CHAPTER VII

LONELY ISLES

From Anegada to St. Martin is, in the vernacular of the buccaneers, a “passinge longe sayle,” a run of nearly one hundred miles across the heaving Atlantic rollers surging in through the Anegada Passage. But to one who loves the sea, the tang of salt spray high-flung by a plunging bow, and the heave of a tossing deck, it is a glorious sail. The Vigilant made fine weather of it, and sixteen hours after low-lying Anegada dropped below the horizon astern Anguilla rose like a cloud above the sea before us.

Anguilla, or the “Eel,” was no doubt frequented by the buccaneers, but, as far as I know, there is nothing authentic to connect them with the island, and it holds but little interest. Its thirty-six square miles of brush and salt-grass have been abandoned to the negroes, who find it difficult to gain a livelihood. They do, to be sure, raise a few cattle and ponies, as well as donkeys; and, being forced to subsist on the meager rations nature has provided, these four-footed Anguillans are living examples of the survival of the fittest. They are noted throughout the neighboring islands for their hardiness, though they are diminutive beasts.

Passing Eel Island by, we headed for St. Martin, the one island of all the Caribbees which has the distinction of being under two flags at the same time. In days long past, when Briton, Don, Frenchman, and Hollander, as well as Dane and Swede, slit one another’s throats over these bits of land, it was not uncommon for the islands to be in the possession of several nations in rapid succession. In fact, in those days it must have been difficult for the struggling inhabitants to know to what king or emperor they owed allegiance, for they were never quite sure, when they retired at night, what flag they would see flying above the fort and government house the next morning. It was a question of “O say, can you see” what banner is there? Often, within the space of as many days, they would be under British, French, and Dutch colors in turn. Often, too, one fort would be under one flag and another fort under another, or a portion of the island would be occupied by the troops of one nation and another part by the soldiers of a different power, while at times two nations agreed temporarily to hold an island in partnership, each keeping to its own side of the fence, so to speak; or by common consent an island was rejected by all and regarded as “neutral territory,” the powers deciding that it was not worth the bloodshed necessary to hold it.

But gradually the islands became the acknowledged possessions of the various European nations, and only St. Martin remained through the centuries a land divided within itself, with the French flag flying from one port and the Dutch banner from another.

In the northern part the French rule, their half of the isle being a dependency of Guadeloupe, while the southern half acknowledges allegiance to the Netherlands. It would be hard to say whether France or Holland owns the better portion of the island, but unquestionably there are more people under the Dutch flag than under the French.

Marigot, the port and capital of French St. Martin, is a charmingly pretty town, and the greater number of the three-thousand-odd subjects of France dwell within its confines. Philippsburg, the Dutch capital and port, is less populous, but the Dutch subjects altogether number fully five thousand. Of course there is no hard-and-fast boundary between the two, no trocha or barbed-wire fence stretching across the island. No doubt the easy-going natives bother very little as to whether they dwell under one flag or another, and drift back and forth at will, or as their occupations demand, from West Indian France to Antillean Holland. There are few of the islanders who do not speak the Creole patois, and as the common language of the Dutch West Indies is English, and virtually all St. Martians speak what passes for that tongue, their dual linguistic troubles are almost nil.

Scenically, St. Martin is lovely. It is mountainous, its loftiest summit, Paradise Peak, rising nearly two thousand feet above the sea. The surface of the island is delightfully varied, with rolling conical hills, broad valleys, deep gorges, and, near the shores, immense salt-water lagoons. It is for the most part fertile, and its inhabitants—at least those in Dutch territory—industriously cultivate the land. Many of its hills and mountains are luxuriantly forested. The big lagoons serve the natives as salt farms or pans, and the production of salt, the crops grown, the raising of cattle, donkeys, and poultry, and the yield of the fisheries provide a steady if not munificent income, so that the St. Martians are comparatively prosperous.

Quite the reverse is the condition of the neighboring island of St. Bartholomew,—or, as it is always called, St. Barts,—within whose lovely harbor of Gustavia the Vigilant dropped anchor after her splendid run from Anegada.

St. Barts is diminutive, barely eight square miles in area, hilly, with one of its so-called “mountains” rising to one thousand feet. It is wholly destitute of springs or streams, far from fertile, and deplorably poverty-stricken—literally out at elbows. Its people (virtually all negroes and mulattoes) number about three thousand, and so wretchedly poor is their island, with so little in the way of opportunity or employment, that the bulk of them are scattered up and down the Antilles laboring for a livelihood, or, in their sloops, carrying cargoes from port to port or plying a fisherman’s trade. Although St. Barts is a French dependency, nearly all its inhabitants speak English, and they are noted throughout the northern islands as industrious workers. Among them at times one sees fair-haired, blue-eyed individuals—weird-looking creatures at first sight, seemingly albino negroes with their pale eyes and flaxen wool, but merely the odd result of the commingling of Swedish and African blood, for St. Barts for many years belonged to Sweden. Not until 1878 did the Swedes relinquish this one possession of theirs in the Caribbees and turn the almost worthless bit of land over to France. Swedish blood still crops out, not only among the negroes but in the few “poor whites” who claim St. Barts as their native land, and Sweden’s lost sovereignty is perpetuated in the name of the island’s one port, Gustavia.

However, like many another island of the Caribbean, St. Barts has seen better days. Back in the good old times Gustavia’s streets were almost literally paved with gold and its inhabitants fairly rolled in wealth. Here, as to few others of the Virgin Islands, flocked the buccaneers, for at St. Barts that most cruel and murderous of pirates, Montbars the “Exterminator,” established his headquarters. So great was the fear he and his fellows inspired in all that no nation or official dared move finger to molest him and his gang. Wild was the life that ebbed and flowed in St. Barts in Montbars’s day. Gustavia’s harbor swarmed with swift, long-sparred pirate craft; in the sheltered coves the buccaneers repaired and refitted their ships; under the palms along the beach their rude shelters of sail-cloth were raised, and here after many a long cruise and desperate battle they came to divide their loot and squander it.

What a scene they must have presented, what a picture of lawlessness, as, gathered in the shadows of the palms, with chests of plate, coffers of jewels, and bales of satins, brocades, and velvets on the hard sand before them, they watched narrowly as their captains apportioned the treasures they had won by murder, rapine, and torture. And there too, upon the sand,—wild-eyed, disheveled, with blanched, tear-stained cheeks,—were their human loot, girls and women, wives and daughters of Spanish grandees, tenderly nurtured ladies torn shrieking from their murdered loved ones’ arms, to be auctioned off like cattle here on St. Barts’s shores,—souls to be bartered and gambled for, toys to amuse their black-hearted captors for a space ere being cast into the gutter or to the sharks. Surrounded by his brutish, blear-eyed crew, the pirate captain stood, a weather-beaten, mahogany-faced rascal, his long, ragged moustache and tangled mop of hair adding to his wild appearance, a cocked hat set rakishly upon his head, with bedraggled plume drooping upon his shoulder. His blood-stained ruffled shirt, open at the throat, revealed a hairy tattooed chest, and his long-skirted, gold-laced coat of crimson showed a round hole and a dark stain upon the breast, where some pirate’s bullet had ended the life of the garment’s former owner. His voluminous trousers of vivid blue, ending at the knees, exposed his stanchion-like legs clad in green silk stockings, while a heavy pair of Cordovan shoes with huge silver buckles covered his feet. His arms crossed upon his chest, a cocked and loaded pistol grasped in each hand, with hawk-like, piercing eyes and a sardonic smile he watched his men growling, wrangling, and cursing over the portion of loot meted out to them by the one-eyed, scar-faced boatswain.

Dumping a chest of coins upon a sheet of tarry canvas, this fellow would count them out in piles, one for each man, and to every coin he tossed on the piles for the crew he would throw five upon that which formed the captain’s share. Pieces of eight crudely struck from silver bullion, dull-golden onzas, castellanos, doubloons, guineas, louis d’or, oddly shaped “cross money,” in turn were divided. Then came ingots of gold and bars of silver; altar-pieces and chalices; dishes of beaten gold, jeweled girdles, rings, and bracelets; necklaces of pearls and emeralds—a collection worth a king’s ransom. And these, after the glowering chieftain had taken his pick, were gambled for by the tossing of coins or with dice, for so varied and miscellaneous was the loot that to apportion the articles fairly was impossible. Last of all came the women; and then, as the great sun, in a sea of gold and blood, dipped below the horizon and the swift-falling tropic night wrapped the island in a mantle of black, torches flared, ribald songs rang out over the waters of the tranquil harbor, blasphemies and drunken curses mingled with women’s screams, and debauchery held sway.

Such scenes, in the time of Montbars and his fellows, were of daily and nightly occurrence in St. Barts, and the island and its more peaceable and thrifty inhabitants waxed rich. But at last there came a reckoning. The nations, outraged by the effrontery of the pirates, joined forces to wipe them from the seas, and after many a gory battle the lairs of the buccaneers were cleaned up. Here and there a pirate ship still sailed the Caribbean and flew the black flag. On jungle-covered, out-of-the-way cays whose ownership had never been determined, the remnants of the Brethren still had secret retreats. From hiding-places among the reefs or landlocked coves those who survived dashed forth to murder and to pillage unsuspecting merchantmen, but the power of the buccaneers was broken. Like jackals they prowled about the Caribbean, and the Virgin Islands knew them no more.

Without the buccaneers, St. Barts continued to prosper. Within Gustavia’s harbor swift privateers took the place of pirate ships. From this safe retreat the Americans sailed forth to settle scores with many a British merchantman,—and corvette, for that matter,—and while England strove to retain her revolting colonies in North America, and the United States was being born, vast stores of riches, brought by the privateers, accumulated in St. Barts.

But, though it was a neutral port and Sweden’s banner flew above the fort, the English had no compunctions about violating another nation’s rights, to benefit their own cause. Holding that might made right, Admiral Rodney swept down with his frigates upon Gustavia and sacked St. Barts of more than two million dollars’ worth of merchandise. Then, for a time, the island lived on the fruits of its past, but ever losing ground, ever falling behind, ever becoming poorer, ever getting shabbier and shabbier, until to-day one could scarcely find as many copper cents in St. Barts as the British found dollars.

And the worst of it is that the island, like many of its moribund neighbors, seems to hold no promise of a future. There seems to be no industry that can retrieve its fortunes, no possibility of making it pay, for it is handicapped by nature. It cannot compete with the larger, more fertile and prosperous islands (who themselves are always in debt); its town is tumbling about its people’s ears, and there is a steady exodus of its inhabitants to more flourishing lands.

While St. Barts is most interesting historically, and was for so long a haven of the buccaneers and the headquarters of one of the most notorious and bloodthirsty of pirate chieftains, yet there are upon the island few if any reminders of the good old days. Of course, there are tales of hidden pirate treasure,—the natives even going so far as to assert that Montbars himself secreted vast sums in the caverns along St. Barts’s coast,—and a few years ago an earthen jug full of ancient coins was dug up on the outskirts of Gustavia. But, unfortunately for romance, the coins were not pieces of eight and doubloons, as all self-respecting pirate hoards should be, but Swedish and Dutch; and undoubtedly, instead of having been buried there by a thrifty buccaneer, they had been put away for the proverbial rainy day by some worthy and peaceable as well as foresighted citizen.

Even the old-fashioned, corroded cannon that one can find in nearly any of the islands seem totally lacking here, for so poverty-stricken and hard put to it have the people been that any such weighty pieces of metal have long since been taken from their resting-places and disposed of for junk, to eke out the resources of the natives.

But we should have a warm spot in our hearts for the little island, despite its lack of interest or attractions and its threadbare present. Had it not been for St. Barts and certain of its neighbors, where our privateers could lie, and from which they could prey on British shipping and harass British men-of-war, the result of our ancestors’ brave efforts to throw off the British yoke might have been very different.

By the same token, we should think kindly of and doff our hats to St. Eustatius, whose magnificent volcanic cone rose majestically before the Vigilant five hours after she had spread her wings and sailed out of Gustavia’s harbor. It was here at “Statia,” as it is always called, that the Stars and Stripes—or, rather, its earlier prototype—was first saluted by the guns of a foreign power. And a pretty mess that courtesy made for stout old Governor De Graaf, for it brought the British under the redoubtable Rodney down upon this isle and resulted in the ruin of Statia.

It was in November, 1776, that the fort at Orangetown (Statia’s only port) roared out its thunderous salute to the banner of the new republic as it flew from the masthead of the Andrew Doria of Baltimore, one of a fleet of privateers that found friends and safety in the Dutch, Swedish, and Danish isles and did so much to help the cause of the American colonies. Like St. Barts, Statia, during our Revolution, proved a godsend to our privateers and merchantmen, for it was not only a neutral island but a free port as well. Hence, at a time when England’s high-handed and short-sighted colonial policies had almost ruined commerce in the West Indies, virtually all trade between Europe and the American colonies became diverted to the tiny volcanic isle of Statia. Then, when the French threw in their lot with our fore-fathers, they too flocked to the Dutch port, until St. Eustatius became the richest and greatest center of commerce in the New World and rivaled the most famed marts of trade in the Old World as well. Ships flying the flags of all nations steered their course for Statia; the roadstead before Orangetown was a forest of masts and yards; immense warehouses and docks lined the waterfront, and the place became a vast storehouse and trading-post, a maritime and commercial exchange, such as the world had never seen before.

Often before little sun-bathed Orangetown fully two hundred ships would ride at anchor, and back and forth between them and the shore a steady stream of boats plied, heavily laden with goods from every corner of the earth. The streets were filled with crowds of stevedores, slaves, merchants, and sailors. Bales, boxes, and barrels overflowed the giant warehouses and were piled mountain-high along the thoroughfares and on the beach, and merchants and buyers, unable to find accommodations, set up their business in the open air, with packing-cases for chairs and tables and sail-canvas awnings for roofs.

And to Statia also flocked the privateering craft from Portland, Salem, Boston, New York, Baltimore, and countless other ports. Here they repaired and refitted, here they disposed of captured prizes and loot, and here they were welcomed with open arms by the thrifty Dutch. Perchance, had the Statians and their cosmopolitan visitors confined themselves to legitimate trade, the British might have said or done nothing, even though De Graaf saw fit to recognize the new-born republic officially by a salute to its flag. But the island had gone money-mad, and not only did Statia become temporarily the world’s greatest center of commerce, but, in addition, it became a brazenly open dêpot for contraband of war, while, to add insult to injury, the Dutch made no bones of convoying American privateers with their men-o’-war, and did not hesitate to grant Dutch papers to American merchantmen. Thus matters stood until at last the English decided that something must be done, and on February 3, 1781, Rodney swept unexpectedly down on Statia and, meeting with scarcely a show of resistance, took possession of the town and all it contained, to say nothing of over a hundred and fifty merchant ships lying in the harbor at the time.

It was a prize which would have made the greatest buccaneer of them all turn green with envy, for the loot consisted of over twenty-five million dollars’ worth of goods, to say nothing of the ships. As it was manifestly impossible for the British fleet to carry off this treasure, and as Britain could ill afford to lose over five million pounds sterling so easily obtained, the invaders promptly inaugurated the greatest auction sale ever known, and there in Orangetown sold to the highest bidders that vast accumulation of merchandise which had poured from the ends of the earth into the little port.

Then, having seen the last of the goods taken away and the last ship sail, Rodney pocketed his millions in the name of the King of England and, feeling that it had been a good job well done, hoisted anchor and bore away for other adventures.

The blow was one from which Statia never recovered. To-day the ruins of the immense warehouses and docks are everywhere in evidence along the waterfront of Orangetown; from hoary old Fort Orange quaint cannon point their silent muzzles seaward through a tangle of weeds upon the parapets from which they roared out their welcome to the Doria’s flag so many years ago; the tower of the church wherein Mynheer De Graaf attended services still stands above its ruined walls, and scattered over the island are the remains of princely mansions and vast estates. But the island and its port are almost as dead as the sturdy old Dutchmen sleeping beneath the great carved headstones in the cemetery on the hill.

Seen from the sea, Statia is very beautiful, with its two thousand-foot symmetrical cone rising in a magnificent sweep from the water, and with its northern slopes stretching into hills and plains that once were one vast luxurious garden. Statia’s soil is exceedingly fertile and in the olden days an enormous income was derived from its plantations of cane and indigo, sugar and cotton, and from its orchards of fruit. But to-day there is little cultivation carried on, and the population of nearly one quarter of a million inhabitants has dwindled to a scant two thousand, most of whom are mulattoes or blacks.

The port of Orangetown is attractively picturesque, part of it straggling along just above the reach of the lazy waves and part clambering up a steep hill to where, three hundred feet above the sea, the Dutch flag still flies from its staff above the fort. For one who desires to escape from the noise and strife and worries of great cities and modern life Statia would be an ideal retreat, for its climate is excellent, it is extremely healthful, and anything and everything may be grown to perfection in its rich volcanic soil. Otherwise it is but another of those sleepy isles made famous in history and now content to bask in the tropic sun and dream of its past.

Far more interesting is Statia’s neighbor to the west, a massive sheer-sided volcanic peak upjutting from the tumbling sea for nearly three thousand feet—the most remarkable island, the most topsyturvy, astonishing bit of land in all the seven seas, and known as Saba. Like Statia, Saba is Dutch, and, among its many other distinctions, it is the only island in the Antilles that has never changed hands and that has no bloody stories of battles or of ruthless slaughter of the aborigines to mar its history.

Saba’s feet are bathed in water thousands of fathoms in depth, its head is veiled in clouds thousands of feet in the air, its coast is forbidding, hemmed by thundering surf and beetling cliffs. It has no harbor, no anchorage, and no landing-place worthy of the name; and yet it supports a thrifty, happy, healthy population of nearly two thousand souls whose everyday lives, whose occupations, and whose habitat all go far to prove that it is indeed “hard to beat the Dutch.”

Viewing the island from the sea, one would scarcely dream that a human being dwelt upon this mid-sea pinnacle, but a thousand feet above the water, snugly hidden in an extinct crater as though dropped from the clouds, is a delightfully neat, pretty, and typical Dutch village, which, with the habitual upsidedownness of the Sabans, is called “The Bottom” because it is at the top!

Completely out of the world is Bottom, and yet it is doubtful if any town on earth can boast that so large a percentage of its people have traveled far and wide. For, incongruous as it seems, nearly all the able-bodied Saban men are sailors by choice and profession, and, from early manhood until declining years force them to forsake the sea, they roam the ocean highways as officers of great sailing-ships and liners. But ever when done with sailoring they return to spend their old age in their strange island home, and from their lofty aery—which must remind them of the masthead of a ship—pass their time watching the vessels that ply back and forth across the Caribbean, but never stop to make a call at Saba.

And to visit this remarkable ocean-girt scrap of Holland is not by any means an easy matter, either. To reach it one must travel from St. Kitts or one of the larger islands by sail-boat, and must choose propitious weather or the voyage will be for naught. Then, if the sea is fairly calm, the visitor lands, or “goes aboard,” as the Sabans say, upon a steep bit of shingly beach on the southern shore of the island. Here, close to the water’s edge, stands a wooden shack—the combined custom-house and harbor-master’s office of this harborless isle, with the flag of the Netherlands fluttering above it.

Near at hand a flight of roughly hewn stone steps leads upward toward the clouds—the road or, as the inhabitants call it, “The Ladder,” from the landing-place to the town. Eight hundred steps there are, a veritable Jacob’s ladder; but the Sabans are accommodating and hospitable, and if the stranger views with trepidation the thousand-foot climb he can make the journey in comparative ease and comfort seated in a rocking-chair lashed between a couple of oars and borne upon the shoulders of herculean blacks.

The Sabans, however, think nothing of the climb, and carry up the ladder every ounce of merchandise which comes to their island. It is not unusual to see a colored Saban ascending the precipitous way with a half-barrel of flour or a tierce of pork upon his or her head, and when a cargo arrives these goat-like porters and portresses often make a dozen or more round trips in a single day.

But at the end of the climb all else is forgotten in the view that greets the traveler’s eyes. Spread like a map in a great green bowl, surrounded on every side with towering peaks, are neatly walled, carefully tended gardens, and in the center the toy village of white, red-roofed houses separated by narrow lanes between cañon-like walls of stone. Here, in a temperate climate of perpetual June, the fair-haired, blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked people dwell, with a few yellow-brown and black Sabans as well, and here, a thousand feet above the surf, they raise potatoes, strawberries, and many Northern vegetables and fruits, as well as all those of the tropics.

Indeed, aside from the incomes of their sailor laddies, the Sabans depend largely upon the products of their gardens, and carry them regularly to the market at St. Kitts. But they have many another industry besides, and many a quaint and curious custom. Passing through the streets, one may often see an elderly pair, who might have stepped from some cottage in Holland, industriously brushing and polishing a coffin in their dooryard, for the Sabans believe in preparedness; and, knowing the futility and the uncertainties of life and the inevitability of death, they keep their coffins ready for emergencies and as much a part of their household furnishings as chairs or tables.

While the inhabitants of this strange little island are thoroughly Dutch in appearance, the recognized language of Saba is English, and, save among the older people, the tongue of the Netherlands is seldom used.

Owing to the absence of so many of the men at sea, women seem in the great majority at Bottom and like all the women of their race they are never idle for a moment, and they keep their homes and village so tidy and clean that one is convinced that here is the original “spotless town.” In the intervals between scrubbing, dusting, washing, and cooking the Saban women find time to make beautiful drawn-work and lace, which find a ready sale and add many guilders and dollars to their pin-money.

But all that has gone before pales into insignificance when we learn of the leading industry of the Sabans, the work with which the youths and older men occupy themselves, the business that makes the visitor pinch himself to make sure he is not dreaming; for who in the world would ever imagine that it is, of all things, boat-building! Yes; stanch, seaworthy boats, renowned throughout the West Indies, are built here in a crater a thousand feet above the sea, where every plank and timber used in their construction must be carried on people’s heads up the ladder of eight hundred stone steps! And when at last one of these mountain-top boats is built, how, you may well ask, do the Sabans get it down to the water? By the simplest method in the world: they let it down the sides of the cliffs exactly as though their island were a ship and they were lowering their craft from the davits!