Читать книгу Up the Orinoco and down the Magdalena - J. A. Zahm - Страница 8

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Early the morning following our departure from Miami we were aroused from our slumbers by the cry of a mariner, “Land ho! all hands ahoy!” We were on deck without delay, and there before us, under a sky of purest azure, we beheld the hills of Cuba, clad in a mantle of undying verdure. Its resplendent shores were arrayed in hues of glowing beauty and unimagined loveliness. Fragrant groves of orange and pomegranate, luxuriant forests white with clouds of bloom, formed a glorious setting to the refulgent waves that reflected the crimson splendors of the rising sun. Delicious zephyrs, fanning their balmy wings, bathed our brows with dewy freshness, sweet with perfume from ambrosial fruits and tropic flowers. Yes, we were in the Pearl of the Antilles, the “Sweet Isle of Flowers”; in Gan Eden—the Garden of Delight—that in the legends of long ago was reckoned among the Isles of the Blest.

The beautiful pictures before us, however, were but as a fleeting panorama. We had but little time to feast our eyes on them before we were in front of grim, frowning Morro Castle, that for three centuries and more has stood sentinel of the fair city at its feet. Adjoining the Castle are the Cabañas, a vast range of fortifications more than a mile in length, and nearly a thousand feet in breadth. Just opposite, on the other side of the harbor’s entrance, is the Bateria de la Punta, and some distance farther beyond is the star-shaped Castle Atares. From a military standpoint Havana is well protected, and, with Morro Castle properly equipped with modern artillery, would be practically impregnable.

Few West Indian cities have greater historic interest than Havana. From the time it was first visited by Ocampo, four hundred years ago, until the raising of the flag of the Cuban Republic in 1904, it has been the witness of many stirring events that have effected the destinies of millions of people in various parts of the world. It was from Havana’s port that Cortes, in 1519, sailed on his memorable voyage to Mexico. It was from this port that Pamphilio de Narvaez and Hernando de Soto started on their ill-starred expeditions to Florida. Time and again the city was harassed by Dutch, French and English pirates and Buccaneers. Oftentimes, too, the daring sea-rovers, who so long infested West Indian waters, levied tribute on the unfortunate inhabitants who were unable to defend themselves. Indeed, it was to defend the city from these marauders that the kings of Spain, in the middle of the sixteenth century, began the erection of those fortifications that, since their completion, have excited the admiration of all who have visited them.

Cuba was one of the islands Columbus discovered during his first voyage. But he thought he had discovered a continent—that he had reached the eastern extremity of Asia. He had set out from Spain to find a western route to the Indies, to offset the discoveries of Bartholomew Diaz and Vasco da Gama. To him Cuba was the land of the Great Khan, far-off Cathay, and Española, discovered shortly afterwards, was Cipango, Japan. Indeed, there is reason to believe that he died in the belief that Cuba, far from being an island, was a part of China, as mapped by Toscanelli and described by Marco Polo. We have no positive evidence that he was ever aware of the circumnavigation of the island by Pinzón and Solís in 1497, and he was dead two years before its insularity was again proved by Ocampo. He never dreamed that he had discovered a new world, nor did any of his contemporaries or immediate successors have any conclusive reason to infer that the lands discovered by the great Admiral in his third and fourth voyages were not a part of the Asiatic continent.

Balboa’s discovery of the Pacific Ocean did not supply such reasons, neither did the rounding of South America and the circumnavigation of the globe by Magellan. Nor were the necessary proofs furnished by the explorations of Drake or Frobisher, Davis or Hudson or Baffin.

The final demonstration of the complete separation of America from Asia was a long process and was not given until the noted explorations of Vitus Behring in 1728, more than two centuries after Balboa from the summit of a peak in Darien first descried the placid waters of the great South Sea.13

We had desired to visit the northern and southern coasts of Cuba, and to feast our eyes on the beautiful scenes that had so captivated Columbus; to view the hundred harbors that indent its tortuous shores; to see the Queen’s Gardens—now known as Los Cayos de las Doce Leguas—which the great navigator fancied to be the seven thousand spice islands of Marco Polo, but our time was too limited to permit the long and slow coasting that would be required. Besides, we preferred to study the interior of the country, and pass through the sugar and tobacco plantations for which the island is so famous.

Fortunately for the comfort of the traveler, there is now a through train from Havana to Santiago, so that one can make the entire five hundred and forty miles in twenty-four hours, and that, too, if one so elect, in a Pullman car.

Columbus, in writing of his first voyage to Rafael Sánchez and Luis de Santangel, says that all the countries he had discovered, but particularly Juana—the name he gave to Cuba—“are of surpassing excellence,” and “exceedingly fertile.” “All these islands” he continues, “are very beautiful and distinguished by a diversity of scenery; they are filled with a great variety of trees of immense height, and which I believe retain their foliage in all seasons; for when I saw them”—in November—“they were as verdant and luxuriant as they usually are in Spain in the month of May—some of them were blossoming, some bearing fruit, and all flourishing in the greatest perfection, according to their respective stages of growth, and the nature and quality of each.” Again he writes, “The nightingale and a thousand other sorts of birds were singing in the month of November wherever I went. There are palm trees in these countries of six or eight sorts, which are surprising to see, on account of their diversity from ours, but, indeed, this is the case with respect to the other trees, as well as the fruits and weeds. Here are also honey, and fruits of a thousand sorts, and birds of every variety.”14

The Admiral’s delight and enthusiasm at all he saw knew no bounds, and in his diary he gives frequent expression to the pleasurable emotions he experienced. All was new to him, and all beautiful beyond words to describe. Trees and plants were as different from those in Spain as day is from night, and the verdure and bloom in November were as fresh and brilliant as in the month of May in Andalusia.15 The great navigator had a poet’s love of nature, and artist’s eye for the beautiful. Indeed, it may be truthfully said that no one since his time has more correctly and more succinctly portrayed the salient features of these islands, and it may be questioned if any one has more deeply appreciated their beauty and splendor.

That which frequently arrests the attention of the traveler, on the way from Havana to Santiago, is the numerous sugar and tobacco plantations everywhere visible. Sugar cane, as is known, was not found by the Spaniards on their arrival in the New World, but was introduced there a short time after, most probably from the Madeira or Canary Islands.

Tobacco, however, is an American plant, and one of the things that most surprised the Europeans on first coming in contact with the Indians of the newly discovered islands was to find them smoking the dried leaves of this now favorite narcotic.

The first mention of tobacco is in Columbus’ diary under date of November 6, 1492. Referring to two messengers he had sent out among the Indians, he writes, “The two Christians met on the road a great many people going to their villages, men and women with brands in their hands, made of herbs, for taking their customary smoke.”16 These, then, were the first cigars of which we have any record. The use of tobacco in pipes was apparently first observed in Florida by Captain John Hawkins during his voyage to the peninsula in 1566. Among many other interesting things he tells us about the inhabitants is that of their use and love of the pipe.

“The Floridians when they trauel haue a kinde of herbe dryed, which with a cane, and an earthen cup in the end, with fire, and the dried herbs put together do sucke thoro the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger, and therewith they liue foure or five days without meat or drinke, and this all the Frenchmen vsed for this purpose; yet do they holde opinion withall, that it causeth water and flame to void from their stomachs.”17

The early Italian traveler, Girolamo Benzoni, evidently did not share the views of the Floridians and Frenchmen regarding the value of tobacco. To him it was nothing less than an invention of Satan. Speaking of its evil effects, he says, “See what a pestiferous and wicked poison from the devil this must be.”18

But it is the good Old Dominican, Père Labat, who has the most to say about the introduction and use of tobacco. His charming, gossipy account of men and things and his vagabunda loquacitas, have lost none of their fascination for the curious reader since they were first written nearly two centuries ago.

Among other things he does not hesitate to affirm that the Indians, “by introducing the use of tobacco among their pitiless conquerors, succeeded, in great measure, in avenging themselves for the unjust servitude to which they had been reduced.”19 According to the good father, tobacco proved to be a veritable apple of discord, because it gave rise to a protracted war of words among men of science. In this war a large number of ignoramuses as well as savants participated. And not the last to declare themselves in favor of or opposed to what they understood no better than the serious affairs of the day, in which they had been but too active, were the woman-folk.

Physicians discussed its properties, nature and virtues, as if it had been known all over the habitable world from the times of Galen, Hippocrates, and Æsculapius, and their opinions were as diverse, and as opposed to one another as are to-day the opinions of allopaths and homeopaths, osteopaths and psychopaths. They prescribed when and how it was to be taken and in what doses. They and the chemists of the time soon recognized in tobacco a valuable addition to their pharmacopœa. Nay, more, it was not long before it was proclaimed as a panacea for all the ills that poor suffering humanity is heir to.

Its ashes cured glanders; taken as a powder it cured rheumatism, headache, dropsy, and paralysis. It was a specific against melancholy and insanity; against the smallpox and the plague, against fever, asthma and liver troubles. It strengthened the memory and excited the imagination, and philosophers and men of science could be, it was averred, no better prepared to grapple with the most difficult of abstract problems than by having the nose primed with snuff.

The effects induced by chewing tobacco were said to be even more marvelous, for among other things it was claimed that by thus using it hunger and thirst were allayed or prevented. It removed bile, cured toothache and freed an over-charged brain from all kinds of deleterious humors. It strengthened and preserved the sight. Oil, extracted from tobacco, cured deafness, gout, sciatica, improved the circulation, and was a tonic for the nervous. In a word, it was the great panacea of which physicians and alchemists had so long dreamed, but had hitherto been unable to find.

Finally, however, a reaction came. Books were written against it, and kings and princes forbade its use. On the 26th of March, 1699, the question was seriously discussed before L’Ecole de Médecine whether the frequent use of tobacco shortened life—An ex tabaci usu frequenti vita summa brevior? And the conclusion was a demonstration that the frequent use of tobacco did shorten life. Ergo ex frequenti tabaci usu vita summa brevior.20

But notwithstanding the opinions of learned men and university faculties regarding the alleged deleterious properties of tobacco, and the denunciations hurled against the use of this invention of the Evil One, the smoking of cigars and pipes soon became a general habit the world over, and, it was at times difficult for the supply to meet the demand. How little Las Casas dreamed that this “vicious habit,” as he called it, was soon to become universal, and that the time would come when young and old would regard the “fragrant weed,” prepared in one way or another, not only as an indispensable luxury, but also as a prime necessity—for rich and poor alike, if life were to be worth living.

And how far was Columbus from imagining, when he saw the Indians taking “their customary smoke,” that the leaves which they had so carefully rolled together for this purpose, would eventually prove to be one of the great staples of commerce, and one of the world’s most valued sources of revenue. He crossed “the Sea of Darkness” to discover a direct route to the lands of spice and the Golden Chersonese in order to fill the coffers of the land of his adoption. He and his companions explored every island they met in their wanderings in quest of gold and pearls and precious stones and here, in the narcotic plant, that appeared to them as little more than a curiosity, there were treasures greater than those of “Ormus and Ind.” In this very island of Cuba, of whose charms he has left us so glowing a picture, was in after years to be developed from the humble plant—Nicotiana Tabacum—one of Spain’s most important industries—an industry that would, in the course of time, contribute more to the nation’s exchequer than the combined output of the mines of Pasco and Potosí. Such was evidently the thought of the Cuban poet, Zequeira, when, in his much praised Horatian ode, A La Piña, he sings

“¡Salve, suelo felíz, donde prodiga

Madre naturaleza en abundancia

La ordorifeva planta fumigable!

¡Salve, felíz Habana!”21

Santiago, like Havana, is a historic city, and, from its foundation, nearly four centuries ago, until the memorable siege of 1898, it experienced many reverses at the hands of privateers and pirates. We lingered just long enough to see its chief attractions—there are not many—outside of the Morro—and to get a view of the now famous El Caney and San Juan Hill.

The sun was sinking below the horizon when we boarded the steamer that was to take us to Haiti and Santo Domingo. As we passed under El Morro, that has so long and faithfully guarded the entrance to the placid harbor, and looked towards the setting sun where Cervera’s proud fleet was scattered, we could not but recall the prophetic words of Las Casas penned in his last will and testament. Speaking of the Indians, to whose care and protection he had devoted a long and fruitful life, the holy bishop writes: “As God is my witness that I never had earthly interest in view, I declare it to be my conviction and my faith—I believe it to be in accordance with the faith of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, which is our rule and guide—that by all the thefts, all the deaths, and all the confiscations of estates and other uncalculable riches, by the dethroning of rulers with unspeakable cruelty, the perfect and immaculate law of Jesus Christ and the natural law itself have been broken, the name of our Lord and His holy religion have been outraged, the spreading of the faith has been retarded, and irreparable harm done to these innocent people. Hence I believe that, unless it atones with much penance for these abominable and unspeakably wicked deeds, Spain will be visited by the wrath of God, because the whole nation has shared, more or less, in the bloody wealth that has been acquired by the slaughter and extermination of those people. But I fear that it will repent too late, or never. For God punishes with blindness the sins sometimes of the lowly, but especially and more frequently the sins of those who think themselves wise, and who presume to rule the world. We ourselves are eyewitnesses of this darkening of the understanding. It is now seventy years since we began to scandalize, to rob and to murder those peoples, but to this day we have not come to realize that so many scandals, so much injustice, so many thefts, so many massacres, so much slavery, and the depopulation of so many provinces, which have disgraced our holy religion, are sins or injustices at all.”22

Were the tragic scenes enacted in these waters and in the harbor of Manila the fulfillment of the prophecy? If we should be disposed to think so, let us not forget, in contemplating the humiliation and punishment of Spain, that we too have sinned as Spain sinned. And let us pray that the blood of the millions of Indians that have been exterminated in our own land may not call down the vengeance of Heaven on our children and our children’s children. Nations, like individuals, are punished where they have sinned.23