D.--"_Diabe épi zombi._"... etc.
... What is this after all but the old African method of chanting at
labor. The practice of carrying the burden upon the head left the hands
free for the rhythmic accompaniment of clapping. And you may still hear
the women who load the transatlantic steamers with coal at
Fort-de-France thus chanting and clapping....
Evidently the Devil is moving very fast; for all the boys are
running;--the pattering of bare feet upon the pavement sounds like a
heavy shower.... Then the chanting grows fainter in distance; the
Devil's immense basso becomes inaudible;--one only distinguishes at
regular intervals the crescendo of the burden,--a wild swelling of many
hundred boy-voices all rising together,--a retreating storm of rhythmic
song, wafted to the ear in gusts, in rafales of contralto....