of it second-hand. Strange how climatic influences affect religion ! In fervid Curacoa, of a Sunday evening, the pious Dutch Reformer CURA^'OA. 275 smokes his meerschaum pipe, and sips the fiery after-dinner cordial, in full view of passing Christians, and then goes in to play a game of sixty-six with his wife and children before re- tiring to kneel at his nightly prayers ; while in frigid Utica, if the church-member should indulge in these heathenish practices, his name would be marked Anathema, Maranatha, in the next list of that particular body of the elect, printed at the Herald job-office. The few operas and plays that drift this way are given Sunday ; it is the great day for dinners, parties, and balls ; it is the day of worship, rest, and recre- ation. But let us haste from the contemplation of this wicked- ness, which must fill with anguish the sensitive Christian soul, already tormented with doubting efforts to bolt Jonah and the whale, seasoned with Lot's wife. I ask pardon for pre- senting the repulsive picture here, but I must portray faith- fully what I have seen, even at the risk of shocking true piety with a view of this lamentable stubborn adherence, by the Curacoans, to the religious principles of the original Protes- tant Reformers, as displayed in the personal habits of Luther and Melancthon, without the modern improvements of Fran- cis Murphy. But while I submit to public opinion, which elevates the horn of the apostolical revivalist, I enter a pro- test against the abominable misuse of the word evangelist in our newspapers. The Evangelists are the inspired writers of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It was regarded as an oath of especial solemnity to swear by the holy evangelists. Now every blathering fellow who gets up revivals, and talks ungrammatically to the gaping multitude, is styled an evangelist. Imagine a man taking an oath, which he desires to be peculiarly impressive, on the blessed evangel- ists — Moody and Sankey. These phlegmatic islanders, clinging to their simple faith 2/6 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. and moss-grown traditions, fail to appreciate the modern evolvement, that truth, which appears to them immutable, may be changed by new inventions and reforms, as the world progresses, and that Divine revelation ought to be subjected to the patent-laws, like reapers and mowers, sewing-machines and telephones. There are many handsome mulattoes in Curacoa, and the negroes are better-looking than any we have seen, except at Martinique. The women wear the same long, trailing gar- ments, and shuffle along with their shoes down at the heel — when they wear shoes. The dainty feet, bien-chausses, which glance through the streets of Martinique, are not to be seen. But there are here few of the Creoles, so numerous in the French island, and so hard to distinguish from the natives of diluted negro blood. Small children are dressed comfortably according to the weather. Some of the little ones are cos- tumed in undressed Curacoa " kid " skin, and nothing more. We saw a small chap, proudly arrayed solely in a pair of shoes, which he wore with a conscious sense of extraordinary magnificence of apparel. Out driving in the suburbs, the other day, we came across a festive young darky, clothed in a bestrided broomstick, who forged up to the side of the carriage, and raced with us some distance ; prancing gayly along, a juvenile Knight Desnudo, in sable armor, with his broomstick lance in rest, tilting through the dusty lists. Ladies seem to be utterly indifferent to this sparseness of clothing so novel to us. It is all a matter of habit. I learned in Paris how American ladies can become familiarized with sights, which would shock them at home but fail to attract attention there. The al fresco style is more fashionable in the country districts than in town. The young ones crawl out of the rural huts like black ants from a hill. This sim- plicity of attire saves mothers the trouble of calling in their cuRAgoA. 277 children two or three times a day, to be washed, dressed, and spanked for getting the bib and tucker dirty, according to our unhealthy custom. Children ought to be permitted to roll around in the open air, even if they do soil their clothing. There is a great deal of health-sustenance in mud-pies. Everybody seems to be selling something in Curagoa, and the mystery is, with all sellers, where do the buyers come in. One will see in the outskirts a board stuck out with three or . four mangoes or half a dozen oranges for sale, and in town, the doorways are used for benches to display trifling articles. Perhaps they exchange with each other and do a barter busi- ness, or deal in " futures," without a delivery. The dock at which we are moored presents a constantly- changing assortment of sight-seers, the small boy being in the majority as usual. We bought from the crowd of peripa- tetic merchants some straw-hats and troupials, birds peculiar to the tropics, of brilliant plumage, something like the Balti- more oriole, and sweet singers. There was no temptation in the cigars at ninety cents a hundred, though they were im- ported. Black Jenny, dealer in birds, and brokeress in gen- eral merchandise, is a well-known character, and is spoken of by all as honest and reliable. Jenny has a knack of mak- ing herself useful. The steward being absent when some visitors came aboard, she appointed herself brevet-stewardess, without asking for confirmation, took charge of the pantry, and managed things in the most satisfactory manner. Jenny is a jewel — a black diamond. She is a judge of character. She picked out Uncle John as a good man. It is a motley assemblage on the dock, affording us much amusement in watching its shifting character and peculiari- ties. The variety of costume is remarkable. We longed for a photograph of one diminutive urchin, who stood two hours in the broiling sun, gazing entranced at the yacht. He was 2/8 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. fragmentarily clad, en ciierpo de camisa, a hole, with a few straws braided around it, partially covered his head, on which rested a cigar-box, while under his arm was carried an empty bottle. He stood firm and immovable, not changing his position, nor joining in the clamor of the other boys, who played all sorts of pranks. He may have been posing for a statue representing the Genius of Curagoa. Uncle John ad- dressed him, in Dutch, interrogatively, Zw ei- 1 ag er ! hnt he made no response, maintaining strictly his wide-mouthed im- perturbability. At length Uncle John nodded significantly to him, and went below, saying, as his head sank in the com- panion-way, something that sounded like " soon tight." He soon reappeared on deck, wiping his lips, and, as he surveyed the bare legs of the boy, hummed : " Le bon roy Dagobert Avait mis sa ciilotte a I'envers." Hardly were the words out of his mouth, when the as- sembled ragtag-and-bobtail chorused out, as if by preconcert, " Onkel Jan ; Jeem peel ! " Either a job had been put up on the Domino King during his absence below ; or James' pills have become so popular in the West Indies, through his advertising, that children cry for them. Curagoa would be a paradise for our volunteer building committees, which meet on the sidewalks and sagely super- intend, with unheeded suggestion, the erection of new build- ings. If the men who gather around fallen horses in the street, and offer advice about buckles and straps, would come here, they would feel at home. No, there would be nothing for them to do. Horses don't fall down ; it is too much trouble to get up again. If anybody ever died any but a natural death, what a place it would be for the chronic coro- ner's juror ! cuRAgOA, 279 Curagoa was discovered, in 1499, by Alonzo de Ojeda, one of the most brilliant and daring of the adventurers who sailed with Columbus on his second voyage. Americus Ves- pucius, who accompanied him, described the inhabitants as ignorant, but, at the same time, good-tempered and peaceable, though brutal in countenance and gestures — " la mas bestial e ignorante, pero mismo tienipo la mas benigna y pacifica de todas. They fill their mouths to overflowing with certain green herbs, which they chew like animals, and can hardly articulate words." By this he probably intended to describe the habit of chewing tobacco, which is American in our days, and may have taken its name, like the continent, from Ameri- cus, who discovered it. He says further, " hanging around their necks are necklaces, and they wear ear-rings," He de- scribes Curagoa as an island of giants on account of the extra- ordinary size of the inhabitants. This was an exaggeration, his mind having been filled with fabulous accounts of the Carib cannibals. There may have been giants in those days, but there are none here now. He also represents them as great fishermen and notes abundance of fish. Owing to the unrelenting hostility of the natives, Ojeda's efforts to colonize proved ineffectual. He devoted himself to the establishment of a colony on the mainland, called by the natives Coquibacoa, to which he gave the name of Vene- zuela (little Venice) from the appearance of the houses of a village erected on piles in the Gulf. Ojeda was an intrepid soldier, his valor often reaching the extent of recklessness. The stratagem by which he captured the powerful cacique Caonoba — by inducing him to put on a pair of polished manacles, representing them to be emblems of royal authority which came from the skies, then prevailing on him to mount behind him on his horse, when he rode away with his prisoner — illustrates, at once, the hardihood 28o THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. and the treachery of the Spaniard in dealing with the Indian. Caonoba died a prisoner, intractable to the last ; a noble ex- ample of the fierce heroism of the proud Carib chieftain. Ojeda's own career ended in poverty, humiliation, and neg- lect. He died so poor that he did not leave money enough to pay for his interment, and his last request was that his body might be buried at the portal of the Convent of San Fran- cisco, in expiation of his past pride, so that every one who entered might tread upon his grave. The conduct of Ojeda's companion, the bloodthirsty Gon- zalvo de Ocampo, who oppressed Cura^oa with barbarous severity, was stained with the greatest atrocities. He even wanted to extirpate the Indians. As it was, they were re- duced to slavery under the shadow of the cross. As Olmeda said : "Si es verdad que nos qidtaron libertad, en cainbio die'ronnos religioiir How many outrages have been com- mitted in the name of Christianity ! The Emperor Charles V. condemned the inhabitants of Curacoa to slavery, as rebels against Spanish rule. The abdication of Charles V., and accession of his son, Philip II.; the career of the Duke of Alva in the Low Countries ; the patriotism of the Counts Egmont and Horn ; and the hostili- ties which were terminated by the Peace of Munster, in 1648, by which Curacoa was ceded to Holland, are all matters of history. Curagoa suffered severely during the war between France and Holland, in 1672. She was prosperous during our Revolutionary War, when her situation as a neutral port gave her commercial importance. During the French Revo- lution, the slaves rose in insurrection, fomented by the ex- ample of the insurgents in Hayti, but the uprising was speedily suppressed. During the general European war, in 1799, an English protectorate was established, as a prudential defensive measure. When Holland desired the restoration 1 cuRAgoA. 281 of her ascendancy in the island, England demurred. In 1804, the English occupied Otrabanda, destroyed the Lutheran church there, and bombarded Willemstad, The island was unprosperous under English rule. After much negotiation, Cura^oa was finally ceded to Holland, by the Treaty of Paris, in 181 5 ; the Enghsh sailed for Jamaica, and the Dutch took formal possession, the following year. It seems that this rocky little island was a great bone of contention to warlike powers before the final cession to Holland. Simon Bolivar, the Liberator, resided here while he conducted his revolu- tionary operations for the liberation of South America. This is an affectionate, hospitable community, where wants are few and easily supplied ; where there are no mis- leading daily newspapers, no inquisitive telephone, no Good Templars ; where the hypocrite appears not, and the dema- gogue dare not show his face ; where there are no subscrip- tion-papers for political banners — where placid, blameless lives flow gently to unostentatious graves. It is a near ap- proach to Arcadian simplicity. The possession of forty thousand dollars makes one a very rich man ! It is no place for dentists. The richest in the land couldn't afibrd to have a tooth filled. Hence the teeth are good. Happy Curacoa ! Et nioi aussi ; fai ete en Arcadie. CHAPTER XXL RELIGIOUS SERVICES. Bird and Beast — Pretty Pets — Misty Fancies — A Cruel Wrong — Palm Sunday — The Thrilling Sea — Church Service — Ave Sanctissima — Prayer — The Sailor's Yarn — Resurgam. On Board Montauk, at Sea, Lat. i6°i2', Lon. 74°2^'. We left the harbor of Cura^oa on the morning of April 5th, with the harbor-master, Mr. Van Osnabergen, Captain Smith, and Mr. Gaertse aboard ; saluting the Dutch flag on the fort with colors as we passed out, having decided not to stay in Curagoa any longer. After a short sail, for the gratification of our guests, we put about and, leaving the gentlemen at the mouth of the harbor, turned our prow westward. A fresh employment to occupy the time presented itself, in the pas- sengers shipped, three troopials, a parrot, and a monkey. The delicate troopials belong in the saloon, and, being intended for presentation to some children at home, are the objects of much solicitude ; Uncle John and I devoting ourselves to their care with as much anxious assiduity as if they were them- selves the prospective pretty owners, instead of bright-plumed objects of vicarious tenderness. The plebeian parrot belongs to the steward, and the proletarian monkey to the sailing- master ; and both find their appropriate resting-place in the forecastle ; but all come on deck in the sunshine, with demo- cratic obliteration of caste distinction, where the clear whistle of the troopial, the harsh talking of the solemn parrot, and RELIGIOUS SERVICES. 283 the gibbering of the tricksy monkey, mingle hke the various- priced applause of box, pit, and gallery in a theatre. The parrot is a bird of attainments, a linguist ; he speaks Spanish. The monkey is a ridiculous little animal, a marmoset, named by the sailing-master " Eddie," on account of his fancied re- semblance to some politician. To see Uncle John and I hostlering the troopials in the morning, giving them their breakfast before our own preliminary coffee is swallowed, is suggestive to the Commodore of Poll Sweedlepipes, with his bullfinch drawing rations from the miniature well. Indeed he has begun to call Uncle John " Poll," and I suppose I would be addressed as Young Bailey, if I measured less around the waist, and could wear becomingly a short jacket with bell- buttons. I was afraid he would call us Sairey Gamp and Betsy Prigg, but the bird-nurse idea didn't occur to him. He would if he had thought of it, for he hesitates at nothing, and treats us with jocose familiarity, as if he were one of us, in- stead of being merely the keeper of our boarding-house during this cruise. We don't mind his badinage about the birds. One of these days, when pets shall be joined to pets, when we deliver the troopials — to which we are a sort of bird-grandfather as it were — to their owners, we shall be repaid, by pleased glances from bright eyes, for all the care we are taking of them. I am trying to teach the troopials some army-calls, but with indifferent success ; they are Span- ish birds, and cannot be made to understand whisthng in English. A funny story is told of the kind of a time a mon- key and a parrot had in an amicable interview in a clergy- man's study, but no such disrobing has attended the peaceful communion of our bird and beast on deck ; which appear to be rehearsing for the millennium, where the parrot and the monkey shall lie down together. They make no hostile dem- onstrations, dwelling in peace and harmony, eating out of 284 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. the same dish without greedy collision. The sailing-master is wrong in naming that monkey. He may resemble one in countenance, but he hasn't the habits of a Brooklyn politician. That statesman would never divide with the parrot ; he would grab all the spoils himself. Floating along with the softly-blowing trade-winds, which will continue until we reach the Gulf of Mexico, we think of our early reading of the adventures of Columbus in these seas ; of his persistence, his marvelous physical and moral courage and sublime devotion. We think of his erroneous pursuit of the far Cathay, his search for the terrestrial para- dise ; his endeavor to reach the mystic regions that existed only in the dreams of scholarly recluses, who spun theories from the vague legends brought by Crusaders from the Holy Land, and romances of travelers to the hazy dominions of Cubla Khan. The fabled Atlantis of Plato stretches out be- fore us, and the imaginary island of the Irish saint uprears in mountainous magnificence of phantasm. The traditional Island of the Seven Cities, with the Christian bishops, escaped from Moorish thralldom in Spain, might welcome us if we could find it ; but while we allow the imagination to dwell amid these entrancing fantasies, we prudently let the sailing- master guide the ship's course toward Kingston, Jamaica. Strange how news floats about the world in out-of-the-way nooks and corners, where it is borne by vagrant currents, to be picked up, waifs and strays of intelligence. While at Curagoa, Mr. Booth handed me a copy of an Amsterdam newspaper, which I glanced at, not expecting to see anything of interest to me, but the first thing that met my eye was an editorial reference to the death of Mr. D. C. Grove, of the Utica Observer. I was pained to learn of the unexpected departure of this amiable and upright gentleman. I also learned, from the same source, of the passage, by RELIGIOUS SERVICES. 285 the House of Representatives, of the act to do justice to Gen- eral Fitz-John Porter, at which I was greatly rejoiced, for the Senate has already taken favorable action in his case, and will certainly concur in this most just measure. As I know personally that the President is friendly to General Porter, I feel confident, for the first time, that the vindication of this loyal, chivalrous, and gallant soldier is at hand. I have never doubted his ultimate justification, though I knew that mean and dishonest political partisanship would interfere to thwart the reparation due him for long years of unmerited suffering. Unfortunately, in our office-seeking land, where truth is cor- roded in the selfish engrossment of unscrupulous politics, and justice yields to partisan expediency, fair right often goes down before the felon blow of mercenary wrong. Yesterday was Palm Sunday. We had no green branches with which to deck the saloon, and were forced to be content with placing in the companion-way a spray of sweet-lemon (beloved of the Curacoan belle) as the only available out- ward sign of festal recognition. These recurring anniver- saries bring up many scenes of early life, clothed in the azure hue of enchanting distance. I recall the green boughs piled before the altar, for aspergillous benediction, and distribution among the worshipers by white-robed acolytes, in St. John's Church, long ago ; and I can hear the voice of Joseph Ar- nott in the recitative, " And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way ; others cut down branches from the trees and strewed them in the way. — And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying (and here the choir came in with full chorus), Hosanna to the Son of David : Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord ; Hosanna in the highest ! " Good, simple-minded, pure- hearted Joseph has been many years singing that chorus (I don't think they would let him take the solo — he didn't do it 286 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. well) in the celestial choir whose strains reach no mortal ears ; and, save one, all the voices that joined with his in the exultant strains on Palm Sunday morning, in that organ-loft, are heard there no more, but are silenced forever. Aboard this yacht, we are no avowed professors of relig- ion, who wear pretentious piety on the sleeve for doubting daws to peck at, but, with a firm faith in an overruling Prov- idence, we deem it proper to observe the Lord's Day with becoming reverence. It seems strange that one can be an atheist at sea. The symmetry of natural arrangement, the undeviating accuracy of eccentric planetary revolution, the orderly recurrence of the seasons, according to an unvarying system, leaving nothing to chance ; the unfailing indications which enable the mariner to navigate the pathless seas, guided by the heavenly chart, whose points are marked by an unerring hand — all bear intrinsic evidence of an Omnis- cient and Omnipresent power. Human science has invented instruments by which we are enabled to decipher the Divine handwriting. With the sextant and chronometer to explain the mapped firmament, the navigator can ascertain where he is sailing on the wide waters with almost as much precision as if he were traveling on land. The stars are the lights that point out his path by night, and the sun's rays guide him on his course by day. How any one can cling to the deck of a vessel in a tem- pest, with the tremendous waves towering tumultuonsly, threatening to overwhelm ; the winds roaring as if seeking to devour, with irresistible force, these poor atoms of matter ; and the elemental turmoil filling the mind with an idea of the awful grandeur of nature, impressing by contrast the helpless insignificance of man's greatest power, without feeling the august presence of Omnipotence, is something that I cannot understand. RELIGIOUS SERVICES. 28/. We can recognize the day set apart for Christian worship, though we may not be gathered within the confines of a con- secrated temple, with stoled priest to offer sacrifice, and choired voices to sing the praises of the Most High, with in- cense floating in adoring clouds, and all the devotional acces- sories to stimulate the payment of homage. These surround- ings should be employed to the greatest extent possible in Divine service. There is no building too magnificent, no work of genius in painting and sculpture too exalted, no music too fine, for the service of the Almighty. But these adjuncts are not always within reach ; and even the impres- siveness of the most imposing church ceremonial (in which spiritual devotion is sometimes lost in distracting material admiration) cannot appeal more strongly to the religious sen- timent than do the sublimities of the majestic sea. I remember some lines by either Horace or James Smith, authors of the " Rejected Addresses," which seem to be pe- culiarly applicable to the idea I have attempted to convey, inadequately, I fear, in my own language. " Not to the domes where crumbUng arch and column Attest the feebleness of mortal hand, But to that fane, most catholic and solemn. Which God hath planned ; To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder. Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply ; Its choir the winds and waves ; its organ thunder; Its dome the sky." The stately ritual of the Church of England clothes, in dignified and appropriate language, the annunciation of faith, providing a common channel of devotion which all may em- 288 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK, ploy profitably, although some who unite in the service may reject the tenets, and deny the authority, of the organization that ritualizes the pious aspirations of the heart. It is the custom with us to have this service — according to the Amer- ican Episcopal form — read, by either the Commodore or one of his guests, on Sundays. The duty often devolves on me. I am but an indi-Terent reader at best, and have had little prac- tice in this particular kind of recitation, yet I manage to ac- quit myself to the satisfaction of the auditors, for this reason : I lived a long time in the pleasant Utica avenue where Trinity Church sits venerable under the shade of ancient trees, and my ears became acclimated, if I may use the expression, to the sonorous chants that came hymning out through the tinted windows, imbuing with melody my green-leaved mem- ories of happy summer days in dear old Broad Street ; and so, when I utter the words of the church service, the clinging tones seem to blend with my voice in echoing rhythm. " The Lord is in his holy temple ; let all the earth keep silence before him." At night we sit on deck, in the jewel Hght of the stars : Blue dome besprent with diamond dust, Bright gleams the path by angels trod, Mid countless jewels, rich incrust, Outshines the monogram of God. And we sing for our vesper service, the exquisite song to the Virgin, which touches the sensibilities with pure and re- fining influence. RELIGIOUS SERVICES. 289 EVENING SONG TO THE VIRGIN, Esjtressivo. _fe =*==?»= sane - tis We lift our ^fcS^= ^"^ -^-=s- s 3? :* -•y^isT T:*=qi ii 5 — f= ■»■ -^ :g: ■»■ :^-; T*^: I| I I UMJin^- ^:^:i= i3r^^35^^ H=^ ^ fc PBE souls to thee ; pro W^ bis, 'Tis night - fall on the sea. 290 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. b— ^ -t > Watch while shad ows lie 1 ., — -J*" — F3 — ^ 1 — F==i — ==s — =] — ===q ir- o'er the wa - ter spread, Hear the heart's =g=S — ^ — V-A ^_j_ tip ^ — =J — i: _ — ^--1 ^ ;_ m — , m m , m ^ P ' 1 ^ 1 1 1 ~ i — ^— 1 — m^ — 0—^ — 1» — 1 — — *-' — 0^ — i»J — — — ^-- -^ ^ -J!L Iff: If: :& -| 9 ts 1* T ^ F 1* =i ^p b [• • bt= -.. t=— - — bt=r^. E? \ H b^=t pE =^=^ r*z=*= lone - ly sigh, Thine too hath bled. »=^ -=1 F- =1- rM=.*z ig:=r:g _-:l g Zl g: ^^^^^^^^^g^g^^ M i l l I- ->■ ^=- s— a iit==,-i -^— RELIGIOUS SERVICES. 291 EE I^Se^ ==ff- i*=*==i;i= Thou that hast look'd on death, . . . Aid us... when m ~i-.=j. :Js=r:l===Si - ^ *- z\r=.±=-. ^:=:\- -m — m — ^ W^ -^ 5=:l!i=fEEfcBS=:3 lte^= -^-J. 1 I 1 iBr Z=(^^Z ^=SF ==!*= tea: ■^' ^J^=r- r.*33=«t -» — f- death is near ; Whis - per of Heav'n to faith, Sweet i *^5: w -^ — a — ^- tt -g:— '^— r= 424 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. ,^S !- - J_^ p — I t:_ai — 9„ ^ g_n_« ^ — Ral - ly round this jo - vial board, No - ble Ley - al Le - gion. — 1 J*=qs- (-J — 9 — m c — I 1 oi zii — zi 1 :^=^= "5 ^ Quick their country's call to heed, Noble Loyal Legion, Faithful in the hour of need, Noble Loyal Legion, Glorious deeds of patriot band, Fighting for fair Freedom's land, Bright on history's page shall stand. Noble Loyal Legion. Laureled banners on the wall, Noble Loyal Legion, Tender memories recall. Noble Loyal Legion, Joys with sadness interwine, Hearts through humid eyes outshine, Tears perfume the merry wine. Noble Loyal Legion. Year by year the ranks get thin. Noble Loyal Legion, Few recruits are taken in, Noble Loyal Legion, There's no place for traitor knave. Sordid churl nor dastard slave — Vainly such admission crave. Noble Loyal Legion. HOME AGAIN. 425 While of this heroic host, Noble Loyal Legion, One is left to drink a toast, Noble Loyal Legion, He'll remember days of yore, Loved companions gone before. Mustered on the shining shore. Noble Loyal Legion. Fill your goblets to the brim. Noble Loyal Legion, Join in the Commandery hymn, Noble Loyal Legion ; May the last Companion here When he sees grim death draw near, Meet him with bold Legion cheer ! Noble Loyal Legion. Captain Buckman, who served as an engineer officer in the Confederate Army, and planted some innocent shell-fish in Jacksonville harbor during the war, sang Benny Havens over and over again. It brought tears to his eyes at the thought of the old days, for he is a warm-hearted enthusiast and betrays the impulsiveness of his ardent Celtic nature when moved. It is refreshing to come across an enthusiast, in these cold, cynical, nil adtnirari times, when only vitupera- tion excites warmth. Small praise, but abundant blame, seems to be the fashion. Mr. Jones is the editor of the Times-Union, a Democratic organ, and Mr. Driggs is a member of the Republican Committee, so that we were equal politically, with an odd number in the assemblage. The bal- ance of power was held by Uncle John, a "fencer" of re- nown, who maintained it in eqitilibrio, with strict imparti- ality : he is a Republican who votes the Democratic ticket. The symposium was a period of uninterrupted joviality, fitly 426 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. crowning with agreeable recollections our last night in port, before the final sail for home. The Commodore's impressive readings from Longfellow, with interjected comments (some- times inapplicable) by all the auditors, was an elocutionary- effort long to be remembered. Our guests left in the morn- ing, after a light early breakfast of fennel and an egg and rasher, bearing, we trust, their share of the happy thoughts which will cluster in retrospection around a day of undiluted pleasure in St. Augustine. There was but one drawback to our visit. We failed to bring away an alligator. The steward had purchased one, but we left it ashore. No well-regulated family ought to come away from Florida without an alligator. A young alligator is quite an entertaining pet. It is what the ladies call " cun- ning," ranking next to the young nigger and little pig, which are held in high estimation in this category of admiration. The destruction of alligators in Florida every year is enor- mous, and it is said that before long they will be nearly extir- pated. But if we failed on the alligator, Uncle John secured another pet in a mocking-bird, of remarkable merit as a singer, which he named Jim. Shortly after the departure of our friends, we sailed out of the harbor, the sun tipping with silver the steel-blue waves (false heraldry, emblazoning metal on metal), a fresh breeze serving to get us over the bar, and enabling us to escape the Seth Low, which we feared would be lying in wait to give us a tow, which would have made a heavy inroad on the Com- modore's treasure-chest. Everything seemed propitious for a quick passage. On the 30th we were off Cape Hatteras, and some stormy petrels sailed around, the first we had seen during the voyage. Their appearance is said to presage a storm, but we had none. They deceived us. I shall place no confidence in Mother Carey's chickens as storm-breeders HOME AGAIN. 42/ hereafter. Perhaps they had a gale on hand and reserved it for another vessel. If not, they, owe us one. But they needn't be in a hurry to pay ; we are not inexorable credi- tors. We saw here a fine sight, a large, full-rigged ship, under a cloud of canvas, from deck to truck, every sail set and drawing — main, lower and upper topsails, topgallants, royals and sky-sails. It was a graceful picture. The modern four- masted schooner presents an attractive appearance under full sail. May-day came in bright and warm. Uncle John pro- posed that I should put some artificial flowers in my hair and dance with him around the foremast as a may-pole, but I said no ; I wanted no floral crown ; like Caesar, I wore laurel to hide my baldness. He said he didn't see it, and I told him it was because I had neglected to employ the newspaper correspon- dents. We had a fine run of fifty-two miles in four hours ; then cold, baffling winds set in, and our next twenty-four hours showed a progress of but thirty-one miles. The returns came in unfavorably, showing heavy losses. The winds are uncer- tain, like the German vote. If I wanted to say something unjust here, I would quote Souvent feinnie varie, and com- pare the wind to variable woman, but I deny the truth of the saying. The Latins knew better, they made the wind mas- culine. It is the man who is fickle, the woman is true, faith- ful, loyal, and devoted. She always will be, unless she gets spoiled by voting, or knocking around promiscuously among men in unfeminine associations. You can't restore the bloom to the peach after it has rolled on the ground. During this calm, we had time for a good deal of discus- sion, and, talked over our experiences since last February with much earnestness. We agreed in the main, but our 428 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. fondness for argumentation found wide scope during the idle floating along. One of the perplexing problems was to ac- count for the fact that during our voyaging, visiting English, French, Dutch, and Spanish islands, attending operas and carnivals on Sunday, we never happened to see a case of drunkenness. The Commodore accounted for it by the cli- mate, but I said if it was an atmospheric influence, New York City would be exempt from intoxication during the hot sum- mer months, which are as warm as the tropics in winter. Then the light wine and beer theory, which is advanced to account for the superior temperance of Europe, will not hold good, for we have been in places where they drink spirits ; where all the rum of commerce is produced. When asked how I accounted for it, I said : " My theory is that drunkenness is fostered, to a great extent, by excise liquor laws intended to operate prohibitively ; that is, instead of being a source of rev- enue merely, under proper regulations, excise is diverted to restriction. Excise means revenue, not prohibition. These have powerful allies in the ignorant anti-drinking societies, which make no distinction between moderation and excess, between temperance and drunkenness. They promote the evil they ostensibly essay to cure. Moderate drinking is one of the cardinal virtues — Temperance ; drunkenness is one of the seven deadly sins — ^Gluttony. The teetotal reformer jumbles them together and bespatters virtuous Temperance in his indiscriminating attacks on vicious Gluttony. It is no merit to abstain entirely from the use of intoxicants, unless the abstainer has a dangerous longing which might lead him to excess, in which case abstention is an effort of self-denial which entitles him to the same credit he would earn by im- posing restraint on any other inordinate appetite. But the person who has no taste for liquor and takes a vow of total abstinence has no merit as the exemplar of a Christian virtue. HOME AGAIN. 429 for the simple reason that total abstinence from intoxicating liquors is not a Christian virtue, any more than total absti- nence from pork and beans would be : not so much if one were fond of pork and beans to excess, and didn't care for liquor. "There is a class of busybodies, meddlers, fanatics, and bigots who have set up the modern heresy that there is some- thing unchristian in drinking. They call themselves temper- ance men, or temperance menwomen, as the case — or rather gender — may be. This is a misnomer. Temperance doesn't mean total abstinence. It means moderation. Here is the authority of the lexicographers : "Webster defines ' Temperance, Habitual moderation in regard to the indulgence of the natural appetites and passions ; restrained or moderate indulgence ; moderation ; as temper- ance in eating and drinking ; temperance in the indulgence of joy or mirth.' "Worcester gives this definition: ' Temperance, Moder- ation ; opposed to any improper indulgence, but especially to dncnkenness and gluttony ; sobriety ; soberness.' " ' Observe The rule of not too much, by temperance taught, In what thou eat'st and drink'st.' — MiLTON. " But the professional teetotaler parades himself ostenta- tiously as a temperance man, when he is really nothing of the sort ; he is an intemperate extremist. Teetotalism is the frigid zone, Temperance the temperate. Drunkenness the tor- rid. The two extremes are teetotalism and drunkenness, the golden mean is temperance, moderate eating and drinking. " Yet these sciolous agitators will insist that they have a right to establish a Christian prohibition of drinking intoxi- 430 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. eating liquors. They usurp the prerogative of Christ and His Church in laying down the law. They are of the same class as those who quote the Decalogue, relating to the ob- ligatory Jewish Sabbath, to enforce the observance of the optional Christian Sunday. They organize associations which they style Christian Temperance (meaning teetotal) societies, the fundamental principle of which is that prohibition of drinking is part of Christianity. This is misleading assumption. Christianity inculcates temperance, or moderate drinking, teetotalism is total-abstinent Mohammedism. The believer in the Bible drinks, if he wants to, the votary of the Koran is a teetotaler, a prohibitionist. There is not a line in the Bible that prohibits drinking in terms, unless it be in the one quotation I shall make presently. Drunkenness is de- nounced, but moderate drinking is encouraged. It is said that you can prove anything by the Bible, but there is one thing that cannot be found in it — a text absolutely prohibit- ing drinking. There are many that commend it. For ex- ample : " Psalms civ. 15 : ' And wine that maketh glad the heart of man.' " Proverbs xxxi. 6: ' Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts.' " ' Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.' "Judges ix. 13: 'And the vine said unto them. Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees ? ' " These texts could be multiplied, but they are enough for the purpose. I know you can find others, such as ' wine is a mocker,' and ' look not upon wine when it is red,' but these shafts are directed against immoderation. HOME AGAIN. 43 1 " I can find but one text which would give color to this assumption of positive prohibition, and even this is suscept- ible of a different interpretation : ' But they who believe, and who fly for the sake of religion, and fight in God's cause, they shall hope for the mercy of God ; for God is gracious and merciful. They will ask thee concerning wine and lots : Answer, In both there is great sin, and also some things of use unto men ; but their sinfulness is greater than their use. Satan seeketh to sow dissension and hatred among you, by means of wine and lots, and to divert you from remembering God, and from prayer : will ye not therefore abstain from them ? ' " This is not a command ; it is simply a request, and to make it prohibitive is a strained construction. " But drunkenness is a horse (or pig) of another color from temperate drinking. So far from intolerance in this matter, a little lushing was probably not regarded as out of the way after Christianity was formally established and promulgated in the use of wine at the Last Supper. Before that, the Saviour of Mankind was stigmatized as a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners ; as we find by Matt. xi. 19. The modern pharisees keep up the cry against publicans and sin- ners. My reason for believing that it wasn't unusual for the good fellows to get shghtly fuddled in those days, is found in the Acts of the Apostles. After they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, the Jews, in order to get a hitch on them, accused them of being drunk ; an amiable practice kept up to this day by liars and slanderers. Here is the text : " Acts ii. 13. ' Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine. "14. ' But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judea, and all ye 432 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words : "15. ' For these men are not drunken, as ye suppose, see- ing it is but the third hour of the day.' " It will be seen that St. Peter didn't ask the mob to accept his naked denial ; he backed it up with a convincing physical argument. It was too early in the day for the Apostles to be slewed. Later on, he wouldn't speak so confidently. " These Christian temperance persons will argue with you that the wine of the Bible was unfermented and unintoxicat- ing ; and in the next breath will quote the Scriptures against drunkenness, which they ignorantly or maliciously confound with temperate drinking. If it was not intoxicating, how could the sinners get drunk ? The fact is all wine is intoxi- cating ; if it were not, it wouldn't be wine at all. The sub- stance must be fermented to become wine. The exceptional prohibitory case before referred to is the command to Aaron, Leviticus x. 9 : ' Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation.' " This applies exclusively to the priests, and is restricted in time and place. Those of us who are priests, and go into the tabernacle, must abstain, but when we come out, there is no command against taking a modest quencher, as Swiveller would say. " It is no wonder that the faith of the people is destroyed when false prophets arise and pretend that the Christian re- ligion makes it sinful to drink. Yet there are some conven- ticles, or conferences (I don't know what they call these things) which will not permit a man to enter Heaven, through the particular gate they have charge of, if his breath smells of liquor. So the members of those persuasions or ' societies ' drink on the sly, and eat cloves and cardamom seeds. Others HOME AGAIN, 433 rule a man out of Heaven for using tobacco. I think myself St. Peter ought to draw the line at chewing. There is no more wrong in drinking a glass of good whisky than in eating a piece of bread. Any other belief is heresy. " The reason why there is comparatively so little drunken- ness in other countries is that nobody thinks of prohibiting the use of liquor ; but few get drunk, if we measure by the American standard. Public opinion is in favor of drinking ; public opinion frowns on intoxication. In our country, the loathsome drunkard, rolling in the gutter, glances through the window at a gentleman drinking a glass of wine at din- ner, and yells out : * You drink and so do I ; there are two of us.' Then the humanitarian (a vicious word etymologi- cally in the sense in which it is generally used, but probably correct in its employment here, for it means one who denies the divinity of Christ) slaps the miserable glutton on the shoulder and sniffles : ' You are right, my poor, weak, suf- fering brother. Keep on getting drunk so long as the gen- tleman keeps drinking and staying sober. You have as much right to drink as he has. You support my business of de- nouncing the saloon-keeper for making you drunk. Stay drunk ! ' " It is useless to theorize on these matters. Drunkenness is a horrible evil, but pseudo-reformers don't take the right course to suppress it, even if they want to, which is doubtful. Their occupation would be gone ; they would lose the frightful examples. There must be some object of denuncia- tion to keep up interest in the churches. So, when there are no serious conjElagrations, opportune railroad accidents, or frightful steamboat disasters to preach about, in star engage- ments, there is always left the stock business of iniquity in rum-selling, with the Bible lugged in occasionally by way of variety. Drunkenness is horrible. When the Lord wanted 28 434 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. . to cause destruction to the world He used the type of the wine-cup of fury to the prophet Jeremiah. There is a story told of a monk, to whom Satan offered a choice of sins — in- cest, murder, or drunkenness. The poor monk chose the last, as the least of the three ; and, when he was drunk, he com- mitted the other two. " In countries where there are no prohibitory laws, and no temperance (!) societies, there is but little intoxication ; it flourishes with prohibitive excise laws. This is the fact, and one can draw his own inference. I may be wrong in my de- duction. I am about as apt to be wrong as right on any sub- ject. I know that these views are not in accord with those that obtain generally in the community, but many thinking persons will agree with me. The mass doesn't think. A man gets drunk and commits a crime. Then the unthinking mob howls, Prohibit the sale of liquor ! It is an impracticability. The only way to prevent the use of liquor would be to make it a matter of religion as the Mohammedans do. The so- called temperance advocates attempt to make it a matter of Christian religion, but, unfortunately for them, it is inconsis- tent with Christianity. To use the political simile, which a majority of religionists understand better than they, do the Bible, there is no room in the Christian platform for a liquor- prohibition plank. The Christian system is a Divine revela- tion, and there is no revelation against drinking. All through the Bible the use of wine in moderation is approved. To sum up, Temperance is a virtue. Drunkenness is a vice. It is a detestable form of Gluttony. Christ came on earth nineteen hundred years ago, this Christian Temperance business was unknown until within the past fifty years. Perhaps Our Saviour didn't know the law of His own promulgation." " If you talk that way when you get home," said Uncle John, " you'll have the churches come down on you." SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS. HOME AGAIN. 435 "Well let them come," said I ; " I think I can hold my own in the argument. The great trouble with us is that we lack the courage to maintain intelligent opinions against the assumptions of those who claim to be holier than we. Truth is truth, whether clothed in black broadcloth and white choker, or in blue kerseymere and red scarf with a diamond pin. The difficulty is, we are afraid of Tartuffe, Mawworm, and Stiggins. Let a man be a teetotaler if he wants to. It is his own affair. But he musn't insist upon every other man being one. Because I don't want it, you mustn't have it. He can't fit his bridle to every mouth. In Sir Thomas More's laws of the Utopians, it is provided that no man shall be punished for religion, ' it being a fundamental opinion among them that a man cannot make himself believe any- thing he pleases.' And this great chancellor and renowned scholar, a rigid Roman Catholic, was so honest and conscien- tious that he let Henry VIII. cut off his head rather than acknowledge the right of the king to divorce and marry at will. " One of the most unique practical temperance sermons is that given by Dr. Doran, in his ' Table Traits,' preached by a simple German prelate, the Bishop of Treves, evidently on the banks of the Rhine. He said : " * Brethren, to whom the high privilege of repentance and penance has been conceded, you feel the sin of abusing the gifts of Providence. But, abiiswn noii tollit usmn. It is written, "Wine maketh glad the heart of man." It follows, then, that to use wine moderately is our duty. Now there is, doubtless, none of my male hearers who cannot drink his four bottles without affecting his brain. Let him, however — if by the fifth or sixth bottle he no longer knoweth his own wife— if he beat and kick his children, and look on his dear- est friend as an enemy — refrain from an excess displeasing to 43^ THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. God and man, and which renders him contemptible in the eyes of his feUows. But whoever, after drinking his ten or twelve bottles, retains his senses sufficiently to support his tottering neighbor, or manage his household affairs, or exe- cute the commands of his temporal and spiritual superiors, let him take his share quietly, and be thankful for his talent. Still, let him be cautious how he exceed this ; for man is weak, and his powers limited. It is but seldom that our kind Creator extends to any one the grace to be able to drink safely sixteen bottles, of which privilege he hath held me, the meanest of his servants, worthy. And since no one can say of me that I ever broke out in causeless rage, or failed to recognize my household friends or relations, or neg- lected the performance of my spiritual duties, I may, with thankfulness and a good conscience, use the gift which hath been entrusted to me. And you, my pious hearers, each take modestly your alloted portion ; and, to avoid all excess, follow the precept of St. Peter — Try all, and stick by the best ! ' " I talked very seriously to Uncle John about his unfortu- nate propensity to make puns, which I regard as a blemish on his otherwise blameless character, but he would not be convinced. On the contrary, he contended that, while the dullard, unable to coin them, affected to turn up his stupid nose at these witticisms, they were held in high repute by the bel esprit. Said he : " Look here ; you have been casting at me old wives' fables, musty proverbs and quotations in Latin, Greek, French, and Italian, which you probably dug out of the dictionary, and now I'll hurl at you an original, neat description of the pun, and see if you can rival it with your wordy exhumations. The pun hits the nail on the head ; it is the veritable remacutetigistical condensation of verbalistic exploitation. What do you say to that ? " HOME AGAIN. 437 "Nothing," I answered; "it is a dumfounding sock- dolager." " Puns," resumed Uncle John, "spring forth spontane- ously. I can't stop them. They are like the effervescing bubbles of champagne. " ' True wit is nature to advantage dress'd, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd.' " " If you are going to quote Pope," I said, " I'll try a few lines on you. " ' Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen ; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, . We first endure, then pity, then embrace.' I have listened so much to your punning that I am becoming fearful of contagion ; I am already in a state of endurance, and may end by embracing puns myself." " You needn't be afraid," sarcastically remarked the ver- balist, " you'll never be a punster. Nature didn't gift you with the requisite bright intellect and ready tongue. You lack the dWine a ffiatzis . Punster nascitur, non fit (there, you see, I can quote as well as you when I want to, but I prefer to be original). You may get off something occasionally if you stick to me, but your jokes will be valuable only for the novelty. They won't be good, but that you can make any will excite surprise. They will be like flies in amber. " ' Pretty ! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms ! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there.' " " Mercy, " I cried, " I give it up. No more contests with you. You have been saving yourself for one grand final 438 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. effort by which I am routed, ' horse, foot, and dragoons,' You have cured me of big words and quotations. I renounce them with all their works and pomps." But he wouldn't let me off. The ancient mariner seized my button-hole, with skinny hand, and carried the war into Hibernia. He said, " One of the popular stupidities is to associate wisdom with reticence and stilted dignity of deport- ment. If one is bright, cheerful, agreeable, a sayer of good things, he is set down as shallow and frivolous, but a dunder- head may get credit for gumption by wearing a thick suit of gravity." " Yes," I interrupted, " gravity is a mystery of the body invented to conceal the defects of the mind." "Never mind that," resumed Uncle John; "Sophocles was not far out of the way, in one view, when he said that ' to know nothing is the sweetest life.' You talk about trifling things. There are no such things as trifles in the world. The smallest events have their influence. Indeed, the destinies of the world are influenced by what are called trifles. There has been a great parade of Napoleon's blowing out one of the candles. I think it was a mean thing for him to do, but he was always a demagogue, although the greatest man that ever lived, and practiced that little bit of economy to get his name in the papers. " There is often much wisdom in folly. Let me read you what the learned monk Erasmus wrote, dedicatory of his great work ' In Praise of Folly,' to the erudite Sir Thomas More : " ' And it is a chance if there be wanting some quarrelsome persons that will show their teeth, and pretend these fooleries are either too buffoon-like for a grave divine, or too satyrical for a meek Christian, and so will exclaim against me as if I were vamping up some old farce, or acted anew the Lucian HOME AGAIN. 439 again with a peevish snarHng at all things. But those who are offended at the lightness and pedantry of this subject, I would have them consider that I do not set myself for the first example of this kind, but that the same has been oft done by many considerable authors. For thus several ages since, Homer wrote of no more weighty a subject than of a war be- tween the frogs and mice, Virgil of a gnat and a pudding- cake, and Ovid of a nut. Polycrates commended the cruelty of Busirus ; and Isocrates, that corrects him for this, did as much for the injustice of Glaucus. Favorinus extolled Ther- sites, and wrote in favor of a quartan ague. Synesius pleaded in behalf of baldness ; and Lucian defended a sipping fly. Seneca drollingly related the deifying of Claudius ; Plutarch the dialogue between Gryllus and Ulysses ; Lucian and Apuleius the story of an ape ; and somebody else records the last will of a hog, of which St. Hierom makes mention. So that if they please, let themselves think the worst of me, and fancy to themselves that I was all the while a-playing at push- pin or riding astride on a hobby-horse.' " " Forbear, rash man ! " I exclaimed, " I can submit to a good deal, but when you come to launch Erasmus at me, I have done. Go on with your joking ; be as funny as you can ! Erasmus ! Holy smoke ! as Aleck Taylor said when he saw a bishop light a cigar aboard the steamer America." Exeunt confabulations. I became homesick at the thought of parting with Uncle John. He was anxious to get home, but I have none to go to, and the yacht has become a sort of home to me during these months of pleasant companionship, lightening care, and shed- ding the cheerful glow of hearty and sympathetic communion. After a tedious wrestle with a head-wind and retarding fog, we sighted the Five Fathom light, off Cape May, on the second, and on the afternoon of the third we made the High- 440 THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. land lights, and, passing Sandy Hook after dark, sailed up to our old anchorage, singing, as we went through the Narrows, THE MONTAUK SONG. When we come sailing back again, Hurrah ! Montauk ! From cruising on the Spanish Main, Hurrah ! Montauk ! As we cast anchor in the Bay We'll hear the jolly boatmen say, Oh, welcome home in merry May The peerless yacht Montauk 1 We'd nasty weather in Gulf Stream, Hurrah ! Montauk ! We heard the wild waves' vengeful scream, Hurrah ! Montauk ! When Rugry waves our brave craft struck She met them with unflinching pluck — She rode the waters like a duck. The peerless yacht Montauk. Bermudian hospitality, Hurrah ! Montauk ! Outstretched warm hearts with hands so free. Hurrah ! Montauk ! Bold yachtsmen cheered with three times three The flag of New York's yacht navy — And pretty girls came out to see The peerless yacht Montauk. ' We met among West Indian isles, Hurrah ! Montauk ! Kind greeting words and genial smiles ; Hurrah ! Montauk ! And now we're here to sing the song. That winds and waves will chorus strong — May victories her fame prolong ! The peerless yacht Montauk. HOME AGAIN. 441 Before departure we had fixed May first for the date of our return. We were not far out of the way. Half an hour before midnight, on the third, some welcoming hghts were displayed from yachts in the Bay ; we came to anchor off Stapleton, Uncle John (the ruling passion strong to the end) shouting, as the chain ran through the hawse-hole, " Halloo, Mr. Breitfeld, you've dropped something " — and so ended THE CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 2>r A ^. '^<^, ^. v;'-;-^:.<^ "i^ 0' ". *^.- o > vO ■r •>. '^^. "'si ' ,0 ^^■~ 1 h '/ C' .0^ «. ^ * , 'i': o >