' Ti
Canotié.
295
Again, because of the sound of her whistle, we find a steamer called in this same picturesque idiom, batimentcdne,—"the horn-ship." There is even a song, of which the refrain is :— " B o m - l à rivé, c h è , — Batiment-cône-là rivé."
. . . But of all the various classes of citizens, those most joyously excited by the coming of a great steamer, whether she be a " bom " or not,—are the 'ti canotié, who swarm out immediately in little canoes of their own manufacture to dive for coins which passengers gladly throw into the water for the pleasure of witnessing the graceful spectacle. N o sooner does a steamer drop anchor— unless the water be very rough indeed—than she is surrounded by a fleet of the funniest little boats imaginable, full of naked urchins screaming creole. These 'ti canotié — these little c a n o e - b o y s and professional divers—are, for the most part, sons of boatmen of color, the real ca?iotiers. I cannot find who first invented the 'ti canot: the shape and dimensions of the little canoe are fixed according to a tradition several generations old ; and no improvements upon the original model seem to have ever been attempted, with the sole exception of a tiny water-tight box contrived sometimes at one end, in which the palettes, or miniature paddles, and various other trifles may be stowed away. The actual cost of material for a canoe of this kind seldom exceeds twenty-five or thirty cents ; and, nevertheless, the number of canoes is not very large—I doubt if there be more than fifteen in the h a r b o r ; — a s the families of Martinique boatmen are all so poor that twenty-five sous are difficult to spare, in spite of the certainty that the little son can earn fifty times the amount within a month after owning a canoe. For the manufacture of a canoe an American lard-box