XIX Voyaging Across the Gulf of Mexico and Straits of Yucatan From Vera Cruz to Progresso and Havana
Steamship Monterey, at Sea,
December 21st-24th.
It was late in the day when we set sail from Vera Cruz. The shoreland faded; the grove of cocoanut palms in the Alameda with their feathery tops waving in the evening breeze, were the last green things I saw. As the sun sank suddenly behind the great volcano, the western horizon was filled with golden and scarlet and purple coloring, and Orizaba’s summit was flooded with roseate splendor. The stars burst out, the moon crept up from the dark waters. We were on the Mexican Gulf, and the tropical heavens glowed and burned with a brilliance unknown to the latitudes of the middle north. The waters, churning in our wake, flashed and glowed with the phosphorescence characteristic of tropic seas. The wind freshened and, by the middle of the night, the knowing ones hinted that more than the usual commotion of the sea might be expected before the dawn. In fact, a cablegram had been received, sent from Galveston, warning us that a “Norther” was on its way.
I sat up till late, enjoying the rising gale and drinking in the delicious air.
After so long a sojourn upon high, dry, parched land, it was a delight to be again upon the sea. The restless waters tossed our sturdy boat as though it were a cork. I slept soundly, despite the rolling of the ship and the hammering of the surging billows against the shell of my cabin, and I was among the first to respond to the six o’clock bells summoning the hungry to their desayuno. These vessels follow the customs of the majority of their passengers and serve meals in Spanish fashion—desayuno from six to seven—coffee and rolls to whosoever may care to partake of them—and, about ten o’clock the almuerzo, the regular breakfast, a hearty meal; then the comida, the middle of the afternoon; while later between seven and eight o’clock cena is served, a light repast, a cross betwixt the English tea and supper.
All day the wind blew steadily from the northwest, and the Mexican travelers spent most of their time doubled above the rails like bended hairpins. During the afternoon the gale increased. Great banks of cloud, black and ominous, rolled down upon us, and, toward the close of the day, torrents of rain descended. Few passengers, by this time, remained upon the decks, and the group who gathered with the captain at the evening meal could be counted on the hand. As night drew on the winds boomed louder and terror took possession of the unseasoned landsmen from Yucatan. But I felt no symptoms of seasickness, and the splendid sea-strength of this vessel gave me a sense of safety and repose. I wedged myself into my berth, so that I might not be thrown out, and lulled by the roaring of the storm and the rolling and plunging of the ship, fell peacefully asleep. When I at last awoke, the sun was long up, and the clouds were mostly drifted to the south. We were double-anchored in the open roadstead off Progresso, four miles from the shore. South of us, all along the coast, we could see the crests of the gigantic surf beating upon the sandy marge of Yucatan. No boat of less strength than our own, might dare to ride out such a storm; no vessels can venture to us from the shore until the waters subside. There are no harbors along the entire coast of the Yucatan peninsula. The only ports are Campeche and Progresso, and ships must lie three or four miles out in the open sea and passengers and freight must be taken on and off in lighters, greatly to the disadvantage of commerce. Above the white lines of the foaming breakers, we can see the tops of the waving cocoanut and royal palms, and between them the white buildings of Progresso. Back of Progresso, some thirty miles, lies the city of Merida, but a few feet above the level of the sea, the commercial center of the world’s heniquen or sisal grass trade. An enormous export business in this grass has sprung up since the beginning of the Philippine war, when the Manila hemp trade fell away. Natural conditions here favor the growth of the fiber, it increasing with little cultivation and great crops being raised. Millions of dollars have been accumulated in late years by the fortunate planters of Merida, and no city in Mexico has so suddenly advanced in wealth.
During the afternoon we saw our first shore-boats, and we are promised that to-morrow, even though it be Sunday, the cargo shall be taken off. Two small boats have ventured out, and into one of them have been thrown the mails which an awaiting train will quickly take to Merida, but until morning no passengers will be permitted to go ashore, nor will any freight be landed.
To-day we have seen our first sea birds, and a very few flying fish, while, since early dawn, there has traveled around the ship a continuous procession of sharks, their sharp dorsal fins constantly showing above the waters. Some of the passengers have been fishing for them, but as yet none have been caught and, I am told, they are very shy. While they will accompany a ship all the way to Havana, yet so suspicious are they of the fisherman’s line that they are rarely captured.
This morning I stood looking down upon the deck next below me, watching a company of thirty or forty little boys aged from ten to twelve and fourteen years, one little girl among them, seemingly sister to one of the younger boys. They were mostly sitting in groups of four and five tossing centavos and shouting with delight. They were gambling away the few coins in their possession. A couple of sailors came up, seized two of the little boys and stood them up in front of each other. The prisoners seemed to comprehend the intention of their captors, and immediately fell to fighting desperately, until one knocked out the other, just as a couple of game cocks will go to fighting when placed in opposition. As soon as one of them had been vanquished, his sailor patron shoved him to one side, as something now quite useless, and grabbing another boy, set him in front of the victor. Then, at it they went again, and many of the children stopped their play to look on. The Mexicans about me were betting on the fights and apparently enjoying the pastime. I inquired who were these children, and learned them to be a company, who had mostly been stolen from the streets of Mexico and neighboring towns, and was told some had been bought from the state orphan asylums, at ten dollars a head, upon the payment of the price no questions being asked as to their destination. They are being taken into practical slavery to be speedily worked to death by the heniquen planters of Yucatan. They are delivered to the plantations and there perish rapidly from poor food, harsh treatment, yellow fever, and the bites of insects which burrow into their unprotected legs and arms. They are said to die off like flies, the effort of the buyer being to get out of them his money’s worth in work before they die. The children know nothing of their fate, until they are delivered to their death. The little fellows before me were in great glee through all the voyage; each had been presented with a few silver coins, the first many of them had seen in all their lives, and the joy of possession set them to gambling merrily all the day through. This traffic in children is said to have been long established and to be winked at by the Mexican authorities. Later on, we watched them climb down the side of the ship and enter the lighters, shouting with glee at the prospect of going to “the lovely new homes in the country,” where their captors pretended, would be their journey’s end.
It was late Monday evening when we set sail from Progresso. All day long we were discharging cargo into the lighters, which swarmed around us, while after the passengers and cargo departed larger vessels brought out bales of heniquen, which were quickly stowed below.
Among the passengers who left the ship, were several Americans. One, a large, redheaded, heavy-set man, with genial face and friendly manner, from Mississippi, was a timberman, out buying mahogany in the forests of Yucatan. He told me that Americans are purchasing all the available mahogany now standing in the accessible Mexican forests, and he seemed to regard the mahogany of Yucatan as of especial value. Another of the passengers leaving the ship was a man of small stature and clean shaven. He early attracted our attention by his sanctimonious air, and the frightfully fluent American oaths with which he spiced his games of poker in the smoking room, where in company with a group of flashily dressed and bediamonded Mexicans, he played apparently for the highest stakes. The contrast between his smooth exterior and the noisome contents of his mind, as well as the fact that the two or three hard-faced Mexicans who seemed to have in charge the company of little boys, constantly sought him out in consultation, led to the suspicion that he was the chief trafficker in this death trade. In response to our questioning as to his antecedents and business, he became abusive, and upon my taking his picture with my kodak, he grew angry and afterwards fought shy of all intercourse with his fellow-countrymen. As to who he may really be we know not. When the little boys departed from the ship, we noticed that he also sailed away.
The sun was just sinking, like a ball of fire, into the margin of the western sea, when we weighed anchor and steamed eastward to cross the Strait of Yucatan. The surface of the waters lay calm and quiet as a sheet of glass. We were two nights and a day in reaching Havana, and the one day was spent in crossing the Strait.
Most of the afternoon I have sat or lain upon the forward deck watching the waters and observing the sea life everywhere about me. We have passed innumerable flocks of flying fish. Here and there a few porpoises have tumbled and wheeled about us, but the sharks have disappeared. Also, I have caught sight of my first nautilus, so daintily sailing its convoluted shallop upon the sea. These exquisite shell-fish I have never before seen alive, and I have watched them with keenest interest. They appear only when perfect calm prevails. At the least roughness of the sea, they instantly sink from view. We have also all day been passing through extensive masses of yellow gulf weed, such as I have noticed when traversing the Gulf Stream on transatlantic voyages, only here the weed was in great masses, not yet having been broken up by the tempestuous ocean tides. But we have been accompanied by no birds.
As we drew further eastward the air grew more soft and balmy. We were utterly alone, no craft other than our own appeared anywhere upon the waters.
I fell asleep watching the big stars and dreaming of Spanish galleons and British buccaneers, of Portuguese pirates and French marauders, whose adventurous sails have in the centuries gone by whitened in countless multitudes these now silent seas.
When morning broke, the shores of Cuba bounded the horizon on the south, ten or fifteen miles away. Low sandy reaches stretched along the sea; palms, tall and feathery, were waving in the morning breeze behind the white ribbon of the strand, a faint blue line of mountains lying yet beyond. As we approached the island there seemed to be no break in the coast line, but farther on we discovered a narrow channel, between the fortress of El Moro and the city of Havana and, entering it, came into a harbor, landlocked and storm free, one of the securest in the world. We cast anchor near the projecting rusted wreck of the United States Steamship Maine. I had finished my voyage. I was here to go ashore, while a few hours later the Monterey would turn northward and sail on to New York.