Venezuela: or, Sketches of life in a South American republic; with the history of the loan of 1864

Front matter

m

£^3

CORNELL

Contents

CHAPTEE I.

TO VENEZUELA.

PAGE

Chapter I. To Venezuela

Sailing on a Friday— Juan — The Eoyal Mail Company— The Story interrupted — Hat Island— Harboiir of St. Thomas— A Battle with the Sharks — The Virgin Islands — A Cruise among the Cemeteries — Blockaderunners — Voyage to La Guaira — The Death at Sea — Ayes Islands — At Anchor.

" Needles indeed ! they look more like Grinders ; and, a propos of that, if this confounded wind continues dead in our teeth, we shall pitch bows under as soon as we get outside." I uttered these words without addressing myself to any person in particular, for I knew no one on board, and, in fact, there was no one near enough to. hear me, but my servant, who, like myself, was leaning over the ta&aU, watching the pilot drop astern. I looked at my watch ; it was seven minutes past seven, on the 17th of June (I like seven, it is a lucky number) ; we were off the Needles ; the pilot had just left us ; there was a strong breeze right ahead, and the weather did not look altogether so propitious

B as it should do on a midsummer eveniag. My servant, Juan, was a fine specimen of a Santa Cruz man. He stood six feet five inches ia his boots, was an excellent valet, never drank, smoked, nor swore, spoke Spanish and English, loved England with all his heart, and, like most natives of Santa Cruz and Saint Thomas, fuUy considered himself an EngHshman. I knew httle of Juan, who had been ia my service only a few days, and was now to learn one of his pecuharities. He was subject to an extraordinary flow of spirits on the occurrence of anything which others regarded as depressing. A simple contretemps put him in a good humour ; but a disaster made him jocular, and the graver the case the more he was elated. On hearing my exclamation he turned round approvingly, and said, " Yes, no fears, sir, but we'll have a rough night of it ; I never hur-red no good of sailing on a Friday." "Pooh, pooh, Juan," said I, "that's a mere prejudice. AMiy, on Friday, the 9th of August, 1492, no less a man than Christoval Colon sailed from Lagos to discover the New World, these very West Indies to which we are now going, and on Friday, the 12th of October, he did discover San Salvador, not so very far from where you were bom; and on Friday, the 1st of March, 1493, he saw land on his return — that is, he ought to have seen it if the weather had not been rather thick." I said the last words with some hesitation, for, in fact, I recollected that Colon, on his homeward voyage, encountered a regular tormenta off Portugal, and was near foundering ; so that the third Friday was rather against me. Juan, however, as became a man of his inches, was not to be beaten from his opiaion, and said : " I don't know nothing about Columbus, sir, but my father, who was a Digitized by Microsoft®

SAILING ON A FRIDAY. 3

better man, leastways made more voyages 'tween 'Merica and Europe — for he was a ship's steward, and spoke English as weU as I do — said he never hur-red no good of sailing on a Friday." So saying, and laying a peculiarly gratiug emphasis on the word hur-red, Juan stalked off.

" Confound the fellow ! " said I to myself, "it's absurd, but he makes me melancholy with his forebodings. Yet, imagine anything like risk in a grand vessel of three thousand tons and upwards ! Why, the wretched carvel in which Columbus made his voyages, was hardly so large as the long-boat there. It is no exaggeration to say that she would scarcely have carried the admiral's potted meats, which the steward teUs me weigh over twenty tons. It is true, however, that though the voyage from Lagos to Guanahari was three thousand and forty miles — nearly as long as from Southampton to Saint Thomas, which is but one hundred and forty-seven more — yet, as Humboldt says, ' A voyage from the coast of Spain, and thence to South America, is scarcely attended with any event which deserves attention, especially when undertaken in summer. The navigation is often less dangerous than crossing one of the great lakes of Switzerland.' Whereas in our voyage there is that odious Bay of Biscay to be crossed, and a still worse sea on the homeward passage ; and steamers, however grand, have risks of their own. WeU, who knows ! Juan's forebodings may be justified." So, after finishing my reverie, I went to smoke a cigar in the allowable place before the funnel, and next to arrange my cabin, and so, in due course, to bed.

I was awoke in the morning by a hideous jabber of several small voices crying aU at once, " Steward ! steward !

B 2 for vy I say call I you many times ? Vy you by your ewn selves not ask me vat I vant?" This reminded me of Trollope's grioning Frenchman and his rotten walnut ; and incontinently I laughed somewhat loudly, which had the eifect of shaming my neighbours and stUling the clamour. On leaving my cabin I was astonished to see outside the next cabin door four such Lilliputian pairs of half-boots that I could not but come to the -conclusion that my neighbom-s must be aU children, and yet their voices were the voices of middle age. Afterwards I discovered that the Spanish Creoles have feet as tiny as those of Chinese ladies, but of a natural tininess, and without deformity.

Travelling per steamer is a trite affair. People think httle more of crossing the Atlantic in one of the gigantic vessels of the Eoyal Mail Steam Packet Company, or of the Cunard line, than of passing a river on a bridge. " The river," says the old Sanscrit proverb, " is crossed, and the bridge is forgotten." Fourteen days, or so, of short whist and long flirtations, of bad cigars and pleasant yarns, of hot cahns and cold gales, a transfer of cash and billets, and the voyage is over. But the utility, wealth, and importance of such an association as the Eoyal Mail Company, the admirable system organised for the performance of the duties of every individual serving under it, and the consequent safety with which so many voyages, at all seasons, are performed, deserve more consideration than is usually given to the siibject. In my first lounging fit I took up the prospectus and the book of regulations of the company, which dates from 1830 ; and setting myself to calculate, found that this one company now owns a fleet of twenty-three steamers, of forty-five thousand eight hundred and Digitized by Microsoft®

THE EOTAL MAIL COMPANY. 5

four tons, and eleven thousand four hundred and seventy horse-power. These vessels, I calculated, convey on an average some thirty-five thousand passengers yearly, and over twenty million of dollars in specie, besides other valuable cargo. There are prizes in such a service. The superintendents make from one thousand five hundred to two thousand pounds a year. The senior captain draws one thousand two hundred in cash, and has his hving and lodging free. The other captains, with like advantages in other respects, get one thousand per annum. The junior of&cers are proportionably well paid. There is a home for them at Southampton, where they Hve at free quarters. In the large steamers there are four or five officers besides the captain, and their duties are strictly defined. The chief officer keeps the log, the second has charge of the treasure, and accompanies the Admiralty's agent on shore with the mails, the third and fourth stow the cargo. A junior officer is never left in charge of the ship at night. There is a goodly crew. On board the vessel in which I was passenger were fifty -three seamen, fifty -four engineers, and twenty -three servants. One might well feel at ease in a vessel so provided. I soon became acquainted with most of the passengers. There were several naval officers of rank, a handsome admiral with a fine bold nose, a baronet with a romantic name, a captain of the race of England's naval demi-gods, several West Indian planters, and not a few pretty planters' daughters, some, too, without chaperones ; a shabby Columbian general, a few lively Frenchmen, and a score of Creole nondescripts. I passed my time in playing chess and learning Spanish. Unfortunately, there were no senoras or senoritas of whom to be taught. There was, however,

YENEZUELA.

a young aide-de-camp to the President of Peru, who possessed so much patience and amiability, that he would talk to me in pure Castillano by the hoxxr, though at first I did not comprehend more than one word in a hundred. Nevertheless, by the time we reached the Azores, I had made some progress, and had even once asked publicly at the dinner-table, in Spanish, for the mustard. It was the 23rd of June, at 4 a.m., that we passed the islands, and sighted two of the group. They lie directly in the course out, but homeward, a very great circuit is made to the west. The outward bound captains like to see the islands, for the currents in the Atlantic are so strong and so various that no reckoning can be perfectly true. There is an equinoctial current from east to west, and there is the Gulf Stream, which is a hot current, from west to east; and there are local currents and abnormal currents, and a great- circuitcurrent, compounded of all these, which has a periphery of three thousand eight hundred leagues, and a log of wood dropped into the sea opposite Senegal would go, as many other sticks do, " on circuit," and return to its startingplace in two years and ten months.

We passed, I say, the Azores on the 23rd of June, and forthwith the weather waxed hot. We had not yet caught the trade-winds, and, though there were occasional squalls, on the whole it was sultry, with a rather lurid sky at night. On the 25th it was particularly close and oppressive. I had been playing chess aU the morning. It was 2 p.m., and I was lazily talking to my late antagonist, a good-looking Frenchman, who, though he was, he informed me, thirty-five, looked Hke a mere youth, owing to an entii-e absence of beard, whiskers, and moustache. Groups of Digitized by Microsoft®

THE STOEY INTEEEUPTED. 7

people, some reading, others playing chess or draughts, sat or lounged around us. It was a dead calm, and the polished mirror of the sea gave back the sun's rays with interest. " Monsieur voyage pour son plaisir ou pour les affaires?" I inquired. "Pour mon plaisir?" repeated the Frenchman, with some surprise, "du tout, du tout, monsieur. Je suis medecia, monsieur, et j'ai aussi une fabrique de bottes a Lima." " Quoi, monsieur," said I, raising myself a little on my elbow, " medecin et marchand de bottes a la fois — vous plaisantez ! " The Frenchman opened his lips to reply, but just at that moment there was a tremendously loud crash, followed by a strange whizzing noise, and almost immediately afterwards by a succession of terrific thuds, as if some Cyclops had suddenly commenced hammering in the engine-room. At the same time showers of splinters came flying from the starboard paddle-box, and a dense cloud of steam and smoke burst all along the deck, so as almost to hide the funnel from sight. Great confusion of course ensued. Chess-tables and chairs were overset ; screams of ladies, questions of men shouted in various languages, rushes of sailors amid the cloud of steam, oaths and scuffling, added to the din. It was curious to see in that moment of terrible uncertainty, when an explosion, or some other catastrophe was expected by aU, how some of the foreigners who had been sneering at religion aU the way out, suddenly betook themselves to prayer. For myself, I felt exactly as I did some years ago in a railway accident. In both cases I expected every moment to be killed, and yet the most trivial circumstances did not escape me, while my general thought was, as I looked at the bright sun and quiet sleep of Nature, that a violent death was aU the more shocking with everything around so quiet and peaceable.

Half a miuute, perhaps, had passed, but it seemed a long time, and I was rushing forward to see what reaUy had happened, when I felt myself stopped by a powerful arm, and the huge figure of Juan blocked the way. "Best stop here," he said, with a gria ; "I have got finely scalded myself, without beiag of no use. Now the engines are stopped, the captain will soon put matters to rights, if any one can ; but, Caramba ! this aU comes of sailing on a Friday. I never hur-red of no good from sailing on a Friday." Destiny, however, was for this time to let us off with only a fright. The thundering blows ceased with the stoppage of the engines, the steam and smoke gradually cleared away, and the hubbub abated. It was then we learned that the great shaft which connects the paddlewheels with the machinery had . suddenly snapped, and, starting up like a snag, had caught some ponderous gear, which it whirled round with each revolution of the engines, smashing the paddle-box and everything near it. In the confusion there had been an upset of hot coals and an escape of steam, which scalded several men, and drove the others out of the engine-room.

The danger of the late accident was soon forgotten, and some of those who had been most alarmed were unmercifully quizzed. About one short fat Creole in particular the jokes were never ending. He was in his cabin when the crash took place, and fancying from the smoke and steam which entered his quarters that the ship was on fire, he actually contrived to thrust his corpulent body through the round window, though one would have thought it too smaU for the

THE PEOFESSOE'S EUSE. 9

passage of a fat rabbit. From the window he somehow scrambled on deck, and made his appearance, steaming with perspiration, with one sleeve of his coat torn off, and with a face and figure, as every one declared, considerably elongated by his squeeze through the bull's-eye.

How the damages were repaired I know not, but, in a few hours, we were going on much as usual ; so much so, indeed, that the Frenchman, who had told me he was doctor and bootmaker at once, could now finish his story and explain himself. "When I commenced my career," said he, " I found that no one would trust me to prescribe, on account of my juvenile appearance. In despair, I consulted a Mend, who said to me, ' My dear fellow, with that child's face of yours, you will never have a patient. But stay ! I know a certain coUege in which a Greek professor is wanted. You shall be the Greek professor ; you shall have the place ! ' In vain I protested that I knew nothing of Greek. ' I make it entirely my business,' replied my friend ; ' you shall have the place.' Accordingly, I found myself at the coUege, with a letter of introduction to the lec^turer, who had been temporarily dischargiag the duties of the defunct professor of Greek. I had counted on several days to prepare myself, but, on handing him the letter, he said, in a sharp voice, ' Charmed to see you, and to resign my functions. The students will be ready for you ia ten minutes. I will send a man to show you the lecture-room.' At that moment I felt my knees tremble under me, and my uneasiness was so great, that I almost resolved to jump iiito an omnibus I saw pass, drive to the station, and return to Paris. Somehow, I found myself at the lecture-room, and just then a lucky thought occurred to me. ' ' Eange yourselves,' I said to the students, ' as you ranked at the last examination. Now,' I continued, when they had done so, ' let the lowest read first.' When he had finished, I said to the next, ' What mistakes has he made, and how do you correct them ? ' He mentioned one or two blunders, and I then put the same question to others, tiU no one had anything left to say. The reading and the corrections occupied a long time, at the end of which I said, ' That will do 'for the first lecture ; at the next I shall have more to say to you.' In fact, when the next seance came, I had, by great industry, prepared myself a little, and managed to deliver a discourse, and, in the meantime, I had the satisfaction of hearing that my fame was great among the students, who were tickled with the novelty of my system, insomuch that my senior colleague congratulated me on abandoning the career of a physician, and assured me that I was bom to be a professor ! I longed, however, to return to my original employment, and, as I did not see my way in France, I went out to Lima, where I married a Creole, fell ill of dysentery, and, as I could not recover my health in Peru, I opened a shoe-shop, left my wife in charge of it, and returned to Paris, and I am now going out to bring home my daughter to be educated."

Next day we arrived within the influence of the trade - winds. We had now frequent squalls and thunder and Hghtning tiU the 30th, on which day, at seven p.m., we made, as the sailors say, the little island of Sombrero, or "Hat Island." It is only three-quarters of a mile long and nine hundred feet broad; is a perfectly flat rock, about twenty feet above the level of the sea ; and derives its name, from its fancied resemblance to a cardinal's hat. In 1850 it

HAT ISLAND. U

was uninhabited, except by sea-fowl and black lizards : the only place of landing was at a bight on the west side : and getting on shore was what Yankees would term a caution to snakes. " Under very favourable circumstances," says a nautical writer, " by watching an opportunity, you may jump on to a flat ledge to the cliff, and with some difficulty ascend to the summit." The almighty dollar, however, would make a landing anywhere, and as there was abundance of guano on the rock, the Americans had taken possession of it, and we saw them hard at work with cranes and carts loading vessels with the precious deposit.

At 3 P.M. on the 1st of July we anchored in the harbour of St. Thomas. I looked in vain for the little steamer which I expected would be ready to convey me to La Guaira. Instead of it I was shown a schooner of about eighty tons, which was to sail next day for that place. Viewed from the decks of the gigantic Eoyal Mail Steamer, she looked Uke a cockle-shell. Spite of the heat, I landed at once, and went straight to the store of a young merchant, whose family I knew. He was a handsome fellow of about two-and-twenty, with bright blue eyes and curly hair, and with such an overpowering share of good nature that all his other qualities seemed absorbed by it. He produced some excellent brandy, and still better cigars, and we began to discuss how I should amuse myself tiU. the schooner was ready to start. Of course I had a hst of commissions, all of which it was agreed should be executed at a cooler hour next morning. Then we began to talk about the harbour, and I happened to ask if there were many sharks in it ? Hereupon my host brightened up, and said : " If you would like to see a few, I'll show you some. A horse of mine was taken ill last night, and is just dead. We'll tow the carcase off with a boat to the mouth of the harbour, take a couple of rifles and a harpoon, and it's odd if we don't have some sport." No sooner said than done. Orders were at once given to drag the dead horse to the water's edge, and my host, followed by myself and a big negro, who carried the rifles and the harpoon, walked down to the boat. It was a large boat, with four rowers and an awning, and as the boatmen, notwithstanding the heat, pulled with a wiU, we made way rapidly, and before long had got past the steamers, and were nearing the mouth of the harbour. As yet I had seen nothing, and was becoming rather impatient. " Why," said I, " I don't believe there are any sharks. I have not seen a single back fin above water." In reply, my host checked the rowers for a moment, when, as the surge we made subsided, several dark lines showed themselves just astern of the horse. " Give way," said he to the boatmen ; " we have not yet reached the place where we can fire safely, and if we stop another half-minute the horse will be torn to ribbons." When the boat had gone a few hundred yards further, he said to me, " Now cock your rifle, and look out ! The instant we stop, the sharks will rise, and the first that turns to seize the horse, fire right into his belly. I'll give him both barrels, too, and four conical pUls should settle him. Are you ready ? " " Quite ready," I replied, and the boat stopped.

In an instant the dark lines were visible again, but this time they came rapidly up to the surface, and five monstrous sharks showed themselves. The apparition was so sudden, and the sharks were so huge, so much larger than any I had seen before, that I started, and, had I cocked my rifle as I

A BATTLE WITH THE SHARKS. 13

had been told to do, there is no knowing where I might have sent my random shot. But it has always been my practice not to cock tin I see the object ; and this has prevented my malting many a bad miss. In a moment I recovered myself, and, as the foremost shark tm-ned on his back and darted at the carcase, I took good aim, and fired nearly at the same moment with my friend. All our four balls told : one of them, as we afterwards found, goiag right through the heart. The smoke came full across my eyes, but there was a tremendous splash, and I caught an indistiact glimpse of the monster as he sprang half out of the water and fell back. Almost at the same instant, the big negro who had the harpoon sent it iato the shark just below the lower jaw with such force, that, had he had more life in him than remained, he would hardly have escaped. Meantime, the other sharks, who sank for a moment when we fired, had risen again to the surface, and one of them had already torn a great bit ojit of the horse, giving such a violent jerk to the boat, that one of the niggers took fright, and before we could see what he was about, undid the rope by which the carcase was being towed, and it was immediately jerked into the water as the other sharks fastened on the prey. This they did iu such numbers, and with such right good will, that before we could reload and prepare for another shot, they had dragged the carcase under water, and we could only tell by the bubbles and bloody foam what a worry was going on below. However, we had got one monster safe, and returned towing him in triumph. When we reached the landing-place there was quite a crowd to receive us. It took eight or ten men to drag the shark on shore, and we found he measured over sixteen feet long, and nearly six feet in circumference. His stomach was quite empty, which accounted for his being ravenous.

I was glad of a bath and a change of toilet, after which my friend drove me in his carriage round the west part of the island, of which some description may be acceptable. To begin then with the beginning, be it known that, between the eighteenth and nineteenth degrees of north latitude, a little to the east of Porto Rico, in an almost continuous cluster, lie the Virgin Islands, so called by Columbus from the eleven thousand of sainted memory, with whom in number these islets seemed to vie. Exactly in the centre of the group is St. Thomas^nd next to it, on the east, is St. John. All the islands to the east of St. John belong to the English, and all to the west belong to the Danes. You may teU the English possessions by the roughness of the nomenclature and the utter want of high-flown titles. There is, for example. Salt Island, followed by Ginger, Cooper's, and Beef Island. Next we come to Camanoe, Scrub, Guano, and Jost-van-Dykes Isles. Then there is Anegadar, or "Drowned Island," famous or infamous for wrecks, where many a gallant seaman has gone to his rest beneath the waters. It is a curious place that Anegada. It lies all awash with the sea, and when the mist comes up, as it does very often, one would fancy the waves were roUing clean over it. Anegada is ten miles long, and has a reef to the south-east of nine nules more, and upon this reef many scores of vessels have gone to pieces. But to the west there is good anchorage, and abundance of funnel-shaped weUs, full of fresh water, in which, curiously enough, the fresh water rises with the salt tide. The bays there in the old time swarmed with buccaneers. When they were gone,

came gangs of wreckers and colonised the island, and reared stock, and grew cotton ; but their true market-day was when a vessel struck on the reef, and many a rich prize they got, and perhaps do get even now. A curious proof of the strong westerly current in the Atlantic is to be seen at Anegada, where the fishermen find sufficient cork drifted to them, from the coast of Spain, to supply their nets. Bottles, too, launched in the River Gambia, have been picked up in the Virgin Islands. Between these islands themselves, the currents are in many places most violent. To row from island to island is a most dangerous and almost impossible undertaking. Many boats have been swept away, and their crews drowned, in the attempt. Between the eastern part of St. Thomas and the Island of St. John, in particular, there is a furious current, and the waves rise in huge surges. When the southern tide is in its strength, it would be impossible for any small vessel to encounter that terrible sea.

Twelve miles to the west of Anegada is Virgin Gorda, or "Fat Virgin" Island, nine miles long and a mile broad, with some ten thousand inhabitants, who export sugar, rum, and tobacco. On the north-east is a good harbour, called Gorda Sound, and another to the north-west, called "West Bay, and a third, Thomas's Bay, to the south. Three miles west of Virgin Gorda, is Tortola, nine miles long and three broad, with a population of eleven thousand, and a good harbour at Road Town, the capital. Moreover, here, with Tortola to the north, St. John's to the west, Virgin Gorda to the east, and a dozen little islands to the south, nature has formed a magnificent basin, fifteen miles long and three and a half broad, land-locked and sheltered from every -wind, where all the navies of England might ride in safety. "Why not choose Tortola as the station for the Eoyal Man Company's vessels ? Why go to St. Thomas,* that nest of yellow fever, where fresh water is hard to get, and which belongs to a foreign power ?

Not being able to answer this same why, I return to St. Thomas. The island is twelve miles long from east to west, and three broad ; and across the whole length of it runs a range of hills, the highest point of which may be eight hundred feet above the sea. These hiUs were once covered with woods, and the island was then watered by rivulets; but the improvident Danes cut down the woods, the streams dried up, and the inhabitants now suffer from drought, insomuch that the captains of steamers are enjoined to husband their fresh water, lest none should be procurable at St. Thomas. Charlotte Amaha, the capital and harbour of St. Thomas, lies on the south coast, and opens to the south, so that vessels coming from Europe or North America have to make a half-circle to enter it. The approach is not without its dangers. There is, first of all, a rock called Frenchman's Cap, seven miles from the harbour's mouth, and four miles further on there is Buck Island. Between these you steer, but in mid-channel is a danger called " Scorpion Bock," with only twenty-one feet of water on it. Having cleared that (and there is a buoy on it to help you), you enter the harbour : having on your right, at its mouth, the Hghthouse, the red Ught of which, being ninety-five feet above the sea, can be seen fifteen miles off. Near it is a' fort called Mohlenfel's Battery. On the left are Prince