"Eh, Père Labat!—what changes there have been since thy day!... And all that ephemeral man has had power to change has been changed,—ideas, morals, beliefs, the whole social fabric. But the eternal summer remains,—and the Hesperian magnificence of azure sky and violet sea,—and the jewel-colours of the perpetual hills; the same tepid winds that rippled thy cane-fields two hundred years ago still blow over Sainte-Marie; the same purple shadows lengthen and dwindle and turn with the wheeling of the sun. God's witchery still fills this land; and the heart of the stranger is even yet snared by the beauty of it; and the dreams of him that forsakes it will surely be haunted—even as were thine own, Père Labat—by memories of its Eden-summer: the sudden leap of the light over a thousand peaks in the glory of a tropic dawn,—the perfumed peace of enormous azure noons,—and shapes of palm, wind-rocked in the burning of colossal sunsets,—and the silent flickering of the great fire-flies, through the lukewarm darkness, when mothers call their children home.... 'Mi fanal Pè Labatt!—mi Pè Labatt ka vini pouend ou!'"
Then we see the lights of the shrines that will protect us from the Zombi and the Moun-Mo, and all the terrible beings who are filled with witchcraft; and we listen to the tale of that Zombi who likes to take the shape of a lissome young negress.
By this time it is Carnival Week with its dances and games and maskers. But a little later we are shuddering at the horrible pestilence Vérette that has seized the city. A gleam of the old love of horror is caught in the following quotation:—
She was the prettiest, assuredly, among the pretty shop-girls of the Grande Rue,—a rare type of sang-mêlée. So oddly pleasing, the young face, that once seen, you could never again dissociate the recollection of it from the memory of the street. But one who saw it last night before they poured quick-lime upon it could discern no features,—only a dark brown mass, like a fungus, too frightful to think about.
At the beautiful Savane du Fort our eyes and hearts are gladdened by the quaint sight of the Blanchisseuses with their snowy linen spread out for miles along the river's bank. Their laughter echoes in our ears, and we try to catch the words of their little songs.
One warm and starry, and to us unforgettable, September morning we make the ascent of Mt. Pelée by the way of Morne St. Martin, and on our way we come to know the country that lies all around. Let me quote our sensation as we reach the summit:—
At the beginning, while gazing south, east, west, to the rim of the world, all laughed, shouted, interchanged the quick delight of new impressions: every face was radiant.... Now all look serious; none speaks.... Dominating all, I think, is the consciousness of the awful antiquity of what one is looking upon,—such a sensation, perhaps, as of old found utterance in that tremendous question of the Book of Job: "Wast thou brought forth before the hills?"
And the blue multitudes of the peaks, the perpetual congregation of the mornes, seem to chorus in the vast resplendence,—telling of Nature's eternal youth, and the passionless permanence of that about us and beyond us and beneath,—until something like the fulness of a grief begins to weigh at the heart.... For all this astonishment of beauty, all this majesty of light and form and colour, will surely endure,—marvellous as now,—after we shall have lain down to sleep where no dreams come, and may never arise from the dust of our rest to look upon it.
Another day we are laughing at the little ti canotié who in the queerest tiny boats surround a steamer as soon as she drops anchor. These are the boys who dive for coins. A sad tale is told of Maximilien and Stréphane. Again our hearts are moved by the pathos and the tragedy of La Fille de Couleur; and in this chapter we find that characteristic description:—
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 now-a-days, 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 at 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 godmothers and Cinderellas of the Creole fairy-tales.
Still we have much to learn about the little creatures in the shapes of ants and scorpions and lizards. They form no small part of the population of Martinique. And still more about the fruits and the vegetables do we learn from good Cyrillia, Ma Bonne. One longs to have a housekeeper as loving and child-like and solicitous. We leave her gazing with love unutterable at the new photograph of her daughter, and wondering the while why they do not make a portrait talk so that she can talk to her beautiful daughter.