to forget its environment—well, one ought to forgive much, and we did, until we learned that even the breadfruit wasn’t ready done—it had to be cooked.
At last the cloth was laid and the table set, and Little Blue Ribbons unfolded her napkin, and we all did the same, for Little Blue Ribbons seldom makes a mistake. She is a proper child, and had hitherto fed on proper meat. Then we chatted and sat there—and sat there and chatted. Presently, when we had talked it all over—the market and the Creole beauty, and everything else—we stopped talking and just sat there thinking. Sister had some bananas left, and she graciously suggested that fruit before dinner was in good form, so we each took a banana and sat longer.
There was nor sight nor sound of Fräulein Stein, nor of any one belonging to the Stein family. We and our fellow travellers were the silent occupants of the high-ceilinged dining-room. Noon had long since gone with the morning—one o’clock, and still no signs of life. One-thirty—from out the silent courtyard, after an hour and a half waiting; from out the back kitchen, near the duck puddle and the breadfruit-tree, there appeared a negro in solemn state. He had been dressing. I suppose he was the one we had been waiting for. He wore an ancient long-tailed coat with brass buttons, a white waistcoat, and very clean trousers—and shoes, too—and a flower in his buttonhole, and he carried in his hand—yes, dear ones, he carried in his hand (only in one hand, for the other one was needed for purpose of state)—he carried in his hand one small plate of sardines, our appetisers, which had been neatly arranged in two tiny rows of six each. A menial of lower order followed with the bread, enough for one hungry man, and it fell to the first and nearest table. We were hopelessly distant from the sardines and the bread. The solemn head waiter avoided us. We thought we must have offended him. The sardines continued to pass us. Soon a dish of smoking yams was carried on beyond. We knew then that his Majesty had us in disfavour. The “spirit of ’76” arose; we would have sardines or perish. We raided the serving-room. Sister captured a whole box of sardines and I a loaf of bread. We waylaid a boy with coffee, took the pot, hunted up sugar, ran into a black woman, who was handing in a few boiled yams, seized all she had and sat down to the finest meal ever spread: yams, sardines, bread, and black coffee. At two-thirty, a faint odour of turkey hovered over the dining-room, but we didn’t care for turkey; we had said so from the first, and besides, we had known that turkey in his glory. Sardines we had not despised, and we had sardines. And then the bananas helped out, and so did the bread and the bitter coffee. I would not have had the dinner other than it was—no, not for all the waiting; it was all so in keeping with the whole crazy country.
Fräulein Stein never appeared. I do not think there was a Fräulein Stein, or ever had been. She was just made up, along with the “table d’hôte” and the “chambres garnies” and the “douche” and the “jardin d’agrément.” But in a feminine way we laid it up against Fräulein Stein—that meal and the trees—and we always shall. For who else do you think could have cut down the trees?
There seemed to be a sort of stupefaction over the whole establishment. I know the poor creatures did the very best they knew how, but they didn’t know how—that was the trouble. It didn’t occur to them to cook a lot of yams at one time; they cooked enough for one or two, and when those were ready, they cooked some more for somebody else. You can imagine the length of time required for such a meal. But then there’s nothing much else to do in Haïti, and why not be willing to wait for dinner?
Out of respect to the courtly “pharmacien” and to our lovely Proserpine, there’s not to be one word more about the “Hotel Bellevue,” and not a word more about anything else in poor little Port-au-Prince; but I could not help wishing that some day dear old Uncle Sam would come along and give Haïti a good cleaning up, and whip them into line for a time at least; but Heaven deliver us from ever trying to assimilate or govern such a degenerate and heterogeneous people. Alas, for that ideal Black Republic, where every negro was to show himself a man and a brother!
As we were leaving for ship, the Haïtien daily paper was issued—a curious little two-page sheet, some eighteen inches square, printed in French, Le Soir—and in it appeared this pitiful paragraph, which seemed in a way to be the hopeless lament of Haïti’s remnant for the sad condition of things in this beautiful island:
“The Americans who arrived this morning are visiting our city. But what will they see here to admire? Where are our monuments, our squares, our well-watered streets? We blush with shame! They can carry back with them only bad impressions; there is nothing to please or charm them, except our sunny sky, our starry nights, and the exuberance of nature.”
Is it possible that the writer of those lines had forgotten the Lady Proserpine?
CHAPTER III.
SANTO DOMINGO
I.
“THERE’S nothing in the least to be afraid of, Mother, nothing in the least. Why, see, even his Excellency doesn’t mind.” It was Sister who spoke, but even so there was a kind of unearthly qualm creeping over me as I made my way cautiously down the ladder and waited until a generous swell from the big outside sent the ship’s boat within stepping distance, and then, with a jump, made for the vacancy next to Little Blue Ribbons. When one is on dry land, fear of the water seems so unreasoning that the timid soul speaks of it in a half-apologetic manner; but never yet when landing in an open boat in an exposed harbour, where the mighty roll of the ocean lifts and drops and there seems but a veil between the great world above and the great world beneath—never yet have I been able to take the step from steamer to boat with any real sensation of pleasure.
We had been skirting the southern shore of the great island of Haïti or Santo Domingo since sundown the night before, and at daybreak the word flew around that we were off Domingo City. We must have left all the sunshine with the happy darkies in Port-au-Prince, for, as we glanced from our port-holes, we saw nothing but a tumble of leaden water under a gray sky—just water and sky. Domingo City lay to the other side.
Once ready for the day and out on deck, we were met by a gloomy world. Heavy banks of clouds piled on one another as if determined to hide the sun. There were no dancing, rollicking little harbour waves that morning; they were ugly and sullen ground swells, and told of heavy weather somewhere by their grumbling, threatening heavings. A stiff wind blew, for we had come to the region of the “Northeast Trades,” and it was no laughing matter to lower the boats and land us safely, especially with such clumsy boats’ crews. There is practically no harbour at Santo Domingo, the capital of la Republica Dominicana; that is, no harbour for deep-keeled craft. The Ozama River affords a safe inner harbour for light-draught vessels, but on account of a bar at the entrance to this charming stream—upon whose shores the historic old city slumbers—we were forced to anchor in the open roadstead and take the ship’s boats for land.
The fear which had so troubled me when we first left the solid
