It is not unusual to encounter tombs on elevated lands in the sugar cane fields. It was the custom of the early French planters, who lived in housing quarters of the sugar companies, to have the bodies of deceased overseers or “sahibs” interred within the compound of their quarters.
Evidence of this is still to be found in La Romaine and its environs, among other estates.
One such tomb is that of Louis Bicais, dated 1838, and to be found in the Cedar Grove Trace in Rambert Village, La Romaine. There had been weird stories of apparitions of the wandering spirits emerging from those tombs.
The Louis Bicais tomb, however, had an additional mystery that confounded villagers in the past. At the head of the tombstone was a bowl made of marble. It is said that the bowl was always filled to the brim with clear, cool water, even in the dry season, when ponds and rivers went dry.
Enamel cup
It was the year 1974, when Rambert Village was in the grips of the dry season and water was a scarce commodity. One day, Ramroop wandered through the grove of spreading samaan trees and tall palmiste palms to the tomb on the hill. He looked at the bowl in consideration of climbing the tomb to investigate the water situation. Suddenly, a voice called: “Aye, Ramroop!” A head appeared from behind the trunk of a wild rubber tree on the slope. Ramroop sighed a breath of relief, as he recognised the man, Diaz from the village. “A! A! Boy; Diaz, yuh nearly frighten mih! Wha yuh doing up here?” Diaz came up sweaty in his working clothes and swinging a white enamel cup in one hand.
“Man, is up here Ah does mek mih garden.” He pointed down the hill to his garden plot. Casually, he climbed the tomb, and reaching up to the marble bowl, he gently dipped his cup, filling it with clear, cool water, which he gulped down with relish. Ramroop stared in surprise. “Yuh mean dat in dis drought it still have water in dat bowl? “Man, dat ent notten,” Diaz explained, as he dipped again. “Look man, every day Ah drinking water from dis bowl; t’ree, four times and it doh even get empty.
Never empty
“Whole year rong ah mekin garden here, an’ ah never meet dis bowl empty yet.” The gardener offered the cup to Ramroop, who dipped, only to find that the bowl had refilled itself and with excess streaming down the side of the bowl. Several nights later, the full moon lit up the village almost to daylight. Ramroop took a hammer and a chisel in a bag and set out to steal the mysterious water bowl, in a bid to solve his water woes. It was past 11 o’clock when he arrived at the tomb. Except for the screeching and grating chirps of nocturnal insects, there was a ghostly stillness.
Cautiously, he climbed the tomb with hammer and chisel in hand to remove the bowl. A strong scent of Jasmine perfume filled the air. It was at that time he noticed a second tomb alongside the major Bicais tomb; the tomb of Madame Bicais! A whisper issued behind him; the soft gentle whisper of a woman. The smell of perfume increased. The whispering shifted to the other tomb. The man stared in awe to see a white woman, in a white, flowing gown, which draped from her shoulders down to her feet.
Dismal grove
She had long, silver-white hair in gentle waves, cascading down her shoulders to her waist. Seemingly oblivious to the man’s presence, the ghostly figure floated away to her tomb, where she appeared to dissolve.
The perfume phased out, but her whispering message continued in a crying and appealing tone, seemingly in the French language, which Ramroop missed. From the depths of the larger tomb a deep male voice occurred.
The horrified man abandoned his tools, jumped down in a wild scamper through the undergrowth toward the main track, but soon, encountered a giant figure of a man standing astride before him, with head dark in the leafy canopy above.
To his relief, the phantom fizzed out into a thin rising vapour. The long, mournful howl of a midnight dog echoed through the dismal grove as Ramroop scampered away toward his home. “Oh Gawd, Indra!” He pounded the door. “Open de door quick, quick!
Open de door!” The confused wife opened the door. Ramroop fell exhausted on the floor before her. She questioned: “Whey de hell yuh went dis hour ah de night? Ah tired tell yuh to keep yuh tail home in de night! Yuh drunk o’ wat!" The next day, Diaz complained: “De water bowl jess disappear. Ah donno who tek it!” And to this day, the mystery of the water bowl has never been solved.
(Original headline: The mysterious water bowl )
