III
In the autumn of the old feudal years, all this sea-girdled land was one quivering splendor of sugar-cane, walled in from besieging tides with impregnable miles of levee. But when the great decadence came, the rude sea gathered up its barbarian might, and beat down the strong dikes, and made waste the opulent soil, and, in Abimelech-fury, sowed the site of its conquests with salt. Some of the old buildings are left;—the sugar-house has been converted into an ample dining-hall; the former slave-quarters have been remodeled and fitted up for guests—a charming village of white cottages, shadowed by aged trees; the sugar-pans have been turned into water-vessels for the live-stock; and the old plantation-bell, of honest metal and pure tone, now summons the visitor to each repast.
And all this little world, though sown with sand and salt, teems with extraordinary exuberance of life. Night and day the foliage of the long groves vibrates to chant of insect and feathered songster; and beyond reckoning are the varieties of nest-builders—among whom very often may be perceived rose-colored or flame-colored strangers of the tropics—flown hither over the Caribbean Sea. The waters are choked with fish; the horizon ever darkened with flights of birds; the very soil seems to stir, to creep, to breathe. Every little bank, ditch, creek, swarms with "fiddlers," each holding high its single huge white claw in readiness for battle; and the dryer lands are haunted by myriads of ghostly crustacea—phantom crabs—semi-diaphanous creatures that flit over the land with the speed and lightness of tarantulas, and are so pale of shell that their moving shadows first betray their presence. There are immense choruses of tree-frogs by day, bamboulas of water-frogs after sundown. The vast vitality of the ocean seems to interpenetrate all that sprouts, breathes, flies. Cattle fatten wonderfully upon the tough wire-grass; sheep multiply exceedingly. In every chink something is trying to grow, in every orifice some tiny life seeks to hide itself (even beneath the edge of the table on which I wrote some queer little creatures had built three marvelous nests of dry mud);—every substance here appears not only to maintain life but to create it; and ideas of spontaneous generation present themselves with irresistible force.
IV
...And children in multitude!—children of many races, and of many tints—ranging from ivorine to glossy bronze, through half the shades of Broca's pattern-colors;—for there is a strange blending of tribes and peoples here. By and by, when the youths and maidens of these patriarchal families shall mate, they will build for themselves funny little timber-homes—like those you see dotting the furzy-green plain about the log-dwelling of the oldest settler—even as so many dove-cots. Existence here is so facile, happy, primitively simple, that trifles give joy unspeakable;—in that bright air whose purity defies the test of even the terrible solar microscope, neither misery nor malady may live. To such contented minds surely the Past must ever appear in a sunset-glow of gold; the Future in eternal dawn of rose;—until, perchance, the huge dim city summon some of them to her dusty servitude, when the gray elders shall have passed away, and the little patches of yellow-flowered meadow-land shall have changed hands, and the island hath no more place for all its children.... So they live and love, and marry and give in marriage, and build their little dove-cots, and pass away forever—either to smoky cities of the South and West, or, indeed, to that vaster and more ancient city, whose streets are shadowless and voiceless, and whose gates are guarded by God.
But the mighty blind sea will ever chant the same mysterious hymn, under the same infinite light of blue, for those who shall come after them....
V
...No electric nerves have yet penetrated this little world, to connect its humble life with the industrial and commercial activities of the continent: here the feverish speculator feels no security:—it is a fit sojourn for those only who wish to forget the harsh realities of city existence, the burning excitement of loss and gain, the stern anxieties of duty—who care only to enjoy the rejuvenating sea, to drink the elixir of the perfect air, to dream away the long and luminous hours, perfumed with sweet, faint odors of summer. The little mail-boat, indeed, comes at regular intervals of days, and the majesty of the United States is represented by a post-office—but the existence of that office could never be divined by the naked eye.
A negro, who seemed to understand Spanish only, responded to my inquiries by removing a pipe from his lips, and pointing the cane-stem thereof toward a building that made a dark red stain against the green distance—with the words: "Casa de correo?—si, señor! directamente detras del campo, señor;—sigue el camino carretero à la casa colorada."
So I crossed plains thickly grown with a sturdy green weed bearing small yellow flowers, and traversed plank-bridges laid over creeks in which I saw cats fishing and swimming—actually swimming, for even the feline race loses its dread of water here;—and I followed a curving roadway half obliterated by wire-grass—until I found myself at last within a small farmyard, where cords of wood were piled up about an antique, gabled, chocolate-colored building that stood in the midst. I walked half around it, seeking for the entrance—hearing only the sound of children's voices, and a baby's laughter; and finally came in front of an open gallery on the southern side, where a group of Creole children were—two pretty blond infants, with an elder and darker sister. Seated in a rocking-chair, her infant brother sprawling at her feet, she was dancing a baby sister on her knee, chanting the while this extraordinary refrain: