LES PORTEUSES. Two Years in the French West Indies | ||
V.
PREPARING for her journey, the young màchanne (marchande) puts
on the poorest and briefest chemise in her possession, and the
most worn of her light calico robes. These are all she wears.
The robe is drawn upward and forward, so as to reach a little
below the knee, and is confined thus by a waist-string, or a long
kerchief bound tightly round the loins. Instead of a Madras or
painted turban-kerchief, she binds a plain mouchoir neatly and
'TI MARIE.
[Description: Unnumbered illustration page. Black-and-white engraving of a
standing woman with her hand on her hip and a basket on her head.]
(On the Route from St. Pierre to Basse-Pointe.)
She wears no shoes! To wear shoes and do her work swiftly and well in such a land of mountains would be impossible. She must climb thousands and descend thousands of feet every day,—march up and down slopes so steep that the horses of the country all break down after a few years of similar journeying. The girl invariably outlasts the horse,—though carrying an equal weight. Shoes, unless extraordinarily well made, would shift place a little with every change from ascent to descent, or the reverse, during the march,—would yield and loosen with the ever-varying strain,—would compress the toes,—produce corns, bunions, raw places by rubbing, and soon cripple the porteuse. Remember, she has to walk perhaps fifty miles between dawn and dark, under a sun to which a single hour's exposure, without the protection of an umbrella, is perilous to any European or American—the terrible sun of the tropics! Sandals are the only conceivable foot-gear suited to such a calling as hers; but she needs no sandals: the soles of her feet are toughened so as to feel no asperities, and present to sharp pebbles a surface at once yielding and resisting, like a cushion of solid caoutchouc.
Besides her load, she carries only a canvas purse tied to her girdle on the right side, and on the left a very small bottle of rum, or white tafia,—usually the latter, because it is so cheap. … For she may not always find the Gouyave Water to drink,—the cold clear pure stream conveyed to the fountains of St. Pierre from the highest
LES PORTEUSES. Two Years in the French West Indies | ||