And all smile to see Jean-Marie waiting for them, and to hear his deep kind voice calling, "_Coument ou yé, chè? coument ou kallé?_ ...(How art thou, dear?--how goes it with thee?)

And they mostly make answer, _"Toutt douce, chè,--et ou?_" (All sweetly, dear,--and thou?) But some, over-weary, cry to him, "_Ah! déchâgé moin vite, chè! moin lasse, lasse!_" (Unload me quickly, dear; for I am very, very weary.) Then he takes off their burdens, and fetches bread for them, and says foolish little things to make them laugh. And they are pleased, and laugh, just like children, as they sit right down on the road there to munch their dry bread.

... So often have I watched that scene! ... Let me but close my eyes one moment, and it will come back to me,--through all the thousand miles,--over the graves of the days....

Again I see the mountain road in the yellow glow, banded with umbrages of palm. Again I watch the light feet coming,--now in shadow, now in sun,--soundlessly as falling leaves. Still I can hear the voices crying, "_Ah! déchâgé moin vite, chè! moin lasse!_" --and see the mighty arms outreach to take the burdens away. ... Only, there is a change',--I know not what!... All vapory the road is, and the fronds, and the comely coming feet of the bearers, and even this light of sunset,--sunset that is ever larger and nearer to us than dawn, even as death than birth. And the weird way appeareth a way whose dust is the dust of generations;--and the Shape that waits is never Jean-Marie, but one darker; and stronger;--and these are surely voices of tired souls. I who cry to Thee, thou dear black Giver of the perpetual rest, "_Ah! déchâgé moin vite, chè! moin lasse!_"

CHAPTER II. LA GRANDE ANSE.

I.

In the village of Morne Rouge, I was frequently impressed by the singular beauty of young girls from the north-east coast--all porteuses, who passed almost daily on their way from Grande Anse to St. Pierre and back again--a total trip of thirty-five miles.... I knew they were from Grande Anse, because the village baker, at whose shop they were wont to make brief halts, told me a good deal about them: he knew each one by name. Whenever a remarkably attractive girl appeared, and I would inquire whence she came, the invariable reply (generally preceded by that peculiarly intoned French "Ah!" signifying, "Why, you certainly ought to know!") was "Grand Anse." ..._Ah! c'est de Grande Anse, ça!_ And if any commonplace, uninteresting type showed itself it would be signalled as from somewhere else--Gros-Morne, Capote, Marigot, perhaps,--but never from Grand Anse. The Grande Anse girls were distinguished by their clear yellow or brown skins, lithe light figures and a particular grace in their way of dressing. Their short robes were always of bright and pleasing colors, perectly contrasting with the ripe fruit-tint of nude limbs and faces: I could discern a partiality for white stuffs with apricot-yellow stripes, for plaidings of blue and violet, and various patterns of pink and mauve. They had a graceful way of walking under their trays, with hands clasped behind their heads, and arms uplifted in the manner of caryatides. An artist would have been wild with delight for the chance to sketch some of them.... On the whole, they conveyed the impression that they belonged to a particular race, very different from that of the chief city or its environs.

"Are they all banana-colored at Grande Anse?" I asked,--" and all as pretty as these?"

"I was never at Grande Anse," the little baker answered, "although I have been forty years in Martinique; but I know there is a fine class of young girls there: _il y a une belle jeunesse là, mon cher!_"

Then I wondered why the youth of Grande Anse should be any finer than the youth of other places; and it seemed to me that the baker's own statement of his never having been there might possibly furnish a clew.... Out of the thirty-five thousand inhabitants of St. Pierre and its suburbs, there are at least twenty thousand who never have been there, and most probably never will be. Few dwellers of the west coast visit the east coast: in fact, except among the white creoles, who represent but a small percentage of the total population, there are few persons to be met with who are familiar with all parts of their native island. It is so mountainous, and travelling is so wearisome, that populations may live and die in adjacent valleys without climbing the intervening ranges to look at one another. Grande Anse is only about twenty miles from the principal city; but it requires some considerable inducement to make the journey on horseback; and only the professional carrier-girls, plantation messengers, and colored people of peculiarly tough constitution attempt it on foot. Except for the transportation of sugar and rum, there is practically no communication by sea between the west and the north-east coast--the sea is too dangerous--and thus the populations on either side of the island are more or less isolated from each other, besides being further subdivided and segregated by the lesser mountain chains crossing their respective territories.... In view of all these things I wondered whether a community so secluded might not assume special characteristics within two hundred years--might not develop into a population of some yellow, red, or brown type, according to the predominant element of the original race-crossing.

II.

I had long been anxious to see the city of the Porteuses, when the opportunity afforded itself to make the trip with a friend obliged to go thither on some important business;--I do not think I should have ever felt resigned to undertake it alone. With a level road the distance might be covered very quickly, but over mountains the journey is slow and wearisome in the perpetual tropic heat. Whether made on horseback or in a carriage, it takes between four and five hours to go from St. Pierre to Grand Anse, and it requires a longer time to return, as the road is then nearly all uphill. The young porteuse travels almost as rapidly; and the bare-footed black postman, who carries the mails in a square box at the end of a pole, is timed on leaving Morne Rouge at 4 A.M. to reach Ajoupa-Bouillon a little after six, and leaving Ajoupa-Bouillon at half-past six to reach Grande Anse at half-past eight, including many stoppages and delays on the way.

Going to Grande Anse from the chief city, one can either hire a horse or carriage at St. Pierre, or ascend to Morne Rouge by the public conveyance, and there procure a vehicle or animal, which latter is the cheaper and easier plan. About a mile beyond Morne Rouge, where the old Calebasse road enters the public highway, you reach the highest point of the journey,--the top of the enormous ridge dividing the north-east from the western coast, and cutting off the trade-winds from sultry St. Pierre. By climbing the little hill, with a tall stone cross on its summit, overlooking the Champ-Flore just here, you can perceive the sea on both sides of the island at once--_lapis lazuli_ blue. From this elevation the road descends by a hundred windings and lessening undulations to the eastern shore. It sinks between mornes wooded to their summits,--bridges a host of torrents and ravines,--passes gorges from whence colossal trees tower far overhead, through heavy streaming of lianas, to mingle their green crowns in magnificent gloom. Now and then you hear a low long sweet sound like the deepest tone of a silver flute,--a bird-call, the cry of the _siffleur-de-montagne_; then all is stillness. You are not likely to see a white face again for hours, but at intervals a porteuse passes, walking very swiftly, or a field-hand heavily laden; and these salute you either by speech or a lifting of the hand to the head.... And it is very pleasant to hear the greetings and to see the smiles of those who thus pass,--the fine brown girls bearing trays, the dark laborers bowed under great burdens of bamboo-grass,--_Bonjou', Missié!_ Then you should reply, if the speaker be a woman and pretty, "Good- day, dear" (_bonjou', chè_), or, "Good-day, my daughter" (_mafi_) even if she be old; while if the passer-by be a man, your proper reply is, "Good-day, my son" (_monfi_).... They are less often uttered now than in other years, these kindly greetings, but they still form part of the good and true creole manners.

[Illustration: A CREOLE CAPRE IN WORKING GARB.]

The feathery beauty of the tree-ferns shadowing each brook, the grace of bamboo and arborescent grasses, seem to decrease as the road descends,--but the palms grow taller. Often the way skirts a precipice dominating some marvellous valley prospect; again it is walled in by high green banks or shrubby slopes which cut off the view; and always it serpentines so that you cannot see more than a few hundred feet of the white track before you. About the fifteenth kilometre a glorious landscape opens to the right, reaching to the Atlantic;--the road still winds very high; forests are billowing hundreds of yards below it, and rising miles away up the slopes of mornes, beyond which, here and there, loom strange shapes of mountain,--shading off from misty green to violet and faintest gray. And through one grand opening in this multicolored surging of hills and peaks you perceive the gold- yellow of cane-fields touching the sky-colored sea. Grande Anse lies somewhere in that direction.... At the eighteenth kilometre you pass a cluster of little country cottages, a church, and one or two large buildings framed in shade-trees--the hamlet of Ajoupa-Bouillon. Yet a little farther, and you find you have left all the woods behind you. But the road continues its bewildering curves around and between low mornes covered with cane or cocoa plants: it dips down very low, rises again, dips once more;--and you perceive the soil is changing color; it is taking a red tint like that of the land of the American cotton-belt. Then you pass the Rivière Falaise (marked _Filasse_ upon old maps),--with its shallow crystal torrent flowing through a very deep and rocky channel,--and the Capote and other streams; and over the yellow rim of cane-hills the long blue bar of the sea appears, edged landward with a dazzling fringe of foam. The heights you have passed are no longer verqant, but purplish or gray,--with Pelée's cloud-wrapped enormity overtopping all. A very strong warm wind is blowing upon you--the trade-wind, always driving the clouds west: this is the sunny side of Martinique, where gray days and heavy rains are less frequent. Once or twice more the sea disappears and reappears, always over canes; and then, after passing a bridge and turning a last curve, the road suddenly