Читать книгу A summer on the borders of the Caribbean sea - J. Dennis Harris - Страница 7

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On the other hand, it may well be asked, if this be the Eden of the New World, why its flowers should be “born to blush unseen,” and its “gems of purest ray” remain hidden in its hills; or, to speak less classically, why the country should lie so long a comparative terra incognita, producing generations of indolent men and women, excelling only in superstition, idleness, and profound stupidity. In the “Silver Port,” the port in which we entered, vessels get within a quarter of a mile of land; then lighters take the cargo half the remaining distance, and from thence ox-carts convey it to the shore, when a comparatively small outlay of ingenuity, capital, and labor would make it a respectable harbor.

The men generally dress—those that dress at all—in cool white linen, Panama hats, and light gaiter boots. They look nice; but the red-turbaned, often bare-stockinged, loosely-dressed women are shocking.

“Know then this truth, (enough for man to know,)

Virtue alone is happiness below.”

Soon after we arrived, a dark, brown-skinned, and as handsome a looking man as I ever saw, came on board as watchman. For my particular benefit, I suppose, the captain inquired if he had a wife; to which he replied, in broken Spanish, “Two—one is not a plenty.”

A large portion of the cargo of the vessel in which I came consisted of lumber for the erection of a storehouse. The same vessel will be freighted back with timber of a superior quality. Indeed, the shores are lined with yellow-wood and mahogany; but it is not sawed. A gentleman is reported to have built a house in one of the interior towns which would have cost in Northern Ohio about $800, at a cost of $25,000. Inquire why this is so—why this listless inactivity prevails—and you receive the answer, “Well, waat is the use?” or, as Tennyson has it, “Vot’s the hods, so long as you’re ’appy.” The “apathy of despair” has not reached here, but the apathy of stupidity is incurable.