I.
In the village of Morne Rouge, I was frequently impressed by the
singular beauty of young girls from the north-east coast--all porteuses,
who passed almost daily on their way from Grande Anse to St. Pierre and
back again--a total trip of thirty-five miles.... I knew they were from
Grande Anse, because the village baker, at whose shop they were wont to
make brief halts, told me a good deal about them: he knew each one
by name. Whenever a remarkably attractive girl appeared, and I would
inquire whence she came, the invariable reply (generally preceded by
that peculiarly intoned French "Ah!" signifying, "Why, you certainly
ought to know!") was "Grand Anse."..._Ah! c'est de Grande Anse, ça!_
And if any commonplace, uninteresting type showed itself it would
be signalled as from somewhere else--Gros-Morne, Capote, Marigot,
perhaps,--but never from Grand Anse. The Grande Anse girls were
distinguished by their clear yellow or brown skins, lithe light figures
and a particular grace in their way of dressing. Their short robes were
always of bright and pleasing colors, perectly contrasting with the ripe
fruit-tint of nude limbs and faces: I could discern a partiality for
white stuffs with apricot-yellow stripes, for plaidings of blue and
violet, and various patterns of pink and mauve. They had a graceful way
of walking under their trays, with hands clasped behind their heads,
and arms uplifted in the manner of caryatides. An artist would have
been wild with delight for the chance to sketch some of them.... On the
whole, they conveyed the impression that they belonged to a particular
race, very different from that of the chief city or its environs.
"Are they all banana-colored at Grande Anse?" I asked,--"and all as
pretty as these?"
"I was never at Grande Anse," the little baker answered, "although I
have been forty years in Martinique; but I know there is a fine class of
young girls there: _il y a une belle jeunesse là, mon cher!_"
Then I wondered why the youth of Grande Anse should be any finer than
the youth of other places; and it seemed to me that the baker's own
statement of his never having been there might possibly furnish a
clew.... Out of the thirty-five thousand inhabitants of St. Pierre and
its suburbs, there are at least twenty thousand who never have been
there, and most probably never will be. Few dwellers of the west coast
visit the east coast: in fact, except among the white creoles, who
represent but a small percentage of the total population, there are few
persons to be met with who are familiar with all parts of their native
island. It is so mountainous, and travelling is so wearisome, that
populations may live and die in adjacent valleys without climbing the
intervening ranges to look at one another. Grande Anse is only about
twenty miles from the principal city; but it requires some considerable
inducement to make the journey on horseback; and only the professional
carrier-girls, plantation messengers, and colored people of peculiarly
tough constitution attempt it on foot. Except for the transportation of
sugar and rum, there is practically no communication by sea between the
west and the north-east coast--the sea is too dangerous--and thus the
populations on either side of the island are more or less isolated
from each other, besides being further subdivided and segregated by the
lesser mountain chains crossing their respective territories.... In view
of all these things I wondered whether a community so secluded might
not assume special characteristics within two hundred years--might not
develop into a population of some yellow, red, or brown type, according
to the predominant element of the original race-crossing.
II.
I had long been anxious to see the city of the Porteuses, when the
opportunity afforded itself to make the trip with a friend obliged to go
thither on some important business;--I do not think I should have ever
felt resigned to undertake it alone. With a level road the distance
might be covered very quickly, but over mountains the journey is slow
and wearisome in the perpetual tropic heat. Whether made on horseback
or in a carriage, it takes between four and five hours to go from St.
Pierre to Grand Anse, and it requires a longer time to return, as the
road is then nearly all uphill. The young porteuse travels almost as
rapidly; and the bare-footed black postman, who carries the mails in a
square box at the end of a pole, is timed on leaving Morne Rouge at
4 A.M. to reach Ajoupa-Bouillon a little after six, and leaving
Ajoupa-Bouillon at half-past six to reach Grande Anse at half-past
eight, including many stoppages and delays on the way.
Going to Grande Anse from the chief city, one can either hire a horse
or carriage at St. Pierre, or ascend to Morne Rouge by the public
conveyance, and there procure a vehicle or animal, which latter is the
cheaper and easier plan. About a mile beyond Morne Rouge, where the old
Calebasse road enters the public highway, you reach the highest point of
the journey,--the top of the enormous ridge dividing the north-east
from the western coast, and cutting off the trade-winds from sultry
St. Pierre. By climbing the little hill, with a tall stone cross on its
summit, overlooking the Champ-Flore just here, you can perceive the
sea on both sides of the island at once--_lapis lazuli_ blue. From
this elevation the road descends by a hundred windings and lessening
undulations to the eastern shore. It sinks between mornes wooded to
their summits,--bridges a host of torrents and ravines,--passes gorges
from whence colossal trees tower far overhead, through heavy streaming
of lianas, to mingle their green crowns in magnificent gloom. Now and
then you hear a low long sweet sound like the deepest tone of a silver
flute,--a bird-call, the cry of the _siffleur-de-montagne_; then all is
stillness. You are not likely to see a white face again for hours, but
at intervals a porteuse passes, walking very swiftly, or a field-hand
heavily laden; and these salute you either by speech or a lifting of the
hand to the head.... And it is very pleasant to hear the greetings and
to see the smiles of those who thus pass,--the fine brown girls
bearing trays, the dark laborers bowed under great burdens of
bamboo-grass,--_Bonjou', Missié!_ Then you should reply, if the speaker
be a woman and pretty, "Good-day, dear" (_bonjou', chè_), or, "Good-day,
my daughter" (_mafi_) even if she be old; while if the passer-by be a
man, your proper reply is, "Good-day, my son" (_monfi_).... They are
less often uttered now than in other years, these kindly greetings, but
they still form part of the good and true creole manners.
[Illustration: A CREOLE CAPRE IN WORKING GARB.]
The feathery beauty of the tree-ferns shadowing each brook, the grace
of bamboo and arborescent grasses, seem to decrease as the road
descends,--but the palms grow taller. Often the way skirts a precipice
dominating some marvellous valley prospect; again it is walled in by
high green banks or shrubby slopes which cut off the view; and always it
serpentines so that you cannot see more than a few hundred feet of
the white track before you. About the fifteenth kilometre a glorious
landscape opens to the right, reaching to the Atlantic;--the road still
winds very high; forests are billowing hundreds of yards below it, and
rising miles away up the slopes of mornes, beyond which, here and there,
loom strange shapes of mountain,--shading off from misty green to violet
and faintest gray. And through one grand opening in this multicolored
surging of hills and peaks you perceive the gold-yellow of cane-fields
touching the sky-colored sea. Grande Anse lies somewhere in that
direction.... At the eighteenth kilometre you pass a cluster of little
country cottages, a church, and one or two large buildings framed in
shade-trees--the hamlet of Ajoupa-Bouillon. Yet a little farther, and
you find you have left all the woods behind you. But the road continues
its bewildering curves around and between low mornes covered with
cane or cocoa plants: it dips down very low, rises again, dips once
more;--and you perceive the soil is changing color; it is taking a red
tint like that of the land of the American cotton-belt. Then you pass
the Rivière Falaise (marked _Filasse_ upon old maps),--with its shallow
crystal torrent flowing through a very deep and rocky channel,--and the
Capote and other streams; and over the yellow rim of cane-hills the long
blue bar of the sea appears, edged landward with a dazzling fringe of
foam. The heights you have passed are no longer verqant, but purplish
or gray,--with Pelée's cloud-wrapped enormity overtopping all. A very
strong warm wind is blowing upon you--the trade-wind, always driving the
clouds west: this is the sunny side of Martinique, where gray days and
heavy rains are less frequent. Once or twice more the sea disappears
and reappears, always over canes; and then, after passing a bridge and
turning a last curve, the road suddenly drops down to the shore and into
the burgh of Grande Anse.
III.
Leaving Morne Rouge at about eight in the morning, my friend and I
reached Grande Anse at half-past eleven. Everything had been arranged
to make us comfortable, I was delighted with the airy corner room,
commanding at once a view of the main street and of the sea--a very high
room, all open to the trade-winds--which had been prepared to receive
me. But after a long carriage ride in the heat of a tropical June day,
one always feels the necessity of a little physical exercise. I lingered
only a minute or two in the house, and went out to look at the little
town and its surroundings.
As seen from the high-road, the burgh of Grande Anse makes a long patch
of darkness between the green of the coast and the azure of the water:
it is almost wholly black and gray--suited to inspire an etching, High
slopes of cane and meadow rise behind it and on either side, undulating
up and away to purple and gray tips of mountain ranges. North and south,
to left and right, the land reaches out in two high promontories, mostly
green, and about a mile apart--the Pointe du Rochet and the Pointe de
Séguinau, or Croche-Mort, which latter name preserves the legend of
an insurgent slave, a man of color, shot dead upon the cliff. These
promontories form the semicircular bay of Grande Anse. All this Grande
Anse, or "Great Creek," valley is an immense basin of basalt; and narrow
as it is, no less than five streams water it, including the Riviere de
la Grande Anse.
There are only three short streets in the town. The principal, or Grande
Rue, is simply a continuation of the national road; there is a narrower
one below, which used to be called the Rue de la Paille, because the
cottages lining it were formerly all thatched with cane straw; and there
is one above it, edging the cane-fields that billow away to the meeting
of morne and sky. There is nothing of architectural interest, and all is
sombre,--walls and roofs and pavements. But after you pass through the
city and follow the southern route that ascends the Séguinau promontory,
you can obtain some lovely landscape views a grand surging of rounded
mornes, with farther violet peaks, truncated or horned, pushing up their
heads in the horizon above the highest flutterings of cane; and looking
back above the town, you may see Pelée all unclouded,--not as you see
it from the other coast, but an enormous ghostly silhouette, with steep
sides and almost square summit, so pale as to seem transparent. Then
if you cross the promontory southward, the same road will lead you into
another very beautiful valley, watered by a broad rocky torrent,--the
Valley of the Rivière du Lorrain. This clear stream rushes to the sea
through a lofty opening in the hills; and looking westward between them,
you will be charmed by the exquisite vista of green shapes piling and
pushing up one behind another to reach a high blue ridge which forms the
background--a vision of tooth-shaped and fantastical mountains,--part of
the great central chain running south and north through nearly the whole
island. It is over those blue summits that the wonderful road called _La
Trace_ winds between primeval forest walls.
But the more you become familiar with the face of the little town
itself, the more you are impressed by the strange swarthy tone it
preserves in all this splendid expanse of radiant tinting. There are
only two points of visible color in it,--the church and hospital, built
of stone, which have been painted yellow: as a mass in the landscape,
lying between the dead-gold of the cane-clad hills and the delicious
azure of the sea, it remains almost black under the prodigious blaze
of light. The foundations of volcanic rock, three or four feet high,
on which the frames of the wooden dwellings rest, are black; and the
sea-wind appears to have the power of blackening all timber-work here
through any coat of paint. Roofs and façades look as if they had been
long exposed to coal-smoke, although probably no one in Grande Anse
ever saw coal; and the pavements of pebbles and cement are of a deep
ash-color, full of micaceous scintillation, and so hard as to feel
disagreeable even to feet protected by good thick shoes. By-and-by you
notice walls of black stone, bridges of black stone, and perceive that
black forms an element of all the landscape about you. On the roads
leading from the town you note from time to time masses of jagged rock
or great bowlders protruding through the green of the slopes, and
dark as ink. These black surfaces also sparkle. The beds of all the
neighboring rivers are filled with dark gray stones; and many of these,
broken by those violent floods which dash rocks together,--deluging the
valleys, and strewing the soil of the bottom-lands (_fonds_) with dead
serpents,--display black cores. Bare crags projecting from the green
cliffs here and there are soot-colored, and the outlying rocks of the
coast offer a similar aspect. And the sand of the beach is funereally
black--looks almost like powdered charcoal; and as you walk over it,
sinking three or four inches every step, you are amazed by the
multitude and brilliancy of minute flashes in it, like a subtle silver
effervescence.
This extraordinary sand contains ninety per cent of natural steel, and
efforts have been made to utilize it industrially. Some years ago a
company was formed, and a machine invented to separate the metal from
the pure sand,--an immense revolving magnet, which, being set in motion
under a sand shower, caught the ore upon it. When the covering thus
formed by the adhesion of the steel became of a certain thickness, the
simple interruption of an electric current precipitated the metal into
appropriate receptacles. Fine bars were made from this volcanic steel,
and excellent cutting tools manufactured from it: French metallurgists
pronounced the product of peculiar excellence, and nevertheless
the project of the company was abandoned. Political disorganization
consequent upon the establishment of universal suffrage frightened
capitalists who might have aided the undertaking under a better
condition of affairs; and the lack of large means, coupled with the cost
of freight to remote markets, ultimately baffled this creditable attempt
to found a native industry.
Sometimes after great storms bright brown sand is flung up from the
sea-depths; but the heavy black sand always reappears again to make the
universal color of the beach.
IV.
Behind the roomy wooden house in which I occupied an apartment there
was a small garden-plot surrounded with a hedge strengthened by bamboo
fencing, and radiant with flowers of the _loseille-bois_,--the creole
name for a sort of begonia, whose closed bud exactly resembles a pink
and white dainty bivalve shell, and whose open blossom imitates the
form of a butterfly. Here and there, on the grass, were nets drying, and
_nasses_--curious fish-traps made of split bamboos interwoven and held
in place with _mibi_ stalks (the mibi is a liana heavy and tough as
copper wire); and immediately behind the garden hedge appeared the white
flashing of the surf. The most vivid recollection connected with my trip
to Grande Anse is that of the first time that I went to the end of that
garden, opened the little bamboo gate, and found myself overlooking the
beach--an immense breadth of soot-black sand, with pale green patches
and stripings here and there upon it--refuse of cane thatch, decomposing
rubbish spread out by old tides. The one solitary boat owned in the
community lay there before me, high and dry. It was the hot period of
the afternoon; the town slept; there was no living creature in sight;
and the booming of the surf drowned all other sounds; the scent of the
warm strong sea-wind annihilated all other odors. Then, very suddenly,
there came to me a sensation absolutely weird, while watching the
strange wild sea roaring over its beach of black sand,--the sensation of
seeing something unreal, looking at something that had no more tangible
existence than a memory! Whether suggested by the first white vision of
the surf over the bamboo hedge,--or by those old green tide-lines on the
desolation of the black beach,--or by some tone of the speaking of the
sea,--or something indefinable in the living touch of the wind,--or by
all of these, I cannot say;--but slowly there became defined within me
the thought of having beheld just such a coast very long ago, I could
not tell where,--in those child-years of which the recollections
gradually become indistinguishable from dreams.
Soon as darkness comes upon Grande Anse the face of the clock in the
church-tower is always lighted: you see it suddenly burst into yellow
glow above the roofs and the cocoa-palms,--just like a pharos. In my
room I could not keep the candle lighted because of the sea-wind; but
it never occurred to me to close the shutters of the great broad
windows,--sashless, of course, like all the glassless windows of
Martinique;--the breeze was too delicious. It seemed full of something
vitalizing that made one's blood warmer, and rendered one full of
contentment--full of eagerness to believe life all sweetness. Likewise,
I found it soporific--this pure, dry, warm wind. And I thought there
could be no greater delight in existence than to lie down at night,
with all the windows open,--and the Cross of the South visible from
my pillow,--and the sea-wind pouring over the bed,--and the tumultuous
whispering and muttering of the surf in one's ears,--to dream of that
strange sapphire sea white-bursting over its beach of black sand.
V.
Considering that Grande Anse lies almost opposite to St. Pierre, at a
distance of less than twenty miles even by the complicated windings of
the national road, the differences existing in the natural conditions
of both places are remarkable enough. Nobody in St. Pierre sees the
sun rise, because the mountains immediately behind the city continue to
shadow its roofs long after the eastern coast is deluged with light and
heat. At Grande Anse, on the other hand, those tremendous sunsets which
delight west coast dwellers are not visible at all; and during the
briefer West Indian days Grande Anse is all wrapped in darkness as early
as half-past four,--or nearly an hour before the orange light has ceased
to flare up the streets of St. Pierre from the sea;--since the great
mountain range topped by Pelée cuts off all the slanting light from the
east valleys. And early as folks rise in St. Pierre, they rise still
earlier at Grande Anse--before the sun emerges from the rim of the
Atlantic: about half-past four, doors are being opened and coffee is
ready. At St. Pierre one can enjoy a sea bath till seven or half-past
seven o'clock, even during the time of the sun's earliest rising,
because the shadow of the mornes still reaches out upon the bay;--but
bathers leave the black beach of Grande Anse by six o'clock; for once
the sun's face is up, the light, levelled straight at the eyes, becomes
blinding. Again, at St. Pierre it rains almost every twenty-four hours
for a brief while, during at least the greater part of the year; at
Grande Anse it rains more moderately and less often. The atmosphere at
St. Pierre is always more or less impregnated with vapor, and usually
an enervating heat prevails, which makes exertion unpleasant; at
Grande Anse the warm wind keeps the skin comparatively dry, in spite
of considerable exercise. It is quite rare to see a heavy surf at St,
Pierre, but it is much rarer not to see it at Grande Anse.... A curious
fact concerning custom is that few white creoles care to bathe in front
of the town, notwithstanding the superb beach and magnificent surf, both
so inviting to one accustomed to the deep still water and rough
pebbly shore of St, Pierre. The creoles really prefer their rivers as
bathing-places; and when willing to take a sea bath, they will walk up
and down hill for kilometres in order to reach some river mouth, so as
to wash off in the fresh-water afterwards. They say that the effect
of sea-salt upon the skin gives _bouton chauds_ (what we call "prickly
heat"). Friends took me all the way to the mouth of the Lorrain one
morning that I might have the experience of such a double bath; but
after leaving the tepid sea, I must confess the plunge into the river
was something terrible--an icy shock which cured me of all further
desire for river baths. My willingness to let the sea-water dry upon me
was regarded as an eccentricity.
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 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 risk 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
mantle-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 yes, 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. [4]
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.
VII.
One whose ideas of the people of Grande Anse had I been formed only by
observing the young porteuses of the region on their way to the other
side of the Island, might expect on reaching this little town to find
its population yellow as that of a Chinese city. But the dominant hue is
much darker, although the mixed element is everywhere visible; and I
was at first surprised by the scarcity of those clear bright skins I
supposed to be so numerous. Some pretty children--notably a pair of
twin-sisters, and perhaps a dozen school-girls from eight to ten years
of age--displayed the same characteristics I have noted in the adult
porteuses of Grande Anse; but within the town itself this brighter
element is in the minority. The predominating race element of the whole
commune is certainly colored (Grande Anse is even memorable because of
the revolt of its _hommes de couleur_ some fifty years ago);--but the
colored population is not concentrated in the town; it belongs rather
to the valleys and the heights surrounding the _chef-lieu_. Most of the
porteuses are country girls, and I found that even those living in the
village are seldom visible on the streets except when departing upon a
trip or returning from one. An artist wishing to study the type might,
however, pass a day at the bridge of the Rivière Falaise to advantage,
as all the carrier-girls pass it at certain hours of the morning and
evening.
But the best possible occasion on which to observe what my friend the
baker called _la belle jeunesse_, is a confirmation day,--when the
bishop drives to Grande Anse over the mountains, and all the population
turns out in holiday garb, and the bells are tapped like tam-tams, and
triumphal arches--most awry to behold!--span the road-way, bearing in
clumsiest lettering the welcome, _Vive Monseigneur_. On that event,
the long procession of young girls to be confirmed--all in white robes,
white veils, and white satin slippers--is a numerical surprise. It is
a moral surprise also,--to the stranger at least; for it reveals the
struggle of a poverty extraordinary with the self-imposed obligations of
a costly ceremonialism.
No white children ever appear in these processions: there are not half
a dozen white families in the whole urban population of about seven
thousand souls; and those send their sons and daughters to St. Pierre or
Morne Rouge for their religious training and education. But many of
the colored children look very charming in their costume of
confirmation;--you could not easily recognize one of them as the same
little _bonne_ who brings your morning cup of coffee, or another as the
daughter of a plantation _commandeur_ (overseer's assistant),--a brown
slip of a girl who will probably never wear shoes again. And many of
those white shoes and white veils have been obtained only by the hardest
physical labor and self-denial of poor parents and relatives: fathers,
brothers, and mothers working with cutlass and hoe in the snake-swarming
cane-fields;--sisters walking bare-footed every day to St. Pierre and
back to earn a few francs a month.
[Illustration: A CONFIRMATION PROCESSION.]
... While watching such a procession it seemed to me that I could
discern in the features and figures of the young confirmants something
of a prevailing type and tint, and I asked an old planter beside me if
he thought my impression correct.
"Partly," he answered; "there is certainly a tendency towards an
attractive physical type here, but the tendency itself is less stable
than you imagine; it has been changed during the last twenty years
within my own recollection. In different parts of the island particular
types appear and disappear with a generation. There is a sort of
race-fermentation going on, which gives no fixed result of a positive
sort for any great length of time. It is true that certain elements
continue to dominate in certain communes, but the particular
characteristics come and vanish in the most mysterious way. As to color,
I doubt if any correct classification can be made, especially by a
stranger. Your eyes give you general ideas about a red type, a yellow
type, a brown type; but to the more experienced eyes of a creole,
accustomed to live in the country districts, every individual of mixed
race appears to have a particular color of his own. Take, for instance,
the so-called capre type, which furnishes the finest physical examples
of all,--you, a stranger, are at once impressed by the general red tint
of the variety; but you do not notice the differences of that tint
in different persons, which are more difficult to observe than
shade-differences of yellow or brown. Now, to me, every capre or
capresse has an individual color; and I do not believe that in all
Martinique there are two half-breeds--not having had the same father and
mother--in whom the tint is precisely the same."
VIII.
I thought Grande Anse the most sleepy place I had ever visited. I
suspect it is one of the sleepiest in the whole world. The wind,
which tans even a creole of St. Pierre to an unnatural brown within
forty-eight hours of his sojourn in the village, has also a peculiarly
somnolent effect. The moment one has nothing particular to do, and
ventures to sit down idly with the breeze in one's face, slumber comes;
and everybody who can spare the time takes a long nap in the afternoon,
and little naps from hour to hour. For all that, the heat of the east
coast is not enervating, like that of St. Pierre; one can take a great
deal of exercise in the sun without feeling much the worse. Hunting
excursions, river fishing parties, surf-bathing, and visits to
neighboring plantations are the only amusements; but these are enough to
make existence very pleasant at Grande Anse. The most interesting of my
own experiences were those of a day passed by invitation at one of the
old colonial estates on the hills near the village.
It is not easy to describe the charm of a creole interior, whether in
the city or the country. The cool shadowy court, with its wonderful
plants and fountain of sparkling mountain water, or the lawn, with its
ancestral trees,--the delicious welcome of the host, whose fraternal
easy manner immediately makes you feel at home,--the coming of the
children to greet you, each holding up a velvety brown cheek to be
kissed, after the old-time custom,--the romance of the unconventional
chat, over a cool drink, under the palms and the ceibas,--the visible
earnestness of all to please the guest, to inwrap him in a very
atmosphere of quiet happiness,--combine to make a memory which you will
never forget. And maybe you enjoy all this upon some exquisite site,
some volcanic summit, overlooking slopes of a hundred greens,--mountains
far winding in blue and pearly shadowing,--rivers singing seaward behind
curtains of arborescent reeds and bamboos,--and, perhaps, Pelee, in
the horizon, dreaming violet dreams under her foulard of vapors,--and,
encircling all, the still sweep of the ocean's azure bending to the
verge of day.
... My host showed or explained to me all that he thought might interest
a stranger. He had brought to me a nest of the _carouge_, a bird
which suspends its home, hammock-fashion, under the leaves of the
banana-tree;--showed me a little fer-de-lance, freshly killed by one of
his field hands; and a field lizard (_zanoli tè_ in creole), not green
like the lizards which haunt the roofs of St. Pierre, but of a beautiful
brown bronze, with shifting tints; and eggs of the _zanoli_, little soft
oval things from which the young lizards will perhaps run out alive as
fast as you open the shells; and the _matoutou falaise_, or spider of
the cliffs, of two varieties, red or almost black when adult, and bluish
silvery tint when young,--less in size than the tarantula, but
equally hairy and venomous; and the _crabe-c'est-ma-faute_ (the
"Through-my-fault Crab"), having one very small and one very large
claw, which latter it carries folded up against its body, so as to have
suggested the idea of a penitent striking his bosom, and uttering the
sacramental words of the Catholic confession, "Through my fault, through
my fault, through my most grievous fault."... Indeed I cannot recollect
one-half of the queer birds, queer insects, queer reptiles, and queer
plants to which my attention was called. But speaking of plants, I
was impressed by the profusion of the _zhèbe-moin-misé_--a little
sensitive-plant I had rarely observed on the west coast. On the
hill-sides of Grande Anse it prevails to such an extent as to
give certain slopes its own peculiar greenish-brown color. It has
many-branching leaves, only one inch and a half to two inches long, but
which recall the form of certain common ferns; these lie almost flat
upon the ground. They fold together upward from the central stem at the
least touch, and the plant thus makes itself almost imperceptible;--it
seems to live so, that you feel guilty of murder if you break off a
leaf. It is called _Zhèbe-moin-misé_, or "Plant-did-I-amuse-myself,"
because it is supposed to tell naughty little children who play truant,
or who delay much longer than is necessary in delivering a message,
whether they deserve a whipping or not. The guilty child touches the
plant, and asks, "_Ess moin amisé moin?_" (Did I amuse myself?); and if
the plant instantly shuts its leaves up, that means, "Yes, you did." Of
course the leaves invariably close; but I suspect they invariably tell
the truth, for all colored children, in Grande Anse at least, are much
more inclined to play than work.
The kind old planter likewise conducted me over the estate. He took
me through the sugar-mill, and showed me, among other more recent
inventions, some machinery devised nearly two centuries ago by the
ingenious and terrible Père Labat, and still quite serviceable, in
spite of all modern improvements in sugar-making;--took me through the
_rhummerie_, or distillery, and made me taste some colorless rum which
had the aroma and something of the taste of the most delicate gin;--and
finally took me into the _cases-à-vent_, or "wind-houses,"--built as
places of refuge during hurricanes. Hurricanes are rare, and more rare
in this century by far than during the previous one; but this part of
the island is particularly exposed to such visitations, and almost every
old plantation used to have one or two cases-à-vent. They were
always built in a hollow, either natural or artificial, below the
land-level,--with walls of rock several feet thick, and very strong
doors, but no windows. My host told me about the experiences of his
family in some case-à-vent during a hurricane which he recollected. It
was found necessary to secure the door within by means of strong ropes;
and the mere task of holding it taxed the strength of a dozen powerful
men: it would bulge in under the pressure of the awful wind,--swelling
like the side of a barrel; and had not its planks been made of a wood
tough as hickory, they would have been blown into splinters.
I had long desired to examine a plantation drum, and see it played
upon under conditions more favorable than the excitement of a holiday
_caleinda_ in the villages, where the amusement is too often terminated
by a _voum_ (general row) or a _goumage_ (a serious fight);--and when
I mentioned this wish to the planter he at once sent word to his
commandeur, the best drummer in the settlement, to come up to the
house and bring his instrument with him. I was thus enabled to make the
observations necessary, and also to take an instantaneous photograph of
the drummer in the very act of playing.
The old African dances, the _caleinda_ and the _bélé_ (which latter is
accompanied by chanted improvisation) are danced on Sundays to the sound
of the drum on almost every plantation in the island. The drum, indeed,
is an instrument to which the country-folk are so much attached that
they swear by it,--_Tambou!_ being the oath uttered upon all ordinary
occasions of surprise or vexation. But the instrument is quite as often
called _ka_, because made out of a quarter-barrel, or _quart_,--in the
patois "ka." Both ends of the barrel having been removed, a wet hide,
well wrapped about a couple of hoops, is driven on, and in drying the
stretched skin obtains still further tension. The other end of the ka
is always left open. Across the face of the skin a string is tightly
stretched, to which are attached, at intervals of about an inch apart,
very short thin fragments of bamboo or cut feather stems. These lend a
certain vibration to the tones.
In the time of Père Labat the negro drums had a somewhat different form.
There were then two kinds of drums--a big tamtam and a little one, which
used to be played together. Both consisted of skins tightly stretched
over one end of a wooden cylinder, or a section of hollow tree trunk.
The larger was from three to four feet long with a diameter of fifteen
to sixteen inches; the smaller, called _baboula_, [5] was of the same
length, but only eight or nine inches in diameter.
Père Labat also speaks, in his West Indian travels, of another musical
instrument, very popular among the Martinique slaves of his time--"a
sort of guitar" made out of a half-calabash or _couï_, covered with some
kind of skin. It had four strings of silk or catgut, and a very long
neck. The tradition or this African instrument is said to survive in the
modern "_banza_" (_banza nèg Guinée_).
The skilful player (_bel tambouyé_) straddles his ka stripped to
the waist, and plays upon it with the finger-tips of both hands
simultaneously,--taking care that the vibrating string occupies a
horizontal position. Occasionally the heel of the naked foot is pressed
lightly or vigorously against the skin, so as to produce changes
of tone. This is called "giving heel" to the drum--_baill y talon_.
Meanwhile a boy keeps striking the drum at the uncovered end with a
stick, so as to produce a dry clattering accompaniment. The sound of the
drum itself, well played, has a wild power that makes and masters all
the excitement of the dance--a complicated double roll, with a
peculiar billowy rising and falling. The creole onomatopes,
_b'lip-b'lib-b'lib-b'lip_, do not fully render the roll;--for each
_b'lip_ or _b'lib_ stands really for a series of sounds too rapidly
filliped out to be imitated by articulate speech. The tapping of a ka
can be heard at surprising distances; and experienced players often play
for hours at a time without exhibiting wearisomeness, or in the least
diminishing the volume of sound produced.
It seems there are many ways of playing--different measures familiar to
all these colored people, but not easily distinguished by anybody else;
and there are great matches sometimes between celebrated _tambouyé_. The
same _commandè_ whose portrait I took while playing told me that he once
figured in a contest of this kind, his rival being a drummer from the
neighboring burgh of Marigot.... "_Aïe, aïe, yaïe! mon chè!--y fai
tambou-à pàlé!_" said the commandè, describing the execution of his
antagonist;--"my dear, he just made that drum talk! I thought I was
going to be beaten for sure; I was trembling all the time--_aïe, aïe,
yaïe!_ Then he got off that ka, mounted it; I thought a moment; then I
struck up the 'River-of-the-Lizard,'--_mais, mon chè, yon larivie-Léza
toutt pi!_--such a River-of-the-Lizard, ah! just perfectly pure! I gave
heel to that ka; I worried that ka;--I made it mad--I made it crazy;--I
made it talk;--I won!"
During some dances a sort of chant accompanies the music--a long
sonorous cry, uttered at intervals of seven eight seconds, which
perfectly times a particular measure in the drum roll. It may be the
burden of a song: a mere improvisation:
"Oh! yoïe-yoïe!"
(Drum roll.)
"Oh! missié-à!"
(Drum roll.)
"Y bel tambouyé!"
(Drum roll.)
"Aie, ya, yaie!"
(Drum roll.)
"Joli tambouyé!"
(Drum roll.)
"Chauffé tambou-à!"
(Drum roll.)
"Géné tambou-à!"
(Drum roll.)
"Crazé tambou-à!" etc., etc.
... The _crieur_, or chanter, is also the leader of the dance. The
caleinda is danced by men only, all stripped to the waist, and twirling
heavy sticks in a mock fight, Sometimes, however--especially at
the great village gatherings, when the blood becomes oyerheated by
tafia--the mock fight may become a real one; and then even cutlasses are
brought into play.
But in the old days, those improvisations which gave one form of dance
its name, _bélé_ (from the French _bel air_), were often remarkable
rhymeless poems, uttered with natural simple emotion, and full of
picturesque imagery. I cite part of one, taken down from the dictation
of a common field-hand near Fort-de-France. I offer a few lines of the
creole first, to indicate the form of the improvisation. There is a
dancing pause at the end of each line during the performance:
Toutt fois lanmou vini lacase moin
Pou pàlé moin, moin ka reponne:
"Khé moin deja placé,"
Moin ka crié, "Secou! les voisinages!"
Moin ka crié, "Secou! la gàde royale!"
Moin ka crié, "Secou! la gendàmerie!
Lanmou pouend yon poignâ pou poignadé moin!"
The best part of the composition, which is quite long, might be rendered
as follows:
Each time that Love comes to my cabin
To speak to me of love I make answer,
"My heart is already placed,"
I cry out, "Help, neighbors! help!"
I cry out, "Help, _la Garde Royale!_"
I cry out, "Help, help, gendarmes!
Love takes a poniard to stab me;
How can Love have a heart so hard
To thus rob me of my health!"
When the officer of police comes to me
To hear me tell him the truth,
To have him arrest my Love;--
When I see the Garde Royale
Coming to arrest my sweet heart,
I fall down at the feet of the Garde Royale,--
I pray for mercy and forgiveness.
"Arrest me instead, but let my dear Love go!"
How, alas! with this tender heart of mine,
Can I bear to see such an arrest made!
No, no! I would rather die!
Dost not remember, when our pillows lay close together,
How we told each to the other all that our hearts thought?... etc.
[Illustration: MANNER OF PLAYING THE KA]
The stars were all out when I bid my host good-bye;--he sent his lack
servant along with me to carry a lantern and keep a sharp watch for
snakes along the mountain road.
IX.
... Assuredly the city of St. Pierre never could have seemed more
quaintly beautiful than as I saw it on the evening of my return, while
the shadows were reaching their longest, and sea and sky were turning
lilac. Palm-heads were trembling and masts swaying slowly against an
enormous orange sunset,--yet the beauty of the sight did not touch me!
The deep level and luminous flood of the bay seemed to me for the first
time a dead water;--I found myself wondering whether it could form
a part of that living tide by which I had been dwelling, full of
foam-lightnings and perpetual thunder. I wondered whether the air about
me--heavy and hot and full of faint leafy smells--could ever have been
touched by the vast pure sweet breath of the wind from the sunrising.
And I became conscious of a profound, unreasoning, absurd regret for the
somnolent little black village of that bare east coast,--where there are
no woods, no ships, no sunsets,...only the ocean roaring forever over
its beach of black sand.