[LA VÉRETTE]
I
—St. Pierre, 1887.
One returning from the country to the city in the Carnival season is lucky to find any comfortable rooms for rent. I have been happy to secure one even in a rather retired street,—so steep that it is really dangerous to sneeze while descending it, lest one lose one's balance and tumble right across the town. It is not a fashionable street, the Rue du Morne Mirait; but, after all, there is no particularly fashionable street in this extraordinary city, and the poorer the neighborhood, the better one's chance to see something of its human nature.
One consolation is that I have Manm-Robert for a next-door neighbor, who keeps the best bouts in town (those long thin Martinique cigars of which a stranger soon becomes fond), and who can relate more queer stories and legends of old times in the island than anybody else I know of. Manm-Robert is yon màchonne lapacotte, a dealer in such cheap articles of food as the poor live upon: fruits and tropical vegetables, manioc-flour, "macadam" (a singular dish of rice stewed with salt fish—diri épi coubouyon lamori), akras, etc.; but her bouts probably bring her the largest profit—they are all bought up by the békés. Manm-Robert is also a sort of doctor: whenever any one in the neighborhood falls sick she is sent for, and always comes, and very often cures,—as she is skilled in the knowledge and use of medical herbs, which she gathers herself upon the mornes. But for these services she never accepts any remuneration: she is a sort of Mother of the poor in her immediate vicinity. She helps everybody, listens to everybody's troubles, gives everybody some sort of consolation, trusts everybody, and sees a great deal of the thankless side of human nature without seeming to feel any the worse for it. Poor as she must really be, she appears to have everything that everybody wants; and will lend anything to her neighbors except a scissors or a broom, which it is thought bad-luck to lend. And, finally, if anybody is afraid of being bewitched (guimboisé) Manm-Robert can furnish him or her with something that will keep the bewitchment away....
II
February 15th.
... Ash-Wednesday. The last masquerade will appear this afternoon, notwithstanding; for the Carnival lasts in Martinique a day longer than elsewhere.
All through the country districts since the first week of January there have been wild festivities every Sunday—dancing on the public highways to the pattering of tamtams,—African dancing, too, such as is never seen in St. Pierre. In the city, however, there has been less merriment than in previous years;—the natural gaiety of the population has been visibly affected by the advent of a terrible and unfamiliar visitor to the island,—La Vérette: she came by steamer from Colon.