_April 10th._
... Manm-Robert is much annoyed and puzzled because the American
steamer--the _bom-mangé_, as she calls it--does not come. It used to
bring regularly so many barrels of potatoes and beans, so much lard and
cheese and garlic and dried pease--everything, almost of which she keeps
a stock. It is now nearly eight weeks since the cannon of a New York
steamer aroused the echoes of the harbor. Every morning Manm-Robert has
been sending out her little servant Louis to see if there is any sign of
the American packet:--"_Allé ouè Batterie d'Esnotz si bom-mangé-à
pas vini._" But Louis always returns with the same rueful answer:--
--"_Manm-Robert, pa ni piess bom-mangé_" (there is not so much as a bit
of a _bom-mangé_).
... "No more American steamers for Martinique:" that is the news
received by telegraph! The disease has broken out among the shipping;
the harbors have been declared infected. United States mail-packets drop
their Martinique mails at St. Kitt's or Dominica, and pass us by. There
will be suffering now among the canotiers, the caboteurs, all those who
live by stowing or unloading cargo;--great warehouses are being closed
up, and strong men discharged, because there will be nothing for them to
do.
... They are burying twenty-five _verettiers_ per day in the city.
But never was this tropic sky more beautiful;--never was this circling
sea more marvellously blue;--never were the mornes more richly robed in
luminous green, under a more golden day.... And it seems strange that
Nature should remain so lovely....
... Suddenly it occurs to me that I have not seen Yzore nor her children
for some days; and I wonder if they have moved away.... Towards evening,
passing by Manm-Robert's, I ask about them. The old woman answers me
very gravely:--
--"_Aid, mon chè, c'est Yzore qui ni lavérette!_"
The mother has been seized by the plague at last. But Manm-Robert will
look after her; and Manm-Robert has taken charge of the three little
ones, who are not now allowed to leave the house, for fear some one
should tell them what it were best they should not know.... _Pauv ti
manmaille!_