... It was inevitable that such a man should make bitter enemies: his preferences, his position, his activity, his business shrewdness, his necessary self-assertion, yet must have created secret hate and jealousy even when open malevolence might not dare to show itself. And to the these natural results of personal antagonism or opposition were afterwards superadded various resentments—irrational, perhaps, but extremely violent,—caused by the father's cynical frankness as a writer. He spoke freely about the family origin and personal failings of various colonists considered high personages in their own small world; and to this day his book has an evil reputation undeserved in those old creole communities, but where any public mention of a family scandal is never just forgiven or forgotten.... But probably even before his work appeared it had been secretly resolved that he should never be permitted to return to Martinique or Guadeloupe after his European mission. The exact purpose of the Government in this policy remains a mystery,— whatever ingenious writers may have alleged to the contrary. We only know that M. Adrien Dessalles,—the trustworthy historian of Martinique,—while searching among the old Archives de la Marine, found there a ministerial letter to the Intendant de Vaucresson in which this statement occurs;—

... "Le Pre Labat shall never be suffered to return to the colonies, whatever efforts he may make to obtain permission."



IV.

One rises from the perusal of the "Nouveau Voyage aux Isles de l'Amrique" with a feeling approaching regret; for although the six pursy little volumes composing it—full of quaint drawings, plans, and odd attempts at topographical maps—reveal a prolix writer, Pre Labat is always able to interest. He reminds you of one of those slow, precise, old-fashioned conversationalists who measure the weight of every word and never leave anything to the imagination of the audience, yet who invariably reward the patience of their listeners sooner or later by reflections of surprising profundity or theories of a totally novel description. But what particularly impresses the reader of these volumes is not so much the recital of singular incidents and facts as the revelation of the author's personality. Reading him, you divine a character of enormous force,—gifted but unevenly balanced; singularly shrewd in worldly affairs, and surprisingly credulous in other respects; superstitious and yet cynical; unsympathetic by his positivism, but agreeable through natural desire to give pleasure; just by nature, yet capable of merciless severity; profoundly devout, but withal tolerant for his calling and his time. He is sufficiently free from petty bigotry to make fun of the scruples of his brethren in the matter of employing heretics; and his account of the manner in which he secured the services of a first-class refiner for the Martinique plantation at the Fond Saint-Jacques is not the least amusing page in the book. He writes: "The religious who had been appointed Superior in Guadeloupe wrote me that he would find it difficult to employ this refiner because the man was a Lutheran. This scruple gave me pleasure, as I had long wanted to have have him upon our plantation in the Fond Saint-Jacques, but did not know how I would be able to manage it! I wrote to the Superior at once that all he had to do was to send the man to me, because it was a matter of indifference to me whether the sugar he might make were Catholic or Lutheran sugar, provided it were very white." [10]

He displays equal frankness in confessing an error or a discomfiture. He acknowledges that while Professor of Mathematics and Philosophy, he used to teach that there were no tides in the tropics; and in a discussion as to whether the diablotin (a now almost extinct species of West Indian nocturnal bird) were fish flesh, and might or might not be eaten in Lent, he tells us that he was fairly worsted,—(although he could cite the celebrated myth of the "barnacle-geese" as a "fact" in justification of one's right to doubt the nature of diablotins).

One has reason to suspect that Pre Labat, notwithstanding his references to the decision of the Church that diablotins were not birds, felt quite well assured within himself that they were. There is a sly humor in his story of these controversies, which would appear to imply that while well pleased at the decision referred to, he knew all about diablotins. Moreover, the father betrays certain tendencies to gormandize not altogether in harmony with the profession of an ascetic.... There were parrots in nearly all of the French Antilles in those days [11] and Pre Labat does not attempt to conceal his fondness for cooked parrots. (He does not appear to have cared much for them as pets: if they could not talk well, he condemned them forthwith to the pot.) "They all live upon fruits and seeds," he writes, "and their flesh contracts the odor and color of that particular fruit or seed they feed upon. They become exceedingly fat in the season when the guavas are ripe; and when they eat the seeds of the _Bois d'Inde_ they have an odor of nutmeg and cloves which is delightful (_une odeur de muscade et de girofle qui fait plaisir_)." He recommends four superior ways of preparing them, as well as other fowls, for the table, of which the first and the best way is "to pluck them alive, then to make them swallow vinegar, and then to strangle them while they have the vinegar still in their throats by twisting their necks"; and the fourth way is "to skin them alive" (de les corcher tout en vie_).... "It is certain," he continues, "that these ways are excellent, and that fowls that have to be cooked in a hurry thereby obtain an admirable tenderness (_une tendret admirable_)." Then he makes a brief apology to his readers, not for the inhumanity of his recipes, but for a display of culinary knowledge scarcely becoming a monk, and acquired only through those peculiar necessities which colonial life in the tropics imposed upon all alike. The touch of cruelty here revealed produces an impression which there is little in the entire work capable of modifying. Labat seems to have possessed but a very small quantity of altruism; his cynicism on the subject of animal suffering is not offset by any visible sympathy with human pain;—he never compassionates: you may seek in vain through all his pages for one gleam of the goodness of gentle Pre Du Tertre, who, filled with intense pity for the condition of the blacks, prays masters to be merciful and just to their slaves for the love of God. Labat suggests, on the other hand, that slavery is a good means of redeeming negroes from superstition and saving their souls from hell: he selects and purchases them himself for the Saint- Jacques plantation, never makes a mistake or a bad bargain, and never appears to feel a particle of commiseration for their lot. In fact, the emotional feeling displayed by Pre Du Tertre (whom he mocks slyly betimes) must have seemed to him rather condemnable than praiseworthy; for Labat regarded the negro as a natural child of the devil,—a born sorcerer,—an evil being wielding occult power.

Perhaps the chapters on negro sorcery are the most astonishing in the book, displaying on the part of this otherwise hard and practical nature a credulity almost without limit. After having related how he had a certain negro sent out of the country "who predicted the arrival of vessels and other things to come,—in so far, at least, as the devil himself was able to know and reveal these matters to him," he plainly states his own belief in magic as follows:

"I know there are many people who consider as pure imagination, and as silly stories, or positive false-hoods, all that is related about sorcerers and their compacts with the devil. I was myself for a long time of this opinion. Moreover, I am aware that what is said on this subject is frequently exaggerated; but I am now convinced it must be acknowledged that all which has been related is not entirely false, although perhaps it may not be entirely true."...

Therewith he begins to relate stories upon what may have seemed unimpeachable authority in those days. The first incident narrated took place, he assures us, in the Martinique Dominican convent, shortly before his arrival in the colony. One of the fathers, Pre Fraise, had had brought to Martinique, "from the kingdom of Juda (?) in Guinea," a little negro about nine or ten years old. Not long afterwards there was a serious drought, and the monks prayed vainly for rain. Then the negro child, who had begun to understand and speak a little French, told his masters that he was a Rain-maker, that he could obtain them all the rain they wanted. "This proposition," says Pre Labat, "greatly astonished the fathers: they consulted together, and at last, curiosity overcoming reason, they gave their consent that this unbaptized child should make some rain fall on their garden." The unbaptized child asked them if they wanted "a big or a little rain"; they answered that a moderate rain would satisfy them. Thereupon the little negro got three oranges, and placed them on the ground in a line at a short distance from one another, and bowed down before each of them in turn, muttering words in an unknown tongue. Then he got three small orange-branches, stuck a branch in each orange, and repeated his prostrations and mutterings;—after which he took one of the branches, stood up, and watched the horizon. A small cloud appeared, and he pointed the branch at it. It approached swiftly, rested above the garden, and sent down a copious shower of rain. Then the boy made a hole in the ground, and buried the oranges and the branches. The fathers were amazed to find that not a single drop of rain had fallen outside their garden. They asked the boy who had taught him this sorcery, and he answered them that among the blacks on board the slave-ship which had brought him over there were some Rain-makers who had taught him. Pre Labat declares there is no question as to the truth of the occurrence: he cites the names of Pre Fraise, Pre Rosi", Pre Temple, and Pre Bournot,—all members of his own order,—as trust-worthy witnesses of this incident.

Pre Labat displays equal credulity in his recital of a still more extravagant story told him by Madame la Comtesse du Gnes. M. le Comte du Gnes, husband of the lady in question, and commander of a French squadron, captured the English fort of Gorea in 1696, and made prisoners of all the English slaves in the service of the factory there established. But the vessel on which these were embarked was unable to leave the coast, in spite of a good breeze: she seemed bewitched. Some of the the slaves finally told the captain there was a negress on board who had enchanted the ship, and who had the power to "dry up the hearts" of all who refused to obey her. A number of deaths taking place among the blacks, the captain ordered autopsies made, and it was found that the hearts of the dead negroes were desiccated. The negress was taken on deck, tied to a gun and whipped, but uttered no cry;—the ship's surgeon, angered at her stoicism, took a hand in the punishment, and flogged her "with all his force." Thereupon she told him that inasmuch as he had abused her without reason, his heart also should be "dried up." He died next day; and his heart was found in the condition predicted. All this time the ship could not be made to move in any direction; and the negress told the captain that until he should put her and her companions on shore he would never be able to sail. To convince him of her power she further asked him to place three fresh melons in a chest, to lock the chest and put a guard over it; when she should tell him to unlock it, there would be no melons there. The capttain made the experiment. When the chest was opened, the melons appeared to be there; but on touching them it was found that only the outer rind remained: the interior had been dried up,—like the surgeon's heart. Thereupon the captain put the witch and her friends all ashore, and sailed away without further trouble.

Another story of African sorcery for the truth of which Pre Labat earnestly vouches is the following:

A negro was sentenced to be burned alive for witchcraft at St. Thomas in 1701;—his principal crime was "having made a little figure of baked clay to speak." A certain creole, meeting the negro on his way to the place of execution, jeeringly observed, "Well, you cannot make your little figure talk any more now;—it has been broken." "If the gentleman allow me," replied the prisoner," I will make the cane he carries in his hand speak." The creole's curiosity was strongly aroused: he prevailed upon the guards to halt a few minutes, and permit the prisoner to make the experiment. The negro then took the cane, stuck it into the ground in the middle of the road, whispered something to it, and asked the gentleman what he wished to know. "I, would like to know," answered the latter, "whether the ship has yet sailed from Europe, and when she will arrive." "Put your ear to the head of the cane," said the negro. On doing so the creole distinctly heard a thin voice which informed him that the vessel in question had left a certain French port on such a date; that she would reach St. Thomas within three days; that she had been delayed on her voyage by a storm which had carried away her foretop and her mizzen sail; that she had such and such passengers on board (mentioning the names), all in good health.... After this incident the negro was burned alive; but within three days the vessel arrived in port, and the prediction or divination was found to have been absolutely correct in every particular.

... Pre Labat in no way disapproves the atrocious sentence inflicted upon the wretched negro: in his opinion such predictions were made by the power and with the personal aid of the devil; and for those who knowingly maintained relations with the devil, he could not have regarded any punishment too severe. That he could be harsh enough himself is amply shown in various accounts of his own personal experience with alleged sorcerers, and especially in the narration of his dealings with one— apparently a sort of African doctor—who was a slave on a neighboring plantation, but used to visit the Saint-Jacques quarters by stealth to practise his art. One of the slaves of the order, a negress, falling very sick, the wizard was sent for; and he came with all his paraphernalia—little earthen pots and fetiches, etc.—during the night. He began to practise his incantations, without the least suspicion that Pre Labat was watching him through a chink; and, after having consulted his fetiches, he told the woman she would die within four days. At this juncture the priest suddenly burst.in the door and entered, followed by several powerful slaves. He dashed to pieces the soothsayer's articles, and attempted to reassure the frightened negress, by declaring the prediction a lie inspired by the devil. Then he had the sorcerer stripped and flogged in his presence.

"I had him given," he calmly observes, "about (environ) three hundred lashes, which flayed him (l'corchait) from his shoulders to his knees. He screamed like a madman. All the negroes trembled, and assured me that the devil would cause my death.... Then I had the wizard put in irons, after having had him well washed with a pimentade,—that is to say, with brine in which pimentos and small lemons have been crushed. This causes a horrible pain to those skinned by the whip; but it is a certain remedy against gangrene."...

And then he sent the poor wretch back to his master with a note requesting the latter to repeat the punishment,—a demand that seems to have been approved, as the owner of the negro was "a man who feared God." Yet Pre Labat is obliged to confess that in spite of all his efforts, the sick negress died on the fourth day,—as the sorcerer had predicted. This fact must have strongly confirmed his belief that the devil was at the bottom of the whole affair, and caused him to doubt whether even a flogging of about three hundred lashes, followed by a pimentade, were sufficient chastisement for the miserable black. Perhaps the tradition of this frightful whipping may have had something to do with the terror which still attaches to the name of the Dominican in Martinique. The legal extreme punishment was twenty-nine lashes.

Pre Labat also avers that in his time the negroes were in the habit of carrying sticks which had the power of imparting to any portion of the human body touched by them a most severe chronic pain. He at first believed, he says, that these pains were merely rheumatic; but after all known remedies for rheumatism had been fruitlessly applied, he became convinced there was something occult and diabolical in the manner of using and preparing these sticks.... A fact worthy of note is that this belief is still prevalent in Martinique!

One hardly ever meets in the country a negro who does not carry either a stick or a cutlass, or both. The cutlass is indispensable to those who work in the woods or upon plantations; the stick is carried both as a protection against snakes and as a weapon of offence and defence in village quarrels, for unless a negro be extraordinarily drunk he will not strike his fellow with a cutlass. The sticks are usually made of a strong dense wood: those most sought after of a material termed moudongue, [12] almost as tough, but much lighter than, our hickory.

On inquiring whether any of the sticks thus carried were held to possess magic powers, I was assured by many country people that there were men who knew a peculiar method of "arranging" sticks so that to touch any person with them even lightly, and through any thickness of clothing, would produce terrible and continuous pain.

Believing in these things, and withal unable to decide whether the sun revolved about the earth, or the earth about the sun, [13] Pre Labat was, nevertheless, no more credulous and no more ignorant than the average missionary of his time: it is only by contrast with his practical perspicacity in other matters, his worldly rationalism and executive shrewdness, that this superstitious navet impresses one as odd. And how singular sometimes is the irony of Time! All the wonderful work the Dominican accomplished has been forgotten by the people; while all the witchcrafts that he warred against survive and flourish openly; and his very name is seldom uttered but in connection with superstitions,—has been, in fact, preserved among the blacks by the power of superstition alone, by the belief in zombis and goblins.... "Mi! ti manmaille-l, moin k fai P Labatt vini pouend ou!"...



V.

Few habitants of St. Pierre now remember that the beautiful park behind the cathedral used to be called the Savanna of the White Fathers,—and the long shadowed meadow beside the Roxelane, the Savanna of the Black Fathers: the Jesuits. All the great religious orders have long since disappeared from the colony: their edifices have been either converted to other uses or demolished; their estates have passed into other hands.... Were their labors, then, productive of merely ephemeral results?—was the colossal work of a Pre Labat all in vain, so far as the future is concerned? The question is not easily answered; but it is worth considering.

Of course the material prosperity which such men toiled to obtain for their order represented nothing more, even to their eyes, than the means of self-maintenance, and the accumulation of force necessary for the future missionary labors of the monastic community. The real ultimate purpose was, not the acquisition of power for the order, but for the Church, of which the orders represented only a portion of the force militant; and this purpose did not fail of accomplishment. The orders passed away only when their labors had been completed,—when Martinique had become (exteriorly, at least) more Catholic than Rome itself,— after the missionaries had done all that religious zeal could do in moulding and remoulding the human material under their control. These men could scarcely have anticipated those social and political changes which the future reserved for the colonies, and which no ecclesiastical sagacity could, in any event, have provided against. It is in the existing religious condition of these communities that one may observe and estimate the character and the probable duration of the real work accomplished by the missions.

... Even after a prolonged residence in Martinique, its visible religious condition continues to impress one as somethmg phenomenal. A stranger, who has no opportunity to penetrate into the home life of the people, will not, perhaps, discern the full extent of the religious sentiment; but, nevertheless, however brief his stay, he will observe enough of the extravagant symbolism of the cult to fill him with surprise. Wherever he may choose to ride or to walk, he is certain to encounter shrines, statues of saints, or immense crucifixes. Should he climb up to the clouds of the peaks, he will find them all along the way;—he will perceive them waiting for him, looming through the mists of the heights; and passing through the loveliest ravines, he will see niches hollowed out in the volcanic rocks, above and below him, or contrived in the trunks of trees bending over precipices, often in places so difficult of access that he wonders how the work could have been accomplished. All this has been done by the various property-owners throughout the country: it is the traditional custom to do it—brings good-luck! After a longer stay in the island, one discovers also that in almost every room of every dwelling—stone residence, wooden cottage, or palm- thatched ajoupa—there is a chapelle: that is, a sort of large bracket fastened to the wall, on which crosses or images are placed, with vases of flowers, and lamps or wax-tapers to be burned at night. Sometimes, moreover, statues are placed in windows, or above door-ways;—and all passers-by take off their hats to these. Over the porch. of the cottage in a mountain village, where I lived for some weeks, there was an absurd little window contrived,—a sort of purely ornamental dormer,— and in this a Virgin about five inches high had been placed. At a little distance it looked like a toy,—a child's doll forgotten there; and a doll I always supposed it to be, until one day that I saw a long procession of black laborers passing before the house, every , one of whom took off his hat to it.... My bedchamber in the same cottage resembled a religious museum. On the chapelle there were no less than eight Virgins, varying in height from one to sixteen inches,—a St. Joseph,—a St. John,—a crucifix,—and a host of little objects in the shape of hearts or crosses, each having some special religious significance;—while the walls were covered with framed certificates of baptism, "first-communion," confirmation, and other documents commemorating the whole church life of the family for two generations.



... Certainly the first impression created by this perpetual display of crosses, statues, and miniature chapels is not pleasing,—particularly as the work is often inartistic to a degree bordering upon the grotesque, and nothing resembling art is anywhere visible. Millions of francs must have been consumed in these creations, which have the rudeness of mediaevalism without its emotional sincerity, and which—amid the loveliness of tropic nature, the grace of palms, the many-colored fire of liana blossoms—jar on the aesthetic sense with an almost brutal violence. Yet there is a veiled poetry in these silent populations of plaster and wood and stone. They represent something older than the Middle Ages, older than Christianity,— something strangely distorted and transformed, it is true, but recognizably conserved by the Latin race from those antique years when every home had its beloved ghosts, when every wood or hill or spring had its gracious divinity, and the boundaries of all fields were marked and guarded by statues of gods.

Instances of iconoclasm are of course highly rare in a country of which no native—rich or poor, white or half-breed—fails to doff his hat before every shrine, cross, or image he may happen to pass. Those merchants of St. Pierre or of Fort-de-France living only a few miles out of the city must certainly perform a vast number of reverences on their way to or from business;—I saw one old gentleman uncover his white head about twenty times in the course of a fifteen minutes' walk. I never heard of but one image-breaker in Martinique; and his act was the result of superstition, not of any hostility to popular faith or custom: it was prompted by the same childish feeling which moves Italian fishermen sometimes to curse St. Antony or to give his image a ducking in bad weather. This Martinique iconoclast was a negro cattle-driver who one day, feeling badly in need of a glass of tafia, perhaps, left the animals intrusted to him in care of a plaster image of the Virgin, with this menace (the phrase is on record):—

"Moin ka quitt bef-la ba ou pou gd ba moin. Quand moin vini, si moin pa trouv compte-moin, moin k fout ou vingt-nf coudfoutt!" (I leave these cattle with you to take care of for me. When I come back, if I don't find them all here, I'll give you twenty-nine lashes.)

Returning about half an hour later, he was greatly enraged to find his animals scattered in every direction;—and, rushing at the statue, he broke it from the pedestal, flung it upon the ground, and gave it twenty-nine lashes with his bull-whip. For this he was arrested, tried, and sentenced to imprisonment, with hard labor, for life! In those days there were no colored magistrates;—the judges were all bks.

"Rather a severe sentence," I remarked to my informant, a planter who conducted me to the scene of the alleged sacrilege.

"Severe, yes," he answered;—"and I suppose the act would seem to you more idiotic than criminal. But here, in Martinique, there were large questions involved by such an offence. Relying, as we have always done to some extent, upon religious influence as a factor in the maintenance of social order, the negro's act seemed a dangerous example."...

That the Church remains still rich and prosperous in Martinique there can be no question; but whether it continues to wield any powerful influence in the maintenance of social order is more than doubtful. A Polynesian laxity of morals among the black and colored population, and the history of race-hatreds and revolutions inspired by race-hate, would indicate that neither in ethics nor in politics does it possess any preponderant authority. By expelling various religious orders; by establishing lay schools, lyces, and other educational institutions where the teaching is largely characterized by aggressive antagonism to Catholic ideas;—by the removal of crucifixes and images from public buildings, French Radicalism did not inflict any great blow upon Church interests. So far as the white, and, one may say, the wealthy, population is concerned, the Church triumphs in her hostility to the Government schools; and to the same extent she holds an educational monopoly. No white creole would dream of sending his children to a lay school or a lyce—notwithstanding the unquestionable superiority of the educational system in the latter institutions;—and, although obliged, as the chief tax- paying class, to bear the burden of maintaining these establishments, the whites hold them in such horror that the Government professors are socially ostracized. No doubt the prejudice or pride which abhors mixed schools aids the Church in this respect; she herself recognizes race-feeling, keeps her schools unmixed, and even in her convents, it is said, obliges the colored nuns to serve the white! For more than two centuries every white generation has been religiously moulded in the seminaries and convents; and among the native whites one never hears an overt declaration of free-thought opinion. Except among the colored men educated in the Government schools, or their foreign professors, there are no avowed free-thinkers;—and this, not because the creole whites, many of whom have been educated in Paris, are naturally narrow-minded, or incapable of sympathy with the mental expansion of the age, but because the religious question at Martinique has become so intimately complicated with the social and political one, concerning which there can be no compromise whatever, that to divorce the former from the latter is impossible. Roman Catholicism is an element of the cement which holds creole society together; and it is noteworthy that other creeds are not represented. I knew only of one Episcopalian and one Methodist in the island,—and heard a sort of legend about a solitary Jew whose whereabouts I never could discover;—but these were strangers.

It was only through the establishment of universal suffrage, which placed the white population at the mercy of its former slaves, that the Roman Church sustained any serious injury. All local positions are filled by blacks or men of color; no white creole can obtain a public office or take part in legislation; and the whole power of the black vote is ungenerously used against the interests of the class thus politically disinherited. The Church suffers in consequence: her power depended upon her intimate union with the wealthy and dominant class; and she will never be forgiven by those now in power for her sympathetic support of that class in other years. Politics yearly intensify this hostility; and as the only hope for the restoration of the whites to power, and of the Church to its old position, lies in the possibility of another empire or a revival of the monarchy, the white creoles and their Church are forced into hostility against republicanism and the republic. And political newspapers continually attack Roman Catholicism,—mock its tenets and teachings,—ridicule its dogmas and ceremonies,—satirize its priests.

In the cities and towns the Church indeed appears to retain a large place in the affection of the poorer classes;—her ceremonies are always well attended; money pours into her coffers; and one can still wittness the curious annual procession of the "converted,"—aged women of color and negresses going to communion for the first time, all wearing snow-white turbans in honor of the event. But among the country people, where the dangerous forces of revolution exist, Christian feeling is almost stifled by ghastly beliefs of African origin;—the images and crucifixes still command respect, but this respect is inspired by a feeling purely fetichistic. With the political dispossession of the whites, certain dark powers, previously concealed or repressed, have obtained , formidable development. The old enemy of Pre Labat, the wizard (the quimboiseur), already wields more authority than the priest, exercises more terror than the magistrate, commands more confidence than the physician. The educated mulatto class may affect to despise him; —but he is preparing their overthrow in the dark. Astonishing is the persistence with which the African has clung to these beliefs and practices, so zealously warred upon by the Church and so mercilessly punished by the courts for centuries. He still goes to mass, and sends his children to the priest; but he goes more often to the quimboiseur and the "magnetise." He finds use for both beliefs, but gives large preference to the savage one,—just as he prefers the pattering of his tam tam to the music of the military band at the Savane du Fort.... And should it come to pass that Martinique be ever totally abandoned by its white population,—an event by no means improbable in the present order of things,—the fate of the ecclesiastical fabric so toilsomely reared by the monastic orders is not difficult to surmise.



VI.

From my window in the old Rue du Bois-Morin,—which climbs the foot of Morne Labelle by successions of high stone steps,—all the southern end of the city is visible as in a bird's-eye view. Under me is a long peaking of red-scaled roofs,—gables and dormer-windows,—with clouds of bright green here and there,— foliage of tamarind and corossolier;—westward purples and flames the great circle of the Caribbean Sea;—east and south, towering to the violet sky, curve the volcanic hills, green-clad from base to summit;—and right before me the beautiful Morne d'Orange, all palm-plumed and wood-wrapped, trends seaward and southward. And every night, after the stars come out, I see moving lights there,—lantern fires guiding the mountain-dwellers home; but I look in vain for the light of Pre Labat.

And nevertheless,—although no believer in ghosts,—I see thee very plainly sometimes, thou quaint White Father, moving through winter-mists in the narrower Paris of another century; musing upon the churches that arose at thy bidding under tropic skies; dreaming of the primeval valleys changed by thy will to green- gold seas of cane,—and the strong mill that will bear thy name for two hundred years (it stands solid unto this day),—and the habitations made for thy brethren in pleasant palmy places,—and the luminous peace of thy Martinique convent,—and odor of roasting parrots fattened upon grains de bois d'Inde and guavas,—"l'odeur de muscade et de girofle qui fait plaisir."...

Eh, Pre Labat_!—what changes there have been since thy day! The White Fathers have no place here now; and the Black Fathers, too, have been driven from the land, leaving only as a memory of them the perfect and ponderous architecture of the Perinnelle plantation-buildings, and the appellation of the river still known as the Rivire des Pres. Also the Ursulines are gone, leaving only their name on the corner of a crumbling street. And there are no more slaves; and there are new races and colors thou wouldst deem scandalous though beautiful; and there are no more parrots; and there are no more diablotins. And the grand woods thou sawest in their primitive and inviolate beauty, as if fresh from the Creator's touch in the morning of the world, are passing away; the secular trees are being converted into charcoal, or sawn into timber for the boat-builders: thou shouldst see two hundred men pulling some forest giant down to the sea upon the two-wheeled screaming thing they call a "devil" (_yon diabe_),— cric-crac!—cric-crac!—all chanting together;—

"Soh-soh!—yae-yah! Rhl bois-canot!"

And all that ephemeral man has had power to change has been changed,—ideas, morals, beliefs, the whole social fabric. But the eternal summer remains,—and the Hesperian magnificence of azure sky and violet sea,—and the jewel-colors of the perpetual hills;—the same tepid winds that rippled thy cane-fields two hundred years ago still blow over Sainte-Marie;—the same purple shadows lengthen and dwindle and turn with the wheeling of the sun. God's witchery still fills this land; and the heart of the stranger is even yet snared by the beauty of it; and the dreams of him that forsakes it will surely be haunted—even as were thine own, Pre Labat—by memories of its Eden-summer: the sudden leap of the light over a thousand peaks in the glory of tropic dawn,—the perfumed peace of enormous azure noons,—and shapes of palm wind-rocked in the burning of colossal sunsets,—and the silent flickering of the great fire-flies through the lukewarm darkness, when mothers call their children home... "Mi fanal P Labatt!—mi P Labatt ka vini pouend ou!"



CHAPTER IV. LA GUIABLESSE.



I.

Night in all countries brings with it vaguenesses and illusions which terrify certain imaginations;—but in the tropics it produces effects peculiarly impressive and peculiarly sinister. Shapes of vegetation that startle even while the sun shines upon them assume, after his setting, a grimness,—a grotesquery,—a suggestiveness for which there is no name.... In the North a tree is simply a tree;—here it is a personality that makes itself felt; it has a vague physiognomy, an indefinable Me: it is an Individual (with a capital I); it is a Being (with a capital B).

From the high woods, as the moon mounts, fantastic darknesses descend into the roads,—black distortions, mockeries, bad dreams,—an endless procession of goblins. Least startling are the shadows flung down by the various forms of palm, because instantly recognizable;—yet these take the semblance of giant fingers opening and closing over the way, or a black crawling of unutterable spiders....

Nevertheless, these phasma seldom alarm the solitary and belated Bitaco: the darknesses that creep stealthily along the path have no frightful signification for him,—do not appeal to his imagination;—if he suddenly starts and stops and stares, it is not because of such shapes, but because he has perceived two specks of orange light, and is not yet sure whether they are only fire-flies, or the eyes of a trigonocephalus. The spectres of his fancy have nothing in common with those indistinct and monstrous umbrages: what he most fears, next to the deadly serpent, are human witchcrafts. A white rag, an old bone lying in the path, might be a malefice which, if trodden upon, would cause his leg to blacken and swell up to the size of the limb of an elephant;—an unopened bundle of plantain leaves or of bamboo strippings, dropped by the way-side, might contain the skin of a Soucouyan. But the ghastly being who doffs or dons his skin at will—and the Zombi—and the Moun-M—may be quelled or exorcised by prayer; and the lights of shrines, the white gleaming of crosses, continually remind the traveller of his duty to the Powers that save. All along the way there are shrines at intervals, not very far apart: while standing in the radiance of one niche-lamp, you may perhaps discern the glow of the next, if the road be level and straight. They are almost everywhere,— shining along the skirts of the woods, at the entrance of ravines, by the verges of precipices;—there is a cross even upon the summit of the loftiest peak in the island. And the night- walker removes his hat each time his bare feet touch the soft stream of yellow light outpoured from the illuminated shrine of a white Virgin or a white Christ. These are good ghostly company for him;—he salutes them, talks to them, tells them his pains or fears: their blanched faces seem to him full of sympathy;—they appear to cheer him voicelessly as he strides from gloom to gloom, under the goblinry of those woods which tower black as ebony under the stars.... And he has other companionship. One of the greatest terrors of darkness in other lands does not exist here after the setting of the sun,—the terror of Silence.... Tropical night is full of voices;—extraordinary populations of crickets are trilling; nations of tree-frogs are chanting; the Cabri-des-bois, [14] or cra-cra, almost deafens you with the wheezy bleating sound by which it earned its creole name; birds pipe: everything that bells, ululates, drones, clacks, guggles, joins the enormous chorus; and you fancy you see all the shadows vibrating to the force of this vocal storm. The true life of Nature in the tropics begins with the darkness, ends with the light.

And it is partly, perhaps, because of these conditions that the coming of the dawn does not dissipate all fears of the supernatural. I ni p zombi mnm gran'-jou (he is afraid of ghosts even in broad daylight) is a phrase which does not sound exaggerated in these latitudes,—not, at least, to anyone knowing something of the conditions that nourish or inspire weird beliefs. In the awful peace of tropical day, in the hush of the woods, the solemn silence of the hills (broken only by torrent voices that cannot make themselves heard at night), even in the amazing luminosity, there is a something apparitional and weird, —something that seems to weigh upon the world like a measureless haunting. So still all Nature's chambers are that a loud utterance jars upon the ear brutally, like a burst of laughter in a sanctuary. With all its luxuriance of color, with all its violence of light, this tropical day has its ghostliness and its ghosts. Among the people of color there are many who believe that even at noon—when the boulevards behind the city are most deserted—the zombis will show themselves to solitary loiterers.



II.

... Here a doubt occurs to me,—a doubt regarding the precise nature of a word, which I call upon Adou to explain. Adou is the daughter of the kind old capresse from whom I rent my room in this little mountain cottage. The mother is almost precisely the color of cinnamon; the daughter's complexion is brighter,—the ripe tint of an orange.... Adou tells me creole stories and tim-tim. Adou knows all about ghosts, and believes in them. So does Adou's extraordinarily tall brother, Yb,—my guide among the mountains.

—"Adou," I ask, "what is a zombi?"

The smile that showed Adou's beautiful white teeth has instantly disappeared; and she answers, very seriously, that she has never seen a zombi, and does not want to see one.

—"Moin pa t janmain ou zombi,—pa 'l ou a, moin!"

—"But, Adou, child, I did not ask you whether you ever saw It; —I asked you only to tell me what It is like?"...

Adou hesitates a little, and answers:

—"Zombi? Mais a fai dsde lanuitt, zombi!"

Ah! it is Something which "makes disorder at night." Still, that is not a satisfactory explanation. "Is it the spectre of a dead person, Adou? Is it one who comes back?"

—"Non, Missi,—non; pa ca."

—"Not that?... Then what was it you said the other night when you were afraid to pass the cemetery on an errand,—a ou t ka di, Adou ?"

—"Moin t ka di: 'Moin pa l k'all b cimti-l pa ouapp moun-m;—moun-m k barr moin: moin pa s p vini enco.'" (I said, "I do not want to go by that cemetery because of the dead folk,—the dead folk will bar the way, and I cannot get back again.")

—"And you believe that, Adou ?"

—"Yes, that is what they say... And if you go into the cemetery at night you cannot come out again: the dead folk will stop you—moun-m k barr ou."...

—"But are the dead folk zombis, Adou?"

—"No; the moun-m are not zombis. The zombis go everywhere: the dead folk remain in the graveyard.... Except on the Night of All Souls: then they go to the houses of their people everywhere."

—"Adou, if after the doors and windows were locked and barred you were to see entering your room in the middle of the nIght, a Woman fourteen feet high?"...

—"Ah! pa pl a!!"...

—"No! tell me, Adou?"

—"Why, yes: that would be a zombi. It is the zombis who make all those noises at night one cannot understand.... Or, again, if I were to see a dog that high [she holds her hand about five feet above the floor] coming into our house at night, I would scream: "Mi Zombi!"

... Then it suddenly occurs to Adou that her mother knows something about zombis.

—"Ou Manman!"

—"Eti!" answers old Thrza's voice from the little out- building where the evening meal is being prepared over a charcoal furnace, in an earthen canari.

—"Missi-l ka mand save a a y yonne zombi;—vini ti bouin!"... The mother laughs, abandons her canari, and comes in to tell me all she knows about the weird word.

"I ni p zombi"—I find from old Thereza's explanations—is a phrase indefinite as our own vague expressions, "afraid of ghosts," "afraid of the dark." But the word "Zombi" also has special strange meanings.... "Ou pass nans grand chimin lanuitt, pi ou ka ou gous dif, pi plis ou ka vini assou dif- pli ou ka ou dif- ka mch: zombi ka fai a.... Enc, chouval ka pass,—chouval ka ni anni toua patt: a zombi." (You pass along the high-road at night, and you see a great fire, and the more you walk to get to it the more it moves away: it is the zombi makes that.... Or a horse with only three legs passes you: that is a zombi.)

—"How big is the fire that the zombi makes ?" I ask.

—"It fills the whole road," answers Thrza: "li ka rempli toutt chimin-l. Folk call those fires the Evil Fires,—mauvai dif;—and if you follow them they will lead you into chasms,— ou k tomb adans labme."...

And then she tells me this:

—"Baidaux was a mad man of color who used to live at St. Pierre, in the Street of the Precipice. He was not dangerous,—never did any harm;—his sister used to take care of him. And what I am going to relate is true,—e zhistou veritabe!

"One day Baidaux said to his sister: 'Moin ni yonne yche, va!—ou pa connaitt li!' [I have a child, ah!—you never saw it!] His sister paid no attention to what he said that day; but the next day he said it again, and the next, and the next, and every day after,—so that his sister at last became much annoyed by it, and used to cry out: 'Ah! mais p guiole ou, Baidaux! ou fou pou embet moin conm a!—ou bien fou!'... But he tormented her that way for months and for years.

"One evening he went out, and only came home at midnight leading a child by the hand,—a black child he had found in the street; and he said to his sister:—

"'Mi yche-l moin men ba ou! Tou ljou moin t ka di ou moin tini yonne yche: ou pa t 'l cou,—eh, ben! MI Y!' [Look at the child I have brought you! Every day I have been telling you I had a child: you would not believe me,—very well, LOOK AT HIM!]

"The sister gave one look, and cried out: 'Baidaux, oti ou pouend yche-l?'... For the child was growing taller and taller every moment.... And Baidaux,—because he was mad,—kept saying: ' yche-moin! yche moin!' [It is my child!]

"And the sister threw open the shutters and screamed to all the neighbors,—'_Scou, scou, scou! Vini ou a Baidaux men ba moin!_' [Help! help! Come see what Baidaux has brought in here!] And the child said to Baidaux: '_Ou ni bonh ou fou!' [You are lucky that you are mad!]... Then all the neighbors came running in; but they could not see anything: the Zombi was gone."...



III.

... As I was saying, the hours of vastest light have their weirdness here;—and it is of a Something which walketh abroad under the eye of the sun, even at high noontide, that I desire to speak, while the impressions of a morning journey to the scene of Its last alleged apparition yet remains vivid in my recollection.

You follow the mountain road leading from Calebasse over long meadowed levels two thousand feet above the ocean, into the woods of La Couresse, where it begins to descend slowly, through deep green shadowing, by great zigzags. Then, at a turn, you find yourself unexpectedly looking down upon a planted valley, through plumy fronds of arborescent fern. The surface below seems almost like a lake of gold-green water,—especially when long breaths of mountain-wind set the miles of ripening cane a-ripple from verge to verge: the illusion is marred only by the road, fringed with young cocoa-palms, which serpentines across the luminous plain. East, west, and north the horizon is almost wholly hidden by surging of hills: those nearest are softly shaped and exquisitely green; above them loftier undulations take hazier verdancy and darker shadows; farther yet rise silhouettes of blue or violet tone, with one beautiful breast-shaped peak thrusting up in the midst;—while, westward, over all, topping even the Piton, is a vapory huddling of prodigious shapes—wrinkled, fissured, horned, fantastically tall.... Such at least are the tints of the morning.... Here and there, between gaps in the volcanic chain, the land hollows into gorges, slopes down into ravines;—and the sea's vast disk of turquoise flames up through the interval. Southwardly those deep woods, through which the way winds down, shut in the view.... You do not see the plantation buildings till you have advanced some distance into the valley;—they are hidden by a fold of the land, and stand in a little hollow where the road turns: a great quadrangle of low gray antiquated edifices, heavily walled and buttressed, and roofed with red tiles. The court they form opens upon the main route by an immense archway. Farther along ajoupas begin to line the way,— the dwellings of the field hands,—tiny cottages built with trunks of the arborescent fern or with stems of bamboo, and thatched with cane-straw: each in a little garden planted with bananas, yams, couscous, camanioc, choux-caraibes, or other things,—and hedged about with roseaux d'Inde and various flowering shrubs.

Thereafter, only the high whispering wildernesses of cane on either hand,—the white silent road winding between its swaying cocoa-trees,—and the tips of hills that seem to glide on before you as you walk, and that take, with the deepening of the afternoon light, such amethystine color as if they were going to become transparent.



IV.

... It is a breezeless and cloudless noon. Under the dazzling downpour of light the hills seem to smoke blue: something like a thin yellow fog haloes the leagues of ripening cane,—a vast reflection. There is no stir in all the green mysterious front of the vine-veiled woods. The palms of the roads keep their heads quite still, as if listening. The canes do not utter a single susurration. Rarely is there such absolute stillness among them: on the calmest days there are usually rustlings audible, thin cracklings, faint creepings: sounds that betray the passing of some little animal or reptile—a rat or a wa manicou, or a zanoli or couresse,—more often, however, no harmless lizard or snake, but the deadly fer-de-lance. To-day, all these seem to sleep; and there are no workers among the cane to clear away the weeds, —to uproot the pi-treffe, pi-poule, pi-balai, zhbe-en-m: it is the hour of rest.

A woman is coming along the road,—young, very swarthy, very tall, and barefooted, and black-robed: she wears a high white turban with dark stripes, and a white foulard is thrown about her fine shoulders; she bears no burden, and walks very swiftly and noiselessly.... Soundless as shadow the motion of all these naked-footed people is. On any quiet mountain-way, full of curves, where you fancy yourself alone, you may often be startled by something you feel, rather than hear, behind you,—surd steps, the springy movement of a long lithe body, dumb oscillations of raiment;—and ere you can turn to look, the haunter swiftly passes with creole greeting of "bon-jou'" or "bonsou, Missi." This sudden "becoming aware" in broad daylight of a living presence unseen is even more disquieting than that sensation which, in absolute darkness, makes one halt all breathlessly before great solid objects, whose proximity has been revealed by some mute blind emanation of force alone. But it is very seldom, indeed, that the negro or half-breed is thus surprised: he seems to divine an advent by some specialized sense,—like an animal,—and to become conscious of a look directed upon him from any distance or from behind any covert;— to pass within the range of his keen vision unnoticed is almost impossible.... And the approach of this woman has been already observed by the habitants of the ajoupas;—dark faces peer out from windows and door-ways;—one half-nude laborer even strolls out to the road-side under the sun to her coming.He looks a moment,turns to the hut and calls:—

—"Ou-ou! Fafa!"

—"t! Gabou!"

—"Vini ti bouin!—mi bel negresse!"

Out rushes Fafa, with his huge straw hat in his hand: "Oti, Gabou?"

—"Mi!"

—"'Ah! quimb moin!" cries black Fafa, enthusiastically; "fouinq! li bel!—Jsis-Maa! li doux!"...Neither ever saw that woman before; and both feel as if they could watch her forever.

There is something superb in the port of a tall young mountain- griffone, or negress, who is comely and knows that she is comely: it is a black poem of artless dignity, primitive grace, savage exultation of movement.... "Ou march tte enlai conm couresse qui ka passlarivi" (You walk with your head in the air, like the couresse-serpent swimming a river) is a creole comparison which pictures perfectly the poise of her neck and chin. And in her walk there is also a serpentine elegance, a sinuous charm: the shoulders do not swing; the cambered torso seems immobile;— but alternately from waist to heel, and from heel to waist, with each long full stride, an indescribable undulation seems to pass; while the folds of her loose robe oscillate to right and left behind her, in perfect libration, with the free swaying of the hips. With us, only a finely trained dancer could attempt such a walk;—with the Martinique woman of color it is natural as the tint of her skin; and this allurement of motion unrestrained is most marked in those who have never worn shoes, and are clad lightly as the women of antiquity,—in two very thin and simple garments;—chemise and robe—d'indienne.... But whence is she?- -of what canton? Not from Vauclin, nor from Lamentin, nor from Marigot,—from Case-Pilote or from Case-Navire: Fafa knows all the people there. Never of Sainte-Anne, nor of Sainte-Luce, nor of Sainte-Marie, nor of Diamant, nor of Gros-Morne, nor of Carbet,—the birthplace of Gabou. Neither is she of the village of the Abysms, which is in the Parish of the Preacher,—nor yet of Ducos nor of Franois, which are in the Commune of the Holy Ghost....



V.

... She approaches the ajoupa: both men remove their big straw hats; and both salute her with a simultaneous "Bonjou', Manzell."

—"Bonjou', Missi," she responds, in a sonorous alto, without appearing to notice Gabou,—but smiling upon Fafa as she passes, with her great eyes turned full upon his face.... All the libertine blood of the man flames under that look;—he feels as if momentarily wrapped in a blaze of black lightning.

—"a ka fai moin p," exclaims Gabou, turning his face towards the ajoupa. Something indefinable in the gaze of the stranger has terrified him.

—"Pa ka fai moin p—fouinq!" (She does not make me afraid) laughs Fafa, boldly following her with a smiling swagger.

—"Fafa!" cries Gabou, in alarm. "Fafa, pa fai a!" But Fafa does not heed. The strange woman has slackened her pace, as if inviting pursuit;—another moment and he is at her side.

—"Oti ou ka rt, che?" he demands, with the boldness of one who knows himself a fine specimen of his race.

—"Zaffai cabritt pa zaffai lapin," she answers, mockingly.

—"Mais pouki au rhabill toutt nou conm a."

—"Moin pt deil pou name main m."

—"Ae ya yae!... Non, vou!—a ou kall atoulement?"

—"Lanmou pti: moin pti de lanmou."

—"Ho!—on ni gupe, anh?"

—"Zanoli bail yon bal; pi maboya rentr ladans."

—"Di moin oti ou kall, doudoux?"

—"Jouq larivi Lez."

—"Fouinq!—ni plis pass trente kilomett!"

—"Eh ben?—ess ou 'l vini pi moin?" [15]

And as she puts the question she stands still and gazes at him;— her voice is no longer mocking: it has taken another tone,—a tone soft as the long golden note of the little brown bird they call the siffleur-de-montagne, the mountain-whistler.... Yet Fafa hesitates. He hears the clear clang of the plantation bell recalling him to duty;—he sees far down the road—(Ouill! how fast they have been walking!)—a white and black speck in the sun: Gabou, uttering through his joined hollowed hands, as through a horn, the oukl, the rally call. For an instant he thinks of the overseer's anger,—of the distance,—of the white road glaring in the dead heat: then he looks again into the black eyes of the strange woman, and answers:

—"Oui;—moin k vini pi ou."

With a burst of mischievous laughter, in which Fafa joins, she walks on,—Fafa striding at her side.... And Gabou, far off, watches them go,—and wonders that, for the first time since ever they worked together, his comrade failed to answer his oukl,

—"Coument yo ka cri ou, ch" asks Fafa, curious to know her name.

—"Chch nom moin ou-menm, duvin,"

But Fafa never was a good guesser,—never could guess the simplest of tim-tim.

—"Ess Cendrine?"

—"Non, e pa a."

—"Ess Vitaline?"

—"Non pa a."

—"Ess Aza?"

—"Non, pa a."

—"Ess Nini?"

—"Chch enc."

—"Ess Tit"

—"Ou pa save,—tant pis pou ou!"

—"Ess Youma?"

—"Pouki ou 'l save nom moin?—a ou k pi y?"

—"Ess Yaiya?"

—"Non, pa y."

—"Ess Maiyotte?"

—"Non! ou pa k janmain trouv y!"

—"Ess Sounoune?—ess Loulouze?"

She does not answer, but quickens her pace and begins to sing,— not as the half-breed, but as the African sings,—commencing with a low long weird intonation that suddenly breaks into fractions of notes inexpressible, then rising all at once to a liquid purling bird-tone, and descending as abruptly again to the first deep quavering strain:—

" te— moin ka dmi toute longue; Yon paillasse s fai main bien, Doudoux!

te— moin ka dmi toute longue; Yon robe bis s fai moin bien, Doudoux!

te— moin ka dmi toute longue; D jolis foul s fai moin bien, Doudoux!

te— moin ka dmi toute longue; Yon joli madras s fai moin bien, Doudoux!

te— moin ka dmi toute longue: e t..."

... Obliged from the first to lengthen his stride in order to keep up with her, Fafa has found his utmost powers of walking overtaxed, and has been left behind. Already his thin attire is saturated with sweat; his breathing is almost a panting;—yet the black bronze of his companion's skin shows no moisture; her rhythmic her silent respiration, reveal no effort: she laughs at his desperate straining to remain by her side.

—"March toujou' de moin,—anh, ch?—march toujou' de!"...

And the involuntary laggard—utterly bewitched by supple allurement of her motion, by the black flame of her gaze, by the savage melody of her chant—wonders more and more who she may be, while she waits for him with her mocking smile.

But Gabou—who has been following and watching from afar off, and sounding his fruitless oukl betimes—suddenly starts, halts, turns, and hurries back, fearfully crossing himself at every step.

He has seen the sign by which She is known...



VI.

... None ever saw her by night. Her hour is the fulness of the sun's flood-tide: she comes in the dead hush and white flame of windless noons,—when colors appear to take a very unearthliness of intensity,—when even the flash of some colibri, bosomed with living fire, shooting hither and thither among the grenadilla blossoms, seemeth a spectral happening because of the great green trance of the land....

Mostly she haunts the mountain roads, winding from plantation to plantation, from hamlet to hamlet,—sometimes dominating huge sweeps of azure sea, sometimes shadowed by mornes deep-wooded to the sky. But close to the great towns she sometimes walks: she has been seen at mid-day upon the highway which overlooks the Cemetery of the Anchorage, behind the cathedral of St. Pierre.... A black Woman, simply clad, of lofty stature and strange beauty, silently standing in the light, keeping her eyes fixed upon the Sun!...



VII.

Day wanes. The further western altitudes shift their pearline gray to deep blue where the sky is yellowing up behind them; and in the darkening hollows of nearer mornes strange shadows gather with the changing of the light—dead indigoes, fuliginous purples, rubifications as of scoriae,—ancient volcanic colors momentarily resurrected by the illusive haze of evening. And the fallow of the canes takes a faint warm ruddy tinge. On certain far high slopes, as the sun lowers, they look like thin golden hairs against the glow,—blond down upon the skin of the living hills.

Still the Woman and her follower walk together,—chatting loudly, laughing—chanting snatches of song betimes. And now the valley is well behind them;—they climb the steep road crossing the eastern peaks,—through woods that seem to stifle under burdening of creepers. The shadow of the Woman and the shadow of the man,—broadening from their feet,—lengthening prodigiously,—sometimes, mixing, fill all the way; sometimes, at a turn, rise up to climb the trees. Huge masses of frondage, catching the failing light, take strange fiery color;—the sun's rim almost touches one violet hump in the western procession of volcanic silhouettes....

Sunset, in the tropics, is vaster than sunrise.... The dawn, upflaming swiftly from the sea, has no heralding erubescence, no awful blossoming—as in the North: its fairest hues are fawn- colors, dove-tints, and yellows,—pale yellows as of old dead gold, in horizon and flood. But after the mighty heat of day has charged all the blue air with translucent vapor, colors become strangely changed, magnified, transcendentalized when the sun falls once more below the verge of visibility. Nearly an hour before his death, his light begins to turn tint; and all the horizon yellows to the color of a lemon. Then this hue deepens, through tones of magnificence unspeakable, into orange; and the sea becomes lilac. Orange is the light of the world for a little space; and as the orb sinks, the indigo darkness comes—not descending, but rising, as if from the ground—all within a few minutes. And during those brief minutes peaks and mornes, purpling into richest velvety blackness, appear outlined against passions of fire that rise half-way to the zenith,—enormous furies of vermilion.

... The Woman all at once leaves the main road,—begins to mount a steep narrow path leading up from it through the woods upon the left. But Fafa hesitates,—halts a moment to look back. He sees the sun's huge orange face sink down,—sees the weird procession of the peaks vesture themselves in blackness funereal,—sees the burning behind them crimson into awfulness; and a vague fear comes upon him as he looks again up the darkling path to the left. Whither is she now going?

—"Oti ou kall la?" he cries.

—"Mais conm a!—chimin tala plis cou't,—coument?"

It may be the shortest route, indeed;—but then, the fer-de- lance!...

—"Ni spent ciya,—en pile."

No: there is not a single one, she avers; she has taken that path too often not to know:

—"Pa ni spent piess! Moin ni coutime pass l;—pa ni piess !"

... She leads the way.... Behind them the tremendous glow deepens;—before them the gloom. Enormous gnarled forms of ceiba, balata, acoma, stand dimly revealed as they pass; masses of viny drooping things take, by the failing light, a sanguine tone. For a little while Fafa can plainly discern the figure of the Woman before him;—then, as the path zigzags into shadow, he can descry only the white turban and the white foulard;—and then the boughs meet overhead: he can see her no more, and calls to her in alarm:—

—"Oti ou?—moin pa p ou arien!"

Forked pending ends of creepers trail cold across his face. Huge fire-flies sparkle by,—like atoms of kindled charcoal thinkling, blown by a wind.

—"Iitt!—quimb lanmain-moin!"...

How cold the hand that guides him!...She walks swiftly, surely, as one knowing the path by heart. It zigzags once more; and the incandescent color flames again between the trees;—the high vaulting of foliage fissures overhead, revealing the first stars. A cabritt-bois begins its chant. They reach the summit of the morne under the clear sky.

The wood is below their feet now; the path curves on eastward between a long swaying of ferns sable in the gloom,—as between a waving of prodigious black feathers. Through the further purpling, loftier altitudes dimly loom; and from some viewless depth, a dull vast rushing sound rises into the night.... Is it the speech of hurrying waters, or only some tempest of insect voices from those ravines in which the night begins?...

Her face is in the darkness as she stands;—Fafa's eyes turned to the iron-crimson of the western sky. He still holds her hand, fondles it,—murmurs something to her in undertones.

—"Ess ou ainmein moin conm a?" she asks, almost in a whisper,

Oh! yes, yes, yes!... more than any living being he loves her!... How much? Ever so much,—gous conm caze!... Yet she seems to doubt him,—repeating her questionn over and over:

—"Ess ou ainmein moin?"

And all the while,—gently, caressingly, imperceptibly—she draws him a little nearer to the side of the nearer to the black waving of the ferns, nearer to the great dull rushing sound that rises from beyond them:

—"Ess ou ainmein moin?"

—"Oui, oui!" he responds,—"ou save a!—oui, ch doudoux, ou save a!"...

And she, suddenly,—turning at once to him and to the last red light, the goblin horror of her face transformed,—shrieks with a burst of hideous laughter:

—"At, b!" [16]

For the fraction of a moment he knows her name:—then, smitten to the brain with the sight of her, reels, recoils, and, backward falling, crashes two thousand feet down to his death upon the rocks of a mountain torrent.



CHAPTER V. LA VRETTE.



I. —ST. PIERRE, 1887.

One returning from the country to the city in the Carnival season is lucky to find any comfortable rooms for rent. I have been happy to secure one even in a rather retired street,—so steep that it is really dangerous to sneeze while descending it, lest one lose one's balance and tumble right across the town. It is not a fashionable street, the Rue du Morne Mirail; but, after all, there is no particularly fashionable street in this extraordinary city, and the poorer the neighborhood, the better one's chance to see something of its human nature.

One consolation is that I have Manm-Robert for a next-door neighbor, who keeps the best bouts in town (those long thin Martinique cigars of which a stranger soon becomes fond), and who can relate more queer stories and legends of old times in the island than anybody else I know of. Manm-Robert is yon mchanne lapacotte, a dealer in such cheap articles of food as the poor live upon: fruits and tropical vegetables, manioc-flour, "macadam " (a singular dish of rice stewed with salt fish—diri pi coubouyon lamori), akras, etc.; but her bouts probably bring her the largest profit—they are all bought up by the bks. Manm-Robert is also a sort of doctor: whenever anyone in the neighborhood falls sick she is sent for, and always comes, and very often cures,—as she is skilled in the knowledge and use of medicinal herbs, which she gathers herself upon the mornes. But for these services she never accepts any reuneration: she is a sort of Mother of the poor in immediate vicinity. She helps everybody, listens to everybody's troubles, gives everybody some sort of consolation, trusts everybody, and sees a great deal of the thankless side of human nature without seeming to feel any the worse for it. Poor as she must really be she appears to have everything that everybody wants; and will lend anything to her neighbors except a scissors or a broom, which it is thought bad- luck to lend. And, finally, if anyybody is afraid of being bewitched (quimbois) Manm-Robert can furnish him or her with something that will keep the bewitchment away....



II. February 15th.

... Ash-Wednesday. The last masquerade will appear this afternoon, notwithstanding; for the Carnival is in Martinique a day longer than elsewhere.

All through the country districts since the first week of January there have been wild festivities every Sunday—dancing on the public highways to the pattering of tamtams,—African dancing, too, such as is never seen in St. Pierre. In the city, however, there has been less merriment than in previous years;— the natural gaiety of the population has been visibly affected by the advent of a terrible and unfamiliar visitor to the island,— La Vrette: she came by steamer from Colon.

... It was in September. Only two cases had been reported when every neighboring British colony quarantined against Martinique. Then other West Indian colonies did likewise. Only two cases of small-pox. "But there may be two thousand in another month," answered the governors and the consuls to many indignant protests. Among West Indian populations the malady has a signification unknown in Europe or the United States: it means an exterminating plague.

Two months later the little capital of Fort-de-France was swept by the pestilence as by a wind of death. Then the evil began to spread. It entered St. Pierre in December, about Christmas time. Last week 173 cases were reported; and a serious epidemic is almost certain. There were only 8500 inhabitants in Fort-de- France; there are 28,000 in the three quarters of St. Pierre proper, not including her suburbs; and there is no saying what ravages the disease may make here.



III.

... Three o'clock, hot and clear.... In the distance there is a heavy sound of drums, always drawing nearer: tam!—tam!— tamtamtam! The Grande Rue is lined with expectant multitudes; and its tiny square,—the Batterie d'Esnotz,—thronged with bks. Tam!—tam!—tamtamtam!... In our own street the people are beginning to gather at door-ways, and peer out of windows,—prepared to descend to the main thoroughfare at the first glimpse of the procession.

—"Oti masque-?" Where are the maskers?

It is little Mimi's voice: she is speaking for two besides herself, both quite as anxious as she to know where the maskers are,—Maurice, her little fair-haired and blue-eyed brother, three years old; and Gabrielle, her child-sister, aged four,— two years her junior.

Every day I have been observing the three, playing in the door- way of the house across the street. Mimi, with her brilliant white skin, black hair, and laughing black eyes, is the prettiest,—though all are unusually pretty children. Were it not for the fact that their mother's beautiful brown hair is usually covered with a violet foulard, you would certainly believe them white as any children in the world. Now there are children whom everyone knows to be white, living not very far from here, but in a much more silent street, and in a rich house full of servants, children who resemble these as one fleur-d'amour blossom resembles another;—there is actually another Mimi (though she is not so called at home) so like this Mimi that you could not possibly tell one from the other,—except by their dress. And yet the most unhappy experience of the Mimi who wears white satin slippers was certainly that punishment given her for having been once caught playing in the street with this Mimi, who wears no shoes at all. What mischance could have brought them thus together?—and the worst of it was they had fallen in love with each other at first sight!... It was not because the other Mimi must not talk to nice little colored girls, or that this one may not play with white children of her own age: it was because there are cases.... It was not because the other children I speak of are prettier or sweeter or more intelligent than these now playing before me;—or because the finest microscopist in the world could or could not detect any imaginable race difference between those delicate satin skins. It was only because human nature has little changed since the day that Hagar knew the hate of Sarah, and the thing was grievous in Abraham's sight because of his son.....

... The father of these children loved them very much: he had provided a home for them,—a house in the Quarter of the Fort, with an allowance of two hundred francs monthly; and he died in the belief their future was secured. But relatives fought the will with large means and shrewd lawyers, and won!... Yzore, the mother, found herself homeless and penniless, with three children to care for. But she was brave;—she abandoned the costume of the upper class forever, put on the douillette and the foulard,— the attire that is a confession of race,—and went to work. She is still comely, and so white that she seems only to be masquerading in that violet head-dress and long loose robe....

—"Vini ou!—vini ou!" cry the children to one another,— "come and see!" The drums are drawing near;—everybody is running to the Grande Rue....



IV.

Tam!—tam!—tamtamtam!... The spectacle is interesting from the Batterie d'Esnotz. High up the Rue Peysette,—up all the precipitous streets that ascend the mornes,—a far gathering of showy color appears: the massing of maskers in rose and blue and sulphur-yellow attire.... Then what a degringolade begins!— what a tumbling, leaping, cascading of color as the troupes descend. Simultaneously from north and south, from the Mouillage and the Fort, two immense bands enter the Grande Rue;—the great dancing societies these,—the Sans-souci and the Intrpides. They are rivals; they are the composers and singers of those Carnival songs,—cruel satires most often, of which the local meaning is unintelligible to those unacquainted with the incident inspiring the improvisation,—of which the words are too often coarse or obscene,—whose burdens will be caught up and re-echoed through all the burghs of the island. Vile as may be the motive, the satire, the malice, these chants are preserved for generations by the singular beauty of the airs; and the victim of a Carnival song need never hope that his failing or his wrong will be forgotten: it will be sung of long after he is in his grave.



... Ten minutes more, and the entire length of the street is thronged with a shouting, shrieking, laughing, gesticulating host of maskers. Thicker and thicker the press becomes;—the drums are silent: all are waiting for the signal of the general dance. Jests and practical jokes are being everywhere perpetrated; there is a vast hubbub, made up of screams, cries, chattering, laughter. Here and there snatches of Carnival song are being sung:—"Cambronne, Cambronne;" or "Ti fenm-l doux, li doux, li doux! "... "Sweeter than sirup the little woman is";—this burden will be remembered when the rest of the song passes out of fashion. Brown hands reach out from the crowd of masks, pulling the beards and patting the faces of white spectators.... "Moin connaitt ou, ch!—moin connaitt ou, doudoux! ba moin ti d'mi franc!" It is well to refuse the half-franc,—though you do not know what these maskers might take a notion to do to-day.... Then all the great drums suddenly boom together; all the bands strike up; the mad medley kaleidoscopes into some sort of order; and the immense processional dance begins. From the Mouillage to the Fort there is but one continuous torrent of sound and color: you are dazed by the tossing of peaked caps, the waving of hands, and twinkling of feet;—and all this passes with a huge swing,—a regular swaying to right and left.... It will take at least an hour for all to pass; and it is an hour well worth passing. Band after band whirls by; the musicians all garbed as women or as monks in canary-colored habits;—before them the dancers are dancing backward, with a motion as of skaters; behind them all leap and wave hands as in pursuit. Most of the bands are playing creole airs,—but that of the Sans-souci strikes up the melody of the latest French song in vogue,—Petits amoureux aux plumes ("Little feathered lovers"). [17]

Everybody now seems to know this song by heart; you hear children only five or six years old singing it: there are pretty lines in it, although two out of its four stanzas are commonplace enough, and it is certainly the air rather than the words which accounts for its sudden popularity.



V.

... Extraordinary things are happening in the streets through which the procession passes. Pest-smitten women rise from their beds to costume themselves,—to mask face already made unrecognizable by the hideous malady,—and stagger out to join the dancers.... They do this in the Rue Longchamps, in the Rue St. Jean-de-Dieu, in the Rue Peysette, in the Rue de Petit Versailles. And in the Rue Ste.-Marthe there are three young girls sick with the disease, who hear the blowing of the horns and the pattering of feet and clapping of hands in chorus;—they get up to look through the slats of their windows on the masquerade,—and the creole passion of the dance comes upon them. "Ah!" cries one,—"nou k bien amieus nou!—c'est zaffai si nou m!" [We will have our fill of fun: what matter if we die after!] And all mask, and join the rout, and dance down to the Savane, and over the river-bridge into the high streets of the Fort, carrying contagion with them!... No extraordinary example, this: the ranks of the dancers hold many and many a verrettier.



VI.

... The costumes are rather disappointing,-though the mummery has some general characteristics that are not unpicturesquel—for example, the predominance of crimson and canary-yellow in choice of color, and a marked predilection for pointed hoods and high- peaked head-dresses, Mock religious costumes also form a striking element in the general tone of the display,—Franciscan, Dominican, or Penitent habits,—usually crimson or yellow, rarely sky-blue. There are no historical costumes, few eccentricities or monsters: only a few "vampire-bat" head-dresses abruptly break the effect of the peaked caps and the hoods.... Still there are some decidedly local ideas in dress which deserve notice,—the congo, the bb (or ti-manmaille), the ti ngue gouos- sirop ("little molasses-negro"); and the diablesse.

The congo is merely the exact reproduction of the dress worn by workers on the plantations. For the women, a gray calico shirt and coarse petticoat of percaline with two coarse handkerchiefs (mouchoirs fatas), one for her neck, and one for the head, over which is worn a monstrous straw hat;—she walks either barefoot or shod with rude native sandals, and she carries a hoe. For the man the costume consists of a gray shirt of Iuugh material, blue canvas pantaloons, a large mouchoir fatas to tie around his waist, and a chapeau Bacou,—an enormous hat of Martinique palm-straw. He walks barefooted and carries a cutlass.

The sight of a troupe of young girls en bb, in baby-dress, is really pretty. This costume comprises only a loose embroidered chemise, lace-edged pantalettes, and a child's cap; the whole being decorated with bright ribbbons of various colors. As the dress is short and leaves much of the lower limbs exposed, there is ample opportunity for display of tinted stockings and elegant slippers.

The "molasses-negro" wears nothing but a cloth around his loins;—his whole body and face being smeared with an atrocious mixture of soot and molasses. He is supposed to represent the original African ancestor.

The _devilesses_ (_diablesses_) are few in number; for it requires a very tall woman to play deviless. These are robed all in black, with a white turban and white foulard;—they wear black masks. They also carry _boms_ (large tin cans), which they allow to fall upon the pavement and from time to time; and they walk barefoot.... The deviless (in true Bitaco idiom, "_guiablesse_") represents a singular Martinique superstition. It is said that sometimes at noonday, a beautiful negress passes silently through some isolated plantation,—smiling at the workers in the cane-fields,—tempting men to follow her. But he who follows her never comes back again; and when a field hand mysteriously disappears, his fellows say, "_Y t ka ou la Guiablesse!_"... The tallest among the devilesses always walks first, chanting the question, "_Fou ouv?" (Is it yet daybreak?) And all the others reply in chorus, "_Jou pa'nc ouv_." (It is not yet day.)

—The masks worn by the multitude include very few grotesques: as a rule, they are simply white wire masks, having the form of an oval and regular human face;—and disguise the wearer absolutely, although they can be through perfectly well from within. It struck me that this peculiar type of wire mask gave an indescribable tone of ghostliness to the whole exhibition. It is not in the least comical; it is neither comely nor ugly; it is colorless as mist,—expressionless, void,—it lies on the face like a vapor, like a cloud,—creating the idea of a spectral vacuity behind it....



VII.

... Now comes the band of the Intrpides, playing the boun. It is a dance melody,—also the name of a mode of dancing, peculiar and unrestrained;—the dancers advance and retreat face to face; they hug each other, press together, and separate to embrace again. A very old dance, this,—of African origin; perhaps the same of which Pre Labat wrote in 1722:—

—"It is not modest. Nevertheless, it has not failed to become so popular with the Spanish Creoles of America, so much in vogue among them, that it now forms the chief of their amusements, and that it enters even into their devotions. They dance it even in their Churches, in their Processions; and the Nuns seldom fail to dance it Christmas Night, upon a stage erected in their choir and immediately in front of their iron grating, which is left open, so that the People may share in the manifested by these good souls for the birth of the Saviour."... [18]

VIII.

... Every year, on the last day of the Carnival, a droll ceremony used to take place called the" Burial of the Bois-bois,"—the bois-bois being a dummy, a guy, caricaturing the most unpopular thing in city life or in politics. This bois-bois, after having been paraded with mock solemnity through all the ways of St. Pierre, was either interred or "drowned,"—flung into the sea.... And yesterday the dancing societies had announced their intention to bury a bois-bois laverette,—a manikin that was to represent the plague. But this bois-bois does not make its appearance. La Verette is too terrible a visitor to be made fun of, my friends;— you will not laugh at her, because you dare not....

No: there is one who has the courage,—a yellow goblin crying from behind his wire mask, in imitation of the mchannes: "a qui l quatze graines laverette pou yon sou?" (Who wants to buy fourteen verette-spots for a sou?)

Not a single laugh follows that jest.... And just one week from to-day, poor mocking goblin, you will have a great many more than quatorze graines, which will not cost you even a sou, and which will disguise you infinitely better than the mask you now wear;— and they will pour quick-lime over you, ere ever they let you pass through this street again—in a seven franc coffin!...



IX.

And the multicolored clamoring stream rushes by,—swerves off at last through the Rue des Ursulines to the Savane,—rolls over the new bridge of the Roxelane to the ancient quarter of the Fort.

All of a sudden there is a hush, a halt;—the drums stop beating, the songs cease. Then I see a sudden scattering of goblins and demons and devilesses in all directions: they run into houses, up alleys,—hide behind door-ways. And the crowd parts; and straight through it, walking very quickly, comes a priest in his vestments, preceded by an acolyte who rings a little bell. C'est Bon-Di ka pass! ("It is the Good-God who goes by!") The father is bearing the "viaticum" to some victim of the pestilence: one must not appear masked as a devil or a deviless in the presence of the Bon-Die.

He goes by. The flood of maskers recloses behind the ominous passage; —the drums boom again; the dance recommences; and all the fantastic mummery ebbs swiftly out of sight.



X.

Night falls;—the maskers crowd to the ball-rooms to dance strange tropical measures that will become wilder and wilder as the hours pass. And through the black streets, the Devil makes his last Carnival-round.

By the gleam of the old-fashioned oil lamps hung across the thoroughfares I can make out a few details of his costume. He is clad in red, wears a hideous blood-colored mask, and a cap of which the four sides are formed by four looking-glasses;—the whole head-dress being surmounted by a red lantern. He has a white wig made of horse-hair, to make him look weird and old,—since the Devil is older than the world! Down the street he comes, leaping nearly his own height,— chanting words without human signification,—and followed by some three hundred boys, who form the chorus to his chant—all clapping hands together and giving tongue with a simultaneity that testifies how strongly the sense of rhythm enters into the natural musical feeling of the African,—a feeling powerful enough to impose itself upon all Spanish-America, and there create the unmistakable characteristics of all that is called "creole music."

—"Bimbolo!"

—"Zimabolo!"

—"Bimbolo!"

—"Zimabolo!"

—"Et zimbolo!"

—"Et bolo-po!"

—sing the Devil and his chorus. His chant is cavernous, abysmal,—booms from his chest like the sound of a drum beaten in the bottom of a well.... _Ti manmaille-l, baill moin lavoix!_ ("Give me voice, little folk,—give me voice!") And all chant after him, in a chanting like the rushing of many waters, and with triple clapping of hands:—"Ti manmaille-l, baill moin lavoix!_"... Then he halts before a dwelling in the Rue Peysette, and thunders:—

—"Eh! Marie-sans-dent!—Mi! diabe-l derh!"

That is evidently a piece of spite-work: there is somebody living there against whom he has a grudge....

"Hey! Marie-without-teeth! look! the Devil is outside!"

And the chorus catch the clue.

DEVIL.—"Eh! Marie-sans-dent!"...

CHORUS.—"Marie-sans-dent! mi!—diabe-l derh!"

D.—"Eh! Marie-sans-dent!"'...

C.—"Marie-sans-dent! mi!—diabe- derh!"

D.—"Eh! Marie-sans-dent!"... etc.



The Devil at last descends to the main street, always singing the same song;—follow the chorus to the Savanna, where the rout makes for the new bridge over the Roxelane, to mount the high streets of the old quarter of the Fort; and the chant changes as they cross over:—

DEVIL.—"Oti ou diabe-l pass larivi?" (Where did you see the Devil going over the river?) And all the boys repeat the words, falling into another rhythm with perfect regularity and ease:—"Oti ou diabe-l pass larivi?"

DEVIL.—"Oti ou diabe?"...

CHORUS.—"Oti ou diabe-l pass larivi?"

D.—"Oti ou diabe?"

C,—"Oti ou diabe-lp pass larivi?_"

D,-"Oti ou diabe?...etc.

About midnight the return of the Devil and his following arouses me from sleep:—all are chanting a new refrain, "The Devil and the zombis sleep anywhere and everywhere!" (Diabe pi zombi ka dmi tout-ptout.) The voices of the boys are still clear, shrill, fresh,—clear as a chant of frogs;—they still clap hanwith a precision of rhythm that is simply wonderful,—making each time a sound almost exactly like the bursting of a heavy wave:—

DEVIL.—"Diable pi zombi."...

CHORUS.—"Diable pi zombi ka d'omi tout-ptout!"

D.—"Diable pi zombi." C.—"Diable pi zombi ka dmi tout-ptout!"

D.—Diable pi zombi."...etc.

... What is this after all but the old African method of chanting at labor, The practice of carrying the burden upon the head left the hands free for the rhythmic accompaniment of clapping. And you may still hear the women who load the transatlantic steamers with coal at Fort-de-France thus chanting and clapping....

Evidently the Devil is moving very fast; for all the boys are running;—the pattering of bare feet upon the pavement sounds like a heavy shower.... Then the chanting grows fainter in distance; the Devil's immense basso becomes inaudible;—one only distinguishes at regular intervals the crescendo of the burden,— a wild swelling of many hundred boy-voices all rising together,— a retreating storm of rhythmic song, wafted to the ear in gusts, in raifales of contralto....



XI. February 17th.

... Yzore is a calendeuse.

The calendeuses are the women who make up the beautiful Madras turbans and color them; for the amazingly brilliant yellow of these head-dresses is not the result of any dyeing process: they are all painted by hand. When purchased the Madras is simply a great oblong handkerchief, having a pale green or pale pink ground, and checkered or plaided by intersecting bands of dark blue, purple, crimson, or maroon. The calendeuse lays the Madras upon a broad board placed across her knees,—then, taking a camel's-hair brush, she begins to fill in the spaces between the bands with a sulphur-yellow paint, which is always mixed with gum-arabic. It requires a sure eye, very steady fingers, and long experience to do this well.... After the Madras has been "calendered" (calend) and has become quite stiff and dry, it is folded about the head of the purchaser after the comely Martinique fashion,—which varies considerably from the modes popular in Guadeloupe or Cayenne,—is fixed into the form thus obtained; and can thereafter be taken off or put on without arrangement or disarrangement, like a cap. The price for calendering a Madras is now two francs and fifteen sous;—and for making-up the turban, six sous additional, except in Carnival- time, or upon holiday occasions, when the price rises to twenty- five sous.... The making-up of the Madras into a turban is called "tying a head" (marr yon tte); and a prettily folded turban is spoken of as "a head well tied" (yon tte bien marr).... However, the profession of calendeuse is far from being a lucrative one: it is two or three days' work to calender a single Madras well. . . .

But Yzore does not depend upon calendering alone for a living: she earns much more by the manufacture of moresques and of chinoises than by painting Madras turbans.... Everybody in Martinique who can afford it wears moresques and chinoises. The moresques are large loose comfortable pantaloons of thin printed calico (indienne),—having colored designs representing birds, frogs, leaves, lizards, flowers, butterflies, or kittens,—or perhaps representing nothing in particular, being simply arabesques. The chinoise is a loose body-garment, very much like the real Chinese blouse, but always of brightly colored calico with fantastic designs. These things are worn at home during siestas, after office-hours, and at night. To take a nap during the day with one's ordinary clothing on means always a terrible drenching from perspiration, and an after-feeling of exhaustion almost indescribable—best expressed, perhaps, by the local term: corps cras. Therefore, on entering one's room for the siesta, one strips, puts on the light moresques and the chinoise, and dozes in comfort. A suit of this sort is very neat, often quite pretty, and very cheap (costing only about six francs);—the colors do not fade out in washing, and two good suits will last a year.... Yzore can make two pair of moresques and two chinoises in a single day upon her machine.

... I have observed there is a prejudice here against treadle machines;—the creole girls are persuaded they injure the health. Most of the sewing-machines I have seen among this people are operated by hand,—with a sort of little crank....



XII. February 22d.

... Old physicians indeed predicted it; but who believed them?...

It is as though something sluggish and viewless, dormant and deadly, had been suddenly upstirred to furious life by the wind of robes and tread of myriad dancing feet,—by the crash of cymbals and heavy vibration of drums! Within a few days there has been a frightful increase of the visitation, an almost incredible expansion of the invisible poison: the number of new cases and of deaths has successively doubled, tripled, quadrupled....

... Great caldrons of tar are kindled now at night in the more thickly peopled streets,—about one hundred paces apart, each being tended by an Indian laborer in the pay of the city: this is done with the idea of purifying the air. These sinister fires are never lighted but in times of pestilence and of tempest: on hurricane nights, when enormous waves roll in from the fathomless sea upon one of the most fearful coasts in the world, and great vessels are being driven ashore, such is the illumination by which the brave men of the coast make desperate efforts to save the lives of shipwrecked men, often at the cost of their own. [19]



XIII. February 23d.

A Coffin passes, balanced on the heads of black men. It holds the body of Pascaline Z-, covered with quick-lime.

She was the prettiest, assuredly, among the pretty shopgirls of the Grande Rue,—a rare type of _sang-mle. So oddly pleasing, the young face, that once seen, you could never again dissociate the recollection of it from the memory of the street. But one who saw it last night before they poured quick-lime upon it could discern no features,—only a dark brown mass, like a fungus, too frightful to think about.

... And they are all going thus, the beautiful women of color. In the opinion of physicians, the whole generation is doomed.... Yet a curious fact is that the young children of octoroons are suffering least: these women have their children vaccinated,— though they will not be vaccinated themselves. I see many brightly colored children, too, recovering from the disorder: the skin is not pitted, like that of the darker classes; and the rose-colored patches finally disappear altogether, leaving no trace.

... Here the sick are wrapped in banana leaves, after having been smeared with a certain unguent.... There is an immense demand for banana leaves. In ordinary times these leaves—especially the younger ones, still unrolled, and tender and soft beyond any fabric possible for man to make—are used for poultices of all kinds, and sell from one to two sous each, according to size and quality.



XIV. February 29th.

... The whites remain exempt from the malady.

One might therefore hastily suppose that liability of contagion would be diminished in proportion to the excess of white blood over African; but such is far from being the case;—St. Pierre is losing its handsomest octoroons. Where the proportion of white to black blood is 116 to 8, as in the type called mamelouc;—or 122 to 4, as in the quarteronn (not to be confounded with the quarteron or quadroon);—or even 127 to 1, as in the sang-ml, the liability to attack remains the same, while the chances of recovery are considerably less than in the case of the black. Some few striking instances of immunity appear to offer a different basis for argument; but these might be due to the social position of the individual rather than to any constitutional temper: wealth and comfort, it must be remembered, have no small prophylactic value in such times. Still,—although there is reason to doubt whether mixed races have a constitutional vigor comparable to that of the original parent- races,—the liability to diseases of this class is decided less, perhaps, by race characteristics than by ancestral experience. The white peoples of the world have been practically inoculated, vaccinated, by experience of centuries;—while among these visibly mixed or black populations the seeds of the pest find absolutely fresh soil in which to germinate, and its ravages are therefore scarcely less terrible than those it made among the American-Indian or the Polynesian races in other times. Moreover, there is an unfortunate prejudice against vaccination here. People even now declare that those vaccinated die just as speedily of the plague as those who have never been;—and they can cite cases in proof. It is useless to talk to them about averages of immunity, percentage of liability, etc.;—they have seen with their own eyes persons who had been well vaccinated die of the verette, and that is enough to destroy their faith in the system.... Even the priests, who pray their congregations to adopt the only known safeguard against the disease, can do little against this scepticism.



XV. March 5th.

... The streets are so narrow in this old-fashioned quarter that even a whisper is audible across them; and after dark I hear a great many things,—sometimes sounds of pain, sobbing, despairing cries as Death makes his round,—sometimes, again, angry words, and laughter, and even song,—always one melancholy chant: the voice has that peculiar metallic timbre that reveals the young negress:—

"Pauv' ti Ll, Pauv' ti Ll! Li gagnin doul, doul, doul,— Li gagnin doul Tout-ptout!"

I want to know who little Ll was, and why she had pains "all over";— for however artless and childish these creole songs seem, they are invariably originated by some real incident. And at last somebody tells me that "poor little Ll" had the reputation in other years of being the most unlucky girl in St. Pierre; whatever she tried to do resulted only in misfortune;—when it was morning she wished it were evening, that she might sleep and forget; but when the night came she could not sleep for thinking of the trouble she had had during the day, so that she wished it were morning....

More pleasant it is to hear the chatting of Yzore's childlren across the way, after the sun has set, and the stars come out.... Gabrielle always wants to know what the stars are:—

—"a qui ka clair conm a, manman?" (What is it shines like that?)

And Yzore answers:—

—"a, mafi,—c'est ti limi Bon-Di." (Those are the little lights of the Good-God.)

—"It is so pretty,—eh, mamma? I want to count them."

—"You cannot count them, child."

—"One-two-three-four-five-six-seven." Gabrielle can only count up to seven. "Moin peide!—I am lost, mamma!"

The moon comes up;—she cries:—"Mi! manman!—gd gous dif qui adans ciel-! Look at the great fire in the sky."

—"It is the Moon, child!... Don't you see St. Joseph in it, carrying a bundle of wood ?"

—"Yes, mamma! I see him!... A great big bundle of wood!"...

But Mimi is wiser in moon-lore: she borrows half a franc from her mother "to show to the Moon." And holding it up before the silver light, she sings:—

"Pretty Moon, I show you my little money;—now let me always have money so long as you shine!" [20]

Then the mother takes them up to bed;—and in a little while there floats to me, through the open window, the murmur of the children's evening prayer:—

"Ange-gardien Veillez sur moi; * * * * Ayez piti de ma faiblesse; Couchez-vous sur mon petit lit; Suivez-moi sans cesse."... [21]

I can only catch a line here and there.... They do not sleep immediately;—they continue to chat in bed. Gabrielle wants to know what a guardian-angel is like. And I hear Mimi's voice replying in creole:—

—"Zange-gdien, c'est yon jeine fi, toutt bel." (The guardian- angel is a young girl, all beautiful.)