SOME SUMMER DAYS IN MARTINIQUE. 28l 



The wind was light ; flying-fish darted in all direc- 

 tions ; little sharp-prowed canoes came sailing in out 

 of the distance, hailed us with cheerful bon jours, and 

 disappeared again in the spray and mist. We sailed 

 in under high, frowning cliffs, down which fell silver 

 streams into the sea ; past broad fields of cane, smiling 

 in the sunshine ; past long stretches of yellow sand, 

 overtopped by silent palms ; beneath a towering gloomy 

 mountain hiding its crest in cloud. A shower came 

 down from those impending clouds and pattered over 

 deck and sea, ending as suddenly as it had com- 

 menced ; and a rainbow, born of the mist and the 

 sunshine, spanned the bay of St. Pierre from head- 

 land to headland, dissolving at either end above a 

 little fishing-village, bathing houses and boats, and 

 nets, and beach, in glorious showers of light. 



A second time I sailed into the bay of St. Pierre, a 

 second time looked upon the volcano rising above it. 

 The town is about a mile in length, straggling at the 

 north away down the coast, ending in scattered 

 villages ; and at one place, where a river makes a 

 break in the cliffs, creeping up toward the mountains. 

 A narrow belt between high cliffs and the sea, built 

 into and under them ; the houses, of stone and brick, 

 covered with brown earthen tiles, tier upon tier, climb- 

 ing up to the hills. With the soft mellow tints of the 

 tiles, the grays of the walls, the frequent clumps of 

 tamarind and mango, and with the magnificent wall 

 of living green behind it, St. Pierre strikes one as a 

 beautiful town — until he comes to analyze it. Then, 

 the windowless loopholes — there is hardly a square 

 of glass in town, save in the stores — the flapping 

 shutters, the conglomerate material used in its construe- 



