Part 5 (1/2)
Into the carriage then we got, to the great satisfaction of the groom, who had guessed rather than understood the misgivings of the French admiral in the c.o.c.ked hat. At first, things went pretty well. The groom showed me the way to Spanish Town, saying ”left” or ”right” as the case might be, when, presently we came to a great market crowded with negresses with blue cotton stuffs twisted round their haunches, all screaming at the top of their voices. The horses in our phaeton took fright at the noise, their alarm communicated itself to the negresses, who ran away, upsetting everything. I lost command of the horses, which swerved to one side, knocking over the heaps of gourds and water melons and bananas. There was a terrible scene of confusion. The admiral clung on with both hands, never stopping shouting ”Oh the devil! the devil!
the devil!” However we got through without any serious accident. On the return journey, conscious of my own incapacity, I offered to give up my place as whip to the admiral, but he refused with a most determined ”No, no, no; oh NO!”
At the time of my visit, Jamaica was still celebrated for its rum, and my father had charged me not to forget to bring him a barrel, a commission I did not fail to execute. But a lamentable accident happened in connection with that same barrel. It was brought back to France and duly placed in the cellars at Neuilly, and had been forgotten for ever so long, when one fine day the King, recollecting it, ordered some of the contents to be handed round at the end of dinner. All the guests smacked their lips before-hand; but disappointment awaited them, and the first taste was followed by a general grimace of horror. It was simply beastly. Enquiries were set on foot and here is their result! A distinguished mental specialist, who had been ordered to take a sea voyage for the benefit of his health, which had broken down, had got leave from the Minister for Naval Affairs to sail on board the Hercule. Deeply interested as he was in his own special subject, he had occupied himself during all our stays in port in collecting brains, both human and animal, which he immediately labelled and shut up in a barrel of alcohol, which was exactly like my barrel of rum. The two barrels had got mixed and my father and his guests had been drinking rum flavoured with brains!
Our squadron dispersed on leaving Jamaica. The admiral, I think, was to go to San Domingo, we ourselves to Havana. One of our s.h.i.+ps, a beautiful despatch boat, the Fabert, bore us company the first day. In the evening, the weather being calm, her commander, a lieutenant, M. de Pardeillan, came on board us to dine. Little did we think, as we accompanied him to the head of the companion, that we were bidding him an eternal farewell. The s.h.i.+p, the crew, and their young captain all disappeared, and have never been heard of again. The sea swallowed them all up, and the sea has kept the secret.
As we entered Havana, I was struck by the sight of a whole fleet of strange-looking s.h.i.+ps which lay at anchor under the Morro citadel. They were long boats, built for speed, with immense sloping spars, like racing yachts. They were not wars.h.i.+ps, though they were heavily armed.
They were slavers, for the negro trade was still in full swing in Cuba.
The demand for black labour being constantly on the increase, the slavers went to fetch it from Africa, and brought it back at all risks, in spite of the British cruisers. But this importation of black cattle, which had been humane and kindly enough while it was free, had grown frightfully barbarous since the successful landing of each cargo had been exposed to every chance imaginable. The trade, nevertheless, fed the extraordinary prosperity of the fair Spanish colony, Queen of the Antilles, and especially that of her capital town, the Havana. The stir in the port itself was prodigious, and how shall I describe the animated appearance of the streets, the splendid houses, and the innumerable churches that met my gaze, and the evidence of luxury betrayed everywhere, and by everything I saw?
In the days of his wandering exile, my father had sojourned at Havana, and my first care was to seek out the friends he had left behind him there. Thanks to them, I soon found myself at home, in the Montalvo, Penalver, Arminteros, Arastegui, O'Reilly and de Arcos families, whose charming companions.h.i.+p formed the chief delight of my own stay. My cousins.h.i.+p with the Queen of Spain caused me to be received with great honour, also, by the authorities, especially by the Captain General, Espeieta. A review was arranged for me on the Paseo Tacon, and of that same review I have an undying recollection. Let my readers imagine a line formed by the Espana, Barcelona and Habana regiments, the artillery, and a lancer regiment, splendid troops all of them, under the command of General Count de Mirasol, with his baton slung at his b.u.t.tonhole. And, facing this line, another of the most exquisitely charming aspect. All the volantes in Havana drawn up in battle array!
The said volantes, peculiar to the place, are gigs without hoods or ap.r.o.ns, perched on two huge wheels, and each drawn by one horse in silver-mounted trappings, ridden by a cala.s.sero or negro postilion in flaming livery, laced on every seam. In each volante two ladies lounged, in evening dress, low-necked, bare-headed, and armed with fans. Every pretty woman in Havana was there, talking to the occupiers of the next carriage, looking on and being looked at, and all under a lovely tropical sunset, which lighted up the sea, whence a soft refres.h.i.+ng breeze was blowing, on one side, and on the other a forest of cocoa palms with the fortress of Principe rising above them. The ensemble of the picture and its details were alike charming, and to us sailors, just off the sea, it was heightened by contrast. These Havana ladies add all the charm of Spaniards to a mingling of Creole indifference with the confidence of well-born women. Their eyes and complexions are magnificent, their wrists and ankles exquisitely delicate, and their feet! I never saw anything like them--the feet of a Chinese woman, only natural, not produced by torture, I brought away a precious souvenir from Havana, in the shape of a shoe which I knew to be genuine, but which never met with anything but incredulity till the sacking of the Tuileries in 1884 bereft me of it altogether.
I remember yet a beautiful excursion in the interior of the island, partly by rail, partly by volante, along splendid avenues of palmettos, and thick shady mango trees, to the country house belonging to Dona Matilda de Casa Calvo, Marquise de Arcos, where I spent two days in the pleasantest of company, and where Lord Clarence Paget, who was of the party, astonished us by his talent as a singer. Our delightful stay in port was brought to a close by a ball given to me by the town of Havana at the Societad Philarmonica. I had just been dancing that pretty dance, a sort of slow valse, which is called the Habanera, and I was walking with my partner, a beautiful Spanish Mexican, with tiny feet, under the arcades which ran round the patio, when she pulled a straw-covered cigarette out of her pocket and lighted it. ”Don't you smoke?” she enquired.
”No, Mademoiselle.”
”Oh, but yes, I'm sure you will smoke,” and she took her cigarette from her pretty lips and gave it to me to smoke, which I did without hesitation. That sudden conversion has been a durable one. But I have often regretted that I could not begin it all over again!
Twenty-four hours later, at two o'clock in the morning, I was wakened in my cabin by a violent shock. The Hercule had just run aground in the dangerous waters of the Bahama Channel. Whatever the weather may be, the running aground of a huge body like a hundred gun s.h.i.+p is a serious matter. To crown our disgrace, the corvette La Favorite, which sailed in company with us and had followed us blindly, ran aground at the same instant. Luckily it was almost calm, and the great Hercule lay quietly on the sand like a stranded whale. Whenever the least suspicion of a swell came, she gave a shudder, a sort of wag of her tail, which was very alarming. If the swell increased she would soon go to pieces, and every boat we had to launch would never be enough to save the crew. It was one of those anxious moments in a sailor's life when each man makes it his business to conceal his own feelings. We set hard to work to get down a big anchor on the deep-water side. Once it was down and the cable taut, we began to lighten the s.h.i.+p, pouring all the water overboard, and getting ready to put the guns over the side. Then daylight came, and showed us our real position. A long way off we could see a low island on the coast of Florida, called Looe-Key. The dawn also showed us, in the offing, the British corvette Pearl, commanded by our pleasant comrade of some days before, Lord Clarence Paget, who had sailed from Havana at the same time as we ourselves. As soon as he perceived our position he hurried to our a.s.sistance, and steering with all the decision and seafaring good sense of the British sailor, he got as close as possible to us, put down his two anchors at once, and came to us, saying, ”I bring you the only thing I can, a fixed point to work on.”
We thanked him cordially, but, just at that moment, thanks to our having lightened the s.h.i.+p, and also to the tide, which fortunately began to rise, the Hercule swayed for a few minutes on her sandy bed, and then began to float. A sigh of relief broke from every breast, especially from those of the captain and the unlucky officer of the watch, whose carelessness had been the original cause of the accident.
A few hours more, and everything but a trifling leak had been put to rights, and we were on our way to the United States--to a new country, a young nation, which attracted me as by instinctive sympathy. On our very arrival in the Chesapeake river, I came across a characteristic trait. ”Can you speak French?” I asked the pilot who hailed us.
Instantly he answered me, in English, ”No, I only speak American!” The claim to separate nationality extended even to the language.
Shortly afterwards I went ash.o.r.e, and, armed with an itinerary, kindly drawn up for me by Michel Chevalier, in which he had mentioned all he advised my seeing, both as to men and things, during the short time at my disposal, I started on a hasty tour through that splendid country.
That first glimpse of America fulfilled all my expectations, and delighted me. A young country it was in very deed. Nature itself, to my European eyes, had a pureness of atmosphere, a richness of vegetation, a freshness, a general air of youth, unknown in our older countries.
Man too, in his gait, in his independence of mind, and his boldness of enterprise, betrayed an exuberant vigour of which our populations, enervated by disappointing experiences, and crushed by routine as they are, have grown incapable.
As I desired to get from Norfolk in Virginia to Was.h.i.+ngton, I started by the Roanoke Railway, on the first day of my trip, and thus crossed an immense marsh, the ”Dismal Swamp.” The rails we ran on being laid open-work fas.h.i.+on on huge piles fifteen feet above the marsh, the whole road rocked under the weight of the engine, so much as to disturb the waters of the swamp and startle the numberless snakes and turtles inhabiting it. It was a most novel sensation. Further on, betwixt Baltimore and Philadelphia, the train having to cross an arm of the sea, steamed on full pace; the engine, uncoupling itself, ran ahead on to a siding, while our train was carried by its own impetus on to the upper deck of a steam ferry-boat, moored at the end of the line. It stopped exactly at the right spot, and while the boat crossed the arm of the sea, we went below and dined at a splendid buffet on the lower deck, waited on by the prettiest of barmaids.
Further on yet, between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, in that rich Allegheny country where the coal-beds lie on the surface, and coal costs five francs a ton, and whence petroleum oil was soon to gush forth, the travelling was done by ca.n.a.l in the flat country, and by funicular railways in the mountains, by means of boats built in sections which hooked together on the water, and were taken apart when there was a question of climbing up inclined planes. All public works and means of communication were full of daring things like these, while in Europe (I speak of the year 1838) we were still at our first timorous essays at railway travelling.
I travelled through Virginia, pa.s.sing by all those spots where four and twenty years later I was to watch the bloodiest battles of the War of Secession, that first and awful convulsion of the great Republic's manhood. Reaching Was.h.i.+ngton, I was most courteously received by President Van Buren. How often since then I have been back at the White House, under Presidents Tyler, Buchanan, and Lincoln! How many a curious scene I have witnessed there, under the rule of the last-named President, rich as it was in dramatic incident! During that first stay of mine at Was.h.i.+ngton I made the acquaintance of three of the greatest men in the United States--Calhoun, Webster, and Clay--Calhoun of Carolina, the impa.s.sioned Southerner; Webster, the eloquent representative of New England Puritanism; and Clay of Kentucky, with his angular face and powerful frame, and a curious mixture of extreme gentleness and energy in his manner and ways--the very type of the Western population, the advance-guard of civilization. I was present at several sittings of the Senate, and heard these gentlemen speak with an authority which seemed to fascinate their auditors. Was.h.i.+ngton as a city, did not interest me at all--bits of town, scattered about in an ocean of dust, which later on I knew as an ocean of mud; hotels crowded with canva.s.sers, all devouring so hurriedly at table d'hote time, that the first arrivals were rising from table when the last ones were sitting down, and all this amidst a noise of jaws that reminded me of the dogs being fed in a kennel; the whole population, whether politicians or canva.s.sers, chewing and spitting everywhere; little society or none at all, save that formed by the foreign diplomats, most of them clever men, but bored by their isolation, and consequently disposed to see everything around them with unfavouring eyes. One of the chief members of this society at the time of my sojourn was the British Minister, Mr.
Fox, a diplomatist of the old school, past master in forms, and proprieties, and social refinements--everything that the English sum up in the word ”proper.” I was told that one day as he was leaning against the chimney-piece in a drawing-room where dancing was going on, in deep conversation with I know not what other personage, an American couple came and stood just in front of him in a country-dance. Soon the young man began to show signs of anxiety; his voice grew thick, his cheeks swelled alternately, and he cast anxious glances at the chimney-piece.
At last he could hold on no longer, and with the most admirable precision, he shot all the juice of his quid into the fireplace just between Mr. Fox and his interlocutor. ”Fine shot, sir!” the old diplomat contented himself with saying, with a bow. It may have been that little incidents of this kind cast a chill on international relations!
[Ill.u.s.tration with caption: southern scout]
Philadelphia delighted me. It is a cheerful town, with streets planted with fine trees. The prison there, the first built on the solitary system, occupied me for a whole day. I went over every corner of it, in the company of the directors, and of any other officials who could inform me on the subject. It will be known to my readers that the system in this prison, at the time of which I write, was that of absolute seclusion in cells--complete isolation in fact--during the whole term of sentence. Soon afterwards I visited Auburn Prison, in New York State, where the condemned person was subjected to a different regime,--cells at night, but work in common, though in silence, during the day. I have been over many prisons since, for I have always held that the management of such places is a pretty reliable thermometer of the moral condition of the country to which they belong. I know of some foul ones in states which set up to be very civilized. In France we are lamentably behindhand in the matter. Though we have some prisons which are model, we have a great many more which are shamefully behind the times. For my own part, I have come to the conclusion, from all I have seen and heard, that seclusion in cells at night, with work in common during the daytime in small easily managed workshops, or better still, in the open air as at Portland Prison in England, is the penitentiary system which offers the fewest drawbacks. I say drawbacks, for no such system can offer advantages. All the holding forth of philanthropists about the sad fate of criminals is empty noise. A prison must be a place of punishment; it can never be an abode of reformation, nor of reclamation.
Let us pa.s.s, from the prisons, to Mr. Norris's great steam engine, and especially locomotive engine works, which Michel Chevalier had told me to be sure to go and see; and most interesting, truly, they were. Great improvements in the construction of locomotives originated in these works. Mr. Norris had also had a very original and exceedingly American idea--to make a great orchestra of musical instruments played by steam instead of by human lungs. I heard, or at all events I was told I heard, the ”Hunting Chorus” in Robin Hood performed by this orchestra, in which the conductor's baton was replaced by a tap. It was horrible!
After Philadelphia came Niagara, wonderful and peerless. I admired its picturesque grandeur, but I admired the rapids before the fall every bit as much. The mighty power of the huge river, the overflow of all those great lakes, pouring in foaming fury over its rocky bed, for such a distance and through such splendid scenery, is indescribably striking. In the midst of the lovely country of the Hudson Highlands, stands West Point, the famous military school where all the officers of the American army are educated. I was the guest, while there, of Colonel de Russy, who was in command, and my stay was full of interest.
There is a curious point about the school, and it is not the least of the surprises reserved for us by the American democracy. The cadets do not enter by examination, but by favour. The Senators, or representatives of each State in the Union, have a right to a certain number of nominations. The President has the same. Their choice, as a rule, falls on lads of intelligence, and the only thing asked of them on joining, is to give proof of a healthy const.i.tution. They know nothing, and have to learn everything in the school, at which they consequently spend four years. Well, in spite of the absence of selection or compet.i.tion for entrance, the result is quite excellent.