Again, however, my plans were to be altered.
The Hotel des Bains at St. Pierre, is not by any means a first-class house, but there is something quaint about it that to me has a certain charm. The meals are served in the French style and not at all bad. The beds are immense affairs, and I never yet saw a bed that was too big. In the centre of what might be called the patio, so Spanish is the architecture of the building, is a fish-pond, giving an air of coolness to the entire place.
The patois of the servants is pleasing to my ear. I entered the house in high spirits, remembering a delightful visit there in the former time. The mulatto proprietor recognized me, as did his slightly lighter colored wife, presiding over her duties as only a woman of French extraction can.
"A large room with two beds, I presume?" asked the proprietor, in French, bowing affably to Miss May.
"He asks if we wish a large room with two beds," I said translating his words into English, smilingly, but she evidently did not consider the joke worth laughing at. So I said that we wished two rooms, as near together as possible.
Madame looked up. She was searching, evidently, for the wedding ring that was absent from Marjorie's finger, to explain my decision. A servant was called to attend to us and presently we were established in very comfortable quarters.
As I wanted Miss May to see the island as soon as possible, a carriage was summoned immediately, in which we took the road to Fort de France, where we viewed the statue of the Empress Josephine, erected to commemorate the fact that she was born in that vicinity. We had a nice lunch at a hotel there and took rooms to secure the siesta to which we had both grown accustomed. Then we drove back to St. Pierre, and arrived at the Hotel des Bains in season for dinner.
The Carnival, which lasts here for four or five weeks, had already begun. The streets were crowded with masquers and sounds of strange music filled the air. There was something very odd in this imitation by the negro race of the frivolities of the Latin countries of Europe as a precedent of the forty days of Lent. Miss May viewed it with me from the balcony of a restaurant until nearly ten o'clock. A number of the steamer people were also there and I fancied we were the object of more than ordinary attention from their eyes.
After reaching the hotel again I asked Miss May if she would mind being left alone for an hour or so, while I went to see a peculiar dance. I assured her that the house was absolutely safe. She made no objection and I went with a party of Pretoria people—no women—to witness the spectacle of which I had heard so much. It was not half as entertaining as I had expected, but there were several girls of the Métisse variety that well repaid me for going. The Métisse is a mixture of races, the original Carib prevailing, one of the most fetching types extant. They were dressed becomingly, in thin gowns, of which silk was at least one of the textures used. On their heads were party-colored handkerchiefs, draped as only a Martinique beauty can drape them.
At the risk of being thought extravagant in my statement I must say they appeared to me strikingly handsome, both in their faces and their lithe figures. I was told that each of those I saw was the mistress of some well-to-do merchant of the place and strictly true to her lover. The dance was not of a kind one would wish to take his sisters to see, but it was evident the negroes put a less libidinous interpretation upon it than the Caucasian visitors. It was one, however, where "a little goes a long way," and before twelve I was in my room at the hotel.