VI

... We enter the _grands-bois_,--the primitive forest,--the "high

woods."

As seen with a field-glass from St. Pierre, these woods present only the

appearance of a band of moss belting the volcano, and following all its

corrugations,--so densely do the leafy crests intermingle. But on

actually entering them, you find yourself at once in green twilight,

among lofty trunks uprising everywhere like huge pillars wrapped with

vines;--and the inter-spaces between these bulks are all occupied by

lianas and parasitic creepers,--some monstrous,--veritable

parasite-trees,--ascending at all angles, or dropping straight down from

the tallest crests to take root again. The effect in the dim light is

that of innumerable black ropes and cables of varying thicknesses

stretched taut from the soil to the tree-tops, and also from branch to

branch, like rigging. There are rare and remarkable trees

here,--acomats, courbarils, balatas, ceibas or fromages, acajous,

gommiers;--hundreds have been cut down by charcoal-makers; but the

forest is still grand. It is to be regretted that the Government has

placed no restriction upon the barbarous destruction of trees by the

_charbonniers_, which is going on throughout the island. Many valuable

woods are rapidly disappearing. The courbaril, yielding a fine-grained,

heavy, chocolate-colored timber; the balata, giving a wood even heavier,

denser, and darker; the acajou, producing a rich red wood, with a strong

scent of cedar; the bois-de-fer; the bois d'Inde; the superb

acomat,--all used to flourish by tens of thousands upon these volcanic

slopes, whose productiveness is eighteen times greater than that of the

richest European soil. All Martinique furniture used to be made of

native woods; and the colored cabinet-makers still produce work which

would probably astonish New York or London manufacturers. But today the

island exports no more hard woods: it has even been found necessary to

import much from neighboring islands;--and yet the destruction of

forests still goes on. The domestic fabrication of charcoal from

forest-trees has been estimated at 1,400,000 hectolitres per annum.

Primitive forest still covers the island to the extent of 21.37 per

cent; but to find precious woods now, one must climb heights like those

of Pelée and Carbet, or penetrate into the mountains of the interior.

Most common formerly on these slopes were the gommiers, from which

canoes of a single piece, forty-five feet long by seven wide, used to be

made. There are plenty of gommiers still; but the difficulty of

transporting them to the shore has latterly caused a demand for the

gommiers of Dominica. The dimensions of canoes now made from these trees

rarely exceed fifteen feet in length by eighteen inches in width: the

art of making them is an inheritance from the ancient Caribs. First the

trunk is shaped to the form of the canoe, and pointed at both ends; it

is then hollowed out. The width of the hollow does not exceed six inches

at the widest part; but the cavity is then filled with wet sand, which

in the course of some weeks widens the excavation by its weight, and

gives the boat perfect form. Finally gunwales of plank are fastened on;

seats are put in--generally four;--and no boat is more durable or more

swift.

... We climb. There is a trace rather than a footpath;--no visible soil,

only vegetable detritus, with roots woven over it in every direction.

The foot never rests on a flat surface,--only upon surfaces of roots;

and these are covered, like every protruding branch along the route,

with a slimy green moss, slippery as ice. Unless accustomed to walking

in tropical woods, one will fall at every step. In a little while I find

it impossible to advance. Our nearest guide, observing my predicament,

turns, and without moving the bundle upon his head, cuts and trims me an

excellent staff with a few strokes of his cutlass. This staff not only

saves pie from dangerous slips, but also serves at times to probe the

way; for the further we proceed, the vaguer the path becomes. It was

made by the _chasseurs-de-choux_ (cabbage-hunters),--the negro

mountaineers who live by furnishing heads of young cabbage-palm to the

city markets; and these men also keep it open,--otherwise the woods

would grow over it in a month. Two chasseurs-de-choux stride past as we

advance, with their freshly gathered palm-salad upon their heads,

wrapped in cachibou or balisier leaves, and tied with lianas. The

palmiste-franc reaches a stature of one hundred feet; but the young

trees are so eagerly sought for by the chasseurs-de-choux that in these

woods few reach a height of even twelve feet before being cut.

... Walking becomes more difficult;--there seems no termination to the

grands-bois: always the same faint green light, the same rude natural

stair-way of slippery roots,--half the time hidden by fern leaves and

vines. Sharp ammoniacal scents are in the air; a dew, cold as ice-water,

drenches our clothing. Unfamiliar insects make trilling noises in dark

places; and now and then a series of soft clear notes ring out, almost

like a thrush's whistle: the chant of a little tree-frog. The path

becomes more and more overgrown; and but for the constant excursions of

the cabbage-hunters, we should certainly have to cutlass every foot of

the way through creepers and brambles. More and more amazing also is the

interminable interweaving of roots: the whole forest is thus spun

together--not underground so much as overground. These tropical trees do

not strike deep, although able to climb steep slopes of porphyry and

basalt: they send out great far-reaching webs of roots,--each such web

interknotting with others all round it, and these in turn with further

ones; while between their reticulations lianas ascend and descend: and a

nameless multitude of shrubs as tough as india-rubber push up, together

with mosses, grasses, and ferns. Square miles upon square miles of woods

are thus interlocked and interbound into one mass solid enough to resist

the pressure of a hurricane; and where there is no path already made,

entrance into them can only be effected by the most dexterous

cutlassing.

An inexperienced stranger might be puzzled to understand how this

cutlassing is done. It is no easy feat to sever with one blow a liana

thick as a man's arm; the trained cutlasser does it without apparent

difficulty: moreover, he cuts horizontally, so as to prevent the severed

top presenting a sharp angle and proving afterwards dangerous. He never

appears to strike hard,--only give light taps with his blade, which

flickers continually about him as he moves. Our own guides in cutlassing

are not at all inconvenienced by their loads; they walk perfectly

upright, never stumble, never slip, never hesitate, and do not even seem

to perspire: their bare feet are prehensile. Some creoles in our party,

habituated to the woods, walk nearly as well in their shoes; but they

carry no loads.

... At last we are rejoiced to observe that the trees are becoming

smaller;--there are no more colossal trunks;--there are frequent

glimpses of sky: the sun has risen well above the peaks, and sends

occasional beams down through the leaves. Ten minutes, and we reach a

clear space,--a wild savane, very steep, above which looms a higher belt

of woods. Here we take another short rest.

Northward the view is cut off by a ridge covered with herbaceous

vegetation;--but to the south-west it is open, over a gorge of which

both sides are shrouded in sombre green--crests of trees forming a solid

curtain against the sun. Beyond the outer and lower cliff

valley-surfaces appear miles away, flinging up broad gleams of

cane-gold; further off greens disappear into blues, and the fantastic

masses of Carbet loom up far higher than before. St. Pierre, in a curve

of the coast, is a little red-and-yellow semicircular streak, less than

two inches long. The interspaces between far mountain chains,--masses of

pyramids, cones, single and double humps, queer blue angles as of raised

knees under coverings,--resemble misty lakes: they are filled with

brume;--the sea-line has vanished altogether. Only the horizon,

enormously heightened, can be discerned as a circling band of faint

yellowish light,--auroral, ghostly,--almost on a level with the tips of

the Pitons. Between this vague horizon and the shore, the sea no longer

looks like sea, but like a second hollow sky reversed. All the landscape

has unreal beauty:--there are no keen lines; there are no definite

beginnings or endings; the tints are half-colors only;--peaks rise

suddenly from mysteries of bluish fog as from a flood; land melts into

sea the same hue. It gives one the idea of some great aquarelle

unfinished,--abandoned before tones were deepened and details brought

out.