Two Years in the French West Indies Part 38

But, at night, the Cross of the South appears no more. And other changes come, as day succeeds to day,--a lengthening of the hours of light, a longer lingering of the after-glow,--a cooling of the wind. Each morning the air seems a little cooler, a little rarer;--each noon the sky looks a little paler, a little further away--always heightening, yet also more shadowy, as if its color, receding, were dimmed by distance,--were coming more faintly down from vaster alt.i.tudes.

... Mademoiselle is petted like a child by the lady pa.s.sengers. And every man seems anxious to aid in making her voyage a pleasant one. For much of which, I think, she may thank her eyes!

X.

A dim morning and chill;--blank sky and sunless waters: the sombre heaven of the North with colorless horizon rounding in a blind grey sea.... What a sudden weight comes to the heart with the touch of the cold mist, with the spectral melancholy of the dawn;--and then what foolish though irrepressible yearning for the vanished azure left behind!

... The little monkeys twitter plaintively, trembling in the chilly air.

The parrots have nothing to say: they look benumbed, and sit on their perches with eyes closed.

... A vagueness begins to shape itself along the verge of the sea, far to port: that long heavy clouding which indicates the approach of land.

And from it now floats to us something ghostly and frigid which makes the light filmy and the sea shadowy as a flood of dreams,--the fog of the Jersey coast.

At once the engines slacken their respiration. The _Guadeloupe_ begins to utter her steam-cry of warning,--regularly at intervals of two minutes,--for she is now in the track of all the ocean vessels. And from far away we can hear a heavy knelling,--the booming of some great fog-bell.

... All in a white twilight. The place of the horizon has vanished;--we seem ringed in by a wall of smoke.... Out of this vapory emptiness--very suddenly--an enormous steamer rushes, towering like a hill--pa.s.ses so close that we can see faces, and disappears again, leaving the sea heaving and frothing behind her.

... As I lean over the rail to watch the swirling of the wake, I feel something pulling at my sleeve: a hand,--a tiny black hand,--the hand of a _sakiwinki_. One of the little monkeys, straining to the full length of his string, is making this dumb appeal for human sympathy;--the bird-black eyes of both are fixed upon me with the oddest look of pleading. Poor little tropical exiles! I stoop to caress them; but regret the impulse a moment later: they utter such beseeching cries when I find myself obliged to leave them again alone!...

... Hour after hour the _Guadeloupe_ glides on through the white gloom,--cautiously, as if feeling her way; always sounding her whistle, ringing her bells, until at last some brown-winged bark comes flitting to us out of the mist, bearing a pilot.... How strange it must all seem to Mademoiselle who stands so silent there at the rail!--how weird this veiled world must appear to her, after the sapphire light of her own West Indian sky, and the great lazulite splendor of her own tropic sea!

But a wind comes;--it strengthens,--begins to blow very cold. The mists thin before its blowing; and the wan blank sky is all revealed again with livid horizon around the heaving of the iron-grey sea.

... Thou dim and lofty heaven of the North,--grey sky of Odin,--bitter thy winds and spectral all thy colors!--they that dwell beneath thee know not the glory of Eternal Summer's green,--the azure splendor of southern day!--but thine are the lightnings of Thought illuminating for human eyes the inters.p.a.ces between sun and sun. Thine the generations of might,--the strivers, the battlers,--the men who make Nature tame!--thine the domain of inspiration and achievement,--the larger heroisms, the vaster labors that endure, the higher knowledge, and all the witchcrafts of science!...

But in each one of us there lives a mysterious Something which is Self, yet also infinitely more than Self,--incomprehensibly multiple,--the complex total of sensations, impulses, timidities belonging to the unknown past. And the lips of the little stranger from the tropics have become all white, because that Something within her,--ghostly bequest from generations who loved the light and rest and wondrous color of a more radiant world,--now shrinks all back about her girl's heart with fear of this pale grim North.... And lo!--opening mile-wide in dream-grey majesty before us,--reaching away, through measureless mazes of masting, into remotenesses all vapor-veiled,--the mighty perspective of New York harbor!...

Thou knowest it not, this gloom about us, little maiden;--'tis only a magical dusk we are entering,--only that mystic dimness in which miracles must be wrought!... See the marvellous shapes uprising,--the immensities, the astonishments! And other greater wonders thou wilt behold in a little while, when we shall have become lost to each other forever in the surging of the City's million-hearted life!... 'Tis all shadow here, thou sayest?--Ay, 'tis twilight, verily, by contrast with that glory out of which thou camest, Lys--twilight only,--but the Twilight of the G.o.ds!... _Adie, che!--Bon-Die ke bent ou!_...

ENDNOTES

[Footnote 1: Since this was written the market has been removed to the Savane,--to allow of the erection of a large new market-building on the old site; and the beautiful trees have been cut down.]

[Footnote 2: I subsequently learned the mystery of this very strange and beautiful mixed race,--many fine specimens of which may also be seen in Trinidad. Three widely diverse elements have combined to form it: European, negro, and Indian,--but, strange to say, it is the most savage of these three bloods which creates the peculiar charm.... I cannot speak of this comely and extraordinary type without translating a pa.s.sage from Dr. J. J. J. Cornilliac, an eminent Martinique physician, who recently published a most valuable series of studies upon the ethnology, climatology, and history of the Antilles. In these he writes:...]

"When, among the populations of the Antilles, we first notice those remarkable _metis_ whose olive skins, elegant and slender figures, fine straight profiles, and regular features remind us of the inhabitants of Madras or Pondicherry,--we ask ourselves in wonder, while looking at their long eyes, full of a strange and gentle melancholy (especially among the women), and at the black, rich, silky-gleaming hair curling in abundance over the temples and falling in profusion over the neck,--to what human race can belong this singular variety,--in which there is a dominant characteristic that seems indelible, and always shows more and more strongly in proportion as the type is further removed from the African element. It is the Carib blood--blended with blood of Europeans and of blacks,--which in spite of all subsequent crossings, and in spite of the fact that it has not been renewed for more than two hundred years, still conserves as markedly as at the time of the first interblending, the race-characteristic that invariably reveals its presence in the blood of every being through whose veins it flows."--"Recherches chronologiques et historiques sur l'Origine et la Propagation de la Fievre Jaune aux Antilles." Par J. J. J. Cornilliac.

Fort-de-France: Imprimerie du Gouvernement. 1886.

But I do not think the term "olive" always indicates the color of these skins, which seemed to me exactly the tint of gold; and the hair flashes with bluish lights, Like the plumage of certain black birds.]

[Footnote 3: _Extract from the "Story of Marie," as written from dictation:_

... Manman-a te ni yon gouos ja a cae-li. Ja-la te touop lou'de pou Marie. Ce te li menm manman la qui te kalle pouend dileau. Yon jou y pouend ja-la pou y te alle pouend dileau. Lhe manman-a rive b la fontaine, y pa trouve pesonne pou chage y. Y rete; y ka crie, "Toutt bon Chritien, vini chage moin!"

... Lhe manman rete y oue pa te ni piess bon Chritien pou chage y. Y rete; y crie: "Pouloss, si pa ni bon Chritien, ni mauvais Chritien!

toutt mauvais Chritien vini chage moin!"

... Lhe y fini di ca, y oue yon diabe qui ka vini, ka di conm caa, "Pou moin chage ou, ca ou ke baill moin?" Manman-la di,--y reponne, "Moin pa ni arien!" Diabe-la reponne y, "Y fau ba moin Marie pou moin pe chage ou."

This mamma had a great jar in her house. The jar was too heavy for Marie. It was this mamma herself who used to go for water. One day she took that jar to go for water. When this mamma had got to the fountain, she could not find anyone to load her. She stood there, crying out, "Any good Christian, come load me!"

As the mamma stood there she saw there was not a single good Christian to help her load. She stood there, and cried out: "Well, then, if there are no good Christians, there are bad Christians. Any bad Christian, come and load me!"

The moment she said that, she saw a devil coming, who said to her, "If I load you, what will you give me?" This mamma answered, and said, "I have nothing!" The devil answered her, "Must give me Marie if you want me to load you."]

[Footnote 4: _Y batt li conm lambi_--"he beat him like a lambi"--is an expression that may often be heard in a creole court from witnesses testifying in a case of a.s.sault and battery. One must have seen a lambi pounded to appreciate the terrible picturesqueness of the phase.]

[Footnote 5: Moreau de Saint-Mery writes, describing the drums of the negroes of Saint Domingue: "Le plus court de ces tambours est nomme _Bamboula_, attendu qu'il est forme quelquefois d'un tres-gros bambou."--"Description de la partie francaise de Saint Domingue", vol.

i., p. 44.]

[Footnote 6: What is known in the West Indies as a hurricane is happily rare; it blows with the force of a cyclone, but not always circularly; it may come from one direction, and strengthen gradually for days until its highest velocity and destructive force are reached. One in the time of Pere Labat blew away the walls of a fort;--that of 1780 destroyed the lives of twenty-two thousand people in four islands: Martinique, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent, and Barbadoes.

Before the approach of such a visitation animals manifest the same signs of terror they display prior to an earthquake. Cattle a.s.semble together, stamp, and roar; sea-birds fly to the interior; fowl seek the nearest crevice they can hide in. Then, while the sky is yet clear, begins the breaking of the sea; then darkness comes, and after it the wind.]

[Footnote 7: "Histoire Generale des Antilles... habites par les Francais." Par le R. P. Du Tertre, de l'Ordre des Freres Prescheurs. Paris: 1661-71. 4 vols. (with ill.u.s.trations) in 4to.]

[Footnote 8: One of the lights seen on the Caravelle was certainly carried by a cattle-thief,--a colossal negro who had the reputation of being a sorcerer,--a _quimboiseur_. The greater part of the mountainous land forming La Caravelle promontory was at that time the property of a Monsieur Eustache, who used it merely for cattle-raising purposes.

He allowed his animals to run wild in the hills; they multiplied exceedingly, and became very savage. Notwithstanding their ferocity, however, large numbers of them were driven away at night, and secretly slaughtered or sold, by somebody who used to practise the art of cattle-stealing with a lantern, and evidently without aid. A watch was set, and the thief arrested. Before the magistrate he displayed extraordinary a.s.surance, a.s.serting that he had never stolen from a poor man--he had stolen only from M. Eustache who could not count his own cattle--_yon richard, man che!_ "How many cows did you steal from him?"

asked the magistrate. "_Ess moin pe save?--moin te pouend yon savane toutt pleine_," replied the prisoner. (How can I tell?--I took a whole savanna-full.)... Condemned on the strength of his own confession, he was taken to jail. "_Moin pa ke rete geole_," he observed. (I shall not remain in prison.) They put him in irons, but on the following morning the irons were found lying on the floor of the cell, and the prisoner was gone. He was never seen in Martinique again.]

[Footnote 9: Y sucoue souye a.s.sous quai-la;--y ka di: "Moin ka maudi ou, Lanmatinique!--moin ka maudi ou!...Ke ni mange pou engnien: ou pa ke pe menm achete y! Ke ni touele pou engnien: ou pa ke pe menm achete yon robe! Epi yche ke batt manman.... Ou banni moin!--moin ke vini enc"]

[Footnote 10: Vol. iii., p. 382-3. Edition of 1722.]

[Footnote 11: The parrots of Martinique he describes as having been green, with slate-colored plumage on the top of the head, mixed with a little red, and as having a few red feathers in the wings, throat, and tail.]

[Footnote 12: The creole word _moudongue_ is said to be a corruption of _Mondongue_, the name of an African coast tribe who had the reputation of being cannibals. A Mondongue slave on the plantations was generally feared by his fellow-blacks of other tribes; and the name of the cannibal race became transformed into an adjective to denote anything formidable or terrible. A blow with a stick made of the wood described being greatly dreaded, the term was applied first to the stick, and afterward to the wood itself.]

[Footnote 13: Accounting for the origin of the trade-winds, he writes: "I say that the Trade-Winds do not exist in the Torrid Zone merely by chance; forasmuch as the cause which produces them is very necessary, very sure, and very continuous, since they result _either from the movement of the Earth around the Sun, or from the movement of the Sun around the Earth.

Whether it be the one or the other, of these two great bodies which moves..._" etc.]

[Footnote 14: In creole, _cabritt-bois_,--("the Wood-Kid")--a colossal cricket.

Precisely at half-past four in the morning it becomes silent; and for thousands of early risers too poor to own a clock, the cessation of its song is the signal to get up.]

[Footnote 15: --"Where dost stay, dear?"--"Affairs of the goat are not affairs of the rabbit."--"But why art thou dressed all in black thus?"--"I wear mourning for my dead soul."--"_Ae ya yae!_...No, true!...where art thou going now?"--"Love is gone: I go after love."--"Ho! thou hast a Wasp [lover]--eh?"--"The zanoli gives a ball; the _maboya_ enters unasked."--"Tell me where thou art going, sweetheart?"--"As far as the River of the Lizard."--"_Fouinq!_--there are more than thirty kilometres!"--"What of that?--dost thou want to come with me?"]

[Footnote 16: "Kiss me now!"]

[Footnote 17: Pet.i.ts amoureux aux plumes, Enfants d'un brillant sejour, Vous ignorez l'amertume, Vous parlez souvent d'amour;... Vous meprisez la dorure, Les salons, et les bijoux; Vous cherissez la Nature, Pet.i.ts oiseaux, becquetez-vous!