another lofty shape was towering,--strangely jagged and peaked and
beautiful,--the silhouette of Dominica: a sapphire Sea!... No wandering
clouds:--over far Pelée only a shadowy piling of nimbi.... Under them
the sea swayed dark as purple ink--a token of tremendous depth.... Still
a dead calm, and no sail in sight.

--"_Ça c'est la Dominique_," said Maximilien,--"_Ennou pou ouivage-à!_"

They had lost their little palettes during the night;--they used their
naked hands, and moved swiftly. But Dominica was many and many a mile
away. Which was the nearer island, it was yet difficult to say;--in the
morning sea-haze, both were vapory,--difference of color was largely due
to position....

_Sough!--sough!--sough!_--A bird with a white breast passed overhead;
and they stopped paddling to look at it,-a gull. Sign of fair
weather!--it was making for Dominica.

--"_Moin ni ben faim_," murmured Maximilien. Neither had eaten since the
morning of the previous day,--most of which they had passed sitting in
their canoe.

--"_Moin ni anni soif_," said Stéphane. And besides his thirst he
complained of a burning pain in his head, always growing worse. He still
coughed, and spat out pink threads after each burst of coughing.

The heightening sun flamed whiter and whiter: the flashing of waters
before his face began to dazzle like a play of lightning.... Now the
islands began to show sharper lines, stronger colors; and Dominica was
evidently the nearer;--for bright streaks of green were breaking at
various angles through its vapor-colored silhouette, and Martinique
still remained all blue.

... Hotter and hotter the sun burned; more and more blinding became his
reverberation. Maximilien's black skin suffered least; but both lads,
accustomed as they were to remaining naked in the sun, found the heat
difficult to bear. They would gladly have plunged into the deep water
to cool themselves, but for fear of sharks;--all they could do was to
moisten their heads, and rinse their mouths with sea-water.

Each from his end of the canoe continually watched the horizon. Neither
hoped for a sail, there was no wind; but they looked for the coming of
steamers,--the _Orinoco_ might pass, or the English packet, or some one
of the small Martinique steamboats might be sent out to find them.

Yet hours went by; and there still appeared no smoke in the ring of the
sky,--never a sign in all the round of the sea, broken only by the two
huge silhouettes.... But Dominica was certainly nearing;--the green
lights were spreading through the luminous blue of her hills.

... Their long immobility in the squatting posture began to tell upon
the endurance of both boys,--producing dull throbbing aches in thighs,
hips, and loins.... Then, about mid-day, Stéphane declared he could not
paddle any more;--it seemed to him as if his head must soon burst open
with the pain which filled it: even the sound of his own voice hurt
him,--he did not want to talk.

VI.

... And another oppression came upon them,--in spite of all the pains,
and the blinding dazzle of waters, and the biting of the sun: the
oppression of drowsiness. They began to doze at intervals,--keeping
their canoe balanced in some automatic way,--as cavalry soldiers,
overweary, ride asleep in the saddle.

But at last, Stéphane, awaking suddenly with a paroxysm of coughing,
so swayed himself to one side as to overturn the canoe; and both found
themselves in the sea. Maximilien righted the craft, and got in again;
but the little chabin twice fell back in trying to raise himself upon
his arms. He had become almost helplessly feeble. Maximilien, attempting
to aid him, again overturned the unsteady little boat; and this time it
required all his skill and his utmost strength to get Stéphane out of
the water. Evidently Stéphane could be of no more assistance;--the boy
was so weak he could not even sit up straight.

--"_Aïe! ou ké jété nou encò_," panted Maximilien,--"_metté ou toutt
longue_."

Stéphane slowly let himself down, so as to lie nearly all his length in
the canoe,--one foot on either side of Maximilien's hips. Then he lay
very still for a long time,--so still that Maximilien became uneasy.

--"_Ou ben malade?_" he asked.... Stéphane did not seem to hear: his
eyes remained closed.

--"Stéphane!" cried Maximilien, in alarm,--"Stéphane!"

--"_C'est lò, papoute_," murmured Stéphane, without lifting his
eyelids,--"_ça c'est lò!--ou pa janmain ouè yon bel pièce conm ça?_"
(It is gold, little father.... Didst thou ever see a pretty piece like
that?... No, thou wilt not beat me, little father?--no, _papoute!_)

--"_Ou ka dòmi, Stéphane?_"--queried Maximilien, wondering,--"art
asleep?"

But Stéphane opened his eyes and looked at him so strangely! Never had
he seen Stéphane look that way before.

--"_C'a ou ni, Stéphane?--what ails thee?--aïe, Bon-Dié, Bon-Dié!_"

--"_Bon-Dié!_"--muttered Stéphane, closing his eyes again at the sound
of the great Name,--"He has no color!--He is like the Wind."...

--"Stéphane!"...

--"He feels in the dark--He has not eyes."...

--"_Stéphane, pa pàlé ça!!_"

--"He tosses the sea.... He has no face;--He lifts up the dead... and
the leaves."...

--"_Ou fou_" cried Maximilien, bursting into a wild fit of
sobbing,--"Stéphane, thou art mad!"

And all at once he became afraid of Stéphane,--afraid of all he
said,--afraid of his touch,--afraid of his eyes... he was growing like a
_zombi!_

But Stéphane's eyes remained closed!--he ceased to speak.

... About them deepened the enormous silence of the sea;--low swung
the sun again. The horizon was yellowing: day had begun to fade. Tall
Dominica was now half green; but there yet appeared no smoke, no sail,
no sign of life.

And the tints of the two vast Shapes that shattered the rim of the light
shifted as if evanescing,--shifted like tones of West Indian fishes,--of
_pisquette_ and _congre_,--of _caringue_ and _gouôs-zié_ and _balaou_.
Lower sank the sun;--cloud-fleeces of orange pushed up over the edge
of the west;--a thin warm breath caressed the sea,--sent long lilac
shudderings over the flanks of the swells. Then colors changed again:
violet richened to purple;--greens blackened softlY;--grays smouldered
into smoky gold.

And the sun went down.

VII.

And they floated into the fear of the night together. Again the ghostly
fires began to wimple about them: naught else was visible but the
high stars. Black hours passed. From minute to minute Maximilien cried
out:--"_Sucou! sucou!_" Stéphane lay motionless and dumb: his feet,
touching Maximilien's naked hips, felt singularly cold.

... Something knocked suddenly against the bottom of the canoe,--knocked
heavily--making a hollow loud sound. It was not Stéphane;--Stéphane
lay still as a stone: it was from the depth below. Perhaps a great fish
passing.

It came again,--twice,--shaking the canoe like a great blow. Then
Stéphane suddenly moved,--drew up his feet a little,--made as if to
speak:--"_Ou..._"; but the speech failed at his lips,--ending in a sound
like the moan of one trying to call out in sleep;--and Maximilien's
heart almost stopped beating.... Then Stéphane's limbs straightened
again; he made no more movement;--Maximilien could not even hear him
breathe.... All the sea had begun to whisper.

A breeze was rising;--Maximilien felt it blowing upon him. All at once
it seemed to him that he had ceased to be afraid,--that he did not care
what might happen. He thought about a cricket he had one day watched in
the harbor,--drifting out with the tide, on an atom of dead bark.--and
he wondered what had become of it Then he understood that he himself was
the cricket,--still alive. But some boy had found him and pulled off
his legs. There they were,--his own legs, pressing against him: he could
still feel the aching where they had been pulled off; and they had been
dead so long they were now quite cold.... It was certainly Stéphane who
had pulled them off....

The water was talking to him. It was saying the same thing over and over
again,--louder each time, as if it thought he could not hear. But he
heard it very well:--"_Bon-Dié, li conm vent... li ka touché nou... nou
pa save ouè li_." (But why had the Bon-Dié shaken the wind?) "_Li pa ka
tini zié_," answered the water.... _Ouille!_--He might all the same care
not to upset folks in the sea!... _Mi!_...

But even as he thought these things, Maximilien became aware that
a white, strange, bearded face was looking at him: the Bon-Dié was
there,--bending over him with a lantern,--talking to him in a language
he did not understand. And the Bon-Dié certainly had eyes,--great gray
eyes that did not look wicked at all. He tried to tell the Bon-Dié how
sorry he was for what he had been saying about him;--but found he could
not utter a word, He felt great hands lift him up to the stars, and lay
him down very near them,--just under them. They burned blue-white, and
hurt his eyes like lightning:--he felt afraid of them.... About him he
heard voices,--always speaking the same language, which he could not
understand.... "_Poor little devils!--poor little devils!_" Then he
heard a bell ring; and the Bon-Dié made him swallow something nice and
warm;--and everything became black again. The stars went out!...

... Maximilien was lying under an electric-light on board the great
steamer _Rio de Janeiro_, and dead Stéphane beside him.... It was four
o'clock in the morning.

CHAPTER IX. LA FILLE DE COULEUR.

I.

Nothing else in the picturesque life of the French colonies of the
Occident impresses the traveller on his first arrival more than the
costumes of the women of color. They surprise the aesthetic sense
agreeably;--they are local and special: you will see nothing resembling
them among the populations of the British West Indies; they belong to
Martinique, Guadeloupe, Désirade, Marie-Galante, and Cayenne,--in
each place differing sufficiently to make the difference interesting,
especially in regard to the head-dress. That of Martinique is quite
Oriental;--more attractive, although less fantastic than the Cayenne
coiffure, or the pretty drooping mouchoir of Guadeloupe.

These costumes are gradually disappearing, for various reasons,--the
chief reason being of course the changes in the social condition of the
colonies during the last forty years. Probably the question of health
had also something to do with the almost universal abandonment in
Martinique of the primitive slave dress,--_chemise_ and _jupe_,--which
exposed its wearer to serious risks of pneumonia; for as far as
economical reasons are concerned, there was no fault to find with it:
six francs could purchase it when money was worth more than it is now.
The douillette, a long trailing dress, one piece from neck to feet, has
taken its place. [35]

[Illustration: THE MARTINIQUE TURBAN, OR MADRAS CALENDE.]

But there was a luxurious variety of the jupe costume which is
disappearing because of its cost; there is no money in the colonies now
for such display:--I refer to the celebrated attire of the pet
slaves and _belles affranchies_ of the old colonial days. A full
costume,--including violet or crimson "petticoat" of silk or
satin; chemise with half-sleeves, and much embroidery and lace;
"trembling-pins" of gold (_zépingue tremblant_) to attach the folds of
the brilliant Madras turban; the great necklace of three or four strings
of gold beads bigger than peas (_collier-choux_); the ear-rings, immense
but light as egg-shells (_zanneaux-à-clous_ or _zanneaux-chenilles_);
the bracelets (_portes-bonheur_); the studs (_boutons-à-clous_); the
brooches, not only for the turban, but for the chemise, below the
folds of the showy silken foulard or shoulder-scarf,--would sometimes
represent over five thousand francs expenditure. This gorgeous attire is
becoming less visible every year: it is now rarely worn except on very
solemn occasions,--weddings, baptisms, first communions, confirmations.
The _da_ (nurse) or "porteuse-de-baptême" who bears the baby to church
holds it at the baptismal font, and afterwards carries it from house to
house in order that all the friends of the family may kiss it, is thus
attired; but nowadays, unless she be a professional (for there are
professional _das_, hired only for such occasions), she usually borrows
the jewellery. If tall, young, graceful, with a rich gold tone of skin,
the effect of her costume is dazzling as that of a Byzantine Virgin.
I saw one young da who, thus garbed, scarcely seemed of the earth and
earthly;--there was an Oriental something in her appearance difficult to
describe,--something that made you think of the Queen of Sheba going to
visit Solomon. She had brought a merchant's baby, just christened, to
receive the caresses of the family at whose house I was visiting; and
when it came to my turn to kiss it, I confess I could not notice the
child: I saw only the beautiful dark face, coiffed with orange and
purple, bending over it, in an illumination of antique gold.... What
a da!... She represented really the type of that _belle affranchie_ of
other days, against whose fascination special sumptuary laws were
made; romantically she imaged for me the supernatural god-mothers and
Cinderellas of the creole fairy-tales. For these become transformed
in the West Indian folklore,--adapted to the environment, and to local
idealism:--Cinderella, for example, is changed to a beautiful metisse,
wearing a quadruple _collier-choux_, _zépingues tremblants_, and all the
ornaments of a da. [36] Recalling the impression of that dazzling
_da_, I can even now feel the picturesque justice of the fabulist's
description of Cinderella's creole costume: _Ça té ka baille ou mal
zie!_--(it would have given you a pain in your eyes to look at her!)

[Illustration: THE GUADELOUPE HEAD-DRESS.]

... Even the every-day Martinique costume is slowly changing. Year by
year the "calendeuses"--the women who paint and fold the turbans--have
less work to do;--the colors of the _douiellette_ are becoming less
vivid;--while more and more young colored girls are being _élevées en
chapeau_ ("brought up in a hat")--i.e., dressed and educated like the
daughters of the whites. These, it must be confessed, look far less
attractive in the latest Paris fashion, unless white as the whites
themselves: on the other hand, few white girls could look well in
_douillette_ and _mouchoir_,--not merely because of color contrast, but
because they have not that amplitude of limb and particular cambering
of the torso peculiar to the half-breed race, with its large bulk and
stature. Attractive as certain coolie women are, I observed that all
who have adopted the Martinique costume look badly in it: they are too
slender of body to wear it to advantage.

Slavery introduced these costumes, even though it probably did not
invent them; and they were necessarily doomed to pass away with the
peculiar social conditions to which they belonged. If the population
clings still to its _douillettes_, _mouchoirs_, and _foulards_, the fact
is largely due to the cheapness of such attire. A girl can dress very
showily indeed for about twenty francs--shoes excepted;--and thousands
never wear shoes. But the fashion will no doubt have become cheaper and
uglier within another decade.

At the present time, however, the stranger might be sufficiently
impressed by the oddity and brilliancy of these dresses to ask about
their origin,--in which case it is not likely that he will obtain any
satisfactory answer. After long research I found myself obliged to
give up all hope of being able to outline the history of Martinique
costume,--partly because books and histories are scanty or defective,
and partly because such an undertaking would require a knowledge
possible only to a specialist. I found good reason, nevertheless, to
suppose that these costumes were in the beginning adopted from certain
fashions of provincial France,--that the respective fashions of
Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Cayenne were patterned after modes
still worn in parts of the mother-country. The old-time garb of the
_affranchie_--that still worn by the _da_--somewhat recalls dresses worn
by the women of Southern France, more particularly about Montpellier.
Perhaps a specialist might also trace back the evolution of the various
creole coiffures to old forms of head-dresses which still survive among
the French country-fashions of the south and south-west provinces;--but
local taste has so much modified the original style as to leave
it unrecognizable to those who have never studied the subject. The
Martinique fashion of folding and tying the Madras, and of calendering
it, are probably local; and I am assured that the designs of the curious
semi-barbaric jewellery were all invented in the colony, where the
_collier-choux_ is still manufactured by local goldsmiths. Purchasers
buy one, two, or three _grains_, or beads, at a time, and string them
only on obtaining the requisite number.... This is the sum of all that I
was able to learn on the matter; but in the course of searching various
West Indian authors and historians for information, I found something
far more important than the origin of the _douillette_ or the
_collier-choux_: the facts of that strange struggle between nature and
interest, between love and law, between prejudice and passion, which
forms the evolutional history of the mixed race.

II.

Considering only the French peasant colonist and the West African slave
as the original factors of that physical evolution visible in the modern
_fille-de-couleur_, it would seem incredible;--for the intercrossing
alone could not adequately explain all the physical results. To
understand them fully, it will be necessary to bear in mind that both
of the original races became modified in their lineage to a surprising
degree by conditions of climate and environment.

[Illustration: YOUNG MULATTRESS.]

[Illustration: PLANTATION COOLIE WOMAN IN MARTINIQUE COSTUME.]

The precise time of the first introduction of slaves into Martinique is
not now possible to ascertain,--no record exists on the subject; but it
is probable that the establishment of slavery was coincident with the
settlement of the island. Most likely the first hundred colonists from
St. Christophe, who landed, in 1635, near the bay whereon the city of
St. Pierre is now situated, either brought slaves with them, or else
were furnished with negroes very soon after their arrival. In the time
of Père Dutertre (who visited the colonies in 1640, and printed his
history of the French Antilles at Paris in 1667) slavery was already a
flourishing institution,--the foundation of the whole social structure.
According to the Dominican missionary, the Africans then in the
colony were decidedly repulsive; he describes the women as "hideous"
(_hideuses_). There is no good reason to charge Dutertre with prejudice
in his pictures of them. No writer of the century was more keenly
sensitive to natural beauty than the author of that "Voyage aux
Antilles" which inspired Chateaubriand, and which still, after two
hundred and fifty years, delights even those perfectly familiar with the
nature of the places and things spoken of. No other writer and traveller
of the period possessed to a more marked degree that sense of generous
pity which makes the unfortunate appear to us in an illusive, almost
ideal aspect. Nevertheless, he asserts that the negresses were, as a
general rule, revoltingly ugly,--and, although he had seen many strange
sides of human nature (having been a soldier before becoming a monk),
was astonished to find that miscegenation had already begun. Doubtless
the first black women thus favored, or afflicted, as the case might
be, were of the finer types of negresses; for he notes remarkable
differences among the slaves procured from different coasts and various
tribes. Still, these were rather differences of ugliness than aught
else: they were all repulsive;--only some were more repulsive than
others. [37] Granting that the first mothers of mulattoes in the colony
were the superior rather than the inferior physical types,--which would
be a perfectly natural supposition,--still we find their offspring
worthy in his eyes of no higher sentiment than pity. He writes in his
chapter entitled "_De la naissance honteuse des mulastres_":

--"They have something of their Father and something of their
Mother,--in the same wise that Mules partake of the qualities of the
creatures that engendered them: for they are neither all white, like the
French; nor all black, like the Negroes, but have a livid tint, which
comes of both."...

To-day, however, the traveller would look in vain for a _livid_
tint among the descendants of those thus described: in less than two
centuries and a half the physical characteristics of the race have
been totally changed. What most surprises is the rapidity of the
transformation. After the time of Père Labat, Europeans never could
"have mistaken little negro children for monkeys." Nature had begun to
remodel the white, the black, and half-breed according to environment
and climate: the descendant of the early colonists ceased to resemble
his fathers; the creole negro improved upon his progenitors; [38] the
mulatto began to give evidence of those qualities of physical and mental
power which were afterwards to render him dangerous to the integrity of
the colony itself. In a temperate climate such a change would have been
so gradual as to escape observation for a long period;--in the tropics
it was effected with a quickness that astounds by its revelation of the
natural forces at work.

[Illustration: COOLIE HALF-BREED]

--"Under the sun of the tropics," writes Dr. Rufz, of Martinique, "the
African race, as well as the European, becomes greatly modified in its
reproduction. Either race gives birth to a totally new being. The Creole
African came into existence as did the Creole white."

And just as the offspring of Europeans who emigrated to the tropics from
different parts of France displayed characteristics so identical that
it was impossible to divine the original race-source,--so likewise the
Creole negro--whether brought into being by the heavy thick-set Congo,
or the long slender black of Senegambia, or the suppler and more active
Mandingo,--appeared so remodelled, homogeneous, and adapted in such
wise to his environment that it was utterly impossible to discern in his
features anything of his parentage, his original kindred, his original
source.... The transformation is absolute. All that In be asserted
is: "This is a white Creole; this is a black Creole";--or, "This is a
European white; this is an African black";--and furthermore, after
a certain number of years passed in the tropics, the enervated and
discolored aspect of the European may create uncertainty, as to his
origin. But with very few exceptions the primitive African, or, as he is
termed here, the "Coast Black" (_le noir de la Cote_), can be recognized
at once....

[Illustration: COUNTRY-GIRL--PURE NEGRO RACE.]

... "The Creole negro is gracefully shaped, finely proportioned: his
limbs are lithe, his neck long;--his features are more delicate, his
lips less thick, his nose less flattened, than those of the African;--he
has the Carib's large and melancholy eye, better adapted to express
the emotions.... Rarely can you discover in him the sombre fury of the
African, rarely a surly and savage mien: he is brave, chatty, boastful.
His skin has not the same tint as his father's,--it has become more
satiny; his hair remains woolly, but it is a finer wool;... all his
outlines are more rounded;--one may perceive that the cellular tissue
predominates, as in cultivated plants, of which the ligneous and savage
fibre has become transformed."... [39]

This new and comelier black race naturally won from its masters a
more sympathetic attention than could have been vouchsafed to its
progenitors; and the consequences in Martinique and elsewhere seemed to
have evoked the curinus Article 9 of the _Code Noir_ of 1665,--enacting,
first, that free men who should have one or two children by slave
women, as well as the slave-owners permitting the same, should be each
condemned to pay two thousand pounds of sugar; secondly, that if the
violator of the ordinance should be himself the owner of the mother
and father of her children, the mother and the children should be
confiscated for the profit of the Hospital, and deprived for their lives
of the right to enfranchisement. An exception, however, was made to
the effect that if the father were unmarried at the period of his
concubinage, he could escape the provisions of the penalty by marrying,
"according to the rites of the Church," the female slave, who
would thereby be enfranchised, and her children "rendered free and
legitimate." Probably the legislators did not imagine that the first
portion of the article could prove inefficacious, or that any violator
of the ordinance would seek to escape the penalty by those means offered
in the provision. The facts, however, proved the reverse. Miscegenation
continued; and Labat notices two cases of marriage between whites and
blacks,--describing the offspring of one union as "very handsome little
mulattoes." These legitimate unions were certainly exceptional,--one
of them was dissolved by the ridicule cast upon the father;--but
illegitimate unions would seem to have become common within a very brief
time after the passage of the law. At a later day they were to become
customary. The Article 9 was evidently at fault; and in March, 1724,
the Black Code was reinforced by a new ordinance, of which the sixth
provision prohibited marriage as well as concubinage between the races.

It appears to have had no more effect than the previous law, even in
Martinique, where the state of public morals was better than in Santo
Domingo. The slave race had begun to exercise an influence never
anticipated by legislators. Scarcely a century had elapsed since the
colonization of the island; but in that time climate and civilization
had transfigured the black woman. "After one or two generations," writes
the historian Rufz, "the _Africaine_, reformed, refined, beautified in
her descendants, transformed into the creole negress, commenced to exert
a fascination irresistible, capable of winning anything (_capable
de tout obtenir_)." [40] Travellers of the eighteenth century were
confounded by the luxury of dress and of jewellery displayed by swarthy
beauties in St. Pierre. It was a public scandal to European eyes. But
the creole negress or mulattress, beginning to understand her power,
sought for higher favors and privileges than silken robes and necklaces
of gold beads: she sought to obtain, not merely liberty for herself, but
for her parents, brothers, sisters,--even friends. What successes she
achieved in this regard may be imagined from the serious statement of
creole historians that if human nature had been left untrammelled to
follow its better impulses, slavery would have ceased to exist a century
before the actual period of emancipation! By 1738, when the white
population had reached its maximum (15,000), [41] and colonial
luxury had arrived at its greatest height, the question of voluntary
enfranchisement was becoming very grave. So omnipotent the charm of
half-breed beauty that masters were becoming the slaves of their slaves.
It was not only the creole _negress_ who had appeared to play a part
in this strange drama which was the triumph of nature over interest and
judgment: her daughters, far more beautiful, had grown up to aid her,
and to form a special class. These women, whose tints of skin rivalled
the colors of ripe fruit, and whose gracefulness--peculiar, exotic,
and irresistible--made them formidable rivals to the daughters of
the dominant race, were no doubt physically superior to the modern
_filles-de-couleur_. They were results of a natural selection which
could have taken place in no community otherwise constituted;--the
offspring of the union between the finer types of both races. But that
which only slavery could have rendered possible began to endanger the
integrity of slavery itself: the institutions upon which the whole
social structure rested were being steadily sapped by the influence
of half-breed girls. Some new, severe, extreme policy was evidently
necessary to avert the already visible peril. Special laws were passed
by the Home-Government to check enfranchisement, to limit its reasons
or motives; and the power of the slave woman was so well comprehended
by the Métropole that an extraordinary enactment was made against it.
It was decreed that whosoever should free a woman of color would have to
pay to the Government _three times her value as a slave!_

Thus heavily weighted, emancipation advanced much more slowly than
before, but it still continued to a considerable extent. The poorer
creole planter or merchant might find it impossible to obey the impulse
of his conscience or of his affection, but among the richer classes
pecuniary considerations could scarcely affect enfranchisement. The
country had grown wealthy; and although the acquisition of wealth may
not evoke generosity in particular natures, the enrichment of a whole
class develops pre-existing tendencies to kindness, and opens new ways
for its exercise. Later in the eighteenth century, when hospitality had
been cultivated as a gentleman's duty to fantastical extremes,--when
liberality was the rule throughout society,--when a notary summoned
to draw up a deed, or a priest invited to celebrate a marriage, might
receive for fee five thousand francs in gold,--there were certainly
many emancipations.... "Even though interest and public opinion in the
colonies," says a historian, [42] "were adverse to enfranchisement, the
private feeling of each man combated that opinion;--Nature resumed her
sway in the secret places of hearts;--and as local custom permitted a
sort of polygamy, the rich man naturally felt himself bound in honor to
secure the freedom of his own blood.... It was not a rare thing to
see legitimate wives taking care of the natural children of their
husbands,--becoming their godmothers (_s'en faire les marraines_)."...
Nature seemed to laugh all these laws to scorn, and the prejudices
of race! In vain did the wisdom of legislators attempt to render
the condition of the enfranchised more humble,--enacting extravagant
penalties for the blow by which a mulatto might avenge the insult of
a white,--prohibiting the freed from wearing the same dress as their
former masters or mistresses wore;--"the _belles affranchies_ found,
in a costume whereof the negligence seemed a very inspiration of
voluptuousness, means of evading that social inferiority which the law
sought to impose upon them:--they began to inspire the most violent
jealousies." [43]

III.

What the legislators of 1685 and 1724 endeavored to correct did not
greatly improve with the abolition of slavery, nor yet with those
political troubles which socially deranged colonial life. The
_fille-de-couleur_, inheriting the charm of the belle _affranchie_,
continued to exert a similar influence, and to fulfil an almost
similar destiny. The latitude of morals persisted,--though with less
ostentation: it has latterly contracted under the pressure of necessity
rather than through any other influences. Certain ethical principles
thought essential to social integrity elsewhere have always been largely
relaxed in the tropics; and--excepting, perhaps, Santo Domingo--the
moral standard in Martinique was not higher than in the other French
coloniei. Outward decorum might be to some degree maintained; but
there was no great restraint of any sort upon private lives: it was
not uncommon for a rich man to have many "natural" families; and
almost every individual of means had children of color. The superficial
character of race prejudices was everywhere manifested by unions,
which although never mentioned in polite converse, were none the less
universally known; and the "irresistible fascination" of the half-breed
gave the open lie to pretended hate. Nature, in the guise of the _belle
affranchie_, had mocked at slave codes;--in the _fille-de-couleur_ she
still laughed at race pretensions, and ridiculed the fable of physical
degradation. To-day, the situation has not greatly changed; and with
such examples on the part of the cultivated race, what could be expected
from the other? Marriages are rare;--it has been officially stated that
the illegitimate births are sixty per cent; but seventy-five to eighty
per cent would probably be nearer the truth. It is very common to see
in the local papers such announcements as: _Enfants légitimes_, 1 (one
birth announced); _enfants naturels_, 25.

In speaking of the _fille-de-couleur_ it is necessary also to speak of
the extraordinary social stratification of the community to which
she belongs. The official statement of 20,000 "colored" to the total
population of between 173,000 and 174,000 (in which the number of pure
whites is said to have fallen as low as 5,000) does not at all indicate
the real proportion of mixed blood. Only a small element of unmixed
African descent really exists; yet when a white creole speaks of the
_gens-de-couleur_ he certainly means nothing darker than a mulatto skin.
Race classifications have been locally made by sentiments of political
origin: at least four or five shades of visible color are classed as
negro. There is, however, some natural truth at the bottom of this
classification: where African blood predominates, the sympathies are
likely to be African; and the turning-point is reached only in the true
mulatto, where, allowing the proportions of mixed blood to be nearly
equal, the white would have the dominant influence in situations
more natural than existing politics. And in speaking of the
_filles-de-couleur_, the local reference is always to women in whom the
predominant element is white: a white creole, as a general rule, deigns
only thus to distinguish those who are nearly white,--more usually he
refers to the whole class as mulattresses. Those women whom wealth and
education have placed in a social position parallel with that of
the daughters of creole whites are in some cases allowed to pass for
white,--or at the very worst, are only referred to in a whisper as being
_de couleur_. (Needless to say, these are totally beyond the range of
the present considerations: there is nothing to be further said of them
except that they can be classed with the most attractive and refined
women of the entire tropical world.) As there is an almost infinite
gradation from the true black up to the brightest _sang-mêlé_, it is
impossible to establish any color-classification recognizable by the
eye alone; and whatever lines of demarcation can be drawn between castes
must be social rather than ethnical. In this sense we may accept the
local Creole definition of _fille-de-couleur_ as signifying, not so much
a daughter of the race of visible color, as the half-breed girl destined
from her birth to a career like that of the _belle affranchie_ of
the old regime;--for the moral cruelties of slavery have survived
emancipation.

Physically, the typical _fille-de-couleur_ may certainly be classed,
as white creole writers have not hesitated to class her, with the "most
beautiful women of the human race." [44] She has inherited not only the
finer bodily characteristics of either parent race, but a something else
belonging originally to neither, and created by special climatic and
physical conditions,--a grace, a suppleness of form, a delicacy of
extremities (so that all the lines described by the bending of limbs or
fingers are parts of clean curves), a satiny smoothness and fruit-tint
of skin,--solely West Indian.... Morally, of course, it is much more
difficult to describe her; and whatever may safely be said refers rather
to the fille-de-couleur of the past than of the present half-century.
The race is now in a period of transition: public education and
political changes are modifying the type, and it is impossible to guess
the ultimate consequence, because it is impossible to safely predict
what new influences may yet be brought to affect its social development.
Befare the present era of colonial decadence, the character of the
fille-de-couleur was not what it is now. Even when totally uneducated,
she had a peculiar charm,--that charm of childishness which has power to
win sympathy from the rudest natures. One could not but feel attracted
towards this naïf being, docile as an infant, and as easily pleased or
as easily pained,--artless in her goodnesses as in her faults, to all
outward appearance;--willing to give her youth, her beauty, her caresses
to some one in exchange for the promise to love her,--perhaps also to
care for a mother, or a younger brother. Her astonishing capacity for
being delighted with trifles, her pretty vanities and pretty follies,
her sudden veerings of mood from laughter to tears,--like the sudden
rainbursts and sunbursts of her own passionate climate: these touched,
drew, won, and tyrannized. Yet such easily created joys and pains did
not really indicate any deep reserve of feeling: rather a superficial
sensitiveness only,--like the _zhèbe-m'amisé_, or _zhèbe-manmzelle_,
whose leaves close at the touch of a hair. Such human manifestations,
nevertheless, are apt to attract more in proportion as they are more
visible,--in proportion as the soul-current, being less profound, flows
more audibly. But no hasty observation could have revealed the whole
character of the fille-de-couleur to the stranger, equally charmed and
surprised: the creole comprehended her better, and probably treated
her with even more real kindness. The truth was that centuries of
deprivation of natural rights and hopes had given to her race--itself
fathered by passion unrestrained and mothered by subjection
unlimited--an inherent scepticism in the duration of love, and a
marvellous capacity for accepting the destiny of abandonment as one
accepts the natural and the inevitable. And that desire to please--which
in the fille-de-couleur seemed to prevail above all other motives of
action (maternal affection excepted)--could have appeared absolutely
natural only to those who never reflected that even sentiment had been
artificially cultivated by slavery.

She asked for so little,--accepted a gift with such childish
pleasure,--submitted so unresistingly to the will of the man
who promised to love her. She bore him children--such beautiful
children!--whom he rarely acknowledged, and was never asked
to legitimatize;--and she did not ask perpetual affection
notwithstanding,--regarded the relation as a necessarily temporary
one, to be sooner or later dissolved by the marriage of her children's
father. If deceived in all things,--if absolutely ill-treated and left
destitute, she did not lose faith in human nature: she seemed a born
optimist, believing most men good;--she would make a home for another
and serve him better than any slave.... "_Née de l'amour_," says
a creole writer, "_la fille-de-couleur vit d'amour, de rires, et
d'oublis_."... [45]

[Illustration: CAPRESSE.]

Then came the general colonial crash!... You cannot see its results
without feeling touched by them. Everywhere the weird beauty, the
immense melancholy of tropic ruin. Magnificent terraces, once
golden with cane, now abandoned to weeds and serpents;--deserted
plantation-homes, with trees rooted in the apartments and pushing
up through the place of the roofs;--grass-grown alleys ravined by
rains;--fruit-trees strangled by lianas;--here and there the stem of
some splendid palmiste, brutally decapitated, naked as a mast;--petty
frail growths of banana-trees or of bamboo slowly taking the place of
century-old forest giants destroyed to make charcoal. But beauty enough
remains to tell what the sensual paradise of the old days must have
been, when sugar was selling at 52.

And the fille-de-couleur has also changed. She is much less humble and
submissive,--somewhat more exacting: she comprehends better the moral
injustice of her position. The almost extreme physical refinement and
delicacy, bequeathed to her by the freedwomen of the old regime, are
passing away: like a conservatory plant deprived of its shelter, she is
returning to a more primitive condition,--hardening and growing perhaps
less comely as well as less helpless. She perceives also in a vague way
the peril of her race: the creole white, her lover and protector, is
emigrating;--the domination of the black becomes more and more probable.
Furthermore, with the continual increase of the difficulty of living,
and the growing pressure of population, social cruelties and hatreds
have been developed such as her ancestors never knew. She is still
loved; but it is alleged that she rarely loves the white, no matter how
large the sacrifices made for her sake, and she no longer enjoys that
reputation of fidelity accorded to her class in other years. Probably
the truth is that the fille-de-couleur never had at any time capacity
to bestow that quality of affection imagined or exacted as a right.
Her moral side is still half savage: her feelings are still those of a
child. If she does not love the white man according to his unreasonable
desire, it is certain at least that she loves him as well as he
deserves. Her alleged demoralization is more apparent than real;--she is
changing from an artificial to a very natural being, and revealing more
and more in her sufferings the true character of the luxurious social
condition that brought her into existence. As a general rule, even while
questioning her fidelity, the creole freely confesses her kindness of
heart, and grants her capable of extreme generosity and devotedness
to strangers or to children whom she has an opportunity to care for.
Indeed, her natural kindness is so strikingly in contrast with the
harder and subtler character of the men of color that one might almost
feel tempted to doubt if she belong to the same race. Said a
creole once, in my hearing:--"The gens-de-couleur are just like the
_tourtouroux_: [46] one must pick out the females and leave the males
alone." Although perhaps capable of a double meaning, his words were not
lightly uttered;--he referred to the curious but indubitable fact that
the character of the colored woman appears in many respects far superior
to that of the colored man. In order to understand this, one must bear
in mind the difference in the colonial history of both sexes; and a
citation from General Romanet, [47] who visited Martinique at the end of
the last century, offers a clue to the mystery. Speaking of the tax upon
enfranchisement, he writes:--

--"The governor appointed by the sovereign delivers the certificates of
liberty,--on payment by the master of a sum usually equivalent to the
value of the subject. Public interest frequently justifies him in making
the price of the slave proportionate to the desire or the interest
manifested by the master. It can be readily understood that the tax upon
the liberty of the women ought to be higher than that of the men: the
latter unfortunates having no greater advantage than that of being
useful;--the former know how to please: they have those rights and
privileges which the whole world allows to their sex; they know how to
make even the fetters of slavery serve them for adornments. They may
be seen placing upon their proud tyrants the same chains worn by
themselves, and making them kiss the marks left thereby: the master
becomes the slave, and purchases another's liberty only to lose his
own."

Long before the time of General Romanet, the colored male slave might
win liberty as the guerdon of bravery in fighting against foreign
invasion, or might purchase it by extraordinary economy, while working
as a mechanic on extra time for his own account (he always refused to
labor with negroes); but in either case his success depended upon the
possession and exercise of qualities the reverse of amiable. On the
other hand, the bondwoman won manumission chiefly through her power to
excite affection. In the survival and perpetuation of the fittest of
both sexes these widely different characteristics would obtain more and
more definition with successive generations.

I find in the "Bulletin des Actes Administratifs de la Martinique"
for 1831 (No. 41) a list of slaves to whom liberty was accorded _pour
services rendus à leurs maîtres_. Out of the sixty-nine enfranchisements
recorded under this head, there are only two names of male adults to
be found,--one an old man of sixty;--the other, called Laurencin, the
betrayer of a conspiracy. The rest are young girls, or young mothers and
children;--plenty of those singular and pretty names in vogue among
the creole population,--Acélie, Avrillette, Mélie, Robertine, Célianne,
Francillette, Adée, Catharinette, Sidollie, Céline, Coraline;--and the
ages given are from sixteen to twenty-one, with few exceptions. Yet
these liberties were asked for and granted at a time when Louis Philippe
had abolished the tax on manumissions.... The same "Bulletin" contains a
list of liberties granted to colored men, _pour service accompli dans la
milice_, only!

Most of the French West Indian writers whose works I was able to obtain
and examine speak severely of the _hommes-de-couleur_ as a class,--in
some instances the historian writes with a very violence of hatred. As
far back as the commencement of the eighteenth century, Labat, who,
with all his personal oddities, was undoubtedly a fine judge of men,
declared:--"The mulattoes are as a general rule well made, of good
stature, vigorous, strong, adroit, industrious, and daring (_hardis_)
beyond all conception. They have much vivacity, but are given to their
pleasures, fickle, proud, deceitful (_cachés_), wicked, and capable of
the greatest crimes." A San Domingo historian, far more prejudiced
than Père Labat, speaks of them "as physically superior, though morally
inferior to the whites": he wrote at a time when the race had given to
the world the two best swordsmen it has yet perhaps seen,--Saint-Georges
and Jean-Louis.

Commenting on the judgment of Père Labat, the historian Borde
observes:--"The wickedness spoken of by Père Labat doubtless relates to
their political passions only; for the women of color are, beyond any
question, the best and sweetest persons in the world--_à coup sûr,
les meilleures et les plus douces personnes qu'il y ait au
monde_."--("Histoire de l'Ile de la Trinidad," par M. Pierre Gustave
Louis Borde, vol. i., p. 222.) The same author, speaking of their
goodness of heart, generosity to strangers and the sick says "they are
born Sisters of Charity";--and he is not the only historian who has
expressed such admiration of their moral qualities. What I myself saw
during the epidemic of 1887-88 at Martinique convinced me that these
eulogies of the women of color are not extravagant. On the other hand,
the existing creole opinion of the men of color is much less favorable
than even that expressed by Père Labat. Political events and passions
have, perhaps, rendered a just estimate of their qualities difficult.
The history of the _hommes-de-couleur_ in all the French colonies has
been the same;--distrusted by the whites, who feared their aspirations
to social equality, distrusted even more by the blacks (who still
hate them secretly, although ruled by them), the mulattoes became an
Ishmaelitish clan, inimical to both races, and dreaded of both. In
Martinique it was attempted, with some success, to manage them by
according freedom to all who would serve in the militia for a certain
period with credit. At no time was it found possible to compel them
to work with blacks; and they formed the whole class of skilled city
workmen and mechanics for a century prior to emancipation.

... To-day it cannot be truly said of the _fille-de-couleur_ that her
existence is made up of "love, laughter, and forgettings." She has aims
in life,--the bettering of her condition, the higher education of her
children, whom she hopes to free from the curse of prejudice. She still
clings to the white, because through him she may hope to improve her
position. Under other conditions she might even hope to effect some sort
of reconciliation between the races. But the gulf has become so much
widened within the last forty years, that no rapprochement now appears
possible; and it is perhaps too late even to restore the lost prosperity
of the colony by any legislative or commercial reforms. The universal
creole belief is summed up in the daily-repeated cry: "_C'est un
pays perdu!_" Yearly the number of failures increase; and more whites
emigrate;--and with every bankruptcy or departure some fille-de-couleur
is left almost destitute, to begin life over again. Many a one has been
rich and poor several times in succession;--one day her property is
seized for debt;--perhaps on the morrow she finds some one able and
willing to give her a home again,... Whatever comes, she does not die
for grief, this daughter of the sun: she pours out her pain in song,
like a bird, Here is one of her little improvisations,--a song very
popular in both Martinique and Guadeloupe, though originally composed in
the latter colony:--

     --"Good-bye Madras!
     Good-bye foulard!
     Good-bye pretty calicoes!
     Good-bye collier-choux!
     That ship
     Which is there on the buoy,
     It is taking
     My doudoux away.

     --"Adiéu Madras!
     Adiéu foulard!
     Adiéu dézinde!
     Adiéu collier-choux!
     Batiment-là
     Qui sou labouè-là,
     Li ka mennein
     Doudoux-à-moin allé.

     --"Very good-day,--
     Monsieur the Consignee.
     I come
     To make one little petition.
     My doudoux
     Is going away.
     Alas! I pray you
     Delay his going"

     --"Bien le-bonjou',
     Missié le Consignataire.
     Moin ka vini
     Fai yon ti pétition;
     Doudoux-à-moin
     Y ka pati,--T'enprie, hélas!
     Rétàdé li."

[He answers kindly in French: the _békés_ are always kind to these
gentle children.]

     --"My dear child,
     It is too late.
     The bills of lading
     Are already signed;
     The ship
     Is already on the buoy.
     In an hour from now
     They will be getting her under way."

     --"Ma chère enfant
     Il est trop tard,
     Les connaissements
     Sont déjà signés,
     Est déjà sur la bouée;
     Dans une heure d'ici,
     Ils vont appareiller."

     --"When the foulards came....
     I always had some;
     When the Madras-kerchiefs came,
     I always had some;
     When the printed calicoes came,
     I always had some.
     ... That second officer--Is such a kind man!

     --"Foulard rivé,
     Moin té toujou tini;
     Madras rivé,
     Moin té toujou tini;
     Dézindes rivé,
     Moin té toujou tini.--Capitaine sougonde
     C'est yon bon gàçon!

     "Everybody has"
     Somebody to love;
     Everybody has
     Somebody to pet;
     Every body has
     A sweetheart of her own.
     I am the only one
     Who cannot have that,--I!"

     "Toutt moune tini
     Yon moune yo aimé;
     Toutt moune tini
     Yon moune yo chéri;
     Toutt moune tini
     Yon doudoux à yo.
     Jusse moin tou sèle
     Pa tini ça--moin!"

... On the eve of the _Fête Dieu_, or Corpus Christi festival, in all
these Catholic countries, the city streets are hung with banners and
decorated with festoons and with palm branches; and great altars are
erected at various points along the route of the procession, to serve
as resting-places for the Host. These are called _reposoirs_; in creole
patois, "_reposouè Bon-Dié_." Each wealthy man lends something to
help to make them attractive,--rich plate, dainty crystal, bronzes,
paintings, beautiful models of ships or steamers, curiosities from
remote parts of the world.... The procession over, the altar is
stripped, the valuables are returned to their owners: all the splendor
disappears.... And the spectacle of that evanescent magnificence,
repeated year by year, suggested to this proverb-loving people a
similitude for the unstable fortune of the fille-de-couleur:--_Fortune
milatresse c'est reposouè Bon-Dié_. (The luck of the mulattress is the
resting-place of the Good-God).

CHAPTER X. BÊTE-NI-PIÉ.

I.

St. Pierre is in one respect fortunate beyond many tropical cities;--she
has scarcely any mosquitoes, although there are plenty of mosquitoes
in other parts of Martinique, even in the higher mountain villages. The
flood of bright water that pours perpetually through all her streets,
renders her comparatively free from the pest;--nobody sleeps under a
mosquito bar.

Nevertheless, St. Pierre is not exempt from other peculiar plagues of
tropical life; and you cannot be too careful about examining your bed
before venturing to lie down, and your clothing before you dress;--for
various disagreeable things might be hiding in them: a spider large as a
big crab, or a scorpion or a _mabouya_ or a centipede,--or certain large
ants whose bite burns like the pricking of a red-hot needle. No one who
has lived in St. Pierre is likely to forget the ants.... There are three
or four kinds in every house;--the _fourmi fou_ (mad ant), a little
speckled yellowish creature whose movements are so rapid as to delude
the vision; the great black ant which allows itself to be killed before
it lets go what it has bitten; the venomous little red ant, which is
almost too small to see; and the small black ant which does not bite at
all,--are usually omnipresent, and appear to dwell together in
harmony. They are pests in kitchens, cupboards, and safes; but they are
scavengers. It is marvellous to see them carrying away the body of
a great dead roach or centipede,--pulling and pushing together like
trained laborers, and guiding the corpse over obstacles or around them
with extraordinary skill.... There was a time when ants almost destroyed
the colony,--in 1751. The plantations, devastated by them are described
by historians as having looked as if desolated by fire. Underneath the
ground in certain places, layers of their eggs two inches deep were
found extending over acres. Infants left unwatched in the cradle for a
few hours were devoured alive by them. Immense balls of living ants
were washed ashore at the same time on various parts of the coast (a
phenomenon repeated within the memory of creoles now living in the
north-east parishes). The Government vainly offered rewards for the best
means of destroying the insects; but the plague gradually disappeared as
it came.

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:--_ça 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 _bête à-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 _bête-ni-pié_ (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:--"_Quitté moin tchoué ou, maudi!--quitté moin tchoué
ou, scelerat!--quitté moin tchoué ou, Satan!--quitté moin tchoué
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
_bête-à-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 bête-à-mille-pattes was not one which could appeal
to negro imagination. The slaves themselves invented an equally vivid
name, _bête-anni-pié_ (the Beast-which-is-all-feet); _anni_ in creole
signifying "only," and in such a sense "all." Abbreviated by subsequent
usage to _bête-'ni-pié_, 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:--"_Gadé,
Missié! ni bête-ni-pié 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. "_Missié_," she says, "_lézhè pa aïen pou moin: c'est
minitt ka fouté 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', Missié. Coument ou passé lanuitt?_"--"Thanks, my daughter,
I slept well."--"The weather is beautiful: if Missié 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-lélé_. The _baton-lélé_ 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-lélé 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. _Ça qui lè 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
_mangé-Créole_, and I can venture to write something about it after a
year's observation. By _mangé-Créole_ 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 Provençal 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-caraïbes_, 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" (_férocé_); 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 _biè-Fouance_; American canned peas, _ti-pois-Fouance_;
any white foreigner who can talk French is _yon béké-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 passé 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 _matêté_; children are very fond of it. Both of these names,
_cousscaye_ and _matêté_, 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 _màchannes 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-café_, or "coffee-pepper," larger but about the same shape as a
grain of Liberian coffee, violet-red at one end; the _piment-zouèseau_,
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

ZHISTOUÈ PIMENT.

Té ni yon manman qui té ni en pile, en pile yche; et yon jou y pa té ni
aïen pou y té baill yche-là mangé. Y té ka lévé bon matin-là sans yon
sou: y pa sa ça y té douè fai,--là y té ké baill latête. Y allé
lacaïe macoumè-y, raconté lapeine-y. Macoumè baill y toua chopine
farine-manioc. Y allé lacaill liautt macoumè, qui baill y yon grand
trai piment. Macoumè-là di y venne trai-piment-à, épi y té pè acheté
lamori,--pisse y ja té ni farine. Madame-là di: "Mèçi, macoumè;"--y di y
bonjou'; épi y allé lacaïe-y.

Lhè y rivé àcaïe y limé difè: y metté canari épi dleau assous difé-a;
épi y cassé toutt piment-là et metté yo adans canari-à assous diré.

Lhè y oue canari-à ka bouï, y pouend _baton-lélé_, epi y lélé piment-à:
aloss y ka fai yonne calalou-piment. Lhè calalou-piment-là té tchouitt,
y pouend chaque zassiett yche-li; y metté calalou yo fouète dans
zassiett-là; y metté ta-mari fouète, assou, épi ta-y. Épi lhè calalou-là
té bien fouète, y metté farine nans chaque zassiett-là. Épi y crié toutt
moune vini mangé. Toutt moune vini metté yo à-tabe.

Pouèmiè bouchée mari-à pouend, y rété,--y crié: "Aïe! ouaill! mafenm!"
Fenm-là réponne mari y: "Ouaill! monmari!" Cés ti manmaille-la crie:
"Ouaill! manman!" Manman-à. réponne:--"Ouaill! yches-moin!"... Yo toutt
pouend couri, quitté caïe-là sèle,--épi yo toutt tombé larviè à touempé
bouche yo. Cés ti manmaille-là bouè dleau sitellement jusse temps yo
toutt néyé: té ka rété anni manman-là épi papa-là. Yo té là bò lariviè,
qui té ka pleiré. Moin té ka passé à lhè-à;--moin ka mandé yo: "Ça zautt
ni?"

Nhomme-là lévé: y baill moin yon sèle coup d'piè, y voyé moin lautt bo
lariviè-ou ouè moin vini pou conté ça 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, _macoumè_,"--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-lélé_, 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:--"_Aïe!
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 _Gouôs-zie_; the rosy _sade_; the red
_Bon-Dié-manié-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 _couronné_, 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 _bécunne_; and there are many fish which,
although not venomous by nature, have always been considered dangerous.
In the time of Père 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 bécunne 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 _sàdines_;--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.

[Illustration: OLD MARKET-PLACE OF THE FORT, ST. PIERRE.--(REMOVED IN
1888).]

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 _sàdines_ 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 _sàdines_ are roasted over a charcoal fire, and flavored with a
sauce of lemon, pimento, and garlic. When there are no _sàdines_, 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-épi-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,
_léfant_: 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-épi-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:--"_Ça
ou lè 'nco-poule, épi-diri?_" (What more do you want, great
heavens!--chicken-and-rice?) Naughty children are bribed into absolute
goodness by the promise of poule-épi-diri:--

     --"_Aïe! chè, bò doudoux!
     Doudoux ba ou poule-épi-diri;
     Aïe! chè, bò doudoux!_"...

(Aïe, dear! kiss _doudoux!--doudoux_ has rice-and-chicken for
you!--_aïe_, 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-caraïbes_, little
black peas (_poix-zié-nouè_, "black-eyed peas"), or of crawfish
(_akra-cribîche_). 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-caraïbes_,
_patates_, _zignames_, _camanioc_, and _cousscouche_: all immense
roots,--the true potatoes of the tropics. The camanioc is finer than the
choux-caraïbe, 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-caraïbe;
_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-à-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-caraïbe_), 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 tiré ti lapeau-là sans cassé-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 _chadèque_, which grows here to fully three
feet in circumference, and has a sweet pink pulp; and there is the
"forbidden-fruit" (_fouitt-défendu_), a sort of cross between the orange
and the chadèque, 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 ça mênm qui fai moune ka fai yche conm ça atouelement!_ The
fouitt-défendu is wonderful, indeed, in its way; but the fruit which
most surprised me on my first acquaintance with it was the _zabricôt_.

--"_Ou lè yon zabricôt?_" (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:--"_Ça ke fai ou malade mangé toutt ça!_" (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.

[Illustration: BREAD-FRUIT TREE.]

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-pêche_
(or peach-mango);--_mango-vert_ (green mango), very large
and oblong;--_mango-grêffé_;--_mangotine_, quite round
and small;--_mango-quinette_, very small also, almost
egg-shaped;--_mango-Zézé_, 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-Amélie_ (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 _mangé-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-rapé_)
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 ça içi_"--(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: "_ça ké tchoué limiè zié 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 lè tchoué cò-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-Dié 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 gàdé baggaïe Bon-Dié conm ça!_" (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 Pelée;--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
(_sociès_), 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 ké 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:--

--"Dèezhè, toua-zhè-matin: c'est lhè zombi. Yo ka sòti dèzhè, toua zhè:
c'est lhè yo. A quattrhè yo ka rentré;--angelus ka sonné." (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 lè moune ouè 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 quirièse quittée cabane ou pou
gàdé 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 ké coqui zié 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 choïe 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 _engagés_ or _envoyés_--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! macoumè_,' asked the sewing-woman, '_ça ou ni dans
guiôle-ou?_' And the other answered, very angrily, '_Ou ni toupet mandé
moin ça moin ni dans guiôle moin!--et cété ou qui té brilé guiôle moin
nans chandelle-ou hiè-souè_.'" (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 rangé_), or an
_envoyé_?--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!--envoyé 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,
Missié!--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 pilé 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:--

--"_Épi quiless moune ça ou ka pàlé-à?_"

But she would always answer:--"_Moin ka pàlé anni cò 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:--

--"_Missié?_"--timidly.

--"Eh?"

--"_Di moin, chè, ti manmaille dans pays ou, toutt piti, piti,--ess ça
pàlé 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 drôle, ça_" (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 pâlé nègue: ça 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 léfant, forms her
bed. The _léfant_, 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,--_bourré épi
flêches-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 _bête-à-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 camphrée_
(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 Marchè 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:--"_Gagné ti bouquet pou Viège-ou, chè!_... Buy a nosegay,
dear, for your Virgin;--she is asking you for one;--give her a little
one, _chè 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 limé
lampe ou pou fai la-Viège passé dans caïe-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, Missié_," she answered, smiling, "_moin aimein ti Viège
moin, pa lè 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 Missié
want to buy me a _chapelle?_--Missié is a Protestant?"

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

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

--"Tell me what it is, Cyrillia."

She remained silent a moment, then said:--

--"Missié makes photographs...."

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

--"Oh! no, Missié, 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! Missié, 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 pòtrai palé--anh?... pisse yo ka tiré y toutt
samm ou: c'est ou-menm!... Yo douè fai y palé '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 sé causé épi 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-curséd 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 COMBINÉ, CHÈ!"

I.

... More finely than any term in our tongue does the French word
_frisson_ express that faint shiver--as of a ghostly touch thrilling