Captain Macklin: His Memoirs

  II

  S.S. PANAMA, OFF COAST OF HONDURAS

  To one who never before had travelled farther than is Dobbs Ferry fromPhiladelphia, my journey south to New Orleans was something in theway of an expedition, and I found it rich in incident and adventure.Everything was new and strange, but nothing was so strange as my ownfreedom. After three years of discipline, of going to bed by drum-call,of waking by drum-call, and obeying the orders of others, this newindependence added a supreme flavor to all my pleasures. I took myjourney very seriously, and I determined to make every little incidentcontribute to my better knowledge of the world. I rated the chanceacquaintances of the smoking-car as aids to a clear understanding ofmankind, and when at Washington I saw above the house-tops the marbledome of the Capitol I was thrilled to think that I was already so muchricher in experience.

  To me the country through which we passed spoke with but one meaning.I saw it as the chess-board of the War of the Rebellion. I imaginedthe towns fortified and besieged, the hills topped with artillery, theforests alive with troops in ambush, and in my mind, on account of theirstrategic value to the enemy, I destroyed the bridges over which wepassed. The passengers were only too willing to instruct a stranger inthe historical values of their country. They pointed out to me wherecertain regiments had camped, where homesteads had been burned, andwhere real battles, not of my own imagining, but which had cost thelives of many men, had been lost and won. I found that to these chanceacquaintances the events of which they spoke were as fresh after twentyyears as though they had occurred but yesterday, and they accepted mycuriosity as only a natural interest in a still vital subject. I judgedit advisable not to mention that General Hamilton was my grandfather.Instead I told them that I was the son of an officer who had died forthe cause of secession. This was the first time I had ever missedan opportunity of boasting of my relationship to my distinguishedgrandparent, and I felt meanly conscious that I was in a way disloyal.But they were so genuinely pleased when they learned that my father hadfought for the South, that I lacked the courage to tell them that whilehe was so engaged another relative of mine had driven one of their bestgenerals through three States.

  I am one who makes the most of what he sees, and even the simplestthings filled me with delight; my first sight of cotton-fields, oftobacco growing in the leaf, were great moments to me; and that the menwho guarded the negro convicts at work in the fields still clung to theuniform of gray, struck me as a fact of pathetic interest.

  I was delayed in New Orleans for only one day. At the end of that timeI secured passage on the steamer Panama. She was listed to sail forAspinwall at nine o'clock the next morning, and to touch at ports alongthe Central American coast. While waiting for my steamer I mobilizedmy transport and supplies, and purchased such articles as I considerednecessary for a rough campaign in a tropical climate. My purchasesconsisted of a revolver, a money-belt, in which to carry my smallfortune, which I had exchanged into gold double-eagles, a pairof field-glasses, a rubber blanket, a canteen, riding boots, andsaddle-bags. I decided that my uniform and saddle would be furnishedme from the quartermaster's department of Garcia's army, for in myignorance I supposed I was entering on a campaign conducted after themethods of European armies.

  We left the levees of New Orleans early in the morning, and for theremainder of the day steamed slowly down the Mississippi River. I satalone upon the deck watching the low, swampy banks slipping past uson either side, the gloomy cypress-trees heavy with gray moss, theabandoned cotton-gins and disused negro quarters. As I did so a feelingof homesickness and depression came upon me, and my disgraceful failureat the Point, the loss of my grandfather, and my desertion of Beatrice,for so it began to seem to me, filled me with a bitter melancholy.

  The sun set the first day over great wastes of swamp, swamp-land, andpools of inky black, which stretched as far as the eye could reach;gloomy, silent, and barren of any form of life. It was a picture whichheld neither the freedom of the open sea nor the human element of thesolid earth. It seemed to me as though the world must have looked sowhen darkness brooded over the face of the waters, and as I went tomy berth that night I felt as though I were saying good-by forever toallthat was dear to me--my country, my home, and the girl I loved.

  I was awakened in the morning by a motion which I had never beforeexperienced. I was being gently lifted and lowered and rolled to andfro as a hammock is rocked by the breeze. For some minutes I lay betweensleep and waking, struggling back to consciousness, until with a suddengasp of delight it came to me that at last I was at sea. I scrambledfrom my berth and pulled back the curtains of the air port. It was asthough over night the ocean had crept up to my window. It stretchedbelow me in great distances of a deep, beautiful blue. Tumbling waveswere chasing each other over it, and millions of white caps glanced andflashed as they raced by me in the sun. It was my first real view of theocean, and the restlessness of it and the freedom of it stirred me witha great happiness. I drank in its beauty as eagerly as I filled my lungswith the keen salt air, and thanked God for both.

  The three short days which followed were full of new and delightfulsurprises, some because it was all so strange and others because it wasso exactly what I had hoped it would be. I had read many tales of thesea, but ships I knew only as they moved along the Hudson at the end ofthe towing-line. I had never felt one rise and fall beneath me, norfrom the deck of one watched the sun sink into the water. I had never atnight looked up at the great masts, and seen them swing, like a pendulumreversed, between me and the stars.

  There was so much to learn that was new and so many things to see onthe waters, and in the skies, that it seemed wicked to sleep. So, duringnearly the whole of every night, I stood with Captain Leeds on hisbridge, or asked ignorant questions of the man at the wheel. The stewardof the Panama was purser, supercargo, and bar-keeper in one, and a mostinteresting man. He apparently never slept, but at any hour was willingto sit and chat with me. It was he who first introduced me to thewonderful mysteries of the alligator pear as a salad, and taught me toprefer, in a hot country, Jamaica rum with half a lime squeezed into theglass to all other spirits. It was a most educational trip.

  I had much entertainment on board the Panama by pretending that I washer captain, and that she was sailing under my orders. SometimesI pretended that she was an American man-of-war, and sometimes afilibuster escaping from an American man-of-war. This may seem an absurdand childish game, but I had always wanted to hold authority, and as Ihad never done so, except as a drill sergeant at the Academy, it wasmy habit to imagine myself in whatever position of responsibilitymy surroundings suggested. For this purpose the Panama served meexcellently, and in scanning the horizon for hostile fleets or a pirateflag I was as conscientious as was the lookout in the bow. At theAcademy I had often sat in my room with maps spread out before meplanning attacks on the enemy, considering my lines of communication,telegraphing wildly for reinforcements, and despatching my aides witha clearly written, comprehensive order to where my advance column wasengaged. I believe this "play-acting," as my room-mate used to callit, helped me to think quickly, to give an intelligent commandintelligently, and made me rich in resources.

  For the first few days I was so enchanted with my new surroundings thatthe sinister purpose of my journey South lost its full value. And when,as we approached Honduras, it was recalled to me, I was surprised tofind that I had heard no one on board discuss the war, nor refer to itin any way. When I considered this, I was the more surprised becausePorto Cortez was one of the chief ports at which we touched, and I wasannoyed to find that I had travelled so far for the sake of a cause inwhich those directly interested felt so little concern. I set aboutwith great caution to discover the reason for this lack of interest.The passengers of the Panama came from widely different parts of CentralAmerica. They were coffee planters and mining engineers, concessionhunters, and promoters of mining companies. I sounded each of themseparately as to the condition of affairs in Honduras, and gave as myreason for inquiri
ng the fact that I had thoughts of investing mymoney there. I talked rather largely of my money. But this information,instead of inducing them to speak of Honduras, only made each of themmore eloquent in praising the particular republic in which his own moneywas invested, and each begged me to place mine with his. In the courseof one day I was offered a part ownership in four coffee plantations, arubber forest, a machine for turning the sea-turtles into fat and shell,and the good-will and fixtures of a dentist's office. Except that Iobtained some reputation on board as a young man of property, whichreputation I endeavored to maintain by treating everyone to drinks inthe social hall, my inquiries led to no result. No one apparently knew,nor cared to know, of the revolution in Honduras, and passed it over asa joke. This hurt me, but lest they should grow suspicious, I did notcontinue my inquiries.