Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
great meal, ushered in by draughts of Hollands gin, and followed by 'Spice,' the drink of the island. It is
made of cloves and cinnamon and aniseed which is first ground to a powder, then boiled in syrup. Rum
is poured on the mixture and strained, and the rum is set fire to, quickly extinguished, and then bottled.
All these islands have their own drinks. The inhabitants of St. Martin drink guava-berry rum, while the
Statians have a grog called 'Miss Blyden' which used to be a great favourite of the buccaneers.
Our plans to climb the inside of the crater to the village of Windwardside had to be cancelled, as
an emissary arrived from the shore, saying that the
Rose Millicent
was dragging her anchor and was in
danger, unless she put to sea at once, of being carried inshore by the waves and battered against the rocky
side of the island. So we had to thank host and hostess hurriedly and go down to the sloop.
When we reached the little ledge of sand, the sea was so rough that the sloop was leaping about like
a restless horse at its tether. Beside it lay the rusty hulk of a little steamer called the
Kralendijk
, also
bound for St. Martin, which had arrived with stores for the island. Captain Fleming said that the journey
to the next island would take many hours in such a sea, as St. Martin lay to NNW of Saba, and the Trades
were blowing steadily westward. He advised us to take passage in the
Kralendijk
. The
Rose Millicent
had
already collided against her side and damaged her bulwarks. We got on board the steamer just as the an-
chor was coming up. Captain Fleming went bobbing across the intervening waves towards the sloop.
We landed at Phillipsburg, the capital of St. Maartin, in the dark; and, like Statia, it appeared to be tucked
up for the night, although it was only nine o'clock. The journey had been rough, and, feeling still slightly
green, we sat drinking Bols gin in a sad little saloon where three English-speaking Negroes were playing
billiards while an ancient Ford was being prepared to take us over to the French side. Nothing marked
the change from St. Maartin to St. Martin except the imperceptible elimination of an 'a.' The car pulled
up in the main street of the dismal little town of Marigot, capital of the French colony of St. Martin. The
single hotel looked as though it had been sealed up decades ago, but knocking at last produced light and
movement inside. A wild-eyed young woman from St. Barthélémy admitted us and showed us into our
little hutches, all of which gave on to a bleak central room. Here, after an hour or two, we had a sad and
tasteless meal. It was served by a young coloured girl called Bella, who giggled and mooned and pouted
her way with exasperating slowness from dining-room to kitchen and back again, her progress marked
by dropped rolls and plates and the drag of her slippers. We rejoiced at the idea of leaving next day.
The first person we encountered in Marigot next morning was the fabulous Mr. Fleming; a plump, thick-
set, fair-headed man of about forty-five, with shrewd eyes behind tortoiseshell spectacles. He spoke im-
peccable English and French, and radiated almost visible sparks of energy and efficiency. Our journey
to the Virgin Isles was organized in a few minutes. The journey would take over twenty-five hours in
a sloop, across an expanse of sea that was bare of islands and probably very rough. How much did the
sloop-journey cost? Why, it would be much cheaper and quicker to hire a taxi-plane from the Republic
Aircraft Co., a private firm of Americans in St. Thomas. Where were we heading for? St. Thomas? Fine.
Mr. Fleming wrote out a signal there and then, which was tapped out a few moments later from a private
transmitting set in his office just opposite our hotel. That was that. He invited us to come for a drink that
afternoon, and vanished without the faintest hint of bustle in an aura of cordiality and acumen.
Marigot is a miserable town. Two hundred yards of dust, lined with wooden houses that have none of
the charm of those of the other island towns, and with grocers' shops, all of which are owned by Flem-
ings, who vary from the deepest black to the palest
sangmêlé
, or, like our recent acquaintance, pure white,
Search WWH ::
Custom Search