From Pole to Pole

S >> Sven Anders Hedin >> From Pole to Pole

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But when he was led in chains through the streets of Cadiz, the scene of
his former triumph, the displeasure of the people was aroused, and at
the Court Columbus met with a friendly reception. He even succeeded in
fitting out a fourth expedition and crossed the Atlantic in nineteen
days. The new Governor forbade him to land, and Columbus expressed his
indignation that he, the discoverer, should not be allowed to set foot
on his own islands. He then steered westwards and came to the coast of
Honduras, and thence followed the coast of Nicaragua southwards. He
fully and firmly believed that this was Malacca, and that farther south
would be found a passage to India proper. He sailed back towards Cuba,
but was driven by bad weather to Jamaica, where in great extremity he
had to run his ship ashore. One of his trusty men rowed for four days in
a canoe over the open sea to Haiti to beg for help. Meanwhile the
shipwrecked men were in hard case. The natives threatened them, and
refused them all help. Columbus knew that an eclipse of the moon would
shortly occur, and told the natives that if they would not help them,
the God of the Spaniards would for ever deprive them of the light of the
moon. And when the shadow of the earth began to move over the moon's
disc, the natives were terrified, fell at the feet of Columbus, and
promised him everything. He pretended to consider the matter, but at
last allowed himself to be persuaded and promised that they should keep
their moon. And then the shadow moved off quietly into space, leaving
the moon as bright as a silver shield.

At last he received assistance, and in 1504 was back in Spain. No one
now paid any attention to him. His property was confiscated, his titles
were not restored to him, and even the outstanding pay of his followers
was kept back. Ill with gout and vexation, he stayed at first in
Seville. His former friends did not know him. Lonely and crushed down by
grief and disappointment, he died in 1506 at Valladolid. No one took any
notice of his decease, and not a chronicle of the time contains a word
about his death. Even in the grave he seemed to find no rest. He was
first interred quietly in Valladolid; then his remains were transferred
to a monastery church in Seville; half a lifetime later his body was
carried to San Domingo in Haiti, where it rested for 250 years until it
was deposited in the cathedral of Havana in Cuba; and finally, when Cuba
was lost to the United States, the remains of the great discoverer were
again brought back to Spain.

Columbus was a tall, powerfully built man, with an aquiline nose, a pink
and freckled complexion, light-blue eyes and red hair, which early
became white in consequence of much thought and great sorrows. During
four centuries of admiration and detraction his life and character have
been dissected and torn to bits. Some have seen in him a saint, a
prophet; others have called him a crafty adventurer, who stole
Toscanelli's plan in order to gain power, honour, and wealth for
himself. But when, about twenty years ago, the fourth century since his
discovery was completed, full amends were made to his memory and his
achievements were celebrated throughout the world. He opened new fields
for unborn generations, he extended the bounds of the earth, and guided
the world's history into new channels.

Four years before the death of Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci of Florence,
who made four voyages across the ocean, suggested that the new lands had
nothing to do with Asia, but were a "New World" in distinction to the
Old; and a German schoolmaster, who wrote a geographical text-book,
suggested in the introduction that as the fourth continent had been
discovered by Amerigo Vespucci (Americus Vesputius), there was no reason
why it should not be called Amerigo or America after its discoverer. The
proposal was accepted, and only too late was it realised that Columbia
would have been the proper name.

One discovery followed after another, and the coasts of America
gradually assumed on charts and maps the form with which we are
familiar. Let us for a moment dwell on another of the most striking
voyages in the history of the world. In the year 1519 the Portuguese
Magelhaens sailed along the east coast of South America and discovered
the strait which still bears his name; and what is more, he found at
last, through this strait, the western passage to India. He sailed over
an immense ocean, where the weather was good and no storms threatened
his ships; and accordingly he called it the Pacific Ocean. Other
dangers, however, awaited him. The mariners sailed for four months over
unbroken sea, suffering from hunger and disease. At last three of the
vessels reached the Philippines. There Magelhaens landed with a small
party, and was overpowered and slain by the natives. Only one of the
ships, the _Victoria_, came home, but this was the first vessel which
sailed round the world.

During the succeeding centuries white men struck their claws ever firmer
into America. The Indians were forced back into the backwoods, and in
North America they have been almost exterminated. Under French, and
later, under English rule, those parts of North America have developed
an unexpected power and wealth which were despised by the Spaniards, who
in their boundless greed of gain thought of nothing but gold.

NEW YORK

In a house in a Swedish countryside sit an old man and woman talking
seriously.

"It is a great pity," says the old woman, "that Gunnar is beginning to
think of America again."

"Yes, he will never rest," replies the old man, "till we have given our
consent and let him go. To-day he says that an emigration 'touter' has
promised him gold and green forests if he will take a ticket for one of
the Bremen line steamers. I reminded him that the farm is unencumbered,
but he answered that it could not provide for both his brothers and
himself. 'It was a very different thing for you, father,' he said, 'but
there are three of us to divide the produce.' He thinks it is a hopeless
task to grub in our poor stony hills, when boundless plains in the
western states of North America are only waiting to be ploughed, and in
any factory he can be earning wages so large as to yield a small income
for several years."

"Yes, indeed, I know, it is his cousins who have put this fancy in his
head with their glowing letters. But I suppose we cannot prevent him
going if his heart is set on it?"

"What can we do? He is a free man and must go his own way."

"Well, perhaps it is best. When he is home-sick he will come back
again."

"I am afraid it will be long enough before that happens. At starting all
seems so fine. 'I shall soon come home with a small pile.' In reality
all his memories will grow faint within a year, and the distance to the
red cottage will seem to grow longer as time flies. I mourn for him as
dead already; he will never come back."

* * * * *

A few days after this our emigrant Gunnar breaks all ties and tears up
all the roots which since his birth have held him bound to the soil of
Sweden. He travels by the shortest route to Bremen and steps on board an
emigrant steamer for New York. During the long hours of the voyage the
people sit on deck and talk of the great country to which they are all
bound. Before the last lighthouse on the coast of Europe is lost to
sight, Gunnar seems to have all America at his finger-ends. The same
names are always ringing in his ears--New York, Philadelphia, Chicago,
and San Francisco have become quite familiar, and he has only to insert
between them a number of smaller towns, a few rivers, mountains, and
lakes, to draw in a few railway lines, to remember the great country of
Canada to the north and mountainous Mexico in the south, to place at
three of the corners of the continent the peninsulas of Alaska,
California, and Florida, and at the fourth the large island of
Newfoundland, and then his map of North America is complete.

* * * * *

The voyage over the Atlantic draws to an end. One day a growing
restlessness and excitement is perceptible, and the travellers cast
inquiring glances ahead. It is said that the American coast will be
visible in an hour. And so it is. An irregular line appears to
starboard. That is Long Island. Two hours more, and the boat glides into
the mouth of the Hudson River and comes alongside at Ellis Island in the
harbour of New York. A row of other vessels lie moored at the quays.
These also have brought immigrants to America and will soon return to
fetch more. They must go backwards and forwards year out and year in to
carry three thousand persons daily to the United States.

Gunnar has packed his things in good time and takes up a favourable
position from which he can observe his fellow-travellers. He has never
heard such a noise and never seen such bustle. The people throng the
gangways, call to one another, haul out their discoloured portmanteaus
and their roped bundles. There are seen Swedes and Germans, Polish and
Russian Jews, Galicians and Croats mingled together, some well dressed
and with overcoats, others in tattered clothes and with a coarse
handkerchief in place of a collar.

Yonder, overlooking New York harbour, stands the colossal statue of
Liberty, a female figure holding a torch in her right hand. When
darkness lies over the earth she throws a dazzling beam of electric
light out over the water, the quays, houses, and ships. But Gunnar
experiences no feeling of freedom as he sets his foot on American soil.
He and all his fellow-travellers are provided with numbered tickets and
marshalled into long compartments in a huge hall. Then they are called
out one after another to be questioned, and a doctor comes and examines
them. Those who suffer from lung disease or other complaint, or being
old and feeble have no prospect of gaining a livelihood, receive a
peremptory order of exclusion on grey paper and must return by the next
vessel to their fatherland. The others who pass the examination proceed
in small steamers to the great city, where, among the four millions of
New York, they vanish like chaff before the wind.

From whatever land they may come they always find fellow-countrymen in
New York, for this city is a conglomeration of all the peoples of the
world, and seventy different languages are spoken in it. A third of its
inhabitants have been born in foreign countries. In Brooklyn, the
quarter on Long Island, there are whole streets where only Swedes live.
In the "Little Italy" quarter live more Italians than there are in
Naples, in the "Chinese Town" there are five thousand Chinese, and even
Jews from Russia and Poland have their own quarter. Gunnar soon finds
that New York is more complicated than he supposed when he was rolling
out on the Atlantic.

Meanwhile he decides to take it easy at first, and to learn his way
about before plunging into the struggle for existence. In Brooklyn he
soon meets with a fellow-countryman and gets a roof over his head. A
pleasant, well-to-do railway employe from Stockholm takes pleasure in
showing him about and impressing him with his knowledge of America.

"This town must be old," says Gunnar, "or it could not have grown so
large."

"Old! No, certainly not. Compared to Stockholm it is a mere child. It is
barely three hundred years old, and at the time of Gustavus Adolphus it
did not contain a thousand inhabitants. But now it is second only to
London."

"That is wonderful. How can you account for New York becoming so large?
Stockholm and Bremen are pigmies beside it. I have never seen the like
in my life. There are forests of masts and steamboat funnels in all
directions, and at the quays vessels are loaded and unloaded with the
most startling speed."

"Yes, but you must remember that the population of the United States
increases at an extraordinary rate. During last century it doubled every
twenty years. And remember also that nearly half the foreign trade of
the Union passes through New York. Hence are exported grain, meat,
tobacco, cotton, petroleum, manufactured goods, and many other things.
It is, therefore, not remarkable that New York needs 36 miles of quays
with warehouses, and that more than seventy steamboat lines sail to and
from the port. And, besides, it is a great industrial town. Think of its
position and its fine harbour! Eastward lies the Atlantic with routes to
Europe; westwards run innumerable railway lines, five of which stretch
right through to the Pacific coast."

"Tell me something about the railways," exclaims Gunnar, who wants to go
out west at the first favourable opportunity.

"Yes, I can give you information about them, for I have been working on
several lines. As far back as 1840 the United States had 2800 miles of
railway, and twenty years later 30,000 miles. Now it has nearly two
hundred and forty thousand miles of rails, a strip which would reach to
the moon or ten times round the equator. The United States have more
railways than all Europe, though the population is only a fifth that of
Europe; but the area is about the same."

"How do you explain this rapid development of railway enterprise?"

"Well, the fact is that at first the aim was to fill up the gaps between
the waterways. Rivers were relied on as long as possible, and the first
railways were built in districts where there were no large rivers. Then
in course of time various lines converged together, new railways were
constructed, and now the forty-nine States are covered with a connected
network of lines. Moreover, the country roads are so bad that they must
be supplemented by railways."

"A large number of bridges must be necessary across all the large
rivers?"

"Yes, certainly. The Americans are adepts in bridge-building, and the
railway bridges over the Mississippi and Missouri and other rivers are
masterpieces of the boldest art. Where lines cross deeply eroded
valleys, bridges of timber were formerly built, like sky-scraping
parapets with rails laid along the top; but such bridges are now fast
disappearing and iron bridges are built, and the trains run at full
speed over elegant erections which from a distance look just like a
spider's web. Just look to your left. There you have one of the world's
strongest bridges, the suspension bridge between New York and Brooklyn.
It is of colossal dimensions, and yet it looks so fine and delicate as
it hangs between its two mighty piers. You see that vessels with the
tallest masts can pass clear below, for it is poised 135 feet above high
water. The length is nearly a mile and a quarter. It is wonderful that
men have been able to stretch this huge span of iron above the water.
Wait a little and you will see a kind of aerial railway."

Then the Stockholm man takes his new friend to a station to travel on
the elevated railway through New York. Gunnar's astonishment is beyond
bounds as he rushes along on a framework, supported by innumerable iron
pillars, over streets and squares, and sees the seething crowd moving in
carriages and on foot below his feet.

[Illustration: PLATE XXXII. "SKY-SCRAPERS" IN NEW YORK.]

"Here is the Central Park. Is it not delightful with its leafy trees and
cool pools? In summer it is burning hot in the town, and it is
refreshing to rest an hour or two in the shade of the trees. The winters
are equally cold, and raw, biting winds blow from the east coast. Here
is Fifth Avenue, the finest street of New York. In the row of palaces
you see here live millionaires, railway kings, steel kings, petroleum
kings, corn kings, a whole crop of kings. But I would rather we went to
look at the rows of houses facing the Hudson River."

"New York lies, then, on the Hudson River?"

"That is so, but more properly speaking New York stands on the island of
Manhattan in the mouth of the river. We are standing, then, on
Manhattan, and it is interesting to recall the fact that this island was
sold three hundred years ago by Indians to Dutchmen for the sum of four
pounds. It is rather more valuable now! Just look at the hideous
sky-scrapers with their twenty and thirty storeys" (Plate XXXII.).

"I was just wondering why houses are built so enormously high."

"That is owing to the tremendous value of the ground. When there is not
space enough to build out laterally, the buildings are piled up
heavenwards, where there is plenty of room. They are certainly not
handsome. Look at this row of houses, some of moderate height, others as
tall as chimneys. Are they not like a row of keys moved by invisible
gigantic fingers?"

"I should not like to live in such a building, I am sure. On the top
floor I should be giddy with the height, and on the first I should
expect the whole mass to tumble down on me."

"We are better off in Brooklyn, where the houses are of moderate height.
To-morrow I will show you something not less remarkable than the wealthy
quarter of the city. I will take you to the Chinese town. There Chinese
swarm in the dirty lanes; there the whole place reeks of onions and
tobacco and spirits from the public-houses; there are vile gambling
hells and opium dens; and there paper lanterns on fishing rods hang
outside the tea-houses. Then we can take a look at 'Little Italy,' a
purely Italian town in the midst of the New York of the Americans. There
you will see only Italian books in the book-shops, there Italian
newspapers are read, there wax candles burn round images of the Madonna
in the churches, and black-haired, brown-eyed children from sunny Italy
play in the gutters. And we must not forget 'Little Russia,' the Jews'
quarter. The Jews are a remarkable people; you never see them drunk, and
you never hear of any crime or felony committed by them. They live
poorly, cheaply, and sparingly, and seem cheerful in their booths beside
the streets."

"All this is very well, but I do not understand where all the immigrants
go. I am told that as many as three thousand persons land daily on Ellis
Island. At this rate New York receives yearly an addition of a million
souls."

"Yes, but how many do you think remain in New York? Most of them go up
country and out westwards. Some improve their position and then repair
to other fields of work. But many also stay here and increase the slum
population. The immigrants who are destitute on landing take work in
factories at any wage they can get. The wages they receive seem very
high compared to those in their own country, but they are low for
America. Accordingly the immigrant Europeans thrust out the Americans,
and therefore there are two millions out of work in the United States.
And so there are failures, human wrecks, who are a burden to others. If
you like we will try this evening to get to a midnight mission and see
the poor wretches waiting in crowds for the doors to open. They have a
worn, listless expression, but when the doors are open they wake up and
rush in, fill all the benches in the large hall, and go to sleep in all
imaginable positions."

"What do they do there?"

"A missionary preaches to them, but they are hungry and weary, and sleep
soundly on their benches. Among them you will find tramps and vagabonds,
professional beggars and thieves, idlers and men out of work. In the
daytime they beg and steal, and now at night they take their sleep in
the mission. When the preacher finishes, they file out and go to the
bread stalls to get food. Such is their life day after day, and they
sink ever deeper into misery."

"They are the slag that remains after the precious metal has run off, of
course. It is curious to think of a people that is increased by a
never-failing stream of immigrants. What will be the end of it?"

"No one can answer that question. Everything is possible with Americans.
They are a mixture of English, Scandinavian, German, Dutch, Italian, and
Russian blood, to name only the principal constituents of this complex
blend, this huge incorporation. Out of all these elements one day an
American race will emerge, when Ellis Island has closed its gates to
emigrants from Europe."

[Illustration: NORTH AMERICA.]

"Tell me another thing, now. Why is not New York, the most important
city, also the capital of the country?"

"It was thought that the city which bears the name of the great
Washington had a more convenient and more central position with regard
to the States of the original federation. The population of Washington
is only about 330,000, and there are fifteen larger cities in the United
States, but it is the centre of government. There the President lives in
White House, there Congress assembles in the Capitol, there stands the
Washington monument surrounded by large national buildings, and there
three universities are established."

CHICAGO AND THE GREAT LAKES

After our friend Gunnar has seen as much as he wants of New York, he
obtains a good post in a large factory, but he stays there only two
months, for with other Swedes he receives an offer from Philadelphia
which he does not hesitate to accept. His idea is to work his way
gradually westward. If he can only get as far as Chicago he thinks it
will not be difficult to go on to San Francisco.

Now he works in a yard where more than a thousand locomotives are made
annually. This yard seems to him quite a town in itself. Here the iron
is made white hot in immense furnaces, there it is hammered and rolled,
and with irresistible power human hands convert the hard steel into
steam boilers, wheels, axles, and parts of machines which are put
together to form engines. The workshop is traversed in all directions by
rails, and the completed steam-horses are sent out all over the railway
systems of the United States.

Gunnar learns from his mates that Philadelphia is one of the largest
cities of the world, with nearly a million and a half inhabitants, and
that in America only New York and Chicago are larger.

* * * * *

After a while, however, Gunnar has had enough of Philadelphia, and takes
a ticket for Pittsburg, the steel and iron capital, where immigrants
never need be in want of a post. He travels without a change of
carriages between the two towns, traversing the whole of Pennsylvania.
Innumerable branch lines diverge in all directions, for towns and
villages are everywhere. Here a railway runs to a mine, there another to
a district rich in maize and tobacco, and here again a third to a timber
yard. At the station stand long trains laden with grain, planks,
petroleum, cotton, reaping machines, coal--in fact all the wares that
the earth can produce by its fertility, and men by the labour of their
hands.

The country becomes hilly, and the train winds about through the
northernmost part of the Alleghany Mountains. Gunnar lets his eyes rove
with strained attention over the dark woods, the waving fields, and the
smoke rising from villages and farmhouses, when an American comes and
sits down on the seat just in front of him.

"I see that you are a newcomer in America," says the stranger. "It may
then interest you to know that the crest of the Alleghany Mountains,
composed of granite, gneiss, and slates, is the watershed between the
Atlantic and the Mississippi. You must not suppose that these mountains
are everywhere as low as here; far down south-west, in North Carolina,
there are summits more than six thousand feet high. Maize and fruit are
grown in the valleys, and there are fine forests of pines and foliage
trees. And there are places where you lose yourself in dense clumps of
rhododendrons and climbing plants. And there are wild recesses where men
never go, but where bears and wolves have their haunts among broken
branches and twigs, fallen trunks and moss-grown granite boulders, and
where nothing is changed since the time when the Indian tribes went on
the war-path. But where are you bound for?"

"I am going to Pittsburg to look for work, for I was a smith at home."

"Oh, Pittsburg! I was foreman in some steel works there for two years,
and I have never seen anything more wonderful. You know that this town
has sprung up out of the earth as if by magic. When petroleum springs
were discovered, it increased at double the rate, and now it is one of
the world's largest industrial towns, and, as regards iron and steel,
the first in America. Here materials are manufactured to the value of
more than nineteen million pounds annually. Almost inexhaustible
deposits of coal are found in the neighbourhood. More than twenty
railway lines converge to Pittsburg, which also has the advantage of
three navigable rivers, and a network of canals. And round about the
town are suburbs full of machine factories, steel works, and glass
works. The neighbourhood has a million of inhabitants, a third of them
foreigners, mostly Slavs, Italians, and Hungarians. You have a kind of
feeling of oppression when you see from a height this forest of reeking
factory chimneys, and when you think of the unfortunate men that slave
under this cloud of coal smoke. There is a hammering and beating
everywhere, and a rumble of trains rolling over the rails. Overheated
furnaces bubble and boil, and sparks fly out under the steam hammers. At
night you might think you were in the bottom of a volcano, where lava
boils under the ashes ready to roll out and destroy everything. A weird
reddish-yellow light flames forth from thousands of fires, lighting up
the under side of the thick smoke cloud. I am sorry for you if you are
going to Pittsburg. You had much better travel straight on to Chicago.
Not that Chicago is a paradise, but there are better openings there, and
you will be nearer the great West with its inexhaustible resources."

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