University of Virginia Library

XI.

… TRAVELLING together, the porteuses often walk in silence for hours at a time;—this is when they feel weary. Sometimes they sing,—most often when approaching their destination;—and when they chat, it is in a key so high-pitched that their voices can be heard to a great distance in this land of echoes and elevations. But she who travels alone is rarely silent: she talks to herself or to inanimate things;—you may hear her talking to the trees, to the flowers,—talking to the high clouds and the far peaks of changing color,—talking to the setting sun!

Over the miles of the morning she sees, perchance, the mighty Piton Gélé, a cone of amethyst in the light; and she talks to it: "0u jojoll, oui!—moin ni envie monté assou ou, pou moin ouè bien, bien!" (Thou art pretty, pretty, aye!—I would I might climb thee, to see far, far off!) By a great grove of palms she passes;—so thickly mustered they are that against the sun their intermingled

heads form one unbroken awning of green. Many rise straight as masts; some bend at beautiful angles, seeming to intercross their long pale single limbs in a fantastic dance; others curve like bows: there is one that undulates from foot to crest, like a monster serpent poised upon its tail. She loves to look at that one—"joli pié-bois-là!—talks to it as she goes by, —bids it good-day.

Or, looking back as she ascends, she sees the huge blue dream of the sea,—the eternal haunter, that ever becomes larger as she mounts the road; and she talks to it: "Mi lanmé ka gaudé moin!" (There is the great sea looking at me!) "Màché toujou deïé moin, lanmè!" (Walk after me, 0 Sea!)

Or she views the clouds of Pelée, spreading gray from the invisible summit, to shadow against the sun; and she fears the rain, and she talks to it: "Pas mouillé moin, laplie-à! Quitté moin rivé avant mouillé moin!" (Do not wet me, 0 Rain! Let me get there before thou wettest me!)

Sometimes a dog barks at her, menaces her bare limbs; and she talks to the dog: "Chien-a, pas módé moin, chien—anh! Moin pa fé ou arien, chien, pou ou módé moin!" (Do not bite me, 0 Dog! Never did I anything to thee that thou shouldst bite me, 0 Dog! Do not bite me, dear! Do not bite me, doudoux!)

Sometimes she meets a laden sister travelling the opposite way. … "Coument ou yé, chè?" she cries. (How art thou, dear?) And the other makes answer, "Toutt douce, chè,—et ou?" (All sweetly, dear,—and thou?) And each passes on without pausing: they have no time!

… It is perhaps the last human voice she will hear for many a mile. After that only the whisper of the grasses—graïe-gras, graïe-gras! —and the gossip of the canes— chououa, chououa!—and the husky speech of the pois-Angole, ka babillé conm yon vié fenme,—that babbles like an old woman;—and the murmur of the filao-trees, like the murmur of the River of the Washerwomen.