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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



dreary streets, but it strictly for- 

 l)acle my climbing the comparatively 

 clean and attractive mountains beyond 

 these streets. As a coaling station I 

 am sure of its success and popularity, 

 for the coal carriers who comprise most 

 of the natives, have apparently no time 

 to wash between steamers. So inten- 

 sive was the grime that the original 

 dark hue of their skins offered no 

 camouflage to the anthracite palimpsest 

 which overlaid it. Such huge negro 

 women, such muscles, such sense of 

 power, I had never before realized. I 

 should dislike, were I an official of St. 

 Lucia, to take any decided stand on an 

 antifeminine platform. 



So saturated are the people in coal, 

 such is their lack of proper perspective 

 of this material, they seem actually to 

 be unconscious of its presence. Eeturn- 

 ing on board, one passes the Seaview 

 Hotel, about which coal is piled to a 

 much greater height than the roof. 

 Such abstraction is worthy of mention 

 at least. 



Amid the memory of all the dirt 

 and damp, dull sadness, two things 

 were unforgetable, as untouched dia- 

 monds glisten in their matrix of wet 

 blue clay. Amid sodden clothes, un- 

 washed hands, and bestial faces, a tray- 

 ful of rainbow fishes gleamed opal-like 

 — coral, parrot, and angel fish, all await- 

 ing some unsavory purchaser. Then, 

 out of the ruck of sexless bearers of 

 coal, came the little French negress, 

 selling fans. When we answered her 

 appeal with a "Non, merci." her face 

 lighted up at the courtesy of the 

 words; "Voila'' said she, "c'est hien 

 refuse gracieusement." Xo mortal 

 could have resisted buying her Avares 

 after such delicate sentiment. 



About five in the afternoon we parted 

 from the gritty wharf and steamed for 

 hour after hour along the shore. We 

 forgot the coal carriers, and the thought 

 of the misery and squalor of the town 

 passed with its vanishing, still clad in 

 its cloak of rain. As the natives ap- 



peared to us so inferior to those of the 

 other islands, so by some law of com- 

 pensation the coast was revealed corre- 

 spondingly beautiful. At four bells the 

 sun sank on the side away from the 

 island, in a blaze of yellow and orange 

 with one particular cloud touching the 

 water line with flame color, as if a 

 mighty distant volcano had just reared 

 its head above the sea, still in the throes 

 of molten erection. On the opposite side 

 were passing the dark green headlands 

 and fjords of the land, while upward, 

 high into the sky, there arose now and 

 then some tremendous cloud, on fire 

 with rich rose or salmon afterglow, or a 

 maze of other tints defying human 

 name or pigment. In front was the 

 living blue water dulled liy the dim- 

 ming light and above all the tran>]>ar- 

 ent blue of the troj^ic sky. 



Without warning, from out of the 

 soft folded edges of one of the filmy 

 clouds, crept a curved edge of cold 

 steel, like some strange kind of float- 

 ing shell coming forth from its cloud of 

 smoke, and a moment later the full 

 moon was revealed, unlike any other 

 color note in«this marvelous scene. The 

 icy, unchanging moon craters, the more 

 ]tlastic island mountains fringed by the 

 wind-shapen trees, the still more shift- 

 ing waters, and the evanescent cloud 

 mist, all were played itpon and satu- 

 rated and stained by colors which were 

 beyond words, almost l^eynnd our ap- 

 preciation. 



Tiny villages, fronted l)y canoes and 

 swathed in feathery cocoanut fronds, 

 snuggled at the foot of great volcanic 

 and coral cliffs. But the crowning 

 glory was reserved for the la^t. when 

 we surged past the irois ji'donx. rear- 

 ing their majestic heads above all the 

 island, hundreds and hundreds of feet 

 into the sky. Even the moon could not 

 top one, and after cutting into sharp, 

 silver silhouette every leaf and branch 

 of a moon-wide swath of trees, it buried 

 itself behind the peak and framed the 

 whole mountain. 



