Two Years in the French West Indies Part 7

... We pa.s.s the Pitons, and enter another little craterine harbor, to cast anchor before the village of Choi-seul. It lies on a ledge above the beach and under high hills: we land through a surf, running the boat high up on soft yellowish sand. A delicious saline scent of sea-weed.

It is disappointing, the village: it is merely one cross of brief streets, lined with blackening wooden dwellings there are no buildings worth looking at, except the queer old French church, steep-roofed and bristling with points that look like extinguishers. Over broad reaches of lava rock a shallow river flows by the village to the sea, gurgling under shadows of tamarind foliage. It pa.s.ses beside the market-place--a market-place without stalls, benches, sheds, or pavements: meats, fruits, and vegetables are simply fastened to the trees. Women are washing and naked children bathing in the stream; they are bronze-skinned, a fine dark color with a faint tint of red in it....

There is little else to look at: steep wooded hills cut off the view towards the interior.

But over the verge of the sea there is something strange growing visible, looming up like a beautiful yellow cloud. It is an island, so lofty, so luminous, so phantom-like, that it seems a vision of the Island of the Seven Cities. It is only the form of St. Vincent, bathed in vapory gold by the sun.

... Evening at La Soufriere: still another semicircular bay in a hollow of green hills. Glens hold bluish shadows ows. The color of the heights is very tender; but there are long streaks and patches of dark green, marking watercourses and very abrupt surfaces. From the western side immense shadows are pitched brokenly across the valley and over half the roofs of the palmy town. There is a little river flowing down to the bay on the left; and west of it a walled cemetery is visible, out of which one monumental palm rises to a sublime height: its crest still bathes in the sun, above the invading shadow. Night approaches; the shade of the hills inundates all the landscape, rises even over the palm-crest. Then, black-towering into the golden glow of sunset, the land loses all its color, all its charm; forms of frondage, variations of tint, become invisible. Saint Lucia is only a monstrous silhouette; all its billowing hills, its volcanic bays, its amphitheatrical valleys, turn black as ebony.

And you behold before you a geological dream, a vision of the primeval sea: the apparition of the land as first brought forth, all peak-tossed and fissured and naked and grim, in the tremendous birth of an archipelago.

x.x.xIII.

Homeward bound.

Again the enormous poem of azure and emerald unrolls before us, but in order inverse; again is the island--Litany of the Saints repeated for us, but now backward. All the bright familiar harbors once more open to receive us;--each lovely Shape floats to us again, first golden yellow, then vapory gray, then ghostly blue, but always sharply radiant at last, symmetrically exquisite, as if chiselled out of amethyst and emerald and sapphire. We review the same wondrous wrinkling of volcanic hills, the cities that sit in extinct craters, the woods that tower to heaven, the peaks perpetually wearing that luminous cloud which seems the breathing of each island-life,--its vital manifestation....

[Ill.u.s.tration: CASTRIES, ST. LUCIA.]

... Only now do the long succession of exotic and unfamiliar impressions received begin to group and blend, to form h.o.m.ogeneous results,--general ideas or convictions. Strongest among these is the belief that the white race is disappearing from these islands, acquired and held at so vast a cost of blood and treasure. Reasons almost beyond enumeration have been advanced--economical, climatic, ethnical, political--all of which contain truth, yet no single one of which can wholly explain the fact.

Already the white West Indian populations are diminishing at a rate that almost staggers credibility. In the island paradise of Martinique in 1848 there were 12,000 whites; now, against more than 160,000 blacks and half-breeds, there are perhaps 5000 whites left to maintain the ethnic struggle, and the number of these latter is annually growing less.

Many of the British islands have been almost deserted by their former cultivators: St. Vincent is becoming desolate: Tobago is a ruin; St.

Martin lies half abandoned; St. Christopher is crumbling; Grenada has lost more than half her whites; St. Thomas, once the most prosperous, the most active, the most cosmopolitan of West Indian ports, is in full decadence. And while the white element is disappearing, the dark races are multiplying as never before;--the increase of the negro and half-breed populations has been everywhere one of the startling results of emanc.i.p.ation. The general belief among the creole whites of the Lesser Antilles would seem to confirm the old prediction that the slave races of the past must become the masters of the future. Here and there the struggle may be greatly prolonged, but everywhere the ultimate result must be the same, unless the present conditions of commerce and production become marvellously changed. The exterminated Indian peoples of the Antilles have already been replaced by populations equally fitted to cope with the forces of the nature about them,--that splendid and terrible Nature of the tropics which consumes the energies of the races of the North, which devours all that has been accomplished by their heroism or their crimes,--effacing their cities, rejecting their civilization. To those peoples physiologically in harmony with this Nature belong all the chances of victory in the contest--already begun--for racial supremacy.

But with the disappearance of the white populations the ethnical problem would be still unsettled. Between the black and mixed peoples prevail hatreds more enduring and more intense than any race prejudices between whites and freedmen in the past;--a new struggle for supremacy could not fail to begin, with the perpetual augmentation of numbers, the ever-increasing compet.i.tion for existence. And the true black element, more numerically powerful, more fertile, more cunning, better adapted to pyrogenic climate and tropical environment, would surely win. All these mixed races, all these beautiful fruit-colored populations, seem doomed to extinction: the future tendency must be to universal blackness, if existing conditions continue--perhaps to universal savagery. Everywhere the sins of the past have borne the same fruit, have furnished the colonies with social enigmas that mock the wisdom of legislators, a dragon-crop of problems that no modern political science has yet proved competent to deal with. Can it even be hoped that future sociologists will be able to answer them, after Nature--who never forgives--shall have exacted the utmost possible retribution for all the crimes and follies of three hundred years?

PART TWO--MARTINIQUE SKETCHES.

CHAPTER I. -- LES PORTEUSES.

I.

When you find yourself for the first time, upon some unshadowed day, in the delightful West Indian city of St. Pierre,--supposing that you own the sense of poetry, the recollections of a student,--there is apt to steal upon your fancy an impression of having seen it all before, ever so long ago,--you cannot tell where. The sensation of some happy dream you cannot wholly recall might be compared to this feeling. In the simplicity and solidity of the quaint architecture,--in the eccentricity of bright narrow streets, all aglow with warm coloring,--in the tints of roof and wall, antiquated by streakings and patchings of mould greens and grays,--in the startling absence of window-sashes, gla.s.s, gas lamps, and chimneys,--in the blossom-tenderness of the blue heaven, the splendor of tropic light, and the warmth of the tropic wind,--you find less the impression of a scene of to-day than the sensation of something that was and is not. Slowly this feeling strengthens with your pleasure in the colorific radiance of costume,--the semi-nudity of pa.s.sing figures,--the puissant shapeliness of torsos ruddily swart like statue metal,--the rounded outline of limbs yellow as tropic fruit,--the grace of att.i.tudes,--the unconscious harmony of groupings,--the gathering and folding and falling of light robes that oscillate with swaying of free hips,--the sculptural symmetry of unshod feet. You look up and down the lemon-tinted streets,--down to the dazzling azure brightness of meeting sky and sea; up to the perpetual verdure of mountain woods--wondering at the mellowness of tones, the sharpness of lines in the light, the diaphaneity of colored shadows; always asking memory: "When?... where did I see all this... long ago?"....

Then, perhaps, your gaze is suddenly riveted by the vast and solemn beauty of the verdant violet-shaded ma.s.s of the dead Volcano,--high-towering above the town, visible from all its ways, and umbraged, maybe, with thinnest curlings of cloud,--like spectres of its ancient smoking to heaven. And all at once the secret of your dream is revealed, with the rising of many a luminous memory,--dreams of the Idyllists, flowers of old Sicilian song, fancies limned upon Pompeiian walls. For a moment the illusion is delicious: you comprehend as never before the charm of a vanished world,--the antique life, the story of terra-cottas and graven stones and gracious things exhumed: even the sun is not of to-day, but of twenty centuries gone;--thus, and under such a light, walked the women of the elder world. You know the fancy absurd;--that the power of the orb has visibly abated nothing in all the eras of man,--that millions are the ages of his almighty glory; but for one instant of reverie he seemeth larger,--even that sun impossible who coloreth the words, coloreth the works of artist-lovers of the past, with the gold light of dreams.

Too soon the hallucination is broken by modern sounds, dissipated by modern sights,--rough trolling of sailors descending to their boats,--the heavy boom of a packet's signal-gun,--the pa.s.sing of an American buggy. Instantly you become aware that the melodious tongue spoken by the pa.s.sing throng is neither h.e.l.lenic nor Roman: only the beautiful childish speech of French slaves.

II.

But what slaves were the fathers of this free generation? Your anthropologists, your ethnologists, seem at fault here: the African traits have become transformed; the African characteristics have been so modified within little more than two hundred years--by inter-blending of blood, by habit, by soil and sun and all those natural powers which shape the mould of races,--that you may look in vain for verification of ethnological a.s.sertions.... No: the heel does _not_ protrude;--the foot is _not_ flat, but finely arched;--the extremities are not large;--all the limbs taper, all the muscles are developed; and prognathism has become so rare that months of research may not yield a single striking case of it.... No: this is a special race, peculiar to the island as are the shapes of its peaks,--a mountain race; and mountain races are comely.... Compare it with the population of black Barbadoes, where the apish grossness of African coast types has been perpetuated unchanged;--and the contrast may well astonish!...

III.

The erect carriage and steady swift walk of the women who bear burdens is especially likely to impress the artistic observer: it is the sight of such pa.s.sers-by which gives, above all, the antique tone and color to his first sensations;--and the larger part of the female population of mixed race are practised carriers. Nearly all the transportation of light merchandise, as well as of meats, fruits, vegetables, and food stuffs,--to and from the interior,--is effected upon human heads. At some of the ports the regular local packets are loaded and unloaded by women and girls,--able to carry any trunk or box to its destination.

At Fort-de-France the great steamers of the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, are entirely coaled by women, who carry the coal on their heads, singing as they come and go in processions of hundreds; and the work is done with incredible rapidity. Now, the creole _porteuse_, or female carrier, is certainly one of the most remarkable physical types in the world; and whatever artistic enthusiasm her graceful port, lithe walk, or half-savage beauty may inspire you with, you can form no idea, if a total stranger, what a really wonderful being she is.... Let me tell you something about that highest type of professional female carrier, which is to the _charbonniere_, or coaling-girl, what the thorough-bred racer is to the draught-horse,--the type of porteuse selected for swiftness and endurance to distribute goods in the interior parishes, or to sell on commission at long distances. To the same cla.s.s naturally belong those country carriers able to act as porteuses of plantation produce, fruits, or vegetables,--between the nearer ports and their own interior parishes.... Those who believe that great physical endurance and physical energy cannot exist in the tropics do not know the creole carrier-girl.

IV.

At a very early age--perhaps at five years--she learns to carry small articles upon her head,--a bowl of rice,--a dobanne, or red earthen decanter, full of water,--even an orange on a plate; and before long she is able to balance these perfectly without using her hands to steady them. (I have often seen children actually run with cans of water upon their heads, and never spill a drop.) At nine or ten she is able to carry thus a tolerably heavy basket, or a _trait_ (a wooden tray with deep outward sloping sides) containing a weight of from twenty to thirty pounds; and is able to accompany her mother, sister, or cousin on long peddling journeys,--walking barefoot twelve and fifteen miles a day.

At sixteen or seventeen she is a tall robust girl,--lithe, vigorous, tough,--all of tendon and hard flesh;--she carries a tray or a basket of the largest size, and a burden of one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty pounds weight;--she can now earn about thirty francs (about six dollars) a month, _by walking fifty miles a day_, as an itinerant seller. Among her cla.s.s there are figures to make you dream of Atalanta;--and all, whether ugly or attractive as to feature, are finely shapen as to body and limb. Brought into existence by extraordinary necessities of environment, the type is a peculiarly local one,--a type of human thorough-bred representing the true secret of grace: economy of force. There are no corpulent porteuses for the long interior routes; all are built lightly and firmly as those racers. There are no old porteuses;--to do the work even at forty signifies a const.i.tution of astounding solidity. After the full force of youth and health is spent, the poor carrier must seek lighter labor;--she can no longer compete with the girls. For in this calling the young body is taxed to its utmost capacity of strength, endurance, and rapid motion.

As a general rule, the weight is such that no well-freighted porteuse can, una.s.sisted, either "load" or "unload" (_chage_ or _dechage_, in creole phrase); the effort to do so would burst a blood-vessel, wrench a nerve, rupture a muscle. She cannot even sit down under her burden without risk of breaking her neck: absolute perfection of the balance is necessary for self-preservation. A case came under my own observation of a woman rupturing a muscle in her arm through careless haste in the mere act of aiding another to unload.

And no one not a brute will ever refuse to aid a woman to lift or to relieve herself of her burden;--you may see the wealthiest merchant, the proudest planter, gladly do it;--the meanness of refusing, or of making any conditions for the performance of this little kindness has only been imagined in those strange Stories of Devils wherewith the oral and uncollected literature of the creole abounds. [3]

V.

Preparing for her journey, the young _machanne_ (marchande) puts on the poorest and briefest chemise in her possession, and the most worn of her light calico robes. These are all she wears. The robe is drawn upward and forward, so as to reach a little below the knee, and is confined thus by a waist-string, or a long kerchief bound tightly round the loins. Instead of a Madras or painted turban-kerchief, she binds a plain _mouchoir_ neatly and closely about her head; and if her hair be long, it is combed back and gathered into a loop behind. Then, with a second mouchoir of coa.r.s.er quality she makes a pad, or, as she calls it, _tche_, by winding the kerchief round her fingers as you would coil up a piece of string;--and the soft ma.s.s, flattened with a patting of the hand, is placed upon her head, over the coiffure. On this the great loaded trait is poised.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'TI MARIE (On the Route from St. Pierre to Ba.s.se-Pointe.)]

She wears no shoes! To wear shoes and do her work swiftly and well in such a land of mountains would be impossible. She must climb thousands and descend thousands of feet every day,--march up and down slopes so steep that the horses of the country all break down after a few years of similar journeying. The girl invariably outlasts the horse,--though carrying an equal weight. Shoes, unless extraordinarily well made, would shift place a little with every change from ascent to descent, or the reverse, during the march,--would yield and loosen with the ever-varying strain,--would compress the toes,--produce corns, bunions, raw places by rubbing, and soon cripple the porteuse. Remember, she has to walk perhaps fifty miles between dawn and dark, under a sun to which a single hour's exposure, without the protection of an umbrella, is perilous to any European or American--the terrible sun of the tropics! Sandals are the only conceivable foot-gear suited to such a calling as hers; but she needs no sandals: the soles of her feet are toughened so as to feel no asperities, and present to sharp pebbles a surface at once yielding and resisting, like a cushion of solid caoutchouc.

Besides her load, she carries only a canvas purse tied to her girdle on the right side, and on the left a very small bottle of rum, or white _tafia_,--usually the latter, because it is so cheap.... For she may not always find the Gouyave Water to drink,--the cold clear pure stream conveyed to the fountains of St. Pierre from the highest mountains by a beautiful and marvellous plan of hydraulic engineering: she will have to drink betimes the common spring-water of the bamboo-fountains on the remoter high-roads; and this may cause dysentery if swallowed without a spoonful of spirits. Therefore she never travels without a little liquor.

VI.