325 



" The village of St. Pierre ranks in size and importance 

 next to that of St. Paul. It is built on a gentle slope, within 

 half a mile of a commodious landing-place, formed by the 

 mouth of the Riviere d' Abord, and is furnished with bar- 

 racks for three hundred men. I was less pleased with this 

 village than with any that I had yet seen. The ground 

 in its immediate vicinity is intolerably stony ; and the trees 

 scattered through it are stunted in their growth, decayed at 

 the top, and all inclined to one side, as if they had yielded 

 to the impulse of a constant wind from the other. 



" The acclivity of the mountain, reaching to the Plaine 

 des Caifres, is in full cultivation, and yields to no part of 

 the island in its crops of grain and coffee. This district is 

 famed also for the peculiar excellence of its honey. The 

 hives are made of the trunks of trees, artificially hol- 

 lowed, and left in the woods, or placed near the slave- 

 huts on the forest, with a swarm lodged in each. The bees 

 range the forest at large, and collect their store from various 

 sorts of flowers, according to the season. But the green 

 honey of St. Pierre is alleged to be the exclusive produce of 

 a tree called by the Colonists ' Tan rouge,' ( Weinmannia 

 mellifera, C.) Were this, however, the case, all the honey 

 in the island ought to possess similar qualities; as the Tan 

 rouge is equally common in all parts of the forest. Be this 

 as it may, the green honey is distinguished by a peculiarly 

 strong and agreeable odour, and by its imparting a green 

 colour to water in which it is diffused. 



" About twelve miles from St. Pierre, which we left early in 

 the morning of the 16th, we came to a deep ravine, that 

 forms the boundary of the district of St. Joseph. Here little 

 of the ground has been cleared; and the proximity of the 

 forest has a manifest influence on the appearance of vegeta- 

 tion. A rank and luxuriant herbage, the result of frequent 

 showers, and at this time loaded with the morning dew, gave 

 a peculiar freshness to the landscape. The scene that 

 opened on our view when we looked down upon the district 

 of St. Joseph, is unquestionably the most picturesque in the 

 whole island; and we paused almost involuntarily to gaze on 



