III.
We preferred to walk up into the town—not because we were more merciful than those who had wobbled and rattled and jiggled on before us, but because we thought it would be a little more Haïtien than if we drove. We might have taken the tram, but it was more fun to watch it hitch its precarious way along after its stuffy, rusty, leaky little “dummy” engine, down through the crooked streets, than to jerk along with it. The only sensible thing to do was just to stand there within the ruins of a one-time beautiful city and look about us. It was the worst, the forlornest, the most mind-forsaken place of which you can conceive. Earthquakes had cracked and tumbled down some of the best buildings, fire had destroyed many others, and the remains had been left as they had dropped, under the blistering sun, to crumble away into dust; and thronging in and through the ruins like black ants about their downtrodden dwelling, were swarms of rag-tag human beings whom I call such merely because no species of “missing link” has yet been recognised by our anthropologists.
It was an official building before which we were standing, and as we were about to move on to a shadier spot, the guards, or the soldiers, or whatever one might call them, approached and presented arms under the crooked arch, and disappeared noiselessly within the inner court. This barefooted squad, some ten strong—negroes of all shades of blackness—were equipped in gorgeous red caps. Yes, they all had caps, and muskets, every one of them; the remaining parts of the uniform, unessential parts, were eked out with linen dusters and old rags which happened to be lying around handy. I don’t see why they should have bothered about having the dusters, but I suppose it was traditional.
Just as we approached the main street under a blazing sun, there came toward us two chariots, with wheels eight or ten feet high, harnessed each to a mixture of tiny, woebegone donkeys and mules, about the size of hairpins, going at full speed with the true negro love of display, for the benefit of the strangers. The charioteers wore shirts and tattered hats, and yelled like wild hyenas at the poor, astonished mules. “Hurrah for Ben Hur!” we shouted, and the triumphant victor rattled ahead in a cloud of dust. Then we went on to the next performance, a Haïtien officer strutting past, bedecked with gold lace and buttons, and great cocked hat, well plumed, and barefooted. There was no use being serious; we couldn’t be. We were in the midst of an opera bouffe, with negroes playing at government, with the happy-go-lucky African savage fully possessed of his racial characteristics, fondly imagining himself a free and responsible man; and it was one, long pitiful laugh for the poor black children who were taking themselves in such dead earnest.
IV.
It was not to imitate Mr. F. Hopkinson Smith in the least that we said we must find a white umbrella, and yet even had we wished to imitate Mr. Smith, could we have followed in the way of a more delightsome traveller? It was simply because we were conscious that a white umbrella, with a soft green lining, is a necessary adjunct to life in the tropics. It is in harmony with its environment, because it is almost a necessity; and being such, we were not to be dissuaded from our desire. So, with that definite intent to our steps, we started to find the white umbrella.
Was every one else hunting for one, too, that the crowd was all going in our direction—surely not! No sun could ever blaze strongly enough to penetrate those woolly tops. We go on a little farther, and then we begin to understand from a wave of odours sweeping over us that it’s to market we’re going with all the rest; and so for the time we are led from the purpose of the morning.
The stench grows more pronounced; we become a part of a black host, with babies, children, men, women, and donkeys crowding into the square, where a long, low-tiled market-building and its surrounding dirty pavement becomes the kitchen for the whole of Port-au-Prince; a place where filthy meats and queer vegetables and strange fruits are sold, and where all manner of curious, outlandish dishes are being concocted. The black women crouching on the ground over little simmering pots and a few hot coals, jabbering away at their crouching neighbours, were more like half-human animals than possible mothers of a republic. And in amongst the women were the babies, rolling around on bits of rags, blissfully happy in their complete nakedness. But there was something about those black, naked babies which seemed to dress them up without any clothes. Does a naked negro baby ever look as bare to you as a naked white baby?
Stopping a minute, where a louder, noisier mob of women were busy over their morning incantations, my eye chanced to dwell for a second longer than it should have done, on a pudgy little pickaninny, which was lying in its mother’s lap, kicking up its heels, with its fat little arms beating the air in very much the same aimless manner that our babies do. Seizing upon my momentary interest in the youngster, its mother caught up the wiggling, naked thing, and with all the eloquence of a language of signs, contrasted her naked baby with what seemed to her the regal splendour of my white shirt-waist. For an instant I weakened and caught at my pocketbook mechanically, but, as I did so, I glanced up just quickly enough to see her ladyship give a laughing wink to one of her neighbours, as much as to say: “Jest see me work ’em!”—and I caught the wink in time to turn the solemn face into a crooning laugh, when, with the worst French I could muster—and that was a simple matter—I told the mother her baby was all right. It didn’t need any clothes; I was just wearing them because it was a sort of habit. People would be lots more comfortable in Haïti without them. For a minute, those black, beseeching eyes had had me fixed, but, fortunately for our further peace of mind, I looked once too many times.
The air was thick with horrible smells and horrible sounds as well. We became a target for begging hands, and “Damn, give me five cents,” was every second word we heard. Where the poor creatures ever learned so much English, would be difficult to say, but it was well learned. Over the black heads, over the little cooking breakfasts, over the endless procession of donkeys, carrying sugar-cane and coffee and all sorts of stuff from off somewhere we didn’t know about, to the market we did know about—there arose an arch which was even more barbaric than the naked babies and their half-naked mothers. It was just the thing for the market—it fitted in with the smells; it was something incredibly hideous and archaic. It was not French, it was purely an African creation, made of wood, in strange ungraceful points and ornamented with outlandish coloured figures; and yet it was an arch, and we ought to forgive the rest.
But the white umbrella! were we never to begin our search? We left the market and took the shady side of the street. But, being a party of four, we all wanted to do different things, yet, being a very congenial party of four, we went from one side of the street to the other, as one or the other happened to catch sight of something novel; thus, back and forth, zigzag, we made for the white umbrella.
Laddie, in far-off America, had been promised stamps; in fact he had been promised almost the limit of his imaginary wants, if he would only stay with Grandmamma by the sea, and not mind while we were off for the Islands; so it was not only a white umbrella which kept us moving on up the sunny streets, but Laddie and his stamps. Thus the post-office stepped in where the white umbrella should have been ladies’ choice.
A nondescript following conducted us to the post-office, where we met a very different type of man. The officials spoke such beautiful French that we became at once hopelessly lost in our idioms. When the Creole postmaster discovered our self-appointed escort of ragamuffins crowding the entrance to the office, his black eyes flashed for a second, and some terrible things must have been said to the crowd, which we did not understand, for the office was emptied in short order. Here, we thought, was the true Haïtien; the market-people were the refuse.