XIII.


Following the Rue Victor Hugo in the direction of the Fort,--
crossing the Rivière Roxelane, or Rivière des Blanchisseuses,
whose rocky bed is white with unsoaped linen far as the eye can
reach,--you descend through some tortuous narrow streets into the
principal marketplace. [1]

A square--well paved and well shaded--with a fountain in the
midst. Here the dealers are seated in rows;--one half of the
market is devoted to fruits and vegetables; the other to the
sale of fresh fish and meats. On first entering you are confused
by the press and deafened by the storm of creole chatter;--then
you begin to discern some order in this chaos, and to observe
curious things.

In the middle of the paved square, about the market fountain,
are lying boats filled with fish, which have been carried up from
the water upon men's shoulders,--or, if very heavy, conveyed on
rollers.... Such fish!--blue, rosy, green, lilac, scarlet, gold:
no spectral tints these, but luminous and strong like fire. Here
also you see heaps of long thin fish looking like piled bars of
silver,--absolutely dazzling,--of almost equal thickness from
head to tail;--near by are heaps of flat pink creatures;--beyond
these, again, a mass of azure backs and golden bellies. Among
the stalls you can study the monsters,--twelve or fifteen feet
long,--the shark, the _vierge_, the sword fish, the _tonne_,--or