On blue water

Front matter

kf) > m iftMVr

Chap.....„. Copyright No.

Shelf.

Contents

I. — -The Embarkation of the Emigrants II. — The Gulf of Lyons III. — Italy on Board Ship lY. — Forward and Aft .

Y. — Ladies and Gentlemen . . ~'

YI. — Loves and Grievances YII. — The Tropic of Cancer YIII. — A Yellow Ocean .

Chapter I

THE EMBARKATION OF THE EJMIGHANTS ilT was towards evenino; when I reached the wharf. The embarkation of the emio^rants had been going on for an hour ; and there lay the Galileo ^ filling up with misery as there passed over her gangplank an interminable procession of people, coming in groups out of the building opposite where the police official was examiniug passports. The greater part, having passed a night or two in the open air, lying about like dogs in the streets of Grenoa, were tired and drowsy. Workmen, peasants, women with children at the breast, little fellows with the tin medal of the Infant Asylum still hang-

- Not the Galileo of the Societa di Navigazione Generale.

ing around their necks, passed on their way, and almost everyone was carrying something. They liad folding chairs, they had bags and trunks of every shape in their hands or on their heads; their arms were full of mattresses and bedclothes, and their bei'tli tickets were held fast in their mouths. Poor mothers that had a child for each hand carried their bundles witli their teeth. Old peasant women in wooden shoes, holding up their skirts so as not to stumble over the cleats of the gangplank, showed bare legs that were like sticks. Many were barefoot and had their shoes huno^ around their necks. From time to time there passed through all this wretchedness gentlemen in natty dusters, priests, ladies in plumed hats, leading a lapdog, or carrying a satchel, or perhaps a parcel of French novels of the well-known Levy edition. Then, suddenly, a stoppage of the procession and, amid a shower of blows and curses, a drove of cattle or a flock of sheep came along; and when they wei'e got on board, all frightened and sti'aggling here and there, they minsrled their bellowinij: and their bleatinof with the neighing of the horses in the forward part of the ship, w^ith the cries of sailors and porters, and with the stunning clatter of the donkey engine that was hoisting in whole piles of packing-cases. Then the train of emigi'ants moved on once more; faces and costumes from every part of Italy, strong, sad -eyed working men, others old, I'agged, dirty ; women en-

Ubc JEmbarf^ation ot tbe JEmiGrants, ceinte, merry boys, half-tipsy youths, country fellows in their shirt-sleeves ; and boys, and still more boys, who hardly had put foot on deck, amid that throng of passengers, stewards, officers, company's employes, and custom-house people, when they stood amazed or lost their way as if in a crowded square. For two hours these people had been going on board ; and the great ship, moveless,likesome grim sea monster that had fixed its fangs into the shore, still went on sucking Italian blood.

The emigrants, as fast as they got on board, filed in front of a table at which was seated the commissary, who told them off in messes of half a dozen persons each, writing the names upon a printed form which he handed to the eldest, that he might go at meal hours and get the ration. Families of less than six persons went in with their friends or with strangers, as the case might be. While this business was going on there was evident in everyone a lively fear of being cheated in the matter of half- and quarterfares for children and infants; fruit of that invincible mistrust which the peasant feels for any man with a pen in his hand and a registry in front of him. Quarrels arose, there were protests and lamentations. Then the families separated ; the men were passed to one side, while the women and children were shown to their cabins. And piteous it was to see these women clumsily descend the steep ladders and grope their way through the long, low betweendecks among innumei'able berths, ai'ranged in tiers like the shelves in a silk-worm shed. Some, all perplexed, would inquire about a lost article of sailors who did not understand one w^ord they said ; some sat down wherever it might be, dazed and exhausted ; others wandered about vaguely, looking with uneasiness at all those unknown travelling companions who were as uneasy as they ; and, like them, confused and frightened in this disorderly throng. Some who had come down one ladder, and saw others leading still on, down into the dark, refused to go any farther. Through the open hatchway I marked a woman with her head in the berth and sobbing violently. I soon learned that her young child had died almost suddenly an hour or two before, and that her husl)and was forced to leave its little body with the police to be taken to the hospital. Most of the women remained below, while the men, having laid by their things, went on deck again and leaned against tlie bulwarks. It was odd enough. The huge steamer, seen by most of them for the first

*' Ubrougb tbe open batcbwav 11 mal•he^ a woman witb bcr bea5 in tbe bertb

anb sobbing violently,"

time, must have been like a new world, full of strangeness and of mystery ; and yet not one looked about him or aloft, or paused to examine any of those many wonderful objects never seen before. Some would fix an attentive eye upon a trunk, or a neighbor's chair, or the number on a box, or whatever it might be ; others munched an apple, or nibbled a crust, — examining it at every bite as placidly as if they had been in front of their own stable. Some women had red eyes ; some boys were giggling, but their mirth was plainly forced. The greater part showed nothing but apathy or fatigue. The sky was clouded and the nio-ht was comino; oo.

Suddenly furious cries were heard from the passport office, and people were seen running that way. It proved to be a peasant with a wife and four children, — all found by the examining physician to have the itch. The first few questions had shown the man to be out of his mind ; and, on being refused a passage, he had broken out into frenzy.

On the wharf there were perhaps a hundred persons. Very few relatives of our emigrants. The greater part loungers or relatives of our ship's company, quite used to such sepai'ations.

When all were on board there ensued a kind of quiet in the ship, and the dull rumble of the engine could be heard. Almost all were on deck, crowded together and quite silent. These last few moments of waiting seemed an eternity.

At last the sailors were heard shouting fore and aft, " CM non e passeggiere^ a terra^^^ — All ashore that 's going ashore.

These words sent a thrill Galileo to the other. In strangers were out of was hauled ashore, from one end of the

a few moments all

the ship, the bridge

the fasts cast off, the

entering port closed, a

whistle sounded, and

the ship began to

move. Then women

burst out crying,

youths who had

been laughing

grew serious, and

bearded men

hitherto stolid

were seen to pass a

hand across their eyes.

This emotion contrasted

strangely with the cool

salutes that passed between

the ship's company and their

relatives on the wharf, — just

as if it were a trip to Spezzia :

" Don't forget me to the people

at home. — You '11 see about that

parcel ? — Tell Gigia (Louisa) I '11 do as she says.

— Post it at Montevideo, please. — It 's all under-

Ube lEtnbarl^attou ot tbe Bmiotants, stood about the wine, is it not ? — Pleasant voyage to you. — Good-bye ! " A few persons who had just reached the wharf had only time to iling some bundles of ci«:ars or some oransres on board. These were duly caught but some of the last ones fell into the water. Lights began to twinkle in the city. The ship slid softly along through the darkness of the harbor almost furtively as it were, as if she were carrying off a cargo of kidnapped humanflesh. I made my way forward through the crowd of people all turned towards the land and looking at the amphitheatre of Genoa, now being rapidly illuminated. A few were talking in low tones. Here and there in the dusk women were 1 seen with infants on their laps and their heads leaned hopelessly on their hands. From the forecastle a voice called out in sarcastic tone, " Viva V Italia ! " and looking up I saw a tall thin old man who was shaking his fist at his native country. As we passed out of the harbor it was night.

Saddened by this spectacle I went aft again to the first-class cabin to find my stateroom. And it must be confessed that the first

" Uiva I'-fftalia ! "

10 On ifBlue Mater*

descent into these submarine lodging-places is deplorably like going for the first time into a prison with its cells. In those low, narrow cor I'i dors, tainted with the reek of bilge-water, the smell of oil lamps, the fragrance of sheep-skins, and with wafts of perfume fi'om the ladies, I found myself in the midst of harrying groups who all wanted the steward, and were behaving with the lowminded selfishness which characterizes almost all travellers in the first bustle of getting settled. A half-light fell upon the confusion here and there, and I caught glimpses of a beautiful blonde lady, three or four black-bearded men, a veiy tall priest, and the broad, bold face of an. angry stewardess. I heard Genoese, French, Italian, Spanish. At a turn of the corridor I came upon a negress. From a statei'oom came a solfeggio in a tenor voice. And opposite to that stateroom I found my own, — a cage of a place, about a half a dozen cubic meti'es in size, with a Procrustean bed on one side, a sofa on the other; on the third a barber's mirror over a fixed wash-hand stand, and beside the mirror a lamp on gimbals, swinging to and fro as if to say, '' What a fool you wei'e to set out for America." Above the sofa gleamed a round window like a huge glass eye, which seemed, as it caught mine, to wear a mocking expression. And, indeed, the idea of having to sleep for twenty-four nights in that suffocating cubiculum, and the presentiment of the deadly dulness

Zbc iBmbavhation of tbe lEmigrants*

II the heat of the torrid zone, of the biim]i)ecl lieacls I should have in bad weather, for six thousand miles

But it was too late to repent. I looked at my

baggage, which said, O, so many things to me in that moment; I handled it as if it were a faithful dog, the last living relic of my house ; I prayed God I might not repent having spui'ned the proposals of an insurance agent ^vho came to tempt me the day before leaving ; and then, blessing in my heart the good faithful friends that had stood by me until the last moment, I let myself be rocked to sleep upon the cradle of my country's sea.

Chapter II The Gulf Of Lyoists

HEN I awoke it was broad day^ and the ship was 7'olliDg along in the Gulf of Lyons. Suddenly I heard the warbliui^rs of the tenor from the stateroom opposite; and from the one next to mine a sharp female voice, that cried : "Your brush! What do I know about your brush ? Find it yourself." A voice that revealed not only momentary vexation, but a hard, bitter disposition ; and which made one feel deeply for tbe owner of the missing article. Farther on another female voice was sin^iner a child to sleep. It was a queer strain with a modulation which did not seem to belong^ to one of our race. I supposed it might be the negress I had seen the evening before. The song was marred by the low hissing voices of a couple of stewardesses disputing in the coi'ridor about a ])icaggieUa (a towel). I listened, and needed V)ut few of their words to per-

Ubc Gulf ot %>^onB.

snade me that if there be a woman in the world that can hold way with a Genoese stewardess, it is a Venetian one. A steward came in witli the coffee. The first morning one notices everything. He was a handsome, disagreeable-looking yonth, his hair dripping with oil, full of himself and smilino: at his own beauty like a conceited actor. When asked what his name was he answered, ''Antonio," with affected modesty as if that Antonio were the assumed name of a young duke disguised, with some amorous design, as "^ ' a cabin steward. When he had retired I went out myself, staggering up against the bulkheads ; "b 6tewat^ came fn wttb

T , . . , , T . . tbe coffee."

and, turning into the mam corndor, I marked the back of the gigantic priest of the evening before as he entered his stateroom. A step or two farther on I caught sight through the crack

14 ^n mine Mater.

of the door, and just as the green curtain fell, of a black-silk stocking being drawn by white hands upon a shapely leg. The passengei's were almost all still in their staterooms, whence issued the sounds of water being splashed, of brushes being whisked, and of trunks being rummaged. On the poop-deck were three persons only. The sea was ruffled, but of a beautiful blue color, and the weather was fine. No land was visible.

But the sight to see was the the third-class people. The larger part of these emigrants, overcome with sea-sickness, lay huddled together, — some throw^n across the benches like the dead or dying, wdth faces all dirty and liair all rumpled, amid a tangle of ragged wn'aps. There wei'e families crowded in piteous gi'oups with the dazed and dejected look of houseless people ; the father sitting up asleep, the mother with her head on his shoulder, the children slumbering on the deck with their heads on their parents' knees, — mere heaps of rags with nothinoj stickino^ out but a child's ai'm or a woman's hair. Women, pale and dishevelled, were moving towards the companion-way, staggei'ing and holding on. What Father Bartoli nobly calls '^ the pain and anger of the stomach " appeared to have made that clearance, wished for by every good captain, of the bad fruit with which emigrants always cram themselves at Genoa, and of the feeds they are all sworn to take at the inn whenever they have any money. Even those who i6 Qn Blue Mater,

had not been sick were haggard and cast down ; looking more like convicts than emigrants. It seemed that the inactive and comfortless life on board ship had already quelled in most of them the courage and the hopes with which they had set out ; and that in the prostration of mind which follows the excitement of i^arting a fresh sense had arisen of all the doubts, the troubles, and the pangs of those last days at home, when they were selling their cows and their little bit of laud, were having sharp discussions with the landlord or the parish priest, or were saying their last sad farewells. But the worst was below in the great cabin, the hatchway of which was aft, near the pooj)-deck. For looking down one saw, in the half-light, bodies piled upon each other as in the ships that carry home the corpses of Chinese emigrants ; and there came up, as fi'om an underground hospital, a concert of wailing; and retchiuQ^ and couo^hinoj iit to make one think of landing at Marseilles. The only pleasant feature was the sight of a few bold S23irits who were crossing the deck from the galley with their pannikins in their hands, to gain a j^lace where they might eat in peace. Some, by dint of miraculous balancing, succeeded ; others, stumbling, fell headlong and scattered their broth in every direction amid an outburst of execrations.

I heard with pleasure the bell that summoned us to breakfast, where I hoped to see a somewhat gayer picture.

i8 Qn Mwc Mater,

There were about fifty of us seated at a long table in the middle of a vast saloon, rich with mirrors and with gilding, and lighted by numerous air ports through which ^ve could see the horizon swaying up and down. While taking their seats, and for some moments afterward, the guests did nothing but eye one another ; concealino; beneath a feio^ned indifference that piying curiosity which we always feel about unknown persons with whom we are to live for some time in unavoidable familiarity. The sea being a little rouo-h, several ladies were missino^. I soon remarked at the end of the table the gigantic priest, taller by the head than those around him ; it was the head of a bird of prey, small and bald, with red eyelids, and a neck of interminable extent. I was struck with his hands as they spread the napkin, huge, bony, with fingers like the tentacles of a devilfish ; in short, an unpoetical Don Quixote. On the same side, and nearer me, I recognized the blonde lady I had noticed the evening before. She was a handsome woman of, say, thirty years old, her eyes rather too blue, her nose without character; she was fresh and lively, and was dressed \vith an elegance perhajDS a little too marked. She turned on her neighbors, as if she knew them all, the vague and smiling look of a dancer at the footlights, and I do not know what it was that made me quite sure she was the owner of those stockings that had caught my eye that morning. The legal proprietor of said

Zbc (Bult of %non5.

silk was no doubt the gentlemanly quinquagenarian who was sittino; next her. He had a kind and tranquil face, suri'ounded by a professional head of liair

Iber e\!C5 vatbev too blue, hex nose without cbavactcr."

and pierced for two half-closed eyes, in which there gleamed the look of a cleverness more apparent, pei*- haps, than real, but which seemed habitual. Next

20 Qn JSlue Maten

bim a couple of yoiuig ladies wLo a23peai'ed to be relatives or intimate friends. One was dressed in sea-green, and I was struck with ber pale and bollow face, in strong contrast witb ber black, sbining bair, wbicb was like tbe tresses of a coi'pse. She bad a larsre black cross about ber neck. Tbere was a droll little married couple, bride and bridegroom beyond a doubt ; very young, botb small, like two little Luccbese plaster figures. Tbey ate witb downcast eyes and talked witbout looking at eacb other, embarrassed, and shy of the others at table. I took him to be twenty and her not over eighteen, and would have wagered that not more than a fortnight had passed since their appearance befoi'e the city authorities ; in short, a white nun and a theological student who bad found out in time that they bad mistaken their vocation. On one side of tbe bridegroom tbere sat in state a matron witb imperfectly dyed hair, ber bosom up to her chin, and a great face such as tbe caricaturists give a sulky moon. There were above the mouth unmistakable traces of an overstrong depilatory. She ate conscientiously, having down from those aerial sideboards that swayed above our beads like chandeliers, first the mustard then the pepper, and then the mustard again ; as if she were trying to give a tone to a worn-out stomach, or to a hoarse voice which she tried from time to time with a bit of a cough. At the head of the table was tbe captain, a kind of Hercules, low of stature and frown-

XTbe (3ult ot X^qowq.

ing of visage, red of hair and fiery of face. He talked

in good Genoese to his right-hand neighbor, and in

bad Spanish to the gentleman on his left. This was

a tall, old, di'ied-up person with long, very white hair,

bright deep-set

eyes, and an air I

about him that I ■, /•^-^^^'^c-'mT'^

recalled the hv *' . -'^If ''^^«| test portraits of the poet Ham- Wit' J'*^^::^-;, ei'ling. As the '" -fcwo^ greater part of the passengers were strangers to one another, there was but little conversation, and that in

low tones, ac- ^^ato^x^xSj

companied by

the jingle of the

swinging lamps,

and interrupted

from time to time by the sharp slap on the table

with which some person seized an escaping apple

or orange. A phrase of Spanish, followed by a

burst of laughter, caused everyone to turn toward

the end of the cabin. " It is a party of Argentines,"

said the passenger on my left hand. As I turned

'* IWey t him a couple of vioung la&fes wbo appeare^ to be relatives or frienfts."

22 Qn mixxc Mater.

to look at them my attention was caught by the handsome, manly face of my right-hand neighbor, whose voice I had not yet heard. A man of about forty, looking like an old soldier, stout of body, but evidently still active; hair already gray. The bold forehead and bloodshot eyes reminded me of Nino Bixio, but the lower part of the face w^as milder though sad, and contracted by a disdainful expression which did violence to the gentleness of the mouth. I do not know what association of ideas it was that made me think of one of those noble Garibaldian figures of the year '60 which I knew from the immortal pages of Cesare Abba, and I quite made up my mind that he had gone through that campaign and was a Lombard.

While I was looking at him my left-hand neighbor dashed his fork upon the table, exclaiming, " It 's no use ; if I eat I am ruined ! "

It was a withered little man with a face as of one suffering from stomach-ache, and a great black beard, too long for him, looking as if it were fastened on, like a jack-in-the-box. I asked him if he felt ill, and he answered with the easy fluency of an invalid when he is talking of his aches and his pains.

He did not feel ill, or rather he was not exactly suffering from sea-sickness. His was a special trouble, rather moral than physical, an invincible aversion to the sea, a sombre angry disquietude which seized upon him the moment he stepped on board, and

Ubc 6ulf of %nons. 23

which never left him until he landed, even though the sea were like a lake and the sky like a mirror. He had crossed several times, his family being settled at Mendoza in the Argentine ; but he suffered at the end as at the beginning. By day he felt a languor and a morbid restlessness ; by night he was tortured with incurable insomnia and the darkest imaginings that can pass through the mind of man. His hatred of the sea rose to such a pitch that he would, for a week running, never look at it. If he came across a description of it in a book he would skip the passage. In fact, he declared that if he could reach America by land he would rather travel in that way a year than make this trip of three weeks by sea. So far down was he. A friend of hisy a doctoi*, had declai'ed in Jest, but he himself firmly believed, that this violent aversion to the sea arose from no other cause than a mysterious presentiment that he would be drowned in a shipwreck.

^' Scid se leve queste idee da a te-^ta^ avvocato ! " — O avvocato, put that notion out of your head, — said his neighbor on the other side. The advocate shook his head and pointed with his finger to the bottom of the sea.

Finding that this gentleman knew some of the people on board, I asked him about matters and things. How correctly I had judged ! M}^ right-hand neighbor, he told me was, in fact, a Lombard ; he had heard him speak Lombard with a friend on the wharf at Genoa ; and a Garibaldian no doubt, the commissary had told him so that morning. " But how did you know ? " he asked me ; and I am afraid I felt rather proud of my power of guessing, and showed it. He went on with his details. The family at the end of the table, father, mother, and four children, was a Brazilian family going to Paraguay. The young fellow, with the blonde mustaches, sitting next the youngest Brazilian was, he thought, an Italian tenor singer (he of the stateroom opj)osite mine) going to Montevideo to sing. The person, speaking so loud at that moment on our side of the table was a kind of oi'iginal, a Piedmontese mill-owner ^vho, having grown rich in the Argentine, was returning thither for good, after a short stay in his own country, where, as it wouki appear, he had not had the triumphal reception that he expected. In fact, as early as last evening he had been heard to tell the story to a steward, and boast that Italy was not going to hold his bones. Here my informant stopped and said in a low voice, "Look at that arm." It was the pale young lady with the cross around her neck whom I had already noticed. I looked and almost shuddered. It seemed not an arm but a poor white bone fresh from the sepulchre. Then I remai'ked her eyes so dull and filmy, and with the expression that seems to gaze at everything and see nothing. I remarked, too, that the Garibaldian resrai'ded her with lids half-closed as if to veil the

Ubc (Bulf ot X^ons* 25

feeling of compassion whicli she inspired even in him.

The company, in short, presented to an observer a variety tliat was highly satisfactory. Amongst others I noted the strano:e bronzed face of a man of thirty-five ; a grave and somewhat melancholy countenance. I could not take my eyes off him for a while after the advocate had told me he was a Peruvian, for the oblong head, the large mouth, and the thin beard answered well to the descri[)tions we read in history of those mystei'ious Incas that had always tormented my imagination. I seemed to behold him clothed in red woollen, with a fillet around his head, and o^olden earrino^s in his ears, markius: his thousfhts with the many-colored strands of a knotted cord ; and I could almost see the gigantic golden statues of the imperial palace gleaming behind him, and gardens around him glittering with fruits and ilowei-s of gold. But it was only the proprietor of a match factory at Lima, talking composedly of his business with his opposite neighbor.

When the fruit came on the conversation became somewhat more general and animated. I could hear the captain recounting an adventure which happened to him when he commanded a sailing ship, the upshot of which seemed, from his gestures, to have been a monumental serving out, — on his part, in some port or other, to some raganuiffin or other who had failed in due respect, — of kicks and cuffs. At the foot

26 ©n JBlue Matei\

of the table the Argentines often provoked loud LiLighter by poking fun, as it appeared, at a French travelling salesman, the usual bagman to be found in all steamers, and who answered with the imperturbable coolness of an old hand, lavishing in reply witticisms out of the well-known repertory which all of his profession have at their tongues' end. While coffee was being served, the ship gave two or three rolls rather deeper than usual, and then, gazed at by all, there rose from the table a beautiful Argentine lady ; but as she w^alked off staggering and supported by her husband, I could not verify — so to speak — that ^'wonderful grace of motion" which writers of books of travel ascribe to ladies of her country. But it was plain enough from the admiring curiosity of the company that she was already acknowledged as aesthetic lady-superior among the fair sex of the Galileo^ and that it would be exceedingly difficult to dethrone her while the voyage lasted. Soon after this all arose from the table, looked one another over from head to foot as on sitting down, and then dispersed to the poop-deck, to the smoking-room, to their staterooms ; ali*eady showing in their faces how boi-ed they wei'e at the prospect of the endless six houi's which lay between them and dinner.

But I did not find it dull at all. One idea filled my mind, a I'eflection new and most delightful, unknown in any other condition than on board a ship

28 Qn Blue Wiatcv.

at sea, — the feeling of perfect freedom from care. I could say, in fact : Now for twenty days I am separated from the habitations of men, I can see none of my kind save those I have about me, these are for me the whole human race. For twenty days I am freed from every social tie, from every social duty ; no trouble can assail me from the outer world, for no news can reach me from anywhere. A thousand misfortunes may threaten me, none can reach me. Europe may be convulsed, I shall not know it. Twenty days of limitless horizon, of undisturbed meditation, of peace without fear, of idleness without sting of conscience. A long stretch without fatigue across a boundless desert; a sublime prospect all around me, and an air most pure ; strangers for my associates, and an unknown country for my goal. Prisoner in an island if you will, but an island that bears me where I wish to go, which glides along under my feet ; and, like a palpitating slice of my native land, sends its own thrill into my sympathizing blood.