... "Oh, Rina, what superb oranges!—fully twelve inches round-!

... and these, which look something like our mandarins, what do you call them ?" "Zorange-macaque!" (monkey-oranges). And here are avocados—beauties!—guavas of three different kinds,— tropical cherries (which have four seeds instead of one),— tropical raspberries, whereof the entire eatable portion comes off in one elastic piece, lined with something like white silk.... Here are fresh nutmegs: the thick green case splits in equal halves at a touch; and see the beautiful heart within,— deep dark glossy red, all wrapped in a bright net-work of flat blood-colored fibre, spun over it like branching veins.... This big heavy red-and-yellow thing is a pomme-cythre: the smooth cuticle, bitter as gall, covers a sweet juicy pulp, interwoven with something that seems like cotton thread.... Here is a pomme-cannelle: inside its scaly covering is the most delicious yellow custard conceivable, with little black seeds floating in it. This larger corossol has almost as delicate an interior, only the custard is white instead of yellow.... Here are christophines,—great pear-shaped things, white and green, according to kind, with a peel prickly and knobby as the skin of a horned toad; but they stew exquisitely. And mlongnes, or egg-plants; and palmiste-pith, and chadques, and pommes-d' Hati,—and roots that at first sight look all alike, but they are not: there are camanioc, and couscous, and choux-carabes, and zignames, and various kinds of patates among them. Old Thrza's magic will transform these shapeless muddy things, before evening, into pyramids of smoking gold,—into odorous porridges that will look like messes of molten amber and liquid pearl;—for Rina makes a good sale.

Then Chchelle manages to dispose of a tin coffee-pot and a big canari.... And Maiyotte makes the best sale of all; for the sight of a funny biscuit doll has made Ah-Manmzell cry and smile so at the same time that I should feel unhappy for the rest of my life if I did not buy it for her. I know I ought to get some change out of that six francs;—and Maiyotte, who is black but comely as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon, seems to be aware of the fact.

Oh, Maiyotte, how plaintive that pretty sphinx face of yours, now turned in profile;—as if you knew you looked beautiful thus,—with the great gold circlets of your ears glittering and swaying as you bend! And why are you so long, so long untying that poor little canvas purse?—fumbling and fingering it?—is it because you want me to think of the weight of that trait and the sixty kilometres you must walk, and the heat, and the dust, and all the disappointments? Ah, you are cunning, Maiyotte! No, I do not want the change!



XI.

... Travelling together, the porteuses often walk in silence for hours at a time;—this is when they feel weary. Sometimes they sing,—most often when approaching their destination;—and when they chat, it is in a key so high-pitched that their voices can be heard to a great distance in this land of echoes and elevations. But she who travels alone is rarely silent: she talks to herself or to inanimate things;—you may hear her talking to the trees, to the flowers,—talking to the high clouds and the far peaks of changing color,—talking to the setting sun!

Over the miles of the morning she sees, perchance, the mighty Piton Gl, a cone of amethyst in the light; and she talks to it: "0u jojoll, oui!—moin ni envie mont assou ou, pou moin ou bien, bien!" (Thou art pretty, pretty, aye!—I would I might climb thee, to see far, far off!) By a great grove of palms she passes;—so thickly mustered they are that against the sun their intermingled heads form one unbroken awning of green. Many rise straight as masts; some bend at beautiful angles, seeming to intercross their long pale single limbs in a fantastic dance; others curve like bows: there is one that undulates from foot to crest, like a monster serpent poised upon its tail. She loves to look at that one—"joli pi-bois-l!—talks to it as she goes by, —bids it good-day.

Or, looking back as she ascends, she sees the huge blue dream of the sea,—the eternal haunter, that ever becomes larger as she mounts the road; and she talks to it: "Mi lanm ka gaud moin!" (There is the great sea looking at me!) "Mch toujou de moin, lanm!" (Walk after me, 0 Sea!)

Or she views the clouds of Pele, spreading gray from the invisible summit, to shadow against the sun; and she fears the rain, and she talks to it: "Pas mouill moin, laplie-! Quitt moin riv avant mouill moin!" (Do not wet me, 0 Rain! Let me get there before thou wettest me!)

Sometimes a dog barks at her, menaces her bare limbs; and she talks to the dog: "Chien-a, pas md moin, chien—anh! Moin pa f ou arien, chien, pou ou md moin!" (Do not bite me, 0 Dog! Never did I anything to thee that thou shouldst bite me, 0 Dog! Do not bite me, dear! Do not bite me, doudoux!)

Sometimes she meets a laden sister travelling the opposite way.... "Coument ou y, ch?" she cries. (How art thou, dear?) And the other makes answer, "Toutt douce, ch,—et ou?" (All sweetly, dear,—and thou?) And each passes on without pausing: they have no time!

... It is perhaps the last human voice she will hear for many a mile. After that only the whisper of the grasses—grae-gras, grae-gras! —and the gossip of the canes— chououa, chououa!—and the husky speech of the pois-Angole, ka babill conm yon vi fenme,—that babbles like an old woman;—and the murmur of the filao-trees, like the murmur of the River of the Washerwomen.



XII.

... Sundown approaches: the light has turned a rich yellow;— long black shapes lie across the curving road, shadows of balisier and palm, shadows of tamarind and Indian-reed, shadows of ceiba and giant-fern. And the porteuses are coming down through the lights and darknesses of the way from far Grande Anse, to halt a moment in this little village. They are going to sit down on the road-side here, before the house of the baker; and there is his great black workman, Jean-Marie, looking for them from the door-way, waiting to relieve them of their loads.... Jean-Marie is the strongest man in all the Champ- Flore: see what a torso,—as he stands there naked to the waist!... His day's work is done; but he likes to wait for the girls, though he is old now, and has sons as tall as himself. It is a habit: some say that he had a daughter once,—a porteuse like those coming, and used to wait for her thus at that very door-way until one evening that she failed to appear, and never returned till he carried her home in his arms dead,—stricken by a serpent in some mountain path where there was none to aid.... The roads were not as good then as now.

... Here they come, the girls—yellow, red, black. See the flash of the yellow feet where they touch the light! And what impossible tint the red limbs take in the changing glow!... Finotte, Pauline, Mdelle,-all together, as usual,—with Ti- Cl trotting behind, very tired.... Never mind, Ti-Cl!—you will outwalk your cousins when you are a few years older,—pretty Ti-Cl.... Here come Cyrillia and Zabette, and Ff and Dodotte and Fevriette. And behind them are coming the two chabines,— golden girls: the twin-sisters who sell silks and threads and foulards; always together, always wearing robes and kerchiefs of similar color,—so that you can never tell which is Lorrainie and which doualise.

And all smile to see Jean-Marie waiting for them, and to hear his deep kind voice calling, "Coument ou y, ch? coument ou kall? ...(How art thou, dear?—how goes it with thee?)

And they mostly make answer, "Toutt douce, ch,—et ou?" (All sweetly, dear,—and thou?) But some, over-weary, cry to him, "Ah! dchg moin vite, ch! moin lasse, lasse!" (Unload me quickly, dear; for I am very, very weary.) Then he takes off their burdens, and fetches bread for them, and says foolish little things to make them laugh. And they are pleased, and laugh, just like children, as they sit right down on the road there to munch their dry bread.

... So often have I watched that scene! ... Let me but close my eyes one moment, and it will come back to me,—through all the thousand miles,—over the graves of the days....

Again I see the mountain road in the yellow glow, banded with umbrages of palm. Again I watch the light feet coming,—now in shadow, now in sun,—soundlessly as falling leaves. Still I can hear the voices crying, "Ah! dchg moin vite, ch! moin lasse!" —and see the mighty arms outreach to take the burdens away. ... Only, there is a change',—I know not what!... All vapory the road is, and the fronds, and the comely coming feet of the bearers, and even this light of sunset,—sunset that is ever larger and nearer to us than dawn, even as death than birth. And the weird way appeareth a way whose dust is the dust of generations;—and the Shape that waits is never Jean-Marie, but one darker; and stronger;—and these are surely voices of tired souls. I who cry to Thee, thou dear black Giver of the perpetual rest, "Ah! dchg moin vite, ch! moin lasse!"



CHAPTER II. LA GRANDE ANSE.



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, a! 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 l, 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', Missi! Then you should reply, if the speaker be a woman and pretty, "Good- day, dear" (bonjou', ch), 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.



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 Rivire 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 Pele'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 Sguinau, 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 Sguinau 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 Pele 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 Rivire 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 faades 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 Pele 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 Sguinau,—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, "Rhal 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 pousson- 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 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 be1ongs 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 Rivire 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 ceremonia1ism.

No white children ever appear in these processions: there are not half a dozen white families in the who1e 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.



... 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 t 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 zhbe-moin-mis—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 Zhbe- moin-mis, 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 amis 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 Pre 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—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—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—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 bl (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 Pre 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.

Pre 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 cou, 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 ng Guine).

The skilful player (bel tambouy) 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 tambouy. The same command 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.... "Ae, ae, yae! mon ch!—y fai tambou- pl!" said the command, 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—ae, ae, yae! Then he got off that ka. mounted it; I thought a moment; then I struck up the 'River-of-the-Lizard,'— mais, mon ch, yon larivie-Lza 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! yoe-yoe!" (Drum roll.) "Oh! missi-!" (Drum roll.) "Y bel tambouy!" (Drum roll.) "Aie, ya, yaie!" (Drum roll.) "Joli tambouy!" (Drum roll.) "Chauff tambou-!" (Drum roll.) "Gn tambou-!" (Drum roll.) "Craz tambou-!" 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, bl (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 pl moin, moin ka reponne: "Kh moin deja plac," Moin ka cri, "Secou! les voisinages!" Moin ka cri, "Secou! la gde royale!" Moin ka cri, "Secou! la gendmerie! Lanmou pouend yon poign pou poignad 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.



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.



CHAPTER III. UN REVENANT



I.

He who first gave to Martinique its poetical name, Le Pays des Revenants, thought of his wonderful island only as "The Country of Comers-back," where Nature's unspeakable spell bewitches wandering souls like the caress of a Circe,—never as the Land of Ghosts. Yet either translation of the name holds equal truth: a land of ghosts it is, this marvellous Martinique!. Almost every plantation has its familiar spirits,—its phantoms: some may be unknown beyond the particular district in which fancy first gave them being;—but some belong to popular song and story,—to the imaginative life of the whole people. Almost every promontory and peak, every village and valley along the coast, has its special folk-lore, its particular tradition. The legend of Thomasseau of Perinnelle, whose body was taken out of the coffin and carried away by the devil through a certain window of the plantation-house, which cannot be closed up by human power;—the Demarche legend of the spectral horseman who rides up the hill on bright hot days to seek a friend buried more than a hundred years ago;—the legend of the Habitation Dillon, whose proprietor was one night mysteriously summoned from a banquet to disappear forever;—the legend of l'Abb Piot, who cursed the sea with the curse of perpetual unrest;—the legend of Aime Derivry of Robert, captured by Barbary pirates, and sold to become a Sultana-Valid-(she never existed, though you can find an alleged portrait in M. Sidney Daney's history of Martinique): these and many similar tales might be told to you even on a journey from St. Pierre to Fort-de-France, or from Lamentin to La Trinit, according as a rising of some peak into view, or the sudden opening of an anse before the vessel's approach, recalls them to a creole companion.

And new legends are even now being made; for in this remote colony, to which white immigration has long ceased,—a country so mountainous that people are born (and buried in the same valley without ever seeing towns but a few hours' journey beyond their native hills, and that distinct racial types are forming within three leagues of each other,—the memory of an event or of a name which has had influence enough to send one echo through all the forty-nine miles of peaks and craters is apt to create legend within a single generation. Nowhere in the world, perhaps, is popular imagination more oddly naive and superstitious; nowhere are facts more readily exaggerated or distorted into unrecognizability; and the forms of any legend thus originated become furthermore specialized in each separate locality where it obtains a habitat. On tracing back such a legend or tradition to its primal source, one feels amazed at the variety of the metamorphoses which the simplest fact may rapidly assume in the childish fancy of this people.

I was first incited to make an effort in this direction by hearing the remarkable story of "Missi Bon." No legendary expression is more wide-spread throughout the country than temps coudvent Missi Bon (in the time of the big wind of Monsieur Bon). Whenever a hurricane threatens, you will hear colored folks expressing the hope that it may not be like the coudvent Missi Bon. And some years ago, in all the creole police-courts, old colored witnesses who could not tell their age would invariably try to give the magistrate some idea of it by referring to the never-to-be-forgotten temps coudvent Missi Bon.

... "_Temps coudvent Missi Bon, moin t ka tt enc_" (I was a child at the breast in the time of the big wind of Missi Bon); or "_Temps coudvent Missi Bon, moin t toutt piti manmaill,— moin ka souvini y pouend caiie manman moin pt all." (I was a very, very little child in the time of the big wind of Missi Bon,—but I remember it blew mamma's cabin away.) The magistrates of those days knew the exact date of the _coudvent_.

But all could learn about Missi Bon among the country-folk was this: Missi Bon used to be a great slave-owner and a cruel master. He was a very wicked man. And he treated his slaves so terribly that at last the Good-God (Bon-Di) one day sent a great wind which blew away Missi Bon and Missi Bon's house and everybody in it, so that nothing was ever heard of them again.

It was not without considerable research that I suceeded at last in finding some one able to give me the true facts in the case of Monsieur Bon. My informant was a charming old gentleman, who represents a New York company in the city of St. Pierre, and who takes more interest in the history of his native island than creoles usually do. He laughed at the legend I had found, but informed me that I could trace it, with slight variations, through nearly every canton of Martinique.

"And now" he continued "I can tell you the real history of 'Missi Bon'—for he was an old friend of my grandfather; and my grandfather related it to me.

"It may have been in 1809—I can give you the exact date by reference to some old papers if necessary—Monsieur Bon was Collector of Customs at St. Pierre: and my grandfather was doing business in the Grande Rue. A certain captain, whose vessel had been consigned to my grandfather, invited him and the collector to breakfast in his cabin. My grandfather was so busy he could not accept the invitation;—but Monsieur Bon went with the captain on board the bark.

... "It was a morning like this; the sea was just as blue and the sky as clear. All of a sudden, while they were at breakfast, the sea began to break heavily without a wind, and clouds came up, with every sign of a hurricane. The captain was obliged to sacrifice his anchor; there was no time to land his guest: he hoisted a little jib and top-gallant, and made for open water, taking Monsieur Bon with him. Then the hurricane came; and from that day to this nothing has ever been heard of the bark nor of the captain nor of Monsieur Bon." [6]

"But did Monsieur Bon ever do anything to deserve the reputation he has left among the people ?" I asked.

"Ah! le pauvre vieux corps! ... A kind old soul who never uttered a harsh word to human being;—timid,—good-natured,— old-fashioned even for those old-fashioned days.... Never had a slave in his life!"



II.

The legend of "Missi Bon" had prepared me to hear without surprise the details of a still more singular tradition,—that of Father Labat.... I was returning from a mountain ramble with my guide, by way of the Ajoupa-Bouillon road;—the sun had gone down; there remained only a blood-red glow in the west, against which the silhouettes of the hills took a velvety blackness indescribably soft; the stars were beginning to twinkle out everywhere through the violet. Suddenly I noticed on the flank of a neighboring morne—which I remembered by day as an apparently uninhabitable wilderness of bamboos, tree-ferns, and balisiers—a swiftly moving point of yellow light. My guide had observed it simultaneously;—he crossed himself, and exclaimed:

"Moin ka cou c'est fanal P Labatt!" (I believe it is the lantern of Per Labat.)

"Does he live there?" I innocently inquired.

"Live there?—why he has been dead hundreds of years! ... Ouill! you never heard of P Labatt?"...

"Not the same who wrote a book about Martinique?"

"Yes,—himself.... They say he comes back at night. Ask mother about him;—she knows."...

...I questioned old Thrza as soon as we reached home; and she told me all she knew about "P Labatt." I found that the father had left a reputation far more wide-spread than the recollection of "Missi Bon,"—that his memory had created, in fact, the most impressive legend in all Martinique folk-lore.

"Whether you really saw P Labatt's lantern," said old Thereza, "I do not know;—there are a great many queer lights to be seen after nightfall among these mornes. Some are zombi-fires; and some are lanterns carried by living men; and some are lights burning in ajoupas so high up that you can only see a gleam coming through the trees now and then. It is not everybody who sees the lantern of P Labatt; and it is not good-luck to see it.

"P Labatt was a priest who lived here hundreds of years ago; and he wrote a book about what he saw. He was the first person to introduce slavery into Martinique; and it is thought that is why he comes back at night. It is his penance for having established slavery here.

"They used to say, before 1848, that when slavery should be abolished, P Labatt's light would not be seen any more. But I can remember very well when slavery was abolished; and I saw the light many a time after. It used to move up the Morne d'Orange every clear night;—I could see it very well from my window when I lived in St. Pierre. You knew it was P Labatt, because the light passed up places where no man could walk. But since the statue of Notre Dame de la Garde was placed on the Morne d'Orange, people tell me that the light is not seen there any more.

"But it is seen elsewhere; and it is not good-luck to see it. Everybody is afraid of seeing it.... And mothers tell their children, when the little ones are naughty: 'Mi! moin k fai P Labatt vini pouend ou,—oui!' (I will make P Labatt come and take you away.)"....

What old Thrza stated regarding the establishment of slavery in Martinique by Pre Labat, I knew required no investigation,— inasmuch as slavery was a flourishing institution in the time of Pre Dutertre, another Dominican missionary and historian, who wrote his book,—a queer book in old French, [7] —before Labat was born.

But it did not take me long to find out that such was the general belief about Pre Labat's sin and penance, and to ascertain that his name is indeed used to frighten naughty children. Eh! ti manmaille-l, moin k fai P Labatt vini pouend ou!—is an exclamation often heard in the vicinity of ajoupas just about the hour when all found a good little children ought to be in bed and asleep.

... The first variation of the legend I heard was on a plantation in the neighborhood of Ajoupa-Bouillon. There I was informed that Pre Labat had come to his death by the bite of a snake,—the hugest snake that ever was seen in Martinique. Per Labat had believed it possible to exterminate the fer-de-lance, and had adopted extraordinary measures for its destruction. On receiving his death-wound he exclaimed, "C'est p toutt spent qui t ka md moin" (It is the Father of all Snakes that has bitten me); and he vowed that he would come back to destroy the brood, and would haunt the island until there should be not one snake left. And the light that moves about the peaks at night is the lantern of Pre Labat still hunting for snakes.

"Ou pa p suive ti limi-l piess!" continued my informant. "You cannot follow that little light at all;—when you first see it, it is perhaps only a kilometre away; the next moment it is two, three, or four kilometres away."

I was also told that the light is frequently seen near Grande Anse, on the other side of the island,—and on the heights of La Caravelle, the long fantastic promontory that reaches three leagues into the sea south of the harbor of La Trinit. [8]

And on my return to St. Pierre I found a totally different version of the legend;—my informant being one Manm-Robert, a kind old soul who kept a little boutique-lapacotte (a little booth where cooked food is sold) near the precipitous Street of the Friendships.

... "Ah! P Labatt, oui!" she exclaimed, at my first question,—"P Labatt was a good priest who lived here very long ago. And they did him a great wrong here;—they gave him a wicked coup d'langue (tongue wound); and the hurt given by an evil tongue is worse than a serpent's bite. They lied about him; they slandered him until they got him sent away from the country. But before the Government 'embarked' him, when he got to that quay, he took off his shoe and he shook the dust of his shoe upon that quay, and he said: 'I curse you, 0 Martinique!—I curse you! There will be food for nothing, and your people will not even be able to buy it! There will be clothing material for nothing, and your people will not be able to get so much as one dress! And the children will beat their mothers!... You banish me;—but I will come back again.'" [9]

"And then what happened, Manm-Robert ?"

"Eh! fouinq! ch, all that P Labatt said has come true. There is food for almost nothing, and people are starving here in St. Pierre; there is clothing for almost nothing, and poor girls cannot earn enough to buy a dress. The pretty printed calicoes (indiennes) that used to be two francs and a half the metre, now sell at twelve sous the metre; but nobody has any money. And if you read our papers,—Les Colonies, La Defense Coloniale,— you will find that there are sons wicked enough to beat their mothers: oui! yche ka batt manman! It is the malediction of P Labatt."

This was all that Manm-Robert could tell me. Who had related the story to her? Her mother. Whence had her mother obtained it? From her grandmother.... Subsequently I found many persons to confirm the tradition of the curse,—precisely as Manm-Robert had related it.

Only a brief while after this little interview I was invited to pass an afternoon at the home of a gentleman residing upon the Morne d' Orange,—the locality supposed to be especially haunted by Pre Labat. The house of Monsieur M— stands on the side of the hill, fully five hundred feet up, and in a grove of trees: an antiquated dwelling, with foundations massive as the walls of a fortress, and huge broad balconies of stone. From one of these balconies there is a view of the city, the harbor1 and Pele, which I believe even those who have seen Naples would confess to be one of the fairest sights in the world.... Towards evening I obtained a chance to ask my kind host some questions about the legend of his neighborhood.

... "Ever since I was a child," observed Monsieur M—, "I heard it said that Pre Labat haunted this mountain, and I often saw what was alleged to be his light. It looked very much like a lantern swinging in the hand of some one climbing the hill. A queer fact was that it used to come from the direction of Carbet, skirt the Morne d'Orange a few hundred feet above the road, and then move up the face of what seemed a sheer precipice. Of course somebody carried that light,—probably a negro; and perhaps the cliff is not so inaccessible as it looks: still, we could never discover who the individual was, nor could we imagine what his purpose might have been.... But the light has not been seen here now for years."



III.

And who was Pre Labat,—this strange priest whose memory, weirdly disguised by legend, thus lingers in the oral literature of the colored people? Various encyclopedias answer the question, but far less fully and less interestingly than Dr. Rufz, the Martinique historian, whose article upon him in the Etudes Statistiques et Historiques has that charm of sympathetic comprehension by which a master-biographer sometimes reveals himself a sort of necromancer,—making us feel a vanished personality with the power of a living presence. Yet even the colorless data given by dictionaries of biography should suffice to convince most readers that Jean-Baptiste Labat must be ranked among the extraordinary men of his century.

Nearly two hundred years ago—24th August, 1693—a traveller wearing the white habit of the Dominican order, partly covered by a black camlet overcoat, entered the city of Rochelle. He was very tall and robust, with one of those faces, at once grave and keen, which bespeak great energy and quick discernment. This was the Pre Labat, a native of Paris, then in his thirtieth year. Half priest, half layman, one might have been tempted to surmise from his attire; and such a judgement would not have been unjust. Labat's character was too large for his calling,—expanded naturally beyond the fixed limits of the ecclesiastical life; and throughout the whole active part of his strange career we find in him this dual character of layman and monk. He had come to Rochelle to take passage for Martinique. Previously he had been professor of philosophy and mathematics at Nancy. While watching a sunset one evening from the window of his study, some one placed in his hands a circular issued by the Dominicans of the French West Indies, calling for volunteers. Death had made many wide gaps in their ranks; and various misfortunes had reduced their finances to such an extent that ruin threatened all their West Indian establishments. Labat, with the quick decision of a mind suffering from the restraints of a life too narrow for it, had at once resigned his professorship, and engaged himself for the missions.

... In those days, communication with the West Indies was slow, irregular, and difficult. Labat had to wait at Rochelle six whole months for a ship. In the convent at Rochelle, where he stayed, there were others waiting for the same chance,—including several Jesuits and Capuchins as well as Dominicans. These unanimously elected him their leader,—a significant fact considering the mutual jealousy of the various religious orders of that period, There was something in the energy and frankness of Labat's character which seems to have naturally gained him the confidence and ready submission of others.

... They sailed in November; and Labat still found himself in the position of a chief on board. His account of the voyage is amusing;—in almost everything except practical navigation, he would appear to have regulated the life of passengers and crew. He taught the captain mathematics; and invented amusements of all kinds to relieve the monotony of a two months' voyage.

... As the ship approached Martinique from the north, Labat first beheld the very grimmest part of the lofty coast,—the region of Macouba; and the impression it made upon him was not pleasing. "The island," he writes, "appeared to me all one frightful mountain, broken everywhere by precipices: nothing about it pleased me except the verdure which everywhere met the eye, and which seemed to me both novel and agreeable, considering the time of the year."

Almost immediately after his arrival he was sent by the Superior of the convent to Macouba, for acclimation; Macouba then being considered the healthiest part of the island. Whoever makes the journey on horseback thither from St. Pierre to-day can testify to the exactitude of Labat's delightful narrative of the trip. So little has that part of the island changed since two centuries that scarcely a line of the father's description would need correction to adopt it bodily for an account of a ride to Macouba in 1889.

At Macouba everybody welcomes him, pets him,—finally becomes enthusiastic about him. He fascinates and dominates the little community almost at first sight. "There is an inexpressible charm," says Rufz,—commenting upon this portion of Labat's narrative,—"in the novelty of relations between men: no one has yet been offended, no envy has yet been excited;—it is scarcely possible even to guess whence that ill-will you must sooner or later provoke is going to come from;—there are no rivals;—there are no enemies. You are everybody's friend; and many are hoping you will continue to be only theirs." ... Labat knew how to take legitimate advantage of this good-will;—he persuaded his admirers to rebuild the church at Macouba, according to designs made by himself.

At Macouba, however, he was not permitted to sojourn as long as the good people of the little burgh would have deemed even reasonable: he had shown certain aptitudes which made his presence more than desirable at Saint-Jacques, the great plantation of the order on the Capesterre, or Windward coast. It was in debt for 700,000 pounds of sugar,—an appalling condition in those days,—and seemed doomed to get more heavily in debt every successive season. Labat inspected everything, and set to work for the plantation, not merely as general director, but as engineer, architect, machinist, inventor. He did really wonderful things. You can see them for yourself if you ever go to Martinique; for the old Dominican plantation-now Government property, and leased at an annual rent of 50,000 francs—remains one of the most valuable in the colonies because of Labat's work upon it. The watercourses directed by him still excite the admiration of modern professors of hydraulics; the mills he built or invented are still good;—the treatise he wrote on sugar- making remained for a hundred and fifty years the best of its kind, and the manual of French planters. In less than two years Labat had not only rescued the plantation from bankruptcy, but had made it rich; and if the monks deemed him veritably inspired, the test of time throws no ridicule on their astonishment at the capacities of the man. ... Even now the advice he formulated as far back as 1720—about secondary cultures,—about manufactories to establish,—about imports, exports, and special commercial methods—has lost little of its value.

Such talents could not fail to excite wide-spread admiration,— nor to win for him a reputation in the colonies beyond precedent. He was wanted everywhere.... Auger, the Governor of Guadeloupe, sent for him to help the colonists in fortifying and defending the island against the English; and we find the missionary quite as much at home in this new role-building bastions, scarps, counterterscarps, ravelins, etc.—as he seemed to be upon the plantation of Saint-Jacques. We find him even taking part in an engagement;—himself conducting an artillery duel,—loading, pointing, and firing no less than twelve times after the other French gunners had been killed or driven from their posts. After a tremendous English volley, one of the enemy cries out to him in French: "White Father, have they told ?" (Pre Blanc, ont-ils port?) He replies only after returning the fire with, a better- directed aim, and then repeats the mocking question: "Have they told?" "Yes, they have," confesses the Englishman, in surprised dismay; "but we will pay you back for that!"...

... Returning to Martinique with new titles to distinction, Labat was made Superior of the order in that island, and likewise Vicar-Apostolic. After building the Convent of the Mouillage, at St. Pierre, and many other edifices, he undertook that series of voyages in the interests of the Dominicans whereof the narration fills six ample volumes. As a traveller Pre Labat has had few rivals in his own field;—no one, indeed, seems to have been able to repeat some of his feats. All the French and several of the English colonies were not merely visited by him, but were studied in their every geographical detail. Travel in the West Indies is difficult to a degree of which strangers have little idea; but in the time of Pre Labat there were few roads,—and a far greater variety of obstacles. I do not believe there are half a dozen whites in Martinique who thoroughly know their own island,—who have even travelled upon all its roads; but Labat knew it as he knew the palm of his hand, and travelled where roads had never been made. Equally well he knew Guadeloupe and other islands; and he learned all that it was possible to learn in those years about the productions and resources of the other colonies. He travelled with the fearlessness and examined with the thoroughness of a Humboldt,—so far as his limited science permitted: had he possessed the knowledge of modern naturalists and geologists he would probably have left little for others to discover after him. Even at the present time West Indian travellers are glad to consult him for information.

These duties involved prodigious physical and mental exertion, in a climate deadly to Europeans. They also involved much voyaging in waters haunted by filibusters and buccaneers. But nothing appears to daunt Labat. As for the filibusters, he becomes their comrade and personal friend;—he even becomes their chaplain, and does not scruple to make excursions with them. He figures in several sea-fights;—on one occasion he aids in the capture of two English vessels,—and then occupies himself in making the prisoners, among whom are several ladies, enjoy the event like a holiday. On another voyage Labat's vessel is captured by a Spanish ship. At one moment sabres are raised above his head, and loaded muskets levelled at his breast;—the next, every Spaniard is on his knees, appalled by a cross that Labat holds before the eyes of the captors,—the cross worn by officers of the Inquisition,—the terrible symbol of the Holy Office. "It did not belong to me," he says, "but to one of our brethren who had left it by accident among my effects." He seems always prepared in some way to meet any possible emergency. No humble and timid monk this: he has the frame and temper of those medieval abbots who could don with equal indifference the helmet or the cowl. He is apparently even more of a soldier than a priest. When English corsairs attempt a descent on the Martinique coast at Sainte-Marie they find Pre Labat waiting for them with all the negroes of the Saint-Jacques plantation, to drive them back to their ships.

For other dangers he exhibits absolute unconcern. He studies the phenomena of hurricanes with almost pleasurable interest, while his comrades on the ship abandon hope. When seized with yellow-fever, then known as the Siamese Sickness (mal de Siam), he refuses to stay in bed the prescribed time, and rises to say his mass. He faints at the altar; yet a few days later we hear of him on horseback again, travelling over the mountains in the worst and hottest season of the year....

... Labat was thirty years old when he went to the Antilles;—he was only forty-two when his work was done. In less than twelve years he made his order the most powerful and wealthy of any in the West Indies,—lifted their property out of bankruptcy to rebuild it upon a foundation of extraordinary prosperity. As Rufz observes without exaggeration, the career of Pre Labat in the Antilles seems to more than realize the antique legend of the labors of Hercules. Whithersoever he went,—except in the English colonies,—his passage was memorialized by the rising of churches, convents, and schools,—as well as mills, forts, and refineries. Even cities claim him as their founder. The solidity of his architectural creations is no less remarkable than their excellence of design;—much of what he erected still remains; what has vanished was removed by human agency, and not by decay; and when the old Dominican church at St. Pierre had to be pulled down to make room for a larger edifice, the workmen complained that the stones could not be separated,—that the walls seemed single masses of rock. There can be no doubt, moreover, that he largely influenced the life of the colonies during those years, and expanded their industrial and commercial capacities.

He was sent on a mission to Rome after these things had been done, and never returned from Europe. There he travelled more or less in after-years; but finally settled at Paris, where he prepared and published the voluminous narrative of his own voyages, and other curious books;—manifesting as a writer the same tireless energy he had shown in so many other capacities. He does not, however, appear to have been happy. Again and again he prayed to be sent back to his beloved Antilles, and for some unknown cause the prayer was always refused. To such a character, the restraint of the cloister must have proved a slow agony; but he had to endure it for many long years. He died at Paris in 1738, aged seventy-five.