CHAPTER VIII.

ISLAND OF TRINIDAD. PORT OF SPAIN

I.

"I'se here, Missus; I'se here, waitin' fo' you" (from one of a crowd of chattering Spanish, English, French, Portuguese creoles, outnumbered by the ever-present black, in every shade, from deep chocolate to light saffron), greets us as we step on land at Port of Spain, Trinidad.

We do not feel quite sure which particular one, in all that pushing, scrambling, good-natured crowd, is waiting for us; whether it is the man with the two monkeys, or the man with the green and blue parrot, or the woman with the baskets, or the boy with the shells; but whichever one it is, he's there, and all his friends are there, with everything salable they possess, strung around them, fastened to them, hitched to them, in some fashion--any way to allow them free use of their arms.

"Well, we're glad you're waiting, Sambo. We fully expected to find you here. It wouldn't be Trinidad without a monkey or a parrot. We'll buy later. Oh, no! Not the monkey; we have one at home, and Heaven knows that's enough! But maybe, by and by, we'll see about a basket."

If there is one thing in the world Sister and I can never resist, it's a basket. That distressing mania breaks forth at the slightest provocation; it doesn't seem to make any difference where we are, or how impossible it is to gratify it; difficulties only whet the appetite. The more inopportune the occasion, the more we want the basket.

So we stood there on the quay at Port of Spain, with the lofty headlands of grand old South America away to the south of us, taking their morning bath among the clouds, and off in the north the mountain sweep of Trinidad, watching the queer old city at its feet, and betwixt the two, the Gulf of Paria, loosened from the Dragon's Mouth, spreading and expanding, with its waters a commingling of the blue of the Caribbean and the brown of the near-by Orinoco, washing the outstretched feet of the great mother and child; and we stood there, with all this grandeur ablaze in the first light of the morning, wondering if we would better buy the basket right then, on the spot, or whether we should wait until our return.

To be sure, we had one big basket--and a beauty, too--from St. Thomas, but it was always full, a sort of catch-all for our curious leaves, and seeds, and coral, and beads, and newspapers, and precious bills of fare,--treasured reminders of old balconies and lingering melodies; and it really seemed to be our duty to provide a number two size to carry to market. We could use it in so many ways, and then we wanted another basket. But, before we had time to strike a bargain,--for it's a half-day's work in these ideal lands to buy anything,--some one cried out: "If you are going to the Coolie Village, you'd better come right now, or the carriages will all be taken!"

"Who are the coolies?" Blue Ribbons asked, as we rattled along up Frederick Street. The answer to her question was squatting not far distant, where some cars, just arrived from San Fernando, were being unloaded. His hands were clasped around his thin bare legs; his face, serious, dark, immovable; his hair, black as ink, and straight; on his head, a voluminous white turban bespoke the worshipper of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. It was with mingled sensations of awe and fear that I beheld this unexpected Hindoo. His apparent unconcern of mundane affairs recalled not only deeply treasured teachings from his great masters, but, in his eyes, there was the black, unforgotten story of Lucknow. It was hard to reconcile the two.

It seems that the Hindoo "coolie" is imported by the ship-load into Trinidad, and indentured for a period of ten years; at the expiration of which time he may return to India at his company's expense, if he so chooses (and he usually does choose to do so, taking home with him a goodly store of gold). He makes a most valuable and reliable labourer, and has really been the salvation of the vast sugar and cacao estates on the island. It has been next to impossible to exact any continuous labour from the negro, without some system of slavery, and had it not been for the Hindoo, the resources of Trinidad would have been practically undeveloped.

The coolies were in evidence everywhere. In fact, they seemed to form a considerable proportion of the population. We do not wonder any longer at the emaciated pictures of the famine-stricken East Indians, for here, in a land of plenty, where food, almost ready cooked, is only waiting to drop, the Hindoo is the sparest, leanest creature imaginable. His ever-bare legs are not like flesh and blood, but small-boned and thin to emaciation, and almost devoid of calves below the knee; they have the hard statuesque look of bronze stilts. And the arms, too, are thin, and terminate in slender little hands that seem incapable of heavy and prolonged labour.

II.

Port of Spain, compactly, squarely built, and well paved, extends for quite a distance over a flat, alluvial plain to a grassy _savannah_, two and a half miles wide; one side of which, facing the Botanical Garden and the Governor's Mansion, brings you to the base of the mountain.

The city is neither beautiful nor clean. Its architecture, dominated by the taste of the Englishman, is about as unattractive as that of our own country. The business streets are dusty, shadeless, and devoid of cleaners, except for the vulture, who, with his long, bare legs, his skinny neck and head, and huge black body, plays the part of city scavenger. These ungainly, hideous, repulsive creatures stalk around everywhere; they are under the horses' feet; they roost on the eave troughs asleep in the sun, sit reflectively on chimney-tops, or come swooping down after some horrible piece of carrion in the street.

How can a civilised people be willing to turn the civic house-cleaning over to a lot of vultures? No wonder that plagues and fevers rage upon these beautiful islands. Under existing conditions, they surely have the right of way.

Did I understand you to say that the carriages were all gone when you came ashore? Come in with us! There, the front seat with the driver is just waiting for you, and really, to walk is hardly safe under this vertical sun. Would you mind if we make a stop or two on the way out to the village, for the man of the family must have some fresh white ducks to wear in South America; let us wait for him here in the carriage.

It seems pleasant to-day not to make any exertion. I've no doubt we can get a lot of information from the driver, if we question him. He responds, oh! yes, he responds with great ardour, but with what result? One word in ten, we recognise. He thinks, of course, he's speaking English, and I suppose we might better let him think so, but, bless you, if that's English, what are we speaking? It's just another of the West Indian surprises. You come to a country which has been under the beneficent English rule for over one hundred years, and you find the natives--the men who drive for you, who row you ashore, who carry your plunder, the women in the market--all speaking an almost unintelligible jargon of French, Spanish, Portuguese, English, with a little Hindustani and Chinese thrown in. Try the native on your best French, and at every five or six words he brightens up with understanding. Take any of the other languages and you have the same result; for your Trinidadian understands when he wants to, but woe betide you when you ask a question and want to know the answer. The native in Trinidad is bright and quick; he is not like his big lazy lout of a brother down in our Southland. He is a mix-up of many people, intelligent and active, and his language tells what a conglomerate he is, and what a happy-go-lucky life he leads.

III.

What can be keeping the shoppers so long? We shall certainly have to hunt them up; let us look inside.

I have often wondered what our mammoth cheap stores of the North do with their leftover plush albums, china shepherdesses, antiquated ready-made clothing, tin jewelry, their untold unnumbered tons of clap-traps; and now I know. It's all dumped right here in the West Indies. From South America to Cuba, there is one vast collection of trash imported to catch the pennies of these long-suffering people. It is always difficult to obtain any of the native work; we have to go among the natives themselves for that. One glance at Port of Spain's emporium, the _Great Colonial Stores of Blank and Co. Limited_, is enough!

"Mother," said Sister, "I have an idea! Let's try the deaf and dumb sign-language on the cabby." And she does. It works like a charm. Off we swing for the savannah, a great, green, grassy plain, the playground for the Trinidadians. Here, they have their horse-racing and golf and cricket and polo under the fierce, tropical sun; here, the merry-go-round and pop-stands burst forth every Saturday afternoon; here the inevitable "picnic" is held, and as we happen here on a festival day, we see the children--big and little--gathering from every direction. There is something indestructible about the customs of an Englishman. He does not change his methods of living, as do other races, but, wherever he goes, he carries from pole to equator the customs and habits of his own country. So he plays golf and cricket and polo in Trinidad, when, at its mildest, the heat is about equal to our August.

It is on this savannah that we have our first good opportunity of viewing the mighty ceiba tree near at hand. You remember it was a great ceiba to which Columbus made fast his ships on the bank of the Ozama River in Santo Domingo? The ceiba may not be the largest tree in the tropics. I do not wish to say it is, for it would seem then that one was limiting to a given scale the grandeur of the tropical tree. There is apparently no limit to anything in the way of size or beauty under these skies. There may be greater trees in the "High Wood" than the ceiba, but, in our experience, it was by far the most wide-stretching of anything we had yet seen. One stands before it awed, stupefied by its immensity, its age, its strange manner of growing. And we think over all the words we know to express its size and beauty, and we feel so poor and powerless in expression.

The ceiba on the wide savannah has endless room in which to spread. It is perfect in form, like a mammoth gray and green umbrella, and reaches out its immense branches toward every side in perfect symmetry. And such branches! They alone are as large as our forest oaks, and they throw themselves out from the trunk horizontally, in stupendous strength. Its foliage is rather thin; the power of the tree seems to be spent in trunk and branch. Its bark is like an elephant's hide, and its trunk has a strange way of buttressing out its side in huge wings. It is even said to be the worshipped tree of the superstitious black natives--a mysterious sort of _fetich_, the mighty, silk-cotton ceiba.

IV.

Fine residences skirt the savannah, each garden a marvel of beauty, in palms and trees whose names we do not know. Each little villa, has its English name plastered upon the gateway. This part of the city is clean, and the road is fine, so we will try to forgive and forget the shabby appearance of the lower town. We pass countless gardens, and then the houses grow fewer, and the gardens turn into banana patches, and the people begin to look different; the negroes disappear, and we are in the beginning of the "Coolie Village," where a row of thatched roofs, supported by bamboo poles, ranges on either side of a long street, which disappears under an avenue of palms and breadfruit-trees, quite out of sight.

And here are the Hindoo men and women,--quiet, serious people, displaying very little curiosity about us, going on with their work, just as if we were not near them. What a relief from the hideous faces of the negro are these straight-featured, well-poised East Indians!

The men dress in white and are not overly clean. It does not look to me as if shirt and turban were often washed, but as their artisans work sitting on the ground, there is really small chance for immaculate linen. It is upon the women that the Hindoo displays his sensuous love for colour and jewels. She is his savings-bank. Every bit of silver or gold earned is taken to the jeweller to be fashioned into ornaments for her.

Let us leave the carriage and wander about among these interesting, silent people. Little Blue Ribbons would like to carry away one of those curious silver bracelets the women wear, and as if our thoughts are divined, we are in no time surrounded by a lot of girls who are simply covered with silver and gold. They wear as many as twenty bracelets on each arm, of different designs, some very beautifully twisted into serpents' coils and heads, others engraved with intricate arabesques, others merely crude bands, with a few ornamental lines. Every part of the body, where a ring can hang, is covered with ornaments; head, ears, nose, fingers, arms, waist, ankles, toes. And some of the dear little brown babies, from two to five years old, were dressed only in pretty silver whistles, tied about the waist with a black string.

We examine many bracelets. The arms held out are more beautiful than any bits of silver about them, and the women have low, sweet voices, and their eyes are brilliant, and their skin is lustrous, and the fascination of the Orient is about them. The Hindoo women may have a hard time of it in some ways, perhaps, off in East India where the missionaries are, but here in Trinidad they have every appearance of being well cared for.

Daddy is the one who buys the trinkets. He has a way of finding always the most curious and the most beautiful things, and the Hindoo women crowding about him, and the little girls, too, seem to have suspected his talent. After examining the wealth of a dozen arms, two silver bands are selected, which, after being carefully washed by a very particular Daddy, are snapped about the white wrists of the expectant girlies. He has not only a way with him for finding beautiful curios, but, alas! I must confess he has a decided talent also for discovering beautiful women. My only consolation in the matter is his catholicity of taste, for he shows no preference, as a rule. His is a universal admiration, the simple homage to beauty of an artistic soul, and that comforts me. There is safety in numbers!

So it did not surprise me, while we are prowling around back of the huts, in search of some Hindoo needlework, to return and discover him chatting in a one-sided conversation with a little girl, about the age of Little Blue Ribbons. She was leaning in a dreamy attitude in the doorway of a shop--the most prosperous one in the village.

Just then he spies hanging in the shop some odd pipes made of clay. He goes in and buys one or two. The proprietor and his wife are standing behind the counter; she, fat and comfortable, a mass of silver bracelets, smiled at us as we approached; but he, thin as a churchwarden pipe, and solemn, my! solemn enough to be Buddha himself, with long, gray hair, curled up at the end, and impassive face, answered our questions about the pipes in precise, curiously clipped Oriental English, without once looking at us. His eyes were fixed on something beyond us, and they were the eyes that speak but rarely, and then terribly. Daddy praises the shop, the wife's ornaments, and finally the little girl, and asks if he may take her picture. The mother smiles a "Yes;" the father just looks outside. Immediately the little one is called into an inner room by her mother. She stands in the doorway so we can see what is going on. I cannot tell you how much the mother loads upon her.

The straight, low forehead is covered by three circlets of gold and silver; the little ears are weighed down by filigree hoops of gold, reaching to her shoulders; her pretty pierced nostrils hold a delicately fashioned gold plate, which drops below the sweet red lips; a tiny jewelled rose screws into the side of her straight little nose; her graceful neck is loaded with chain after chain, hung with many silver dollars of different countries, while one necklace is of twenty-dollar United States gold pieces. Ten of these necklaces drop from the round throat to the slender waist. A band of silver, two inches wade, spans her upper arm, and from the tapering wrist to the shapely little elbow, the brown, soft skin is covered with bracelets. A bright silk skirt falls to the ankles, which, in turn, are encircled by bracelets or anklets, while little rings are fitted to each toe of her slender, shapely feet; and then, to cap the climax, the mother brings out a long yellow scarf and starts to wind it about the little one's head.

That was too much. Daddy begs the mother off. He wanted to catch the beautiful oval outline of that little head. So the yellow scarf was discarded, and the little one came outside, and stood under the porch against a green, leafy background, and her small hands were folded before her very demurely, and she looked at us with her father's black, serious eyes. All the while, he stands within, like a motionless gray shadow,--absolutely unmoved by our admiration of his daughter.

A few feet beyond there is the goldsmith, squatting cross-legged on the ground outside the door of his shanty. This is his shop,--this dirt floor. Here, on a bit of cloth, are his wares, very beautiful some of them, masterful pieces of work, and this diminutive bed of charcoal is his furnace, these tiny hammers and pincers are his tools, and that little black anvil is the scene of his daily toil. Can it be that, with these few crude tools, he can fashion so wonderfully? His pattern is the insect that hovers for an instant on its flight at noonday; or the sleeping serpent, hidden under the bamboo; or the palm above the village; or the spider's web over the doorway. Nature close to him--dear to him--is the master of his art.

V.

The road on through the village is too beautiful to leave; we must go farther, deeper down among this strangely silent, mysterious people; and we drive on to where the palms meet over our heads, and we get glimpses of the blue and green Gulf beyond, and some one tells us--or have we dreamed it?--that, farther on, we shall come to the Big White House, and we wonder if we are really ourselves, or some one very unreal out of a book.

Surely we shall soon awake and rub our eyes and find that we have just been asleep in the library corner, and that we never reached the Leper House, and never heard the whispering of Hindoo feet; that it was all a daydream, a sweet heavenly dream, made long by some good fairy; but, no, we look at one another, and it must be true, for we hear the waves lapping the beach near by, and the brown, naked coolie babies look wonderingly at us, and we jog along under the fitful showers and sun, and Blue Ribbons raises the white umbrella, and Sister looks ruefully at the sad, discouraged, rain-bespattered ribbons, so it must be real.

Yes, real; and yet to see the Big White House, now visible through the mangoes, and know that within its walls live victims of the most awful disease of all time,--a disease whose origin is lost in the dim vistas of antiquity,--to come thus unexpectedly, in the twentieth century, upon a manifestation of the "sins of the fathers" of thousands of years, we cannot make it seem real to us. Had we been off in the South Seas, sailing toward Molokai, or had we been looking over the hills of Galilee, it might have seemed more probable. But to find a leper settlement here, not three miles from a thickly peopled modern city,--a settlement which must be a constant and deadly menace to society,--was beyond my powers of credence.

I remember so well, in reading Stevenson's account of his visit to the leper settlement in the Sandwich Islands, that I wondered how he dared go among them, for even so great an object as the vindication of Father Damien, and lo, here we were, without any warning, almost in the midst of the same plague. Although fully aware that leprosy did exist, just as we know that the moon must have form and solidity, it still seemed an uncertain, far-removed possibility,--in a way half-legendary, half fact, a tradition of the far East, a memory of the days of the Holy One of Nazareth; not a tangible awful reality, to be met and battled with all the force of modern knowledge. I could not convince myself that within a stone's throw were lepers whom we might see, to whom we might speak, and I wondered if it would be safe to enter the enclosure. All this time we drew nearer to the gateway, while the white house in the centre of a large, shady park, fenced in by high iron pickets, seemed to us like the great Cross on Calvary, raised for the sins of the world.

In various parts of the yard, inside that fence, groups of men are sitting on the grass under the shade of great trees. It is white noon. It cannot be possible that these men, lolling about and visiting together, are _lepers_, for, from a distance, they bear no signs of disease about them. They look like the rest of the people we have been amongst all day. They are mostly Hindoos (some with a touch of negro blood), very dark of skin, and apparently in good health, that is, viewed at a distance. I must confess that a terrible feeling comes over me as the man of the family--for here we are at the gate, with the horse's head facing the sad white house--suggests that we enter the enclosure. I remember how it was said that the lepers in olden time must cry out: "Unclean!" "Unclean!" and that he whose garments but swept the shadow of one thus afflicted must undergo a long purification before he could be allowed intercourse with the world once more.

As these old stories recur to my memory, and beseech me for my life not to take so great a risk,--but how long it takes to tell it all!--a big, jolly-faced black gatekeeper quiets my apprehensions by saying that we would not be exposed to the least danger whatever; that some of the labourers and attendants have been employed to work among the lepers for years with no bad results. With this comfortable assurance of a doubtful safety from the gateman, the driver whips up, and we move on into the yard, and up the avenue to the hospital, made gruesome by horrid buzzards perching on its roof and eaves in grim expectancy.

But it is the coming closer into the deep shade which reveals to us its true significance. From without, this white house is long and low and restful to the eye, and the trees bending over it, with clinging arms, seem to breathe only life and beauty, and the white-coated men here and there under the shade are the labourers resting during the still noon hour.

But a nearer approach and a closer acquaintance changes the whole scene. Was it upon such wrecks of life that the gentle _Saviour_ gazed in pitying love? These are not men; they are pieces,--parts of men, hung together by the long-suffering cord of life.

The first leper we see near at hand seems to take an interest in us. The others we have passed lie around in a dull, listless way. I presume they see us, but they evidence no concern other than keeping in the shade. But this leper--I hardly know how to designate him--has more life in him than the others; he is walking about and nods to us as we pass. He has strange, unnatural ears; they are twice the normal size and have nodules on the outer edge. His face is swollen into mushroom-like patches, and deeply seamed by ridges, and yet the skin has apparently the same appearance it had in a state of health, except a little grayer and more lifeless looking. Another patient hobbles toward us, and we find that he is walking on stumps of feet, without toe. We throw some pennies to another group, and the one nearest the coin picks it up by making a scoop of his flipper-like palm. His fingers are gone, only little points are left, as if they had been whittled off with a jack-knife. An old man looks at us with one eye, the other eye, eaten away by the relentless advance of the disease, has commenced to run out. These are only the moderately sick patients.

As we drive nearer to the hospital, a dozen or so horrible-looking creatures crowd to the end of an upper gallery and stand there, leaning out over the railing, a ghastly picture of misery. I scarcely dare look at them, their faces have been so mutilated by the disease; and others worse there are inside, whom the heroic Sisters--Romish and Protestant--care for and comfort until the living hideous death is at an end and life begins.

We move slowly along up the drive, and come quite near to the great archway which leads into the courtyard. There we call to the cabby to stop, and the tall man, who is never afraid of anything, gets out, and his leaving the carriage becomes, unwittingly to us, a signal for the poor lepers to approach. One hurries away from his companion--an emaciated, becrutched Hindoo--and comes to within a few feet of us, and just as he does so, our protector turns to me and says: "Did you ever think I would find myself talking to a leper just three feet from me?" and, interesting as the experience is, I recoil within myself for fear that the money which we want to give them may necessitate a closer proximity than we desire. But the unfortunate victim understands the situation and keeps his distance, while the tall man coming back to us, stands there with one foot on the carriage-step, still turning toward the leper.

By a certain sort of mental telepathy, I know that he cannot say good-bye without leaving some word of cheer for the poor fellow, and just what to say, how to say it, how to express a wish which we know can never be fulfilled, makes a moment's very embarrassing silence. If you had ever been in the presence of such a living, unpitying death, such a picture of horrible hopelessness, and felt it your duty to make the burden easier by some word of cheer, when you had all things--life, health, and happiness--about you, and he only the refuse of a rotten body, if you must presume to tell such a martyr to be brave and all that sort of thing, when you know that his absolutely uncomplaining silence is greater bravery than you, in all your health and vigour, know how to comprehend--well, I tell you it's no use! However optimistic by nature, it's hard to find the words. Why, even a parson would be dumb!

And so he lingers there uneasily. He looks at the two dear little sweet-faced maidens at my side, so white and clean and fresh and young, and then at the gray, misshapen, mutilated silent figure before him, living his lonely death of agony each day, and says, with a choke, "Good-bye,"--that is all. Tell me, what would you have said?

END OF VOLUME I.

INDEX

Botanical Garden, The, St. Pierre, 228, 235-236, 254, 257, 264-270.

Boulevard, The, St. Pierre, 233.

Cape Hatteras, 27, 29.

Capot, Martinique, 270.

Casa Blanca, San Juan, 144.

Castle, The, Charlotte Amalie, 179-185.

Cathedral, The, Santo Domingo, 90-105.

Ceiba-Tree, The, 288.

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, 164-196. Castle, The, 179-185.

Columbus, Christopher, 97-105, 288.

Columbus, Diego, 98.

Coolies of Trinidad, 279-281, 292-297.

Coolie Village, The, Port of Spain, 292-297.

Fer de Lance, The, Martinique, 248, 252-253, 269-270.

Grand Hotel, The, St. Pierre, 237-238.

Grande Anse, La, Martinique, 270.

Gros Morne, Martinique, 270.

Gulf Stream, 29.

Hotel Casino Bellevue, Port au Prince, 66-79.

Leper House, The, Port of Spain, 298-307.

Marigot, Martinique, 270.

Martinique, Island of, 197-271. Capot, 270. Fer de Lance, 248, 252-253, 269-270. Grande Anse, La, 270. Gros Morne, 270. Marigot, 270. Morne Rouge, 236, 270. Mount Pelée, 236, 270, 274. Natives, The, 205, 210-215, 254-263. Rivière Roxelane, 266, 273.

Morne Rouge, Martinique, 236, 270.

Morro Castle, San Juan, 128, 153.

Mount Pelée, Martinique, 236, 270, 274.

Natives, The, of Martinique, 205, 210-215, 254-263; of St. Thomas, 193-196, 210; of Trinidad, 275-276, 285-286.

Ozama River, 85, 86, 112, 118-122, 163, 288.

Plaza, The, San Juan, 140, 148-150.

Ponce de Leon, 154-156; Square of, San Juan, 153-160.

Port au Prince, Haïti, 35, 42-80, 84, 89. Hotel Casino Bellevue, 66-79.

Port of Spain, Trinidad, 275-307. Coolie Village, The, 292-297. Leper House, The, 298-307. Savannah, The, 287-291.

Quay, The, San Juan, 134-136.

Rivière Roxelane, Martinique, 266, 273.

St. Croix, Island of, 189.

St. John, Island of, 189, 190.

St. Pierre, 205, 216, 219, 220-245, 246, 273. Botanical Garden, The, 228, 235-236, 254, 257, 264-270. Boulevard, The, 233. Grand Hotel, The, 237-238.

St. Thomas, Island of, 164, 186, 189, 190. Natives of, 193-196, 210.

San Salvador, 33.

San Juan, Puerto Rico, 124-161, 163. Casa Blanca, 144. Morro Castle, 128, 153. Plaza, The, 140, 148-150. Quay, The, 134-136. Square of Ponce de Leon, 153-160.

Santo Domingo, 84-123, 173. Cathedral, The, 90-105.

Savannah, The, Port of Spain, 287-291.

Southern Cross, The, 219.

Square of Ponce de Leon, San Juan, 153-160.

Trinidad, Island of, 275-307. Coolies, The, 279-281, 292-297. Natives, The, 275-276, 285-286.

Windward Passage, 29, 35.

* * * * *

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

her persisent whisper=> her persistent whisper {pg 235}

Hayti=> Haïti {pg 310}