to see which was heaviest.
After the lapse of an hour, or two, becoming impatient, I told my first lieutenant, that as our men had not been practised at the guns, for some time, I thought it would be as well to let them burst a few of our eight-inch shells, at a target. Accordingly the drum beat to quarters, a great stir was made about the deck, as the guns were cast loose, and pretty soon, whiz! went a shell, across the windows of the council-chamber, which overlooked the sea; the shell bursting like a clap of rather sharp, ragged thunder, a little beyond, in close proximity, to the target. Sundry heads were seen immediately to pop out of the windows of the chamber, and then to be withdrawn very suddenly, as though the owners of them feared that another shell was coming, and that my gunners might make some mistake in their aim. By the time we had fired three or four shells, all of which bursted with beautiful precision, Chapman’s boat was seen returning, and thinking that our men had had exercise enough, we ran out and secured the guns.
My lieutenant came on board, smiling, and looking pleasantly, as men will do, when they are bearers of good news, and said that the Governor had given us permission to enter. We were lying close in with the entrance, and in a few minutes more, the Sumter was gliding gracefully past the houses, on either side of her, as she ran up the little canal, or river, that split the town in two. The quays were crowded with a motley gathering of the townspeople, men, women, and children, to see us pass, and sailors waved their hats to us, from the shipping in the port. Running through the town into a land-locked basin, in its rear, the Sumter let go her anchor, hoisted out her boats, and spread her awnings,—and we were once more in port.
CHAPTER XV.
THE SUMTER AT CURAÇOA—HER SURROUNDINGS—PREPARATIONS FOR SEA, AND DEPARTURE—THE CAPTURE OF OTHER PRIZES—PUERTO CABELLO, AND WHAT OCCURRED THERE.
The Sumter had scarcely swung to her anchors, in the small land-locked harbor described, before she was surrounded by a fleet of bum-boats, laden with a profusion of tropical fruits, and filled with men, and women, indifferently—the women rather preponderating. These bum-boat women are an institution in Curaçoa; the profession descends from mother to daughter and time seems to operate no change among them. It had been nearly a generation since I was last at Curaçoa. I was then a gay, rollicking young midshipman, in the “old” Navy, and it seemed as though I were looking upon the same faces, and listening to the same confusion of voices as before. The individual women had passed away, of course, but the bum-boat women remained. They wore the same parti-colored handkerchiefs wound gracefully around their heads, the same gingham or muslin dresses, and exposed similar, if not the same, bare arms, and unstockinged legs. They were admitted freely on board, with their stocks in trade, and pretty soon Jack was on capital terms with them, converting his small change into fragrant bananas, and blood-red oranges, and replenishing his tobacco-pouch for the next cruise. As Jack is a gallant fellow, a little flirtation was going on too with the purchasing, and I was occasionally highly amused at these joint efforts at trade and love-making. No one but a bum-boat woman is ever a sailor’s blanchiseuse, et par consequence a number of well-filled clothes’-bags soon made their appearance, on deck, from the different apartments of the ship, and were passed into the boats alongside.
These people all speak excellent English, though with a drawl, which is not unmusical, when the speaker is a sprightly young woman. Jack has a great fondness for pets, and no wonder, poor fellow, debarred, as he is, from all family ties, and with no place he can call his home, but his ship; and pretty soon my good-natured first lieutenant had been seduced into giving him leave to bring sundry monkeys, and parrots on board, the former of which were now gambolling about the rigging, and the latter waking the echoes of the harbor with their squalling. Such was the crowd upon our decks, and so serious was the interruption to business, that we were soon obliged to lay restrictions upon the bum-boat fleet, by prohibiting it from coming alongside, except at meal-hours, which we always designated by hoisting a red pennant, at the mizzen. It was curious to watch the movements of the fleet, as these hours approached. Some twenty or thirty boats would be lying upon their oars, a few yards from the ship, each with from two to half a dozen inmates, eagerly watching the old quartermaster, whose duty it was to hoist the pennant; the women chattering, and the parrots squalling, whilst the oarsmen were poising their oars, that they might get the first stroke over their competitors in the race. At length, away goes the flag! and then what a rushing and clattering, and bespattering until the boats are alongside.
In an hour after our anchor had been let go, the business of the ship, for the next few days, had all been arranged. The first lieutenant had visited a neighboring ship-yard, and contracted for a new foretop-mast, to supply the place of the old one which had been sprung; the paymaster had contracted for a supply of coal, and fresh provisions, daily, for the crew, and for having the ship watered; the latter no unimportant matter, in this rainless region, and I had sent an officer to call on the Governor, with my card, being too unwell to make the visit, in person. Upon visiting the shore the next day, I found that we were in a quasi enemy’s territory, for besides the Federal Consul before spoken of, a Boston man had intrenched himself in the best hotel in the place, as proprietor, and was doing a thriving business, far away from “war’s alarms,” and a New Yorker had the monopoly of taking all the phizes of the staid old Dutchmen—“John Smith, of New York, Photographer,” hanging high above the artist’s windows, on a sign-board that evidently had not been painted by a Curaçoan. Mr. Smith had already taken an excellent photograph of the Sumter, which he naively enough told me, was intended for the New York illustrated papers. If I had had ever so much objection, to having the likeness of my ship hung up in such a “rogues’ gallery,” I had no means of preventing it. Besides, it could do us but little damage, in the way of identification, as we had the art of disguising the Sumter so that we would not know her, ourselves, at half a dozen miles distance.
I was surprised, one morning, during our stay here, whilst I was lounging, listlessly, in my cabin, making a vain attempt to read, under the infliction of the caulkers overhead, who were striking their caulking-irons with a vigor, and rapidity, that made the tympanum of my ears ring again, at the announcement that Don somebody or other, the private secretary of President Castro, desired to see me. The caulkers were sent away, and his Excellency’s private secretary brought below. President Castro was one of those unfortunate South American chiefs, who had been beaten in a battle of ragamuffins, and compelled to fly his country. He was President of Venezuela, and had been deprived of his office, before the expiration of his term, by some military aspirant, who had seated himself in the presidential chair, instead, and was now in exile in Curaçoa, with four of the members of his cabinet. The object of the visit of his secretary was to propose to me to reinstate the exiled President, in his lost position, by engaging in a military expedition, with him, to the mainland.
Here was a chance, now, for an ambitious man! I might become the Warwick of Venezuela, and put the crown on another’s head, if I might not wear it myself. I might hoist my admiral’s flag, on board the Sumter, and take charge of all the piraguas, and canoes, that composed the Venezuelan navy, whilst my colleague mustered those men in buckram, so graphically described by Sir John Falstaff, and made an onslaught upon his despoiler. But unfortunately for friend Castro, I was like one of those damsels who had already plighted her faith to another, before the new wooer appeared—I was not in the market. I listened courteously, however, to what the secretary had to say; told him, that I felt flattered by the offer of his chief, but that I was unable to accept it. “I cannot,” I continued, “consistently with my obligations to my own country, engage in any of the revolutionary movements of other countries.” “But,” said he, “Señor Castro is the de jure President of Venezuela, and you would be upholding the right in assisting him;—can you not, at least, land us, with some arms and ammunition, on the main land?” I replied that, “as a Confederate States officer,
