Then I saw that all the bodies were united at the tails—grew together upon one thick flat annulated stalk... a plant!—"But here is the fruit," he continued, taking from the same drawer a beautifully embossed ovoid nut, large as a duck's egg, ruddy-colored, and so exquisitely varnished by nature as to resemble a rosewood carving fresh from the hands of the cabinet-maker. In its proper place among the leaves and branches, it had the appearance of something delicious being devoured by a multitude of centipedes. Inside was a kernel, hard and heavy as iron-wood; but this in time, I was told, falls into dust: though the beautiful shell remains always perfect.
Negroes call it the coco-macaque.
[MA BONNE]
I
I cannot teach Cyrillia the clock;—I have tried until both of us had our patience strained to the breaking-point. Cyrillia still believes she will learn how to tell the time some day or other;—I am certain that she never will. "Missié," she says, "lézhè pa aïen pou moin: c'est minitt ka fouté moin yon travail!"—the hours do not give her any trouble; but the minutes are a frightful bore! And nevertheless, Cyrillia is punctual as the sun;—she always brings my coffee and a slice of corossol at five in the morning precisely. Her clock is the cabritt-bois. The great cricket stops singing, she says, at half-past four: the cessation of its chant awakens her.
—"Bonjou', Missié. Coument ou passé lanuitt?"—"Thanks, my daughter, I slept well."—"The weather is beautiful: if Missié would like to go to the beach, his bathing-towels are ready."—"Good! Cyrillia; I will go."... Such is our regular morning conversation.
Nobody breakfasts before eleven o'clock or thereabout; but after an early sea-bath, one is apt to feel a little hollow during the morning, unless one take some sort of refreshment. Cyrillia always prepares something for me on my return from the beach,—either a little pot of fresh cocoa-water, or a cocoyage, or a mabiyage, or a bavaroise.
The cocoyage I like the best of all. Cyrillia takes a green cocoa-nut, slices off one side of it so as to open a hole, then pours the opalescent water into a bowl, adds to it a fresh egg, a little Holland gin, and some grated nutmeg and plenty of sugar. Then she whips up the mixture into effervescence with her baton-lélé. The baton-lélé is an indispensaple article in every creole home: it is a thin stick which is cut from a young tree so as to leave at one end a whorl of branch-stumps sticking out at right angles like spokes;—by twirling the stem between the hands, the stumps whip up the drink in a moment.