_I.--Miseries of Slavery_
In 1768 Bernardin de Saint Pierre (see FICTION) was sent
out to Mauritius, which was then a French colony called
the Isle of France, to fortify it against the English. He
found it was not worth fortifying, and, after an absence
of three years, he returned to France, and in 1773
published his famous "Voyage to the Isle of France," and
thereby made his name. It gave him a position similar to
that which Defoe occupies in England, for by means of it
he introduced into French literature the exotic element
which he afterwards expanded in "Paul and Virginia." He
was the first French writer of genius to apply the art of
description in depicting the life and scenery of
far-distant lands. Finally, it is interesting to remark on
the general change which has taken place in the treatment
of subject native races since the time when Saint Pierre
wrote, even though such atrocities as came to light in the
recent Congo scandal may be still burning themselves out
in isolated instances.
PORT LOUIS, _August 6, 1768_. The Isle of France was discovered by a
Portuguese, and taken over by the Dutch; but they abandoned it in 1712,
and settled at the Cape of Good Hope, and the French then took
possession of it.
The island was a desert when we took it over, and the first settlers
were a few honest, simple farmers from our colony of Bourbon, who lived
together very happily until 1760, when the English drove us out of
India. Then, like a flood, all the scoundrels, rogues and broken men
hunted from our Indian possessions, invaded the island and threw
everything into disorder and ruin. Everybody is envious and
discontented; everybody wishes to make a fortune at once and depart. And
this is an island with no commerce and scarcely any agriculture, where
the only money found is paper money! Yet they all say they will be rich
enough to return to France in a year's time. They have been saying this
for many years. Everything is in a state of squalid neglect. The streets
are neither paved nor planted with trees; the houses are merely tents of
wood, moved from place to place on rollers; the windows have no glass
and no curtains, and it is rare that one finds within even a few poor
pieces of furniture.
There are only four hundred farmers. The rest of the white population
are mainly idlers, who gather together in the square from noon till
evening and pass away the time in gambling and scandalmongering. The
work of agriculture is carried on by black slaves imported from
Madagascar. They can be got in exchange for a gun or a roll of cloth,
and the dearest does not cost more than seven pounds. They are compelled
to work from sunrise to sunset, and they are given nothing to eat but
mashed maize boiled in water, and tapioca bread. At the least negligence
the skin is scourged from their body. The women are punished in the same
manner. Sometimes when they are old they are left to starve to death.
Every day during my sojourn in the Isle of France I have seen black men
and black women lashed hands and feet to a ladder and flogged for having
forgot to shut a door or for breaking a bit of pottery. I have seen them
bleeding all over, and having their wounded bodies rubbed with vinegar
and salt. I have seen them speechless with excess of pain; I have seen
some of them bite the iron cannon on which they have been bound.
I do not know if coffee and sugar are necessary to the happiness of
Europe, but I know well that these two vegetables are a source of misery
to the inhabitants of two continents of the world. We are dispeopling
America in order to have a land to grow them; we are dispeopling Africa
in order to have a nation to cultivate them. There are 20,000 black
slaves on the Isle of France, but they die so fast that, in order to
keep up their number, 1,200 more have to be imported every year.
I am very sorry that our philosophers who attack abuses with so much
courage have hardly spoken of the slavery of the black races, except to
make a jest of it. They have eyes only for things very remote. They
speak of St. Bartholomew, of the massacre of the Mexicans by the
Spaniards, as if this crime was not one committed now by the half of
Europe. Oh, ye men who dream of republics, see how your own people
misuse the authority entrusted to them! See your colonies streaming with
human blood! The men who shed it are men of your stamp; they talk like
you, they talk of humanity, they read the books of our philosophers, and
they exclaim against despotism; but when they get any power they show
that they are really brutes. In a country of so corrupt a morality an
absolute government is necessary. The excesses of a single tyrant are
preferable to the crimes and the injustices of a whole people.
_II.--A Land of Beauty and Abominations_
PORT LOUIS, _September 13, 1769_. An officer proposed to make a walking
tour round the island with me, but when the time came to set out he
excused himself, so I resolved to go alone. But knowing that I should
often have to camp out in the woods alone, I took two negroes with me to
carry provisions, and I armed myself with a double-barrel gun and a
couple of pistols, for fear I should encounter one of the bands of
runaway slaves that hide in the deserted part of the island.
Striking out through the plains of Saint Pierre, we walked for four days
along the seashore, with the dense and silent forest on our left hand.
On crossing the black river I came to the last farm on this part of the
coast. It was a long hut, formed of stakes and covered with palm leaves.
There was only one room. In the middle of it was the kitchen; at one
extremity were the stores and the sleeping places of the eight black
slaves; the other end was the farmer's bed; a hen was setting on some
eggs on the counterpane, and some ducks were living beneath the bed, and
around the leafy wall pigeons had made their nests. In this miserable
hut I was surprised to find a very beautiful woman. She was a young
Frenchwoman, born, like her husband, of a good family. They had come to
the island some years ago in the hope of making a fortune; they had left
their parents, their friends, and their native land, to pass their lives
in this wild and lonely place, from which one could see only the empty
sea and the grim precipices of a desolate mountain. But the air of
contentment and goodness of this young and lovely mother of a growing
family seemed to make everybody around her happy. When evening came she
invited me to share a simple, but neatly-served supper. The meal
appeared to me an exceedingly pleasant one. I was given as a bed-room a
little tent built of wood, about a hundred steps away from the log
cabin. As the door had not been put up, I closed the opening with
planks, and loaded my gun and pistols; for the forest all around is full
of runaway slaves. A few years ago forty of them began to make a
plantation on the mountain close by; the white settlers surrounded them
and called on them to surrender, but rather than return to captivity all
the slaves threw themselves into the sea.
I stayed with the farmer and his wife until three o'clock the next
morning. The farmer walked with me as far as Coral Point. He was a
remarkably robust man, and his face and arms and legs were burnt by the
sun. Unlike the ordinary settler, he worked himself in tilling the land
and felling and carting trees. The only thing that worried him, he said
to me, was the unnecessary trouble that his wife took in bringing up her
family. Not content with looking after her own five children, she had
recently burdened herself with the care of a little orphan girl. The
honest farmer merely told me of his little worries, for he saw clearly
that I was aware of all his happiness. When we took farewell of each
other, we did so with a cordial embrace.
The country beyond his farm was charming in its verdure and freshness;
it is a rich prairie stretching between the splendid sea and the
magnificent forest. The murmur of the fountains, the beautiful colour of
the waves, the soft movement of the scented air filled me with joy and
peace. I was sorry that I was alone; I formed all kinds of plans. From
all the outside world I only wanted a few loved objects to enable me to
pass my life in this paradise. And great was my regret when I turned
away from this beautiful yet deserted place. I had scarcely gone 200
feet when a band of blacks, armed with guns, came towards me. Advancing
to them, I saw that they were a detachment of the black police. One of
them carried two little dogs; another pulled a negress along by means of
a cord around her neck--she was part of the loot they had got in
attacking and dispersing a camp of runaway slaves. The negress was
broken with grief. I questioned her; she did not reply. On her back she
carried a large gaping bag. I look in it. Alas! it contained a man's
head. The natural beauty of the country disappeared. I saw it as it
really was--a land of abominations.
The Isle of France is regarded as a fortress which protects our Indian
possessions. It is as though Bordeaux were regarded as the citadel of
our American colonies. There are 1,500 leagues between the Isle of
France and Pondichery. Had we but spent on a fortress on the Malabar
coast or the mouth of the Ganges half of the money which has been wasted
on the Isle of France the English would not now be masters of Bengal.
What, then, is the use of the Isle of France? To grow coffee and serve
as a port of call.
_III.--Bourbon, the Pirates' Island_
PORT LOUIS, _December 21, 1770_. Having obtained permission to return to
France, I embarked on November 9, 1770, on the Indien. It took us twelve
days to cover the forty leagues between the Isle of France and Bourbon.
This was due to the calm weather; but on landing at Bourbon, we
encountered a hurricane.
Out of the calm sea there suddenly came a monstrous wave which broke so
violently on the shore that everybody fled. The foam rose fifty feet
into the air. Behind it came three waves the same height and force, like
three long rolling hills. The air was heavy, the sky dark with
motionless clouds, and the vast flocks of whimbrels and drivers came in
from the open sea and scattered along the coast. The land birds and
animals seemed perturbed. Even men felt a secret terror at the sight of
a frightful tempest in the midst of calm weather.
On the second day the wind completely dropped, and the sea grew wilder.
The billows were more numerous, and swept in from the ocean with great
force. All the small boats were drawn far up on the land, and the people
strengthened their house with joists and ropes. Seven ships besides the
Indien were riding at anchor, and the islanders gathered in a crowd
along the shore to see if they would weather the storm. At noon the sky
began to lower, and a strong wind arose suddenly from the south-east.
Everyone was afraid that the vessels would be flung ashore, and a signal
was made from the battery for them to depart. As the cannon went off,
the vessels cut their cables and got under sail, and at the end of two
hours they disappeared in the north-east in the midst of a black sky.
At three o'clock the hurricane came. The sound was frightful. All the
winds of heaven were loose. The stricken sea came over the land in
clouds of spindrift, sand, and pebbles, and buried everything within
fifty feet of the shore in shingle. The church was unroofed, and part of
the Government House destroyed. The hurricane lasted till three o'clock
in the morning. The Indien did not return, but sailed away with all my
effects on it. There was nothing for me to do but to wait at Bourbon for
another, homeward-bound ship; so I resolved to profit by my misfortune,
and make an excursion into the island.
This enabled me to gather something of the history of Bourbon. It was
first inhabited by a band of pirates, who brought with them some
negresses from Madagascar. This happened in 1657. Some time afterwards
our Indian company set up a factory in the island, and the governor
managed to keep on good terms with his dangerous neighbours. One day the
Portuguese viceroy of Goa anchored off the island and came to dine with
the governor. He had scarcely landed when a pirate ship of fifty guns
entered the harbour and captured the Portuguese vessel. The captain of
the pirates then landed, and was also invited to dinner by the governor.
The buccaneer sat down at table by the side of the viceroy, and told the
Portuguese that he was now a prisoner. When the wine and the good cheer
had put the man in a good humour, M. Desforges (that was the name of our
governor) asked him at how much he fixed the ransom of the viceroy.
"I want a thousand piastres," said the pirate.
"That's too little," replied M. Desforges, "for a brave man like you and
a great lord like him. Ask more than that, or ask nothing."
"Very well," said the generous corsair, "he can go free."
The viceroy at once re-embarked and got under sail, Vastly content at
having escaped so cheaply.
The pirate afterwards settled in the island with all his followers, and
was hanged after an amnesty had been published in favour of himself and
his men. He had forgotten to have his name included in it, and a
counsellor who wished to appropriate his spoils profited by the mistake,
and had him put to death. The second rogue, however, quickly came to
almost as unhappy an end. One of the pirates, who lived to the age of
one hundred and four years, died only a little time ago. His companions
soon grew more peaceful in their manners on adopting more peaceful
occupations, and, though their descendants are still distinguished by a
certain spirit of independence and liberty, this is now being softened
by the society of a multitude of worthy farmers who have settled at
Bourbon.
There are five thousand Europeans on the island and sixty thousand
blacks. The land is three times more peopled than that of the Isle of
France, and it is very much better cultivated.
The manners of the old settlers of Bourbon were very simple. Most of the
houses were never shut, and a lock was an object of curiosity. The
people kept their savings in a shell above their door. They went
barefooted, and fed on rice and coffee; they imported scarcely anything
from Europe, being content to live without luxury provided they lived
without trouble. When a stranger landed on the island, they came without
knowing him and offered him their houses to live in.
_IV.--Visit to the Cape Colony_
PORT LOUIS, _January 20, 1771_. I have landed among the Dutch at the
extremity of Africa without money, without linen, and without friends.
Learning of my position, M. De Tolback, the governor of Cape Colony, has
invited me to dinner; and, happily, the secretary of the council has
provided me with money, having allowed me to use his credit in buying
whatever I need. The streets of the Cape are well set out; some are
watered by canals, and most of them are planted with oak trees. The
fronts of the houses are shadowed by their foliage; every door has seats
on both sides in brick or turf, on which sit fresh and rosy-faced women.
There is no gambling at the Cape, no play-acting or novel reading. The
people are content with the domestic happiness that virtue brings in its
train. Every day brings the same duties and pleasures. There are no
spectacles at the Cape and no one wants any; every man there has in his
own home all that he desires. Happy servants, well-bred children, good
wives: these are pleasures that fiction does not give.
A quiet life of this sort furnishes little matter for conversation, so
the Dutchmen of the Cape do not talk very much. They are a rather
melancholic people, and they prefer to feel rather than to argue. So
little happens, perhaps, that they have nothing to talk about; but what
does it matter if the mind is empty when the heart is full, and when the
tender emotions of nature can move it without being excited by artifice
or constrained by a false decorum? When the girls of the Cape fall in
love, they artlessly avow their feelings, but they insist on choosing
their own husbands. The lads show the same frankness. The good faith
which the young persons of each sex keep towards each other generally
results in a happy marriage. Love with them is combined with esteem, and
this nourishes all during life in their constant souls that desire to
please which married persons in some other countries only show outside
their own home.
It was with much regret that I left these worthy people, but I am not
sorry to return to France. I prefer my own country to all others, not
because it is more beautiful, but because I was born and bred there.
Happy is the man who sees again the field in which he learnt to walk and
the orchard which he used to play in! Happier still is he who has never
quitted the paternal roof! How many voyagers return and yet find no
place of retreat. Of their friends, some are dead, others are gone
away; but life is only a brief voyage, and the age of man a rapid day.
I wish to forget the storms of it, and remember only in these letters
the goodness, the virtue, and the constancy that I have met with.
Perhaps this humble work may make your names, O virtuous settlers at the
Cape, survive when I am in the grave! For thee, O ill-fated negro! that
weepest on the rocks of the Isle of France, if my hand, which cannot
wipe away thy tears, can but bring the tyrants to weep in sorrow and
repentance, I shall want nothing more from the Indies; I shall have
gained there the only fortune I require.