|
|
| By Frank Marryat (1826 - 1855) |
|
CHAPTER XXIV |
|
Christmas, 1852 |
| "I'LL soon be back, boys," was my last remark, it will be remembered, as I parted from the Tuttletonians on the road; consequently, in the winter of 1852 I found myself at the Island of St. Thomas, on my way back to the scrofulous pigs, the Carpenter Judge, and Constable Rowe. I had made up my mind that for the time being I would have no more to do with quartz mining. I saw that there was much respecting it that would remain enigmatical until the application of capital and science had produced results; so as the English Mining Companies appeared to possess both capital and science in abundance, I determined to wait and learn something from their operations, and for that matter I am waiting still. As my wife accompanied me I had made up my mind to jog on by easy stages to San Francisco, and when arrived there, visit either Southern California or the Great Salt Desert. Having had a rough passage out we were resting for a few days at St. Thomas, when the yellow fever broke out with great violence; soon the ships in harbour lost all their crews, and the population ashore became panic-struck with the virulence and suddenness of the disease. I was glad when the Company's steamer, Dee, arrived to take us on to Aspinwall; and as this ship was considered healthy, we congratulated ourselves as we left the anchorage on having left Yellow Jack behind us; but, unfortunately, we bad embarked on board the very ship that was doomed to suffer the most of all the steamers of the mail line. We had scarcely been forty-eight hours out, when the funeral service was read over nine of the ship's crew; arriving next day at Carthagena, we landed there about a dozen hopeless cases. The day after, my servant died in great agony. "The features of the yellow fever, as then exemplified, were very horrible. I shall not, therefore, describe them, but merely mention that the disease commenced with a bleeding from the nose and gums, and this hemorrhage in many cases could not be checked whilst life remained. "We had about twelve passengers on board, all English but one; five of them were sturdy Cornish miners proceeding to California. The first passenger attacked was Mr. Adams, an American, and as we were then in sight of Aspinwall, we hoped to land in an hour or two, and fly from the epidemic, which had not as yet appeared on the Isthmus. We left Mr. Adams bleeding profusely from the nose, and we afterwards heard of his death. There was a vague fear among us that we were not quite safe, so we hurried on to Gorgona, which village we reached that night. The rain descended without cessation, and we had arrived at the close of one of the heaviest wet seasons that had been known for years. The roads were described as being in many places impassable, and such mules as we could hire were so worn out by the winter's work that they could scarcely bear our weight when we mounted. The luggage was charged at the rate of a shilling a pound, and the muleteers would not engage to take it through in safety. Much trouble there was, I believe, in starting from Gorgona in the early morning; much falling of mules and. immersion of riders in thick ponds of mud, ere our party had proceeded a mile on the road. The rain, I believe, fell as if it would blind one, and as the thunder reverberated through the dark forest of palm trees, the lightning made the darkness of the black covered road before us more horrible. "Had not the yellow fever been behind us, our party would, I believe, have turned back to spare the women such a fearful trial. I say, believe, for the night before I had been attacked by yellow fever, and now as we stumbled and slid, and scrambled and swam through the red fat mud, I knew nothing. "My head was of wood, as it were, or lead, and if any one had chopped it off I should not have known it, but have gone on quite as comfortably. I bad but one fixed idea, and that was that I wanted water; sometimes I got it, oftener it was not to be had, and I have no doubt that I pondered dreamily over this circumstance as something remarkable. "Of course I tumbled off a great many times, but not so often as was expected; a habit of riding enabled me to keep a certain kind of seat even under such trying circumstances. I cared little for tumbling off, but was roused to anger at being lifted on again; however, my wife did the best she could for me, and by night-fall we arrived at a hut on the side of the road to sleep. There was no Californian traffic on the road at this period, and our party consisted but of three men and two women, the Cornish miners having proceeded on foot the day previously. They placed us in a small loft, through the chinks of which could be perceived some half dozen ruffian-looking armed natives, who bad congregated below. I suppose they did not murder us because they thought we had no money, otherwise they would have done so, unless they made an exception in our favour over other unarmed passengers who got benighted at these seasons. It rained still as we plodded on next day, and we passed a slough where, a day or two before, a woman had fallen off her mule and was suffocated before assistance reached her. My head was, if possible, more wooden than ever, and I became much distressed at one place where I lost my boots in the mud; for the moment I argued quite reasonably on this subject, but soon becoming unmanned, I burst into tears, and proceeded on my way, stolid, stupid, and bootless. Our party arrived at Panama half dead with fatigue, draggled with mud, and shivering in the torn clothes that for nearly sixty hours had been drenched in rain. I was placed in bed; the other male passengers - all of whom had arrived in good health-made themselves comfortable, and thought no more of the Dee, or the rain, or the mud. In less than ten days they all died of yellow fever but one, and I alone of those attacked recovered. "Of the whole party a Mr. Mears alone ' who was travelling with his wife, escaped unharmed. "The hotel we had selected was undergoing a complete restoration, and was very merry with the noise of whistling carpenters, who kept time with their hammers. "The best accommodation we could procure was a small whitewashed room at the furthest end of the courtyard; in this room were two small stretcher beds, without mattresses or covering of any kind, and as times went, we were fortunate in procuring these, for Panama was very full. There were no servants in the hotel; there was seldom anything to eat, and when there was, the cooks were drunk and mutinous and refused to cook. After six o'clock the fires were put out, and the cooks went away altogether until the next morning, when they would stroll in early or late, just as suited them. "I was laid on a stretcher bed, and fortunately for me the doctor who attended me was clever in his profession, and gave me no medicine. After a day or two I commenced bleeding at the mouth as the others bad done, and a sad time my wife must have had, as she sat by my bedside and wiped away the hot blood as drop by drop it trickled from my lips, watching me die, as all thought then I should do. "During this time I felt no pain, and although I never lost my consciousness, I was in that dreamy state in which I could embrace no fixed idea; my reflective faculties were lost to me, I never thought whether I was to get up again or die. I wished to be left alone in that undisturbed enjoyment which one can fancy a dog feels as he lies in the sun winking and blinking at humanity. "When at last I recovered and could sit up, I found that all my companions of the Dee had died. I soon got ravenously hungry, and then came the worst part, for I was restricted to a very small allowance of food. I was so yellow that I became quite vain on the subject, and my chief delight for a long time was to contemplate myself in the glass. It is customary to say of a man with the jaundice, that he is as yellow as an orange; an orange paled by my side, and my skin was of so bright a hue, that to have given me a coat of gamboge would have been to paint the lily. ( I trust the reader will understand that if I omit to write seriously of my feelings on recovery from a death-bed, it is because I consider a work like this no place for them.) "It seemed that we had brought the yellow fever with us to Panama, or rather it appeared at the time of our arrival, and it was now spreading with great rapidity. Cholera also broke out, and deaths from one or the other of these causes became very numerous. "The people being panic-struck, a great rush was made for the Californian boats, of which there bappened, at this time, to be very few. "So soon as I was able to move, there was but one small screw steamer in port, and as the place was daily becoming more unhealthy, I secured, by great favour, a cabin in her. "Nothing could excuse the state in which this ship put to sea, not even the panic; for she was not only lu-found in every respect, but was so crowded with passengers, that it was not until it was ascertained that there was scarcely standing-room for those on board that she tripped her anchor. "I had secured a dog-hole of a cabin, and was no sooner on board than my wife, worn out by fatigue and anxiety, was attacked by violent fever. There were two young doctors on board, but both were attacked shortly after we started. Then the epidemic (an aggravated intermittent fever) broke out among the passengers, who - crowded in the hold as thick as blacks in a slaver - gave way to fear, and could not be moved from the lower deck, and so lay weltering in their filth. "During this time, I could get no medicine or attendance, and my wife was in the last stage of prostration. "The epidemic raged, and from the scuttle-hole of our small cabin we could hear the splash of the bodies as they were tossed overboard with very little ceremony. There was little to eat on board but ham and biscuit, and it was hard work to get enough of that. On the fifth day out, there sprang up a gale, a heavy one too, for all it was the Pacific Ocean. Our overladen screw steamer could make but five or six knots at the best of times, but now she could make no headway against the storm, and she pitched so heavily in the long seas with which we were met, that she sprung a leak and made water fast. "When we commenced to work the pumps they were found to be useless, for the coal had started and the pumps became choked. This new danger drove the epidemic out of the passengers' heads, and they at once proceeded to throw overboard the cargo (and with it my luggage), and then they baled by means of tubs and buckets. "For two days and nights we were in suspense as gang relieved gang at the buckets, and the old "screw" pitched heavily in the trough of the sea. All were black and filthy with the coal dust, which now mixed with the water in the hold, and as they howled and shouted over the work, these fellows looked like devils. They worked bravely though and coolly, and when the carpenter hallooed from the hold, "Hurrah, lads, it's gaining on us;" there was no wincing on the part of those who worked, but a more steady application to the bucket ropes and falls. Then the gale broke, and as the ship became easier, the leak gave way before the exertions of the coal-begrimed passengers; we steamed into Acapulco, still baling out the black water from the hold, and felt ourselves safe, at least, from shipwreck. A favourable change had taken place in my wife's health, and I determined on remaining at Acapulco, until I could procure a passage in some safer and more commodious vessel. "I forbear to mention the name of this steamer, as the captain of her was a good sailor, and behaved nobly, and it was no fault of his that the agents at Panama had so cruelly risked the lives of so many people. "The British consul at Acapulco was kind enough to interest himself in our behalf, and through his influence we procured a large room in the house of a Mexican family of note. With the exception of a few chairs there was no furniture in this room, but it was clean and well ventilated, and "looked out" upon a court-yard of fragrant orange trees which were now heavily laden with fruit. "Nor have the natives of Acapulco much need of furniture, for they seldom live in their houses, preferring to hang their hammocks in the porch, where they swing lazily to and fro, and enjoy the cool breeze. The principal apartment is used occasionally as a reception room, but it is not considered requisite to employ m. ore decoration on this than other parts of the house, which is a lamentable proof of the ignorance which exists here of the usages of polite society in those countries of which the inhabitants do not consider what is good enough for themselves good enough for their visitors. "The Custom-house officers of Acapulco were very suspicious, and such of my baggage as had not been thrown overboard was subjected to a very severe scrutiny. There is a heavy duty on the exportation of specie and playing cards in this part of Mexico, and the manufacture of the latter is monopolised by the Government, and gives rise to a great deal of smuggling. As many invalids had been landed at Acapulco from the Californian steamers, and had there died, it was not unnatural that an occasional victim should be enclosed in a shell, and be reshipped for interment in another country. During a season in which Acapulco air rather accelerated death than aided recovery, so large a quantity of "remains" were hermetically sealed and addressed to distant friends, that the commandant became suspicious, and insisted one day on opening a coffin. No corpse was there, but in its place was the devil; that is to say, as far as a good cargo of playing cards and doubloons call represent that functionary! Since then the dead man who goes out is searched equally with the live one who comes In. "There bad been an earthquake at Acapulco immediately before our arrival, and the best proof of the severity of the shock was in the fact that numerous adobe buildings were lying crest-fallen on all sides. A Spanish mud-built house has a strong constitution, and is built with a view to earthquakes, but, like us poor mortals, it is built of dirt, and must crumble to dirt again, as the Fates direct. "The mosquitos at Acapulco were as numerous as any I remember to have seen, and, in certain constitutions, every bite produced a sore, which was aggravated by the climate. We are accustomed to look jocularly on the attacks of these, or any other hungry insects, but to an invalid their bites are often productive of most serious consequences. "I was enabled at last to secure a passage in a large steamer, which touched at Acapulco on her voyage to San Francisco. She was a magnificent boat, but, having eight hundred passengers on board, it was with difficulty we could procure accommodation. We secured, however, a couple of sofas in the main saloon, and, two bag of bones as we were, we managed to find either sofa much too big for us. "Asiatic cholera broke out on the day we left Acapulco, and I began to think that we brought ill luck with our presence. It was sad to bear the groans of the dying passengers in the cabins right and left, but perhaps less so to us than to others, for we had seen so much sickness on our voyage that we had come to look upon it in a stolid sort of way, and were free from those fears and anxieties which the more robust about us experienced. We arrived at San Francisco with a loss in one week of fifty passengers, and if we did not thank God for his mercy in preserving us we were surely the most ungrateful of his creatures. "I would gladly have been spared this record of a very miserable voyage, and yet without it my narrative would have been incomplete, as presenting but one side of the picture. At the same time I can assure the reader that I have not described one half its horrors. "As we glide swiftly down the stream one day without a care, so, on the next perhaps, with the pole to our breast, we must sturdily stem the rushing current to arrive at our goal with a fainting frame and panting heart, if God so wills; or otherwise, with broken oar and shattered bark, meet our destruction in the cruel eddies of the swollen river." |
