Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER ONE
Guadeloupe
THE moment the anchor was raised, the Colombie seemed to advance down the gulf with unnatural speed.
To port, pale green islands were floating on the water, but the main body of Grande Terre, a dark shape
whose depths and dimensions were only beginning to be defined, lay in shadow on the starboard side
between us and the dawn. It was just possible to descry the waves of black vegetation and the lakes of
mist entangled in the treetops where the country dipped. In the space of a few minutes the sunrise melted
from violet into amber, from amber into scarlet, from scarlet into zinc and from zinc into saffron. The dark
vegetation became a line of giant, pale green parsley, which hovered a hundred yards away in a flutter-
ing cumulus that nothing appeared to tether to either land or sea. For no land was visible. But where the
trees should have joined the sea the green mass curled backwards into shadow. It hung some yards above
the water, and the smooth ripples from the ship disappeared under the leaves without meeting any resist-
ance. Then, as if another dark filament had been withdrawn from the daybreak, the shapes of the man-
grove trunks, the flimsy architecture that maintained all this greenstuff poised in mid-air, advanced from
the darkness into the sea like a million bowling hoops. Under their leafy canopy, the tenuous Gothic arches
receded in a dark triforium. A dawn wind stirred the leaves of the insecurely balanced green labyrinth, and
the pace of our movement altered the outline of the stage wings of leaves from second to second, so that
our ship was suspended in the very centre of motion and change and instability.
We rounded a buttress of mangroves, and a town appeared, the roofs and warehouses, masts and cranes
were interspersed with palm trees. The sun cast loose from the leaves, and drifted up into the sky. The wind
died, the clouds came to a standstill, and the sea was drained at last of every colour but an uncompromising
blue. Even the forest stopped moving, and sank into an inert volume of unchanging green. It was going to
be a really hot day.
The waterfront of Pointe-à-Pitre was hung with flags, and on the quay a platoon of soldiers stood at
ease. A large crowd gazed in silence through the iron railings of the port. Surely the arrival of the Colombie
was not the only reason for this? The scene on the quay below us was heavy with expectation. Groups of
officials and of prominent burghers—a few of them white, but most of them brown or black—conversed
in important little groups. White-drill French colonial uniforms gleamed with starch among black coats
sashed with the tricolor. The women, severely spectacled and tightly gloved, were encased in black satin
and hatted with intricate confections of sombre felt, relieved by artificial flowers or bunches of celluloid
grapes. On the crown of a cloche hat of the fashion of 1926 perched, as though it had just alighted there, a
tiny stuffed canary.
All at once the reason for this air of expectancy became clear, for down the gangway a scarcely recog-
nizable figure was advancing at the head of a uniformed retinue. It was one of our shipmates, the high
proconsular dignitary, no longer the colourless and larva-like figure we had known on the journey, but a
superb metamorphosis in white and gold and brass, arriving here to take over his new appointment as Pre-
fect. His hat and his cuffs glittered with bullion, and on his bosom alongside another decoration of bright
green, the Legion of Honour made a red splash. It was difficult to believe that it was the same man.
The guard of honour presented arms, and the band played the Marseillaise while everybody stood at
the salute. A series of presentations followed. The passengers leant over the bulwarks admiring the urbane
Search WWH ::




Custom Search