I.
St. Pierre is in one respect fortunate beyond many tropical cities;--she
has scarcely any mosquitoes, although there are plenty of mosquitoes
in other parts of Martinique, even in the higher mountain villages. The
flood of bright water that pours perpetually through all her streets,
renders her comparatively free from the pest;--nobody sleeps under a
mosquito bar.
Nevertheless, St. Pierre is not exempt from other peculiar plagues of
tropical life; and you cannot be too careful about examining your bed
before venturing to lie down, and your clothing before you dress;--for
various disagreeable things might be hiding in them: a spider large as a
big crab, or a scorpion or a _mabouya_ or a centipede,--or certain large
ants whose bite burns like the pricking of a red-hot needle. No one who
has lived in St. Pierre is likely to forget the ants.... There are three
or four kinds in every house;--the _fourmi fou_ (mad ant), a little
speckled yellowish creature whose movements are so rapid as to delude
the vision; the great black ant which allows itself to be killed before
it lets go what it has bitten; the venomous little red ant, which is
almost too small to see; and the small black ant which does not bite at
all,--are usually omnipresent, and appear to dwell together in
harmony. They are pests in kitchens, cupboards, and safes; but they are
scavengers. It is marvellous to see them carrying away the body of
a great dead roach or centipede,--pulling and pushing together like
trained laborers, and guiding the corpse over obstacles or around them
with extraordinary skill.... There was a time when ants almost destroyed
the colony,--in 1751. The plantations, devastated by them are described
by historians as having looked as if desolated by fire. Underneath the
ground in certain places, layers of their eggs two inches deep were
found extending over acres. Infants left unwatched in the cradle for a
few hours were devoured alive by them. Immense balls of living ants
were washed ashore at the same time on various parts of the coast (a
phenomenon repeated within the memory of creoles now living in the
north-east parishes). The Government vainly offered rewards for the best
means of destroying the insects; but the plague gradually disappeared as
it came.
None of these creatures can be prevented from entering a dwelling;--you
may as well resign yourself to the certainty of meeting with them from
time to time. The great spiders (with the exception of those which are
hairy) need excite no alarm or disgust;--indeed they are suffered to
live unmolested in many houses, partly owing to a belief that they bring
good-luck, and partly because they destroy multitudes of those enormous
and noisome roaches which spoil whatever they cannot eat. The scorpion
is less common; but it has a detestable habit of lurking under beds; and
its bite communicates a burning fever. With far less reason, the mabouya
is almost equally feared. It is a little lizard about six inches long,
and ashen-colored;--it haunts only the interior of houses, while the
bright-green lizards dwell only upon the roofs. Like other reptiles of
the same order, the mabouya can run over or cling to polished surfaces;
and there is a popular belief that if frightened, it will leap at one's
face or hands and there fasten itself so tightly that it cannot be
dislodged except by cutting it to pieces. Moreover, it's feet are
supposed to have the power of leaving certain livid and ineffaceable
marks upon the skin of the person to whom it attaches itself:--_ça ka
ba ou lota_, say the colored people. Nevertheless, there is no creature
more timid and harmless than the mabouya.
But the most dreaded and the most insolent invader of domestic peace is
the centipede. The water system of the city banished the mosquito; but
it introduced the centipede into almost every dwelling. St. Pierre has a
plague of centipedes. All the covered drains, the gutters, the crevices
of fountain-basins and bathing-basins, the spaces between floor and
ground, shelter centipedes. And the _bête à-mille-pattes_ is the terror
of the barefooted population:--scarcely a day passes that some child or
bonne or workman is not bitten by the creature.
The sight of a full-grown centipede is enough to affect a strong set
of nerves. Ten to eleven inches is the average length of adults; but
extraordinary individuals much exceeding this dimension may be sometimes
observed in the neighborhood of distilleries (_rhommeries_) and
sugar-refineries. According to age, the color of the creature varies
from yellowish to black;--the younger ones often have several different
tints; the old ones are uniformly jet-black, and have a carapace of
surprising toughness,--difficult to break. If you tread, by accident or
design, upon the tail, the poisonous head will instantly curl back and
bite the foot through any ordinary thickness of upper-leather.
As a general rule the centipede lurks about the court-yards,
foundations, and drains by preference; but in the season of heavy rains
he does not hesitate to move upstairs, and make himself at home in
parlors and bed-rooms. He has a provoking habit of nestling in your
_moresques_ or your _chinoises_,--those wide light garments you put on
before taking your siesta or retiring for the night. He also likes to
get into your umbrella,--an article indispensable in the tropics; and
you had better never open it carelessly. He may even take a notion to
curl himself up in your hat, suspended on the wall. (I have known a
trigonocephalus to do the same thing in a country-house). He has also a
singular custom of mounting upon the long trailing dresses (douillettes)
worn by Martinique women,--and climbing up very swiftly and lightly to
the wearer's neck, where the prickling of his feet first betrays his
presence. Sometimes he will get into bed with you and bite you, because
you have not resolution enough to lie perfectly still while he is
tickling you.... It is well to remember before dressing that merely
shaking a garment may not dislodge him;--you must examine every part
very patiently,--particularly the sleeves of a coat and the legs of
pantaloons.
The vitality of the creature is amazing. I kept one in a bottle without
food or water for thirteen weeks, at the end of which time it remained
active and dangerous as ever. Then I fed it with living insects,
which it devoured ravenously;--beetles, roaches, earthworms, several
_lepismaoe_, even one of the dangerous-looking millepedes, which have a
great resemblance in outward structure to the centipede, but a thinner
body, and more numerous limbs,--all seemed equally palatable to the
prisoner.... I knew an instance of one, nearly a foot long, remaining in
a silk parasol for more than four months, and emerging unexpectedly
one day, with aggressiveness undiminished, to bite the hand that had
involuntarily given it deliverance.
In the city the centipede has but one natural enemy able to cope with
him,--the hen! The hen attacks him with delight, and often swallows him,
head first, without taking the trouble to kill him. The cat hunts him,
but she is careful never to put her head near him;--she has a trick of
whirling him round and round upon the floor so quickly as to stupefy
him: then, when she sees a good chance, she strikes him dead with her
claws. But if you are fond of your cat you will let her run no risks, as
the bite of a large centipede might have very bad results for your pet.
Its quickness of movement demands all the quickness of even the cat for
self-defence.... I know of men who have proved themselves able to seize
a fer-de-lance by the tail, whirl it round and round, and then flip it
as you would crack a whip,--whereupon the terrible head flies off; but I
never heard of anyone in Martinique daring to handle a living centipede.
There are superstitions concerning the creature which have a good effect
in diminishing his tribe. If you kill a centipede, you are sure
to receive money soon; and even if you dream of killing one it
is good-luck. Consequently, people are glad of any chance to kill
centipedes,--usually taking a heavy stone or some iron utensil for the
work;--a wooden stick is not a good weapon. There is always a little
excitement when a _bête-ni-pié_ (as the centipede is termed in the
patois) exposes itself to death; and you may often hear those who kill
it uttering a sort of litany of abuse with every blow, as if addressing
a human enemy:--"_Quitté moin tchoué ou, maudi!--quitté moin tchoué
ou, scelerat!--quitté moin tchoué ou, Satan!--quitté moin tchoué
ou, abonocio!_" etc. (Let me kill you, accursed! scoundrel! Satan!
abomination!)
The patois term for the centipede is not a mere corruption of the French
_bête-à-mille-pattes_. Among a population of slaves, unable to read or
write, [48] there were only the vaguest conceptions of numerical values;
and the French term bête-à-mille-pattes was not one which could appeal
to negro imagination. The slaves themselves invented an equally vivid
name, _bête-anni-pié_ (the Beast-which-is-all-feet); _anni_ in creole
signifying "only," and in such a sense "all." Abbreviated by subsequent
usage to _bête-'ni-pié_, the appellation has amphibology;--for there are
two words _ni_ in the patois, one signifying "to have," and the other
"naked." So that the creole for a centipede might be translated in three
ways,--"the Beast-which-is-all-feet"; or, "the Naked-footed Beast"; or,
with fine irony of affirmation, "the Beast-which-has-feet."
II.
What is the secret of that horror inspired by the centipede?... It
is but very faintly related to our knowledge that the creature is
venomous;--the results of the bite are only temporary swelling and a
brief fever;--it is less to be feared than the bite of other tropical
insects and reptiles which never inspire the same loathing by their
aspect. And the shapes of venomous creatures are not always shapes of
ugliness. The serpent has elegance of form as well as attractions
of metallic tinting;--the tarantula, or the _matoutou-falaise_, have
geometrical beauty. Lapidaries have in all ages expended rare skill
upon imitations of serpent grace in gold and gems;--a princess would not
scorn to wear a diamond spider. But what art could utilize successfully
the form of the centipede? It is a form of absolute repulsiveness,--a
skeleton-shape half defined:--the suggestion of some old reptile-spine
astir, crawling with its fragments of ribs.
No other living thing excites exactly the same feeling produced by the
sight of the centipede,--the intense loathing and peculiar fear. The
instant you see a centipede you feel it is absolutely necessary to kill
it; you cannot find peace in your house while you know that such a life
exists in it: perhaps the intrusion of a serpent would annoy and
disgust you less. And it is not easy to explain the whole reason of this
loathing. The form alone has, of course, something to do with it,--a
form that seems almost a departure from natural laws. But the form alone
does not produce the full effect, which is only experienced when you see
the creature in motion. The true horror of the centipede, perhaps, must
be due to the monstrosity of its movement,--multiple and complex, as of
a chain of pursuing and inter-devouring lives: there is something about
it that makes you recoil, as from a sudden corrupt swarming-out. It is
confusing,--a series of contractings and lengthenings and, undulations
so rapid as to allow of being only half seen: it alarms also, because
the thing seems perpetually about to disappear, and because you know
that to lose sight of it for one moment involves the very unpleasant
chance of finding it upon you the next,--perhaps between skin and
clothing.
But this is not all:--the sensation produced by the centipede is still
more complex--complex, in fact, as the visible organization of the
creature. For, during pursuit,--whether retreating or attacking, in
hiding or fleeing,--it displays a something which seems more than
instinct: calculation and cunning,--a sort of malevolent intelligence.
It knows how to delude, how to terrify;--it has marvellous skill in
feinting;--it is an abominable juggler....
III.
I am about to leave my room after breakfast, when little Victoire who
carries the meals up-stairs in a wooden tray, screams out:--"_Gadé,
Missié! ni bête-ni-pié assous dos ou!_" There is a thousand-footed beast
upon my back!.
Off goes my coat, which I throw upon the floor;--the little servant, who
has a nervous horror of centipedes, climbs upon a chair. I cannot see
anything under the coat, nevertheless;--I lift it by the collar, turn it
about very cautiously--nothing! Suddenly the child screams again; and I
perceive the head close to my hand;--the execrable thing had been hiding
in a perpendicular fold of the coat, which I drop only just in time to
escape getting bitten. Immediately the centipede becomes invisible.
Then I take the coat by one flap, and turn it over very quickly: just
as quickly does the centipede pass over it in the inverse direction, and
disappear under it again. I have had my first good look at him: he
seems nearly a foot long,--has a greenish-yellow hue against the black
cloth,--and pink legs, and a violet head;--he is evidently young.... I
turn the coat a second time: same disgusting manreuvre. Undulations of
livid color flow over him as he lengthens and shortens;--while running
his shape is but half apparent; it is only as he makes a half pause in
doubling round and under the coat that the panic of his legs becomes
discernible. When he is fully exposed they move with invisible
rapidity,--like a vibration;--you can see only a sort of pink haze
extending about him,--something to which you would no more dare advance
your finger than to the vapory halo edging a circular saw in motion.
Twice more I turn and re-turn the coat with the same result;--I observe
that the centipede always runs towards my hand, until I withdraw it: he
feints!
With a stick I uplift one portion of the coat after another; and
suddenly perceive him curved under a sleeve,--looking quite small!--how
could he have seemed so large a moment ago?... But before I can strike
him he has flickered over the cloth again, and vanished; and I discover
that he has the power of _magnifying himself_,--dilating the disgust of
his shape at will: he invariably amplifies himself to face attack....
It seems very difficult to dislodge him; he displays astonishing
activity and cunning at finding wrinkles and folds to hide in. Even at
the risk of damaging various things in the pockets, I stamp upon the
coat;--then lift it up with the expectation of finding the creature
dead. But it suddenly rushes out from some part or other, looking larger
and more wicked than ever,--drops to the floor, and charges at my feet:
a sortie! I strike at him unsuccessfully with the stick: he retreats
to the angle between wainscoting and floor, and runs along it fast as
a railroad train,--dodges two or three pokes,--gains the
door-frame,--glides behind a hinge, and commences to run over the wall
of the stair-way. There the hand of a black servant slaps him dead.
--"Always strike at the head," the servant tells me; "never tread on the
tail.... This is a small one: the big fellows can make you afraid if you
do not know how to kill them."
... I pick up the carcass with a pair of scissors. It does not look
formidable now that it is all contracted;--it is scarcely eight
inches long,--thin as card-board, and even less heavy. It has no
substantiality, no weight;--it is a mere appearance, a mask, a
delusion.... But remembering the spectral, cunning, juggling something
which magnified and moved it but a moment ago,--I feel almost tempted to
believe, with certain savages, that there are animal shapes inhabited by
goblins....
IV.
--"Is there anything still living and lurking in old black drains
of Thought,--any bigotry, any prejudice, anything in the moral world
whereunto the centipede may be likened?"
--"Really, I do not know," replied the friend to whom I had put the
question; "but you need only go as far as the vegetable world for a
likeness. Did you ever see anything like this?" he added, opening a
drawer and taking therefrom something revolting, which, as he pressed it
in his hand, looked like a long thick bundle of dried centipedes.
--"Touch them," he said, holding out to me the mass of articulated flat
bodies and bristling legs.
--"Not for anything!" I replied, in astonished disgust. He laughed, and
opened his hand. As he did so, the mass expanded.
--"Now look," he exclaimed!
Then I saw that all the bodies were united at the tails--grew together
upon one thick flat annulated stalk... a plant!--"But here is the
fruit," he continued, taking from the same drawer a beautifully embossed
ovoid nut, large as a duck's egg, ruddy-colored, and so exquisitely
varnished by nature as to resemble a rosewood carving fresh from the
hands of the cabinet-maker. In its proper place among the leaves and
branches, it had the appearance of something delicious being devoured
by a multitude of centipedes. Inside was a kernel, hard and heavy as
iron-wood; but this in time, I was told, falls into dust: though the
beautiful shell remains always perfect.
Negroes call it the _coco-macaque_.