A few moments and we were in front of the house—and old ruin, at one time an elegant mansion, but which now is cut up into four or five houses. The open door disclosed the ball-room and the gay dancers. A few kerosene lamps were fastened to the walls, and about a dozen colored men and women were dancing to the most melancholy music I ever heard. It was some sort of a waltz, so slow that the dancers almost crept along the floor without the least animation, enthusiasm, or, apparently, pleasure.
The room was rather small, and the twenty or thirty persons who were the participants in the festivities were more crowded that was either comfortable or convenient. They were all colored people, with here and there a Spanish face, all belonging to the poorer classes. A crowd of black boys, young lads of fourteen and sixteen, crowded around the door outside. In a corner of an adjoining room was a sort of refreshment saloon, where a filthy fellow sold rum and horrible-looking cakes and candies.
The men were pretty well dressed; the women wore white gowns of muslin, and—the only favorable thing I can say about it—there did not seem to be anything like vice or immorality. They were enjoying themselves in their own way, which, I am glad to say, is not our way.
I do not know how long the ball lasted, but I am told that parties of this character rarely break up before 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning.
THE THEATRE.
Last Thursday morning the Dominican flag was raised over the solid stone walls of the old Jesuit monastery, now used as a theatre, which told the city that there was to be a performance there that evening by the permission of the Government. In a few hours handbills were distributed through the city, but so far as I could see none were posted on the dead walls—which heaven knows are numerous enough.
The play was entitled The Grand Comedy of La Levita. The prices of admission were set down as follows: Boxes three dollars; forty-five cents, thirty cents, and twenty-five cents to the other portions of the house, orchestra, dress-circle and galleries, as we would call them.
This San Domingo theatre is absolutely indescribable. I made my way in through the grand old doorway of the building and found myself in what was once the vestibule of the chapel. It was at least one hundred feet from the floor to the arched ceiling. The nave of the church is railed and boarded off from the aisles and in this apartment the audience were seated on rude benches. The stage occupies a portion of the place once devoted to the altar and the sanctuary.
A sort of balcony runs around the entire hall, rectangular in shape. This balcony is divided off into boxes, which, so far from being private, are really the most public portions of the building.
I formed one of a party of gentlemen who took one of these for the evening. We laughed very heartily when we saw the place which bore this high-sounding title. There was not a single chair or seat of any description in it, and when we came to the performance, we were obliged to bring with us chairs from the hotel!
The President's box was opposite to our own; but its sole occupant during the evening was a little boy who had the Bacz features and head, and we afterward found that we were not wrong in our supposition.
Only two other boxes were occupied—one, next to our own, in which sat Mr. WADE, Mr. WHITE and Mr. DOUGLASS. The box opposite that of the Commissioners contained half a dozen colored women and children and one or two men. There were not altogether more than 350 people in the hall, and they were, for the most part, of the lower and poorer classes.
The sepulchral vault was made more dingy than it really was by the score of oil-lamps on the walls, and the atrocious strumming of a couple of fiddles and drumming of a couple of drums.
The stage was very good in its way, and the most attractive portion of the building. The drop-scene was far better than could be expected under the circumstances. On it was painted a picture of the old church at Santiago, to which something remarkable happened at some time or another—nothing less, I believe, than its total destruction by fire or war. Close by the church was a palace, which was pretty well executed, and showed a little skill if not genius in the artist. He knew something about the laws of perspective, but his cloud coloring was something more even than tropical.
The company was composed of two women and three or four men, all members of the same family, I am told, an arrangement which has its disadvantages as well as its advantages. The performance was the dreariest I ever witnessed. The dialogue was in Spanish, and by no means entertaining. One of the ladies, however, was rather pretty, and she was the only attraction which kept some of us in our seats during the last half of the play.
The performance began at 8 o'clock. I do not know when it ended, and I am not altogether certain that it is over yet. I have not attended the theatre since, and I do not intend to go there again...
J. P. F.
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The New York Times, April 12, 1873, p.3:
Return to San Domingo CityThe Sugar Interest—Tobacco...
From Our Special Correspondent
San Domingo, Hotel Du Commerce Wednesday, March 19, 1873.
While we linger here in expectation of the Tybee, we are, unfortunately, debarred by the weather from visiting certain points in the south that are of interest. These are notably Azua, to the west of San Domingo City, and various small ports to the eastward, in the undeveloped but rich province of Seybo, the southern half of which is one extended plain, diversified by fine rivers, some of which are navigable fro a short distance from the mouth. At Azua the spirit of progress has come personified by a French company of exploitation. The word, I'm aware, is not English, but the English language does not contain anything that expresses it.
The leading man of this association is a M. Schacher, a Belgian, who has for a long time made his home in Paris, and who is certainly worth from $5,000,000 to $6,000,000. He has establishments in various parts of France, in South Germany, in Russia, and in the Island of Guadaloupe.
In this last place he established what the French call an "Usine Centrale," which is an immense mill for crushing sugar cane, used by every one within carrying distance. The toll is paid either in money or cane, or the manager will purchase all the cane that is brought to the mills.
It is, I understand, the intention of the company to have a similar mill at Azua, which is the centre of the sugar-producing region of the south. The method of crushing here is lamentably rustic, and could not have been endured by a people less idle than the Dominicans. There are two wooden rollers fixed in a stand, each of which is armed with a tolerably long handle. The rollers are about six inches in diameter and two feet long. Between these the cane is placed, and two men turn the handle and crush by inches, as one may say, the juice falling into a very small tub below.
In spite of these primitive methods the rough sugar produced is very good, and the molasses is without doubt the best in the world, infinitely superior to the golden syrup so beloved of fair Americans when in conjunction with corn-bread.
If I were a capitalist, or a bloated bondholder, or any thing of the sort, I would certainly purchase all the molasses in the south and ship it to New-York. At present there is no sale for it, and it is converted into rum at forty cents the gallon. Before Spofford Bros. sent the Tybee to these waters it was only twenty, but since communication has been opened between San Domingo and Puerta Plata the price has doubled, and there is a constant demand for the article in the northern city.
The Frenchmen, therefore, have every prospect of success before them as regards the cane...
But besides erecting central mills the French company designs to erect buildings to extract dyes from the various woods of this island. I know only of logwood and fustic, but am informed that this party is aware of others at present unknown to the world. It is obvious that by extracting these colors on the spot an immense saving will be effected. Heretofore the logs ahve been sent to Europe and America, and being bulky have cost large sums for transportation. Mons. Schacher thinks he will be able to do this, which I believe has never before been attempted, because the processes involved more skill and care than such laborers as are to be found in the regions of the dyewoods could furnish.
...I myself doubt the expediency of attempting to make a harbor of Azua, since it is only an open roadstead, like Puerta Plata, but there is some fatality about this island. All the excellent harbors have been ignored, and those that are in existence are either unsafe or else only fitted to vessels of very light draught.
For example, here is San Domingo. If a vessel draws more than ten feet of water, she must remain outside in the open roadstead. Now Romana, about two days' sail from San Domingo, is, I am informed, and excellent harbor, and well suited in every respect for heavy craft. Romana is the natural outlet of the Province of Seybo, the most neglected part of the island. Not far from this port is the City of Higuey, where, in consequence of the increasing demand for tobacco, some inhabitants have been stimulated to try and cultivate it. Curiously enough, the tobacco they succeeded in raising was so superior in quality that the aristocracy of San Domingo will smoke no other.
It is unfortunate that the plan of annexation was crushed by Senator Sumner, because, under American rule and with American enterprise, this province of Seybo might be made very renumerative. The northern half is very hilly, but the southern portion is one immense plain, stretching in unbroken verdure from the Ozama to the sea.
This great expanse is covered with sweet, nutritious grass, and here the finest cattle are raised. Almost all the beef of the island comes from this region, and herds are driven across, I will not say how many ranges, to Puerta Plata.
The map of Col. Fabens is about as inaccurate as can be imagined, not so much in positive errors as in omissions. The entire centre of the island is a sea of hills and mountains, and it is not until you get to San Juan that there is the least trace of a plain. From this point there is a valley which, sometimes broad, sometimes narrow, creeps up on to the hills of the Haytian frontier.
West of Santiago there is a long narrow plain—the valley of the Yaqui—which broadens as it approaches the sea. The valley of the Yuna and the Camu, popularly known as the Vega, is much broader, and in fertility very superior to these. But Seybo is really the only part where there is a fine plain, and here it would have been natural to suppose a city would have arisen of considerable magnitude. Such, however, has not been the case, and the traveler who considers the location of the old cities built by the Spaniards, will at once see that the considerations which guided them were either military or had reference to mining.
Not only does tobacco grow well on these plains, but the sugar-cane has succeeded as well here as in the neighborhood of Azua, and there are sugar plantations at a little place called Macoris, about one day's sail from San Domingo. These are not worked to any great extent, for want of capital, but would be found renumerative to any one with $50,000. One-tenth of this sum I have assigned for obtaining Chinese labor. The fact is, that the population here is very scant... there is not a population greater than 145,000, whereas in Hayti there must be nearly 800,000, and their territory is only one-third of the extent of Dominica...
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