IV.
Do you remember a game we children used to play, which had this little refrain?
“Look to the East,
Look to the West,
And choose the one
That you love best!”
We, too, were uncertain which way to choose, so we looked to the East, and we looked to the West, and we chose the one that we loved the best; it happened to be a side street up a very steep hill, beguiling us to a broad avenue, evidently one of the approaches to the famous Jardin des Plantes, of which our felicitous little pamphlet guide had made particular mention. For fear lest, in our delight over the novel experiences of the evening, I should forget to mention one feature of St. Pierre peculiarly and distinctly unique, we’ll stop for a moment to look down the funny little street, up which we have just laboured. You see on each side of the narrow pavement a deep stone gutter, two feet deep and nearly as wide, down which plunges a constant torrent of light bluish water, with the colour peculiar to all mountain streams; this rush and tumble of water you will see not only in this street, but in all the streets of St. Pierre. It gives one a generous sense of well-being. You feel as if you might take a bath on Monday and Tuesday, and all through the week, and the town would not be threatened with the water famine that is ever hanging over one in some of these tropical towns. How delightful for the children, too!
It is a positive relief to my mind to have finished telling you about those wayside streams, for, ever since our arrival in St. Pierre I have been followed by the thought of them, until almost in a state of distraction. Something was continually hammering into my ears: “Why don’t you tell about the aqueducts? Don’t you know they carry down the mountainside and into the city the finest water of the West Indies? Why don’t you give more information?”
But now we may go on, and would you mind if we didn’t try to learn one bit of anything more for the rest of this beautiful evening? Is it not enough to stroll idly on under the shadow of the mountainside, wild with tangled vines and interweaving foliage, black as night and deep as the sea? Would it cause you, in the rush of Western civilisation, a pang to lean with us over this high wall above the city, and watch yon bark lift her sails athwart the blood-red sun, merging his grandeur into the peace of the ocean? Let us call her the Fontabella; to be sure the Fontabella is probably a matter-of-fact, puffy, old mail-steamer and is not to arrive for days, but that’s no matter. Yonder ship is our Fontabella. We shall name her such, truly she is worthy the honour; she is getting ready for sea; her sails rise slowly with the sleepy yards and stand out in black relief against the iridescent sea of glory about her; from afar comes the faint creak of her incoming anchor-chains, and, as she rests there motionless, down drops the sun, and a ship we shall see no more fades into the night.
Stopping to inquire of a small boy if we are on the main highway, and not on some path which may lead us either to destruction or to nothing at all,—either of which events would be undesirable,—a well-dressed man, of more than middle age, offers to give us the needed information. We are so continually beset by volunteer “guides” of all classes and colours, that we have of late grown most short in our rejection of unasked-for advice; who knows how many angels we may have thus turned away unawares? This evening, our new acquaintance not only tells us where we are going, but calmly joins the party, and, taking the lead, pilots us in spite of our protestations. He speaks the French of a cultivated gentleman, and goes on leading the way and the conversation most agreeably. And so we start along the Boulevard toward the public gardens, which lie back of the town in a gorge of the mountain.
We are followed by a half dozen or so children, who, for the most part, stare at us very curiously, and then chatter among themselves in low voices; I noticed that, as our self-appointed guide walked along, he was continually knocking and poking with his long cane at stray bunches of leaves which had fallen upon the road, and now and then he would let fall a remark about “les serpents,” which he said were often on the road after nightfall.
If there is one thing above all others upon this beautiful earth which my feminine soul abhors, it is a snake; the very thought is chilling to my blood! I had no intention of running any risk of an encounter with serpents,—poisonous or otherwise,—if it could be avoided. Still we all felt that this might be something similar to the rattlesnake stories told to trusting travellers in our country, and fancied that our leader shared the popular theory that we were gullible American travellers, who supposed that all tropical forests were alive with venomous reptiles.
By this time it was night, heavily black with the deepening curtain of the mountain, hanging over us on one side, and the sombre shade of the trees on the other. Curious sounds came from the undergrowth, and long, low, melancholy whistles dropped from among the trees; heavy odours hung their narcotic spells about us, and our leader, in his long frock coat, was just visible as he strode ahead of us, sweeping the path for serpents.
Little Blue Ribbons was clinging to my hand, and her persistent whisper begged me every minute to please not go any further. I called to Daddy: “What’s the use going any further? I want to go back. I don’t see why we have to follow this man if we don’t want to.” But Daddy’s and Sister’s steps rustled among the leaves ahead, and Little Blue Ribbons went on, whispering, and we all kept following.
Taking courage, I skipped ahead of Sister, and caught up with our new friend, and very gently expressed to him our wish that he reconduct us to some place a little lighter and less deadly; but it didn’t make the least impression upon him; he simply went on and kept up a string of talk about the wonderful Botanical Garden, whither he was leading us, part of which I understood and part of which I didn’t. “But,” I exclaimed, “we do not wish, desire, expect, or hope to see the Botanical Garden in the night; we have not survived the perils of the deep to be devoured by wild animals, or poisoned by reptiles, or slain by man-eating Caribs, at this late day. All we want is to be peacefully allowed to go home in our own way.” But you might as well have talked to yonder bark asleep on the breast of the ocean as to the grim back of our black-coated companion. It was another case of the “Pied Piper of Hamelin,” and it would not have surprised me, such was the mood of the night, and the mystery of the place, had he marched us up into the side of Mount Pelée, hanging far above, and slammed the door in thunder behind us.
Lights—grateful, beautiful, heartening, most entrancing lights—finally glimmered at the end of our long détour, and we were brought to the gate of the Botanical Garden, which of course we did not enter, but, turning into another way, followed the people who were coming down this road from Morne Rouge into the city. It was remarkable to observe how the conversation revived. We talked about the island and its people, of their various occupations, their exports, their schools; we stopped to lean over the walled-in river, to see through the dark the white clothes drying on the rocks, like much-discouraged ghosts, and then we became hilarious, and as we neared the possibility of food, passed jokes and had a very jolly time. Then our friend—let us now call him “friend”—said that he must leave, that we needed but to follow the road ahead of us and we would reach the Grand Hotel; and he turned his way, and disappeared,—a very tall attenuated figure in a long, black coat.