: Two years in the French West Indies by Hearn Lafcadio Rushmore Arthur W Illustrator - Martinique Description and travel; Hearn Lafcadio 1850-1904 Travel Martinique

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La Montagne Pel?e Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas Old Sugar Mill, St. Kitts Belle Fontaine, Martinique St. Pierre To-day Suzanne Cimeti?re du Mouillage, St. Pierre Road to Morne Rouge St. Pierre--Street Among the Ruins The Empress Josephine The Quay, Bridgetown Bridgetown, Barbadoes Country Road, Barbadoes The Lion or Gun Hill, Barbadoes The Devil's Door, Martinique The Road to St. Pierre Fort-de-France Les Porteuses Cathedral, Fort-de-France Home from Market, St. Pierre Le Calvaire A Wayside Shrine Pitons du Carbet Fort-de-France Les Blanchisseuses La Pel?e The Cathedral, St. Pierre Ruins, St. Pierre Armistice Day, Fort-de-France Market, Fort-de-France Creole Women Didier Springs

FOREWORD

"CA-ARMINE! Carmine!"

"Oui, madame!"

"Petit gar?on, venez donc!"

So we found life in Fort-de-France, Martinique. The same childlike, care-free, laughing spirit that so wholly captivated the artist soul of Hearn four decades since weaves its spell about the traveler of to-day.

Since those happy days a generation ago that he described with such lyric grace the world at large has changed, become smaller, more disillusioned, and in the island itself an occasional hurricane and the terrible disaster of St. Pierre in 1902 have wrought havoc unspeakable; yet the buoyant hearts of these Creole folk sing as of yore, among the flower-decked ruins of the city that Hearn loved so well, the new St. Pierre that lies under the brooding shadow of Mt. Pel?e.

Change comes slowly in the tropics. Nature's prodigality is no great incentive to ambition and one finds in this wrinkled emerald of an island set in a sparkling sapphire sea welcome relief from the stress of our northern life with its insistent activity. It is as though one were in a great greenhouse; the crowding mountain sides are rank with exuberant greenery. Every ravine has its bounding rivulet of crystal water gleaming like a silver thread woven into the rich pattern of verdure. Constant breezes temper the heat and frequent short showers wash the air free of dust. The atmosphere is brilliant, as Hearn painted it.

The same people are there--French, Madagascans, Caribs, Senegalese, Chinese, Portuguese--all mingled in a Creole type different from any and bearing qualities of all. Tall, slim, graceful, especially the women, with lovely heads, thin lipped and deep eyed, with skins of every conceivable shade of white, yellow, brown, and red. Long waving raven hair tied smartly in their bright "madrases," with little clothing to hamper them, they are the picture of grace. They still wear the "Josephine" gown, the vast flowing skirts of which they gather up and tuck under their arms to-day exactly as Hearn described.

We visited again and again the grim ruin of St. Pierre, now overgrown with a rank growth of flowers and vines, a sorry spectacle. High on the cliff above the town, dominating the scene of ruin, stands the lovely marble statue of the Virgin, all that remained intact in the great cathedral that fateful day.

The peculiar nature of the devastating wave of steam and red-hot gas which wiped out thirty thousand people in a few minutes, left the front and rear walls standing and crushed and demolished the side walls of the stone buildings which made up the greater portion of the city. These walls, battered and crumbling, still stand, mute evidence of the city's size and former beauty. Within these standing walk new homes are springing up, giving a weird effect as though in this fecund climate the very houses were coming back to life.

The roads which thread the island like a net are constantly cared for. Winding in and out and ever upward to dizzy heights, they lead through impenetrable jungle, thickets of bamboo and giant tree ferns, affording from occasional open spaces glimpses of shadowy ravines and bounding torrents hemmed in by farther peaks in serried ranks that beggar description, descending again toward the western side through mile upon mile of soft gray-green waving cane, till one comes at last to the blue Atlantic beating itself into froth upon the sands at Trinit?.

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