276
Martinique
Sketches.
At this height the chatting and chanting can* be heard, though not distinctly enough to catch the words. Suddenly a voice, powerful as a bugle, rings out,—the voice of the Commandeur : he walks along the line, looking, with his cutlass under his arm. I ask one of our guides what the cry is :— —"
Y ka
coumandé
yo pouend
gàde
pou
sèpent,"
he
re-
plies. ( H e is telling them to keep watch for serpents.) The nearer the cutlassers approach the end of their task, the greater the danger : for the reptiles, retreating before them to the last clump of cane, become massed there, and will fight desperately. Regularly as the ripeningtime, Death gathers his toll of human lives from among the workers. But when one falls, another steps into the vacant place,—perhaps the Commandeur himself : these dark swordsmen never retreat ; all the blades swing swiftly as before ; there is hardly any emotion ; the travailleur is a fatalist. . . .* * M . F r a n c a r d Bayardelle, overseer o f the P r è s b o u r g plantation at G r a n d e A n s e , tells m e that the most successful treatment o f s n a k e bite consists in severe local c u p p i n g a n d b l e e d i n g ; the i m m e d i a t e application o f twenty t o thirty leeches ( w h e n these c a n b e o b t a i n e d ) , and the administration o f alkali as an internal m e d i c i n e . H e has saved several lives b y these m e t h o d s . T h e negropanseur's m e t h o d is m u c h m o r e elaborate a n d , t o s o m e extent, mysterious. H e cups a n d b l e e d s , using a small couï, o r halfcalabash, in lieu o f a glass; a n d then applies cataplasms o f h e r b s , — orange-leaves, c i n n a m o n - l e a v e s , clove-leaves, chardon-béni, charpentier, perhaps twenty other things, all m i n g l e d together ; — t h i s p o u l ticing b e i n g c o n t i n u e d every d a y f o r a m o n t h . M e a n t i m e the patient is g i v e n all sorts o f absurd things t o d r i n k , in tafia a n d sour-orange j u i c e — s u c h as o l d clay pipes g r o u n d t o p o w d e r , o r the head of the fer-de-lance itself, roasted d r y a n d p o u n d e d . . . . T h e plantation n e g r o has n o faith in a n y other system o f cure b u t that o f the panseur ; — h e refuses t o let the physician try t o save h i m , a n d will scarcely submit t o b e treated e v e n b y an e x p e r i e n c e d white o v e r seer.