VI.
… WE enter the grands-bois,—the primitive forest,—the "high
woods."
As seen with a field-glass from St. Pierre, these woods present
only the appearance of a band of moss belting the volcano, and
following all its corrugations,—so densely do the leafy crests
intermingle. But on actually entering them, you find yourself at
once in green twilight, among lofty trunks uprising everywhere
like huge pillars wrapped with vines;—and the interspaces
between these bulks are all occupied by lianas and parasitic
creepers,—some monstrous,—veritable parasite-trees,—ascending
at all angles, or dropping straight down from the tallest crests
to take root again. The effect in the dim light is that of
innumerable black ropes and cables of varying thicknesses
stretched taut from the soil to the tree-tops, and also from
branch to branch, like rigging. There are rare and remarkable
trees here,—acomats, courbarils, balatas, ceibas or fromagers,
acajous, gommiers;—hundreds have been cut down by charcoal-makers;
but the forest is still grand. It is to be regretted
that the Government has placed no restriction upon the barbarous
destruction of trees by the charbonniers, which is going on
throughout the island. Many valuable woods are rapidly
disappearing. The courbaril, yielding a fine-grained, heavy,
chocolate-colored timber; the balata, giving a wood even heavier,
denser, and darker; the acajou, producing a rich red wood, with a
strong scent of cedar; the bois-de-fer; the bois d'Inde; the
superb acomat,—all used to flourish by tens of thousands upon
these volcanic slopes, whose productiveness is eighteen times
greater than that of the richest European soil. All Martinique
furniture used to be made of native woods; and the colored
cabinet-makers still produce work which would probably astonish
New York or London manufacturers.
But to-day the island exports
no more hard woods: it has even been found necessary to import much
from neighboring islands;—and yet the destruction of forests still
goes on. The domestic fabrication of charcoal from forest-trees
has been estimated at 1,400,000 hectolitres per annum. Primitive
forest still covers the island to the extent of 21.37 per cent;
but to find precious woods now, one must climb heights like those
of Pelée and Carbet, or penetrate into the mountains of the
interior.
Most common formerly on these slopes were the gommiers, from
which canoes of a single piece, forty-five feet long by seven
wide, used to be made. There are plenty of gommiers still; but
the difficulty of transporting them to the shore has latterly
caused a demand for the gommiers of Dominica. The dimensions of
canoes now made from these trees rarely exceed fifteen feet in
length by eighteen inches in width: the art of making them is an
inheritance from the ancient Caribs. First the trunk is shaped
to the form of the canoe, and pointed at both ends; it is then
hollowed out. The width of the hollow does not exceed six inches
at the widest part; but the cavity is then filled with wet sand,
which in the course of some weeks widens the excavation by its
weight, and gives the boat perfect form. Finally gunwales of
plank are fastened on; seats are put in—generally four;—and no
boat is more durable nor more swift.
… We climb. There is a trace rather than a foot-path;—no
visible soil, only vegetable detritus, with roots woven over it
in every direction. The foot never rests on a flat surface,—
only upon surfaces of roots; and these are covered, like every
protruding branch along the route, with a slimy green moss,
slippery as ice. Unless accustomed to walking in tropical woods,
one will fall at every step. In a little while I find it
impossible to advance.
Our nearest guide, observing my predicament,
turns, and without moving the bundle upon his head, cuts and trims
me an excellent staff with a few strokes of his cutlass. This staff
not only saves me from dangerous slips, but also serves at times to
probe the way; for the further we proceed, the vaguer the path becomes.
It was made by the
chasseurs-de-choux (cabbage-hunters),—the
negro mountaineers who live by furnishing heads of young cabbage-palm
to the city markets; and these men also keep it open,—
otherwise the woods would grow over it in a month. Two
chasseurs-de-choux stride past us as we advance, with their
freshly gathered palm-salad upon their heads, wrapped in cachibou
or balisier leaves, and tied with lianas. The palmiste-franc
easily reaches a stature of one hundred feet; but the young trees
are so eagerly sought for by the chasseurs-de-choux that in these
woods few reach a height of even twelve feet before being cut.
… Walking becomes more difficult;—there seems no termination
to the grands-bois: always the same faint green light, the same
rude natural stair-way of slippery roots,—half the time hidden
by fern leaves and vines. Sharp ammoniacal scents are in the air;
a dew, cold as ice-water, drenches our clothing. Unfamiliar
insects make trilling noises in dark places; and now and then a
series of soft clear notes ring out, almost like a thrush's
whistle: the chant of a little tree-frog. The path becomes more
and more overgrown; and but for the constant excursions of the
cabbage-hunters, we should certainly have to cutlass every foot
of the way through creepers and brambles. More and more amazing
also is the interminable interweaving of roots: the whole forest
is thus spun together—not underground so much as overground.
These tropical trees do not strike deep, although able to climb
steep slopes of porphyry and basalt: they send out great far-reaching
webs of
roots,—each such web interknotting with others
all round it, and these in turn with further ones;—while between
their reticulations lianas ascend and descend: and a nameless
multitude of shrubs as tough as india-rubber push up, together with
mosses, grasses, and ferns. Square miles upon square miles of
woods are thus interlocked and interbound into one mass solid
enough to resist the pressure of a hurricane; and where there is
no path already made, entrance into them can only be effected by
the most dexterous cutlassing.
An inexperienced stranger might be puzzled to understand how
this cutlassing is done. It is no easy feat to sever with one
blow a liana thick as a man's arm; the trained cutlasser does it
without apparent difficulty: moreover, he cuts horizontally, so
as to prevent the severed top presenting a sharp angle and
proving afterwards dangerous. He never appears to strike hard,—
only to give light taps with his blade, which flickers
continually about him as he moves. Our own guides in cutlassing
are not at all inconvenienced by their loads; they walk perfectly
upright, never stumble, never slip, never hesitate, and do not
even seem to perspire: their bare feet are prehensile. Some
creoles in our party, habituated to the woods, walk nearly as
well in their shoes; but they carry no loads.
… At last we are rejoiced to observe that the trees are
becoming smaller;—there are no more colossal trunks;—there are
frequent glimpses of sky: the sun has risen well above the peaks,
and sends occasional beams down through the leaves. Ten minutes,
and we reach a clear space,—a wild savane, very steep, above
which looms a higher belt of woods. Here we take another short
rest.
Northward the view is cut off by a ridge covered with herbaceous
vegetation;—but to the south-west it is open, over a gorge of
which both sides are shrouded in sombre
green—crests of trees
forming a solid curtain against the sun. Beyond the outer and
lower cliff valley-surfaces appear miles away, flinging up broad
gleams of cane-gold; further off greens disappear into blues, and
the fantastic masses of Carbet loom up far higher than before.
St. Pierre, in a curve of the coast, is a little red-and-yellow
semicircular streak, less than two inches long. The interspaces
between far mountain chains,—masses of pyramids, cones, single
and double humps, queer blue angles as of raised knees under coverings,
—resemble misty lakes: they are filled with brume;—the sea-line has
vanished altogether. Only the horizon, enormously heightened, can
be discerned as a circling band of faint yellowish light,—auroral,
ghostly,—almost on a level with the tips of the Pitons. Between this
vague horizon and the shore, the sea no longer looks like sea,
but like a second hollow sky reversed. All the landscape has
unreal beauty:—there are no keen lines; there are no definite
beginnings or endings; the tints are half-colors only;—peaks
rise suddenly from mysteries of bluish fog as from a flood; land
melts into sea the same hue. It gives one the idea of some great
aquarelle unfinished,—abandoned before tones were deepened and
details brought out.
