often have some of the Antilles changed owners, moreover, that in
them the negro has never been able to form a true _patois_. He had
scarcely acquired some idea of the language of his first masters,
when other rulers and another tongue were thrust upon him,--and
this may have occurred three or four times! The result is a
totally incoherent agglomeration of speech-forms--a baragouin
fantastic and unintelligible beyond the power of anyone to
imagine who has not heard it....



XXXII.


... A beautiful fantastic shape floats to us through the morning
light; first cloudy gold like the horizon, then pearly gray, then
varying blue, with growing green lights;--Saint Lucia. Most
strangely formed of all this volcanic family;--everywhere
mountainings sharp as broken crystals. Far off the Pitons--twin
peaks of the high coast-show softer contours, like two black
breasts pointing against the sky....

... As we enter the harbor of Castries, the lines of the land
seem no less exquisitely odd, in spite of their rich verdure,
than when viewed afar off;--they have a particular pitch of
angle.... Other of these islands show more or less family
resemblance;--you might readily mistake one silhouette for
another as seen at a distance, even after several West Indian
journeys. But Saint Lucia at once impresses you by its
eccentricity.