VIII.
IN every season, in almost every weather, the porteuse makes her
journey,—never heeding rain;—her goods being protected by
double and triple water-proof coverings well bound down over her
trait. Yet these tropical rains, coming suddenly with a cold
wind upon her heated and almost naked body, are to be feared. To
any European or un-acclimated white such a wetting, while the
pores are all open during a profuse perspiration, would probably
prove fatal: even for white natives the result is always a
serious and protracted illness. But the porteuse seldom suffers
in consequences: she seems proof against fevers, rheumatisms, and
ordinary colds. When she does break down, however, the malady is
a frightful one,—a pneumonia that carries off the victim within
forty-eight hours. Happily, among her class, these fatalities
are very rare.
And scarcely less rare than such sudden deaths are instances of
failure to appear on time. In one case, the employer, a St.
Pierre shopkeeper, on finding his marchande more than an hour
late, felt so certain something very extraordinary must have
happened that he sent out messengers in all directions to make
inquiries. It was found that the woman had become a mother when
only half-way upon her journey home. The child lived and
thrived;—she is now a pretty chocolate-colored girl of eight,
who follows her mother every day from their mountain ajoupa down
to the city, and back again,—bearing a little trait upon her
head.
Murder for purposes of robbery is not an unknown crime in
Martinique; but I am told the porteuses are never molested. And
yet some of these girls carry merchandise to the value of
hundreds of francs; and all carry money,—the money received for
goods sold, often a considerable sum. This immunity may be
partly owing to the fact that they travel during the greater part
of the year only by day,—and usually in company. A very pretty
girl is seldom suffered to journey unprotected: she has either a
male escort or several experienced and powerful women with her.
In the cacao season-when carriers start from Grande Anse as early
as two o'clock in the morning, so as to reach St. Pierre by dawn
—they travel in strong companies of twenty or twenty-five,
singing on the way. As a general rule the younger girls at all
times go two together,—keeping step perfectly as a pair of
blooded fillies; only the veterans, or women selected for special
work by reason of extraordinary physical capabilities, go alone.
To the latter class belong certain girls employed by the great
bakeries of Fort-de-France and St. Pierre: these are veritable
caryatides. They are probably the heaviest-laden of all, carrying
baskets of astounding size far up into the mountains before
daylight, so as to furnish country families with fresh bread at
an early hour; and for this labor they receive about four dollars
(twenty francs) a month and one loaf of bread per diem. … While
stopping at a friend's house among the hills, some two miles from
Fort-de-France, I saw the local bread-carrier halt before our
porch one morning, and a finer type of the race it would be
difficult for a sculptor to imagine. Six feet tall,—strength
and
grace united throughout her whole figure from neck to heel;
with that clear black skin which is beautiful to any but ignorant
or prejudiced eyes; and the smooth, pleasing, solemn features of a
sphinx,—she looked to me, as she towered there in the gold
light, a symbolic statue of Africa. Seeing me smoking one of
those long thin Martinique cigars called
bouts, she begged one;
and, not happening to have another, I gave her the price of a
bunch of twenty,—ten sous. She took it without a smile, and
went her way. About an hour and a half later she came back and
asked for me,—to present me with the finest and largest mango I
had ever seen, a monster mango. She said she wanted to see me
eat it, and sat down on the ground to look on. While eating it,
I learned that she had walked a whole mile out of her way under
that sky of fire, just to bring her little gift of gratitude.