CHAPTER II

ST. THOMAS AND ITS PAST

St. Thomas is very beautiful when seen from a distance, with its gray-green mountains rising above the sea, mottled with soft mauves of shadow and dazzling silvery sunlight—a mass of opalescent tints, as though the hills were carven from a giant pearl shell. And as the harbor opens to view, and the little town of Charlotte Amalie is seen spreading fanwise up its three hillsides in triangles of soft buff, creamy white, and red, it seems a bit of the Mediterranean detached and transplanted here in the Caribbean.

But it must be confessed that the enchantment is mainly loaned by distance, for St. Thomas is a barren, arid island. Charlotte Amalie—shut in by the hills—is unbearably hot; there is but one level street, and while steep lanes, often ascending in stairways, lend picturesqueness to the place, they are most discouraging thoroughfares on a sweltering tropical day. Moreover, St. Thomas, having ever been a world’s mart, a free port depending entirely upon commerce, has not the foreign, fascinating atmosphere we find in many of the islands.

Its people, a marvelous potpourri of nationalities, of necessity have become remarkable linguists, with a smattering of virtually every civilized tongue, but they are neither picturesque nor interesting.

On such a cruise as ours, however, this Virgin Island possession of Uncle Sam’s could not well be passed by, although, truth to tell, its piratical associations are somewhat meager and of questionable authenticity.

I had seen this famed source of bay-rum under both Danish and American rule, in rain and in shine, in war and in peace; in prosperity with a forest of masts in its snug harbor, and, again, devastated by hurricanes, its shores strewn with tangled wrecks of countless vessels. But never before had St. Thomas appeared to me just as it did when, passing Sail Rock in the lee of the land, we entered the harbor and dropped the Vigilant’s anchor before Charlotte Amalie.

I was looking at it now from a new point of view. I was blind to the great coaling-piers, to the gaunt dry-dock, to the fact that gray-painted cruisers and big liners rode upon the glassy surface of the harbor, that the Stars and Stripes flew from the mastheads and flagstaffs, that motor-cars scurried along the waterfront street. I was trying to visualize St. Thomas as it had been two centuries and more before, when ships with lateen yards, high poops, and wall-sided hulls pierced with cannon ports had swung to anchor before the town; when roistering crowds of fierce-whiskered, besashed sea-rovers with cutlasses at their belts and bandanas on their heads had swaggered through the steep and crooked streets; when the little pink “Christian’s” fort beside the quay had been looked upon as a real fortification, and the Danes had not been above receiving the corsairs with open arms.

It is not a difficult matter to imagine Charlotte Amalie’s streets filled with buccaneers, for after a few encounters with boatmen, beggars, guides, and gamins the average visitor will be convinced that the pirates still haunt the place in spirit if not in body. Maybe the freebooters’ traits have been passed down in their blood that flows to some extent in the veins of a large proportion of the Virgin Islanders; but, however that may be, the present inhabitants of St. Thomas know little and care less about piratical history or relics.

And an investigation of the contents of the shops in Charlotte Amalie will lead one to think that much of the buccaneers’ loot still remains in stock after a lapse of two centuries or more. Such juxtaposition of odds and ends from all quarters of the world, it would be hard to duplicate in any other port upon the planet.

Predominant, and everywhere in evidence, are the two items inseparably associated with St. Thomas,—jipijapa hats and bay-rum,—although I understand that since my last visit to the island the Volstead law has shown its effects even on bay-rum. But formerly—at any rate, until its acquisition by Uncle Samuel—St. Thomas was more famous for its bay-rum than for anything else; bay-rum and St. Thomas were synonymous around the world. Charlotte Amalie reeked of bay-rum: every ragged negro one met upon the streets besought one to purchase it, and from mysterious pockets or other receptacles produced a bottle or two; every shop was filled with it, and the bumboats that flocked about every incoming and departing ship were laden with it. And, strangely enough, very little bay-rum is or was made in St. Thomas. To be sure, it was adulterated, bottled, and labeled there, but the oil itself, the distilled extract of the aromatic bay-tree, was largely produced in St. John. Not one person in a million has ever heard of St. John, perhaps the most charming island of the Virgins, and yet it is really the home of the bay-rum which made St. Thomas famous. Such are fate and the effects of publicity; and as the St. Johnians ultimately reaped a goodly portion of the profits, I do not suppose they ever complained.

If the visitor to St. Thomas could not be cajoled or nagged into purchasing bay-rum, then the islanders at once pressed upon him their next most famous commodity, the jipijapa or Panama hats. Somehow the visiting public was imbued with the idea that Panama hats could be purchased more cheaply in St. Thomas than elsewhere, and despite the fact that very few of the St. Thomas head-coverings ever saw the Isthmus of Panama, and still fewer ever were made in far-off Ecuador (the home of the bona-fide Panama), tourists, seamen, and other visitors to St. Thomas invariably stocked up. It made no difference, apparently, whether the hats were made in the neighboring Virgins or in Porto Rico; as long as they were bought in St. Thomas the purchasers reasoned that they must be genuine and cheap. Even the braided paper affairs made by the Japanese were often passed off on the unsuspecting and gullible tourists as real Panamas—whatever that may mean. Of course, St. Thomas being formerly under Danish rule and a free port, many articles which were subject to high duties in the United States were to be had in the island at bargain prices, but Monte Cristi Panama hats were not among them.

In the good old days before our country and all its colonies became Saharas, St. Thomas was noted up and down and roundabout the islands for its liquid refreshments. Not only was there the justly famed St. Croix rum, but countless other beverages were procurable there, brought from every liquor-producing country on the globe, in addition to several native concoctions that were not to be laughed at, especially after a few glasses with the jovial Danes on a holiday. Oddly enough, inhabitants of tropical lands, especially the West Indies, consume incredible quantities of alcoholic drinks and seem to thrive upon them. Indeed, it is a source of pride among the islanders that their native islets consume more alcohol per capita than any other lands, and there is always a keen rivalry between Barbados, Bermuda, and Demerara in this respect. But I had never heard that St. Thomas strove for first honors and when, on one occasion, I inquired of a huge blond-bearded St. Thomas Dane why this was so, he informed me in all seriousness that as the St. Thomas people consumed more than all the others combined, it was beneath them even to mention the question. Surely it must make the old buccaneers squirm in their graves to think of St. Thomas, of all places, being dry, dry as old Dead Man’s Chest with its one bottle of rum to fifteen men, at least on the surface, though I know there is many a cask, bottle, and keg stored safely away in private stocks for the proper drinking of a skoal when occasion arises.

But to return to the shops of Charlotte Amalie and their strange and motley contents. Here, with the bay-rum, jipijapa hats, and dried corals and starfish, are French perfumes, picture post-cards, and seed necklaces. Miscellaneous hardware, groceries, tinned goods, cloth, and bric-à-brac are inextricably mixed. A salesman searches among piles of cordage and bundles of rowlocks to find a pair of shoes or a package of patent medicine, for every shop in Charlotte Amalie, save the drug stores, is a little of everything with nothing in its place. I remember seeing a pair of very old-fashioned skates dangling rusty and forlorn outside a shop one blistering December day. Curious to know how such things happened to be in the island, or to whom the proprietor expected to sell them I entered and inquired. Imagine my amusement and surprise when I was solemnly informed that they had been there for years, that no one knew exactly what they were used for, but, in the words of the chocolate-colored shopkeeper:

“I am aware that they are significant of the holiday season, and so I hang them outside regularly each year as an indication to passers-by that my Christmas stock of merchandise is on sale.” Truly, an original method of advertising!

In another shop a pair of strange slipper-like objects, unlike anything I had ever seen, were displayed. The owner of the shop, without appearing to think it at all curious, told me they were from Lapland, and, perhaps with a faint hope of making a sale, thereupon rummaged among his stock of countless years’ standing and proudly produced a pair of moth-eaten Eskimo boots! Had he brought forth a full suit of armor or the skeleton of a buccaneer, I could scarcely have been more astonished. But after all, when we come to think of it, it is not so remarkable, for both Greenland and St. Thomas were Danish colonies, and no doubt some far-cruising Dane brought the reindeer-skin foot-coverings here on one of his trading voyages. We may laugh at the Dane for not realizing that such things were hardly suitable for everyday wear in the Virgin Islands, but is his mistake any more ridiculous than that of our own countryman who shipped a cargo of warming-pans to St. Kitts, or our own United States Senator who, when about to start on a mission to Porto Rico, asked a friend if the people there had means of heating their houses in winter?

Far more interesting than the shops, however, and a spot which every visitor who is interested in maritime matters should see, is the “ships’ graveyard” at Krum Bay, near the harbor entrance.

Here, for countless years, have been towed the disabled, storm-beaten ships condemned as unworthy of repair, and here they have found their last port, their final resting-place. Stripped of rigging and other fittings, they have been burned for the copper they contained; but though they are lost forever, though history makes no mention of them, though their very names have long since been forgotten, yet they still live on, perpetuated in their figure-heads which have been saved and, while sadly neglected, are prized as relics.

There is something pathetic, almost tragic, in these dumb and lifeless figures lying there exposed to the elements, their once-gay paint and gilt tarnished, faded, and flaked off by storm and wind and sun. They seem almost like tombstones, as indeed they are—monuments to dead and gone ships that once proudly plowed the seven seas and the five broad oceans. Only carven effigies, perhaps, but all that remain to tell of stately hulls and towering pyramids of canvas, of lofty trucks and clipper bows, of craft that, disabled, maimed, battered, and wrecked, have left their bones here in St. Thomas at Krum Bay.

Looking at these reminders of a bygone day, one can visualize the ships of which they formed a part, can almost identify the craft beneath whose soaring bowsprits these figures once gazed forth across the tumbling, foam-flecked brine. Here, leaning against a cocoanut palm, is a Roman legionary, his short sword broken at the hilt as though in some hard-fought battle, his shield dented and bruised, and his wooden face seamed and scarred. Faded, weather-beaten, and forlorn, he is still a martial figure. He has fought more battles, has seen victory in more hard-won fights than ever soldier of Cæsar,—battles against the elements, struggles between lashing, storm-flung waves and puny man,—and while in the end the sea was victorious, yet we know that the stern-visaged warrior fought a good fight and bore the brunt of battle always in the foremost rank, ever there with threatening falchion at the bows. Massive, heroic he is, and we feel sure that in years gone he looked proudly, defiantly upon the sea from some ship of war or privateer with grinning ports along her sides.

Close by, coquettishly peeping from behind a pile of junk, is a very different figure, a female form with doll-like, simpering face, long, flowing hair, and clinging draperies. Upon her cheeks are still patches of pink, as though she had but freshly rouged; her skirts and low-cut bodice still are gaudy with red and yellow, and we can see that once her wooden tresses were of raven hue. Looking at her, we can reconstruct the ship she graced, we can see the bluff-bowed, wallowing, honest merchantman, and we feel sure, could we but look upon the stern, we should see, painted across her counter, “Polly” or “Betsy” or perchance even “Mary Ann.”

Near this lady, with her fixed wooden smile that has withstood the tempests of centuries, a sailor lad in glazed hat lurches drunkenly, propped up by an iron post just as his living counterpart no doubt was supported many a time after a glorious night ashore. Now his eyes are fixed in an unwinking stare upon raven-haired Polly, while behind him, with outflung arm, one shapely foot spurning a carven shield, poises a Victory. A masterpiece she, albeit her wings are sadly clipped and disrespectful insects have pitted her classic features with their borings until she looks as though she had suffered from smallpox. But the finely chiseled draperies, the perfectly proportioned, softly rounded limbs speak eloquently of beauty long since faded, of expert craftsmanship. All who love ships must pause before her in reverence, for once she flew gracefully at the sharp prow of some famous clipper-ship, a grayhound of the sea, a fabric such as never will be seen again,—the very acme of Yankee shipbuilding skill. A craft with sky-piercing masts, vast tapering yards, and acres of billowing canvas, the clipper was the queen of transatlantic liners, and proudly she flaunted the Stars and Stripes for all the world to see.

And something of an epitome of St. Thomas’s history and St. Thomas’s trade is this graveyard of the ships. As each old sailing-craft was towed to its funeral pyre at Krum Bay the island took a step nearer its doom, for with the passing of the old West India trade, with the discarding of crossed yards and square sails, St. Thomas’s greatness departed. Never again will her harbor be filled with a forest of masts flying the flags of every maritime nation.

Perchance under the United States Government she may be more stable than heretofore: she may suffer less from lack of cash and a mother country’s interest. Coaling-docks and grimy colliers will attract a certain number of hideous tramps and spotless liners to her harbor; tourists may spend a few hours and a few dollars in quaint Charlotte Amalie, but never again will this port be world-famed as of yore.

But even so,—even though the island’s romantic past is little more than tradition, with the old days gone forever; even with the omnipresent marines and Fords upon the streets and the American flag flying over the old pink fort,—St. Thomas is still a charming resort with its three hills rising like pyramids of multicolored, red-roofed buildings, its gray-green mountains over all, its blue sky and bluer waters and its brown, black, and yellow good-natured, care-free inhabitants, who, though the blood of pirate chieftain or old Viking may run in their veins, one and all proudly proclaim themselves “Americans.”

Of all things in St. Thomas, the most cherished, even sacred, to the natives, and invariably the first to be pointed out to the visitor, is the famous “Blackbeard’s Castle” at the apex of the hillside town of Charlotte Amalie.

Perhaps old Blackbeard never dwelt in the tower that bears his name, any more than Bluebeard of the inquisitive wives built or occupied the neighboring structure which bears his name. Indeed, there is no denying that Blackbeard’s Castle bears a striking resemblance to an old stone windmill tower. But the skeptics who have pointed this out and have scoffed at the beloved legend of the St. Thomians have overlooked the fact that even if the tower was originally only an unromantic cane-mill, there is no valid reason why Teach should not have made use of it. Dutch windmills were built, used, and abandoned years before the famous pirate saw the light of day, and a cylindrical tower of massive stone, whether designed for a windmill or otherwise, was an ideal structure for a freebooter’s dwelling and fortress, and was admirably adapted to defensive tactics.

In fact, between the two, I would far rather have been within that tower on the hill than in the squat pink fort, in case of attack in the days when muzzle-loading guns and round shot were in vogue, and the fact that Blackbeard’s Castle bears a family likeness to a windmill proves or disproves nothing. Everywhere in the West Indies one finds Spanish, French, Dutch, and even English towers built for forts and as much like that upon this St. Thomas hilltop as peas in the same pod. Right on the splendid Malecon in Havana there is one; several are scattered about Puerto Plata, Macoris, and other towns in Santo Domingo. They may be seen in a more or less ruined state all up and down the Antilles and the Main, and yet no one has the temerity to suggest that they were once windmills! Why, then, should any one try to destroy this almost sacred tradition of St. Thomas? Why try to rob the islanders of that one reminder of the buccaneers? No, let us not be doubting Thomases, but rather be thankful that this old-time haven of the pirates still retains at least one landmark that links it with the past.

And there is no reason why Blackbeard should not have dwelt in St. Thomas in those days of his prosperity. All the Virgin Isles—Danish, Dutch, and British—were safe refuges for the pirates, retreats wherein they could lie in peace, where they could refit and careen their craft, could secure supplies, could exchange their loot for gold and silver currency, and could gamble and carouse to their hearts’ content.

Very canny were the thrifty islanders in thus opening their doors to the freebooters. It protected them from attack, and it insured a lively trade. And they well knew that whatever they paid in good pieces of eight and golden onzas for plundered goods would eventually return to their own pockets over bars and gaming-tables, for the pirates were free spenders and money ever burned holes in their pockets. So we may feel sure that St. Thomas has sheltered many a pirate ship and many a famous or infamous buccaneer, especially in the great harp-shaped bay to the west of Charlotte Amalie, and separated from the harbor by a rocky peninsula. Here the pirates were wont to lie in wait for unsuspecting merchantmen bound through the Virgin Passage between the island and neighboring Porto Rico, until, to save their faces, the Danish authorities were compelled to request their welcome but disreputable guests to confine themselves to more peaceful pursuits while in Danish waters or else betake themselves elsewhere.