LES PORTEUSES. Two Years in the French West Indies | ||
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
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
FORT-DE-FRANCE, MARTINIQUE—(FORMERLY FORT ROYAL.)
[Description: Unnumbered illustration page. Black-and-white engraving of a harbot.]
LES PORTEUSES. Two Years in the French West Indies | ||