Good-bye, believe the best you can of me
Your friend,
Lafcadio Hearn.
TO ELIZABETH BISLAND
Saint-Pierre, Martinique, 1887.
Dear Miss Bisland,—I am settled here for at least a month:—wish I could settle here forever. I love this quaint, whimsical, wonderfully-coloured little town,—all its ups and downs, vistas of azure harbour and overshadowing volcanic hills,—all the stones that whisper under the myriad naked feet of this fantastic population. It pleases me to find my affection for it is not merely inspiration: the place has fascinated more than one practical American,—persuaded them to abandon ambitions, contests, popular esteem, friends, society,—and to settle here for the rest of their days, in delightful indolence and dreamy content.
In my trunk I have something for you: a Coolie girl’s bracelet. It will not look so well on your arm as on hers, because its effect depends on a background of dark colour; and all this clumsy Indian jewelry is inartistically wrought. It is indeed made chiefly for economical reasons. Coolies so carry their wealth;—I saw one Hindoo wife with some $900 worth of jewelry upon her.
In the little Coolie village near Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, I sat, and looked at rudely painted Indian gods, while waiting for the silversmith to sit down before his ridiculous little anvil. All the palm-shadows, intensely black, crawled outside like tarantulas; it was a glowing day,—blindingly blue: the light of a larger sun seemed to fill the world,—a white sun,—Sirius!
“Ra!” called out the Coolie smith when I told him I wanted to look at his jewelry;—and his wife came in. She wore the Hindoo garb without the long veils: a white robe like a Greek chiton, or rather like a lady’s chemise,—leaving the arms and ankles bare, and confined about the waist. I thought her very lovely,—slender and delicate,—a perfect bronze-colour: the gold-flower attached to the nostril did not impair the symmetry of the face;—extraordinary eyes and teeth. She held out her pretty round arms for examination: there were about ten silver rings upon each: the two outer ones being round, the inner eight being flat. The arm was infinitely prettier than the bracelets;—I selected one ring, and the smith opened and removed it with an iron instrument and gave it me. It had a faint musky odour: perhaps that was why the smith insisted on putting it into an absurdly small furnace, and purifying it after the Indian manner.
I wanted to buy a pair of baby bracelets;—so they brought in the baby,—a girl, and therefore (?) having a dress on. The little babies of the other sex wear nothing but circles of silver on arms and ankles. Sometimes the custom is extended; for the little wife who carried her girl baby to the post-office when I was at Demerara, carried it naked at her hip in the most primitive manner.