À qui appartient Le Morne Brabant ?
Le Morne Brabant is an awe-inspiring mountain on account of its vertical cliffs and stark geography. It is like all the mountains of Mauritius, with an emblematic shape and form. Malcolm de Chazal asked: "A qui appartiennent les montagnes de Maurice ?" to which he replied: "A moi. Demandons-le aux enfants et ils diront à nous et à Dieu." Chazal also suggested that "les montagnes de l'Ile Maurice soient décrétées monuments historiques et protégées en conséquence." What clairvoyance, since Le Morne mountain was declared a national monument in 2005. Should not all the spectacular peaks of Mauritius be declared natural heritage ? If there is one part of our heritage with which ALL Mauritians clearly identify, it is surely the mountain silhouettes. Perhaps the most special shape among them is the Pieter Both. This peak is part of our volcanic past and aesthetic present, and if one day the head should fall off, it would be a national tragedy. The Piton du Milieu, shiva-like in the centre of the island is a pilgrimage site waiting to happen, while the door-stopper Coin de Mire is an exclusive hotel site developer's dream. But in the 21st century public imagination, Le Morne has distinguished itself in becoming a symbol of the struggle for freedom based on association with marronage. Other mountains, caves and isolated spots were hideouts for maroon slaves, but even by the 18th century Le Morne already had a reputation for being a place of ultimate self-sacrifice. In 1769 Bernardin de St-Pierre observed that "Il y a quelques années que quarante d'entre eux [Noirs marrons] s'étaient retires sur le morne, où ils avaient fait des plantations. On voulut les forcer; mais plutôt que de se rendre ils se précipitèrent tous dans la mer." He must have been speaking figuratively as it would have been impossible - the mountain being a goodly distance from the sea.
Ten years later Wiklinsky, a reputed embellisher of the truth, stated the mountain "… est si raide qu'on n'y peut monter que par un sentier fort scabreaux, environné de precipices.. [et] à son sommet, on est tout étonné de trouver une belle et agréable plaine entrecoupée de ruisseaux. Dans cet endroit se retirent les esclaves fugitives [qui] ont des plantations, des cabanes, y élisent un chef qui les protégent. On leur fait la chasse mais l'endroit est si raide qu'on n'a jamais pu les déloger de là." As far as I know, there are no substantiated accounts of climbing Le Morne from the 18th century, although there are allusions to it. But exactly one hundred years later, the eminently reputable Nicolas Pike recalls a personal walk up Le Morne. "We had heard very much of the difficulty of ascending this solitary giant, but the trial looked so well worthy that we resolved to try it." He continued, "We got an old Créole, who lived near to accompany us, and by his advice provided ourselves with ropes and hatchets to aid us in the ascent. We found the toil of climbing fully equal to anything we had heard of it." Describing the difficulty, he says, "we came suddenly on a perfectly perpendicular rock of fifteen or twenty feet, without foothold sufficient for a cat to scale. The only resource was attaching our good three-inch ropes to stones and flinging them up till they caught in the branches or roots above, and so hauling ourselves up. I believe the ascent of the Morne is quite equal in danger and fatigue to that of the Pieter Both." Of the top he says, "We reached the little plateau at the top, and we were glad of the spring there, of which we had heard but feared might be a myth." No water source can be found there today.
Pike does not mention the myth of suicides, which is now taken as fact among much of the public. The story goes that a detachment mounting the summit of Le Morne in 1835 to announce the ending of slavery led the maroon slaves supposedly living there, to misinterpret the purpose of the soldiers'advance and throw themselves off the cliffs, Amedée Nagapen comments: "L'on n'a pu à ce jour remonter à la source de cette version. L'on peut sans crainte ni risque aucun le remiser dans le placard des racontars."
While many of the mountains, forests and caves of Mauritius have been identified as places of refuge for maroon slaves, none hold the attraction of Le Morne on account of the virtual inaccessibility of its summit. Perhaps the best evidence of the presence of maroons there comes from the testimony of de la Motte who stated in 1756: "On découvrit.. que le Morne Brabant était habité, et sur le champ un détachement de troupe fut mandé pour aller détruire cet établissement. Le détachement ne put pas monter jusqu'en haut." To reach the summit necessitated some considerable acrobatics, beyond the capabilities of all but the most intrepid. Not too many people have walked up to the summit of Le Morne, but it is an exhilarating experience. As Robert Marsh said in his excellent book, much of "the climb is a scramble on mixed rocks and grass. But the footing is seldom as secure as one would wish and there are always the invisible cliffs below." To reach the summit, some form of platform - a ladder or rope - is needed to breach a few metres of cleft over which one must pass. Nevertheless, with a firm head for heights, leaving the beach in the early morning, one can reach the summit and be back at the coast for lunch.
On the summit there still is a plaque affixed by some Royal Engineer sergeants a century ago, which reads:
J.B.WHITEHEAD
W.PRESTCOTT
NCO
ROYAL ENGINEERS
17 APRIL 1901
which attests to others who have walked up Le Morne. This plaque is now rusted and the rock it is fixed to, facing Ilot Fourneau, is unsteady and deserves some care and preservation.
Perhaps the most interesting, first-hand account of a walk up and down the Morne was written by a correspondent named "The Climbing Boy" and published in The Graphic and the Illustrated London News, in 1881.
It follows:
The "Morne Brabante", Mauritiusby "The Climbing Boy" (The Graphic. 1881)
The "Morne Brabante" is a vast solitary rock which forms the south-westerly point of the Island of Mauritius. When the Dutch, and after them the French, were masters here, their high-spirited Malegash slaves, who had mostly been treacherously kidnapped in Madagascar, escaped in numbers to the woods which then clothed the interior; but finding no refuge there from the bloodhounds and guns of the police, they scaled the "Morne Brabante", and established themselves in the forest which still covers its strange summit. They became the scourge and terror of the neighbourhood, then the richest in the island, and were almost perfectly safe from attack, owing to the peculiar formation of their stronghold.
Speaking roughly, the mountain consists of a cubical mass of larva and volcanic debris, about 2,000 feet high. On one side only is there any possibility of scaling it; on the landward face a narrow ridge runs down to the sandy plain, broken in may places by precipices, and cut off from the mass of the mountain by a crevasse, where a vertical dyke of larva has decayed away.
The difficulty of attacking such a stronghold, defended by a band of desperate men, was so great, that for a long time the Maroons were left unmolested. They were in the habit of making raids in the surrounding country; and, on one occasion, emboldened by the desire of vengeance on a planter who treated his slaves with great harshness, they burnt his ripe cane crop, his house and sugar mill, carried him off to the "Morne" with his wife and two sons, and murdered all that offered them any resistance. The Maroons forced their prisoners to cultivate their gardens on top of the "Morne" while they lolled at their ease in the sun; the unfortunate woman, however, to escape the embraces of her brutal captors, threw herself over a precipice.
A son of the old planter, who had escaped the raid, collected a few bold spirits and led them up the mountain. Early one morning they threw a bamboo bridge across the crevasse, and surprised the Maroons asleep in their "cases". No quarter was given, their blood bedewed their manioc gardens, their bodies were thrown down the precipices, and the mountain was at last cleared of the ruffians who had made it their home.
Eighty or ninety years have passed since that final tragedy, and the mountain has remained undisturbed in its solitary grandeur, all attempts to reach the summit ending in failure. To explore the Maroons'ancient camp was the task I set before myself, and having induced a friend, Lieutenant-Colonel O-, to join me, we borrowed a boat, and started one morning from Port Louis for the "Morne". With a fine breeze on our quarter we did the twenty odd miles in about five hours, finally reaching the mouth of the Black River.
The next morning, having got four stout Malegashes - probably descendants of the old slaves - to carry our baggage, as we intended to sleep on the mountain, we started to try the ascent. We chose the bed of the largest watercourse, then dry. This led us into the lower part of the crevasse - here a deep gulley, which tried our climbing powers considerably. Shortly after we entered it, some big stones came tumbling down the cliff, and narrowly missed us. Looking up, we could make out a band of monkeys moving slowly across the precipice, where I never would have believed that anything but a bird could have reached. We fired at them with bullets, as they were too far for shot. We picked out a great dark fellow, the leader of the band, and who had dislodged the stones, and wounded him; but he jammed himself firmly into one of the largest lava bubbles, and probably is stuck there still. The gulley became more and more difficult, owing to the rottenness of the stone and its steepness, as we crept along the ledge to the left on to the ridge, where we met our men, who had come up an easier, although longer, way. A little higher we came to a steep, narrow pinnacle, on the other side of which lay the crevasse. Here our men struck, and positively refused to go any farther, complaining of giddiness, as did also my companion, Colonel O-. However, I persuaded them to have another try, letting me lead the way. Taking a ball of twine in my pocket, and with light tennis shoes on, I climbed carefully down the crevasse to the bottom, some fifty or sixty feet below; it was just about the size of a saddle, with a sheer drop on each side, while in front the rock overhung for a dozen or more feet up, and then rose vertically for sixty or eighty. At first sight it appeared impossible to mount; but to the right, over the precipice, there were a number of bubble-holes in the lava, which appeared sound enough to bear one's weight. I could just reach them with a long stride over the abyss, and after a few minutes'exciting climb, like a fly on a ceiling, I got above the overhanging part, and stopped to rest and to regain my sang-froid; then the remainder was comparatively easy. A cheer from my friend on the pinnacle encouraged me, and I soon got up the rest of the cliff, and reached the top of the crevasse, which on this side is considerably higher then on the other.
The next thing to do was to get our rope properly fixed, so I tied the end of the string I had with me to a stone, and threw it across to the others, who attached the rope to it, which I hauled up and made fast to a big rock. Even when the rope was securely fastened, neither O- nor any of the men would attempt the climb, although we offered twenty-five rupees to any of the latter who would come. One said he would try, but as soon as he had his hand on the rope his heart failed him, so I made up my mind to explore the mountain top alone.
My food, drink, and blanket were fastened to the rope and hauled up, and I started on a tour of exploration. The top of the mountain was only a few hundred feet higher, and not very difficult to reach. I found on the highest point a stick, on which I had cut my name the first time I had been up, a year and a half before, I left it in its place a sheet of lead with my name inscribed on it.
This mountain is said to be, and truly, more difficult to ascend then the "Pieter Both", with its peg-top like summit; the guide who shows the way and places the ropes on the latter told me that he had spent a week in trying, unsuccessfully, to reach the top of the "Morne" which besides has often been attempted by adventurous spirits of the garrison, but until now, I believe, without success.
The summit is a curious place; it has but a slight slope, ending on all sides in perpendicular precipices about 1,500 feet deep, except where the ridge runs up. Its area is about thirty-seven acres, all covered with a stunted forest never rising higher then twenty or thirty feet, but so dense and latted by the thorny "bambarras" creeper, that it is difficult to penetrate. Here and there among the trees rises patches of rock, one of which consists of beautifully regular columnar basalt.
I struck at once into the forest, and traversed the whole of the summit, presently coming upon an old clearing about one acre in extent, the scene of that terrible tragedy eighty years ago. All the garden plots are now covered with tangled grass, and the huts have crumbled into dust. I made out the sites of four "cases" which had been levelled by cutting into the slope, and the rotten corner posts of one still existed, but there was no sign of the vegetables and fruits which no doubt the Maroons had planted, except a solitary "patati", or sweet potato, which seemed to have a hard struggle for existence among the weeds. Not far away, on a patch of rock, there were several flat stones, so placed as to cover a natural hollow in the rock, and shield it from the sun. This depression might contain two or three gallons when full of water, and it evidently only fed by rain, which falls here nearly every night. There was just a dribble of water oozing from cracks in the rocks at several places on the lower side of the summit, but no means seemed to have been taken to collect it. The soil at the site of the camp is deep, and should be very fertile, but the Maroons must have suffered severely at times from the want of water. The sun was getting low, and night falls so quickly in these latitudes, that it warned me to get back to my food and blanket before dark. It was a lovely clear evening, so clear in fact that I could see the sister island of Bourbon ninety-eight miles away, a rare sight from Mauritius, for its high mountains are usually covered with clouds. I arranged my bed among some bushes, within hail of the rest of the party the other side of the crevasse. Luckily, we had no rain that night, a very exceptional occurrence, and all that disturbed me were some inquisitive musk-rats, who came after my food, and squeaked round me the whole night long. In the morning we found that the monkeys had been at our food on the opposite side of the crevasse, and had stolen bread, cheese and oranges, the latter, curiously enough, they did not relish, for after one bite in each they had been dropped. I again tried, and failed, to induce some of the others to come up the rope, and then started to walk round the edge of the summit. It was tough walking, although comparatively clear of bushes and thorns.
The view is very fine, the grand Black River range of mountains, broken by the stupendous river gorge, stretches away towards the curious peaks of the "Rempart", and the "Trois Mamelles", while still farther away stands up the "Corps de Garde", with its perfect profile of Louis Philippe, the thumb-shaped "Pouce", and the extraordinary knob of the "Pieter Both". Black River Bay stretched from beneath my feet right up to the base of the mountains, closed in by the enormous outlying masses of the "Morne", and the Tamarind mountain. Just in front of the "Morne" is the "Passe de l'Ambulant", with a rock in its centre, making it a most dangerous strait.
Presently I arrived at the point whence the planter's wife had leapt. There are no roots or branches to break the fall, the rock goes sheer down for fifteen or sixteen hundred feet. At the base of the mountain, opposite this point, is a house where lived sone French friends; a loud coo-ee brought them out, and we carried on a conversation without much difficulty. At several points I surprised bands of monkeys feeding on bark and seeds. They scrambled away chattering loud remonstrances. There were few birds in the forest, which is not surprising, fo the monkeys are very fond of their eggs, only the "Paille-en-queue", or tropic birds, and "Mangeurs-des-poules" or hawks, which breed in the cliffs, out of reach even of monkeys, appeared to be plentiful.
Having made a tour of the summit, and thus completed my exploration of the whole of it, I returned to the crevasse, slung across my traps by means of the rope, and got down myself without much difficulty. The rope was left there for the use of future mountaineers. We reached the base of the mountain without any adventures, in time to catch the tide, and sailed back to Port Louis. "
Thus ends the account of the Climbing Boy, whose identity has not been ascertained. It is likely that he was an English gentleman, a visitor to Mauritius. His account rings true, as the description is precisely what is needed to ascend the mountain. Reading all the accounts from the past centuries, especially of the constantly adapted myth of precipice-suicide, and when climbing up the Morne in the 21st century, I can only agree with Chazal that Le Morne and the other mountain of Mauritius should be preserved as national treasures, and that all people should be encouraged to walk up them and to appreciate their wonderful, fairy-like shapes and textures. Le Morne in particular, with its wonderful form and associations, presents a symbol of the victory of freedom over enslavement.
Written by Philippe la Hausse de Lalouvière
Source: WEEK-END - Dimanche 11 novembre 2007