Twenty Six

Like one waking uncertainly from thick sleep, Col. Charles Augustus Lindbergh groped in the foggy Venezuelan morning. He twitched the Spirit of St. Louis upwards and sideways, seeking an opening in the mists and mountain peaks. He found a rift and streaked out over the Caribbean. For 100 miles seeing no land the flyer contemplated the two tinges of blue sky and bluer sea. Once he dipped to scoot cheerily close to the steamer Amsterdam. Once he scuttled through a sudden rain squall. Land notched the horizon far ahead. From there he flew over nearly nine hundred miles of "Islands in the Lesser Antilles. At St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands he got down. Speeches. When he left the following day a family of Morons, island aristocrats, petitioned the government to change the name of their property where the Spirit of St. Louis landed from Mosquito Bay to Lindbergh's Landing.

From the Lesser to the Greater Antilles the flyer took the tiniest hop of his trip. San Juan, Porto Rico was only 90 miles away. Col. Lindbergh doubled the distance by flying out of his way in a sharp arc to give natives of St. Croix Island a glimpse of him in passing. At San Juan he had three notable experiences. The first was an orderly and properly policed landing. The propensities of crowds on three continents to smash police lines wherever formed around a Lindbergh terminal was checked in Porto Rico. Six hundred native police, local militia, and the 68th U. S. Infantry suppressed native enthusiasm. Lindbergh was not swamped on disembarkation by crazy students, girls detailed to kiss him, autograph hunters, well wishers, drunks, people. The second experience was an unexpected message from the local Congress requesting in no mild terms freedom for Porto Rico. Apparently there is far less sweetness and light in West Indian relations with U. S. than press dispatches and Lindbergh welcoming crowds might indicate. The Colonel refused to state whether or not, or to whom he would deliver the message. The third experience was a Rotary Club dinner with no speeches.

Santo Domingo, found in 1496 by Christopher Columbus who "with fragile caravels of discovery opened new routes on unknown seas," shook hands with Col. Lindbergh on his birthday. With the above quotation President Horacio Vasquez likened the visitor to a new Columbus. Among the exhibits prepared for his reception were effigies of the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower two stories high with a miniature airplane swung between them. U. S. Minister Evan E. Young entertained the visitor with a chocolate cake sprouting 26 candles.

The irresistible punctuality of Col. Lindbergh seemed to have faltered. Crowds at Port au Prince, Haiti, scanned the ascending heavens for a winged speck.

Only great lazy banks of cotton cloud floated above them as the hour struck. Then with no warning the Spirit of St. Louis plunged to them. Ahead of his schedule the flyer had been hiding 6,000 feet away among the clouds. He threw down a sack of mail brought from Santo Domingo and shook hands with welcomers. Murmurs in the radical press against the ambassador on wings put no damper on oratory. Said President Borno: "The world's greatest hero." At Haiti the Colonel prepared for the climactic flight. He was due in Havana for a final fanfare, ceremoniously to bolster U. S. goodwill at the Panama Congress.

Thereafter, forsaking for a little public life, he was due in St. Louis where he planned to fly a few times over his old mail route to Chicago.