100 Years Ago: December 1924

[George Thomas Wilson]

100 Years Ago: December 1924

This is the 119th Entry in my series of 100-year-old National Geographic Reviews, spanning 10 years.

The first article in this month’s issue is entitled “Porto Rico, the Gate of Riches” and was written by John Oliver La Gorce, author of “Pennsylvania, the Industrial Titan of America,” “The Treasure-House of the Gulf Stream,” “Rumania and its Rubicon,” “The Warfare on Our Eastern Coast,” etc., in the National Geographic Magazine. The article has an internal subtitle: “Amazing Prosperity Has Been the Lot of Ponce de Leon’s Isle under American Administration.” The article contains forty-six black-and-white photographs taken by Charles Martin, Staff Photographer. Nine of these photos are full-page in size. The article also contains a sketch map of Puerto Rico on page 602. [Note: This is another map missed by the late Philip Riviere during his scanning efforts.]

On Tuesday, November 19, 1493, Columbus discovered a new island. Skirting along the western coastline, he sighted a wide, calm bay that promised shelter. Needing fresh water, he landed with the ceremony of banner and cross and then came upon a great spring of sparkling water flowing from the hills. He called the spot Aquadilla and the spring, Ojo de Agua, “Water’s Eye.” He named the island San Juan Bautista and took possession of it for Spain. With fresh worlds to conquer, Columbus sailed off, never to return. The master navigator did not forget his island, and it was his twice-told tale and description of its calm, majestic beauty that in 1508 fired the desire of young Juan Ponce de Leon, who, with a small company, sailed across the Mona Passage that separated Santo Domingo and St. John the Baptist and landed in Aguada Bay, where he found friendly natives. Pushing farther, he came across a great bay, which he called Puerto Rico, the Noble Port, from which the entire island subsequently took its name. Charmed by its richness but needing more equipment to set up a permanent settlement, Ponce de Leon returned to Santo Domingo, reported to his governor, and, in 1509, sailed once more for his island. He landed at a point known as Caparra and started a settlement. He soon abandoned it for a more favorable location, which he named San Juan, for himself. The Spaniards had difficulty subjecting and enslaving the native Indians, who called their homeland Borinquen, meaning “Land of the Brave,” and of that conquest history wrote a sad and very dark page. It was from his city of San Juan that the adventurous Ponce de Leon set sail to fill his charming, if boyish, dream of finding the Fountain of Youth, which resulted in the discovery of the southernmost end of the U. S., Florida. History passed slowly through the centuries, recording many events of daring, of adventure, of romance, and of sorrow between the days of Ponce de Leon and 1924.
The story of the island’s rise to prosperity and well-being under American direction constituted one of the greatest stories of government in modern times. With its balmy winter climate and its splendid roads, Porto Rico made an ideal spot for a winter vacation, enjoying both the scenic beauty and personal comfort; all in the prosperity which attended the American form of government and American supervision of commerce, education, and sanitation. The island was reached by steamers of two lines out of New York, with only 96 hours’ sailing time, and the traveler was in four days transported from snow and sleet to a land of eternal sunshine, where he could fish, swim, play golf and tennis to his heart’s content. Rectangular in shape, with an area a third less than that of Connecticut, a length of 100 miles, an average width of 30 miles and 360 miles of coastline, Porto Rico had a population of 1,300,000. The harbor of its capital, San Juan, one of the finest in the Western Hemisphere, had been dredged to a depth of 35 feet, and served as a coaling station for the trans-Atlantic routes to the Panama Canal. For a tropical land, the winter climate was unusually free from excessive heat, and the abundant rainfall over most of the island gave vegetation a perennial luxuriance. Since it lied in the path of the trade winds, with its mountains in the central portion of the island, the humidity was rarely oppressive. The mountain scenery was wild and beautiful. The main range, the Cordillera Central, ran east to west, with slopes sweeping toward the north, and rising sharply from the south, leaving an alluvial plain to the south, 10 to 15 miles wide, between the peaks and the sea. To the north of the range there was a fine foothill region famous for its scenery, the Sierra de Luquillo, where the Indians made their last stand. El Yunque was the central peak of those hills. The magnificent main highways over those mountains made the matchless scenery enjoyably accessible to the vacationing motorist.

One found history and romance in every part of the island. San Juan itself was a settlement half a century before St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest town in the U. S., came into being, and a full century before the Pilgrims landed. More than two and a half centuries before the U. S. began to build the White House, Spain started the construction of the Casa Blanca, the Governor’s Palace. But it was the progress of Porto Rico since the advent of the U. S., barely a quarter century prior [to 1924], that furnished the most inspiring chapter in the history of the island. Within a little more than a year of cession of Porto Rico to the U. S. by Spain, on December 10, 1898, America occupation of the island had ceased to be military and had become economic. The six states of Central America had an aggregate area sixty times Porto Rico’s, and a population over four times as large, yet their combined exports and imports were less than hers. Haiti, three times the size and twice as populous, bought less than one-sixth as much goods and sent less than one-seventh as much to the world markets. Neither Colombia nor Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, nor Uruguay could match Porto Rico in imports or exports in 1923. The smallest of those countries was six times as large, and the most populous had five times as many inhabitants. Jamaica, with an area a third larger and a population a third smaller, only exported a third as much and imported less than a third as our island ward. Under the American regime, the amount of sugar exported had increased sevenfold; coffee exports had doubled in quantity and trebled in value; and tobacco shipments had also gained. When the U. S. took over Porto Rico, the fruit industry was unknown. In 1924, the island shipped $3,000,000 worth of pineapples, grapefruit, and other fruits. The value of the island’s exports, even after the deflation following the World War, was twelve times as great in 1922 as in 1901, while the buying power and improved living standards of the people rose so rapidly that importation increased eightfold during that same period.
The wealth of the country kept pace with the development of its industries and the increase in its trade. Assessed property value in 1922 reached $300,000,000, five times that of 1901. Although dollars and cents, pounds and tonnage told eloquent stories of progress and prosperity, they left much to be told concerning the achievement of the people during those years under America’s beneficent guidance. The drive against illiteracy and ignorance and the fight against sickness and death had been marked by triumphs that, two decades prior, would not have been thought possible. When the U. S. entered Porto Rico, there was not a single building on the island devoted exclusively to schoolwork. Nine-tenths of school-age children were without education. In 1924, there were nearly 2,500 schools, and the number of students had increased more than sixfold. With large rural areas and many illiterate parents, it was difficult; but compulsory education laws, a school garden program, and home visits by the teachers, rapid progress was made. Many pupils were handicapped in their studies by lack of proper nourishment at home. To meet that need, charitable and religious organizations provided free school lunches in certain districts. The educational record was paralleled by the improvement of health conditions. Upon the inauguration of a death registry including causes, it was found that the annual death rate was 42 out of every 1,000 people on the island. Many of the natives suffered from general anemia. It was discovered that they were victims of hookworm disease. Doctors began administering thymol oil and Epsom salts to the island’s laborers, nine out of ten of whom were infected. A campaign was started to eliminate the hookworm infection from the soil. More than 300,000 persons were cured from government treatment and 200,000 were aided by private organizations. The result showed that labor efficiency among those treated increased 67%.

The restoration of hundreds of thousands to health by eliminating that parasite gave the Porto Rican laborers increased vigor to throw of other maladies that preyed upon hookworm victims. Thus, Porto Rico fired a broadside for health that was heard round the globe, an opening salvo in the war on that disease, which threatened a half a billion people in hot climates. As a result of that campaign, the death rate in Porto Rico in 1924 was 21 per 1,000, half of that when the U. S. arrived. In all the age-long stories of colonies and colonization, no nation had written a chapter in colonial service that takes higher rank than that which the U. S. had inscribed in the quarter century in which had guided the destinies of Porto Rico. The population was increasing at a rate of 22,000 annually, due to the margin between birthrate and deathrate, as there was virtually no immigration. That meant the birthrate was 37 per 1,000 – the same as that of Germany and Russia. The margin between births and deaths in the U. S. was 12 per 1,000 compared with 16 per 1,000 in Porto Rico. If America’s forty-eight States were as densely populated as the island, we would have had to find room for an additional population equal to that of Asia, Australia, and South America. The fertility of the island’s soil coupled with advanced agriculture meant that Porto Rico’s trade balance appeared favorably to the U. S. despite having no manufactures to swell its exports. One of the secrets of Porto Rico’s commercial growth had been the development of a system of highways unsurpassed anywhere in the world. They brought every section of the island in close touch with its major port and were a delight to motorists. When the American occupation began, the military road between San Jaun and Ponce was the only highway on the island worthy of the name. In 1924, there was network of splendid roads.
Transportation methods differed from those in the States. Automobile and trucks carried most of the passengers and freight. The only railroad skirted the northern, western, and southern coasts, hauling goods shipped in bulk. In the interior, the oxcart found some of the byroads passable, but the pack pony was relied on beyond the main highways. Traveling across the island, one found Old World ways and nineteenth-century travel strangely mixed with New World customs and twentieth-century transportation. Creaking oxcarts and antiquated Victorias vied with noisy motorcycles, ever-present “flivvers,” luxurious cars, and lumbering trucks. As the road wound up into the hills and over the mountains, affording glimpsed of the sapphire sea, the visitor thrilled at a wonderous, charming panorama. The byroads of the island were as bad as the main highways were good, and were practically impassable for many months in the year. That was a serious drawback for rural development. With its dense population, only one-fourth of the land had been brought under cultivation, and there were hundreds of thousands of acres of productive land that remained uncultivated until good roads could reach them. With the constant increase in population, there were always more people needing jobs than work available. Wages had increased three times as high since the U. S. occupation, but were still below the point where families could command more than a precarious existence. On tobacco plantations, wages ranged from $.40 to $1.50 a day; on coffee fincas, from $.25 to $1.50; and on sugar estates, from $.50 to $2,00. During nearly half the year the laborer had little to do except cultivate his own small patch. Very few islanders among the two-thirds of the population engaged in agriculture had a steady year-round job.

In the cities conditions were better. Mechanics got from $2.00 to $7.00 and day laborers as high as $3.00. Women in tobacco factories earn from $.50 to $2.00 a day. Many servants in the best hotels seldom got more than $5.00 a month. With more laborers than there was work to be done, unemployment was a perennial problem, and a job was like an heirloom, to be handed down from generation to generation. Usually, the plantation laborer and his family went barefoot, and young boys in rural districts ran about naked, suffering not at all thanks to the glorious climate. Food was both simple and scarce. Rice and beans, with a little bit of salt cod, appeared on the table when the wage-earners were employed, but those disappeared when the jobs ended. Then bananas, sweet potatoes. And vegetables raise on their small patches of ground tided the families over until another period of employment began. The U. S. Department of Agriculture was trying to induce the people to raise Belian hares. Those animals bred rapidly and attained maturity quickly. They were easy to feed making them the poor man’s cattle. Hare raising could solve the peasants’ meat problem as no other industry could. The census showed that Porto Rico had a high percentage of home owners, but a very large proportion of those homes were merely thatched shacks costing perhaps $25 each. Plantation owners were glad to have natives build the shacks on their estate, as a supply of cheap labor was thus provided. The thatch was sometimes used as the walls as well as the roof, but usually the walls were made from palm bark. Flattened tin cans and discarded corrugated metal sheets were also used. The hut was either one or two rooms. The cooking was done either in open air or in a lean-to adjoining the shack. Dishes and utensils were largely homemade. Gourds and discarded cans were substituted for pots and pans. Hammocks and floor pallets take the place of beds and chairs.
The rural, laboring native was known as a “jibaro,” which literally meant “escape from civilization.” The name was inherited from the time that the Spaniard forced the Indians into service. Those natives who escaped fled into the interior, away from their masters. Some of the Spaniards made homes for themselves with native women, by whom they had numerous children. Those all to often were turned adrift. Furthermore, Spain sent to the island many petty offenders, who, when released, wandered inland. Out of diverse types and races had been bred the jibaro. One of the potent factors in the development of Porto Rico had been the constabulary system under American supervision. The police force, which under the Spanish regime consisted of less than 300 officers and men, when the island was taken over by the U. S. was replaced by military police. In 1899, the present [in 1924] insular police force was organized with a force of six officers and 100 guardsmen. That was almost immediately increased to 16 officers and 355 guardsmen. Their work was confined to rural districts and towns of less than 6,000 inhabitants, with the municipal police guarding the larger cities. In 1902, seven police districts were established, each commanded by a captain, a lieutenant, and as many warrant officers as necessary. No State in the U.S. had a force that did the entire policing of the commonwealth – cities and rural districts alike – and Porto Rico had [in 1924] for protection of her population of 1,300,000 only 729 policemen, distributed over 75 districts. Pensions for the police were established and recently [in 1924] an education campaign for the constabulary was established. Instructions were given in English, mathematics, geography, and history.

The insular police roughly divided the masses in Porto Rico into four categories for identification – the urban dwellers who wore shoes, and three other groups that proclaimed the region from which they came by the shape of their bare feet. The jibaro with broad, flat feet usually worked the cane fields along the coast. The worker with short, stubby feet usually came from the tobacco districts. A man with an overdeveloped big toe probably came from the hills and mountains where the coffee plantations abounded. The beggars of the island were a persistent band. With any sort of shack sufficient for shelter, with native fruits and vegetables available for food, and a pleasant climate, the beggar had little to worry about. Saturday was beggars’ day, and stores, offices, and individuals laid in supplies of pennies. The coins were usually accepted without thanks and as just due. As in most tropical countries, the hyperbole was an overworked figure of speech. Admiring a native’s horse, his saddle, his house, and he would tell you it was yours, but only in a manner of speaking. Extravagance in phrase was matched by the love of the spectacular in the affairs of life generally. Carnivals and games of chance were always sure of rich patronage in urban Porto Rico. Grandmothers and children dressed in bright colors. Brass bands flourishes in almost every large town. Porto Rico liked pleasure in high gear. Betting on horse races was almost a passion. At dances the ladies of the aristocracy and the men made a picture one could never forget. The average marketplace on Sunday was a riot of color and a beehive of animation. Afoot and on donkey-back, the peasant folk thronged the roads, bringing flowers, vegetables, and fruits on their heads, in panniers slung on burros, or in creaking oxcarts. The rural and village people had very simple amusements. A baptism was the occasion of a feast or a dance. The Christmas fiesta lasted until the Epiphany. A pig roast was one of the culminating events of the native calendar.
One of the interesting phases of the life of Porto Rico was the persistence of Spanish influence in agriculture and commerce. Despite a quarter century of American occupation, three-fourths of the investments in the island were Spanish-controlled and more than a third of the net profits of all industry were sent to Spain. Thus, although the wealth of the island increased amazingly since the advent of America, most of it had been kept in the hands of old Spanish houses. While many customs of Spain persisted and lent a picturesqueness to the life of the people, others were disappearing rapidly. Coeducation was breaking down the aloofness between the sexes. The spirit of comradeship between boys and girls was everywhere in evidence, and the European traditions of segregation were generally disappearing. The physical aspects of the island were, in large measure, controlling factors in the pursuits of its people. The interior of the island was particularly rugged. Going diagonally across the island from San Jaun to the southwest, one came to a coastal strip that was different. The rain clouds scurried over it leaving it arid. The sun beat down upon it and blistered it. After leaving the verdant areas from the northeast coast and arriving in this region, one felt that Nature neglected to support this land. That very fact was responsible for one of the island’s most interesting industries – the manufacture of straw hats. There was a palm that flourished in just such a climate. Two of the finer leaves provided sufficient material for a hat worth $.75. Less perfect leaves became creamy instead of white and made hats worth $.25 each. The plant life of Porto Rico was full of interest. Nowhere did one find flowers in richer profusion or offer more brilliant hues to the eye. One soon discovered that the island was a botanical paradise. Many species of plants were peculiar to it.

The marine life in the vicinity of Porto Rico was notably abundant. There were 59 different kinds of shrimp and spiny lobster in its waters, and, in San Jaun Harbor, alone 49 kinds of starfish and 162 kinds of crabs had been collected. One species, a large land crab, frequently migrated to the sugar lands and did great damage to the crop. There were no alligators, crocodiles, skunks, toads, or native rabbits on the island, and the only snake was a boa-constrictor; but there were ten common types of lizards, from the small tree-climbers to the large land-runners. Of the several kinds of frogs, the little tree frog was the most interesting. The mockingbird, the euphonia, the troupial, and the yellow warbler were the leading songsters, and goldfinches, woodpeckers, yellow-shouldered blackbirds, hummingbirds, and herons also abounded. Some years prior [to 1924], the mongoose was imported into Porto Rico from India, to rid the cane fields of rodents; but they also ate birds and eggs. The chief drawback to tropical travel in the countries of the Caribbean was the lack of good hotel accommodations. For the most part the hotels in the Tropics were not clean, by our standards, and were rarely comfortable. Porto Rico was awakening to that need, for there was a large new and thoroughly high-class hotel in San Juan which compared favorably to those in the U. S. While San Juan, with more than70,000 inhabitants, was the capital and chief seaport, there were some half dozen other prosperous and populous urban communities. Ponce, on the south side of the island, was called the Porto Rican “cradle of liberty.” Mayaguez, with its excellent harbor, was the San Francisco of Porto Rico. It was on the west coast and had a rich trade. Arecibo was located on the north coast’s eastern end. Aguadilla, with its memories of Columbus’ landing, was another delightful spot. Bayamon, Caguas, Guayama, Aguas Buenas, Anasco, and other towns afforded motorists new phases of tropical scenery to admire and Spanish architecture to appreciate. Porto Rico was, indeed, a beckoning land to all who would follow the sunshine and flee the rigors of northern winters.

The second item listed on this month’s cover is entitled “Colorful Porto Rico” and has Charles Martin listed on the byline. It is not an article but a set of twelve full-page “Illustrations in Natural Color.” These illustrations are color photographs by Charles Martin who is credited on each plate. The set of plates is embedded within the first article and are numbered I through XII in Roman numerals. They represent pages 631 through 642 in the issue.

A list of caption titles is as follows:
• “Morro Castle: San Juan, Porto Rico”
• “A Morning Catch: Porto Rico”
• “A Color Study in Geography”
• “The Famous Letter S Road: Porto Rico”
• “The Fountain of Youth in Aguadilla”
• “A Porto Rican Version of the Water Wagon”
• “Where the Grapefruit Reaches Perfection”
• “A Peasant’s Thatched Hut with a Bougainvillea in Bloom”
• “Headed for the Sugar Mill”
• “A One-Day Rival of Hawaii”
• “A Riot of Color in the Porto Rican White House”
• “A Porto Rican Debutante”

The second article (third item) listed on this month’s cover is entitled “A Char-a-bancs in Cornwall” and was written by Herbert Corey, author of “Along the Old Spanish Road in Mexico,” “Adventuring Down the West Coast of Mexico,” Andorra, a Unique Republic,” etc., in the National Geographic Magazine. The article contains forty-four black-and-white photographs, of which ten are full-page in size. One of those full-page photos serves as the frontispiece for this article. The article also contains a sketch map of Cornwall with an inset of the British Isles on page 657.

Sketch Map courtesy of Philip Riviere
The author believed that Cornwall was the most beautiful county in England. He mentioned the moors, dull, dun, and bare, on which the only interruption was an occasional ruin, or a tumble heap of earth, where Phoenicians mined for tin; yet he stood by his judgement. Cornwall’s charm was one of enchantment. Its moors were broken by hidden valleys, filled with the greenest grass, from which great trees towered. The hedges that rimmed the roads glowed with purple of foxglove and the yellow of the furze. In an hour’s drive one passed from cliffs of a savage, sheer hostility, to smiling estuaries amid rolling hills on which the green of English oaks alternated with glowing fields. History and tradition played their part in creating Cornwall’s charm. It was on Cornish shores that galleys landed in search of tin long before the Roman rule in England. Local tradition held that Jewish traders gave its name to the village of Marazion – Bitter Zion – which was often called Market Jew by the country people. Offshore, the Land of Lyonesse lied sunken with its 140 parish churches. Cornwall was one of the first counties of England to be Christianized, and almost the last to be subdued by the Saxon invaders. The ruins of King Arthur’s castle could be traced on the headland of Tintagel, and the story of Merlin was preserved, if not believed. Cornwall played its part in almost every English war. In 1924, Edward, Prince of Wales, was Duke of Cornwall because 600 years prior that honor was granted to the eldest son of the reigning king. It was not many years since wrecking was an established industry there. The county names were an everchanging delight. Could there be a more charming name for a church than St. Just in Roseland? One crossed by Slaughter Bridge straight into the remote and furious past. Almost every little seacoast town had its smugglers’ cave with a well-authenticated history. From the Lizard, the Spanish Armada was sighted and alarm fires were lighted. Oranges, lemons, and exotic palms grew in the balmy air.
It was in Cornwall that George Fox, Quaker, was chained in a dungeon for months. Here, John Wesley preached to congregations of 50,000. It was on the border of Cornwall that Jan Ward rode against the Doones, and, in 1924, John Ridd was a warden in the very church where Lorna Doone was shot down at the altar. Battered German submarines lied on the rocks below Castle Pendennis, and in the River Fal was the hull on an ancient frigate. She was once the Duguay Trouin and was captured at Trafalgar, her decks running with blood. Cornwall furnished the best hard-rock miners in the world, referred to as Cousin Jacks by the locals. They despised coal mining. Their ancestors had, for generations, searched for tin and cooper in at mines among the deepest in the world. Where gold, silver, and cooper were to be found as leaders in their craft. But they were clannish and socialized with others rarely. No more kindly or hospitable man existed than the Cornishman upon his native heath. Yet the Cornish were a race apart, just as Cornwall differed in aspect from it neighbor county, Devon. Formed of a union of the primitive tribes and the Brythonic race, which gave its name to Britain, an only slightly modified by successive invasions of Romans, Saxons, and Norsemen, they kept their own language until well into the 18th century. They still spoke of “going to England” as if it were a foreign country. They gave us the Cornish style of wrestling. Cornwall was the southwesternmost county of England. It was a great promontory. 75 miles in length, and 45 miles wide at its greatest, where the River Tamar bars it from Devon. It contained 1,356 square miles and 300,000 people. Thanks to the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf Stream on one flank of its triangle, and the sheltered waters of the English Channel on the other, its climate was so extraordinarily warm and equable that people referred to its coast as the Cornish Riviera. Snow seldom lied, and winter temperatures compared favorably to those of the Mediterranean. The winds were rough, especially in the highlands.

One took the 10:30 express from Paddington Station when one left London. It was one of the last remaining refuges of British conservatism. Its passengers were almost all Britons of good families and reduced income. American and other tourist were rarely to be found on it. It was 230 miles without a stop to Plymouth, through the charming English countryside. All green and gold and blue skies. Sometimes a castle crowned a hilltop, or a moated farm suggested the days of the first agricultural block and the Magna Charta. Fat cattle stood knee-deep in some little canal, on which a boat seemed out of place, as it moved slowly through the meadow. Panting sheep hung their heads in the shadow of the great elms; wain-loads of hay were pulled by horses. And then the moors and a cromlech or so. Those monuments of uncut stone were thought to predate the Druids, and may even belong to a period before the first Celts came to western Europe. Then one came to Falmouth, a hotel set in a lawn of emerald studded with flowering plants. The author’s party approached that unchanging land in dignity, and it was regrettable that after their arrival they became habitual passengers on the chars-a-bancs (motor coaches) that went roaring through the silent country to visit placed hardly altered since the beginning of the Christian Era. Lands End was the Celtic Pen-von-Las, which meant “the end of the earth.” The lighthouse there was named naves longae, or “long ships.” In the early centuries, Norsemen ravaged the Cornish coast again and again; and in 1924, there were families near Penzance which light hair appear at intervals, although Cornishmen were for the most part dark. British authorities agreed that the best way to do Cornwall thoroughly, one must go afoot; but that was more for exercise than the Cornish landscape. The author struck a happy medium. The better part of Cornwall, those delightful villages that beaded the sea edges, were to be seen by walking or climbing. But there were scores of miles of hard, fast road over the moors, and walking them was a waste of time.
The motor coach, or bus, had simplified travel in England, even if it had taken the romance out of it. There also were motor-cars on the roads, from dignified vehicles to the scuttling two-seater. All cars in Cornwall were alike in one thing, however, none of them ever put up their tops. Many did not even have tops. Rain did not bother the Cornishman. The author chose Falmouth for headquarters, for from that town the busses left daily in every direction. A map of his bussing in Cornwall resembled a spiderweb, each thread leading back to the town which owed its existence to a report made by Sir Walter Raleigh to Queen Elizabeth. There were other things to be said of Falmouth. There was St. Mawes Castle, and Castle Pendennis, on the other side of the harbor mouth. There were superb walks and drives, the craft of one yachting club after another were forever in the sheltered waters of the harbor, and steamer excursions up the twisting little rivers were worth taking. In 1924, it relied on its climate, for it was favored as a winter and a summer resort. Falmouth’s one time of great activity was during the World War. It was a base for convoys of merchant ships inbound from America and outbound with coal for France. They were targets for German submarines, three of which lied stranded on rocks below Castle Pendennis. The great central plateau of Cornwall was of interest to the businessman and to the archeologists. There were found the many small towns which depended on the copper- and tin-mining industries, on farming, or on the great pits from which clay was taken, some of which was sent to China for the manufacture of porcelain. For the most part, the copper and tin mines had gone too deep to be profitable. For that reason, one saw poverty and depression in so many places on the moors. The Cornishman was a born gambler in hard rock. When it became difficult to attract outside capital, he organized his own local concerns to work mines.

The failure of the mines not only bankrupted their owners, but drove them into other lands. In 1924, one saw a pitiful succession of empty houses on the moors – fine, square, granite-built houses that would endure the weather for centuries. Almost every Cornishman one met away from home was a miner by trade. No part of England was as rich in prehistoric antiquities as Cornwall. The numerous Cornish crosses dated from between the fifth and twelfth centuries, when Cornwall was Christianized by saints from Ireland. The crosses may have been set up as road-markers, or as wayside shrines. The crosses were well located, beside a spring of clear water and a hill, warm in the afternoon sun. Of the pre-Druidic monuments, no one knew anything. The author’s party preferred to see something they could appreciate and understand. So, they headed off to Lands End one fine Cornish morning. The bus of the day was arsenical green and thunderously loud. From time to time, they passed other busses ladened with poor souls who had traveled in that fashion all the way from London. The man who sat along with us in the bus was Cornish, and hence friendly and talkative. One found all Cornishmen thus. It was the Cornishman who introduced them to Tregeagle, as they banged down the long main street of Helston. Tregeagle was a legendary giant of a man, like our Paul Bunyan. In 1924, Helston’s claim to fame rested on the annual celebration of Furry Day on May 8. It may once have been the Roman Flora Day. The villagers, men and women, hand in hand, danced up and down the flower-decorated village streets, singing a song to a merry, tinkling little tune. Helston’s modest little Saturnalia held out against the Wesleyan influence, but in the sober days preceding the World War, its rites were maimed and altered, until, one year, they were omitted completely. Since then, the popular appreciation had been revived, and 1924’s Furry Day attracted attention all over the west of England.
On the road to St. Michaels Mount they roared through Marazion – only a little village in 1924, yet it was once the chief port for that coast in Phoenician times. A stone causeway, covered by the tide 16 hours a day, led from Marazion to St Michaels Mount, one of the extraordinary places on the coast. The rugged hill, 230 feet high, was crowned by a castle and a chapel, around which hoary legends lingered. Not long ago, a secret dungeon was found, in which was the skeleton of a man in armor. The Mount itself was smaller than Mont St. Michel in Normandy, but the resemblance was striking. Another legend of the coast was that of Saint Keyne, who came from Wales in the fifth century, and was the first feminist in Britain. She no only believed in women’s rights, but did her best to insure them. A Cornishman wanted them to walk down to the pier and look at the brass foot which marked the place whereon Queen Victoria first stepped when she visited the Mount; just as at Penzance they named the Albert Pier because the Prince Consort was mistakenly landed there. Penzance was the next town. Granite, bare, cobbled, dusty, prosperous, and commonplace. Yet in Market Jew Street was a huge statue to celebrate chemist and inventor of the miner’s safety lamp, Sir Humphry Davy, who was born there. A magnificent semitropical garden flourished in the semitropical air of this well-protected nook of the coast, where there was a range of but 16 degrees between mean summer heat and mean winter cold. “The Pirates of Penzance” was based on a sound historical foundation. The town was ravaged, even in the 18th century, by Turkish and Algerian sea rovers; but, in 1924, it was a dull, little place. Except for the summer and winter resorts, little had been built in the past few centuries. There were few manor houses and even fewer castles, for Cornwall was never a rich agricultural country, and only older ones were worth visiting for their beauty.

The squat churches, huddled away from the winter storms on the bare uplands, were striking by reason of their high, square towers, which were a county characteristic. Some of them date back to Doomsday times, back to 1200 A. D. Hardly a year passed that some cleric did not scrape a coat of whitewash off the walls of his little church and find a mural painting which was covered over in Parliamentary times to save it from the Puritans. Many of those little churches had queer mosaics, made up of bits of statuary hammered to pieces by Cromwell’s agents. But the attraction of Cornwall for the visitor was largely that conferred by Nature. Lands End itself lacked that soft beauty. It was rude, barbaric, with a constant note of danger in the air. One came to it over bare moors, set with a few stone houses, roofs clamped down by huge stones. The wind whistled chilly on the sunniest day. The riders on the author’s bus buttoned their overcoats and grew silent. Sea gulls, in great flocks, tore at the tonic grass in the gray meadows. The half-maritime nature of farming thereabouts was shown by the halves of fishing boats, overturned to serve as pigsties and chicken-houses. One recalled the stories of the good old days, when wrecks that came ashore on the ferocious coast were welcomed. Dark stories were told of the wholesale murder of survivors of particularly rich wrecks. One passed the Last Inn in England, which, when one faced away from the Point of Land, became the First Inn. It held that distinction for centuries, but, in 1924, there was a modern glass-fronted eating-place on the promontory. Further down toward the cliff edge was a stone shanty, the first and last house in England. One wandered by slippery sheep paths on the edge of the cliffs. On the calmest day the thunder of the great, Atlantic surges was unending. After a storm the air was filled with spray, so that the salt formed heavy on one’s face. Visible on a clear day were the Scilly Isles, and between them and the land lied Lyonesse and its 140 sunken parish churches.
Between Lands End and the Lizard, on which point stood the great Lizard Head Light, that threw its beams 21 miles to sea, was one of the grandest portions of the Cornish coast. It was only to be seen by the determined pedestrian, who followed paths up and along the cliffs which would appall a goat. Every mile of that coast had its tragic history of wrecks. It was near there that Pirate Emery buried his chest of gold in the sands, for which optimists still searched [in 1924]. Those grisly stories did not mar one’s pleasure in the marvelous beauty of the ever-changing scene. The seas were rough, so fishing boats were framed heavy and were broad of beam. The needle-point rocks could rip the bottom out an unlucky craft that touched them. But inland, each little cove seemed a veritable suntrap, sweet and warm in the sheltered places. Along the coast one needed a guide, for the tide rose quickly and there were many traps from which there was no escape. Nerby was St. Sennen Church town, where a battle was once fought, with King Author and the seven Cornish kings on one side and the Danes on the other. In the church at Mullion Town a devil’s door was provided, through which he may escape when a child was baptized. The bus pounded along with its mute load until conversation was released by entrance into a dulcet lane. Huge trees overhung the road from either side, while flowering shrubs graced the stone walls. In Cornwall, one had such wide range of choice of destinations, from ocean resorts with girls in one-piece suits daring the waves, to a visit to one of the two oldest Christian churches in Great Britain, St. Pirans. St. Pirans – the Little Lost Church, the country people called it – had an air. It was on a Sunday morning that the took a bus from Falmouth for the little village of Perranporth. They dropped into it suddenly, through a rut in the sandy hills, and found the tide roaring over the stone jetty, in the strong wind.

They sought the path to the Little Lost Church, but needed a guide, for one could get lost in the moors. The country folk had spotted their waste with rows of stones that were kept whitewashed for their own guidance. A Cornishman, Jack, took them on his one-horse shay, which resemble a funeral car. “Follow the white stones,” said Jack. “Never leave them, mind.” The little church of St. Piran – some archeologist said was the first church built in England – was but a tiny quadrangle of ruined walls. Twice it was overwhelmed by sand and twice rebuilt in a new location. The present church of Perranporth, itself of respectable antiquity, stood well inland. Only a few years prior, the Little Lost Church was unearthed; then came a plague of tourists. They took away carvings and looted bones, until it had a tourist-proof dome of concrete was built over it, through which a doorway one peeped, but could not enter. Newquay was a port of a different sort. Once dependent upon the pilchard fisheries, in 1924 it relied on the summer visitor for its profits. It was difficult to imagine a resort that had been more favored by Nature. Fenced about by rolling hills, it faced the sea with a barricade of towering cliffs, into which the untiring waves had cut five great bays, which spread from a common center like the fingers of a hand. In those bays the sand were warm and the waters gentle. Thereabouts one saw the Duke of Argyll’s conveniences, which were stone posts set up in the middle of fields to afford cattle the luxury of scratching. Not many years before, pilchard fishing was one of the chief treasures of the county. Even in 1924, the Cornish toast was “Fish, Tin, and Copper.” But not for years had the pilchard fishing amounted to much on the Cornish coast. When the pilchards were running, they appeared as a flake of fluttering purple on the blue-green sea. They were seen at a distance from the high cliffs. When the pilchard came, and they came at long intervals, though never in numbers once known, they were pressed and salted for shipment to Spain.
When they started for Tintagel, the hedgers were at work with their hooks. At St. Columb we pulled up for a moment at the door of the Red Lion Inn, under the red lion itself. As the author dodged about with his camera for a shot of the Red Lion, rain began to fall. They hammered into Tintagel over the blowy moors. There was one of the most remarkable monuments of antiquity in all England. Whether or not King Arthur ever held his Round Table in the gray old castle that once crowned Tintagel Head, it was certain that it dated back to an unfathomable age. In 1924, Tintagel was but a tracery of crumbling walls crowning a vast headland, at the foot of which the most superb seas of Cornwall crashed and glittered. The castle was in two parts, separated by a deep ravine which, legend said, was once bridged. The village of Tintagel may once have given birth to a king, but in 1924 it was only a tiny place, chiefly remarkable for a house of the 14th century which served as a model of an artistic home. But it was the landscape that demanded attention in that rough country, where the coastline had been work out in a rude pattern by a restless sea. Not far away was Boscastle, as dear a resort for artists as was St. Ives, nearer to the Point of Land. And all about were the places told by Sir Thomas Malory in his story of the Death of King Author: Camelford and Dozmare. Beauty was so constant thereabouts that it could have grown monotonous if it were not for the stern relief of the dun moors. On them were sturdy Cornish churches, as heavy-walled as forts against the weather. Then one descended into valleys that were bowers of beauty; or encountered a brisk watering place as Bude, where the sun seemed to always shine on the white sands; or Ilfracombe, nestled in a nook of the cliffs. So, they came to Porlock and its 300-year-old Ship Inn. It was true that they were no longer in Cornwall. Porlock was of Somerset and more particularly of the Somerset Hunt. They were bound for the Doone Valley.

Porlock seemed a fit resting place on the way, and then they fell under the spell of the old inn, with its “crazy flooring” of water-worn flags and the peephole in the wall of the great fireplace. And there was Porlock church, with a very ancient yew tree in the yard. Then there was the hunt. Tall, lean, tanned Englishmen and women, clad in horse-riding attire, came to discuss horses, the weather, and brown ale. The pretty maids trotted in with tankards of bitters and plates of cold beef. Grooms walked horses in the street. Posters adorned the wall, setting forth the terms on which one might hunt with the Somersets. The first hunt of the season was on, the purpose of which was to drive the deer from the waterside coverts to the moors. They learned the methods and manners of the hunt from a ripe old coachman. From a kennel at County Gate came the clamor of foxhounds. So, they came to the Valley of the Doones. The saw the Waterslide and the remnants of the Doone forts, and the little church where Lorna was shot down at the altar. So, back across the base of the Cornish triangle to Fowey, most delightful of small towns, once a seaport that bade defiance to England’s fleet, and the present [in 1924] Troy Town of Quiller-Couch’s story. And not far away were St. Just in Roseland and Polperro, with fishermen mending their nets and calking boats upon the shore. Then Plymouth and the London express.

The third and last article (fourth item) listed on this month’s cover is entitled “With an Exile in Arctic Siberia” and was written by Vladimir M. Zenzinov. It has the internal subtitle: “The Narrative of a Russian Who Was Compelled to Turn Polar Explorer for Two Years.” The article contains thirty black-and-white photographs taken by the author. Only one of those photos is full-page in size. The article also contains a sketch map of Siberia on page 699.

Sketch Map courtesy of Philip Riviere
Twelve years ago, the author was compelled to turn Polar explorer. Without any trial, he was banished for five years to the Yakutsk Territory of northeastern Siberia. This was the third time he had been exiled by the Tsarist Government. The previous two times – from Archangel and from the city of Yakutsk – the author managed to escape and resume his political activities. Special precautions were therefore taken this time. He was deported to the farthest possible north, where no escape was thought possible. The settlement to which he was banished was called Russkoe Ustye. Even in the city of Yakutsk there was only a vague knowledge of that remote village – forgotten by God and man. It was situated under latitude 71 degrees 1 minute North, and longitude 149 degrees 26 minutes East, near where the Indigirka River entered the Arctic Ocean. Russkoe Ustye was remote. From Irkutsk, the Siberian metropolis, to the city of Yakutsk was 2,000 miles along the Trans-Siberian Railroad. From Yakutsk to Russkoe Ustye was another 2,000 miles. They traveled by horse from Irkutsk to Yakutsk; it took about a month. From there, the journey got difficult. It was only possible to travel to Russkoe Ustye in winter, when the rivers, marshes, lakes, and impassable swamps had frozen. The author was sent from Yakutsk under the guard of a Cossack, whose job was to prevent the author from escaping again. They started at the beginning of December 1912. After traveling only 130 miles, they exchanged their horses for reindeer. Those in turn were exchanged for fresh animals from time to time at various nomad camps. Their road laid through encampments of Yakuts, Tungus, and Yukaghirs, for there were no Russian settlements in the region. They reached the Indigirka River around the middle of February. The remainder of the trip was made by dog-sledge, more than 60 miles distance. Thus, the entire distance of 4,000 miles was covered by horse, reindeer, and dog, in about two and a half months.
As the crow flies, Russkoe Ustye was nearer to the North Pole than it was to the nearest large city, Yakutsk, which itself was regarded as an out-of-the-way place. They traveled north through primeval forests (the taiga), deep ravines, winding channels, snow-filled beds of rivers, and crossed tall, rocky, mountains. At night, sometimes they stayed at a nomad’s tent or a hut constructed for travelers. They traveled during the coldest part of the year. The mercury neve rose above 20 degrees below zero (centigrade), and most of the time it was -50 degrees C. Once, at Verkhoyansk, the temperature reached -71 degrees C. Far worse, and more dangerous than the cold were the snowstorms. Only the experience of their Yakut and Tungus guides brought them through alive. One of those blizzards overtook them New Years Day, they spent the night in a hut buried in snow. Descending from a spur of the Yablonoi Mountains, they left the Siberian taiga and entered the Arctic tundra. The farther north they went, the nearer they approached the open sea. The vegetation grew evermore scant. Throughout the whole course of the Indigirka River, 950 miles in length, Russkoe Ustye was considered the largest settlement. But it consisted of six dwelling houses only. The population of that settlement numbered 22 souls. All the colonies along the Indigirka River, scattered along its course in settlements of from two to four cottages each, did not comprise more than 400 people. Those Russians represented islets in a sea of the aboriginal Yakuts, Tungus, and other tribes. The aboriginal lived as nomads, raising reindeer, while the Russians had a settlement mode of existence along the banks of the river, and use dogs instead of reindeer. This was a peculiar and isolated little world. The inhabitants clung tenaciously to their ancient customs. They had preserved their Russian language, unlike the other Russians living in the northeaster part of the Yakutsk Territory.

The author was fortunate to find, among a pile of old documents in a deserted hut at Russkoe Ustye, some papers showing that Russians reach the Indigirka in the 16th century. There was good reason to assume that those pioneers came by boat from European Russia over the Arctic Ocean, and not by land, from Yakutsk. Those Russians along the banks of the Indigirka seemed to have existed in a state of abiosis [sic] for centuries, cut off from the rest of the human race by impassable swamps and boundless distances. There, the nearest points of “civilization were Ust-Yansk, a village of about 30 dwellings 300 miles to the west, and Nizhne Kolymsk, with 25 houses, the same distance to the east. None of the inhabitants had ever gone beyond those two points, and none had ever been to Yakutsk. There were no postal communications. Answers to official correspondence was obtained from Yakutsk after one and a half years, and that only by special messenger. The author was able to receive mail twice a year, at the beginning and the end of winter. At those times, they were visited by traders from the south, who brought merchandise from Yakutsk to trade for furs from the local hunters and trappers. Not once did a letter reach him earlier than after seven or eight months. For some time, the author’s arrival at Russkoe Ustye was a most extraordinary event. For some time, he was visited not only by the natives, but by those of neighboring settlements as well. They examined him very carefully. Many of the thing he brought they had never seen. They revered his Winchester rifle, which the Governor of Yakutsk allowed him to have. Most of the natives were armed with bows and arrows, or with spears, with which they braved polar bears. A few had poor shotguns. They did not understand many of the things he brought, such as thermometer, books, and a camera. Especially awe inspiring was his kerosine lamp. He had brought twenty pounds of oil. Many called expressly to see the lamp.
For 20 rubles a year, the author rented a house from one of the citizens of Russkoe Ustye and established himself according to his tastes. His interior arrangements, the pictures and the calendar on the wall, dishes, samovar, and books aroused the keenest and most persistent curiosity throughout his stay. A philosopher and an economist by education, the author was forced to turn physician, meteorologist, zoologist, botanist, ornithologist, photographer, carpenter, and what not. For many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles around, he was the only civilized and educated human being, and his semi-barbaric neighbors came to him for all kinds of advice, including medical. The author collected zoological, botanical, and ethnographical specimens. Many, he sent back to Moscow. After he returned to civilization, he wrote several books about the region. The author had to do everything by himself. With the aid of his Winchester and some nets, he obtained his food – reindeer, wild geese, fish. He had to do his own cooking; he kept his cottage in repair, and gathered firewood and ice (which replaced water) for the kitchen. When asked if he was lonely during his exile, he said that he had no time to feel lonesome. In appearance, Russkoe Ustye was nothing but a miserable cluster of a few snow-swept huts and barns. In every direction, as far as the eye could see, there was snow, snow, snow. Amid the monotonous landscape of that white desert, one distinguished with great difficulty the cottages, half hidden from sight by snow piled up against them. The settlement was especially dreary during November and December, when the sun disappeared altogether from the horizon, and the dim twilight, called “daylight,” lasted only two to three hours. The winter nights were, at times, magnificent. The stars appeared a 3 o’clock in the afternoon and remained until 11 the next morning. Almost every night there was a most brilliant northern illumination.

Owing to the nearness of the sea, the cold there rarely registered lower than -50 degrees C., but winter blizzards were frequent and terrible. Woe to the traveler overtaken by such a storm on the road! In the course of a night, those hurricanes were liable to bury one’s cottage, roof and all, leveling the snow so that a person could have driven across without suspecting that a human dwelling was underneath. The author’s house was, on several occasions, snowed under, and he was forced, molelike, to dig a tunnel in order to get out. The annual temperature at Russkoe Ustye was the lowest of all the places where meteorological observations had been made. It was also one of the northernmost inhabited spots on the globe. The winter lasted eight long months, from September till May. The summers were warmer than one would expect, the temperature in the sun reached 30 degrees C. (86 degrees F.), but it was rare that a summer passed without a snowstorm. A summer “day,” during which the sun never disappeared below the horizon, lasted almost three months – from April 28 till July 20. The Indigirka generally thawed at the beginning of June. The flora was of the scantiest. In summer, the ground thawed to a depth of only two feet, below that it was forever frozen. Throughout that region, there were no forests. The shrub of the willow extended 10 miles from the sea, but Russkoe Ustye was 45 miles from the Arctic Ocean. There, even grass ceased to grow. In summer, no matter where one turned, one could see nothing but swamps. In the spring and summer, the Indigirka brought from the south large numbers of fallen trees. Those were eagerly picked off the banks, for firewood and building material. The staple food of the natives was fish, which was taken in summer as well as winter (under the ice). Seafood also fed the dogs. The local fish was excellent, especially the muksun, which belonged to the salmon family.
Of bread, the natives were completely ignorant. Frozen bread was brought in by the wealthiest of traders, who treated their friends to it as one might treat a person to chocolate. The traders also brought sugar, but it was regarded as a great delicacy, and even the wealthiest of families served it to their guests only on holidays. Reindeer meat added some variety to the native’s menu, but the animal was rare thereabouts. Other necessities were obtained by trading the skins of the arctic fox. Traders from the south brought all kinds of articles for barter. Besides arctic fox and reindeer in winter, there also were hares and polar bears. Native birds included the white partridge and white owl. Swamp birds in overwhelming numbers began to arrive about the end of May – geese, cranes, ducks, gulls, swans, and all kinds of snipes. That tempestuous arrival, after the oppressive silence of winter, seemed like a triumphant bacchanalia. Every little puddle, every tiny hummock, became a whole world pulsing with life. One flock replaced another, and it seemed that the migrants felt crowded, even in that boundless vacuum. It was hard to describe the noise after the dreary silence of winter. Sleep and food seemed bothersome details. Early in the morning, the gabbling of the geese drove the author from his bed, and grabbing his rifle, he started across the swamp and snow for the tundra. In the evening, he would return, tired and achy. Even his dreams were full of the cries of birds and the beating of wings. Due to their primitive weapons, the natives had no way of utilizing that spring migration of birds to add to their supple of food; but during summer, they gathered geese in enormous quantities. Geese in that region molted between the 8th and the 20th of July, losing almost all their feathers at once. Until new feathers grew, they were flightless. During the molting season, the birds collected into huge flocks, millions of them, near the sea and along the shore of the Arctic Ocean.

The native hunters knew where the geese gathered, and organized hunting parties in small canoes. The boats had to be carried from swamp to swamp on the journey to the coast. The author joined one of those expeditions. The place where they hunted was 70 miles north of Russkoe Ustye. The hunting, as well as the conditions under which they lived, were most arduous. They were amid swamps, and even had to sleep in swamps. The geese at that place were overwhelming in numbers. From afar, the flocks on the water appeared like huge islands. Their hunting party of 15 men bagged not less than 4,500 birds. Nets were spread like traps along the shore, and the men in canoes surrounded a flock and drove it ashore. Once the flock was in the nets, the nets were drawn tight. Then the killing began. Their necks were broken. After a few minutes of work, a mountain of dead birds piled up. The entire booty was equally divided among the men. The geese were buried on the spot, in the mud, and left to rot of several weeks. The food was used primarily for the dogs, but the hunters ate it as well. Tainted food was not objectionable. The author was offered his share, but refused, merely taking ten live birds. To those birds the author tied letters to his loved ones, hoping one might be found when the birds returned to warm climates. The author found out later that none of his letters reached Moscow. Their homeward journey was even more difficult. They had to paddle against the current, and facing strong winds. On the return trip, the author experienced another kind of hunt – a hunt for mammoth ivory. Mammoth tusks, buried for centuries, were found on the washed-away shore. They were fortunate enough to find a tusk weighing over 100 pounds. In the past century, the yield ivory from Siberia was estimated at between 20 to 30 tons. Their expedition lasted a month. Living closely with the men, he learned how primitive their spiritual life was. It was a hodge-podge of shamanism, paganism, and Christianity.
Notwithstanding his interest in that strange world in which he was forced to live, the author felt solitude, and isolation from civilization oppressed him beyond endurance. After more than a year at Russkoe Ustye, he attempted to escape. He had reindeer, a sledge, and a travel outfit. He asked travelers about the route and made friends among the natives. He fled east, toward the Chukots tundra, and across the Kolyma River to Cape Dezhneva. There, he intended to cross the frozen Bering Strait to Alaska. The author had permission to move freely about his district, but unfortunate for him, he fame preceded him and he was recognized when trying to cross the Kolyma with no explanation why he wanted to travel further east. He was compelled to turn back and return to his district, where police authorities were waiting. The remaining three years of the author’s exile were spent at the tiny settlement of Bulun, on the lower Lena, where a steamer from Yakutsk called twice during the summer, and in winter the mail arrived once every two months. At Bulun, he no longer felt so completely cut off from civilization, but life was not as interesting as it was at Russkoe Ustye. Upon his return to Russia after his banishment, the author published several books dealing with that region. He felt further scientific study of that part of the world should be made. It was instructive to know just how the struggle for existence was carried out by men whom fate had driven them to the farthest limits where human life was possible.

Tom Wilson