324 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 



appearance of all the buildings, and the scarcity of 

 trees. The explanation of this is found in the records 

 of the city ; it is just recovering from the effects of a 

 destructive fire. Within the past few years Point a 

 Pitre has passed through at least four trying ordeals 

 by the elements. First, it was shaken down by an 

 earthquake ; then all the buildings were of stone, 

 large and massive. Rebuilding their city, these in- 

 domitable Frenchmen constructed their houses of 

 wood. It was not long, not many years, before, in 

 the language of my informant, " there came along the 

 tallest kind of a hurricane, and tumbled their wooden 

 houses into ruins." To add to the horrors, a fire 

 broke out, which swept their city clean. The wise 

 men cogitated, how to build to escape earthquake, fire, 

 and hurricane. The result was the adoption of the 

 present system of construction, with strong iron frame, 

 filled in with brick or composite. The loss of life in 

 these successive disasters has been fearful, but these 

 courageous Creoles have faith in the future of their 

 city ; and I doubt if they once give a thought to the 

 mighty power against which they are contending, or 

 that they are fighting forces controlled by Nature's 

 laws, that always will operate in the same way and 

 place, without regard to the little doings of mankind. 

 But it was not to remain in Point a Pitre that I came 

 here ; the blue mountains forty miles away beckoned 

 me to their cool retreats, and before night I had en- 

 gaged passage on board a little schooner, the "Siren," 

 for Basse Terre, at the foot of the mountains. I left 

 Point a, Pitre in the evening — the sea like glass, the 

 mosquitoes like fiends. For many hours we drifted 

 aimlessly. The cabin was a black hole full of mer- 



