Chapter 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: "_Ou jojoll, oui!--moin ni envie monté assou ou, pou main 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 gadé main!_" (There is the great sea looking at me!) "_Mâché toujou deïé moin, lamnè!_" (Walk after me, O 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, O 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 mòdé moin, chien--anh! Moin pa fé ou arien, chien, pou ou mòdé moin!_" (Do not bite me, O Dog! Never did I anything to thee that thou shouldst bite me, O 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.