_February 23d._
A coffin passes, balanced on the heads of black men. It bolds the body
of Pascaline Z----, covered with quick-lime.
She was the prettiest, assuredly, among the pretty shop-girls of the
Grande Rue,--a rare type of _sang-mêlée._ So oddly pleasing, the young
face, that once seen, you could never again dissociate the recollection
of it from the memory of the street. But one who saw it last night
before they poured quick-lime upon it could discern no features,--only
a dark brown mass, like a fungus, too frightful to think about.
... And they are all going thus, the beautiful women of color. In the
opinion of physicians, the whole generation is doomed.... Yet a curious
fact is that the young children of octoroons are suffering least: these
women have their children vaccinated,--though they will not be
vaccinated themselves. I see many brightly colored children, too,
recovering from the disorder: the skin is not pitted, like that of the
darker classes; and the rose-colored patches finally disappear
altogether, leaving no trace.
... Here the sick are wrapped in banana leaves, after having been
smeared with a certain unguent....
[Illustration: FORT-DE-FRANCE
_The city from the heights of Le Calvaire, behind
the town._]
There is an immense demand for banana leaves. In ordinary times these
leaves--especially the younger ones, still unrolled, and tender and soft
beyond any fabric possible for man to make--are used for poultices of
all kinds, and sell from one to two sous each, according to size and
quality.