HARPER'S MAGAZINE VOL. CXXVII JUNE, 1913 No. DCCLVII Ο Cayenne the Dry Guillotine. BY CHARLES WELLINGTON FURLONG, F.R.G.S. FF Port of Spain, Trinidad, the dull gray cattle - boat Fagersand, loaded with Orinoco beef for French Guiana, rode at anchor on the sapphire waters of the Paria Gulf. Her Norwegian complement had recently been depleted by "yellow jack" and beriberi. Morning found me aboard, bound for "le guillotine sec," as Lamartine described Cayenne a half-century ago. where Cayenne- red pepper to the world at large, hell to the few thousands of convicts transported to this isolated, northeastern corner of equatorial South America. Here, it was rumored, existed one of the world's most antiquated and revolting penal systems, thousands of men are not only transported for years, but exiled and doomed to a living death. Men from French Guiana had intimated conditions which vied with the cruelties of the old conviet hips. I understood the system was legalized by progressive, intellectual France, under the Minister of Colonies, and that prison - reform movements in France had unsuccessfully tried to do away with the horrors of Cayenne. That night we swung swiftly through the dangerous Serpent's Mouth into the yellow, soupy brine, abounding with sharks, and discolored for miles offshore by the opaque Guianan rivers which ever slush out to sea. In the Guianas the waters from rivers and sea spread over marsh and swamp, and the lowlying coast is the borderland of the most unhealthy regions of South America. From the time of the French Revolution, political prisoners were sent to French Guiana, which later became a penal colony, gether with New Caledonia, Réunion, and certain West-Indian islands. On March 27, 1852, laws, decrees, and regulations relating to transportation, deportation, and relegation of prisoners went into effect through the Minister of Colonies. Thus Louis Napoleon not only rid himself of political opponents, and from the overcrowded prisons of France exiled many criminals, but the government obtained forced labor and colonists. However, to-day France maintains only French Guiana in full operation as a penal colony. Off the western seaboard of France lies the Île de Ré, with its quaint little fishing village, San Martin de Ré, at whose water's edge stands a weatherbeaten old citadel, now a convict station. In January and July its ponderous iron gates open and emit some half-thousand wretched men. Each has heard the Court of Assizes pronounce sentence that has made the blood chill, the brain whirl, the heart-throb almost stop-" Cayenne!" Clad in coarse woolen garb and chained in pairs, like a monster brown snake this string of humanity creeps between glistening bayonets of double-ranked soldiers down the long wharf. In lighters they board the La Loire, and practically all know that the closing of the great gates of the citadel's iron maw has shut them from France forever. Copyright, 1913, by Harper & Brothers. All rights reserved famous through the infamous incarcera- dividuality lost in the bundle, but tion of the exiled Dreyfus. A few lights twinkled on Royale; a sentry's call broke the stillness; rattle went the anchor-chain, then the warm glow of a lantern lined its way down the dark, velvety silhouette of the island like a copper scratch on an etcher's plate. I caught the swash-creak of oars, a boat manned by convicts pulled alongside, and an officer came aboard for mail. The gangway lantern shone down on the fever-wan, upturned faces of the silent rowers, and glistened on the loaded rifles of the guards, who sat vigilantly in the stern-sheets. Soon the boat pulled back to Royale, we continued on in the freshening trade wind, and at dawn dropped our mud-hooks in the harbor of Cayenne, the only steamer there. The fort crowned hill was stenciled against the rose dawn, and other low hills merged mistily inland. Picturesque buildings lined the shore, nestled among trees, or stretched to the canal quarter of the town. The Ville de Cayenne is an old, gray - mottled city of wooden buildings, palm-trees, and quietness. It shelters a civil population of about ten thousand. Besides the civil police, there are only one hundred and sixty regular checked with a number; unfortunates who have slipped a cog in the wheel of life. On arrival at Cayenne the condemned are classified and distributed throughout French Guiana to some half-dozen penitentiary establishments along the coast or near the river mouths, hemmed in on one side by the boundless ocean, on the other by the limitless jungle. Prisoners in general are spoken of as deportés. Those sentenced to hard labor are known as transportés; for life, as relégués; those on parole in the colony are known as libérés. Transportés highwaymen, robbers, murderers are sentenced to hard labor with a minimum term of five years and a maximum of twenty. A term of eight years or more exiles them for life. Less than eight years involves an additional equal length of time in the colony on parole. Relégués are incorrigible criminals of the worst type, a few attain libéré, and a few are sometimes allowed to go to Dutch Guiana provided they report. Transportés go mainly to Kourou, Cayenne, and to St. Laurent on the Maroni River, relégués mostly to St. Jean, and desperate crim ised. And this will include the privilege of taking photographs?" "Photographs! inals to solitary confinement on the Îles "Well, it will be arranged," he promde Salut. The deportés are supervised by the corps militaire des surveillants, a corps of prison police under warders classified as surveillants principals, surveillants-chefs de première classe, and surveillants chefs de seconde classe. Thus this small corps of surveillants and a little detachment of one hundred and sixty regulars controls nearly seven thousand deportés. About the town these remnants of humanity were digging trenches, carrying heavy sacks of coal, etc., some so emaciated they could scarcely stand, all under the eagle eye of a white-helmeted guard with ever-ready revolver. Passing through the magnificent royal palms of the Place de l'Esplanade, I went to present my official letters to the Colonial Governor. He courteously offered every assistance in my ethnographical and geographical research, but excepted investigations of the prisons. "You will publish something?" "Yes," I frankly admitted; "but, monsieur, my letters vouch for me." "It is not desirable to have outsiders enter the prisons." "Why should you object to my seeing the system? I have already many facts, but I wish officials' opinions and to see for myself. I don't want to base all my opinions on deportés' information." The Governor caught my meaning. Jamais, monsieur! We must protect the prisoners. Were you to publish photographs of any prisoner, objections could be made by his relatives to the Minister of Colonies." "I will take no photographs of individuals without their permission, or of groups without first asking those who wish, to step aside "; and so permission was extracted. I found I might be in Cayenne a month unless I again took the Fagersand, which had orders to touch in at St. Laurent, my destination, and two days later we entered the Maroni River. The Fagersand swung around point after point, often within fifty yards of the dense forest, where the great tentacled roots of the grignon-trees and mocomoco bushes arched into the swampy river edge, while above the mangletrees the feathered palm-tops bent gently to the trade - winds. At last a large clearing, and St. Laurent, with a few wharves poking into the river, came into view. Plunge! the anchor went to the muddy bottom of the Maroni, some French inspecting officers came aboard, and five deportés swung a lighter alongside for cattle. As the lighter loaded, shoved off, "I am not a I shall never forget. Later that day I entered St. Laurent. From its edge the Maroni River stretches two kilometers to the Dutch Guianan shores, and ever sends its swift, gurgling current slushing to the sea. In the town, convicts, yellow with the pallor of that specter malaria, or with the stamp of death on many a countenance, intermingle with negroes, creoles, and French. From their camps on its banks Bush Negroes and cinnamon - colored Caribs come in and hang out near the Chinese I had been watching the half-stripped, fair skinned youth, No. 36504, who showed, through superb muscles, splendid capacity for work and a mental superiority over the stevedore and crew of the Fagersand. "You are French?" I said, turning and Hindoo huts on piles along the river to him. "Belgian, monsieur." Why are you here?" "I stole; the first time when very young; the last time, married and in need, I gave way to temptation." "When will you leave the colony?" "Never, unless I escape. I have tried, but was caught and given additional punishment." "But you must not give up hope." "Ah, monsieur!" and his deep blue eyes looked squarely into mine in a way edge. At the office of M. Bravard, Director of St. Laurent, I was courteously invited in by M. Bravard himself, who impressed me, as did most of the higher officials, as eminently fitted for their difficult positions. "Is a relégué incorrigible?" I asked, during our conversations. "We must look at the matter philosophically," he replied. "Theoretically none are incorrigible; but one rarely reforms." Without doubt some of the |