Here in Martinique we find the market a perfect babel of voices, all speaking a curious French patois.
It is next to impossible to distinguish one word from another in all that hum of highly pitched creole voices. The famous “porteuses”—long-limbed, slender, shapely, tall, and agile half-caste and negro girls—have brought their heavy burdens from the mountains and the country roundabout; and here they sit, like flowers in a garden, surrounded by their goods. Some have little piles of fruits, or of vegetables, cooked and ready to be eaten, wrapped in banana leaves; some have a stock of dried meats, made up into tiny portions; some sell fancy cakes; some, pies; others crouch down, fairly hidden by showy piles of calico and bright silks, with needles, threads, coarse laces, and beads scattered about them in great confusion.
And here are the sinewy men; the fishers with heaps of fish. Such beautiful fish! Does it seem credible that you can stand in a smelly fish-market, and be fairly enchanted by the colour and beauty of great trays of fish spread out upon a stone pavement? Their beauty is amazing. Here are enormous trays of flying fish, glittering silver, sweeter to the taste than any trout; here are others, all pink and red, and here are wee bits of fish sold by the glass—some sort of “white bait,” maybe.
We elbow on through the babel of voices, looking, as I told you we did, for the palm salad, but there is none to be had. Still I remember its flavour, and I remember that the creole madame brought us a piece which she had bought in the market for four sous. It was very like a round stick of ivory, a foot and a half long and two inches in diameter. We shall have to be content with that one sight.
But what is the use in going to a market unless we can buy something? So we stop in front of a porteuse as she squats behind her pile of fruit on the market floor, and buy oranges, and get almost a pint of coppers in change for one silver piece; but not without grave doubts on the part of the seller. She looks at our silver and shakes her head, and all her neighbours come together, and the colours of their bright turbans and the little funny ends of handkerchiefs tied so that they stand up on top of the head like plumes,—all these ends flutter and bob as they comment in their funny French, while we tell the women that our money is good, good silver. Finally a big-eyed, handsome girl comes elbowing along and proudly explains to her doubting sisters that we are right; then at last we get our change, distribute it in our various pockets, take our oranges, and leave the market.
III.
Eager as the children are to reach Le Jardin des Plantes, the famous Botanical Gardens of Martinique, we must stop on our way for a closer inspection of one of these bright birds of the forest,—the Martinique porteuse.
The women of the tropics have an affinity for nature such as we of the North cannot comprehend. As the forest and the flowers and the birds and the insects abound in marvellous hues, so do these children of the sun love to bedeck themselves in all the schemes of colour known to the dyer’s art. Let us, just for the sake of the picture it will give us, stop this woman coming and make excuse to buy one of the green cocoanuts of which she seems to carry a great load on her head. Look at her! Isn’t she magnificent!
Have you heard of the feats of endurance which these young girls perform? How they will carry upon their heads, over one hundred pounds out from St. Pierre across the mountains, a distance of fifty miles in one day? And this while barefooted and at all times of the year, through all kinds of weather, through dry seasons and wet seasons. Not only on such days as these, when the air is sweet and cool in the shade, but days when the sun scorches and withers, even under the deep recesses of vine-clad porch and lattice. She is the ever-willing burden-bearer, the unloader of ships, the handler of cargoes, the welcome carrier of bread for the early breakfast in mountain homes, the vender of all stuffs and utensils by the roadside where no cart could well be taken; where even the patient donkey might refuse to go. Agile, nimble, erect of body, motionless of head, with eyes that pierce into every crook and turn of the way, and poised like a queen, she is the dweller among the green, yellow, red, and purple of the forest, and in her love of colour she follows in her adornments the strong instincts of nature. She it is whose burden is so great that were she herself to attempt to lift it or take it from her head, it might mean a rupture, a dislocation, or a broken vein; she it is whom all men, from the richest to the poorest, help to unload, so great is the respect in which she is held.