[No envelope]
On
Board the “Columbia”.
[Tuesday,] Oct. 17, ’99
9
A.M.
Dear Folks at Home:
The Steamer is passing us now for the north, on which we should have our letters, but we will write anyway as another one will go north in a few days. It is just five weeks ago this morning since we left your familiar smiling faces behind us as we left West Salem, OH, for our anticipated stopping place in Chile. The scenes have been many and varied since, but nothing has been new and attractive enough to keep us from often speaking and thinking of the loved ones in the dear old Buckeye and Empire states. We often wonder what you are all doing and where you spend your Sabbath days. Our Sundays have been somewhat monotonous. Sometimes we are sailing on the ocean, and sometimes having everything in a clatter all around us loading and unloading cargo, but the remembrance of church bells ringing in our native land and the thousands of people answering the familiar peals make the days seem sacred to us in spite of our surroundings. Charlie may give you the interesting information, and I will give you the ship gossip. Among our passengers from Guayaquil to this place (Callao, the port for Lima) were many Spaniards mixed with negro, Indian, or Chinese blood. in short, the Lord only knows whatnot. There was a pure Spaniard among them that could only speak in an undertone on account of a bullet that lodged in his neck when he was fighting in a duel. There was also a bullfighter with us that had several scars on his face made by the angry bull as he was tortured by the fighter. Here as well as in Spain the bullfighter is reverenced next to the chief ruler and priest. Neither dare English or U. S. people criticize them because they say their amusements are not near so degrading as boxing, which was tolerated in our own country just a few years ago and some of our other games which are still tolerated. Church members and all attend the bullfights on Sunday evenings in Lima, and they say that isn’t a bit more than the Sunday baseball games in our own cities, and I think they are right because both lead to very evil results. It makes me blush sometimes to think of the standard of civilization that we claim to have reached, and yet we tolerate so many things in our own country that are remnants of barbarism or at least lead to very bad results. Besides the trunks and mail on our ship in coming from Guayaquil to this place, there was alcohol enough to make a small lake, tons and tons of oranges and bananas, about ten thousand sacks of sugar, a great deal of rice and many sacks of flour. Now, do you think it is any wonder that we must stop in the large ports for three and four days to load and unload cargo? These ships also carry a great deal of manufactured iron ware, besides other manufactured articles since very little of that kind of work is done in these countries.
At Paita, our first port in Peru, we took on a new line of supplies, consisting of chickens, eggs, cattle, vegetables, fruits, butter, milk etc. etc. Most of the milk used here is a condensed brand from Holland, and the cattle were lifted into the boat by machinery with great, wide belts around their “waists”.
Our table waiters nearly all speak Spanish, the men that load and unload the cargo speak Spanish and even the dozen or more parrots in the lower story all chatter in Spanish, so that this noise becomes more or less annoying by [sic] times since we can’t understand very much Spanish yet. One Englishman told us that it was fortunate for us that we couldn’t understand since so many of the working men used very expressive language sometimes.
How much little John [surname??] and, I dare say, the rest of you would enjoy some of the bananas, oranges, melons, and pineapples that we refuse and how gladly we would give them to you if we could, especially in exchange for a few apples.
[Wednesday,] Oct. 18, ’99
Yesterday we went to Lima, about twelve miles distant from Callao. The doctor took us with him over the English railway. There is a U. S. railway here also, but we couldn’t make the right time on it. The day was a most interesting one, being spent in a very fine Cathedral, the plaza or Park, the Museum, the zoological garden, the largest store and other places of interest. As we go farther south the people become more enterprising again, the streets are kept cleaner and the general appearance is more like civilization. Most of the day laborers here are Indians belonging to a tribe called Incas.
They used to take their women and cut off their heads, after removing the brains, and the bones by a process of heating preserved them so they will never decay. These heads they sold to foreigners for any amt. from fifty to two hundred dollars. But fortunately, the laws of the country forbid the buying or selling of any of these heads now. In the Cathedral at Lima we saw the dried body of Francisco Pizarro, a Spanish hero who died 358 years ago, besides skeletons of Incas in various postures who lived almost as long ago. It is claimed that these Indians cultivated the soil better in the sixteenth century than the Spaniards do now and they are not so industrious since they have mixed with their conquerors as they were before. [Particularly the Incas living along the coast.]
From Guayaquil there is a strip of land about two thousand miles southward that is a barren waste of sand. We are within sight of this all the time. You have no idea how bleak and ghostly the mountains look. But the plains between Callao and Lima are irrigated and very fertile, so they seem like an oasis in the desert.
Here all kinds of vegetables and many kinds of fruit are raised. Besides many other things, I ate some strawberries and peaches that were raised there. I Wish you could see their “plazas,” or parks. Besides a variety of palm trees, they contain the most beautiful flower gardens. Of all their flowers, I like the lilies, roses, and carnations best. The latter are quite expensive. When we reached the port, before we went ashore or saw any of the vegetation, the captain gave me a bouquet of the most daintily tinted tea roses and carnations. You can imagine how much I enjoyed them after looking upon barrenness for so long.
The next evening another officer gave me a very beautiful mound-shaped bouquet nearly two feet in diameter. It has a large white lily in the center, many shades of roses, nine different shades of carnations, besides many flowers whose names I do not know, then the outer edge is made of branches of walnut[??] geraniums.
Sun. Oct 23 [22??], 1899.
You surely get our letters bit by bit. I cannot write very well when the ship is going, and when we are in port we spend most of our time on shore. Mr. and Mrs. Pusey from Iowa have an English mission school in Callao. They saw in the “World Wide Missions” that we were on our way south, so they watched every ship from the north for us. They found us the day after we had been to Lima. It seemed like meeting a near relative from home. So they and Miss Wood, a lady missionary from Lima who is Supt. of the public schools in Callao, took us with them to the English and native schools. It was very interesting indeed. In the native schools the children all arose with bowed heads and folded hands when we entered the room to show their respect, and among the little black fellows that we met were Themistocles, Cupid, Jesus, and Cherub. How does that strike you for names? The buildings are all low, large, flat squares made from split bamboo sticks then plastered with mud. The roofs are flat and covered with loose dirt. So you see, if a heavy rain should come, the city would soon be nothing but a mud pile. Some of the houses look quite respectable, too, after they are painted. I was much surprised when I visited the English school to hear the boys and girls in this distant foreign land sing the same songs in the “Day School Gems” that my own boys and girls sang at Pleasant Home. When they sang “Mother’s Voice is low and sweet” it almost made me homesick.
Mr. and Mrs[.] P. took us home to breakfast at 11 A.M. with them. We had a regular, old-fashioned U. S. meal, and we enjoyed it thoroughly. Miss Wood also had dinner prepared for us the evening before at Lima at her father’s home, but, as she did not succeed in finding us, we missed that.
The schools, considering the surroundings and opposition, are very good. This is the only country in South America that has no religious toleration. The Catholics have threatened several times to close the school. The church services must all be held privately; no public announcements are allowed.
We also met Mr. and Mrs. Wagoner, who have a match factory here, a branch of the Barberton [Ohio] factory. Mr. W. knew Simon Hankey of Akron and the Huntsbergers of Barberton, [adjacent to Akron]. We had them and the missionaries to dinner with us one evening on board the steamer. It was a regular U. S. reunion, including the doctor of the ship, who is from [the state of] Georgia.
I almost forgot to tell you that in the native schools the children all study out loud, and they knew very little about [our?] system, while the Eng. schools are conducted very much as they are at home and all the children are very anxious to learn to speak English.
After we left Lima we had about 100 first-class passengers, nine or ten of whom are priests. Some of them I would be afraid to meet alone, but their bishop is a fine-looking man. He spoke in a very friendly manner to me, but I couldn’t understand what he said, so I simply replied “No, no hablo castellano.” (I can’t speak Spanish). Then he bowed and walked away. Today all the priests and twenty-three other passengers got off at a town where the houses are all clumped together on the barren shore. We reach a port or two every day, that is why it takes us so long to reach our destination. We do not expect to reach Concepcion [sic] till after the first of November. Tomorrow we reach the first port in Chile. Then we will mail our letters. In Peru, they want 22¢ postage for a foreign letter. We mailed you letters from the Athos, Panama, and Guayaquil. We would like to know whether you get them all or not.
I intended to have this letter sent to father W’s, Orlow’s, and to Grace if she is at school, but it is so full of mistakes and so poorly written that you had better keep it and say nothing about it but send Charlie’s if he gets his finished in time to send with mine. It is nearly five weeks since I heard from home. I trust I won’t need long at Concepcion [sic] till I hear from you all and that you‘re all well and getting along nicely. One day I said I was sorry that my traveling suit bleaches, then Charlie said “Don’t worry about such little things. Remember your old man is rich.” Isn’t that consoling?
We won’t write again before we reach Concepcion. We are in the spring of the year, no rain since we left Panama, balmy breezes going all the time, and we are both quite well. I suppose at home “autumn melancholy days have come.” Many children on this coast have never seen a tree.
Best wishes,
and love to everybody.
Dillie H. W.
Mellie, I have my doily finished.
Transcribed 2015 by SMK
Posted Dec 29, 2018 at 18:32.
Revised Nov 15, 2022 at 18:37. EDT.
Retrieved May 31, 2026 at 11:23.
Go to top of page
