“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.