Читать книгу Roraima and British Guiana, With a Glance at Bermuda, the West Indies, and the Spanish Main онлайн

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On landing at St. Pierre the traveller finds himself the object of a popular demonstration; he is assailed by a swarm of stalwart women, some of whom dispossess him of his book, umbrella, or whatever he may be carrying, whilst others, after a short fight among themselves, seize on the luggage, toss great portmanteaus and boxes on to their heads with the greatest of ease, and amid shouts of laughter rush off with loud cries, “A la douane! à la douane!” It is useless to protest that you want to carry such and such a thing yourself, you may recapture it for a second, but it is lost again; everything goes aloft on female heads and shoulders, and to avoid a similar fate yourself you follow in the wake of the flying Amazons and arrive at the Custom House. Then a strict inspection ensues, after which the luggage is remounted and a procession is formed to the hotel.

We—one other passenger and myself—had been advised to go to the Hôtel des Bains, so when our porters said of course “les Messieurs” were going to the “Hôtel Micas,” we answered of course not. Eventually we made out from the extraordinary Creole patois, that the former hotel was closed, and that its proprietor had opened the latter. We soon arrived there, and it looked clean and comfortable, but the landlord was “désolé,” there was not a single vacant room; “would the gentlemen be satisfied with a billiard table for to-night, then to-morrow——?” This offer was declined, and finally we found rooms in the Hôtel du Commerce, a place of very second-rate pretensions, but with a very obliging proprietor.