Two Years in the French West Indies Part 8

... So!--She is ready: "_Chage moin, souple, che!_" She bends to lift the end of the heavy trait: some one takes the other,--_yon!-de!--toua!_--it is on her head. Perhaps she winces an instant;--the weight is not perfectly balanced; she settles it with her hands,--gets it in the exact place. Then, all steady,--lithe, light, half naked,--away she moves with a long springy step. So even her walk that the burden never sways; yet so rapid her motion that however good a walker you may fancy yourself to be you will tire out after a sustained effort of fifteen minutes to follow her uphill. Fifteen minutes;--and she can keep up that pace without slackening--save for a minute to eat and drink at mid-day,--for at least twelve hours and fifty-six minutes, the extreme length of a West Indian day. She starts before dawn; tries to reach her resting-place by sunset: after dark, like all her people, she is afraid of meeting _zombis_.

Let me give you some idea of her average speed under an average weight of one hundred and twenty-five pounds,--estimates based partly upon my own observations, partly upon the declarations of the trustworthy merchants who employ her, and partly on the a.s.sertion of habitants of the burghs or cities named--all of which statements perfectly agree.

From St. Pierre to Ba.s.se-Pointe, by the national road, the distance is a trifle less than twenty-seven kilometres and three-quarters. She makes the transit easily in three hours and a half; and returns in the afternoon, after an absence of scarcely more than eight hours. From St.

Pierre to Morne Rouge--two thousand feet up in the mountains (an ascent so abrupt that no one able to pay carriage-fare dreams of attempting to walk it)--the distance is seven kilometres and three-quarters. She makes it in little more than an hour. But this represents only the beginning of her journey. She pa.s.ses on to Grande Anse, twenty-one and three-quarter kilometres away. But she does not rest there: she returns at the same pace, and reaches St. Pierre before dark. From St. Pierre to Gros-Morne the distance to be twice traversed by her is more than thirty-two kilometres. A journey of sixty-four kilometres,--daily, perhaps,--forty miles! And there are many machannes who make yet longer trips,--trips of three or four days' duration;--these rest at villages upon their route.

VII.

Such travel in such a country would be impossible but for the excellent national roads,--limestone highways, solid, broad, faultlessly graded,--that wind from town to town, from hamlet to hamlet, over mountains, over ravines; ascending by zigzags to heights of twenty-five hundred feet; traversing the primeval forests of the interior; now skirting the dizziest precipices, now descending into the loveliest valleys. There are thirty-one of these magnificent routes, with a total length of 488,052 metres (more than 303 miles), whereof the construction required engineering talent of the highest order,--the building of bridges beyond counting, and devices the most ingenious to provide against dangers of storms, floods, and land-slips. Most have drinking-fountains along their course at almost regular intervals,--generally made by the negroes, who have a simple but excellent plan for turning the water of a spring through bamboo pipes to the road-way. Each road is also furnished with mile-stones, or rather kilometre-stones; and the drainage is perfect enough to a.s.sure of the highway becoming dry within fifteen minutes after the heaviest rain, so long as the surface is maintained in tolerably good condition. Well-kept embankments of earth (usually covered with a rich growth of mosses, vines, and ferns), or even solid walls of masonry, line the side that overhangs a dangerous depth. And all these highways pa.s.s through landscapes of amazing beauty,--visions of mountains so many-tinted and so singular of outline that they would almost seem to have been created for the express purpose of compelling astonishment. This tropic Nature appears to call into being nothing ordinary: the shapes which she evokes are always either gracious or odd,--and her eccentricities, her extravagances, have a fantastic charm, a grotesqueness as of artistic whim. Even where the landscape-view is cut off by high woods the forms of ancient trees--the infinite interwreathing of vine growths all on fire with violence of blossom-color,--the enormous green outbursts of balisiers, with leaves ten to thirteen feet long,--the columnar solemnity of great palmistes,--the pliant quivering exqisiteness of bamboo,--the furious splendor of roses run mad--more than atone for the loss of the horizon. Sometimes you approach a steep covered with a growth of what, at first glance, looks precisely like fine green fur: it is a first-growth of young bamboo. Or you see a hill-side covered with huge green feathers, all shelving down and overlapping as in the tail of some unutterable bird: these are baby ferns. And where the road leaps some deep ravine with a double or triple bridge of white stone, note well what delicious shapes spring up into sunshine from the black profundity on either hand! Palmiform you might hastily term them,--but no palm was ever so gracile; no palm ever bore so dainty a head of green plumes light as lace! These likewise are ferns (rare survivors, maybe, of that period of monstrous vegetation which preceded the apparition of man), beautiful tree-ferns, whose every young plume, unrolling in a spiral from the bud, at first a.s.sumes the shape of a crozier,--a crozier of emerald! Therefore are some of this species called "archbishop-trees," no doubt.... But one might write for a hundred years of the sights to be seen upon such a mountain road.

VIII.

In every season, in almost every weather, the porteuse makes her journey,--never heeding rain;--her goods being protected by double and triple water-proof coverings well bound down over her trait. Yet these tropical rains, coming suddenly with a cold wind upon her heated and almost naked body, are to be feared. To any European or un-acclimated white such a wetting, while the pores are all open during a profuse perspiration, would probably prove fatal: even for white natives the result is always a serious and protracted illness. But the porteuse seldom suffers in consequences: she seems proof against fevers, rheumatisms, and ordinary colds. When she does break down, however, the malady is a frightful one,--a pneumonia that carries off the victim within forty-eight hours. Happily, among her cla.s.s, these fatalities are very rare.

And scarcely less rare than such sudden deaths are instances of failure to appear on time. In one case, the employer, a St. Pierre shopkeeper, on finding his _marchande_ more than an hour late, felt so certain something very extraordinary must have happened that he sent out messengers in all directions to make inquiries. It was found that the woman had become a mother when only half-way upon her journey home. The child lived and thrived;--she is now a pretty chocolate-colored girl of eight, who follows her mother every day from their mountain ajoupa down to the city, and back again,--bearing a little trait upon her head.

Murder for purposes of robbery is not an unknown crime in Martinique; but I am told the porteuses are never molested. And yet some of these girls carry merchandise to the value of hundreds of francs; and all carry money,--the money received for goods sold, often a considerable sum. This immunity may be partly owing to the fact that they travel during the greater part of the year only by day,--and usually in company. A very pretty girl is seldom suffered to journey unprotected: she has either a male escort or several experienced and powerful women with her. In the cacao season-when carriers start from Grande Anse as early as two o'clock in the morning, so as to reach St. Pierre by dawn--they travel in strong companies of twenty or twenty-five, singing on the way. As a general rule the younger girls at all times go two together,--keeping step perfectly as a pair of blooded fillies; only the veterans, or women selected for special work by reason of extraordinary physical capabilities, go alone. To the latter cla.s.s belong certain girls employed by the great bakeries of Fort-de-France and St. Pierre: these are veritable caryatides. They are probably the heaviest-laden of all, carrying baskets of astounding size far up into the mountains before daylight, so as to furnish country families with fresh bread at an early hour; and for this labor they receive about four dollars (twenty francs) a month and one loaf of bread per diem.... While stopping at a friend's house among the hills, some two miles from Fort-de-France, I saw the local bread-carrier halt before our porch one morning, and a finer type of the race it would be difficult for a sculptor to imagine. Six feet tall,--strength and grace united throughout her whole figure from neck to heel; with that clear black skin which is beautiful to any but ignorant or prejudiced eyes; and the smooth, pleasing, solemn features of a sphinx,--she looked to me, as she towered there in the gold light, a symbolic statue of Africa. Seeing me smoking one of those long thin Martinique cigars called _bouts_, she begged one; and, not happening to have another, I gave her the price of a bunch of twenty,--ten sous. She took it without a smile, and went her way. About an hour and a half later she came back and asked for me,--to present me with the finest and largest mango I had ever seen, a monster mango. She said she wanted to see me eat it, and sat down on the ground to look on. While eating it, I learned that she had walked a whole mile out of her way under that sky of fire, just to bring her little gift of grat.i.tude.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FORT-DE-FRANCE, MARTINIQUE--(FORMERLY FORT ROYAL.)]

IX.

Forty to fifty miles a day, always under a weight of more than a hundred pounds,--for when the trait has been emptied she puts in stones for ballast;--carrying her employer's merchandise and money over the mountain ain ranges, beyond the peaks, across the ravines, through the tropical forest, sometimes through by-ways haunted by the fer-de-lance,--and this in summer or winter, the deason of rains or the season of heat, the time of fevers or the time of hurricanes, at a franc a day!... How does she live upon it?

There are twenty sous to the franc. The girl leaves St. Pierre with her load at early morning. At the second village, Morne Rouge, she halts to buy one, two, or three biscuits at a sou apiece; and reaching Ajoupa-Bouillon later in the forenoon, she may buy another biscuit or two. Altogether she may be expected to eat five Sous of biscuit or bread before reaching Grande Anse, where she probably has a meal waiting for her. This ought to cost her ten sous,--especially if there be meat in her ragout: which represents a total expense of fifteen sous for eatables. Then there is the additional cost of the cheap liquor, which she must mix with her drinking-water, as it would be more than dangerous to swallow pure cold water in her heated condition; two or three sous more. This almost makes the franc. But such a hasty and really erroneous estimate does not include expenses of lodging and clothing;--she may sleep on the bare floor sometimes, and twenty francs a year may keep her in clothes; but she must rent the floor and pay for the clothes out of that franc. As a matter of fact she not only does all this upon her twenty sous a day, but can even economize something which will enable her, when her youth and force decline, to start in business for herself.

And her economy will not seem so wonderful when I a.s.sure you that thousands of men here--huge men muscled like bulls and lions--live upon an average expenditure of five sous a day. One sou of bread, two sous of manioc flour, one sou of dried codfish, one sou of tafia: such is their meal.

There are women carriers who earn more than a franc a day,--women with a particular talent for selling, who are paid on commission--from ten to fifteen per cent. These eventually make themselves independent in many instances;--they continue to sell and bargain in person, but hire a young girl to carry the goods.

X.

... "_Ou 'le machanne!_" rings out a rich alto, resonant as the tone of a gong, from behind the balisiers that shut in our garden. There are two of them--no, three--Maiyotte, Chech.e.l.le, and Rina. Maiyotte and Chech.e.l.le have just arrived from St. Pierre;--Rina come from Gros-Morne with fruits and vegetables. Suppose we call them all in, and see what they have got. Maiyotte and Chech.e.l.le sell on commission; Rina sells for her mother, who has a little garden at Gros-Morne.

... "_Bonjou', Maiyotte;--bonjou', Chech.e.l.le! coument ou kalle, Rina, che!_"... Throw open the folding-doors to let the great trays pa.s.s....

Now all three are unloaded by old Thereza and by young Adou;--all the packs are on the floor, and the water-proof wrappings are being un-corded, while Ah-Manmzell, the adopted child, brings the rum and water for the tall walkers.... "Oh, what a medley, Maiyotte!"...

Inkstands and wooden cows; purses and paper dogs and cats; dolls and cosmetics; pins and needles and soap and tooth-brushes; candied fruits and smoking-caps; _pelotes_ of thread, and tapes, and ribbons, and laces, and Madeira wine; cuffs, and collars, and dancing-shoes, and tobacco _sachets_.... But what is in that little flat bundle? Presents for your _guepe_, if you have one.... _Fesis-Maa!_--the pretty foulards! Azure and yellow in checkerings; orange and crimson in stripes; rose and scarlet in plaidings; and bronze tints, and beetle-tints of black and green.

"Chech.e.l.le, what a _bloucoutoum_ if you should ever let that tray fall--_ae yae yae!_" Here is a whole shop of crockeries and porcelains;--plates, dishes, cups,--earthen-ware _canaris_ and _dobannes_, and gift-mugs and cups bearing creole girls' names,--all names that end in _ine_. "Micheline," "Honorine," "Prosperine" [you will never sell that, Chech.e.l.le: there is not a Prosperine this side of St.

Pierre], "Azaline," "Leontine," "Zephyrine," "Albertine," "Chrysaline,"

"Florine," "Coralline," "Alexandrine."...And knives and forks, and cheap spoons, and tin coffee-pots, and tin rattles for babies, and tin flutes for horrid little boys,--and pencils and note-paper and envelopes!...

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

... "and these, which look something like our mandarins, what do you call them?" "Zorange-macaque!" (monkey-oranges). And here are avocados--beauties!--guavas of three different kinds,--tropical cherries (which have four seeds instead of one),--tropical raspberries, whereof the entire eatable portion comes off in one elastic piece, lined with something like white silk.... Here are fresh nutmegs: the thick green case splits in equal halves at a touch; and see the beautiful heart within,--deep dark glossy red, all wrapped in a bright net-work of flat blood-colored fibre, spun over it like branching veins.... This big heavy red-and-yellow thing is a _pomme-cythere_: the smooth cuticle, bitter as gall, covers a sweet juicy pulp, interwoven with something that seems like cotton thread.... Here is a _pomme-cannelle_: inside its scaly covering is the most delicious yellow custard conceivable, with little black seeds floating in it. This larger _corossol_ has almost as delicate an interior, only the custard is white instead of yellow....

Here are _christophines_,--great pear-shaped things, white and green, according to kind, with a peel p.r.i.c.kly and k.n.o.bby as the skin of a horned toad; but they stew exquisitely. And _melongenes_, or egg-plants; and palmiste-pith, and _chadeques_, and _pommes-d' Hati_,--and roots that at first sight look all alike, but they are not: there are _camanioc_, and _couscous_, and _choux-carabes_, and _zignames_, and various kinds of _patates_ among them. Old Thereza's magic will transform these shapeless muddy things, before evening, into pyramids of smoking gold,--into odorous porridges that will look like messes of molten amber and liquid pearl;--for Rina makes a good sale.

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

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

XI.

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

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

Or, looking back as she ascends, she sees the huge blue dream of the sea,--the eternal haunter, that ever becomes larger as she mounts the road; and she talks to it: "_Mi lanme ka gaude moin!_" (There is the great sea looking at me!) "_Mache toujou dee moin, lanme!_" (Walk after me, 0 Sea!)

Or she views the clouds of Pelee, spreading gray from the invisible summit, to shadow against the sun; and she fears the rain, and she talks to it: "_Pas mouille moin, laplie-a! Quitte moin rive avant mouille moin!_" (Do not wet me, 0 Rain! Let me get there before thou wettest me!)

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

Sometimes she meets a laden sister travelling the opposite way....

"_Coument ou ye, che?_" she cries. (How art thou, dear?) And the other makes answer, "_Toutt douce, che,--et ou?_" (All sweetly, dear,--and thou?) And each pa.s.ses on without pausing: they have no time!

... It is perhaps the last human voice she will hear for many a mile. After that only the whisper of the gra.s.ses--_grae-gras, grae-gras!_--and the gossip of the canes--_chououa, chououa!_--and the husky speech of the _pois-Angole, ka babille conm yon vie fenme_,--that babbles like an old woman;--and the murmur of the _filao_-trees, like the murmur of the River of the Washerwomen.

XII.

... Sundown approaches: the light has turned a rich yellow;--long black shapes lie across the curving road, shadows of balisier and palm, shadows of tamarind and Indian-reed, shadows of ceiba and giant-fern.

And the porteuses are coming down through the lights and darknesses of the way from far Grande Anse, to halt a moment in this little village.

They are going to sit down on the road-side here, before the house of the baker; and there is his great black workman, Jean-Marie, looking for them from the door-way, waiting to relieve them of their loads....

Jean-Marie is the strongest man in all the Champ-Flore: see what a torso,--as he stands there naked to the waist!... His day's work is done; but he likes to wait for the girls, though he is old now, and has sons as tall as himself. It is a habit: some say that he had a daughter once,--a porteuse like those coming, and used to wait for her thus at that very door-way until one evening that she failed to appear, and never returned till he carried her home in his arms dead,--stricken by a serpent in some mountain path where there was none to aid.... The roads were not as good then as now.

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

And all smile to see Jean-Marie waiting for them, and to hear his deep kind voice calling, "_Coument ou ye, che? coument ou kalle?_" ...(How art thou, dear?--how goes it with thee?)

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

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