Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate
by Charles M. Skinner · English · Gutenberg #24732 · 495,935 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate
Author: Charles M. Skinner
Release date: March 2, 2008 [eBook #24732]
Most recently updated: January 3, 2021
Language: English
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Credits: Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MYTHS & LEGENDS OF OUR NEW POSSESSIONS & PROTECTORATE ***
Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from scanned images of public domain material
from the Google Print project.)
Myths & Legends
Of Our
New Possessions
& Protectorate
By
Charles M. Skinner
Philadelphia & London
J. B. Lippincott Company
1900
THIS BOOK IS
AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED TO
CORNELIA OTIS
SKINNER, OUR
NEW POSSESSION
TABLE OF CONTENTS
In the Caribbean PAGE
The Mysterious Islands 23
The Buccaneers 33
The Boat of Phantom Children 46
Early Porto Rico 48
The Deluge 55
How Spaniards were Found to be Mortal 56
Ponce 58
Water Caves 61
How a Dutchman Helped the Spaniards 65
The Ghost of San Geronimo 67
Police Activity in Humacao 71
The Church in Porto Rico 74
The Mermaids 78
The Aborigines 83
The Caribs 88
Secret Enemies in the Hills 92
Sacred Shrines 98
Tobacco 103
The Two Skeletons of Columbus 106
Obeah Witches 108
The Matanzas Obeah Woman 113
How Havana Got its Market 121
The Justice of Tacon 127
The Cited 133
The Virgin's Diamond 141
A Spanish Holofernes 144
The Courteous Battle 150
Why King Congo was Late 153
The Chase of Taito Perico 156
The Voice in the Inn 163
In the Pacific
Finding of the Islands 177
Ancient Faiths of Hawaii 178
The Giant Gods 188
The First Fire 189
The Little People 190
The Hawaiian Iliad 194
The Hawaiian Orpheus and Eurydice 201
The Rebellion of Kamiole 206
The Japanese Sword 212
Lo-Lale's Lament 217
The Resurrections of Kaha 220
Hawaiian Ghosts 224
The Three Wives of Laa 225
The Misdoing of Kamapua 226
Pele's Hair 233
The Prayer to Pele 234
Lohiau and the Volcano Princess 237
A Visit of Pele 239
The Great Famine 243
Kiha's Trumpet 248
How Moikeha Gained a Wife 252
The Sailing of Paao 254
The Wronged Wife 256
The Magic Spear 259
Hawaiian Witches 262
The Cannibals 267
The Various Graves of Kaulii 270
The Kingship of Umi 273
Keaulumoku's Prophecy 276
The Tragedy of Spouting Cave 277
The Grave of Pupehe 283
The Lady of the Twilight 285
The Ladrones 286
Old Beliefs of the Filipinos 290
Animal Myths 300
Later Religious Myths and Miracles 304
Bankiva, the Philippine Pied Piper 315
The Crab Tried to Eat the Moon 317
The Conversion of Amambar 319
The Bedevilled Galleon 322
Two Runaways from Manila 329
The Christianizing of Wong 333
The Devil's Bridge 335
The Great Earthquake 339
Suppressing Magic in Manila 345
Faith that Killed 348
The Widow Velarde's Husband 351
The Grateful Bandits 352
ILLUSTRATIONS
Gate of the Walled City of Manila _Frontispiece_
A Cuban Residence Page 146
Down the Valley came Pouring a Flood of Lava Page 232
Avenue of Palms, Hawaii Page 262
IN THE CARIBBEAN
The Mysterious Islands
Somewhere--anywhere--in the Atlantic, islands drifted like those
tissues of root and sedge that break from the edges of northern
lakes and are sent to and fro by the gales: floating islands. The
little rafts bearing that name are thick enough to nourish trees,
and a man or a deer may walk on them without breaking through. Far
different were those wandering Edens of the sea, for they had
mountains, volcanoes, cities, and gardens; men of might and women
lovelier than the dawn lived there in brotherly and sisterly esteem;
birds as bright as flowers, and with throats like flutes, peopled
the groves, where luscious fruit hung ready for the gathering, and
the very skies above these places of enchantment were more serene
and deep than those of the storm-swept continents. Where the surges
creamed against the coral beaches and cliffs of jasper and marble,
the mer-people arose to view and called to the land men in song,
while the fish in the shallows were like wisps of rainbow.
It was the habit of these lands never to be where the seeker could
readily find them. Some legends pertaining to them appear to do
with places no farther from the homes of the simple, if imaginative,
tellers than the Azores, Canaries, and Cape Verdes; but others indicate
a former knowledge of our own America, and a few may relate to that
score or so of rocks lying between New England and the Latin shores;
bare, dangerous domes and ledges where sea fowl nest, and where a
crumbling skeleton tells of a sailor who outlived a wreck to endure
a more dreadful death from cold and thirst and hunger. Some of these
tales reach back to the Greek myths: survivals of the oldest histories,
or possibly connected America with the old world through voyages
made by men whose very nations are dead and long forgotten; for the
savages and ogres that inhabited these elusive islands may be European
concepts of our Indians. But in the earlier Christian era all was
mystery on those plains of water that stretched beyond the sunset. It
was believed that as one sailed toward our continent the day faded,
and that if the mariner kept on he would be lost in hopeless gloom.
Perhaps the most ancient story in the world tells of the sinking of
Atlantis. When the Egyptian priest told it to Solon it was already
venerable beyond estimate; yet he recounted the work and pleasures
of the Atlantans, who were a multitude, who drank from hot and cold
springs, who had mines of silver and gold, pastures for elephants,
and plants that yielded a sweet savor; who prayed in temples of white,
red and black stone, sheathed in shining metals; whose sculptors made
vast statues, one, representing Poseidon driving winged horses, being
so large that the head of the god nearly touched the temple roof;
who had gardens, canals, sea walls, and pleasant walks; who had ten
thousand chariots in their capital alone; the port of twelve hundred
ships. They were a folk of peace and kindness, but as they increased
in wealth and comfort they forgot the laws of heaven; so in a day
and a night this continent went down, burying its millions and its
treasures beneath the waters. A few of the inhabitants escaped to
Europe in their ships; a few, also, to America. It has been claimed
that Atlantis may still be traced in an elevation of the ocean floor
about seven hundred miles wide and a thousand miles long, its greatest
length from northeast to southwest, and the Azores at its eastern
edge--mountain tops not quite submerged. As some believe, it was from
this cataclysm that has sprung the world-wide legend of a deluge.
From some of the enchanted lands, perhaps near the American shore,
Merlin went to England, piled the monoliths of Stonehenge on Salisbury
moor, and after gaining respect and fear as a magician and prophet,
sailed back across the waste. The Joyous Island of Lancelot; the island
where King Arthur wrestled and bested the Half Man; Avalon, the Isle
of the Blest, where Arthur lived in the castle of the sea-born fairy,
Morgan le Fee, were probably near the British or Irish coasts.
Many days' sail from Europe was the Island of Youth. A daring Irish
lad reached it, borne by a horse as white as the foam, that never
sank. He paused on the way to slay a giant who held a princess in his
enchantment, and reached, at length, a land where birds were so many
that the trees shook with the burden of them, and the air rang with
their song. There, with his wife and a merry band of youths and maids,
he spent a hundred years--one long joy of killing; for from dawn till
dark the deer met death at his hand, bleeding from the stroke of dart
and knife. A floating spear was found near the shore one day, rusted
and scarred with battle, and as he grasped it memories of old wars
returned to him, so that he was sick with longing to go home and hurl
the cutting metal through the ribs of his enemies and see the good
red flood burst from their hearts. He remounted his white steed and
reached Ireland, careless of the happiness he had left: for those who
deserted the island might never return. He reached his home to find
men grown too small and mean to fight him, which probably means that
he had waxed so great as to make them seem like dwarfs. Appalled at
this change, dismayed at the loss of all chance for battle, he sank
to the earth. His age came suddenly upon him, and he died.
In one of the great Irish monasteries lived St. Brandan, of the holy
brotherhood that tilled the soil, taught the permitted sciences,
copied and illumined the works of the early Christians, fed four
hundred beggars daily, though living on bread, roots, and nuts
themselves, lodging and studying in unwarmed cells of stone. Once in
seven years the people saw from shore the island of Hy-Brasail. The
monks tried to stop its wanderings by prayer and by fiery arrows,
yet without avail. Kirwan claimed to have landed on it, and he
brought back strange money that he said was used by its people. So
late as 1850 Brasail Rock remained on the British Admiralty chart,
to show how hard tradition dies. The appearance of this phantom land
made Brandan long to explore the realm of mystery wherefrom it had
emerged. He hoped to find even the Promised Island of the Saints,
when at last he was able to leave the convent where he had endured so
many hardships and embarked on Mernoc's ship; blessed region where
fruit was borne on every tree, flowers on every bush; region strewn
with precious stones and full of perfume that clung to one's garments
for weeks, like an odor of sanctity.
Seventeen priests set sail in the coracle, or boat of basket work
covered with leather. They had no fear, for they were holy men, and
in those days Christians were immune from peril. Not long before a
company of nuns had been blown across the sea and back again, seated
on a cloak that rode the waves like a ship. After forty days Brandan's
company found a group of islands peopled by courteous natives. Next
they disembarked on what they thought to be a rock to cook a dinner,
but it was no rock; it was a whale, that, feeling the sting of flame
through his thick hide, rushed off for two miles, carrying their fire
on his back. They hastily re-entered their boat before the monster
had gained much headway and ere long reached the Paradise of Birds,
where they enjoyed the music made by thousands of little creatures
with their wings--a music like fiddling. After this came visits to a
den of griffins; to a land of grapes such as the Norsemen told about;
to a mountain country aflame with the forges of one-eyed people, or
cyclops. Twice, on Easter Sunday, they put lambs to death, and so,
being blessed for the sacrifice, were allowed to reach the Island of
Saints, where an angel bade them take all the precious stones they
wished, as they had been created for holy people, but to attempt no
exploration beyond that point. No men appeared; still, in order to
leave the impress of their calling, St. Malo, one of the company,
dug up a giant who had died several years before, preached to him and
baptized him. These reformatory services revived the giant a little,
though he was pretty far gone, and he died again as soon as the priest
stopped preaching. St. Brandan went back to Clonfert, where three
thousand monks joined him in good works, and mendicants swarmed from
all over the land to benefit by their labor. He often told the people
and the brethren of the wonders he had seen in lands Columbus was to
rediscover nine hundred years later, and he dwelt with marvelling on
the mercy of God as shown to Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Christ,
who was encountered in the northern seas, lying naked on an iceberg in
silent delight. St. Brandan recognized him by portraits he had seen and
hailed him. Judas then told his story; he was roasting in hell when
the Lord remembered that once in Joppa this disciple had thrown his
cloak over the shoulders of a leper who was agonized by a wind that
blew sharp sand into his sores. An angel was sent to tell the doomed
one that for this mercy he would be allowed, for one hour in every
year, to breathe the wholesome air of the upper world, and stretch his
scorched body on the ice. Moved by this tenderness toward the most
despised of men, St. Brandan bowed and prayed, just as Judas, with
despair in his upturned face, slipped down again to the deeps of fire.
Some men of Ross, Ireland, had killed their king, despite his
successful wars against his rival monarchs, some of whose kingdoms were
as large as a township. For this offense the heir to the throne, or his
advisers, decreed that sixty couples should be set adrift on the ocean,
to meet what fate they might. A guard was put along the shore to keep
them from landing again, and an easterly gale blew them quickly out of
sight of their relatives and friends. For years none dared to seek for
them. Conall Ua Corra, of Connaught, had prayed in vain to the Lord for
children, so in anger he prayed to the devil, and three boys were born
to his wife. The neighbors jeered at them as the fiend's offspring,
and harassed them and made them bitter. They said, one to the other,
"If we are really sons of Satan we will justify these taunts," and
collecting all the vicious boys of their village they robbed farmers,
ruined churches, killed men who resisted plunder, and were about to
murder their father when they were warned in a vision of the eternal
punishment they would endure in blazing sulphur pits if they did not
repent. Their father had long regretted his hasty prayer to the evil
one, and had tried to regain the good-will of heaven by industry,
and by giving freely of his substance to the sick and pauperized. By
advice of St. Finnen, to whom they confessed, the boys repaired the
churches they had injured and mourned the victims of their brutality;
yet, as the people doubted their conversion, they resolved to leave
the country and go to some land where they would not be constantly
exposed to the danger of breaking their good resolves by reproaches
and attacks. Where to go? It was suggested by some designing neighbor
that if they were to search for the one hundred and twenty exiles they
would be doing a service to heaven and the world. This suggestion was
promptly acted on. In a frail coracle they swept the sea, discovering
strange lands, in one of which the half-forgotten people of Ross were
found, living so contentedly that few of them cared to go back. The
most exciting incidents of the voyage were the three meetings with
the Island of Satan's Hand, a lone rock in icy waters, where fogs
always brooded. At the will of a malignant demon it changed its place
from time to time, and it was the hand of this monster, a vast, rude
shape looming out of the mist, which endangered all the ships that
passed, for it struck at them,--as it did at the coracle of these
three voyagers,--injuring hulls, tearing sails, or knocking the crews
overboard, when it did not send them to the bottom. If the blow fell
short it made the sea boil and sent billows rolling for a mile. Some
of the shore folk said it was icebergs that the shipmen saw; but
icebergs never sailed so far from the pole, they answered. Despite
its wandering habit, the map-makers eventually agreed on a site for
this rock of the smiting hand, calling it Satanaxio. It can be seen
on charts of the eighteenth century.
A thousand years before Columbus it was reported that tropic islands
had been discovered and ruled by Archbishop Oppas, of Spain, who
was fain to leave his country because he had betrayed his king to
the Moors. He found a race friendly and gentle, sharing with one
another whatever was given to them, as not knowing selfishness. This
prelate burned his ships, that his people might not return, laid off
the largest island into seven bishoprics, and, impressing the natives
into his service, built churches and convents, for there were women in
his company whom he placed in nunneries. This island, which figures
on early maps as Antillia and as Behaim, was known also as the Land
of the Seven Cities, from its seven bishoprics. When Coronado heard
of the pueblos of Arizona and New Mexico, he may have confounded
them with the towns of Oppas, and to this day the seven cities of
Cibola are a legend of our desert. Harold's Norsemen were told by
the wild Skraelings of Maine of a pale-faced people farther south,
who walked in processions, carrying white banners and chanting.
Near Florida was the island of Bimini, with its fountain of youth. Juan
and Luis Ponce de Leon sought it vainly among the Bahamas, then
crossed to Florida and kept up the search among the pine barrens,
the moss-bearded cypresses, the snaky swamps, and alligator infested
rivers. The Indians, strong, active, healthy with their simple,
outdoor life, their ignorance of wine and European diseases, seemed
so favored that the Spaniards believed they must have bathed in the
magic fountain and drank its waters. Green Cove Spring, near Magnolia,
is the one where Luis bathed, hoping that he had found at last the
restorative fountain; but an angry Indian shot a poisoned arrow through
his body, and neither prayers nor water stayed long the little life
that was in him. So the spring is in the unfound Bimini, after all.
The Buccaneers
How the free traders in the West Indies became smugglers, how by easy
stages they passed from the profession of illicit dealing to piracy,
are matters that concern history rather than legend. Their name of
buccaneers comes from buccan, an Indian word signifying a smoke-house,
in which beef and other meats were dried; as one of the earliest
enterprises of the rovers was the stealing of Spanish cattle in San
Domingo, and the drying of their flesh in the native buccans for use
at sea.
A general hatred or jealousy of Spain, that was shared by the English,
Dutch, and French, led to the first privateering expeditions. Indeed,
throughout the seventeenth century the pirates operated principally
against Spain, and were tolerated because of the injury they did to
her ships, her people, her property, and her trade. Having finally
ruined her commerce, they sacked her colonies, and, the lust for blood
and treasure having been roused to a sort of madness, they cast off
patriotic allegiances and became mere robbers and outlaws. The history
of the successes of L'Ollonois, Morgan, Davis, and the rest, is an
exciting though painful one, inasmuch as all sense of right and mercy
seems to have been crushed in the breasts of these men by their brutal
business. For a handful of dollars they were ready to wreck a city,
reduce even its ruins to ashes, slaughter women and babes, and cut
the throats of the aged. They were as harsh and treacherous toward one
another as they were toward peaceable men, and for acts of rebellion
against a leader they were killed off-hand, while it was customary,
also, to butcher a sailor whenever a chest of treasure was buried,
and place his body on or in the chest, that his ghost might guard it
and terrify intruders. Yet the ultimate influence of the buccaneers
was for good, inasmuch as they wrested a part of the rich Antilles from
the cruel and ignorant Spaniard and gave it to more enlightened powers.
When the freebooting days were at their height there was no harbor
of safety between Rio and Halifax; but there was, in every town the
rascals visited, an element that profited by their robberies: the
keepers of inns, brothels, and gaming-houses, and, lastly, the royal
governors. These bloody-fingered varlets would sack a church, get
tipsy on the communion wine, and demand the blessing of the priests on
the next enterprise of the same kind they had in contemplation. With
the chalices, candlesticks, and altar furnishings, they would go
to the nearest city, where they were sure of finding this friendly
element, and riot away the last piece of metal in their pockets; or,
if pipes of wine were among the prizes, any island would serve for
a long debauch. Devil's Island, the place of Dreyfus's captivity,
was a popular rendezvous, though it is so named not because of these
gatherings, but because of a particularly unmanageable prisoner who
was once confined there.
The governors of some of the West Indies were as keen on the scent
of the sea-robbers as the latter were in the chase of merchant-men,
and they were unable to see a good many sad goings-on when a few
pieces-of-eight were held before their eyes. Gaming was no disgrace
in those times, nor was hard drinking, nor coarse speech, and even
piracy had a sort of sanction when the victims were people of a nation
with whom the buccaneers were at war. Many tales of gamesters' luck
are told, but a couple will suffice. Vent-en-Panne, a Frenchman,
had received five hundred crowns as his share of a robbery, and on
the first night ashore, at Kingston, Jamaica, he staked and lost
it all, with three hundred more that a reckless comrade had lent to
him. Though penniless, he was not discouraged. He became a wine-drawer
and pipe-lighter in the tavern, and with a few pennies received for
tips he bet on the cards again. This time he won, and his fortune
mounted to twelve thousand crowns. With this amount in hand he felt
he could be virtuous, so he took ship for home, intending to settle
in Paris and fulfil the ambition of every honest Frenchman,--to own
a furnished room, fish in the Seine, and hear the bands play. He got
only as far as Barbadoes, for at that island a rich Jew came aboard,
persuaded him to play for a small amount, and lost everything to
Vent-en-Panne,--money, houses, sugar, and slaves. The fever was on
them both, however, and so soon as the Jew could borrow a little his
luck also turned, and Vent-en-Panne was stripped of every sou,--even
the clothes he wore. Paris became an iridescent dream, and the gambler
found his way to the Tortugas, where he doubtless shipped with Morgan,
Teach, or some other of the scourges of the Spanish main.
Two rovers are credited with beating the governor of Jamaica at another
game, after they had lost to him a matter of ten thousand crowns,--the
earnings of several weeks faithfully devoted to privateering. In
order to continue the game (to their complete beggary), the fellows
had borrowed from acquaintances in Kingston, who, seeing no way to get
their money back, decided to have them imprisoned for debt. Hearing of
this plan, the elder of the precious pair reported to the governor that
he had a negro whom he would like to sell, cheap, in order to pay his
debts and start in a mechanic trade, such as he had followed in years
gone by. The governor bade him have the fellow brought in, and finding
him to be a sturdy, intelligent man, with a skin as black as the ten
of clubs, he bought him and set him at work. Next day the negro had
disappeared. Notice and offers of reward were sent to all parts of the
island, but nothing came of it. The two ex-pirates followed a peaceful
and thriving trade of making keys, possibly for burglars, and in a few
years had saved enough to enable them to return to England. Before
sailing they called on the ex governor, who had drank and gambled
himself into poverty, and emptied a fistful of gold before him.
"That's for the nigger, with interest," said one.
"The nigger? What, the one that ran away?" asked the governor.
"Oh, he didn't run far. Here he is." And the speaker clapped his
companion on the shoulder. "He had only to curl his hair with a hot
iron and rub charcoal on his chops to deceive a governor."
The tickled old fellow drank their health and wished them a safe
journey, out of Jamaica.
While luck seemed to bide with the rovers, it was not always smooth
sailing on the Spanish seas. Now and then the buccaneers attacked
an innocent looking ship that waited until they had come within
musket-reach, when it ran up the Spanish standard, opened a dozen
ports, and let fly at them with hot-shot and a hail of bullets. Now
and again a mutiny would occur, and the victorious either forced the
defeated to walk the plank or marooned them on some desolate sand
key to perish of thirst and sunstroke.
Blackbeard's men once found a fishing-vessel drifting off the Burmudas
and eagerly boarded her to look for treasure. In a minute they tumbled
out of the cabin and scrambled into the sea like the swine possessed
of devils. The vessel had but one living man on board, and he had not
many hours of life before him, while corpses strewn about the floor
were spotted with small-pox. Half of the pirate crew were slain by
the pestilence.
When Roberts was cruising off Surinam a supposed war-ship bore down on
him in a fog. He pelted her with all his guns, but she kept her way
unheeding. The fog then breaking showed that it was not a frigate,
but a sloop, which had been magnified by the mist, and he quickly
grappled her and sent his men to see what manner of ship she was. Ten
or twelve Spaniards lying about the deck with their throats cut proved
that some other buccaneer had been before him. As the men were about
to leave their floating charnel-house to hold her way whither the
gales might send her, a furious swearing in Spanish caused them to
shiver and look back. Were the dead speaking? Had some crazed sailor
escaped, and was he gibbering from the roundtop? No: it was a parrot
in the rigging, and he was saying all he knew.
Montbar, having discovered a company of Spanish on one of the Windward
Islands, went ashore with guns, knives, and axes, and destroyed them
all, except one. This man told how he and his fellows had been put
ashore. They were the crew of a slaver, and were on their way from
Africa to Cuba with a cargo of slaves, when the ship began to leak
badly. The carpenter, accompanied by several of the more intelligent
of the blacks, made a careful inspection of the hold, yet could find
no leak; so the constant inflow, that kept all hands at the pumps,
was at length declared to be the devil's work. The slaves wailed and
wrung their hands, the captain swore and prayed, the crew toiled to
exhaustion. When it seemed as if the ship could not float for another
day the island appeared ahead, and quickly loading arms, provisions,
and water into the boats, the Spaniards abandoned ship and left the
negroes to their fate. Great was their surprise and dismay when the
slaves ran, cheering, over the deck, hoisted all sail, and squared away
for the eastward, the vessel rising higher in the water as her former
crew sat watching her. These blacks, who were confined in the hold,
had got possession of knives with which they cut through the outer
planking, causing the ship to leak alarmingly. They had also fitted
plugs to these leaks, and packed them with oakum, so that when the
carpenter made his rounds no water came in. As soon as he returned
to the deck the holes were opened again, for it was known that the
Antilles were near, and the scheme to frighten their captors to land
was successful. These facts the crew learned from the negro cook,
who had accompanied them to shore.
The devil, who was supposed in this case to have been the enemy instead
of the ally of the slavers, often mixed in the affairs of a class
that must have filled him with admiration. Some of the pirates are
reported to have placed themselves entirely in the hands of the foe of
the human race, swearing on strange objects to give their souls to him,
and formally burying a Bible on shore as a token that they were through
forever with religion and mercy. Yet they were a superstitious lot,
fearful of signs and portents, and do not, therefore, appear to have
been trusting subjects of His Satanic Majesty. They always had an ear
and a coin for a fortune-teller, and early in the eighteenth century
there were negroes and Indians in the West Indies and the tropic
Americas who openly practised that trade and art of witchcraft for
which their white brethren in Salem had been hanged. Their principal
customers were pirates and buccaneers, who went to them for a forecast
of fortune, and also bought charms that would create fair winds for
themselves and typhoons for their enemies. These witches kept open
ears in their heads, and information carelessly dropped by the outlaws
they sold for an aftermath of gain to the Spaniards, who found truth
in so many of the prophesies that they respected the soothsayers and
fully believed that the English were the chosen of the fiend.
Among the most trusted of the witches was a withered Indian woman
of Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. She was close upon her fifth
score of years before she departed this life, but the rumor that she
had lived in New Providence since the flood was not denied, for it
made her the more regarded. Her best commodity was strings. For a
large price she would sell a string in which she had tied several
knots, each one of which represented the particular wind that the
captain might wish to prosper him on his way. Captain Condent was a
blaspheming corsair from the wicked town of New York, who had left
that port as quartermaster on a merchant-man and next morning had
appeared with a battery of pistols and had calmly taken the ship out
of the hands of her officers. This fellow had bought a string from
the witch that carried him to the Cape Verdes and back to America,
but when he had cut off all the knots, except two or three, he feared
that he might run out of winds altogether; so he put upon certain
servants of the Lord the task for which he had paid the servant of the
devil. He had with him two or three Spanish monks whom he had stolen
in the Cape Verdes, though what he wanted of them neither he nor they
could have guessed. They were having a most unhappy time of it. Now
and then the scallawag sailors would force them upon all fours, and
sitting astride their backs would compel them to creep about the deck,
pretending to be horses, while Condent whipped them smartly with the
rope's end. Thinking to save his precious twine, he ordered these
monks to pray for favoring winds, and he kept them on their marrow
bones petitioning from daylight until sunset. Often they would fall
exhausted and voiceless. At last, believing that the wind peddler
of Nassau had more power over the elements than a shipload of monks,
he threw the wretched friars overboard, and, as luck would have it,
the wind he wanted came whistling along a few minutes after.
He came to the end of his string at Zanzibar, where he was caught
in a tremendous storm, and was in hourly peril of destruction. His
masts had cracked, his sails had split, his water barrels had gone
by the board. It was time to hold the witch to her bargain. He swung
the cord about his head three times, called the woman's name, and
although eight thousand miles of sea and continent lay between them,
she heard the call. The string was pulled through his fingers so
smartly that it made them burn, and was whisked out of sight in the
wind and the spray. Within an hour the gale abated. Next day Condent
attempted to make his way by dead reckoning, but whenever he went
wrong a bird flew in his face, and a ship crowded with skeletons
approached him in the mist. He presently gained the Isle of Bourbon,
or Reunion, where his stealings enabled him to cut such a figure in
society that he married into the family of the governor and died in
an odor of--well, maybe it was sanctity. At all events, he died.
It was a witch also that had foretold the march of the buccaneers
across Panama isthmus, and her warning was considered of such
importance that the Spanish troops and merchants were notified, though
they made but a feeble resistance when the foray actually occurred.
One of the Spanish slavers bound for our coasts was overhauled by the
English pirate Lewis. She was a fast sailer and had nearly escaped
when Lewis ripped a handful of hair from his head, flung it to the
wind, and shouted, "Ho, Satan, keep that till I come." Instantly
the wind rose to a gale. In a few minutes the Spaniard was in the
hands of the pirates, and the slaves, being only an encumbrance,
were tossed overboard to the sharks, as one might fling away a damaged
cargo. One of the black men was a dwarf, gnarly, wrinkled, misshapen,
with eyes that blazed like a cat's in the dark. No sooner had this
man been pushed over the side than he uttered an ear-splitting yell,
and seemed to bound back to the deck. It was a cat, however, not a
human being, that was seen to rush into the cabin, and it looked into
Lewis's face with the same shining, menacing eyes that he had seen
in the dwarf. A negro boy who had been spared to act as a servant for
the captain having unconsciously roused his anger, Lewis rushed upon
him with his sword, cut him through the heart and beat his corpse,
the cat sitting by and squealing with glee at the sight. When a mate
struck at the animal in a tort of disgust and fear, the creature leaped
at him and almost blinded him with its claws. From that time the cat
became Lewis's familiar; was before him at the table, on his pillow
when he slept, on his shoulder when he gave orders. The crew agreed
that it could be none other than the devil himself. On Lewis's last
night alive, while he was quite drunk, the cat seemed to be whispering
into his ear. He arose and staggered away, saying, "The devil says
I shall be killed to-night." An hour later his ship was boarded by
French pirates, and Lewis was despatched. After scratching the faces
of nearly all the enemy, the cat ran up the mainmast, throwing off
sparks and screeching, scrambled to the end of the topsail-yard,
and leaped off into the night.
Morgan, the English sea robber, had captured a number of Spanish
prisoners in Panama, among them a woman of beauty and distinction, who
had been left without other protection than that of a faithless servant
during her husband's absence in Peru. The dignity and refinement of
his prisoner made a certain impression on Morgan. After he had put to
sea a cabin was reserved for her, she was treated with respect by the
crew, but a guard kept her in sight always. The gross nature of the
pirate disclosed itself in a few days, when, fresh from a debauch and
reeking with the odors of rum, he forced her cabin door and attempted
to embrace her. She sprang back with a cry of loathing, and grasping a
dagger swore that if he ever intruded himself in her presence again she
would drive the weapon into her own heart, since she could never hope
to reach his by any means, violent or gentle. In a fit of anger, the
pirate ordered his sailors to cast her into the hold among the slaves
and hostages, there to endure fever, crowding, hunger, and thirst.
A week or two later these lean, half-dead wretches were kicked out of
their dark and stifling dungeon to be sold to some planters. A woman
among them asked for a few words with Morgan. Haggard, tear-stained,
ragged, neglected as she was, the captain did not at first recognize
her as the one whom he had insulted by his show of love. When he did
recall her name and state he asked indifferently what she wanted. She
told him that an injustice had been done; that she had at first told
him it was in her power to buy her liberty, believing it to be so; but
her hope was destroyed, and she was so ill and wasted that she would
be useless as a slave. As she was going on board of the ship she had
whispered to a couple of Spanish priests telling them where her money
was concealed, and asking them to pay her ransom with it. They also
were under guard, but they persuaded one of the buccaneer officers to
go with them, recovered the money, bought their own freedom with it,
and ran away. Hearing this, Morgan sent the woman back to Panama,
succeeded in capturing the priests, and sold them into slavery.
It is said of Morgan that he had a fire ship, which he would tow
as close as possible to the fleets of his enemies, both to draw
their fire and kindle a more disastrous one. What appeared to be
its crew were logs of wood, placed upright between the bulwarks,
each log surmounted by a hat. As to fire, it is recorded that Teach,
or Blackbeard, now and then shut himself into his cabin and burned
sulphur to prove to his crew that he was a devil. He used to tie his
whiskers with red ribbons into pigtails that he tucked over his ears,
and he looked the part. Yet he was less of a monster than L'Olonnais,
who so hated Spaniards that he would not only slaughter his prisoners,
but would bite their hearts like a savage beast after he had cut them
out. Beside Blackbeard there was a Redbeard and a Bluebeard. All three
of these gentlemen had castles in St. Thomas, and that of Bluebeard
had a room in which it is alleged that he killed his wives after the
fashion of his Eastern relative.
The Boat of Phantom Children
Sir Francis Drake, destroyer of many of the "invincible" ships of
Spain, came to America with Sir John Hawkins, to subdue the Spanish
colonies with the heaviest fleet he ever commanded. Though wrangles
between the commanders made this expedition a comparative failure,
still wherever the head of a don was seen, a cracking blow was struck
at it. War was a crueller business then than it is to-day, in spite
of our high explosives, our armored ships, our mighty guns, and our
nimble tactics, and things were done that no captain would dare in
these times; at least, no captain with a fear of the world's rebuke,
or that of his own conscience. Just before Christmas, 1594, Drake
was scourging the coast of Colombia, burning houses, and shipping
and despoiling the towns. The people of one village near Rio de la
Hache, having been warned of his coming, buried their little property,
closed their houses, put fifty of their children on a fishing smack,
while they hurriedly provisioned some boats to carry all the people to
a distant cape, where they would remain in hiding until after Drake
had destroyed their homes and passed on. The fisherman who owned the
smack set sail too soon; he was separated from the others in a gale,
and Drake, who then appeared, ran between him and the shore, and with
a couple of shots drove him farther into the wild sea. The smack never
returned. After the English had passed, the people watched for it,
and, truly, on the next day, a boat was seen beating against the gale
and trying to make the pier. As it came nearer, the parents saw their
children holding out their arms and laughing. Then the outlines of the
hull and sail grew dim, the children's forms drooped as if weary; and
in another moment the vision had passed. Long was the grief and loud
were the curses on the English. When Drake learned that he had fired
on a harmless fishing vessel and driven a company of little ones away
from land to be sunk in a tempest, he was filled with compunction and
misgiving. The same vision that the parents had seen crossed the path
of his own ships. Before every storm the boat of phantoms appeared,
and when he sailed for Escudo and Porto Bello it followed him. Wearied
with many wars, ill with tropical fever, repentant for this useless
killing, he sank into a depression from which nothing could rouse him,
and in January he died on his ship, at Nombre de Dios. His remains were
consigned to a sailor's grave--the wide ocean--and as the ship moved
on her way, the crew, looking back to the place where the body had gone
down, saw the phantom smack rise from the deep, rush like a wind-blown
wrack across the spot, and melt into the air as it neared the shore.
Early Porto Rico
Though Columbus made his first landing in Porto Rico at Naguabo,
where the Caribs afterward destroyed a Spanish settlement, he gave its
present name to the island when he put in Aguada for water. Charmed
with the beauty of the bay, the opulence of vegetation, the hope
of wealth in the river sands, he christened it "the rich port,"
and extending this, applied to the whole island the name of San Juan
Bautista de Puerto Rico--St. John the Baptist of the Rich Port. The
natives knew their island as Boriquen. Later came Ponce de Leon,
who founded Caparra, now Pueblo Viejo, across the bay from San Juan,
to which spot he shifted a little later and built the white house
that may still be seen. San Juan is the oldest city of white origin
in the Western world, except Santo Domingo, albeit Santiago de Cuba
and Baracoa claim to be contemporary. The body of Ponce is buried in
San Juan, in the church of Santo Domingo.
When this fair island was claimed by Spain, it had a population of
over half a million, but Ponce at once set about the extinction of
the native element. The populace was simple, affectionate, confiding,
and in showing friendship for the invaders it invited and obtained
slavery. It has been ingeniously advanced that the Spaniards disliked
the natives because of the cleanliness of the latter. On account
of the heat they wore no clothing, to absorb dirt and perspiration,
and bathed at least once every day. In those times white people were
frugal in the use of water, Spain being more pronounced against it than
almost any other nation. Listen to one of the Spanish writers, though
he is talking, not of our Indians, but of the Moors: "Water seems more
needed by these infidels than bread, for they wash every day, as their
damnable religion directs them to, and they use it in baths, and in a
thousand other idle fashions, of which Spaniards and other Christians
can make little account." We know that a Spanish queen refrained,
not only from washing, but from changing her clothes for a whole
year. The Porto Ricans were naked, but unaware of their nakedness,
therefore they were moderately virtuous; at least, more virtuous than
their conquerors. Had they been treated with justice and mercy they
would have remained friendly to the white men, and would have been
of great service to them in the development of the island. As early
as 1512, Africans were shipped to the island to take the places, at
enforced labor, of the Indians who had been destroyed. A religion was
forced down the throats of the natives that they did not understand,
especially as the friars preached it; and being unable at once to grasp
the meaning or appreciate the value of discourses on the spiritual
nature, the trinity, vicarious atonement, transubstantiation, and the
intercession of saints, the soldiers, always within call, followed
their custom when the congregations proved intractable: killed them.
It is said that the Spaniards acquired such ease in the slaying of
Indians that they would crack a man's head merely to see if it would
split easily or if their swords were keeping their edge, and that they
varied their more direct and merciful slaughters by roasting one of
the despised infidels occasionally. Slavery in damp mines, fevers in
swamps, unaccustomed work, strain, anxiety, grief, insufficient food,
lack of liberty, separation from friends and families, killed more
than the sword. It was the same in all the conquered lands. In Hayti
a million people were oppressed out of existence or slain outright
in fifteen years, and but sixty-five thousand were left. In less
than a century that island had not a single native. So in Porto
Rico: not a man is to be found there to-day who is a pure-blooded
aborigine. Even their relics and monuments, their traditions and
history, were obliterated by their conquerors--the race that destroyed
the libraries of the Moors and the picture records of the Aztecs. Few
even of their burial places are known, although the Cave of the Dead,
near Caguana, was so named because of the Indian skeletons found in it.
Some of the tools and implements of stone found on the island are
so strange that one cannot even guess their purpose. Of the heavy
stone collars that have been preserved, a priest holds that they
were placed about the necks of the dead, that the devil might not
lift them out of their graves, but this sounds like an invention of
the church, for there is no proof that a belief in the devil existed
among these people. They had a god, as well as minor spirits, and sang
hymns to them; they had some crafts and arts, for they made canoes,
huts, chairs, nets, hammocks, pottery, weapons, and implements,
and, although the fierce Caribs vexed them now and again, they were
accounted as the gentlest and most advanced of the native people in the
Antilles. Speaking of the hammock, that is one of their devices that
the world has generally adopted, and the name is one of the few Indian
words that have survived the Spanish oppressions, though there are many
geographic titles. Other familiar survivals are the words hurricane,
canoe, tobacco, potato, banana, and a few other botanical names.
It is probable that these Boriquenos were allied in speech and custom,
as well as in blood, to their neighbors the Haytiens, of whom saith
Peter Martyr, "The land among these people is common as sun and
water. 'Mine' and 'thine,' the seeds of all mischief, have no place
among them. They are content with so little that in this large country
they have more than plenty. They live in a golden world without toil,
in open gardens, not intrenched, defended, or divided. They deal truly
with one another, without laws, judges, or books. He that will hurt
another is an evil man, and while they take no pleasure in superfluity,
they take means to increase the roots that are their food--diet so
simple that their health is assured." Still, it is known that in their
defence against the marauding Caribs the Porto Ricans were courageous,
and had become adept with arrow and club, and it was believed by some
of the first explorers that they ate their captives.
The aborigines of Porto Rico probably differed little, if at all, from
the Haytiens in their faith in an all-powerful, deathless god, who
had a mother but no father, who lived in the sky and was represented
on earth by zemes or messengers. Every chief had his zemi, carved
in stone or wood, as a tutelary genius, to whom he addressed his
prayers and who had a temple of his own. Zemes directed the wind,
waves, rains, rivers, floods, and crops, gave success or failure in
the hunt, and gave visions to or spoke with priests who had worked
themselves into a rhapsodic state by the use of a drug (it may have
been tobacco), in order to receive the message, which often concerned
the health of a person or of a whole village. The Spaniards regarded
these manitous as images of the devil, and in order to keep them the
natives hid the little effigies from the friars and the troops. In
the festivals of these gods there were dances, music, and an offering
of flower-decorated cakes.
Hayti was the first created, the sun and moon came from the cave near
Cape Haytien known as _la voute a Minguet_, through a round hole in
the roof. Men came from another cave, the big ones through a large
door, the little men from a smaller one. They were without women for
a long time, because the latter lived in trees and were slippery;
but some men with rough hands finally pulled four of them down from
the branches, and the world was peopled. At first, the men dared to
leave their cave only at night, for the sun was so strong it turned
them to stone, though one man who was caught at his fishing by the
sun became a bird that still sings at night, lamenting his fate. When
a chief was dying in pain he was mercifully strangled,--though the
common people were allowed to linger to their end,--and his deeds were
rehearsed in ballads sung to the drum. There was a belief in ghosts,
albeit they could not be seen in the light, unless in a lonely place,
nor by many persons. When they did mingle with the people it was
easy to distinguish them from the living, as they had no navel. What
became of the wicked after death we do not know, but the good went
to a happy place where they met those whom they loved, and lived
among women, flowers, and fruits. During the day the departed souls
hid among the mountains, but peopled the fairest valleys at night,
and in order that they should not suffer from hunger the living were
careful to leave fruit on the trees.
From these quaint and simple faiths the people were roused by the
professors of a more enlightened one, who made their teaching useless,
however, if not odious, to the brown people by their practises. It was
an old belief, at least among the Haytiens, that a race of strangers,
with bodies clad, would cross the sea and would reduce the people
to servitude. This prophecy may have made them the more unwilling
to yield to the Spaniards, in respect of religious faith, despite
the signs and wonders that were shown to them. When chief Guarionex
raided a Spanish chapel and destroyed the sacred images within,
the shattered statues were buried in a garden, and the turnips and
radishes planted there came up in the form of the cross. But even
this did not convince the savages, whom it became necessary to burn,
in order to smooth the way to reform.
The Deluge
Like many unschooled peoples, the Antillean tribes had their legend of
a time when the earth was covered by a flood. The island of St. Thomas
was one of the first to rise out of the sea. The Haytiens said that
the deluge did not subside and that the present islands are the
summits of mountains that formerly towered to a great height above
the plains. Far back in the days when people lived more simply, and
white men, with their abominable contrivings for work, had not even
been invented, a _cacique_ or chief of their island killed his son,
who had tried to harm him, albeit when the lad was dead a natural
affection prompted the father to clean his bones and conceal them
in a gourd. Some time afterwards the _cacique_ and his wife opened
this vegetable tomb, to look on the mortal relics of their child,
when a number of fish jumped out. Believing that he now had in the
gourd a magic receptacle, from which he could take food at any time,
the chief placed it on his roof, where mischief-makers might not reach
it. While absent on a hunting-trip his four surviving sons took down
the gourd to see what peculiar properties it had, and why it had been
thus set apart. In passing it from one to the other it fell and was
broken into little pieces. Instantly a vast quantity of water gushed
from it, increasing in volume every instant. The water arose so that it
reached their knees, and they had to climb the hills. Whales, sharks,
porpoises, dolphins, and smaller creatures came swimming forth, and
the flow of the water never ceased until the whole world was flooded,
as we see it now, for the ocean came from that gourd.
How Spaniards were Found to be Mortal
The first Spaniards to reach the American islands were everywhere
greeted as heavenly visitors, and the natives would not have been
astonished had the caravels spread their sails--their wings, as they
first were called--and flown into the clouds, carrying Columbus and his
wrangling, jealous, sensual, gold-greedy company with him. Afterward
they would have been more astonished than sorry. When the white men
discovered this simple faith among the savages they encouraged it,
for it induced the Indians to give up their wives, daughters, houses,
weapons, and, above all else, their gold, to the strangers. The little
bells and beads they gave in return were treasured because of their
celestial origin and adored as fervently as the bones of saints are
adored in some of the European churches. Everywhere and always the
demand was for gold, and in the belief that the supply was going to
last forever, Spain began to ruin herself with more industry than
she had ever shown in peaceful callings. Her wars, her splendors,
her vanities, her neglect of education and morality, bore their fruit
when she pulled her flag down from the staff on Havana's Moro, and
gave up her claims to the last foot of land in the Western world.
Ponce de Leon permitted the fiction that the Spaniards were
angels--save the mark!--for it smoothed his progress in stripping
the Porto Ricans of their poor little possessions, taking their lands
for settlement, foraging over the island, forcing his religion upon
them, and compelling them to serve him as miners, carriers, farmers,
fishermen, and laborers. Many died because it was thought to be cheaper
to work them to death and get fresh ones than to feed them. After a
time the Indians began to have doubts, and when the friars enlarged
on the glories of heaven, and described it as the abode of Spaniards,
more of them than Hatuey were anxious to be allowed to go to the
other place. They did not at first dare to attack the intruders,
for what could men avail against gods, and of what use were spears
and clubs against their thunderous arms and smashing missiles?
As the aggressions increased and became less and less endurable,
Chief Agueynaba resolved, out of the soreness of his heart, to test
this reputed immortality of his guests. A messenger, one Salzedo, was
to be sent away from San Juan on some official errand, with a little
company of natives as freighters and servants. This was Agueynaba's
chance. He ordered his men to slip Salzedo into a river and hold him
under water for a time. If he was an immortal this would not hurt
him, and if he died, why--they would try very hard to bear up under
the loss. While crossing the river--the spot is still shown--the
men who bore Salzedo on their shoulders pitched him off and detained
him beneath the surface for a couple of hours; then, fearing that he
might be still alive and vicious, they put him on a bank and howled
apologies to his remains for three days. By that time there was no
longer a doubt about his deadness. Reports of this discovery traversed
the island with the speed of a South American mail service, so that
within a week people even forty miles away had heard about it. Thus
encouraged to resistance by the discovery that white men were mortal,
the populace fell upon their persecutors and troubled them, although
after one defeat the Spaniards rallied and drove the Indians back to
the mines.
Ponce
When Ponce de Leon visited and conquered Porto Rico he heard of the
elixir of life. It may not have been among the springs of that island,
but the natives had a faith in it and some of them referred it to the
Bahamas. Their possible reason for this was to persuade the white men
to go there and look for it, for they were not popular in Porto Rico,
and this was the more to be regretted in Ponce's case, because he was
far from popular at home. At the court of Ferdinand and Isabella was
a page who was handsome, spirited, and saucy. One of the daughters of
the royal pair, wearied with the forms and ceremonies of her state,
which, in the most punctilious court in Europe, were especially
trying, found means to converse with this well-appearing, quick-witted
scamp. A tattling courtier, recalling a _faux pas_ of the last queen,
and desiring no more scandals, reported that the princess had been
seen to smile on the youngster. No guilt was proven upon him, but
handsome pages were ill-chosen company for young women of blue blood.
Ponce de Leon was the page, and he was sent to the New World
to discover something to the advantage of his own modesty, and
incidentally to accumulate for shipment anything that might be useful
to the Spanish treasury. He landed in Boriquen, as Porto Rico was
then called, and began a general subjugation and slaughter of the
natives. Some were slain in battle, but thousands were carried away
and made to work in mines and on distant plantations, as slaves, until
their health was destroyed, and they, too, were no longer an obstacle
to Spanish control, though the lack of their hands was a hindrance to
Spanish enterprise. Ponce took his share of the gold and treasure he
had forced these unfortunates to supply, and went back to Spain with
it. Sea air had spoiled his complexion, fighting had roughened his
manners, slave-driving had made his voice coarse. Possibly, also,
his princess had recovered from her disappointment. Maybe she had
been married off to some nobody of Portugal, or France, or Austria,
for state reasons, and had entered on the usual loveless life of
royalty. Or she may have beguiled her maidenly solitude by drinking
much wine of Oporto, Madeira, and Xeres with her dinner, thereby
acquiring that amplitude of girth, that ruddiness of countenance, and
that polish of nose, which add so little to romance. At all events,
we hear nothing more of the affair.
In the course of years Ponce took to himself the gout, rheumatism,
dyspepsia, and a few such matters, and he scolded his dresser more than
usual because his clothes did not fit at the waist as they had done,
once. He parted his hair with a towel, and it was grizzled where
it curled about his neck and temples. Then he recalled the tales
the Boriquenos had told of the bright waters that gushed from the
earth amid banks of flowers,--waters so sweet that who drank would
drink again, and with every draught would throw off years and pain
until at last he was a youth once more,--a youth with hot blood,
sparkling eyes, lithe muscles; a youth who saw the world full of
beauty and adventure. Ah, to be once more as he was when the princess
beamed on him; to throw away his cares, his ails, his conscience,
his regrets; to sing and dance, to ruffle it with other cavaliers,
to dice, to drink, to feast, to win the smiles of ladies! It was a
joy worth trying to attain.
He sailed once more, an older, sober man. He discovered Florida,
bathed in its springs, drank from its flower-edged streams, but to no
avail. Bimini, the place of the living waters, evaded him. Boriquen,
renamed Porto Rico, could offer no more. But, though his living
presence passed, the first building on the island--the White House,
near San Juan--remains, and he left his name in the town that was
first among the Antillean cities to raise the flag of a republic
that should wave over the continent he had helped to discover and
colonize:--the city of Ponce.
Water Caves
As in most of the Spanish American countries, so in Porto Rico, ghosts
are common,--so common that in some towns the people hardly turn to
look at them; and if on a wild night in the hurricane season they hear
them gibbering at their doors, they patter an _ave_ or throw a piece of
harness at the disturbance, and sleep again. Ponce, for instance, has
a number of these spooks, such as the man who searches for his hidden
money, and the child with a snowy face that knocks on the panes, then
stares fixedly in, with corpse eyes, at the windows. Best known among
these supernatural citizens are two lovers who "spoon" on dark nights,
and are faintly outlined on the landscape as figures of quivering,
smoky blue. Their favorite haunt is their death-place, eight miles
from Ponce, in a hollow among limestone hills, now environed by a
coffee plantation. Here are found three basins--results of erosion,
most likely--that are described as natural bath-tubs. The middle and
largest of these pools is partly filled with silt, probably occluding
the entrance to a cavern which formerly opened into it, a fathom or
so below the water-surface. This cave was the hiding-place of a native
woman whose father had discovered her love for one of Ponce de Leon's
soldiers. He forbade her to have anything to do with the enemies of
his country, enlarged on their rapacity, cruelty, and treachery,
and tried to create in her a sense of shame that she should have
chosen a Spaniard, instead of a Boriqueno chief, for a lover. There
were no locksmiths in the Antilles for love to laugh at, but there
were spears and knives to fear, and the young couple, who seemed to
be inspired by genuine affection, met at this lonely spot to do their
courting. On the least suspicion of a hostile approach, the maid could
slip into the water, enter the cave, and wait for an hour or a day,
until the intruder had retired. However it happened nobody could
tell,--or would,--but the Spaniard was found drowned one morning in
that pool. He may have been found waiting there, by the angry parent,
thrown in, on general principles, and held to the bottom by his steel
arms and armor; or he may have been trying to find the cave in which
his charmer had secreted herself, and while so engaged may have bumped
his head against the rocky wall and stunned himself, or he may have
been a poor swimmer and lost his wits and his wind. At all events,
drowned he was, and the dusky virgin who loved him, seeing his form
at the bottom of the water, sang her sorrow chant, dived in, and,
holding to his body, perished wilfully at his side. Their love endures,
and that is why their luminous shadows sit at the brink of the pool,
with locked arms and meeting lips, to the disgust of voting women
and confirmed bachelors.
This legend, with variants, is found in many parts of the world. There
are two or three instances of it in the Hawaiian islands, and a
tradition pertaining to Hayti is worth quoting here, as it refers to
the same period and illustrates the same enmity between the white and
native races. Near the city of San Domingo is, or was, a "water cave,"
so named because the entrance to it was several feet below the lake
whose shore it undermines. When the young half-breed, Diaz, returned
from Spain to his native island of Hispaniola in 1520, his mother,
Zameaca, queen of the Ozamas, had disappeared, possibly killed outright
by the Spaniards, or more slowly killed by enslavement at the mines in
vainly trying to satisfy the rapacity of the white race for gold. Diaz,
though partly of Spanish blood, was allied in his sympathies to the
Indians. Hence, they planned to make him ruler. Their conspiracy was
quelled for the time being, with such brutality that those natives
who escaped death hated their tyrants with a deeper hatred than
ever, and fixed them the more strongly in their resolution to be
avenged. The leading chiefs and warriors of the Ozamas took refuge
in the water cave, spying on their enemies and going about to make
converts among the islanders at night. It was not long before the
watchful Spaniards discovered that mischief was afoot, and there
were reasons for believing that the chiefs had their hiding place not
many miles from town. By following various suspects into the country,
and noticing the time and way of their return, they became convinced
that the leaders of the rebellion were somewhere near the lake.
A young woman, a slave in the family of the Spanish governor, was
so often absent on mysterious errands that the authorities at last
fixed on her as the one most likely to betray her countrymen. She was
won to their purpose through her vanity. Her mistress had a comb of
elaborate and curious workmanship, and to have one like it was the
principal object in her existence. The governor told her that she
should have this priceless treasure itself if she would tell him
where the chiefs were meeting. To this act of treachery she finally
agreed on condition that her lover, who was one of the chiefs, should
be pardoned. That evening she carried bread and fruit to the lake,
and sitting on the bank sang loudly for some minutes. The Spanish
soldiers, who were watching from the shrubbery, were astonished to
see a man rise like a seal from the water, swim to the shore, take
the parcel from the girl's hands, exchange a few words with her,
and disappear again beneath the surface. The song was a signal for
one of the men to come out and receive the food, and it was heard
through a crevice in the cave roof. Next day the girl sang again,
and the whole company left the cave. They had no sooner gained the
shore than the Spaniards sprang from the shrubbery and surrounded
them. As they were led away to death, one of the chiefs levelled
his finger at the girl and said, "I am going to a land of peace. You
will never find the way to it." Her lover cast her off with bitter
reproaches. Then, as the murderous volley pealed across the fields,
and the rebellion was ended, her heart broke. She still sits at the
lakeside in the evening, weeping over her comb.
How a Dutchman Helped the Spaniards
Had any Dutchman been charged with intending a kindness to the dons
when his country was smarting under the Spanish scourge he would
have offered the life of some distant relative to disprove the
accusation. Without a guess that he could be injuring his own land
and enriching that of his enemy, an innocent magistrate of Amsterdam
did that for which he would afterward have submitted to the abuse of
his friends, and if sackcloth and ashes had been in vogue he would
have worn them. It all came about through his wish to be pleasant
to a Frenchman, the same being Louis XIV. He sent to this monarch a
curiosity in the form of a young coffee-tree, thinking, no doubt, that
a warm corner could be found for it in the Jardin des Plantes among
the orchids and cacti, and little recking that Louis had a Spanish
father-in-law. At that time Holland enjoyed, in her colonies, almost
a monopoly of the coffee trade of the world, but that one little tree
broke her monopoly, just as one little leak in her dikes led to the
eating away of miles of earthen wall and an in-rush and devastation
of the sea.
For Louis was more clever than some other kings, almost clever enough
to have been in trade, or else he had smart advisers. He had slips
cut from the coffee tree, and ere many moons had passed a promising
dozen of young plants were ready for shipment to Martinique, the
new French colony in the Antilles. A botanist was sent in charge of
them, it being the purpose of Louis to turn the island into a coffee
plantation and be free of obligation to Holland. The voyage was long,
because of head winds and storms, and the precious plants were in
peril. Long before the American shores were reached the water supply
had run low, and there was much suffering; yet the loyal botanist gave
up half of his daily allowance in order that his coffee-trees should
live. Salt water would have killed them, and in those days ships had
no distilling apparatus. Martinique was reached in safety, however,
the little trees struck their roots into congenial soil, and thus the
seeds, such as first yielded their aroma to a surprised and gratified
Abyssinian chief more than a thousand years before, now spring from
the strong earth of the Western world. Whether Spaniards stole some
of these trees, or bought them, or whether they got away by accident,
certes, they reached Porto Rico, and so became a source of pleasure
and profit to people whom the Dutchman did not have in mind when he
made his little gift to King Louis. It is believed that all the coffee
raised in Batavia for the Dutch also grew from a handful of seeds
that had been sent from Arabia to Java. And, oh, that ever the time
should have come when France had to buy coffee from her own plant in
Porto Rico, and send to that same island for logwood to make claret
with,--the kind she sells to New York for bohemian tables d'hote!
The Ghost of San Geronimo
The castle of San Geronimo, San Juan de Porto Rico, was founded
a century ago. It occupies a rocky point at the east end of San
Juan Island, and year by year had been strengthened until, when the
American ships appeared in the offing, it was thought important enough
to garrison. Six guns were emplaced, two other gun mounts were found by
our troops when they entered, and a hole was discovered extending from
a dungeon fifteen feet toward the breastworks. This had been freshly
dug, and, it is believed, was devised for the storage of explosives,
that the citadel might be blown up when the boys in blue entered to
take possession. That the fort was abandoned without resorting to
this revengeful and unmilitary act may be due to the ghost. He would
naturally be in evidence at such a time, and would do what he could
to thwart the schemes of his enemies. For he gave his body to the
worms fifty years or more ago. In the flesh he was a revolutionist,
and had been dreaming vain things about liberty for his beloved
island. It is not recorded that he ever harmed any one, or that
his little insurrection attained the dignity of anything more than
a rumor and an official chill, but the Spaniards caught him, threw
him into the dark prison of this castle, and after he had undergone
hunger, thirst, and illness, they went through their usual forms
of trial and condemned him to death. This among the civilized would
have meant that he would be sent to the gallows or the garrote; but
this victim was alleged to have accomplices, and quite likely he was
suspected of having a small fund; for the first thing to do when you
overthrow a government, or want to, is to pass the hat. To secure the
names of his fellow-conspirators, but more especially their money,
the revolutionist was therefore consigned to the torture chamber,
where the rack, the thumb-screw, the hot irons, the whip, and other
survivals of the Inquisition were applied. When the officers had
extorted what they wanted, or had made sure there was nothing to
extort, the poor, white wreck of a human being was delivered by the
judges to an executioner, and a merciful death was inflicted.
Shortly after this occurrence the officers of the San Geronimo garrison
began to request transfers, and the social set that had been formed in
and near the castle was broken up. Gradually the troops thinned away,
and although the works were kept in moderate repair and occasionally
enlarged, the regular force was finally withdrawn, and even the
solitary keepers who were left in charge died unaccountably. This
was because the ghost of the tortured one pervaded its damp rooms
and breathed blights and curses on the occupants. Its appearance was
always heralded by a clatter of hoofs on the stone bridge leading
into the court. The on-rush of spectre horses is variously explained,
some believing that the dead man is leading an assault on the fort,
others wondering if it may not be a conscience-smitten governor
hurrying to rescue or reprieve his victim, and arriving too late,--a
theory quite generally rejected on the ground that there never was
that kind of a Spanish governor.
An American officer, who took up his home in San Geronimo after the
occupation, was disturbed for three successive nights by the ghost,
and on learning the tradition of the place he investigated the palace
and brought to light the torture chamber with its rows of hooks and
rings and chains about the walls. The piercing of its roof, so that
the sun came in and the ghosts and malaria went out, the removal of
the grim relics of mediaevalism, the cleaning and whitewashing of the
apartments, have probably induced the spectre to take up his quarters
elsewhere, for his old haunts are hardly recognizable, and he can have
no grudge against the soldiers of a republic who carried out his plans
with a perfection and promptness of which he could not have dreamed.
The climate of the West Indies has ever been favorable to the
preservation of spirits, and this haunted castle of San Juan has
counterparts in the island, and in other islands, and the ghosts are
not always victims of the Spaniards, either. The appearance of spectres
in the New World was almost contemporary with Columbus. Indeed,
one of the most startling of supernatural appearances occurred in
the town he founded,--the town of Isabella, Hayti, the first white
man's city in America. It was created by the great navigator on his
second voyage, but it remained for only a few years on the map. The
dons whom he brought with him refused to work, even when the colony
was starving, and reported him in Spain as a tyrant for asking them
to put up their own shelters, cook their own food, and grind their
own flour. They would not even work in the mines where gold could
be seen in the river sands, because they had expected to pick up
the metal in lumps, or force it from the natives in such quantities
that each adventurer might return with a bushel. Hardship, illness,
short commons, the need of occasional labor, the heart-breaks over the
gold failure, the retaliations of the natives for the cruelties and
injustices of the invaders, led to the rapid decline of the city of
Isabella. Its foundations may still be visible; at least they were a
few years ago; but it is peopled only by ghosts. Some years after it
had been deserted, two Spaniards, who had been hunting in that part
of the island, entered its ruined streets. They had heard from the
Indians of strange, booming voices that echoed among its dead houses,
but had dismissed this tale as invention or fancy. The sun was low
and mists were gathering. As the hunters turned a corner they were
astonished to see a company of cavaliers drawn up in double rank, as
if for parade, sword on hip, plumed hats aslant, big booted, leather
jacketed, grim, and silent. The two men asked whence they had come. The
cavaliers spoke no word, but all together lifting their hats in salute,
lifted their heads off with them, then melted into air. They were
the dead of the fated town. The two spectators fainted with horror,
and did not recover their peace of mind in many days.
Police Activity in Humacao
For three centuries a Spanish convict station was kept in Porto
Rico. The unpleasant and undesirable found, not a welcome here,
but a more congenial company than in the home land. Life was easier
because one needed less food and clothes, and they were furnished
by the authorities, anyway. What with the convicts and discontented
slaves, it is a wonder that any sort of comfort or safety existed on
the island, and especially that so much of pleasant social life was
to be found in the cities. Those who knew Porto Rico in those days,
however, say that class distinctions were not sharply marked; that
the master was kind to the slave, and the slave felt as if he were a
member of his master's family, rather than a dependent; that the two
were often seen at the cockpit sitting elbow to elbow, kneeling side
by side in the same church, greeting the same friends or cracking
the heads of the same enemies before the church doors at Epiphany,
and in the humbler homes sitting at the same table.
In those simple times the robber gangs were a great vexation. Killing
was something to grow used to, and a disagreement over cards was
liable to result in having one's head snipped off by a machete; but to
be robbed of one's machete, or of one's jug of rum, or of one's only
trousers, was a sad affliction, and soldiers and police were as active
as Spanish functionaries could persuade themselves to be, in running
down--or walking down--these outlaws. It is said that the detectives
were especially amusing. They would go about in such obvious disguises,
with misfit wigs, window-glass spectacles, and the costumes of priests
or notaries, that a robber could barely keep his countenance when he
met them in the street. The thief always escaped, either through the
incompetence of the officers, or by sharing his profits with them.
But there was one fellow who made such trouble that the police
began to chafe beneath the public criticism. To impugn their honor
did not hurt them much, though they ruffled a good deal under it,
but to threaten them with reduction of pay or removal was a serious
matter; so the chief of the San Juan constabulary bestirred himself,
after a particularly daring robbery had occurred in his bailiwick,
the rogue making off with six thousand dollars' worth of jewelry. He
got safely away from town and was traced to Humacao, where his
footprints were found leading to the door of a small, tumble-down,
deserted house, and none of these prints could be seen with toes
pointing away from it. The chief dismissed his men and prepared to
conduct a siege. He had a dagger, a machete, two pistols, and a gun,
with a box of ammunition. Thus equipped he went to the front door,
gave it a sounding whack with the flat of his machete, and bawled,
"Open, in the name of the law!"
There was no response, so he struck his weapon impatiently against
the panels two or three times and called on the bandit to emerge
and give himself up. Again there was no reply. A bolder move was
necessary. He pushed open the window, crouching down outside, that he
might not become a target for the fellow, who was probably lurking
in the dark interior, and after calling on him for a third time to
appear and go to jail, he thrust his firearms in and began to blaze
in all directions over the floor.
After emptying the pistols and gun he shouted, "If you don't come
out I'll blow you to the bad place, for I have one hundred and fifty
cartridges here, and I can surely shoot you."
All this time the robber had been lying on the floor, just below
the window, very flat and very still. As the chief did not show
himself to take aim, but reached up from his kneeling position and
fired at random, the bold, bad man in-doors began to feel a return
of confidence. He waited until a second fusillade was over, when
he slipped softly through the back door, went around to the front,
waited until a third volley had been fired, when he pounced on the
chief from behind, and in a trice had a stout rope around him. In
a few seconds more he had the astonished and indignant functionary
tied securely to one of the posts of the veranda. Then, calmly taking
possession of the weapons, he lifted his hat, wished the officer a
very good day and a pleasant siesta, and sauntered off to some other
town where the police were still less active.
The Church in Porto Rico
If the Spanish colonies have been immoral, it must be granted that they
have been religious. This fact has made them easier to govern, for the
words of the priests and friars have been accepted as divinely inspired
at times when, as a matter of fact, they have been inspired only by the
governor or the garrison colonel. The church in the colonies is nothing
like the modern and American institution that we know. It is a survival
from the Middle Ages. Yet it has shown shrewdness in Porto Rico,
Cuba, and the Philippines, its prosperity proving that the Spaniard
can be a thrifty mortal whether he wears a monkish cowl or a military
uniform. Much money has been demanded by the church, but much of it has
been honestly spent in the beautifying of altars and the dressing of
the statues. Our Lady of the Remedies, in the Church of La Providencia,
San Juan, for example, wears a cloak worth fifteen hundred dollars,
and is emblazoned with twenty thousand dollars' worth of jewels; but
then, she is the patron of the island. The priests have been quick to
see an advantage in benefits or disasters and have often impressed
the natives by lessons drawn from natural phenomena. Thus, in 1867,
a conspiracy for the overthrow of Spanish rule had been organized,
and violence was hourly expected: but on the eve of an uprising the
island was shaken by an earthquake. The priests made the most of
this, assuring the natives that it was a warning from heaven never
to interfere with Spaniards; so the insurrectos stealthily laid down
their arms and stole away to their various substitutes for employment,
leaving their Lexington unfought.
In one way this willingness to keep out of fights has been a
bad thing for the island, because insurrection became a matter
of business with some of the natives. They used it as a mode of
blackmail. These insurrectos would throw a wealthy planter into a
state of alarm by pretending to hold meetings on his premises. He knew
that if the authorities got wind of this it might go hard with him,
for if he were suspected of being a member of a lodge of the White
Saber or the Red Hand, it could mean imprisonment, perhaps death;
so he paid the revolution something to move on and occur on some
other man's land. By levying thus on fear and policy a few members
of an alleged junta managed to live quite comfortably without work,
and it is whispered that the padres of certain villages received
their share of the reluctant tributes.
Porto Rico has been the place of abode of some noted fathers of
the church, including two martyrs who were canonized by Pius IX. as
saints: Charles Spinola and Jerome de Angelis. They left Portugal
for Goa in 1596, but having been blown far out of their course,
they put in at this island to repair their ship, and there for two
months they preached with success. On their return to Lisbon they
were captured by English pirates, who treated them kindly, however,
and set them safely down in London. They reached Portugal eventually,
and ended their work in Japan, where the people killed them. These and
other saints receive the prayers of the people on stated occasions,
for in Porto Rico the saints have not only their special days, but
their special crops, and guard them from special injuries. Thus, the
farmer prays to St. James, it is said, when he asks for deliverance
from tobacco-worms, while he must address St. Martial if he wants to
free his field from ants.
Of the holy hermits who have resided on the island, several have
dwelt in the caves where Caribs or Arawaks buried their dead, but
the best-known shrine is that of Hormigueros. The Church of Our Lady
of Monserrate, which crowns a hill and is a conspicuous landmark,
is said to have been copied from the chapel of a Benedictine
monastery in Barcelona, which is famous in Spain for its statue of
the Virgin, carved by St. Luke and carried to Barcelona in the year
50 by St. Peter. The Monserrate church was founded in 1640 by a poor
farmer. He had been ploughing over the hill-top, though weak with
fever, and before he could finish his work he fell to the ground
exhausted. After he had partly recovered, and had gone back to the
plough, he turned a tile up from the earth, on which was engraved a
portrait of the Virgin, and no sooner had he taken this object into his
hands than his pain, his fever, his lassitude disappeared. Convinced
that the relic was sacred, he carried it to his priest, and on that
very day he gave the land he had ploughed for a votive church. It
has become the best known sanctuary in Porto Rico, for the large
painting of the Virgin, copied from the smaller portrait on the tile,
is just as potent as the original in curing diseases. In the last
half-century a hundred miracles have been performed, and the silver
and golden arms, legs, ears, eyes, fingers, feet, livers, and hearts
that have been given to the church, in thanks and testimony, amount
in value to sixty thousand dollars; for a patient who has been cured
or helped is expected to send a little model, in precious metal, of
the part of him that needed mending. At intervals these offerings are
melted up for the altar service and decorations, and few churches in
America have such resplendent candlesticks, chalices, draperies and
vestments. The altar is of silver plates, and the gold cross upon
it weighs thirteen pounds. Pilgrims to Hormigueros go from all parts
of the West Indies. They are lodged, free of charge, in an old house
behind the church, each cripple or invalid receiving a bed and chair,
but no food. The pilgrims must supply their own sustenance. On entering
the church, in procession, they are sprinkled with water from the
Jordan, and then kneel before the cross, where the cures are worked.
The Mermaids
In dime museums and county fairs one may still find among the
"attractions" a mermaid, dried and stuffed, consisting of the upper
half of a monkey artlessly joined to the lower half or two-thirds of
a codfish, the monkey's head usually adorned with a handful of oakum
or horse-hair. When this kind of thing was first exhibited by the
lamented P. T. Barnum, it is just possible that some bumpkin really
believed it to be a mermaid, but the invention has become so common
of late that it is found in the curio-shops of every town, and as
an eye-catching device is often put into show-cases by some merchant
who deals in anything rather than mermaids. Trite and ridiculous as
this patchwork appears, it symbolizes a belief of full three thousand
years. Men have always been prone to fill with imaginations what they
have never sounded with their senses, and it is to this tendency we
owe poetry and the arts. The sea was a mystery, and is so still. It
was easy to people its twilight depths with forms of grace and beauty
and power, for surely the denizens taken from it were strange enough
to warrant strange beliefs.
And so the old faith in men and women who lived beneath the water
was passed down from generation to generation, and from race to race,
changing but little from age to age. Ulysses stopped the ears of his
crew with wax that they should not hear the sirens luring them toward
the rocks as his ship sailed by, and knowing the magic of their song
had himself bound to the mast, so, hearing the ravishing music, he
might not escape if he would. In a later day we hear of the Lorelei
singing on her rock, striking chords on her golden harp, and, as the
raptured fisherman steered close, with eyes filled by her beauty and
ears by her music, he had a moment's consciousness of a skull leering
at him and harsh laughter clattering in echoes along the shore; then
his boat struck and filled, and the dark flood curtained off the
sky. Wagner has made familiar the legend of the Rhine daughters,
singing impossibly under the river as they swim about the reef
of gold,--the treasure stolen by the gnome, Alberich, who in that
act brought envy, strife, greed, and injustice into the world, and
accomplished the destruction of the gods themselves. The wild tales
of Britain and Brittany, of thefts and revenges by the sea-creatures,
are among the oldest of their myths, and when we cross to our side
of the sea, the ocean people are close in our wake and they follow
us through the fresh waters and far out in the Pacific.
Among the Antilles, as in the South Seas, the tritons blow their
conchs and shake their shaggy heads, while the daughters of the deep
gather, at certain seasons, on the water, or about some favorite
rock, and sing. Always, in Eastern versions of the myth, there is
music, save in the case of Melusina, who became a half fish only
on Saturdays, when her husband was supposed not to be watching,
and this music follows the myth around the world. Among the vague
traditions of certain Alaskan Indians is one of an immigration from
Asia, under lead of "a creature resembling a man, with long, green
hair and beard, whose lower part was a fish; or, rather, each leg a
fish." He charmed them so with his singing that they followed him,
unconsciously, and reached America. We find in Canada the tale of a
dusky Undine, a soulless water sprite, who, through love of a mortal,
became human. Some of the beings of the sea were of more than human
power and authority,--gods, in fact; barbarian Neptunes. Such was
the Pacific god, Rau Raku, who, being entangled in a fishing-net, was
lugged to the surface, sputtering tremendously. Yet he had no grudge
against the fisherman. That trembling unfortunate was too small for
his revenge. He would devastate the whole earth to which he had been
thus unceremoniously dragged, and, bidding his captor take himself
away while he made trouble, he deluged the globe until all upon it
had perished, except the fish, the fisherman, and a few land animals
that the sole human survivor had taken to a lofty island with him.
The mermaid of story was a damsel fair to view, until she had risen
from the waves so as to show her fish-like ending. It was her habit
to sit on sunny beaches, comb her golden hair with a golden comb, and
sing delightfully, though her wilder sisters would perch on juts of
rock on lonely islands and scream in frightening ways when a gale was
coming. When the sea-maidens went ashore they sometimes met sailors
and fishermen, and if they liked these strangers a frank avowal of
love was made; for it is always leap year in the ocean. It was a most
uncomfortable position for a mortal to be placed in, especially one
who had a wife waiting for him at home, because if their addresses
were rejected the mermaids were liable to throw stones, and always
with fatal results; or they would brew mists, and set loose awful
storms; yet, if the man who inspired this affection was not coy, and
yielded to one of these slippery denizens, she dragged him under the
sea forthwith, unless he could persuade her to compromise on a cave or
a lonely rock as a home, for it is reputed that mortals have formally
wedded them and raised amphibious families. On the Isle of Man they
tell of one caught in a net, who was woman to the waist and fish as
to the rest of her. As she sulked in captivity, refusing to eat or
speak,--perhaps they forgot to offer raw fish for her supper,--it
was decided to let her escape; and as she wriggled over the beach she
was heard to tell her people (in Manx?), as they arose to greet her,
that the earth-men did nothing wonderful except to throw away water
in which they had boiled eggs!
The home of the mermaids was at the bottom of the deep. A diver, who
said he had reached it, reported a region of clear water, lighted
from below by great, white stones and pyramids of crystal. These
haunts contained bowers of coral, gardens of bright sea weeds and
mosses, tables and chairs of amber, floors of iridescent shell and
pearls, gems strewn about the jasper grottoes,--diamonds, rubies,
topazes,--and the sea people had combs and ornaments of gold. Columbus
was disappointed in the mermaids that he saw in the Caribbean. They
were not, to his eyes, so handsome as the romancers had alleged,
nor were their voices sweet. The doubters claim that he was asleep
when the mermaids appeared, and that he saw nothing but the sea cow,
or manatee, which is neither tuneful nor pretty.
The Aborigines
In following the southern coast of Cuba, Columbus supposed he
was working toward India. He died ignorant of the fact that he had
discovered a new world, and he gave up the exploration of this island
when almost in sight of open water at its western end. Of the first
inhabitants of Cuba (called by some Macaca, and by others Caboi,
"land of the dead," for the people killed their prisoners), little is
known, for they were exterminated as a distinct race, and their few
relics were disregarded as worthless or destroyed as idolatrous. It
is believed, however, that they had some knowledge of the arts;
they worked gold into ornaments, and copper and stone into tools
and weapons, and they wore helmets of feathers, like those of the
Hawaiian chiefs. Near Bayamo have been found farming tools, painted
pottery, and little statuettes supposed to represent gods. Their
houses were hardly more than shelters, frames of bamboo or light
boughs, though they were prettily environed by walks and flowers,
and their clothing--sometimes of fur, oftener of leaves and coarse
cloth--was of the scantiest. Heavy dresses in a tropic country,
or in a temperate country in tropic weather, are manifestly absurd.
As on the other Antilles, the people of Cuba were brown, broad,
straight-haired, flat-faced, and decorated with slashes and
tattooing. They were singularly mild, honest, and trusting. They were
frightened by the Spanish ships, believing them to be great birds
that had come down from the sky, bringing the white adventurers in
their brave array; but when Columbus had sent a few beads and hawks'
bells to them, they expressed their confidence and delight in a hundred
ways, swam and rowed about his caravel offering fish and fruit, not in
trade, but as gifts, and when a crowd of hungry sailors ashore invited
themselves to a feast that had been prepared for a religious ceremony
the Indians made no objection, because they could prepare one like it
by another night's work. Food, indeed, was free to whoso needed it,
like air and water, and no stranger needed to go hungry. While the
Spaniards did little to invite their confidence, were insolent to
most other people and even to one another, the Indians set an example
of charity in conduct and in faith. The dons were intolerant of all
religions except their own, whereas the Cubans were quick to realize
that the performance of the mass was of some sacred significance,
and they preserved a reverent attitude throughout a ceremony whose
details they did not understand. When missionary work had fairly
begun it is said that some Spaniards drove Indians into the water,
forcibly baptized them, then cut their throats that they might not
repent their acceptance of the true faith. In their own belief there
appeared to be a purgatory and a paradise, but no hell or devil;
and, as beliefs reveal the character of the people who hold them, it
speaks well for the Cubans that the grewsome images invoked by certain
mediaeval theologians had never been created in their more generous
imaginations. When a soul left the body it had two journeys before it:
one to a dismal place, where the cruel and unjust awaited; the other
to a fair land, like the best of earth, where all was pleasant and
peaceful; for, in spite of the warlike undertakings made necessary
by irruptions of the fierce Caribs, these people held to peace as
the highest good.
Of these Indians hardly a dozen are remembered by their names, but the
chief Hatuey was revered among them for his courage and his military
skill. He had fled from Hayti to Cuba in a vain hope of escaping his
white enemy, and counselled the natives to throw all their gold into
the sea, that the Spanish might not linger on their coasts. He might
have been the one who ordered gold to be melted and poured down the
throats of his prisoners, that for one and the last time they might
have enough. The Spaniards caught him and burned him to death at
Baracoa. As he stood on the logs in chains, just before the flames
were applied, the friars pressed about him and earnestly advised him
to become a Christian, that he might not be required to roast in hell,
which would be worse than the torture he was about to endure, and which
would last forever. If only he would be baptized he could go direct
to heaven. "The white man's heaven?" he asked. "Yes." "Are there any
Spaniards in that heaven?" "Oh, yes, many." "Then light the fire."
Columbus was the more convinced that he had reached Asia because
the name of one Cuban province, Mangon, he assumed to be Mangi, a
rich district of China. That its people had tails, like monkeys, was
nothing against this theory; that footprints of alligators should be
the tracks of griffins, which had the bodies of lions and the wings
and heads of eagles, was quite in order; but most convincing of all
was the discovery by an archer, who had entered a wood in search of
game, of thirty men with pale faces, armed with clubs and lances,
and habited in white gowns, like friars. The man fled in fear. When
his comrades returned with him to find this white company, not a
human being appeared to them, and, except for the chatter of birds
and the clicking of land-crabs as they scuttled over the stones,
the place was still. The coast Indians were understood to say
that among the mountains dwelt a chief whom they called a saint,
who wore a flowing robe of white and never spoke aloud, ordering
his subjects by signs. This was surely Prester John, the shadowy
king of a shadowy kingdom, of whom much was said and written a few
centuries ago. He was declared by one author to rule a part of India
and was reputed to be a Nestorian priest who had made himself king
of the Naymans. Other travellers placed him in China, Persia, and
Timbuctoo. In a battle with the infidel Tartars Prester John mounted
a number of bronze men on horseback, each figure belching clouds of
smoke from a fire of punk within, and lashed the horses against the
enemy, filling them with such terror, and so veiling in smoke the
dash of his flesh and blood cavalry, that his victory was easy. So,
it was a great satisfaction to Columbus to think that he had reached
the confines of a Christian kingdom.
While working through the thousand little islands off the southern
coast of Cuba, that he called the Queen's Gardens, Columbus found
added reason for believing that this was the Asiatic shore, and he
hoped shortly to reach Cipango, or Japan, where pearls and precious
stones abounded, and where the king abode in a palace covered with
plates of gold more than an inch thick. The attempts of the Mongols to
overrun the Asian islands were defeated, because the Cipangalese were
invulnerable, having placed between the skin and the flesh of their
right arms a little stone that made them safe against swords, arrows,
clubs, and slings. The people of Cuba fell too easy a prey to Spanish
blades--of both sorts--to allow a belief like this to last long.
That Columbus thought he was approaching the earthly paradise, the
mountain-guarded Eden where our first parents lived, when he neared
these lovely shores, inhaled the fragrance of fruits and flowers,
heard the cries of birds and saw the flash of bright waters, is
probable. That paradise he sought. The serpent of oppression and wrong
has left it, and as America comes into her own, that paradise shall be.
The Caribs
Had it not been for the Caribs the Antilleans would have led a placid
existence. Those warlike and predacious Indians would not keep the
peace, nor would they allow other people to do so. Though they had
their capital in Guadaloupe, they extended their military enterprises
in every direction, and Cuba, Porto Rico, Hayti, Jamaica, and the
lesser islands suffered from their assaults. They were trained to
fight from childhood, and attained to great proficiency in arms. Being
active voyagers, they had some knowledge of astronomy. When operating
in the waters of a hostile country it was their custom to mask their
boats with palm leaves, for in this guise they stole upon the enemy the
easier. Like the red men of our plains, they painted their faces, and,
indeed, they retained many of the practices common to our tribes. In
their traditions they came from the North, like other strong races,
their old home being among the Alleghanies, and they conquered their
way from Florida to Brazil. Their tribe, they say, grew up from stones
that their remote ancestors had sowed in the soil. They buried their
dead in a sitting posture that they might be ready to leap up when
the spirit came for them, and they faced the sunrise that they might
see the day of resurrection the quicker.
In their mythology the first men came down from heaven on clouds to
purify the world and make it as clean as the moon; but, while they were
looking about at this untidy planet, the clouds floated back and they
were left in a sorry plight, for they had brought no provisions with
them. Their hunger having sharpened so as to become unbearable, they
scraped up clay and baked it to make it less tough and more eatable,
and were grieved when it came out of the fire as hard as stone. Then
the birds and beasts had pity on them, and led them to the groves and
fields where they could find fruit, nuts, maize, and yams. One tree
was of such size that they chopped it with stone axes for ten months
before it fell, and they ate all of it. Beneath its roots, in a cave,
lived the Water Mother, who, possibly because she was angered by the
destruction of the tree, released a flood that would have covered the
earth had not a rock fallen into the throat of the cavern and stopped
the flow. This rock had life and speech. It warned the new race that
when its founders should grow old they were to expect a deluge. Until
that appeared they should find in the atone their best adviser and
protector, and if they would pray to it, giving a deaf ear to the
wood-devils, it would cure them of illness, gray hair, and age. After a
time came the monkey out of the woods, beguiling and wheedling, while
at every chance, with a monkey's love of mischief, he worked at the
stone, trying to dislodge it from the mouth of the cave. At last he
succeeded, and out poured the flood. An old woman ran to a palm that
touched the sky with its vast leaves, and climbed with feverish haste,
but fright and fatigue brought her to a stop when half-way up, and
she hardened to stone, thus blocking the way to all behind her, who,
when they touched her, became stone likewise. Some scrambled down,
splashed through the rising waters, and reached another palm tree,
which they climbed to its top, and so saved their lives.
As the waters were subsiding, Amalwaka came sailing across the ocean
from the east, ascended the Orinoco, carved the figures found near
the head of that river, without leaving his canoe, smoothed the rugged
hills and invented the tides, so that men might go from place to place
on the current, but, being unable to make the Orinoco flow up stream,
he sailed away again into the arch of the rising sun, guided at night
by the constant star and by the tapir and Serikoai,--which is another
story, told by the Arawaks, to this effect: The bride of Serikoai
was seduced by the tapir god, who had first aroused her curiosity and
interest by his attentions, and had finally won her love by promising
to put off his swinish shape and reveal himself as a finer being than
her husband. If only she would follow him to the edge of the earth,
where the sky comes down, she would see that he was a god. The poor
husband was crippled by the wife, that he might not follow, for she
chopped off his leg as he descended an avocado pear-tree, in which
he had been gathering fruit for her. He nearly bled to death, but a
wandering spirit revived him and called his mother, who healed the
wound with gums and helped to make a wooden leg, on which he stumped
over the earth in search of his runaway wife. It is known that the
aborigines performed trepanning with skill, but this is probably the
earliest appearance in an American legend of a wooden leg. Though
he found no foot-prints, it was easy to trace the couple, because
avocados were springing up from seeds that the woman spat out as she
journeyed on. At the edge of the earth he caught the tapir and killed
him; yet the creature's shadow arose from the body and kept on its
flight with the wife. Straightforth she leaped into the blue vast,
and there she hangs, only we call her the Pleiades. The brute is the
Hyades. He glares and winks with his red eye: Aldebaran. The husband
is Orion, who follows the others through the sky.
The Caribs were a handsome people, and one tradition narrates the
madness that afflicted a governor of Antigua, because of his jealousy
of a native chief. In 1640 this dusky Paris stole the English woman and
her child, and carried them to Dominica. The governor pursued. Arrived
where Roseau now stands, he learned that a captive woman and her child
had been landed there, and had been taken to some stronghold in the
forest. Drops of blood, pricked out by cactus thorns on the march,
formed a trail which he was able to follow, and believing that they
betokened murder, he killed all the Caribs he encountered. His wife
and boy were safe, however, except for their bleeding feet, and he
found them in the otherwise deserted cabin of the chief and took
them back to Antigua. The affair preyed on his mind. He began to
doubt his wife, thinking she had accompanied the savage willingly,
and his jealousy so increased that his friends had to secrete her,
to save her from his wrath. He probably recovered his senses in time.
The Spaniards chased the Caribs out of several of the islands. That
of Grenada terminates on the north in a tall cliff called Le Morne
des Sauteurs, over which the white men compelled the flying Indians
to leap to their death. Not one Carib was left alive on this island.
Secret Enemies in the Hills
The brutalities of the Spaniards who first occupied the West Indies
would seem incredible if so many of them had not continued to our
own day. It is estimated that half of the natives of Porto Rico were
killed, and within sixty or seventy years after the seizure of Cuba
its populace of three hundred thousand had been destroyed or removed
by war, murder, slavery, hunting with blood-hounds, imported vices
and diseases, flight and forced emigration. These natives are said to
have been a peaceful and happy race, practised in the simpler arts,
observing the moralities better than their oppressors, holding a faith
in one god--a god of goodness, not of hate--and in the immortality of
the soul, and abstaining from useless forms and ceremonies. They held
that when the soul had left the body it went into the woods and hills
or abode in caves, and took its food and drink as in the flesh. When a
man calls out in a solitary place among the mountains and an answering
voice comes back, it is not an echo, but a wandering soul that speaks.
Even the relics of these folk--the Cubans or Siboneyes--have
vanished, save in the instance of the temple remains near Cobre, and
an occasional caney or mound of the dead, a truncated cone of earth
and broken stones. Some fossil skeletons found in caves, and of an
alleged age of fifty thousand years, denote an ancient race of large,
strong people. There are other skeletons of Siboneyes, Chinese, and
negroes in the caves,--victims of herding, slavery, fever, cruelty,
and suicide. There is little doubt that of the aboriginal stock not
a man remains. Yet there are stories of strange people who were
seen by hunters and explorers among the mountains, or who peered
out of the jungle at the villagers and planters and were gone again,
without track or sound,--people with swarthy faces, sinewy forms, long
black hair, decorations of coral shells and feathers, and bracelets,
armlets, and anklets of gold. Almost from the first, the conduct of
the Spaniard toward his enemies and dependents was such as to earn
for him a permanent hate; so, when his cruelty had been practised, and
the futility of opposing arms against his heavy weapons and his coat
of steel had been proved, it was natural that those who escaped him
should keep as far from reach as possible, and it is idle to suppose
that he traversed the seven hundred and thirty miles of Cuba's length,
whipping every forest and climbing every mountain, for no more than
the pleasure of killing. Negro slavery was introduced into the New
World before its existence had been known in Spain for a century, and
although the black men have usually been tractable, the severities of
their masters led to many revolts and to the organization of bands for
retaliation. These bands often degenerated, and during this century
the Spanish Antilles have been troubled by companies of beggars and
outlaws, mostly blacks and half-breeds, who have robbed and murdered
in the dark, run off stock from the farms, burned houses and shops,
and because of their secret and cowardly methods have been feared as
much as the Spaniards were hated.
The Nanigos originally formed a secret order of negroes, banded for
protection against unkind slave-owners and overseers, but feeling
their power, and being swayed by passion and superstition, they
constituted, after a time, a body correspondent to the voodoos,
or wizards, of our Gulf States. With hideous incantations, with mad
dances, with obscene songs, with the slaughter of animals, with oaths
on an altar and crucifix, they invoked illness, ruin, and death on
their enemies. In time they gained accessions to their fraternity
from Spanish residents,--thieves, vagrants, deserters from the army,
the half-witted and wrong-hearted outcasts from the towns,--and the
fantastic ceremonies of the jungle came to mean something more to the
purpose of mischief, for the newer Nanigos had more skill and courage
than the slaves, and were familiar with more sins. To enter this
order it was required of the candidate that he steal a cock, kill it,
and drink the warm blood. A darker tale is that they were required to
drink human blood. In Havana this part of the initiation was performed
on the Campo Marti. The man's right nostril was pierced, and a skull
and crossbones branded on his chest. It was then expected of him
that within fifteen days he would kill an official or a policeman,
a white, black, or yellow marble, drawn by chance from a globe,
deciding whether he was to slay a white man, negro, or mulatto. When
he had, by this crime, attained to full membership, a little shield
was given to him which he might wear beneath his coat, and which was
decorated with the device of a skull and bones. For every murder he
committed a red stitch was put in at the edge of the skull. Once
a month, in the dark of the moon, the Nanigos paraded the streets
of the towns, their naked forms painted fantastically, their faces
ghastly with flour, tramping and leaping to the thud of drums and
clash of cymbals, yelling defiance to the military, brandishing knives
and firing pistols. It was a kind of thing that in an American city
could have happened for one consecutive time, but no more. In Havana
the Spaniards were terrorized. The police refused to make arrests,
lest they should fall victims to the outlaws. One judge who refused
to liberate an assassin was slain in his own house by his servant.
As a partial revenge on the Cubans for wishing liberty the Spanish
captains-general have at times pardoned some hundreds of these rascals
and set them free to prey on the people; while, in retaliation, the
insurgents adopted some of the methods of the Nanigos and carried on
a guerilla warfare that neither troops nor trochas could abate. Many
are these more or less bold spirits of the hills who are celebrated in
inland stories: aborigines, Frenchmen, Creoles, mulattoes, who have
gathered bands of reckless fellows about them from time to time and
raided the Spaniard, flouting him in his strongholds, pillaging from
his farms, striking him, hip and thigh, and making off to the woods
before he knew how or by whom he had been struck. Sometimes even the
name of the guerilla has been forgotten, but the tradition remains of a
predecessor of Lopez, Gomez, and Garcia, who aided the English before
Havana in 1762. In that year Lord Albemarle took the town with two
hundred ships and fourteen thousand soldiers, beating a Spanish army
of almost double that size, though it was covered by heavy walls and
well provided with artillery. It took two months to reduce the city.
During one of the land operations the red-coats lost themselves in a
dense wood, and were in considerable peril from bodies of Spaniards
who were almost within speaking distance. To advance or to retreat
was an equal risk. As the column was halted, pending a debate and a
reconnoissance, there was a rustle in a clump of bushes beside which
the colonel was standing; then, as every sword was drawn and a row
of muskets held ready, a tall man bounded into the space, laid his
finger on his lip to enforce silence, and, beckoning all to follow,
crept on stealthily through the chaparral. He was a man advanced in
years, a long white beard flowed over his chest, yet he was lithe and
quick, and his look and manner were those of one who lives in the
open and in frequent danger. He spoke not a word, but after a time
drew himself erect and pointed before him. He had led the English
to the rear of one of the Spanish batteries. The colonel, who had at
first regarded him with doubt, as a lunatic or a false guide, ordered
his men to attack, and after a short fight he returned to his lines
with prisoners and trophies of victory. He sought in all directions
for the old man, to thank him, but the jungle had swallowed him,
and he was never seen again.
Sacred Shrines
Cuba has many shrines containing evidences of divine blessing,
and some of these are of wide renown. When the image of our Lady
of Charity was found in Nipe Bay it was delivered to the priests of
Cobre, the centre of the copper-mining industry, and they erected a
church above it. The statue is fifteen inches high, and is seemingly
carved from gold. A splendid shrine has been made as a setting, and
for years it has been the object of pilgrimages during the Lady's
festival in September. Those who ask for special favors, such as
the cure of lameness and blindness, ascend the long flight of steps
before the statue on their knees. The figure was found in 1627 by
two Indians and a Creole boy who were crossing the bay at dawn in
a search for salt. It appeared to them as a white body rising from
the water, but as they approached it revealed itself as the image
of the Virgin, the holy child on her left arm, a golden cross in
her right hand. The board on which it stood was inscribed, "I am the
Virgin of Charity." After it had been shown in the fold at Verajagua
and venerated by the multitude it was placed in a chapel, a number
of priests leading the march with a pomp and joy of banners, while
bells and guns signalized its progress. The Virgin was dissatisfied,
however, with the lack of splendor in her shrine and with the site
on which the chapel had been placed. She told her displeasure to a
girl named Apolonia, while she burned pale lights on a hill above
the mines, to mark the place on which she wished her church to be
erected. Her request was heeded so soon as the needed funds could be
collected. It was generally believed that the statue was given by
Ojeda to a native chief who, afraid of the enmity of his people as
a result of accepting a gift from a treacherous and hated race, or,
more reasonably, afraid that the Spaniards would kill him for the
sake of the gold that adorned it, set it afloat in the bay. A thief
despoiled it of thirty thousand dollars' worth of jewels after the
American occupation.
This ambulatory practice of sacred images is not uncommon, and a
similar instance is recorded in Costa Rica, where in 1643 the state
had been thrown into a panic by the devil, who lives in the volcano
of Turrialba, when he is at home, and who generally was at home in
those days, for he seized upon every wayfarer who ventured on the
peak. General joy was therefore felt at the discovery of a Madonna
by a peasant woman at Cartago. She carried it to her hut, but it was
dissatisfied and ran away--twice--three times. The village priest
then took it and put it under lock and key in his house. Again it
ran away. It was carried to church in procession, and it ran away
again. Then the priest laid a heavy assessment on his flock for silk
and gold and emeralds with which to deck the image, and this concession
having been made to a feminine fondness for appearance, the statue has
remained patiently on its pedestal ever since. One of the treasures
of the Church of Mercy, Havana, is a painting of the cross, with a
woman seated on one arm of it, holding a child. Spanish soldiers and
proud-looking Indians are gathered about the emblem. The origin of the
picture is involved in doubt, but it was installed in recognition of an
appearance vouchsafed by the Virgin to Columbus at Cerro de la Vega,
in presence of the Indians. The natives, alarmed at this vision in
the air, and associating it--justly, as it fell out--with calamity,
discharged their arrows at it, and were still more frightened when
their darts passed through the apparition without causing a flow of
blood. This onslaught put the Spaniards into an instant rage, and,
encouraged by the Virgin's smiles, they fell upon the heathen with
sword and musketoon and stamped them out of existence.
Some of these supernatural appearances had so occult a purpose that it
has never been fathomed. At Daiquiri, for example, where the American
troops landed in the late war, a native reported to the wondering
community that while walking through the wood he met a tall, shaggy
stranger, who looked as though he might have been one of the fisherman
disciples, and who pointed to the earth with an imperious gesture. So
soon as the Cuban had looked down the tall man melted into air. On
the ground was the print of the face of Christ. A stone was placed
on the spot to mark the miracle.
When the fiery Ojeda set out on his several voyages of discovery and
adventure,--and no man ever had more excitement and tribulation,--he
carried in his knapsack a small painting of the Virgin, the work
of a Fleming of some artistic consequence. During his halts in
the jungle it was his custom to affix this picture to a tree, say
his prayers before it, receive spiritual assurance of protection,
then, grasping sword and buckler, to undertake the slaughter of the
natives with fresh alacrity and cheer. So confident was he in his
heavenly guard that he exposed himself recklessly in fight, and the
Indians were fain to believe him deathless, until one of their arrows
pierced his leg. If this injured his confidence it did not stint
his courage. He ordered his surgeon to burn the leg with hot irons,
threatening to hang him if he refused, for he fancied that the arrow
was poisoned. When wrecked on the south coast of Cuba with seventy
varlets, who had no concern for exploration and much for booty,
he struck out bravely for the east end of the island, floundering
through marshes and breaking his way through tangles of vegetation,
the company living for several days on a few pounds of raw roots,
moldy cassava, and cheese, and at last breaking down in despair. In
thirty days they had crossed ninety miles of morass, and were too
feeble to go farther. Ojeda set up his picture for the last time and
besought the thirty-five cut-throats who survived to pray to it also,
assuring the Virgin that if she would only guide them through their
peril this time he would make a chapel for her in the first village
he might reach.
In answer to this prayer a path was disclosed that led them to dry
ground, and they soon arrived at the hamlet of Cuebas, where the
natives received them with every kindness, and went to the marsh
to rescue such of the party as had been abandoned but were still
alive. These rascals afterward reached Jamaica, where some were hanged
for their various murders and sea-robberies, while others re-enlisted
in various freebooting enterprises. Ojeda kept his promise. He
explained to the chief at Cuebas the principal points in the Christian
faith, built a little oratory in the village, and placed the picture
above the altar, with orders that the Indians should always treat it
with reverence. Though they did not comprehend the relation of the
painting to the white man's religion, they saw from the demeanor of
Ojeda and his friends that it was a thing of value and might avert
hoodos. Therefore it was attired and cared for with as much assiduity
as if it had been consigned to a Spanish cathedral, and although
the Indians had not been Christianized, they decorated the oratory,
overhung its walls with sacrifices, while at stated intervals they sang
and danced before it. When Father Las Casas tried to get this picture
away from them, afterward, it was hidden in the forest until he had
passed on. Ojeda reformed, killed several of his associates who had
attempted his life, turned monk, and was buried under the door-stone
of his monastery, that the populace might trample on his pride.
Tobacco
Tobacco suggests Cuba, or Cuba more than suggests tobacco. Havana
cigars are the synonym for excellence, and it was on this island that
the native American was first seen with a cigar in his mouth. It
was not much like the cigars of our day, for it consisted of loose
leaves folded in a corn-husk, as a cigarette is wrapped in paper. It
amazed the Spaniards as much to see these dusky citizens eating fire
and breathing smoke as it astonished the Filipinos when the Spaniards,
having learned the trick, and having landed on their islands, proceeded
to swallow flame and utter smoke in the same fashion,--a proceeding
which convinced the people of the Philippines that the strangers were
gods. The white adventurers never found the palace of Cubanacan, whose
gates were gold and whose robes were stiff with gems, but they found
the soothing and mischievous plant that was eventually to create more
wealth for them than the spoil of half a dozen such palaces. The Cuban
word for this plant was cohiba. The word tobago, which we have turned
into tobacco, was applied to a curious pipe used by the Antilleans,
which had a double or Y-shaped stem for inserting into the nostrils,
the single stem being held over a heap of burning leaf. The island
of Tobago was so named because its explorers thought its outline to
resemble that of the pipe.
In one form or another the use of the weed was prevalent throughout
the Americas. Montezuma had his pipe after dinner, and rinsed his
mouth with perfume. For medicinal purposes snuff was taken through
a tube of bamboo, and tobacco leaves were chewed. The practice of
chewing also obtained to a slight extent among the natives as a
stay against hunger, and they are said to have indulged it in long
and exhaustive marches against an enemy. They would chew in battle,
because in a fight at close range they tried to squirt the juice
into the eyes of their foemen and blind them. The herb was taken
internally as a tea for medicinal reasons, was used as a plaster,
and was valued as a charm. Francisco Fernandez took it to Europe;
Drake and Raleigh introduced it in England, and though its use was
regarded as a sin, to be checked not merely by royal "counterblasts"
and by edicts like that of William the Testy, but by laws prescribing
torture, exile, whipping, and even death, it was not long in reaching
the uttermost parts of the earth.
Men of all races and conditions incline to the tradition of the
Susquehannas, that the plant was the gift of a benevolent spirit. In
their account this manitou had descended to eat meat, which they had
offered to her in a time of famine. As she was about to go back to
the skies she thanked them for their kindness, and bade them return
to the spot in thirteen months. They did so, and found maize growing
where her right hand had rested, beans at her left, and tobacco where
she had been seated.
The Indians of Guiana say that tobacco was given by a sea-goddess to a
man who was begging the gods to do something for him,--he didn't know
exactly what; he would merely like to have somebody do something for
him on general principles. As a divine gift, therefore, it was used
in certain of the rites of the Indians, and the man who wished to go
into a trance and see visions would starve for a couple of days, then
drink tobacco water. He generally saw the visions,--if he lived. In
some islands the priests inhaled the smoke of a burning powder and
thereupon fell into a stupor or a frenzy in which they talked with
the dead. Was this the smoke of tobacco, plus a little abandon, a
little falsehood, a little enthusiasm? Its enemies in King James's
time would have said that the smokers deserved not merely to talk
with the dead, but to join them.
The Two Skeletons of Columbus
Following the return of the vanquished army of Spain to its home
country was another solemn voyage, undertaken for the transfer of the
bones of Christopher Columbus from the world he had discovered to the
land that grudgingly, cautiously permitted him to discover it. Spain
claimed all the benefits that arose from his knowledge, his bravery,
his skill, his energy, and his enthusiasm, and rewarded his years
of service with dismissal from office and confinement in chains as
a prisoner, but now it repented, and wished to house his unwitting
relics in state. Once before these bones had crossed the sea. After
the death of the great navigator, in Valladolid, Spain, in 1506,
his body remained in that city for seven years. Then it was taken
to Seville and placed in Las Cuevas monastery with that of his son,
Diego. In 1536 both bodies were exhumed and sent to Santo Domingo,
or Hispaniola, an island that Columbus appeared to hold in a warmer
liking than either of the equally picturesque, fertile, and friendly
islands of Cuba, Porto Rico, or Jamaica. In the quaint old cathedral
of Santo Domingo, built in 1514, the bodies of the great admiral,
his son, and also his grandson, Louis, first Duke of Veragua, rested
for more than a century without disturbance.
On the appearance of the English fleet, however, in 1655, the
archbishop was so fearful of a raid on the church and the theft of
the bodies that he ordered them to be hidden in the earth. During
the years in which they remained so covered the exact burial-place of
the admiral may have been forgotten, or, it may be, as several people
allege, that the San Dominicans tricked the Spaniards when, in 1795,
the latter gave their island to France and carried with them to Havana
the supposed skeleton of Columbus. Bones of somebody they certainly
did take, but it is no uncommon belief in the Antilles that the monks
of Santo Domingo had hidden the precious ones and sent to the monks
of Havana the bones of the son, Diego, albeit a monument was erected
to the memory and virtues of the great Columbus in Havana cathedral.
In 1878 the old church in Santo Domingo was undergoing repair when
the workmen came upon a leaden box containing the undoubted remains
of the first Duke of Veragua. Breaking through the wall of the vault
they found themselves in a larger one, and here was a box two feet
long, enclosing a skull, bones, dust, jewelry, and a silver plate
bearing the words "C. Colon," and on the end of the box, according to
some witnesses, the letters "C. C. A.," meaning Christopher Columbus,
Admiral (the English initials being the same as for the name and title
in Spanish). A more circumstantial account places the time of this
rediscovery in 1867, and says that a musket-ball was the only object
found in the little coffin, while the silver plate on the lid was thus
inscribed, "Una pt. de los restos del Primar Alm. to Du Christobal
Colon." The Santo Dominicans claim their right to the relics on the
ground that in his life the Spanish misused the discoverer, though
his grief was not deep enough to justify the ancient rumor of his
electing to be buried with the chains in which he was carried back to
Spain. Meantime Seville is to build a monument, and Santo Domingo is
putting up another, each city claiming to have his only real skeleton.
Obeah Witches
From the earliest days of Spanish occupancy the Antilles have been the
haunt of strange creatures. Mermen have sung in their waters, witches
and wizards have perplexed their villages, spirits and fiends have
dwelt among their woods. Everybody fears the jumbie, or evil spirit
that walks the night; and the duppy, the rolling calf, the ghost of
the murdered one; all pray that they may never meet the diablesse,
the beautiful negress with glittering eyes, who passes silently through
fields where people are at work, and smiling on any one of them compels
him to follow her,--where? He never returns. Anansi (grotesquely
disguised sometimes as Aunt Nancy) is a hairy old man with claws,
who outwits the lesser creatures, as Br'er Rabbit does. To him and
his familiars are attributed all manner of queer tales, one of which,
from Jamaica, may be quoted as an illustration:
Sarah Winyan, an orphan of ten, lived with her aunt, while her two
brothers kept house by themselves a mile or two away. This aunt was
an Obeah witch, the duppy, or devil ghost, that was her familiar,
appearing as a great black dog that she called Tiger. Sarah stood
between this old woman and a little property, and after finding that
the child endured her abuse with more or less equanimity and was
not likely to die, she told her that she was too poor to support
her any longer, and she must go. Sarah sat on a stone before the
house, wondering how she could make a living, and all the time sang
mournfully. A racket as of some heavy creature plunging about in the
bushes aroused her with a start and she scrambled into a tree. It was
Tiger who had been making the disturbance. He told her to descend at
once. If she would go with him peacefully, and would be his servant,
all would be well, but if she refused he would gnaw the tree down and
tear her into a thousand pieces. He showed his double row of teeth,
like daggers, whereupon Sarah immediately descended. As she walked
beside him to his lair she sang low, in the hope of being heard
and rescued. It was well that she did so, for her brothers, who were
hunting in the wood, recognized her voice and softly followed. Peering
in at the cave where Tiger made his home, they saw him sleeping
soundly with his head in Sarah's lap. Cautiously, slowly, she drew
away, leaving a block of wood for his head to rest upon, and crept
out of the cavern. Then the boys entered, and with their guns blew
the head of the beast into bits, cut his body into four parts, buried
them at the north, south, east and west edges of the wood; then killed
the wicked aunt. And since that day dogs have been subject to men.
The evil eye is not uncommon in the Antilles. It blights the lives of
children, and it is one of the worst of fates to be "overlooked" by an
Obeah man possessing it. Higes, or witches, too, are seen, who take off
their skins, and in that state of extra-nudity go about looking for
children, whose blood they suck, like vampires. Lockjaw is caused by
this loss of blood. There is a three-footed horse, also, that gallops
about the country roads when it has come freshly out of hell and is
looking for victims it can eat. If it halts before a house, that stop
means death to somebody within, and the peculiar sound made by its
three hoofs tells what has passed. It is not well to look, because
the creature has an eye in the centre of its forehead that flashes
fire. One who meets it is so fascinated by this blazing eye that he
cannot look away. He stares and stares; presently paralysis creeps over
him, and in a little while he falls dead. Sometimes a creature is seen
riding on this horse,--a man with a blue face, like that of a corpse,
and with that face turned toward the tail. Related, in tradition,
to the horse was the king-snake of Carib myth, a frightful creature
that wore a brilliant stone in its head, which it usually concealed
with a lid, like that of the eye, but which it would uncover when it
went to a river to drink, or played about the hills. Whoever looked
on this dazzling stone would lose his sight on the instant.
The Obeah man has an hereditary power that comes to him in advanced
age, and that, when at its strongest, enables him to send an evil
spirit into any object he pleases. Not only do the people believe in
him, but he has the fullest faith in himself. When he boils a witch
broth of scorpions' blood, toads' heads, snake bellies, spider poison,
and certain herbs picked by moonlight (an actual mixture used by
Obeah witches),--boils it over a fire of dead men's bones, between
midnight and dawn,--he has no more doubt of its power to harm than
the physician doubts the power of his quinine and antipyrin for good.
A Cuban planter who suspected one of his older slaves of being an Obeah
man determined to punish him if he were found guilty, and to suppress
the diabolism attending the midnight meetings. Watching his chance,
he followed his slaves into the wood, peeped through the crevices of
the deserted hut which they had entered to perform their fantastic
rites, saw their mad dance, when, stripped and decorated with beads,
shells, and feathers, they leaped about with torches in their hands;
then saw his suspected slave enter through a back door, his black skin
painted to represent a skeleton. The old man held up a fat toad, which,
he said, was his familiar, and the company began to worship it with
grotesque and obscene ceremonies. Though he felt a thrill of disgust
and even a dim sense of fear at the spectacle, the planter broke in at
the door and confronted the Obeah man. Had he ordered the old fellow
to do any given task about his house or grounds in the daytime, that
order would have been obeyed. What was the planter's astonishment,
therefore, when the slave calmly disregarded his command to return
to quarters, and bade his master leave the place at once and cease
to disturb the meeting, or prepare for a great misfortune. Enraged,
and fearing lest this defiance might encourage the other slaves
to mutiny, the master shot the old man dead. A few days later the
planter's wife died while seated at the table. A week after his
daughter died, a seeming victim of poison. All the latent superstition
in his nature having been aroused, he sought out another Obeah man,
to beg that he would intercede with the powers of darkness, but the
wizard was stern. He told him that the slave he had killed was the
most powerful master of spirits in the country, and that nothing
could stay the revenges of fate. When the planter reached his home
he found a letter there announcing the death of his only son in Paris.
The Matanzas Obeah Woman
On a hillock near Matanzas, with a ragged wood behind it, stood for
many years an unkempt cottage. In our land we should hardly dignify it
by such a name. We would call it, rather, a hovel. Some rotting timbers
of it may still be left, for the black people who live thereabout
keep away, especially at night, believing that the hillock is a resort
of spirits. Yet not many of them remember the incident that put this
unpleasant fame upon it, for--that was back in the slavery days. The
brutal O'Donnell was governor-general then. He found Cuba in its usual
state of sullen tranquillity, and no chance seemed to offer by which he
could make a name for himself, so he magnified every village wrangle
into an insurrection. It looked well in his reports when he set forth
the skill and ease with which he had suppressed the uprisings, and,
as he did not scruple to take life in punishment for slight offences,
nor to retaliate on a community for the misconduct of a single member
of it, he almost created the revolution that he described to his home
government. The merest murmur, the merest shadow was enough to take
him to the scene of an alleged outbreak, and he would cause slaves
to be whipped until they were ready to confess anything.
A black boy in Matanzas, arrested on suspicion of inciting
to rebellion, was condemned to seven hundred blows with the
lash. At the end of the flogging, being still alive, he was shot, at
O'Donnell's order. He would confess nothing, because he had nothing to
confess. This boy had been brought up in a well-to-do Spanish family,
and was the play-mate, the friend, of the son of that family, rather
than his slave. The white boy begged for the life of his associate,
the family implored mercy, and asked for at least a trial, but the
governor-general would not listen to them, and after the shooting
the white boy became insane with shock and grief. Thus much of the
legend is declared to be fact.
It was the mother of the black boy who lived in this cabin outside of
the town. She had also been a slave until the Spanish family, giving
up its plantation, moved into the city, sold the younger and stronger
of their human properties, and set free the elderly and rheumatic,
taking with them only a couple of servants and the boy, who went with
his mother's consent, for she knew he would be cared for, and she
could see him often, the relation between slave and owner, being more
commonly affectionate than otherwise. At its best, slavery is morally
benumbing to the enslaved, destructive of the finer feelings, and
when the old woman learned of her son's death,--and such a death--she
did not go mad, as his playfellow had done. She lamented loudly, she
said many prayers, she accepted condolences with seeming gratitude,
but the tears had ceased to flow ere many weeks, and she was seen to
smile when her old mistress, whose affliction was indeed the heavier,
had called on her in her cabin, no doubt feeling as much in need of
her servant's sympathy as the servant felt of the creature comforts
she took to her.
Yet deep in Maumee Nina's nature a change had taken place. She did not
know it herself for many months. Her loss had not affected her conduct
or appearance greatly, yet her heart had hardened under it and she
began to look upon the world with a different eye. She cared less for
her friends, and went to church less often,--a suspicious circumstance,
for when a negro failed to go to mass, and kept away from confession,
it was surely because he had something mischievous to confess. The
rumor got about that Maumee Nina had become an Obeah woman,--a voodoo
worker, a witch. It is not unlikely that the accusation inspired her
to live down to it. Not only were witches held in respect and fear,
but she might be able, through evil arts, to plague the race that
had worked her husband to death in the mines, and now had killed her
only son. She kept still more at home, brooding, planning, yielding
farther and farther to the evil suggestions that her repute as a
voodoo priestess offered to her, yet keeping one place in her heart
even warmer than before,--the place filled by her daughter, Juanita.
This girl of fifteen or sixteen was not black, like her mother. She
was a handsome mulatto. In a country where relations are so easily
established without marriage, and where marriage is so difficult and
has so little force, the fatherhood of many children is in doubt. If
Juanita knew her father's name she was not known to him. It mattered
little. The old woman intended to bring her up as a lady,--that is,
to qualify her for a place as waiting-maid in the house of some
good family; so she made many sacrifices on her account, clothing
her vividly, requiring less work of her than she should have done,
and even, it was said, paying money to have reading taught to her,
and that was an accomplishment, indeed.
Considering the pains and self-denials that the rearing of this child
incurred, it was a trifle inconsistent that Maumee Nina should have
opposed the friendly advances of gallants from the town. She was not
of a class that is wont to consider the etiquette of such attentions,
nor would she have refused to give her daughter in marriage to any
Cuban. It was that her feeling toward the Spaniards was deepening
into hate, and it rejoiced her to learn that a revolution was really
intended. By her native shrewdness she was able to do something for her
people's cause. Whenever a young negro went to her to have his fortune
told,--and from this art she began to realize a steady income,--she
managed to hint at his future greatness as a military leader, his
gains in the loot of Spanish camps, his prowess in bush-fighting when
hostilities should really have begun.
In this way she really incited a number of the ambitious, the
quarrelsome, and the greedy to enlist in the schemes for Cuba's
liberation. Nanigo meetings were held in and near her house; there
were wild dances and uncanny ceremonies, sacrificing of animals in
the moonlight, baptisms of blood, weird chants and responses, and
crime increased in the town. All this being reported to the military
the guard lines were extended and a squadron was posted at a house
not over a mile from Maumee Nina's, with Lieutenant Fernandez in
command. Fernandez was a dashing fellow, with swarthy countenance,
moustachios that bristled upward, close-trimmed hair and beard, a
laughing, pleasure-loving eye, and he wore a trig uniform that set
off his compact shape to advantage. Old Nina heard, though it was not
true, probably, that he had carried out the order of O'Donnell for the
shooting of her boy. Naturally he was the last man she could wish to
see, and she made no secret of her dislike when, on returning to her
home from a visit to Matanzas, she found this young officer seated
on a chair before her door, twirling his moustache and gayly chatting
with her daughter. She instantly ordered the girl to go indoors, and
bade the lieutenant pack off about his business. Being an easy-going
fellow, with no dislike for the people among whom the fortunes of his
calling had cast him, and with a strong fondness for pretty maids,
the young man deprecated the anger of the woman, but finding, after
some persiflage, that it was of small use to try to make friends with
her, he marched away toward his quarters, trolling a lively air and
drumming with his fingers on his sword-hilt. On the next evening he
was at Maumee Nina's again, and before the very nose of that indignant
dame chaffed her daughter, whom he also chucked under the chin; and he
gazed long and searchingly at a couple of low-browed, shifty-looking
blacks who were talking with the old woman when he entered.
"Who are these fellows?" he demanded.
"What right have you, senor lieutenant, to question me about my guests,
in my own house?" replied Nina. "It is enough that they were invited,
and you were not."
The lieutenant glanced sharply at Juanita. She looked at the shabby
fellows for an instant, smiled contemptuously, and gave her head a
saucy fling. The officer's good-nature was restored in a moment. "Give
me a calabash of water from that spring of yours, your grace, and
I'll take myself off," said he. "But, mind, there are to be no more
dances here,--no more voodoo practice."
Old Nina left the room grumbling to herself, while Fernandez talked
with Juanita, quite disregarding the sour and silent pair of black
men. As he glanced through a crack in the timbers of the house he saw
the old woman raise a gourd of water, wave her hand above it three
times, mutter, and shake her head. Then she drew from her pocket a tiny
object and dropped it in the water, stirring it around and around,
as if to dissolve it. There was a quiet smile on the lieutenant's
face as he received the calabash from the old woman's hand.
"In the old days, senora," he said, "it was the way to sweeten the
drink of a cavalier by getting the fairest lady of the house to sip
from it before he drank. Senora Juanita, you will take a little from
this shell, and I will then drink to your eyes."
Juanita had taken the calabash and had lifted it to her mouth, when
Nina sprang forward and struck it to the floor. The lieutenant looked
steadily into the face of the old woman. Her eyes, at first expressing
fear, then anger, dropped under his gaze. "I thought so," he said,
calmly, and left the house without a backward look or another word.
Late that night a subaltern, who had called on Fernandez to carry
a report to headquarters, set off alone in the direction of the
city. When half a mile on his way a man suddenly confronted him
and asked him for a light. He promptly offered his cigar. Puffing
fiercely the stranger created a glow, and in the shadow behind it he
eagerly scanned the face of the soldier. He then returned the stump,
saying, "Pass on, sir. You are not he I seek. Your cigar has saved
your life." There was a click, as of a knife thrust into its sheath,
and the stranger was gone.
Fernandez heard of this and drew an inference, but it did not deter
him from another visit to the Obeah woman's house next evening. The
old woman was away. Juanita was there alone. Truly, the girl was fair,
her eye was merry, she had white teeth and a tempting lip; moreover,
she appeared by no means indifferent to the young officer. In ten
minutes they were talking pleasantly, confidently, and Fernandez held
the maiden's hand.
The hours went by without any one there to take account of them. It
was a fair and quiet night, except for the queer and persistent
call of some insects that seemed always to be drawing nearer to the
house. Faint now came the sound of the clock in Matanzas striking
twelve. As if it were a signal to the dead, shadows appeared about
the house of the Obeah woman, creeping, nodding, motioning, moving
toward the door. One stood close beside it and struck it twice, loudly,
with a metal implement that rang sharply; then it waited. Steps were
heard inside,--the steps of a man in military boots: Fernandez. There
was a swish of steel, too, like a sword whipped out of its scabbard,
but almost at the instant when this was heard the door was opened. A
blow, a faint cry, a fall, a hurry of steps in the grass; then a
light. Fernandez held it. A long, agonized scream quavered through
the darkness, and Maumee Nina, with blood on her hands, fell prone
on the body of her daughter, her Juanita, lying there on the earth
with a knife in her heart.
How Havana Got its Market
Among the Spanish governors of Cuba, some of whom managed by strict
economy to save a million dollars out of a salary of forty thousand
dollars,--men of Weyler's stamp,--it is pleasant to know of one or
two who really had the good of the island at heart. Such was the
honest Blanco, and such was Tacon, to whom Havana owes much of its
beauty and architectural character. He did what he could to abolish
brigandage, which under preceding administrations had become common. He
organized a force of night watchmen; he dealt with offenders according
to their deserts, and if at times he was too severe it was because he
believed that a lesson in the impartiality of justice was needed by
certain favored classes. He had a Latin's love of the sensational
and spectacular, though in conduct, rather than in appearance,
and in these days some of his acts would be set down to a love of
self-advertising. As they had their effect, those who profited by
increased safety could afford to be incurious of reasons. He startled
the populace on the very day he landed. Cuba had been overrun with
bandits, some masquerading as insurgents, while others prowled through
the towns cutting throats in the shadow of the church. Cries of "Stop
thief!" and "Murder!" were common at midday. More than one hundred
people had been stabbed to death before the Chapel of Our Lord of the
Good Death. Police and soldiery were terrorized, and no man cheerfully
went through the side streets after dark. Startling depravity was
instanced. Jose Ibarra, a mulatto, had killed seventeen people before
he was hanged at the age of seventeen. It was supposed that Tacon
would arrive with a flourish of trumpets and would try to impress
the public. The Spanish army was represented at the landing-place by
generals and colonels bedizened with bullion and buttons; there were
troops with silken flags and glittering sabres and bayonets; there was
a copious exhibit of bunting; society was there in carriages, with
liveried footmen and outriders; foreign diplomats were in uniform,
as if to meet royalty, and the clergy had a place of honor. The boat
touched the pier. A small man in civilian dress walked smartly to the
land. He had a riding-whip in his hand,--symbol of his rule: for this
was Tacon, and within a month he was to whip crime into its dens and
make the capital of Cuba safe. His first order carried consternation
to the advocates of fuss and feathers. It was to dismiss the parade,
remove the decorations, send the police to their posts, and declare
Havana in a state of siege. This was startling, but it gratified
and assured those who had long begged for an honest and watchful
government, and had continued not to get it. Crime recognized and
feared this master. "In a little while," says a Cuban, "you could
have gone about the streets at any hour of the night with diamonds
in your open hands and nobody would have touched you, not even the
Spanish Robert Macaire or Robin Hood, who is remembered bitterly in
Andalusia,--Diego Corrientes." Merchants going to and from the bank
with money had formerly been compelled to hire soldiers as guards,
and when they complained of violence the magistrates had said, "Go to
bed at seven, as we do, and you'll have no trouble." Thieves bought
their liberty from jailers. Tacon arrested the jailers in that case.
It does not take long to erect a reputation when it has a basis of
desert. An odd modern instance is told in the case of an American
newspaper reporter, John C. Klein, who, after ten years of absence,
was canonized by the Samoans, among whom he had lived for some years,
as a hero in battle, a slayer of Germans, and a wizard who closed
his own wounds by magic. The gods approved him, and the people in
their trouble prayed for the return of Talaini o le Meleke (Klein,
the American) to rescue them. And with Tacon it took hardly longer to
become a sort of national hero. The qualities he showed in reforming,
building, extending, and protecting Havana were so unusual that the
people willingly credited others to him he may not have possessed. He
has become legendary already.
Tacon, after gathering in two thousand of the riff-raff and putting
them at work on roads, piers, and prisons, applied himself with
special energy to the suppression of Marti, the most daring, yet the
slyest and most cautious of all the robbers in the country. He and
his band thought no more of splitting the weasand of a soldier than
tossing off a glass of brandy, and the people were more than half
his friends, because he joined smuggling to his other industries,
and was therefore able to provide them with many necessities, such
as wine and bandanas, at a price much lower than they commanded in
the shops. Yet the secret agents, the constabulary, and the troops
began to make it perilous for these law-breakers, and General Tacon
was hopeful of their speedy capture. On a certain morning he looked
up abstractedly from some letters he was writing on the case of
Marti and was astonished to see a burly but well-dressed stranger
standing before his desk. "How in the devil did you get in here, sir,
unannounced?" he asked, in some irritation.
"I come on secret business," replied the other, in a lower tone.
"Ha! About ----"
"Exactly. About Marti."
"Speak, then. You will not be overheard. What do you know?"
"First, your Excellency, let us understand the situation. There is
a large reward for this man, is there not?"
"There is. Capture him and the money is yours. Ah, I see! You wish
to turn state's evidence. So much the better. You shall be protected."
"But suppose I had been associated with the worst of these men? Suppose
I had committed crimes? Suppose I had been a leader?"
"Even in that case you shall be protected."
"Give me your word, as an officer and a gentleman, that, no matter
what my offences have been, I shall have an official pardon when I
put you on the track of the outlaws."
"You must earn the pardon. If you know the haunts of the smugglers
we shall expect you to pilot us to every one of them."
"I will do it. I am tired of an evil life, tired of hiding, tired of
fear, tired of hate. I wish to come back and live among men."
"Well spoken. And Marti?"
"I shall be pardoned, absolutely, when I bring him here?"
"Absolutely. When may we expect him?"
"Now."
"Where?"
"Here."
"What! To-day? This Marti ----"
"You are looking at him."
Tacon started, and his glance fell on a couple of pistols that
lay on the desk before him. He always kept them there, primed and
loaded. Marti smiled, drew from beneath his coat two larger ones,
handsomely mounted with silver, and placed them on the desk. "I am
through with them," said he.
Tacon looked at him almost with admiration. "You begin well,"
he admitted, "and you shall have your pardon. But until you have
fulfilled your promise and helped us to break up these bands of
smugglers and--ah----"
"Oh, speak out: Thieves! That is right."
"Well, thieves,--we must keep you under guard."
"I am satisfied; only, let us get to work as soon as possible, and
have the business over."
"We will start to-morrow."
Marti was placed in a large room in a hotel under watch of the
constabulary, but free to order any comfort or luxury he could pay
for. On the very next morning he set out with a posse of soldiers and
visited all the resorts of his former associates in the vicinity. The
fellows had evidently suspected something, for they had made off. Their
haunts being thus disclosed, however, much of their plunder was
afterward recovered, and Marti's surrender having left them without
a leader, they retreated to distant provinces, and safety and peace
were restored to the island.
If Marti had any misgivings as to the certainty of his pardon after
this exploit, he did not show them. He returned to General Tacon's
office as cool and self-possessed as if he were running a boat-load
of spirits under the noses of the customs officers.
"You have been true to your part of the agreement," said the general,
"and I will be to mine. Here is your pardon, signed and sealed, and
this is my order on the treasury for the reward for your arrest. Sly
dog!"
"I accept the pardon with gratitude, your Excellency, but I do not need
the money. My country is poor. Let her keep it. I am rich. Never mind
how I became so. Yet, if I may claim a reward, give me a monopoly of
the fisheries on this coast. Havana will not suffer if your generosity
takes this form."
And it did not. He got the fisheries, but he spent his profits freely,
and one of the first of his benefactions was the construction of
a market that had no superior in beauty and fitness elsewhere in
the world.
The Justice of Tacon
When the parades were over, or church was out, or it was near time for
the play, one always found a dozen officers and gallants sauntering
down the Calle de Comercio, bound for the same place: the tobacco shop
of Miralda Estalez. In 1835 Miralda was known all over the town as
"the pretty cigar girl," and it was quite the thing for young sprigs
of family to lounge against her counter, tell her how charming she
was, make her light their cigarettes and sometimes take the first
puff from their cigars. All this she took with jesting good-nature,
chaffing all of her customers, commiserating with them in mocking tones
on their fractured hearts, and lamenting the poverty that confined
their purchases to the cheaper brands of her wares. She knew how far
to allow a compliment to go. If it became too free the smile faded
from her lip, her black eyes flashed, and an angry rose mounted into
the clear olive of her cheek.
If there was one young man who, more than any other, caused these
angry symptoms to appear it was the Count Almonte. His attentions had
become annoying. She had told him that his flattery was distasteful;
that her betrothed was Pedro Mantanez, the boatman, and that they were
waiting to be married only until their savings had reached a certain
figure. After one of these dismissals of more than usual frankness,
the count went to his apartments in town, arrayed himself in his
uniform of honorary lieutenant of the guards, asked the commandant to
let him have an escort of half a dozen men, as he expected trouble
at his country-place at Cerito, and within an hour or two appeared
before Miralda's little shop. He entered this time with an easy,
confident air and an evil smile. "You must come with me, my beauty,"
he said, trying to chuck her under the chin.
"Leave my place at once, senor. I have nothing more to say to you."
"Oh, but I have much to say to you; and to begin with, I have a
warrant for your arrest."
"Arrest!"
"For theft,--the theft of a heart,--my heart."
"Your jokes are always in such wretched taste. Your heart! You never
had one."
"Then my duty becomes all the easier. You see this paper? It is an
order for your arrest. Will you go quietly, or do you prefer to go
under guard of a whole company."
Astonished, confused, afraid, yet hoping that one of those wretched
pleasantries known as practical jokes would be the upshot of this
seeming outrage, the girl locked her door, allowed the count to assist
her into the carriage that was in waiting, and was rapidly driven,
not to the jail, not to the forts, not to the police office, but out
of town--to Cerito. He assisted her to alight, urged her hastily in at
the door of a handsome residence, where she was received by a couple
of servants, and escorted to a large, comfortably furnished apartment,
with windows barred after the fashion usual in Spanish houses.
"This, my pretty one, is your home for the future," explained the
count, dropping easily upon a divan and lighting a cigar.
"What place is this?"
"It is my house. Ah, but it shall be yours, if only you are kind. It
is for you to say how long you will be a prisoner."
"But the arrest--the order----"
"Ha! ha! Mere sham. I was bound to have you in one way, if I could
not get you in another. All's fair in love and war. You made war. I
made love."
There was an explosion of wrath, of scorn, of hate; there were tears,
cries, prayers, threats, promises. Count Almonte merely laughed,
and left the young woman to weep herself into a state of resignation
or exhaustion.
Mantanez, the boatman, learned before long that the shop was closed,
and naturally fearing that Miralda had been taken ill, he hurried
around to make inquiry. What he heard was disquieting enough, but he
could not, would not believe it, until he had gone to Cerito to see
for himself. In the gown of a monk he gained access to the grounds,
and walked slowly by, singing the verse of a song that Miralda liked,
meanwhile scanning the windows closely. His heart gave a leap, and then
sank miserably low, for his love appeared behind the bars of an upper
window. She stretched her hands to him appealingly, told him in a few
half-whispered words the story of her abduction, implored him to hurry
back to town, put the case before General Tacon and demand justice.
Mantanez did so. The tale was so unusual that the general made him
swear to the truth of it on his knees before the crucifix. Then he
sent for the count and ordered him to bring the girl with him. In
two hours they were at the palace. The general looked searchingly at
Almonte. "It is a strange charge that has been brought against you,
count," said he, "that of stealing a woman in open day, taking her
to your house and keeping her under lock and key."
"The young woman has been well treated, general."
"You arrested her?"
"Yes."
"In our uniform?"
"It was the only way. I loved her."
"You still love her?"
"To distraction."
"Humph! We shall see. Orderly, send a priest to me, and tell him to
come prepared to perform a marriage ceremony."
Tacon was sphinx-like, and busied himself with his papers. The count
was puzzled, yet smiling, and disposed to be incredulous. The girl
and her lover wore looks of doubt and fear. The priest arrived.
"Father," said Tacon, "you will make the Count Almonte and Miralda
Estalez man and wife."
"Impossible!" exclaimed the count.
"You have just said that you loved her."
"But, your Excellency, you seem to forget that she is but a girl of
the people. I have to remind you that I am of the Spanish nobility;
that my ancestors--"
"Tush, tush! What have your ancestors to do here? You have ruined
the girl, and you shall make amends, here and now."
Miralda clasped her hands in a passion of entreaty, and her betrothed,
the boatman, sank upon a bench, overcome with despair.
"I am sorry for you," continued Tacon, "but there is no other
way. Proceed with the ceremony."
Knowing Tacon to be inflexible, and with a wholesome dread of
punishment in case of refusal, the young rake finally expressed his
willingness to yield to the command, and with a freckled trooper
for bridesmaid, and another for groomsman, the marriage rites were
said. While the priest was speaking Tacon had written a note which he
gave to an orderly, instructing him to deliver it to the captain of
the guard. After the nobleman, flushed and trembling with anger, and
the half-fainting girl had been pronounced man and wife, the boatman
meanwhile abandoning himself to a frenzy of tears, Tacon said to the
count, "Your wife will remain here for the present. It is my order
that you return to your country-house alone. You will depart at once."
With blazing eye, widened nostril, and hard-set jaw, Count Almonte
left the room without any recognition of his bride, without the
usual acknowledgment of the governor-general's presence. Tacon bade
the young woman be seated, and told Mantanez also to remain, as he
wished to speak with them after a time. Ten minutes passed. Some
guns were heard at a distance. In ten minutes more an officer hastily
entered the room. Tacon looked up from his writing. "Report, captain,"
he commanded.
"I have to inform your Excellency that your orders have been
obeyed. The Count Almonte lies dead with nine bullets in his body."
The general arose, took the hand of the young woman and placed it in
that of the boatman. "Countess," he said, "you are the widow of a rich
man. You are sole heir to the estate of the late Count Almonte. As
to you, sir, I presume you have no objection to wedding a lady so
well provided with this world's goods. Adieu, Madame Countess, and
may your second marriage be happier than your first."
The Cited
Did Alonzo Morelos begrudge liberty or happiness to Felipe
Guayos? Surely the life of a Havanese artisan could have mattered
little to a prosperous lawyer. Politics may have set the big man's
enmity against the little one, or it may possibly have been that more
advanced form of politics that is called patriotism. It was a good
time for a man to refrain from airing his opinions, unless they were
orthodox, for the revolution of 1829 had just been declared. If Guayos
was a party to this rising he was an indifferent and inactive one,
or else he kept his counsel wondrous well. His acquaintances testified
that he was industrious,--that is, he practised what in Havana passed
for industry,--was fond of his wife, cared little for cock-fighting
or the bull-ring, was of placid demeanor, and was altogether the sort
of man who could be relied on _not_ to attend secret meetings or lose
valued sleep by drilling in hot barns or chigger-infested clearings
in the woods. Yet it was on Morelos's oath that this obscure citizen
was arrested.
The tongues clacked up and down the by-ways: What was the rich
man's interest in the poor one? the professional man's in the
mechanic? the man of society in the man unknown? Then it was true,
eh? that the mulatto (for Guayos was a "yellow man") had spoken
to the lawyer familiarly in the street in presence of ladies and
officers? Maybe. The laundress at the second house down the street had
said so, but, fie! it was only on a matter of business. Tut! Business
was no excuse, considering that Don Alonzo was of Spanish parentage,
while the other had been nothing but a Cuban for two centuries. To
forget this breach or try to bridge it, to presume on the tolerance of
an occasional employer, unless one were a slave or a servant and used
to indulgence--that was not to be forgiven. A rumor that travelled
more quietly was that Morelos himself was a revolutionary and had
caused this arrest as a blind, or in order to silence a tongue that
might speak damage. A third rumor, that went in a whisper, and so went
farther than the others, said that the yellow man had a pretty wife,
and that the lawyer had been seen to call at the little house in the
master's absence. This tale seemed to be doubted, for the wife of the
butcher gave it as her opinion that the Senora Guayos was too rusty
of complexion to be pleasing, and the Senor Morelos was so faultless
in his appearance and his taste; the club steward's unmarried sister
declared the senora's manners to be rustic and her voice loud; the
woman in the carpenter's family would lend no ear to such a scandal
because the subject of it was dumpy, shapeless, and dressed absurdly,
even for the wife of a stonemason. Howbeit, the little woman was now in
grief, for her husband lay in jail awaiting trial on the gravest charge
that could be brought against a Cuban,--the charge of treason. In
that day, as on many sad days that were to follow, to be charged with
disaffection toward the crown was virtually to be sentenced to death.
Cuban law was at least as tardy and involved as any, but on the day
when they tried Guayos it was strangely brisk. The stifling, unclean
court-room was crowded, but of all the company none seemed to feel so
little concern in the proceedings as the accused man himself. Through
an open window he saw a couple of palms swinging softly against the sky
in the warm wind. The trees appeared to pacify, to fascinate him. They
were his realities, and the goggling throng, the judge, the officers,
were visions. Often when his name was spoken by a witness or examiner
he would look around with a start, then fall into his dreams again. His
case was traversed without waste of words. Evidence was adduced to
prove that he had once owned a gun, had attended a certain meeting,
had carried letters to such and such persons, had spoken equivocal
phrases, had been seen to lift his nose in passing certain men, had
admitted a suspect to his house at night. He was declared guilty. The
celerity in reaching this verdict led his friends to believe that it
had been agreed upon in advance.
During the last hour of the trial Guayos had aroused from his revery,
had turned from the window, and had fixed his eyes steadily on Morelos,
who was seated among the lawyers in the centre of the room. Morelos
returned the gaze calmly for a time; then he frowned and turned the
pages of a law-book. After a little he moistened his lips with his
tongue, took a studied attitude of listlessness, and showed signs of
weariness and boredom. He did not look at the prisoner again until
the verdict had been given.
When the chief judge put the usual question as to whether the convicted
man had anything to say why death-sentence should not be passed upon
him, Guayos arose, his face pale but fixed in a stony calm. Looking
at neither judge nor audience, but straight at his accuser, with eyes
that were no longer the eyes that had dreamed upon the palms, so great
and black they were and searching, he said, in a clear, tense voice,
"I go to my death. It is useless to speak, for you have condemned
me. But I cite you, Don Alonzo Morelos, to appear beside me at the bar
of God, one year from my death-day, and testify how I came to my end."
There was a moment of silence; then moans and murmurs in the crowd. The
lawyer was white, as with wrath. The judges gestured to the officers
and left the bench. The court was cleared. As he was led away,
Guayos looked once more at the palms, and half smiled as a breath of
freshened air came in at the window. Palms! Where had he been told of
them? What did they mean? Had they not somewhere, in some far land,
been waved in victory when One innocent was about to suffer? Were
not palms awarded in another world to the meek and the honest who
had been despitefully used in this?
Last to leave the room was Morelos. He had remained, seated at a
table, biting a pen, fingering some papers, gazing abstractedly at
the vacant bench. The whoop of a barefooted, black-faced urchin in
the corridor roused him. With a scowl and a shrug he slowly resumed
his hat and went to his home by a roundabout way.
Priests called daily at the prison. Guayos made no appeal, asked for
no delay. The loyalists were clamoring for an example that should
stay the revolution. In a week the condemned man was hanged. An
odd thing happened at the execution: the rope had slipped a little,
and the knot, working toward the front, had left an impress there
after the body was cut down, as of two crossed fingers. The friends
of Guayos held this to be a sign of grace.
Now, if there were any in the world to pray for the peace of a human
soul, it was not the soul of Guayos that asked it. He had affirmed his
innocence to the end, had been shrived, had gone to the gallows with
a dauntless tread, and there were palm branches on his coffin. But
the lawyer? In a month after the trial white hairs appeared among
his locks, hitherto as black as coal. He grew gray and dry in his
complexion, his shoulders began to stoop, his eyes lost their clearness
and boldness, his mouth was no longer firm. Often he wore a harried,
hunted look. Yet they said he was growing softer in his humor, that
he oftener went to church, that he gave more for charity than other
men of his means, and that if the widow Guayos did not know from whom
the five hundred pesetas came that a messenger left at her home one
night the neighbors pretended to. Don Morelos became an object of a
wider interest than he knew. Even the boys in the street would point
as he passed, with head bent and hands clasped behind his back, and
whisper, "There goes El Citado" (the cited), and among the commoners
he was known as well by that name as by the one his parents had given
to him. But he appeared less and less in public. He began to neglect
his practice; he resigned from his club; he avoided the company of
his former associates, taking his walks at night alone, even though
the sky was moonless, storms were threatening, and the cut-throat crew
were abroad that made life at some hours and in some quarters of the
city not of a pin's fee in value. His housekeeper told a neighbor
that on some nights he paced the floor till dawn, and that now and
again he would mutter to himself and appear to strike something. Was
he smiting his own heart?
Before long it was rumored, likewise, that the grave of Guayos was
haunted, or worse, for a black figure had been seen, on some of the
darkest nights, squatted or kneeling before his tomb. It was remarkable
that this revolutionist should have had a burial-place of his own,
when all his relatives and a majority of the people in his station
were interred in rented graves, and their bones thrown into the common
ditch if the rent were not paid at the end of the second year. Certain
old women affirmed that this watching, waiting figure in the dark had
horns and green eyes, like a cat's, while other people said that it
was merely the form of a man, taller, thinner, more bent than Guayos;
therefore not his ghost. But what man?
The anniversary of the hanging had come. The small hours of the
morning were tolling, heavily, slowly, over the roofs of the sleeping
city. Sleeping? There was one who had no rest that night. An upper
window of the house of Morelos looked out upon a court in which two
palm trees grew. They had been tall and flourishing. One might see
them from the court-room. But for a year they had been shedding their
leaflets and turning sere. Tonight their yellow stems had clashed and
whispered until the wind was down, leaving the night sullen, brooding,
thick, starless, with dashes of rain and a raw chill on the ground that
brought out all the malefic odors of the pavement. The window on the
side toward the court was closed and curtained. The one overlooking
the street was slightly open, and if the night-bird prowling toward
the den he called his home had looked up, or had listened, he would
have seen the glimmer of a candle and heard the eager scratching of
a pen and rustling of papers. For an hour in the first half of the
night Morelos had been walking about his chamber. At about three in
the morning the housekeeper, whose room was at the opposite end of a
corridor from her master's, found herself sitting upright in bed. She
did not know why. Nobody had called to her. Listening intently, as if
she knew that somebody was about to speak, she distinguished a faint
sound of crumpling paper. A chair was moved hastily, and there was a
cry in a strained voice, "No, no! My God!" Then the house shook. She
bolted her door and prayed. In the morning twilight Don Alonzo Morelos
lay very still on the floor of his chamber, with a mark on his throat
like that made by the pressure of two crossed fingers.
The citation had been obeyed!
The Virgin's Diamond
Miguel Jose was a loving and dutiful son, but he could help the old
folks only a little. He had a heartache every time a letter came
from Leon, for he knew it held a request for money, and a private's
pay, which at best is small, is frequently nothing in a Spanish
regiment. Young Miguel had been on service in Havana for a couple of
years, and his parents had been growing steadily poorer. He could
hardly buy cigarettes. First it was a pig that was wanted at home;
then a better roof on the cottage; then a contribution for a new
altar in the village church; finally it was illness, and his mother
needed medicines and delicacies. How could he get money? The paymaster
had received none in months, he said, and even the officers were in
debt. His fellow-soldiers? No; they were as poorly off as he,--so he
could not borrow. He could not steal in the streets, for his uniform
would betray him. He was not allowed to accept work from civilians,
for that was against the army regulations. After dress-parade one
evening he went to a lonely place behind the barracks and cried. Then,
having leave of absence, he went to one of the churches and knelt for
a long time before the Virgin's shrine, imploring her, with moans and
tears, to give him some means of relieving his mother's distress. She
was a mother. She would understand. She would pity the sufferings
of others. There was no answer. He left the dark and empty building
tired and disheartened.
Next evening he returned, and for an hour and more he begged the
Virgin to bestow some material mercy on his mother. Looking up he was
startled, though delighted, to see that the statue of Mary was rolling
its glass eyes upon him, and tears stood in them. He bent to the floor,
overcome by his emotions. Then a light step sounded over the stones,
and, behold! the Virgin had left her pedestal and was regarding him
with kindness and pity in her face. Slowly she extended her hand. He
gazed with new astonishment, for this was the right hand, bearing
the famous diamond which had been placed upon it some years before
by a pious resident of Havana. It could not be that she intended
this treasure for him! Yes, she smiled and nodded assuringly. With
trembling fingers he withdrew the jewel, kissed the outreached hand,
stammered his thanks, and, hardly waiting till she had remounted her
pedestal, ran from the church.
There was in the city at that time one Senor Hyman Izaaks, whose
business--which a cruel law required him to follow in secret--was the
relief of pecuniary embarrassments, on security, and our soldier went
straightway to the office of that philanthropist, arriving breathless
but happy. Senor Izaaks advanced a larger sum on the diamond than
Jose had dared to hope for. He wrote a hasty letter, enclosing the
banknotes, and mailed it to his parents on that very night.
Next morning the sacristan of the church, who was making his
rounds and placing fresh candles on the altar, received a shock. The
Virgin's diamond was gone! The priests, the bishop, the governor, the
general, the police were notified, and there was a mighty coil. What
sacrilegious wretch had done this thing? Miguel had been seen to enter
the church on the previous night; therefore suspicion attached to
him. He was arrested and charged with the crime. To the astonishment
of all, he made no secret of it, though he protested against the word
"theft." He was proud to have been the recipient of kindness from
heaven, and he related, frankly and circumstantially, how he had
appealed to the Virgin, for what good purpose, how she had answered,
how Senor Izaaks had taken the stone and given him money for it. A
military court was ordered to try him, but it was puzzled to know
what to do with him. If the fellow were a common thief he deserved
more than prison: he merited the gallows and a quicklime burial,
for he had added sacrilege to robbery. But if he were a thief, why
did he confess so freely, and even glory in his sin? Then, too, if
it were the wish of the Virgin that he should receive this gift, by
what right did any civic or military body interfere, for would it not
be blasphemy to doubt or deny the designs of Providence? Was not the
accused soldier under the acknowledged protection of the Virgin? Would
she not visit with indignation, if she did not vigorously punish,
the attempt to set aside her benefits?
Truly, here was a pickle! The confession of the accused man had
enabled the police to secure the diamond,--which they did without any
formalities of payment to Senor Izaaks, to his unbounded grief,--and
the ring being restored to the finger of the statue, and the money
being on its way across the sea, and the soldier being entitled to
some part of it as back-pay, the court-martial at length resolved to
release Miguel Jose from arrest. It did so with the historic finding of
"Not guilty, but don't do it again."
A Spanish Holofernes
While it has been the fate of women in the Spanish islands to suffer
even more than their husbands and brothers from severity and injustice,
instances are not lacking in which they have shown an equal spirit
with the men. In the insurrections a few of them openly took the
field, and the Maid of Las Tunas is remembered,--a Cuban Joan of Arc,
who rode at the head of the rebel troops, battled as stoutly as the
veterans, and was of special service as scout and spy. Three times
she fell into the hands of the Spaniards. Twice she coaxed her way
to freedom. The third time the governor gave her to a crowd of brutal
soldiers, who afterward burned her alive.
Quite another sort of woman was Nina Diaz, whom Weyler intended to
compliment when he said she was the only loyal Cuban, and who is hated
by all other Cubans as a fiend. Her love for a Spanish captain was
cleverly played upon by Weyler, who induced her to become his spy. She
begged contributions for the insurgents. Of course, those who gave
were in sympathy with the insurrection, so that all she had to do was
to place her list of subscribers in the hands of Weyler, who promptly
shot or imprisoned them, or herded them among the reconcentrados to
die of starvation. When the Cubans caught her she said that she had
a father and a brother in their ranks,--which was true,--and was on
her way to them. Where could they be found? They told her and set
her free, and in the morning the Spanish troops were on the march to
their hiding-place.
It is pleasanter to read of Spanish women serving their own cause
than of Cuban women who betrayed their country, and the Spanish dames
have often shown as much grit and pride as the dons. Pauline Macias
is alleged to have led the soldiers back to their guns in San Juan
de Puerto Rico after they had run from Sampson's shells. She seized
a sword from an officer, beat the runaways with it, roused them by
pleas and commands, and kept them at their work until their pieces
were disabled or the ammunition had given out.
In the tradition of an earlier and slighter war the heroine is a
woman of still different type. Isabella, wife of the Doctor Diaz, was
often called "the queen" in Bayamo, not merely because of her name,
but because of her piety, her charities, her beauty, and her dignified
bearing. She was young, well reared, distinguished, and her home was a
centre for the best society of the town. Among those who felt free to
call without invitation were several of the officers of the garrison,
most of them models in deportment and dress, and of sufficient breeding
to refrain from allusion to politics; for the Diazes, though Spanish
by only one remove, were avowedly Cuban in their sympathies, and the
revolution was fast coming to a focus. It was understood, however,
that Doctor Diaz would remain a non-combatant, for the duty he owed
to suffering humanity was higher than the duty his friends tried to
persuade him he owed to his country. Hence, the physician and his
wife would be under the white flag, it was supposed, and if remarks
were made as to their share in the approaching hostilities, it was
always with a frank and laughing admission on their part and a jest
on that of the accusers.
Among all the men in the garrison but one was actually disliked by
the young practitioner and his wife. Captain Ramon Gonzales had been
quartered upon them once for a week in an emergency, and his removal
to another household had been asked for. It was not that he lacked
manners or was obviously disrespectful, but his compliments to the
lady of the house were something too frequent, his regard of her too
admiring, his air toward the doctor that of the soldier and superior,
rather than the friend. Senora Diaz never saw him alone, never invited
him to call. He disappeared one afternoon, and it was understood that
he had received a summons to return to Havana.
The rising came at last. Fires glimmered on the hills, bodies of men
assembled in the woods, the drumming and brawling of troops were heard
in hitherto quiet villages, and prayers for the success of the Cuban
arms were offered in a hundred churches. But not all the women were
content to pray. They were helping to arm their husbands, brothers,
sweethearts, sons; they worked together in assembling supplies,
hospital stores, clothing, and even in casting bullets.
One or two nights after the first blow had been struck there came
a loud summons at the door of Doctor Diaz. Thinking it a call for
his services, he stepped into the dark street, when he was seized,
handcuffed, placed between two lines of soldiers, and marched away
to prison. The despairing cry of his wife, as she peered from the
open door and saw this arrest, was the only farewell. He never heard
her voice again. He was shot a few days later as an enemy to Spain,
the specific charge against him being that of "aiding and sheltering"
a rebel, the said rebel being a feeble-minded youth, a "moon-struck,"
to whom, as a matter of charity, he had given occasional work in
weeding his garden. On the night after Doctor Diaz's arrest his
wife was requested by a messenger to go quickly to a small house
on the edge of the town to meet one who might secure his release,
but wished to consult with her as to the means. Hastily wrapping a
mantilla about her, she followed the messenger to the street; then,
as acting under sudden impulse, left him waiting for a moment, while
she returned to bolt a door. In that moment, unseen by the messenger,
she slipped a sheathed stiletto into the bosom of her dress.
The house was a ramshackle cottage, with a damp and moldy air pervading
it within and without. The negro messenger opened the door without
knocking, held it open while she passed in, then abruptly closed it
and turned a key on the outside. The woman was trapped. In a minute
voices were heard in the street; that of the messenger, and one that
she knew better,--and worse,--the voice of Captain Gonzales.
The situation flashed upon her. Her husband had been falsely
charged. She had been lured to this place, and would leave it dead or
dishonored. The walls of the cabin swam before her, and she had nearly
fallen when the sound of the key in the lock aroused her. A fierce
chill shook her frame. She held to a table for support. A tumult of
thought possessed her, but as the door swung open it quieted to a
single idea: hardly a thought: a purpose.
In the light of the single candle that stood on the table she saw
Captain Gonzales enter. He had been at the wine. His eyes were heavy,
his cheeks a dusky red, his mouth was more sensual, his jaw more
cruel than ever. He stepped inside and locked the door. "Your pardon,
senora, for these strong measures," he said, in a thick tone. "I
am a victim of love and hate. Your hus--another--has hated me. Your
husband is--is--likely to be absent for some time. You will require
a protector. I have the honor to offer myself. I throw myself at the
feet of the loveliest lady in Cuba. I tell her of the love that for
the past year has turned my life to torture. I will be her companion,
her adorer, only--ha! You smile! It is not possible you care for
me? It is joy too great. Senora! Isabella! Can it be?"
"And you never suspected it before?"
The face was white, the lips twitched, but the smile remained. The
woman cast down her eyes--what star-bright eyes they were!--then
slowly opened her arms. With a roaring laugh Gonzales strode across
the room. The laugh changed to a gurgling cry as he placed his hands
upon her waist. His hand went to his sword, but fumbled; his knees
shook; then he fell backward at full length, with his heart's blood
pulsating from a dagger-wound. The wife of Doctor Diaz picked up the
key that had fallen from his fingers, unlocked the door, and returned
to her home alone.
The Courteous Battle
In the bay where more than three and a half centuries later the Spanish
fleet was to be destroyed the don once fought the enemy with different
result. It was in 1538, in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba, that the
battle occurred,--Santiago of sad memory, with its shambles, where
insurgents were shot by platoons; with its landings, where slaves were
unloaded at night and marched thence to the plantations, like mules and
cattle; with its Morro, connected by wells and traps with caves in the
rock beneath, where bodies of men mysteriously done to death slipped
away on the tide. A French privateer had appeared before the town,
demanding ransom or surrender. Luckily for Santiago, a Spanish caravel
had arrived a few days before, under command of Captain Diego Perez,
and this gallant sailor offered to go out and defend the town. His
ship was attacked as soon as it came within range of the enemy's guns,
and, turning so as to deliver an effective fire, he gave as good as
he got. All that day the people of the town heard the pounding of
the brass pieces and saw the smudge of powder against the blue to
the south, yet at the fall of evening little damage had been done:
the ships lay too far apart, and the aim on both sides was ridiculous.
Each commander had seen enough of his adversary to respect him,
however, and moved by a common impulse they raised white flags,
declared for a cessation of hostilities through the night, and every
night, so long as they should continue to oppose one another. Then
followed an exchange of fruit and wine, of which both crews were in
need, and, confident in the honor of their enemies, all hands slept
as tired men usually sleep. Said the Spanish captain to the French
commander in the morning, "Artillery is a cowardly and abominable
invention. It is desired to hurt a foe while those who serve it run
no risk. How say you if we put the tompions back into our cannon and
fight, as chivalric men should ever fight, with sword and pike?"
To this the Frenchman gave willing consent, and, the ships ranging
near, the battle reopened, after prayers and breakfast, to some
purpose. With cries of "Santo Iago!" the Spanish tried to board the
pirate ship, but could not secure a footing. Blows were exchanged
throughout the day, save when one ship or the other drew off, that
the wounded might have attention, and the dying prayers, for much
blood was shed and several lost their lives. At the end of the day
both commanders declared their admiration for the skill and courage
of their opponents, and again gave presents of fruit and wine as they
stopped work until the morrow. Perez sent ashore that night to tell
the people of Santiago that fighting was an exhausting business,
and to some extent a risky one, and would they kindly send a few
able-bodied fellows to replace the dead and disabled on his ship?
The response to this call was so meagre that he began to mistrust
his countrymen, and he asked if, in case he lost his ship, the town
would reimburse him, considering that he was risking his all in
their defence. After much debate the townsmen replied, through their
officials, that they were not in a position to make good his loss,
but they trusted that such a calamity would not be possible; that he
would maintain a stout heart and fight on to prove the superiority
of Spanish valor to French craft; that the blessed Santo Iago would
watch over him and his gallant crew; that their best wishes were
with him, and that his kindness would never, never be forgotten. A
trifle disheartened, Captain Perez nevertheless resumed the fight
on the next day, and again on the fourth day, and after the usual
exchange of courtesies at evening, he told the privateer on the fifth
day that he would encounter with him as usual. The persistence of the
Spaniard in thus holding out against seeming odds--for the Frenchman
had the larger crew--set the privateer to thinking, and a sudden
fear arose within him that Spanish reinforcements were on their
way, and that Perez was merely fighting for time until they should
arrive. This fear grew until it became belief, though a baseless one,
and, hoisting sail as quietly as possible, he stole out of Santiago
Bay on the fourth night after hostilities had opened. As thanks are
cheap, Perez received a good many of them.
Why King Congo was Late
As in all the Spanish Americas, there were churchly feasts and
celebrations in Cuba whose origin has been forgot. Why did the
slaves serenade their masters on New Year morning, jingling huge
tambourines, and in the villages how came it to be thought that the
cause of righteousness was advanced by parades and music on saints'
days? Hatred of the Jews was an inheritance rather than an experience,
and for lack of Jews to prove it upon there was an annual display
of wrath at Judas, who was represented by a grotesque effigy made
up of straw, old clothes, and a mask. In the cities this figure was
merely called The Jew, and after being carried through the streets
with revilings, on the day after Good Friday, it was hanged in some
conspicuous place and there stoned and shot by the crowd.
In Santiago there used to be a queer celebration on the 6th of
January, "the day of the kings," or "All Kings' day," meaning the
kings who journeyed to Bethlehem to worship the new-born Christ. In
time this function lost its dignity and became a sport, a gasconade,
in which the slaves attired themselves extravagantly and paraded about,
begging, blowing horns, beating drums, and bandying jokes with the
spectators. In the days of King Congo the procession had some claim
to show and importance, if only because he was at the head of it,
for he had, in ways known only to himself, come into possession of
the chapeau of a captain-general, a lieutenant's coat, one epaulette,
a pair of blue breeches, and a belt; hence, attired in all these
grandeurs at once, and mounted on a mule, he looked every inch the king
he said he was. For, albeit, he had been a slave, he claimed an African
king as his father, and as that parent was dead, for aught he could
certify to the contrary, the title, if not the crown and emoluments,
descended to him; leastwise, nobody on this side of the sea could
dispute it; and he bore it with conscious dignity. His family name,
if he had one, has been lost, and it is as King Congo that he was
known. That his royalty was genuine the other negroes never doubted,
and to parade on the day of the kings without a real king of their
own color to marshal the procession was not to be thought of.
El Rey Congo was aware of his power and of the impression he made on
the humbler residents of Santiago. Every now and then he heightened his
superiority to common clay by appearing in public in a starched collar,
looking over the top of it with an assumption of pride and ease, as
of one born to such luxury, but in reality chafing his neck against
its ragged edges and longing to be in the fields, where he would not
need to be spectacular. One year the day of the kings dawned without a
cloud, and Santiago was in a holiday humor. Everybody who had work to
do postponed it till to-morrow, as if All Kings' Day were like every
other day; for the procession that year was to be extra large and
fine. King Congo was to ride with spurs, though barefooted, and was
to have a military guard of four men. The band had been increased,
especially in the drum department, and the ladies, who would have
figured in the king's court if he had had a court, were turbaned
in new bandanas of red and yellow. The clergy and officers of the
garrison had promised to review the parade, and the cooper, down by
the custom-house, suggested that he'd better put a few hoops around
King Congo to keep his swelling heart from cracking his ribs.
A long trumpet-call from the square announced the hour for assembly,
and all eyes turned toward the street through which the king had been
used to make his entry. He did not come. Tardiness is a privilege
of kings. It proves them superior to the obligations laid upon the
vulgar herd. Beside, what is an hour in a manana country? But as
the hour went by and the king kept refraining from his arrival, some
presuming subjects went to look him up, and after much inquiry and
pedestrian exercise they found the sovereign in jail. His Majesty
explained that he had been arrested for debt a few days before,
and that because of a shortage in the paltry coin of a white man's
state--a wretched matter of $4.15--he was doomed to remain behind
the bars, perhaps forever. The messengers ran back to the square,
made an excited appeal to the populace, scratched the required sum
together in penny subscriptions, paid the innkeeper every centavo
that the king owed him, woke up the sheriff and the magistrate,
and before noon King Congo was a free man, in the same old uniform,
riding the same old mule, and stiffly bowing to the admiring populace
as he passed. The parade was a great success. So was the scheme
conceived that morning by el Rey Congo; for, every year thereafter,
three or four days before the festival of the adoration, he laid in
supplies of rum and cigars, with even a new hat or a second-hand
medal, and after getting the goods safely bestowed in his cabin,
defied his creditors to collect their pay. The shopkeepers winked at
this device, and regularly sent him to jail, for they knew that on the
6th of January their royal customer would pay, though by proxy. And
that is more than you can say of some kings. Isn't it?
The Chase of Taito Perico
In 1779 the Bishop of Havana took into his household as servants,
and into the cathedral as altar-boys, three harum-scarum Indians, then
said to have come from Florida, now believed to have been of Mexican
origin, though there were not wanting citizens who solemnly declared
that the trio had come from a warmer place than any on the surface of
this planet. The object in the bishop's mind was to Christianize the
scapegraces and turn them loose among their own people, that they, too,
might be made to see the light. The poor old clergyman little knew with
whom he had to deal. When the astonishment of the youngsters at the
glories of Havana had subsided, and even a regiment with a band could
parade without their company, the Indian in them asserted itself once
more, and they grieved the bishop by playing hookey, shirking mass,
running off to the mountains on hunting trips, and once, when he went
out in his night-cap to inquire the cause of a rumpus in his yard,
they tripped him up and circled around and around, whooping like
demons while he was trying to regain his feet and apply his cane.
At last they upset, not the clergy but the laws. Their offence was
not grave, being rather a result of high spirits than of malice, but
it brought the constabulary upon them and they were carried to the
arsenal to work out the term of their imprisonment at loading ships
and other heavy, uncongenial labor. Not many days had passed here
before a chance offered for their escape, and they seized upon it,
vanishing under the noses of the guard--at least, that was the way
the guard reported it--like shadows before the sun. In fact, from
that hour they were looked upon as a bit uncanny. The three lads
found a hiding-place in the Falaco vegas, among a vagrom populace
of brigands, runaway slaves, and wreckers, and there for several
weeks they supported themselves by hunting, fishing, gambling, even
working a little when sore pressed. Better if they had been left
alone to live out their lives there. If useless, they at least were
harmless. But, no; the majesty of the law again asserted itself. They
were caught by a company of soldiers and mar
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