VI

It may be said that on all this coast the ocean, perpetually moved by

the blowing of the trade-winds, never rests--never hushes its roar. Even

in the streets of Grande Anse, one must in breezy weather lift one's

voice above the natural pitch to be heard; and then the breakers come in

lines more than a mile long, between the Pointe du Rochet and the Pointe

de Séguinau,--every unfurling a thunder-clap. There is no travelling by

sea. All large vessels keep well away from the dangerous coast. There is

scarcely any fishing; and although the sea is thick with fish, fresh

fish at Grande Anse is a rare luxury. Communication with St. Pierre is

chiefly by way of the national road, winding over mountain ridges two

thousand feet high; and the larger portion of merchandise is transported

from the chief city on the heads of young women. The steepness of the

route soon kills draught-horses and ruins the toughest mules. At one

time the managers of a large estate at Grande Anse attempted the

experiment of sending their sugar to St. Pierre in iron carts, drawn by

five mules; but the animals could not endure the work. Cocoa can be

carried to St. Pierre by the porteuses, but sugar and rum must go by

sea, or not at all; and the risks and difficulties of shipping these

seriously affect the prosperity of all the north and north-east coast.

Planters have actually been ruined by inability to send their products

to market during a protracted spell of rough weather. A railroad has

been proposed and planned: in a more prosperous era it might be

constructed, with the result of greatly developing all the Atlantic side

of the island, and converting obscure villages into thriving towns.

Sugar is very difficult to ship; rum and tafia can be handled with less

risk. It is nothing less than exciting to watch a shipment of tafia from

Grande Anse to St. Pierre.

A little vessel approaches the coast with extreme caution, and anchors

in the bay some hundred yards beyond the breakers. She is what they call

a _pirogue_ here, but not at all what is called a pirogue in the United

States: she has a long narrow hull, two masts, no deck; she has usually

a crew of five, and can carry thirty barrels of tafia. One of the

pirogue men puts a great shell to his lips and sounds a call, very

mellow and deep, that can be heard over the roar of the waves far up

among the hills. The shell is one of those great spiral shells, weighing

seven or eight pounds--rolled like a scroll, fluted and scalloped about

the edges, and pink-pearled inside,--such as are sold in America for

mantel-piece ornaments,--the shell of a _lambi._ Here you can often see

the lambi crawling about with its nacreous house upon its back: an

enormous sea-snail with a yellowish back and rose-colored belly, with

big horns and eyes in the tip of each horn--very pretty eyes, having a

golden iris. This creature is a common article of food; but its thick

white flesh is almost compact as cartilage, and must be pounded before

being cooked.[5]

At the sound of the blowing of the lambi-shell, wagons descend to the

beach, accompanied by young colored men running beside the mules. Each

wagon discharges a certain number of barrels of tafia, and

simultaneously the young men strip. They are slight, well built, and

generally well muscled. Each man takes a barrel of tafia, pushes it

before him into the surf, and then begins to swim to the

pirogue,--impelling the barrel before him. I have never seen a swimmer

attempt to convey more than one barrel at a time; but I am told there

are experts who manage as many as three barrels together,--pushing them

forward in line, with the head of one against the bottom of the next. It

really requires much dexterity and practice to handle even one barrel or

cask. As the swimmer advances he keeps close as possible to his

charge,--so as to be able to push it forward with all his force against

each breaker in succession,--making it dive through. If it once glide

well out of his reach while he is in the breakers, it becomes an enemy,

and he must take care to keep out of its way,--for if a wave throws it

at him, or rolls it over him, he may be seriously injured; but the

expert seldom abandons a barrel. Under the most favorable conditions,

man and barrel will both disappear a score of times before the clear

swells are reached, after which the rest of the journey is not

difficult. Men lower ropes from the pirogue, the swimmer passes them

under his barrel, and it is hoisted aboard.

... Wonderful surf-swimmers these men are;--they will go far out for

mere sport in the roughest kind of a sea, when the waves, abnormally

swollen by the peculiar conformation of the bay, come rolling in thirty

and forty feet high. Sometimes, with the swift impulse of ascending a

swell, the swimmer seems suspended in air as it passes beneath him,

before he plunges into the trough beyond. The best swimmer is a young

capre who cannot weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds. Few of the

Grande Anse men are heavily built; they do not compare for stature and

thew with those longshoremen at St. Pierre who can be seen any busy

afternoon on the landing, lifting heavy barrels at almost the full reach

of their swarthy arms.

... There is but one boat owned in the whole parish of Grande Anse,--a

fact due to the continual roughness of the sea. It has a little mast and

sail, and can hold only three men. When the water is somewhat less angry

than usual, a colored crew take it out for a fishing expedition. There

is always much interest in this event; a crowd gathers on the beach; and

the professional swimmers help to bring the little craft beyond the

breakers. When the boat returns after a disappearance of several hours,

everybody runs down from the village to meet it. Young colored women

twist their robes up about their hips, and wade out to welcome it: there

is a display of limbs of all colors on such occasions, which is not

without grace, that untaught grace which tempts an artistic pencil.

Every bonne and every house-keeper struggles for the first chance to buy

the fish;--young girls and children dance in the water for delight, all

screaming, "_Rhalé bois-canot!_"... Then as the boat is pulled through

the surf and hauled up on the sand, the pushing and screaming and crying

become irritating and deafening; the fishermen lose patience and say

terrible things. But nobody heeds them in the general clamoring and

haggling and furious bidding for the _pouèsson-ououge_, the _dorades_,

the _volants_ (beautiful purple-backed flying-fish with silver bellies,

and fins all transparent, like the wings of dragon-flies). There is

great bargaining even for a young shark,--which makes very nice eating

cooked after the creole fashion. So seldom can the fishermen venture out

that each trip makes a memorable event for the village.

The St. Pierre fishermen very seldom approach the bay, but they do much

fishing a few miles beyond it, almost in front of the Pointe du Rochet

and the Roche à Bourgaut. There the best flying-fish are caught,--and

besides edible creatures, many queer things are often brought up by the

nets: monstrosities such as the _coffre_-fish, shaped almost like a box,

of which the lid is represented by an extraordinary conformation of the

jaws;--and the _barrique-de-vin_ ("wine cask"), with round boneless

body, secreting in a curious vesicle a liquor precisely resembling wine

lees;--and the "needle-fish" (_aiguille de mer_), less thick than a

Faber lead-pencil, but more than twice as long;--and huge cuttle-fish

and prodigious eels. One conger secured off this coast measured over

twenty feet in length, and weighed two hundred and fifty pounds--a

veritable sea-serpent.... But even the fresh-water inhabitants of Grande

Anse are amazing. I have seen crawfish by actual measurement fifty

centimetres long, but these were not considered remarkable. Many are

said to much exceed two feet from the tail to the tip of the claws and

horns. They are of an iron-black color, and have formidable pincers with

serrated edges and tip-points inwardly converging, which cannot crush

like the weapons of a lobster, but which will cut the flesh and make a

small ugly wound. At first sight one not familiar with the crawfish of

these regions can hardly believe he is not viewing some variety of

gigantic lobster instead of the common fresh-water crawfish of the east

coast. When the head, tail, legs, and cuirass have all been removed,

after boiling, the curved trunk has still the size and weight of a large

pork sausage.

These creatures are trapped by lantern-light. Pieces of manioc root tied

fast to large bowlders sunk in the river are the only bait;--the

crawfish will flock to eat it upon any dark night, and then they are

caught with scoop-nets and dropped into covered baskets.

[Footnote 5: _Y batt li conm lambi_--"he beat him like a lambi"--is an

expression that may often be heard in a creole court from witnesses

testifying in a case of assault and battery. One must have seen a lambi

pounded to appreciate the terrible picturesqueness of the phrase.]