None of these creatures can be prevented from entering a dwelling;—you may as well resign yourself to the certainty of meeting with them from time to time. The great spiders (with the exception of those which are hairy) need excite no alarm or disgust;—indeed they are suffered to live unmolested in many houses, partly owing to a belief that they bring good-luck, and partly because they destroy multitudes of those enormous and noisome roaches which spoil whatever they cannot eat. The scorpion is less common; but it has a detestable habit of lurking under beds; and its bite communicates a burning fever. With far less reason, the mabouya is almost equally feared. It is a little lizard about six inches long, and ashen-colored;—it haunts only the interior of houses, while the bright-green lizards dwell only upon the roofs. Like other reptiles of the same order, the mabouya can run over or cling to polished surfaces; and there is a popular belief that if frightened, it will leap at one's face or hands and there fasten itself so tightly that it cannot be dislodged except by cutting it to pieces. Moreover, it's feet are supposed to have the power of leaving certain livid and ineffaceable marks upon the skin of the person to whom it attaches itself:—a ka ba ou lota_, say the colored people. Nevertheless, there is no creature more timid and harmless than the mabouya.

But the most dreaded and the most insolent invader of domestic peace is the centipede. The water system of the city banished the mosquito; but it introduced the centipede into almost every dwelling. St. Pierre has a plague of centipedes. All the covered drains, the gutters, the crevices of fountain-basins and bathing-basins, the spaces between floor and ground, shelter centipedes. And the bte -mille-pattes is the terror of the barefooted population:—scarcely a day passes that some child or bonne or workman is not bitten by the creature.

The sight of a full-grown centipede is enough to affect a strong set of nerves. Ten to eleven inches is the average length of adults; but extraordinary individuals much exceeding this dimension may be sometimes observed in the neighborhood of distilleries (rhommeries) and sugar-refineries. According to age, the color of the creature varies from yellowish to black;— the younger ones often have several different tints; the old ones are uniformly jet-black, and have a carapace of surprising toughness,—difficult to break. If you tread, by accident or design, upon the tail, the poisonous head will instantly curl back and bite the foot through any ordinary thickness of upper- leather.

As a general rule the centipede lurks about the court-yards, foundations, and drains by preference; but in the season of heavy rains he does not hesitate to move upstairs, and make himself at home in parlors and bed-rooms. He has a provoking habit of nestling in your moresques or your chinoises,—those wide light garments you put on before taking your siesta or retiring for the night. He also likes to get into your umbrella,—an article indispensable in the tropics; and you had better never open it carelessly. He may even take a notion to curl himself up in your hat, suspended on the wall. (I have known a trigonocephalus to do the same thing in a country-house). He has also a singular custom of mounting upon the long trailing dresses (douillettes) worn by Martinique women,—and climbing up very swiftly and lightly to the wearer's neck, where the prickling of his feet first betrays his presence. Sometimes he will get into bed with you and bite you, because you have not resolution enough to lie perfectly still while he is tickling you.... It is well to remember before dressing that merely shaking a garment may not dislodge him;—you must examine every part very patiently,—particularly the sleeves of a coat and the legs of pantaloons.

The vitality of the creature is amazing. I kept one in a bottle without food or water for thirteen weeks, at the end of which time it remained active and dangerous as ever. Then I fed it with living insects, which it devoured ravenously;—beetles, roaches, earthworms, several lepismaoe, even one of the dangerous-looking millepedes, which have a great resemblance in outward structure to the centipede, but a thinner body, and more numerous limbs,—all seemed equally palatable to the prisoner.... I knew an instance of one, nearly a foot long, remaining in a silk parasol for more than four months, and emerging unexpectedly one day, with aggressiveness undiminished, to bite the hand that had involuntarily given it deliverance.

In the city the centipede has but one natural enemy able to cope with him,—the hen! The hen attacks him with delight, and often swallows him, head first, without taking the trouble to kill him. The cat hunts him, but she is careful never to put her head near him;—she has a trick of whirling him round and round upon the floor so quickly as to stupefy him: then, when she sees a good chance, she strikes him dead with her claws. But if you are fond of your cat you will let her run no risks, as the bite of a large centipede might have very bad results for your pet. Its quickness of movement demands all the quickness of even the cat for self-defence.... I know of men who have proved themselves able to seize a fer-de-lance by the tail, whirl it round and round, and then flip it as you would crack a whip,— whereupon the terrible head flies off; but I never heard of anyone in Martinique daring to handle a living centipede.

There are superstitions concerning the creature which have a good effect in diminishing his tribe. If you kill a centipede, you are sure to receive money soon; and even if you dream of killing one it is good-luck. Consequently, people are glad of any chance to kill centipedes,—usually taking a heavy stone or some iron utensil for the work;—a wooden stick is not a good weapon. There is always a little excitement when a bte-ni-pi (as the centipede is termed in the patois) exposes itself to death; and you may often hear those who kill it uttering a sort of litany of abuse with every blow, as if addressing a human enemy:—"Quitt moin tchou ou, maudi!—quitt moin tchou ou, scelerat!— quitt moin tchou ou, Satan!—quitt moin tchou ou, abonocio!" etc. (Let me kill you, accursed! scoundrel! Satan! abomination!)

The patois term for the centipede is not a mere corruption of the French bte—mille-pattes. Among a population of slaves, unable to read or write, [48] there were only the vaguest conceptions of numerical values; and the French term bte—mille-pattes was not one which could appeal to negro imagination. The slaves themselves invented an equally vivid name, bte-anni-pi (the Beast-which-is- all-feet); anni in creole signifying "only," and in such a sense "all." Abbreviated by subsequent usage to bte-'ni-pi, the appellation has amphibology;—for there are two words ni in the patois, one signifying "to have," and the other "naked." So that the creole for a centipede might be translated in three ways, —"the Beast-which-is-all-feet"; or, "the Naked-footed Beast"; or, with fine irony of affirmation, "the Beast-which-has-feet."



II.

What is the secret of that horror inspired by the centipede? ... It is but very faintly related to our knowledge that the creature is venomous;—the results of the bite are only temporary swelling and a brief fever;—it is less to be feared than the bite of other tropical insects and reptiles which never inspire the same loathing by their aspect. And the shapes of venomous creatures are not always shapes of ugliness. The serpent has elegance of form as well as attractions of metallic tinting;—the tarantula, or the matoutou-falaise, have geometrical beauty. Lapidaries have in all ages expended rare skill upon imitations of serpent grace in gold and gems;—a princess would not scorn to wear a diamond spider. But what art could utilize successfully the form of the centipede? It is a form of absolute repulsiveness,—a skeleton-shape half defined:—the suggestion of some old reptile- spine astir, crawling with its fragments of ribs.

No other living thing excites exactly the same feeling produced by the sight of the centipede,—the intense loathing and peculiar fear. The instant you see a centipede you feel it is absolutely necessary to kill it; you cannot find peace in your house while you know that such a life exists in it: perhaps the intrusion of a serpent would annoy and disgust you less. And it is not easy to explain the whole reason of this loathing. The form alone has, of course, something to do with it,—a form that seems almost a departure from natural laws. But the form alone does not produce the full effect, which is only experienced when you see the creature in motion. The true horror of the centipede, perhaps, must be due to the monstrosity of its movement,— multiple and complex, as of a chain of pursuing and inter- devouring lives: there is something about it that makes you recoil, as from a sudden corrupt swarming-out. It is confusing, —a series of contractings and lengthenings and, undulations so rapid as to allow of being only half seen: it alarms also, because the thing seems perpetually about to disappear, and because you know that to lose sight of it for one moment involves the very unpleasant chance of finding it upon you the next,— perhaps between skin and clothing.

But this is not all:—the sensation produced by the centipede is still more complex—complex, in fact, as the visible organization of the creature. For, during pursuit,—whether retreating or attacking, in hiding or fleeing,—it displays a something which seems more than instinct: calculation and cunning,—a sort of malevolent intelligence. It knows how to delude, how to terrify;—it has marvellous skill in feinting;—it is an abominable juggler....



III.

I am about to leave my room after breakfast, when little Victoire who carries the meals up-stairs in a wooden tray, screams out:— "Gad, Missi! ni bte-ni-pi assous dos ou!" There is a thousand- footed beast upon my back!".

Off goes my coat, which I throw upon the floor;—the little servant, who has a nervous horror of centipedes, climbs upon a chair. I cannot see anything under the coat, nevertheless;—I lift it by the collar, turn it about very cautiously—nothing! Suddenly the child screams again; and I perceive the head close to my hand;—the execrable thing had been hiding in a perpendicular fold of the coat, which I drop only just in time to escape getting bitten. Immediately the centipede becomes invisible. Then I take the coat by one flap, and turn it over very quickly: just as quickly does the centipede pass over it in the inverse direction, and disappear under it again. I have had my first good look at him: he seems nearly a foot long,—has a greenish-yellow hue against the black cloth,—and pink legs, and a violet head;—he is evidently young.... I turn the coat a second time: same disgusting manreuvre. Undulations of livid color flow over him as he lengthens and shortens;—while running his shape is but half apparent; it is only as he makes a half pause in doubling round and under the coat that the panic of his legs becomes discernible. When he is fully exposed they move with invisible rapidity,—like a vibration;—you can see only a sort of pink haze extending about him,—something to which you would no more dare advance your finger than to the vapory halo edging a circular saw in motion. Twice more I turn and re-turn the coat with the same result;—I observe that the centipede always runs towards my hand, until I withdraw it: he feints!

With a stick I uplift one portion of the coat after another; and suddenly perceive him curved under a sleeve,—looking quite small!—how could he have seemed so large a moment ago? ...But before I can strike him he has flickered over the cloth again, and vanished; and I discover that he has the power of magnifying himself,—dilating the disgust of his shape at will: he invariably amplifies himself to face attack....

It seems very difficult to dislodge him; he displays astonishing activity and cunning at finding wrinkles and folds to hide in. Even at the risk of damaging various things in the pockets, I stamp upon the coat; —then lift it up with the expectation of finding the creature dead. But it suddenly rushes out from some part or other, looking larger and more wicked than ever,—drops to the floor, and charges at my feet: a sortie! I strike at him unsuccessfully with the stick: he retreats to the angle between wainscoting and floor, and runs along it fast as a railroad train,—dodges two or three pokes, —gains the door-frame,—glides behind a hinge, and commences to run over the wall of the stair-way. There the hand of a black servant slaps him dead.

—"Always strike at the head," the servant tells me; "never tread on the tail.... This is a small one: the big fellows can make you afraid if you do not know how to kill them."

... I pick up the carcass with a pair of scissors. It does not look formidable now that it is all contracted;—it is scarcely eight inches long,—thin as card-board, and even less heavy. It has no substantiality, no weight;—it is a mere appearance, a mask, a delusion.... But remembering the spectral, cunning, juggling something which magnified and moved it but a moment ago,—I feel almost tempted to believe, with certain savages, that there are animal shapes inhabited by goblins....



IV.

—"Is there anything still living and lurking in old black drains of Thought,—any bigotry, any prejudice, anything in the moral world whereunto the centipede may be likened?"

—"Really, I do not know," replied the friend to whom I had put the question; "but you need only go as far as the vegetable world for a likeness. Did you ever see anything like this?" he added, opening a drawer and taking therefrom something revolting, which, as he pressed it in his hand, looked like a long thick bundle of dried centipedes.

—"Touch them," he said, holding out to me the mass of articulated flat bodies and bristling legs.

—"Not for anything!" I replied, in astonished disgust. He laughed, and opened his hand. As he did so, the mass expanded.

—"Now look," he exclaimed!

Then I saw that all the bodies were united at the tails—grew together upon one thick flat annulated stalk ... a plant!—"But here is the fruit," he continued, taking from the same drawer a beautifully embossed ovoid nut, large as a duck's egg, ruddy- colored, and so exquisitely varnished by nature as to resemble a rosewood carving fresh from the hands of the cabinet-maker. In its proper place among the leaves and branches, it had the appearance of something delicious being devoured by a multitude of centipedes. Inside was a kernel, hard and heavy as iron-wood; but this in time, I was told, falls into dust: though the beautiful shell remains always perfect.

Negroes call it the coco-macaque.



CHAPTER XI. MA BONNE.



I.

I cannot teach Cyrillia the clock;—I have tried until both of us had our patience strained to the breaking-point. Cyrillia still believes she will learn how to tell the time some day or other;— I am certain that she never will. "Missi," she says, "lzh pa aen pou moin: c'est minitt ka fout moin yon travail!"—the hours do not give her any trouble; but the minutes are a frightful bore! And nevertheless, Cyrillia is punctual as the sun;—she always brings my coffee and a slice of corossol at five in the morning precisely. Her clock is the cabritt-bois. The great cricket stops singing, she says, at half-past four: the cessation of its chant awakens her.

—"_Bonjou', Missi. Coument ou pass lanuitt?"—"Thanks, my daughter, I slept well."—"The weather is beautiful: if Missi would like to go to the beach, his bathing-towels are ready."—"Good! Cyrillia; I will go."... Such is our regular morning conversation.

Nobody breakfasts before eleven o'clock or thereabout; but after an early sea-bath, one is apt to feel a little hollow during the morning, unless one take some sort of refreshment. Cyrillia always prepares something for me on my return from the beach,—either a little pot of fresh cocoa-water, or a cocoyage, or a mabiyage, or a bavaroise.

The cocoyage I like the best of all. Cyrillia takes a green cocoa-nut, slices off one side of it so as to open a hole, then pours the opalescent water into a bowl, adds to it a fresh egg, a little Holland gin, and some grated nutmeg and plenty of sugar. Then she whips up the mixture into effervescence with her baton- ll. The baton-ll is an indispensaple article in every creole home: it is a thin stick which is cut from a young tree so as to leave at one end a whorl of branch-stumps sticking out at right angles like spokes;—by twirling the stem between the hands, the stumps whip up the drink in a moment.

The mabiyage is less agreeable, but is a popular morning drink among the poorer classes. It is made with a little white rum and a bottle of the bitter native root-beer called mabi. The taste of mabi I can only describe as that of molasses and water flavored with a little cinchona bark.

The bavaroise is fresh milk, sugar, and a little Holland gin or rum,—mixed with the baton-ll until a fine thick foam is formed. After the cocoyage, I think it is the best drink one can take in the morning; but very little spirit must be used for any of these mixtures. It is not until just before the mid-day meal that one can venture to take a serious stimulant,—yon ti ponch,— rum and water, sweetened with plenty of sugar or sugar syrup.

The word sucre is rarely used in Martinique,—considering that sugar is still the chief product;—the word doux, "sweet," is commonly substituted for it. Doux has, however, a larger range of meaning: it may signify syrup, or any sort of sweets,— duplicated into doudoux, it means the corossole fruit as well as a sweetheart. a qui l doudoux? is the cry of the corossole- seller. If a negro asks at a grocery store (graisserie) for sique instead of for doux, it is only because he does not want it to be supposed that he means syrup;—as a general rule, he will only use the word sique when referring to quality of sugar wanted, or to sugar in hogsheads. Doux enters into domestic consumption in quite remarkable ways. People put sugar into fresh milk, English porter, beer, and cheap wine;—they cook various vegetables with sugar, such as peas; they seem to be particularly fond of sugar-and-water and of d'leau-pain,—bread-and-water boiled, strained, mixed with sugar, and flavored with cinnamon. The stranger gets accustomed to all this sweetness without evil results. In a northern climate the consequence would probably be at least a bilious attack; but in the tropics, where salt fish and fruits are popularly preferred to meat, the prodigal use of sugar or sugar-syrups appears to be decidedly beneficial.

... After Cyrillia has prepared my cocoyage, and rinsed the bathing-towels in fresh-water, she is ready to go to market, and wants to know what I would like to eat for breakfast. "Anything creole, Cyrillia;—I want to know what people eat in this country." She always does her best to please me in this respect,—almost daily introduces me to some unfamiliar dishes, something odd in the way of fruit or fish.



II.

Cyrillia has given me a good idea of the range and character of mang-Crole, and I can venture to write something about it after a year's observation. By mang-Crole I refer only to the food of the people proper, the colored population; for the cuisine of the small class of wealthy whites is chiefly European, and devoid of local interest:—I might observe, however, that the fashion of cooking is rather Provenal than Parisian;—rather of southern than of northern France.

Meat, whether fresh or salt, enters little into the nourishment of the poorer classes. This is partly, no doubt, because of the cost of all meats; but it is also due to natural preference for fruits and fish. When fresh meat is purchased, it is usually to make a stew or daube;—probably salt meats are more popular; and native vegetables and manioc flour are preferred to bread. There are only two popular soups which are peculiar to the creole cuisine,—calalou, a gombo soup, almost precisely similar to that of Louisiana; and the soupe-d'habitant, or "country soup." It is made of yams, carrots, bananas, turnips, choux-carabes, pumpkins, salt pork, and pimento, all boiled together;—the salt meat being left out of the composition on Fridays.

The great staple, the true meat of the population, is salt codfish, which is prepared in a great number of ways. The most popular and the rudest preparation of it is called "Ferocious " (froc); and it is not at all unpalatable. The codfish is simply fried, and served with vinegar, oil, pimento;—manioc flour and avocados being considered indispensable adjuncts. As manioc flour forms a part of almost every creole meal, a word of information regarding it will not be out of place here. Everybody who has heard the name probably knows that the manioc root is naturally poisonous, and that the toxic elements must be removed by pressure and desiccation before the flour can be made. Good manioc flour has an appearance like very coarse oatmeal; and is probably quite as nourishing. Even when dear as bread, it is preferred, and forms the flour of the population, by whom the word farine is only used to signify manioc flour: if wheat-flour be referred to it is always qualified as "French flour" (farine- Fouance). Although certain flours are regularly advertised as American in the local papers, they are still farine-Fouance for the population, who call everything foreign French. American beer is bi-Fouance; American canned peas, ti-pois-Fouance; any white foreigner who can talk French is yon bk-Fouance.

Usually the manioc flour is eaten uncooked: [49] merely poured into a plate, with a little water and stirred with a spoon into a thick paste or mush,—the thicker the better;— dleau pass farine (more water than manioc flour) is a saying which describes the condition of a very destitute person. When not served with fish, the flour is occasionally mixed with water and refined molasses (sirop-battrie): this preparation, which is very nice, is called cousscaye. There is also a way of boiling it with molasses and milk into a kind of pudding. This is called matt; children are very fond of it. Both of these names, cousscaye and matt, are alleged to be of Carib origin: the art of preparing the flour itself from manioc root is certainly an inheritance from the Caribs, who bequeathed many singular words to the creole patois of the French West Indies.

Of all the preparations of codfish with which manioc flour is eaten, I preferred the lamori-bouilli,—the fish boiled plain, after having been steeped long enough to remove the excess of salt; and then served with plenty of olive-oil and pimento. The people who have no home of their own, or at least no place to cook, can buy their food already prepared from the mchannes lapacotte, who seem to make a specialty of macadam (codfish stewed with rice) and the other two dishes already referred to. But in every colored family there are occasional feasts of lamori-au-laitt, codfish stewed with milk and potatoes; lamori- au-grattin, codfish boned, pounded with toast crumbs, and boiled with butter, onions, and pepper into a mush;—coubouyon-lamori, codfish stewed with butter and oil;—bachamelle, codfish boned and stewed with potatoes, pimentos, oil, garlic, and butter.

_Pimento_ is an essential accompaniment to all these dishes, whether it be cooked or raw: everything is served with plenty of pimento,-_en pile_, _en pile piment._ Among the various kinds I can mention only the _piment-caf_, or "coffee-pepper," larger but about the same shape as a grain of Liberian coffee, violet-red at one end; the _piment-zouseau, or bird-pepper, small and long and scarlet;—and the _piment-capresse_, very large, pointed at one end, and bag-shaped at the other. It takes a very deep red color when ripe, and is so strong that if you only break the pod in a room, the sharp perfume instantly fills the apartment. Unless you are as well-trained as any Mexican to eat pimento, you will probably regret your first encounter with the _capresse_.

Cyrillia told me a story about this infernal vegetable.

II

ZHISTOU PIMENT.

T ni yon manman qui t ni en pile, en pile yche; et yon jou y pa t ni aen pou y t baill yche-l mang. Y t ka lv bon matin-l sans yon sou: y pa sa a y t dou fai,—l y t k baill latte. Y all lacae macoum-y, racont lapeine-y. Macoum baill y toua chopine farine-manioc. Y all lacaill liautt macoum, qui baill y yon grand trai piment. Macoum-l di y venne trai-piment-, pi y t p achet lamori, —pisse y ja t ni farine. Madame-l di: "Mi, macoum;" —y di y bonjou'; pi y all lacae-y.

Lh y riv cae y lim dif: y mett canari pi dleau assous dif-a; pi y cass toutt piment-l et mett yo adans canari- assous dir.

Lh y oue canari- ka bou, y pouend baton-ll, epi y ll piment-.: aloss y ka fai yonne calalou-piment. Lh calalou-piment-l t tchouitt, y pouend chaque zassiett yche-li; y mett calalou yo foute dans zassiett-l; y mett ta-mari foute, assou, pi ta-y. pi lh calalou-l t bien foute, y mett farine nans chaque zassiett-l. pi y cri toutt moune vini mang. Toutt moune vini mett yo -tabe.

Poumi bouche mari- pouend, y rt,—y cri: "Ae! ouaill! mafenm!" Fenm-l rponne mari y: "Ouaill! monmari!" Cs ti manmaille-la crie: "Ouaill! manman!" Manman-. rponne:—"Ouaill! yches-moin!"... Yo toutt pouend couri, quitt cae-l sle,—pi yo toutt tomb larvi touemp bouche yo. Cs ti manmaille-l bou dleau sitellement jusse temps yo toutt ny: t ka rt anni manman-l pi papa-l. Yo t l b larivi, qui t ka pleir. Moin t ka pass lh-;—moin ka mand yo: "a zautt ni?"

Nhomme-l lv: y baill moin yon sle coup d'pi, y voy moin lautt bo larivi-ou ou moin vini pou cont a ba ou.

II.

PIMENTO STORY.

There was once a mamma who had ever so many children; and one day she had nothing to give those children to eat. She had got up very early that morning, without a sou in the world: she did not know what to do: she was so worried that her head was upset. She went to the house of a woman-friend, and told her about her trouble. The friend gave her three chopines [three pints] of manioc flour. Then she went to the house of another female friend, who gave her a big trayful of pimentos. The friend told her to sell that tray of pimentos: then she could buy some codfish,—since she already had some manioc flour. The good- wife said: "Thank you, macoum,"—she bid her good-day, and then went to her own house.

The moment she got home, she made a fire, and put her canari [earthen pot] full of water on the fire to boil: then she broke up all the pimentos and put them into the canari on the fire.

As soon as she saw the canari boiling, she took her baton-ll, and beat up all those pimentos: then she made a pimento-calalou. When the pimento-calalou was well cooked, she took each one of the children's plates, and poured their calalou into the plates to cool it; she also put her husband's out to cool, and her own. And when the calalou was quite cool, she put some manioc flour into each of the plates. Then she called to everybody to come and eat. They all came, and sat down to table.

The first mouthful that husband took he stopped and screamed:—"Ae! ouaill! my wife!" The woman answered her husband: "Ouaill! my husband!" The little children all screamed: "Ouaill! mamma !" Their mamma answered: "Ouaill! my children!" ... They all ran out, left the house empty; and they tumbled into the river to steep their mouths. Those little children just drank water and drank water till they were all drowned: there was nobody left except the mamma and the papa, They stayed there on the river- bank, and cried. I was passing that way just at that time;—I asked them: "What ails you people?" That man got up and gave me just one kick that sent me right across the river; I came here at once, as you see, to tell you all about it....



IV.

... It is no use for me to attempt anything like a detailed description of the fish Cyrillia brings me day after day from the Place du Fort: the variety seems to be infinite. I have learned, however, one curious fact which is worth noting: that, as a general rule, the more beautifully colored fish are the least palatable, and are sought after only by the poor. The perroquet, black, with bright bands of red and yellow; the cirurgien, blue and black; the patate, yellow and black; the moringue, which looks like polished granite; the souri, pink and yellow; the vermilion Gous-zie; the rosy sade; the red Bon- Di-mani-moin ("the-Good-God-handled-me")—it has two queer marks as of great fingers; and the various kinds of all-blue fish, balaou, conliou, etc. varying from steel-color to violet,—these are seldom seen at the tables of the rich. There are exceptions, of course, to this and all general rules: notably the couronn, pink spotted beautifully with black,—a sort of Redfish, which never sells less than fourteen cents a pound; and the zorphie, which has exquisite changing lights of nacreous green and purple. It is said, however, that the zorphi is sometimes poisonous, like the bcunne; and there are many fish which, although not venomous by nature, have always been considered dangerous. In the time of Pre Dutertre it was believed these fish ate the apples of the manchineel-tree, washed into the sea by rains;—to-day it is popularly supposed that they are rendered occasionally poisonous by eating the barnacles attached to copper-plating of ships. The tazard, the lune, the capitaine, the dorade, the perroquet, the couliou, the congre, various crabs, and even the tonne,—all are dangerous unless perfectly fresh: the least decomposition seems to develop a mysterious poison. A singular phenomenon regarding the poisoning occasionally produced by the bcunne and dorade is that the skin peels from the hands and feet of those lucky enough to survive the terrible colics, burnings, itchings, and delirium, which are early symptoms, Happily these accidents are very rare, since the markets have been properly inspected: in the time of Dr. Rufz, they would seem to have been very common,—so common that he tells us he would not eat fresh fish without being perfectly certain where it was caught and how long it had been out of the water.

The poor buy the brightly colored fish only when the finer qualities are not obtainable at low rates; but often and often the catch is so enormous that half of it has to be thrown back into the sea. In the hot moist air, fish decomposes very rapidly; it is impossible to transport it to any distance into the interior; and only the inhabitants of the coast can indulge in fresh fish,—at least sea-fish.

Naturally, among the laboring class the question of quality is less important than that of quantity and substance, unless the fish-market be extraordinarily well stocked. Of all fresh fish, the most popular is the tonne, a great blue-gray creature whose flesh is solid as beef; next come in order of preferment the flying-fish (volants), which often sell as low as four for a cent;—then the lambi, or sea-snail, which has a very dense and nutritious flesh;—then the small whitish fish classed as sdines;—then the blue-colored fishes according to price, couliou, balaou, etc.;—lastly, the shark, which sells commonly at two cents a pound. Large sharks are not edible; the flesh is too hard; but a young shark is very good eating indeed. Cyrillia cooked me a slice one morning: it was quite delicate, tasted almost like veal.



The quantity of very small fish sold is surprising. With ten sous the family of a laborer can have a good fish-dinner: a pound of sdines is never dearer than two sous;—a pint of manioc flour can be had for the same price; and a big avocado sells for a sou. This is more than enough food for any one person; and by doubling the expense one obtains a proportionately greater quantity— enough for four or five individuals. The sdines are roasted over a charcoal fire, and flavored with a sauce of lemon, pimento, and garlic. When there are no sdines, there are sure to be coulious in plenty,—small coulious about as long as your little finger: these are more delicate, and fetch double the price. With four sous' worth of coulious a family can have a superb blaffe. To make a blaffe the fish are cooked in water, and served with pimento, lemon, spices, onions, and garlic; but without oil or butter. Experience has demonstrated that coulious make the best blaffe; and a blaffe is seldom prepared with other fish.



V.

There are four dishes which are the holiday luxuries of the poor:—manicou, ver-palmiste, zandouille, and poule- pi-diri. [50]

The manitou is a brave little marsupial, which might be called the opossum of Martinique: it fights, although overmatched, with the serpent, and is a great enemy to the field-rat. In the market a manicou sells for two francs and a half at cheapest: it is generally salted before being cooked.

The great worm, or caterpillar, called ver-palmiste is found in the heads of cabbage-palms,—especially after the cabbage has been cut out, and the tree has begun to perish. It is the grub of a curious beetle, which has a proboscis of such form as suggested the creole appellation, lfant: the "elephant." These worms are sold in the Place du Fort at two sous each: they are spitted and roasted alive, and are said to taste like almonds. I have never tried to find out whether this be fact or fancy; and I am glad to say that few white creoles confess a liking for this barbarous food.

The zandouilles are delicious sausages made with pig-buff,—and only seen in the market on Sundays. They cost a franc and a half each; and there are several women who have an established reputation throughout Martinique for their skill in making them. I have tasted some not less palatable than the famous London "pork-pies." Those of Lamentin are reputed the best in the island.

But poule-pi-diri is certainly the most popular dish of all: it is the dearest, as well, and poor people can rarely afford it. In Louisiana an almost similar dish is called jimbalaya: chicken cooked with rice. The Martiniquais think it such a delicacy that an over-exacting person, or one difficult to satisfy, is reproved with the simple question:—"a ou l 'nco-poule.pi-diri?" (What more do you want, great heavens!—chicken-and-rice?) Naughty children are bribed into absolute goodness by the promise of poule-pi-diri:—

—"Ae! ch, b doudoux! Doudoux ba ou poule-pi-diri; Ae! ch, b doudoux!"...

(Ae, dear! kiss doudoux!—doudoux has rice-and-chicken for you! —ae, dear! kiss doudoux!)

How far rice enters into the success of the dish above mentioned I cannot say; but rice ranks in favor generally above all cereals; it is at least six times more in demand than maize. Diri-doux, rice boiled with sugar, is sold in prodigious quantities daily,—especially at the markets, where little heaps of it, rolled in pieces of banana or cachibou leaves, are retailed at a cent each. Diri-aulaitt, a veritable rice-pudding, is also very popular; but it would weary the reader to mention one-tenth of the creole preparations into which rice enters.



VI.

Everybody eats akras;—they sell at a cent apiece. The akra is a small fritter or pancake, which may be made of fifty different things,—among others codfish, titiri, beans, brains, choux- carabes, little black peas (poix-zi-nou, "black-eyed peas"), or of crawfish (akra-cribche). When made of carrots, bananas, chicken, palm-cabbage, etc. and sweetened, they are called marinades. On first acquaintance they seem rather greasy for so hot a climate; but one learns, on becoming accustomed to tropical conditions, that a certain amount of oily or greasy food is both healthy and needful.

First among popular vegetables are beans. Red beans are preferred; but boiled white beans, served cold with vinegar and plenty of oil, form a favorite salad. Next in order of preferment come the choux-carabes, patates, zignames, camanioc, and cousscouche: all immense roots,—the true potatoes of the tropics. The camanioc is finer than the choux-carabe, boils whiter and softer: in appearance it resembles the manioc root very closely, but has no toxic element. The cousscouche is the best of all: the finest Irish potato boiled into sparkling flour is not so good. Most of these roots can be cooked into a sort of mush, called migan: such as migan-choux, made with the choux- carabe; migan-zignames, made with yams; migan-cousscouche, etc.,—in which case crabs or shrimps are usually served with the migan. There is a particular fondness for the little rosy crab called tourlouroux, in patois touloulou. Migan is also made with bread-fruit. Very large bananas or plantains are boiled with codfish, with daubes, or meat stews, and with eggs. The bread- fruit is a fair substitute for vegetables. It must be cooked very thoroughly, and has a dry potato taste. What is called the fleu-fouitt—pain, or "bread-fruit flower"—a long pod-shaped solid growth, covered exteriorly with tiny seeds closely set as pin-heads could be, and having an interior pith very elastic and resistant,—is candied into a delicious sweetmeat.



VII.

The consumption of bananas is enormous: more bananas are eaten than vegetables; and more banana-trees are yearly being cultivated. The negro seems to recognize instinctively that economical value of the banana to which attention was long since called by Humboldt, who estimated that while an acre planted in wheat would barely support three persons, an acre planted in banana-trees would nourish fifty.

Bananas and plantains hold the first place among fruits in popular esteem;—they are cooked in every way, and served with almost every sort of meat or fish. What we call bananas in the United States, however, are not called bananas in Martinique, but figs (figues). Plantains seem to be called bananes. One is often surprised at popular nomenclature: choux may mean either a sort of root (choux-carabe), or the top of the cabbage-palm; Jacquot may mean a fish; cabane never means a cabin, but a bed; crickett means not a cricket, but a frog; and at least fifty other words have equally deceptive uses. If one desires to speak of real figs—dried figs—he must say figues-Fouanc (French figs); otherwise nobody will understand him. There are many kinds of bananas here called figues,—the four most popular are the figues-bananes, which are plantains, I think; the figues- makouenga, which grow wild, and have a red skin; the figues- pommes (apple-bananas), which are large and yellow; and the ti- figues-desse (little-dessert-bananas), which are to be seen on all tables in St. Pierre. They are small, sweet, and always agreeable, even when one has no appetite for other fruits.

It requires some little time to become accustomed to many tropical fruits, or at least to find patience as well as inclination to eat them. A large number, in spite of delicious flavor, are provokingly stony: such as the ripe guavas, the cherries, the barbadines; even the corrossole and pomme-cannelle are little more than huge masses of very hard seeds buried in pulp of exquisite taste. The sapota, or sapodtilla, is less characterized by stoniness, and one soon learns to like it. It has large flat seeds, which can be split into two with the finger-nail; and a fine white skin lies between these two halves. It requires some skill to remove entire this little skin, or pellicle, without breaking it: to do so is said to be a test of affection. Perhaps this bit of folk-lore was suggested by the shape of the pellicle, which is that of a heart. The pretty fille-de-couleur asks her doudoux:—"Ess ou ainmein moin?— pouloss tir ti lapeau-l sans cass-y." Woe to him if he breaks it!... The most disagreeable fruit is, I think, the pomme- d'Haiti, or Haytian apple: it is very attractive exteriorly; but has a strong musky odor and taste which nauseates. Few white creoles ever eat it.

Of the oranges, nothing except praise can be said; but there are fruits that look like oranges, and are not oranges, that are far more noteworthy. There is the chadque, which grows here to fully three feet in circumference, and has a sweet pink pulp; and there is the "forbidden-fruit" (fouitt-dfendu), a sort of cross between the orange and the chadque, and superior to both. The colored people declare that this monster fruit is the same which grew in Eden upon the fatal tree: c'est a mnm qui fai moune ka fai yche conm a atouelement! The fouitt-dfendu is wonderful, indeed, in its way; but the fruit which most surprised me on my first acquaintance with it was the zabrict.

—"Ou l yon zabrict?" (Would you like an apricot?) Cyrillia asked me one day. I replied that I liked apricots very much,— wanted more than one. Cyrillia looked astonished, but said nothing until she returned from market, and put on the table two apricots, with the observation:—"a ke fai ou malade mang toutt a!" (You will get sick if you eat all that.) I could not eat even half of one of them. Imagine a plum larger than the largest turnip, with a skin like a russet apple, solid sweet flesh of a carrot-red color, and a nut in the middle bigger than a duck's egg and hard as a rock. These fruits are aromatic as well as sweet to the taste: the price varies from one to four cents each, according to size. The tree is indigenous to the West Indies; the aborigines of Hayti had a strange belief regarding it. They alleged that its fruits formed the nourishment of the dead; and however pressed by hunger, an Indian in the woods would rather remain without food than strip one of these trees, lest he should deprive the ghosts of their sustenance.... No trace of this belief seems to exist among the colored people of Martinique.



Among the poor such fruits are luxuries: they eat more mangoes than any other fruits excepting bananas. It is rather slobbery work eating a common mango, in which every particle of pulp is threaded fast to the kernel: one prefers to gnaw it when alone. But there are cultivated mangoes with finer and thicker flesh which can be sliced off, so that the greater part of the fruit may be eaten without smearing and sucking. Among grafted varieties the mangue is quite as delicious as the orange. Perhaps there are nearly as many varieties of mangoes in Martinique as there are varieties of peaches with us: I am acquainted, however, with only a few,—such as the mango- Bassignac;—mango-pche (or peach-mango);—mango-vert (green mango), very large and oblong;—mango-grff;—mangotine, quite round and small;—mango-quinette, very small also, almost egg- shaped;—mango-Zz, very sweet, rather small, and of flattened form;—mango-d'or (golden mango), worth half a franc each;— mango-Lamentin, a highly cultivated variety—and the superb Reine-Amlie (or Queen Amelia), a great yellow fruit which retails even in Martinique at five cents apiece.



VIII.

... "Ou c'est bonhomme caton?-ou c'est zimage, non?" (Am I a pasteboard man, or an image, that I do not eat?) Cyrillia wants to know. The fact is that I am a little overfed; but the stranger in the tropics cannot eat like a native, and my abstemiousness is a surprise. In the North we eat a good deal for the sake of caloric; in the tropics, unless one be in the habit of taking much physical exercise, which is a very difficult thing to do, a generous appetite is out of the question. Cyrillia will not suffer me to live upon mang-Creole altogether; she insists upon occasional beefsteaks and roasts, and tries to tempt me with all kinds of queer delicious, desserts as well,— particularly those cakes made of grated cocoanut and sugar-syrup (tablett-coco-rap) of which a stranger becomes very fond. But, nevertheless, I cannot eat enough to quiet Cyrillia's fears.

Not eating enough is not her only complaint against me. I am perpetually doing something or other which shocks her. The Creoles are the most cautious livers in the world, perhaps;—the stranger who walks in the sun without an umbrella, or stands in currents of air, is for them an object of wonder and compassion. Cyrillia's complaints about my recklessness in the matter of hygiene always terminate with the refrain: "Yo pa fai a ii"— (People never do such things in Martinique.) Among such rash acts are washing one's face or hands while perspiring, taking off one's hat on coming in from a walk, going out immediately after a bath, and washing my face with soap. "Oh, Cyrillia! what foolishness!—why should I not wash my face with soap?" "Because it will blind you," Cyrillia answers: "a k tchou limi zi ou" (it will kill the light in your eyes). There is no cleaner person than Cyrillia; and, indeed among the city people, the daily bath is the rule in all weathers; but soap is never used on the face by thousands, who, like Cyrillia, believe it will "kill the light of the eyes."

One day I had been taking a long walk in the sun, and returned so thirsty that all the old stories about travellers suffering in waterless deserts returned to memory with new significance;—visions of simooms arose before me. What a delight to see and to grasp the heavy, red, thick-lipped dobanne, the water-jar, dewy and cool with the exudation of the Eau-de-Gouyave which filled it to the brim,—toutt vivant, as Cyrillia says, "all alive"! There was a sudden scream,—the water-pitcher was snatched from my hands by Cyrillia with the question: "Ess ou l tchou c-ou?—Saint Joseph!" (Did I want to kill my body?)... The Creoles use the word "body" in speaking of anything that can happen to one,—"hurt one's body," "tire one's body," "marry one's body," "bury one's body," etc.;—I wonder whether the expression originated in zealous desire to prove a profound faith in the soul.... Then Cyrillia made me a little punch with sugar and rum, and told me I must never drink fresh-water after a walk unless I wanted to kill my body. In this matter her advice was good. The immediate result of a cold drink while heated is a profuse and icy perspiration, during which currents of air are really dangerous. A cold is not dreaded here, and colds are rare; but pleurisy is common, and may be the consequence of any imprudent exposure.

I do not often have the opportunity at home of committing even an unconscious imprudence; for Cyrillia is ubiquitous, and always on the watch lest something dreadful should happen to me. She is wonderful as a house-keeper as well as a cook: there is certainly much to do, and she has only a child to help her, but she always seems to have time. Her kitchen apparatus is of the simplest kind: a charcoal furnace constructed of bricks, a few earthenware pots (canar), and some grid-irons;—yet with these she can certainly prepare as many dishes as there are days in the year. I have never known her to be busy with her canari for more than an hour; yet everything is kept in perfect order. When she is not working, she is quite happy in sitting at a window, and amusing herself by watching the life of the street,—or playing with a kitten, which she has trained so well that it seems to understand everything she says.



IX.

With darkness all the population of the island retire to their homes;—the streets become silent, and the life of the day is done. By eight o'clock nearly all the windows are closed, and the lights put out;—by nine the people are asleep. There are no evening parties, no night amusements, except during rare theatrical seasons and times of Carnival; there are no evening visits: active existence is almost timed by the rising and setting of the sun.... The only pleasure left for the stranger of evenings is a quiet smoke on his balcony or before his door: reading is out of the question, partly because books are rare, partly because lights are bad, partly because insects throng about every lamp or candle. I am lucky enough to have a balcony, broad enough for a rocking-chair; and sometimes Cyrillia and the kitten come to keep me company before bedtime. The kitten climbs on my knees; Cyrillia sits right down upon the balcony.

One bright evening, Cyrillia was amusing herself very much by watching the clouds: they were floating high; the moonlight made them brilliant as frost. As they changed shape under the pressure of the trade-wind, Cyrillia seemed to discover wonderful things in them: sheep, ships with sails, cows, faces, perhaps even zombis.

—"Travaill Bon-Di joli,—anh?" (Is not the work of the Good-God pretty?) she said at last.... "There was Madame Remy, who used to sell the finest foulards and Madrases in St. Pierre;—she used to study the clouds. She drew the patterns of the clouds for her foulards: whenever she saw a beautiful cloud or a beautiful rainbow, she would make a drawing of it in color at once; and then she would send that to France to have foulards made just like it.... Since she is dead, you do not see any more pretty foulards such as there used to be."...

—"Would you like to look at the moon with my telescope, Cyrillia?" I asked. "Let me get it for you."

—"Oh no, no!" she answered, as if shocked.

—"Why?"

—"Ah! faut pa gd baggae Bon-Di conm a!" (It is not right to look at the things of the Good-God that way.)

I did not insist. After a little silence, Cyrillia resumed:—

—"But I saw the Sun and the Moon once fighting together: that was what people call an eclipse,—is not that the word?... They fought together a long time: I was looking at them. We put a terrine full of water on the ground, and looked into the water to see them. And the Moon is stronger than the Sun!—yes, the Sun was obliged to give way to the Moon.... Why do they fight like that ?"

—"They don't, Cyrillia."

—"Oh yes, they do. I saw them!... And the Moon is much stronger than the Sun!"

I did not attempt to contradict this testimony of the eyes. Cyrillia continued to watch the pretty clouds. Then she said: —"Would you not like to have a ladder long enough to let you climb up to those clouds, and see what they are made of?"

—"Why, Cyrillia, they are only vapor,—brume: I have been in clouds."

She looked at me in surprise, and, after a moment's silence, asked, with an irony of which I had not supposed her capable:—

—"Then you are the Good-God?"

—"Why, Cyrillia, it is not difficult to reach clouds. You see clouds always upon the top of the Montagne Pele;—people go there. I have been there—in the clouds."

—"Ah! those are not the same clouds: those are not the clouds of the Good-God. You cannot touch the sky when you are on the Morne de la Croix."

—"My dear Cyrillia, there is no sky to touch. The sky is only an appearance."

—"Anh, anh, anh! No sky!—you say there is no sky?... Then, what is that up there ?"

—"That is air, Cyrillia, beautiful blue air."

—"And what are the stars fastened to?"

—"To nothing. They are suns, but so much further away than our sun that they look small."

—"No, they are not suns! They have not the same form as the sun... You must not say there is no sky: it is wicked! But you are not a Catholic!"

—"My dear Cyrillia, I don't see what that has to do with the sky."

—"Where does the Good-God stay, if there be no sky? And where is heaven?—,and where is hell?"

—"Hell in the sky, Cyrillia?"

—"The Good-God made heaven in one part of the sky, and hell in another part, for bad people.... Ah! you are a Protestant;—you do not know the things of the Good-God! That is why you talk like that."

—"What is a Protestant, Cyrillia?"

—"You are one. The Protestants do not believe in religion,—do not love the Good-God."

—"Well, I am neither a Protestant nor a Catholic, Cyrillia."

—"Oh! you do not mean that; you cannot be a maudi, an accursed. There are only the Protestants, the Catholics, and the accursed. You are not a maudi, I am sure, But you must not say there is no sky"...

—"But, Cyrillia"—

—"No: I will not listen to you:—you are a Protestant. Where does the rain come from, if there is no sky,"...

—"Why, Cyrillia,... the clouds"...

—"No, you are a Protestant.... How can you say such things? There are the Three Kings and the Three Valets,—the beautiful stars that come at Christmas-time,—there, over there—all beautiful, and big, big, big! ...And you say there is no sky!"

—"Cyrillia, perhaps I am a maudi."

—"No, no! You are only a Protestant. But do not tell me there is no sky: it is wicked to say that!"

—"I won't say it any more, Cyrillia—there! But I will say there are no zombis."

—"I know you are not a maudi;—you have been baptized."

—"How do you know I have been baptized?"

—"Because, if you had not been baptized you would see zombis all the time, even in broad day. All children who are not baptized see zombis."...



X.

Cyrilla's solicitude for me extends beyond the commonplaces of hygiene and diet into the uncertain domain of matters ghostly. She fears much that something might happen to me through the agency of wizards, witches (socis), or zombis. Especially zombis. Cyrillia's belief in zombis has a solidity that renders argument out of the question. This belief is part of her inner nature,—something hereditary, racial, ancient as Africa, as characteristic of her people as the love of rhythms and melodies totally different from our own musical conceptions, but possessing, even for the civilized, an inexplicable emotional charm.

Zombi!—the word is perhaps full of mystery even for those who made it. The explanations of those who utter it most often are never quite lucid: it seems to convey ideas darkly impossible to define,—fancies belonging to the mind of another race and another era,—unspeakably old. Perhaps the word in our own language which offers the best analogy is "goblin": yet the one is not fully translated by the other. Both have, however, one common ground on which they become indistinguishable,—that region of the supernatural which is most primitive and most vague; and the closest relation between the savage and the civilized fancy may be found in the fears which we call childish,—of darkness, shadows, and things dreamed. One form of the zombi-belief—akin to certain ghostly superstitions held by various primitive races—would seem to have been suggested by nightmare,—that form of nightmare in which familiar persons become slowly and hideously transformed into malevolent beings. The zombi deludes under the appearance of a travelling companion, an old comrade—like the desert spirits of the Arabs—or even under the form of an animal. Consequently the creole negro fears everything living which he meets after dark upon a lonely road,— a stray horse, a cow, even a dog; and mothers quell the naughtiness of their children by the threat of summoning a zombi- cat or a zombi-creature of some kind. "Zombi k nana ou" (the zombi will gobble thee up) is generally an effectual menace in the country parts, where it is believed zombis may be met with any time after sunset. In the city it is thought that their regular hours are between two and four o'clock in the morning. At least so Cyrillia says:—

—"Dezh, toua-zh-matin: c'est lh zombi. Yo ka sti dzh, toua zh: c'est lh yo. A quattrh yo ka rentr;—angelus ka sonn." (At four o'clock they go back where they came from, before the Angelus rings.) Why?

—"C'est pou moune pas joinne yo dans larue." (So that people may not meet with them in the street), Cyrillia answers.

—"Are they afraid of the people, Cyrillia ?" I asked.

—"No, they are not afraid; but they do not want people to know their business" (pa l moune ou zaffai yo).

Cyrillia also says one must not look out of the window when a dog howls at night. Such a dog may be a mauvais vivant (evil being): "If he sees me looking at him he will say, 'Ou tropp quirise quitte cabane ou pou gd zaffai lezautt.'" (You are too curious to leave your bed like that to look at other folks' business.)

—"And what then, Cyrillia?"

—"Then he will put out your eyes,—y k coqui zi ou,—make you blind."

—"But, Cyrillia," I asked one day, "did you ever see any zombis?"

—"How? I often see them!... They walk about the room at night; —they walk like people. They sit in the rocking-chairs and rock themselves very softly, and look at me. I say to them:—'What do you want here?—I never did any harm to anybody. Go away!' Then they go away."

—"What do they look like?"

—"Like people,—sometimes like beautiful people (bel moune). I am afraid of them. I only see them when there is no light burning. While the lamp bums before the Virgin they do not come. But sometimes the oil fails, and the light dies."

In my own room there are dried palm leaves and some withered flowers fastened to the wall. Cyrillia put them there. They were taken from the reposoirs (temporary altars) erected for the last Corpus Christi procession: consequently they are blessed, and ought to keep the zombis away. That is why they are fastened to the wall, over my bed.

Nobody could be kinder to animals than Cyrillia usually shows herself to be: all the domestic animals in the neighborhood impose upon her;—various dogs and cats steal from her impudently, without the least fear of being beaten. I was therefore very much surprised to see her one evening catch a flying beetle that approached the light, and deliberately put its head in the candle-flame. When I asked her how she could be so cruel, she replied:—

—"Ah ou pa connaitt choe pays-ci." (You do not know Things in this country.)

The Things thus referred to I found to be supernatural Things. It is popularly believed that certain winged creatures which circle about candles at night may be engags or envoys—wicked people having the power of transformation, or even zombis "sent" by witches or wizards to do harm. "There was a woman at Tricolore," Cyrillia says, "who used to sew a great deal at night; and a big beetle used to come into her room and fly about the candle, and and bother her very much. One night she managed to get hold of it, and she singed its head in the candle. Next day, a woman who was her neighbor came to the house with her head all tied up. 'Ah! macoum,' asked the sewing-woman, 'a ou ni dans guile-ou?' And the other answered, very angrily, 'Ou ni toupet mand moin a moin ni dans guile moin!—et ct ou qui t bril guile moin nans chandelle-ou hi-sou.'" (You have the impudence to ask what is the matter with my mouth! and you yourself burned my mouth in your candle last night.)

Early one morning, about five o'clock, Cyrillia, opening the front door, saw a huge crab walking down the street. Probably it had escaped from some barrel; for it is customary here to keep live crabs in barrels and fatten them,—feeding them with maize, mangoes, and, above all, green peppers: nobody likes to cook crabs as soon as caught; for they may have been eating manchineel apples at the river-mouths. Cyrillia uttered a cry of dismay on seeing that crab; then I heard her talking to herself:—"I touch it?—never! it can go about its business. How do I know it is not an arranged crab (yon crabe rang), or an envoy?—since everybody knows I like crabs. For two sous I can buy a fine crab and know where it comes from." The crab went on down the street: everywhere the sight of it created consternation; nobody dared to touch it; women cried out at it, "Miserabe!—envoy Satan!— allez, maudi!"—some threw holy water on the crab. Doubtless it reached the sea in safety. In the evening Cyrillia said: "I think that crab was a little zombi;—I am going to burn a light all night to keep it from coming back."

Another day, while I was out, a negro to whom I had lent two francs came to the house, and paid his debt Cyrillia told me when I came back, and showed me the money carefully enveloped in a piece of brown paper; but said I must not touch it,—she would get rid of it for me at the market. I laughed at her fears; and she observed: "You do not know negroes, Missi!—negroes are wicked, negroes are jealous! I do not want you to touch that money, because I have not a good opinion about this affair."

After I began to learn more of the underside of Martinique life, I could understand the source and justification of many similar superstitions in simple and uneducated minds. The negro sorcerer is, at worst, only a poisoner; but he possesses a very curious art which long defied serious investigation, and in the beginning of the last century was attributed, even by whites, to diabolical influence. In 1721, 1723, and 1725, several negroes were burned alive at the stake as wizards in league with the devil. It was an era of comparative ignorance; but even now things are done which would astonish the most sceptical and practical physician. For example, a laborer discharged from a plantation vows vengeance; and the next morning the whole force of hands—the entire atelier—are totally disabled from work. Every man and woman on the place is unable to walk; everybody has one or both legs frightfully swollen. Yo te ka pil malifice: they have trodden on a "malifice." What is the "malifice"? All that can be ascertained is that certain little prickly seeds have been scattered all over the ground, where the barefooted workers are in the habit of passing. Ordinarily, treading on these seeds is of no consequence; but it is evident in such a case that they must have been prepared in a special way,—soaked in some poison, perhaps snake-venom. At all events, the physician deems it safest to treat the inflammations after the manner of snake wounds; and after many days the hands are perhaps able to resume duty.



XI.

While Cyrillia is busy with her canari, she talks to herself or sings. She has a low rich voice,—sings strange things, things that have been forgotten by this generation,—creole songs of the old days, having a weird rhythm and fractions of tones that are surely African. But more generally she talks to herself, as all the Martiniquaises do: it is a continual murmur as of a stream. At first I used to think she was talking to somebody else, and would call out:—

—"pi quiless moune a ou ka pl-?"

But she would always answer:—"Moin ka pl anni c moin" (I am only talking to my own body), which is the creole expression for talking to oneself.

—"And what are you talking so much to your own body about, Cyrillia?"

—"I am talking about my own little affairs" (ti zaffai- moin).... That is all that I could ever draw from her.

But when not working, she will sit for hours looking out of the window. In this she resembles the kitten: both seem to find the same silent pleasure in watching the street, or the green heights that rise above its roofs,—the Morne d'Orange. Occasionally at such times she will break the silence in the strangest way, if she thinks I am not too busy with my papers to answer a question:—

—"Missi?"—timidly.

—"Eh?"

—"Di moin, ch, ti manmaille dans pays ou, toutt piti, piti,—ess a pl Anglais?" (Do the little children in my country—the very, very little children—talk English?)

—"Why, certainly, Cyrillia."

—"Toutt piti, piti?"—with growing surprise.

—"Why, of course!"

—"C'est drle, a" (It is queer, that!) She cannot understand it.

—"And the little manmaille in Martinique, Cyrillia—toutt piti,piti,—don't they talk creole?"

—"'Oui; mais toutt moune ka pl ngue: a facile." (Yes; but anybody can talk negro—that is easy to learn.)



XII.

Cyrillia's room has no furniture in it: the Martinique bonne lives as simply and as rudely as a domestic animal. One thin mattress covered with a sheet, and elevated from the floor only by a lfant, forms her bed. The lfant, or "elephant," is composed of two thick square pieces of coarse hard mattress stuffed with shavings, and placed end to end. Cyrillia has a good pillow, however,—bourr pi flches-canne,—filled with the plumes of the sugar-cane. A cheap trunk with broken hinges contains her modest little wardrobe: a few mouchoirs, or kerchiefs, used for head-dresses, a spare douillette, or long robe, and some tattered linen. Still she is always clean, neat, fresh-looking. I see a pair of sandals in the corner,—such as the women of the country sometimes wear—wooden soles with a leather band for the instep, and two little straps; but she never puts them on. Fastened to the wall are two French prints— lithographs: one representing Victor Hugo's Esmeralda in prison with her pet goat; the other, Lamartine's Laurence with her fawn. Both are very old and stained and bitten by the bte—ciseau, a species of lepisma, which destroys books and papers, and everything it can find exposed. On a shelf are two bottles,—one filled with holy water; another with tafia camphre (camphor dissolved in tafia), which is Cyrillia's sole remedy for colds, fevers, headaches—all maladies not of a very fatal description. There are also a little woollen monkey, about three inches high— the dusty plaything of a long-dead child;—an image of the Virgin, even smaller;—and a broken cup with fresh bright blossoms in it, the Virgin's flower-offering;—and the Virgin's invariable lamp—a night-light, a little wick floating on olive- oil in a tiny glass.

I know that Cyrillia must have bought these flowers—they are garden flowers—at the March du Fort. There are always old women sitting there who sell nothing else but bouquets for the Virgin,—and who cry out to passers-by:—"Gagn ti bouquet pou Vige-ou, ch!... Buy a nosegay, dear, for your Virgin;—she is asking you for one;—give her a little one, ch cocott."... Cyrillia says you must not smell the flowers you give the Virgin: it would be stealing from her.... The little lamp is always lighted at six o'clock. At six o'clock the Virgin is supposed to pass through all the streets of St. Pierre, and wherever a lamp burns before her image, she enters there and blesses that house. "Faut lim lampe ou pou fai la-Vige pass dans cae- ou," says Cyrillia. (You must light the lamp to make the Virgin come into your house.)... Cyrillia often talks to her little image, exactly as if it were a baby,—calls it pet names,—asks if it is content with the flowers.

This image of the Virgin is broken: it is only half a Virgin,— the upper half. Cyrillia has arranged it so, nevertheless, that had I not been very inquisitive I should never have divined its mishap. She found a small broken powder-box without a lid,— probably thrown negligently out of a boudoir window by some wealthy beauty: she filled this little box with straw, and fixed the mutilated image upright within it, so that you could never suspect the loss of its feet. The Virgin looks very funny, thus peeping over the edge of her little box,—looks like a broken toy, which a child has been trying to mend. But this Virgin has offerings too: Cyrillia buys flowers for her, and sticks them all round her, between the edge of the powder-box and the straw. After all, Cyrillia's Virgin is quite as serious a fact as any image of silver or of ivory in the homes of the rich: probably the prayers said to her are more simply beautiful, and more direct from the heart, than many daily murmured before the chapelles of luxurious homes. And the more one looks at it, the more one feels that it were almost wicked to smile at this little broken toy of faith.

—"Cyrillia, mafi," I asked her one day, after my discovery of the little Virgin,—"would you not like me to buy a chapelle for you?" The chapelle is the little bracket-altar, together with images and ornaments, to be found in every creole bedroom.

—"_Mais non, Missi_," she answered, smiling, "moin aimein ti Vige moin, pa l gagnin dautt_. I love my little Virgin: do not want any other. I have seen much trouble: she was with me in my trouble;—she heard my prayers. It would be wicked for me to throw her away. When I have a sou to spare, I buy flowers for her;—when I have no money, I climb the mornes, and pick pretty buds for her.... But why should Missi want to buy me a _chapelle?_—Missi is a Protestant?"

—"I thought it might give you pleasure, Cyrillia."

—"No, Missi, I thank you; it would not give me pleasure. But Missi could give me something else which would make me very happy—I often thought of asking Missi...but—"

—"Tell me what it is, Cyrillia."

She remained silent a moment, then said:—

—"Missi makes photographs...."

—"You want a photograph of yourself, Cyrillia?"

—"Oh! no, Missi, I am too ugly and too old. But I have a daughter. She is beautiful—yon bel bois,—like a beautiful tree, as we say here. I would like so much to have her picture taken."

A photographic instrument belonging to a clumsy amateur suggested this request to Cyrillia. I could not attempt such work successfully; but I gave her a note to a photographer of much skill; and a few days later the portrait was sent to the house. Cyrillia's daughter was certainly a comely girl,—tall and almost gold-colored, with pleasing features; and the photograph looked very nice, though less nice than the original. Half the beauty of these people is a beauty of tint,—a tint so exquisite sometimes that I have even heard white creoles declare no white complexion compares with it: the greater part of the charm remaining is grace,—the grace of movement; and neither of these can be rendered by photography. I had the portrait framed for Cyrillia, to hang up beside her little pictures.

When it came, she was not in; I put it in her room, and waited to see the effect. On returning, she entered there; and I did not see her for so long a time that I stole to the door of the chamber to observe her. She was standing before the portrait,— looking at it, talking to it as if it were alive. "Yche moin, yche moin!... Oui! ou toutt bel!—yche moin bel." (My child, my child!... Yes, thou art all beautiful: my child is beautiful.) All at once she turned—perhaps she noticed my shadow, or felt my presence in some way: her eyes were wet;—she started, flushed, then laughed.

—"Ah! Missi, you watch me;—ou guette moin.... But she is my child. Why should I not love her?... She looks so beautiful there."

—"She is beautiful, Cyrillia;—I love to see you love her."

She gazed at the picture a little longer in silence;—then turned to me again, and asked earnestly:—

—"Pouki yo ja ka fai ptrai pal—anh?... pisse yo ka tir y toutt samm ou: c'est ou-menm!... Yo dou fai y pal 'tou."

(Why do they not make a portrait talk,—tell me? For they draw it just all like you!—it is yourself: they ought to make it talk.)

—"Perhaps they will be able to do something like that one of these days, Cyrillia."

—"Ah! that would be so nice. Then I could talk to her. C'est yon bel moune moin fai—y bel, joli moune! ... Moin s caus pi y."...

... And I, watching her beautiful childish emotion, thought:— Cursed be the cruelty that would persuade itself that one soul may be like another,—that one affection may be replaced by another,—that individual goodness is not a thing apart, original, untwinned on earth, but only the general characteristic of a class or type, to be sought and found and utilized at will!...

Self-cursd he who denies the divinity of love! Each heart, each brain in the billions of humanity,—even so surely as sorrow lives,—feels and thinks in some special way unlike any other; and goodness in each has its unlikeness to all other goodness,— and thus its own infinite preciousness; for however humble, however small, it is something all alone, and God never repeats his work. No heart-beat is cheap, no gentleness is despicable, no kindness is common; and Death, in removing a life—the simplest life ignored,—removes what never will reappear through the eternity of eternities,—since every being is the sum of a chain of experiences infinitely varied from all others.... To some Cyrillia's happy tears might bring a smile: to me that smile would seem the unforgivable sin against the Giver of Life!...



CHAPTER XII. "PA COMBIN, CH!"



I.

... More finely than any term in our tongue does the French word frisson express that faint shiver—as of a ghostly touch thrilling from hair to feet—which intense pleasure sometimes gives, and which is felt most often and most strongly in childhood, when the imagination is still so sensitive and so powerful that one's whole being trembles to the vibration of a fancy. And this electric word best expresses, I think, that long thrill of amazed delight inspired by the first knowledge of the tropic world,—a sensation of weirdness in beauty, like the effect, in child-days, of fairy tales and stories of phantom isles.

For all unreal seems the vision of it. The transfiguration of all things by the stupendous light and the strange vapors of the West Indian sea,—the interorbing of flood and sky in blinding azure,—the sudden spirings of gem-tinted coast from the ocean, —the iris-colors and astounding shapes of the hills,—the unimaginable magnificence of palms,—the high woods veiled and swathed in vines that blaze like emerald: all remind you in some queer way of things half forgotten,—the fables of enchantment. Enchantment it is indeed—but only the enchantment of that Great Wizard, the Sun, whose power you are scarcely beginning to know.

And into the life of the tropical city you enter as in dreams one enters into the life of a dead century. In all the quaint streets—over whose luminous yellow faades the beautiful burning violet of the sky appears as if but a few feet away—you see youth good to look upon as ripe fruit; and the speech of the people is soft as a coo; and eyes of brown girls caress you with a passing look.... Love's world, you may have heard, has few restraints here, where Nature ever seems to cry out, like the swart seller of corossoles:—"a qui le doudoux?"...

How often in some passing figure does one discern an ideal almost realized, and forbear to follow it with untired gaze only when another, another, and yet another, come to provoke the same aesthetic fancy,—to win the same unspoken praise! How often does one long for artist's power to fix the fleeting lines, to catch the color, to seize the whole exotic charm of some special type!... One finds a strange charm even in the timbre of these voices,—these half-breed voices, always with a tendency to contralto, and vibrant as ringing silver. What is that mysterious quality in a voice which has power to make the pulse beat faster, even when the singer is unseen? ... do only the birds know?

... It seems to you that you could never weary of watching this picturesque life,—of studying the costumes, brilliant with butterfly colors,—and the statuesque semi-nudity of laboring hundreds,—and the untaught grace of attitudes,—and the simplicity of manners. Each day brings some new pleasure of surprise;—even from the window of your lodging you are ever noting something novel, something to delight the sense of oddity or beauty.... Even in your room everything interests you, because of its queerness or quaintness: you become fond of the objects about you,—the great noiseless rocking-chairs that lull to sleep;—the immense bed (lit—bateau) of heavy polished wood, with its richly carven sides reaching down to the very floor;— and its invariable companion, the little couch or sopha, similarly shaped but much narrower, used only for the siesta;— and the thick red earthen vessels (dobannes) which keep your drinking-water cool on the hottest days, but which are always filled thrice between sunrise and sunset with clear water from the mountain,—dleau toutt vivant, "all alive";—and the verrines, tall glass vases with stems of bronze in which your candle will burn steadily despite a draught;—and even those funny little angels and Virgins which look at you from their bracket in the corner, over the oil lamp you are presumed to kindle nightly in their honor, however great a heretic you may be.... You adopt at once, and without reservation, those creole home habits which are the result of centuries of experience with climate,—abstention from solid food before the middle of the day, repose after the noon meal;—and you find each repast an experience as curious as it is agreeable. It is not at all difficult to accustom oneself to green pease stewed with sugar, eggs mixed with tomatoes, salt fish stewed in milk, palmiste pith made into salad, grated cocoa formed into rich cakes, and dishes of titiri cooked in oil,—the minuscule fish, of which a thousand will scarcely fill a saucer. Above all, you are astonished by the endless variety of vegetables and fruits, of all conceivable shapes and inconceivable flavors.

And it does not seem possible that even the simplest little recurrences of this antiquated, gentle home-life could ever prove wearisome by daily repetition through the months and years. The musical greeting of the colored child, tapping at your door before sunrise,—"Bonjou', Missi,"—as she brings your cup of black hot coffee and slice of corossole;—the smile of the silent brown girl who carries your meals up-stairs in a tray poised upon her brightly coiffed head, and who stands by while you dine, watching every chance to serve, treading quite silently with her pretty bare feet;—the pleasant manners of the mchanne who brings your fruit, the porteuse who delivers your bread, the blanchisseuse who washes your linen at the river,—and all the kindly folk who circle about your existence, with their trays and turbans, their foulards and douillettes, their primitive grace and creole chatter: these can never cease to have a charm for you. You cannot fail to be touched also by the amusing solicitude of these good people for your health, because you are a stranger: their advice about hours to go out and hours to stay at home,—about roads to follow and paths to avoid on account of snakes,—about removing your hat and coat, or drinking while warm.... Should you fall ill, this solicitude intensifies to devotion; you are tirelessly tended;—the good people will exhaust their wonderful knowledge of herbs to get you well,—will climb the mornes even at midnight, in spite of the risk of snakes and fear of zombis, to gather strange plants by the light of a lantern. Natural joyousness, natural kindliness, heart-felt desire to please, childish capacity of being delighted with trifles,—seem characteristic of all this colored population. It is turning its best side towards you, no doubt; but the side of the nature made visible appears none the less agreeable because you suspect there is another which you have not seen. What kindly inventiveness is displayed in contriving surprises for you, or in finding some queer thing to show you,—some fantastic plant, or grotesque fish, or singular bird! What apparent pleasure in taking trouble to gratify,—what innocent frankness of sympathy!... Childishly beautiful seems the readiness of this tinted race to compassionate: you do not reflect that it is also a savage trait, while the charm of its novelty is yet upon you. No one is ashamed to shed tears for the death of a pet animal; any mishap to a child creates excitement, and evokes an immediate volunteering of services. And this compassionate sentiment is often extended, in a semi-poetical way, even to inanimate objects. One June morning, I remember, a three-masted schooner lying in the bay took fire, and had to be set adrift. An immense crowd gathered on the wharves; and I saw many curious manifestations of grief,—such grief, perhaps, as an infant feels for the misfortune of a toy it imagines to possess feeling, but not the less sincere because unreasoning. As the flames climbed the rigging, and the masts fell, the crowd moaned as though looking upon some human tragedy; and everywhere one could hear such strange cries of pity as, "Pauv' malhr!" (poor unfortunate), "pauv' diabe!"... "Toutt baggae-y pou all, casse!" (All its things-to-go-with are broken!) sobbed a girl, with tears streaming down her cheeks.... She seemed to believe it was alive....

... And day by day the artlessness of this exotic humanity touches you more;—day by day this savage, somnolent, splendid Nature—delighting in furious color—bewitches you more. Already the anticipated necessity of having to leave it all some day—the far-seen pain of bidding it farewell—weighs upon you, even in dreams.



II.

Reader, if you be of those who have longed in vain for a glimpse of that tropic world,—tales of whose beauty charmed your childhood, and made stronger upon you that weird mesmerism of the sea which pulls at the heart of a boy,—one who had longed like you, and who, chance-led, beheld at last the fulfilment of the wish, can swear to you that the magnificence of the reality far excels the imagining. Those who know only the lands in which all processes for the satisfaction of human wants have been perfected under the terrible stimulus of necessity, can little guess the witchery of that Nature ruling the zones of color and of light. Within their primeval circles, the earth remains radiant and young as in that preglacial time whereof some transmitted memory may have created the hundred traditions of an Age of Gold. And the prediction of a paradise to come,—a phantom realm of rest and perpetual light: may this not have been but a sum of the remembrances and the yearnings of man first exiled from his heritage,—a dream born of the great nostalgia of races migrating to people the pallid North?...

... But with the realization of the hope to know this magical Nature you learn that the actuality varies from the preconceived ideal otherwise than in surpassing it. Unless you enter the torrid world equipped with scientific knowledge extraordinary, your anticipations are likely to be at fault. Perhaps you had pictured to yourself the effect of perpetual summer as a physical delight,—something like an indefinite prolongation of the fairest summer weather ever enjoyed at home. Probably you had heard of fevers, risks of acclimatization, intense heat, and a swarming of venomous creatures; but you may nevertheless believe you know what precautions to take; and published statistics of climatic temperature may have persuaded you that the heat is not difficult to bear. By that enervation to which all white dwellers in the tropics are subject you may have understood a pleasant languor,—a painless disinclination to effort in a country where physical effort is less needed than elsewhere,—a soft temptation to idle away the hours in a hammock, under the shade of giant trees. Perhaps you have read, with eyes of faith, that torpor of the body is favorable to activity of the mind, and therefore believe that the intellectual powers can be stimulated and strengthened by tropical influences:—you suppose that enervation will reveal itself only as a beatific indolence which will leave the brain free to think with lucidity, or to revel in romantic dreams.



III.

You are not at first undeceived;—the disillusion is long delayed. Doubtless you have read the delicious idyl of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (this is not Mauritius, but the old life of Mauritius was wellnigh the same); and you look for idyllic personages among the beautiful humanity about you,—for idyllic scenes among the mornes shadowed by primeval forest, and the valleys threaded by a hundred brooks. I know not whether the faces and forms that you seek will be revealed to you;—but you will not be able to complain for the lack of idyllic loveliness in the commonest landscape. Whatever artistic knowledge you possess will merely teach you the more to wonder at the luxuriant purple of the sea, the violet opulence of the sky, the violent beauty of foliage greens, the lilac tints of evening, and the color-enchantments distance gives in an atmosphere full of iridescent power,—the amethysts and agates, the pearls and ghostly golds, of far mountainings. Never, you imagine, never could one tire of wandering through those marvellous valleys,—of climbing the silent roads under emeraldine shadow to heights from which the city seems but a few inches long, and the moored ships tinier than gnats that cling to a mirror,—or of swimming in that blue bay whose clear flood stays warm through all the year. [51]

Or, standing alone, in some aisle of colossal palms, where humming-birds are flashing and shooting like a showering of jewel-fires, you feel how weak the skill of poet or painter to fix the sensation of that white-pillared imperial splendor;—and you think you know why creoles exiled by necessity to colder lands may sicken for love of their own,—die of home-yearning, as did many a one in far Louisiana, after the political tragedies of 1848....

... But you are not a creole, and must pay tribute of suffering to the climate of the tropics. You will have to learn that a temperature of 90 Fahr. in the tropics is by no means the same thing as 90 Fahr. in Europe or the United States;—that the mornes cannot be climbed with safety during the hotter hours of the afternoon;—that by taking a long walk you incur serious danger of catching a fever;—that to enter the high woods, a path must be hewn with the cutlass through the creepers and vines and undergrowth,—among snakes, venomous insects, venomous plants, and malarial exhalations;—that the finest blown dust is full of irritant and invisible enemies;—that it is folly to seek repose on a sward, or in the shade of trees,—particularly under tamarinds. Only after you have by experience become well convinced of these facts can you begin to comprehend something general in regard to West Indian conditions of life.



IV.

... Slowly the knowledge comes.... For months the vitality of a strong European (the American constitution bears the test even better) may resist the debilitating climate: perhaps the stranger will flatter himself that, like men habituated to heavy labor in stifling warmth,—those toiling in mines, in founderies in engine-rooms of ships, at iron-furnaces,—so he too may become accustomed, without losing his strength to the continuous draining of the pores, to the exhausting force of this strange motionless heat which compels change of clothing many times a day. But gradually he finds that it is not heat alone which is debilitating him, but the weight and septic nature of an atmosphere charged with vapor, with electricity, with unknown agents not less inimical to human existence than propitious to vegetal luxuriance. If he has learned those rules of careful living which served him well in a temperate climate, he will not be likely to abandon them among his new surroundings; and they will help him; no doubt,—particularly if he be prudent enough to avoid the sea-coast at night, and all exposure to dews or early morning mists, and all severe physical strain. Nevertheless, he becomes slowly conscious of changes extraordinary going on within him,—in especial, a continual sensation of weight in the brain, daily growing, and compelling frequent repose;—also a curious heightening of nervous sensibility to atmospheric changes, to tastes and odors, to pleasure and pain. Total loss of appetite soon teaches him to follow the local custom of eating nothing solid before mid-day, and enables him to divine how largely the necessity for caloric enters into the food-consumption of northern races. He becomes abstemious, eats sparingly, and discovers his palate to have become oddly exacting—finds that certain fruits and drinks are indeed, as the creoles assert, appropriate only to particular physical conditions corresponding with particular hours of the day. Corossole is only to be eaten in the morning, after black coffee;—vermouth is good to drink only between the hours of nine and half-past ten;—rum or other strong liquor only before meals or after fatigue;—claret or wine only during a repast, and then very sparingly,—for, strangely enough, wine is found to be injurious in a country where stronger liquors are considered among the prime necessaries of existence.

And he expected, at the worst, to feel lazy, to lose some physical energy! But this is no mere languor which now begins to oppress him;—it is a sense of vital exhaustion painful as the misery of convalescence: the least effort provokes a perspiration profuse enough to saturate clothing, and the limbs ache as from muscular overstrain;—the lightest attire feels almost insupportable;—the idea of sleeping even under a sheet is torture, for the weight of a silken handkerchief is discomfort. One wishes one could live as a savage,—naked in the heat. One burns with a thirst impossible to assuage—feels a desire for stimulants, a sense of difficulty in breathing, occasional quickenings of the heart's action so violent as to alarm. Then comes at last the absolute dread of physical exertion. Some slight relief might be obtained, no doubt, by resigning oneself forthwith to adopt the gentle indolent manners of the white creoles, who do not walk when it is possible to ride, and never ride if it is equally convenient to drive;—but the northern nature generally refuses to accept this ultimate necessity without a protracted and painful struggle.

... Not even then has the stranger fully divined the evil power of this tropical climate, which remodels the characters of races within a couple of generations,—changing the shape of the skeleton,—deepening the cavities of the orbits to protect the eye from the flood of light,—transforming the blood,—darkening the skin. Following upon the nervous modifications of the first few months come modifications and changes of a yet graver kind;— with the loss of bodily energy ensues a more than corresponding loss of mental activity and strength. The whole range of thought diminishes, contracts,—shrinks to that narrowest of circles which surrounds the physical sell, the inner ring of merely material sensation: the memory weakens appallingly;—the mind operates faintly, slowly, incoherently,—almost as in dreams. Serious reading, vigorous thinking, become impossible. You doze over the most important project;—you fall fast asleep over the most fascinating of books.

Then comes the vain revolt, the fruitless desperate striving with this occult power which numbs the memory and enchants the will. Against the set resolve to think, to act, to study, there is a hostile rush of unfamiliar pain to the temples, to the eyes, to the nerve centres of the brain; and a great weight is somewhere in the head, always growing heavier: then comes a drowsiness that overpowers and stupefies, like the effect of a narcotic. And this obligation to sleep, to sink into coma, will impose itself just so surely as you venture to attempt any mental work in leisure hours, after the noon repast, or during the heat of the afternoon. Yet at night you can scarcely sleep. Repose is made feverish by a still heat that keeps the skin drenched with thick sweat, or by a perpetual, unaccountable, tingling and prickling of the whole body-surface. With the approach of morning the air grows cooler, and slumber comes,—a slumber of exhaustion, dreamless and sickly; and perhaps when you would rise with the sun you feel such a dizziness, such a numbness, such a torpor, that only by the most intense effort can you keep your feet for the first five minutes. You experience a sensation that recalls the poet's fancy of death-in-life, or old stories of sudden rising from the grave: it is as though all the electricity of will had ebbed away,—all the vital force evaporated, in the heat of the night....



V.

It might be stated, I think, with safety, that for a certain class of invalids the effect of the climate is like a powerful stimulant,—a tonic medicine which may produce astonishing results within a fixed time,—but which if taken beyond that time will prove dangerous. After a certain number of months, your first enthusiasm with your new surroundings dies out;—even Nature ceases to affect the senses in the same way: the frisson ceases to come to you. Meanwhile you may have striven to become as much as possible a part of the exotic life into which you have entered,—may have adopted its customs, learned its language. But you cannot mix with it mentally;—You circulate only as an oil-drop in its current. You still feel yourself alone.

The very longest West Indian day is but twelve hours fifty-six minutes;—perhaps your first dissatisfaction was evoked by the brevity of the days. There is no twilight whatever; and all activity ceases with sundown: there is no going outside of the city after dark, because of snakes;—club life here ends at the hour it only begins abroad;—there is no visiting of evenings; after the seven o'clock dinner, everyone prepares to retire. And the foreigner, accustomed to make evening a time for social intercourse, finds no small difficulty in resigning himself to this habit of early retiring. The natural activity of a European or American mind requires some intellectual exercise,—at least some interchange of ideas with sympathetic natures; the hours during the suspension of business after noon, or those following the closing of offices at sunset, are the only ones in which busy men may find time for such relaxation; and these very hours have been always devoted to restorative sleep by the native population ever since the colony began. Naturally, therefore, the stranger dreads the coming of the darkness, the inevitable isolation of long sleepless hours. And if he seek those solaces for loneliness which he was wont to seek at home,—reading, study,—he is made to comprehend, as never before, what the absence of all libraries, lack of books, inaccessibility of all reading-matter, means for the man of the nineteenth century. One must send abroad to obtain even a review, and wait months for its coming. And this mental starvation gnaws at the brain more and more as one feels less inclination and less capacity for effort, and as that single enjoyment, which at first rendered a man indifferent to other pleasures,—the delight of being alone with tropical Nature,—becomes more difficult to indulge. When lethargy has totally mastered habit and purpose, and you must at last confess yourself resigned to view Nature from your chamber, or at best from a carriage window,—then, indeed, the want of all literature proves a positive torture. It is not a consolation to discover that you are an almost solitary sufferer,—from climate as well as from mental hunger. With amazement and envy you see young girls passing to walk right across the island and back before sunset, under burdens difficult for a strong man to lift to his shoulder;—the same journey on horseback would now weary you for days. You wonder of what flesh and blood can these people be made,—what wonderful vitality lies in those slender woman-bodies, which, under the terrible sun, and despite their astounding expenditure of force, remain cool to the sight and touch as bodies of lizards and serpents! And contrasting this savage strength with your own weakness, you begin to understand better how mighty the working of those powers which temper races and shape race habits in accordance with environment.