HOME OF THE’ EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. 317 
of one, the last. It was morning, the sun had not 
appeared above the hills, as, guided by a little negro, 
I took the footpath up the valley, south, reaching the 
narrow lane between the hills on the west and the 
river. Cool and grateful was the shady vale. Jessa- 
mine and frangipanni and acacia, bent low beneath the 
weight of last night’s showers and sweetened the air: 
birds, few in species but many in number, burst into 
song as we passed. A little wren, that had its habita- 
tion beneath the eaves of the sugar-house — doubtless 
a descendant of those who sang carols to Josephine— 
delighted me with a trill of melody. We passed 
beneath a tall silk-cotton tree, hung with silken flowers, 
about which were buzzing bees and glancing hum- 
ming-birds ; across the stream on rude stepping-stones ; 
a little farther, past groups of mangos, and across a 
rude bridge, till we reached a cliff, its face hidden be- 
hind a veil of vines. Then beneath a wide-spreading 
mango we halted, and I climbed a great rock and pre- 
pared for my morning bath. 
’ There were places in the river better than this, 
deeper and wider; but there was an association here, 
clinging to water-rounded bowlders, to gray cliff and 
gravelly basin, that rendered this little nook doubly 
charming. It was the favorite resort of Josephine, 
where daily, at early morning, she came to bathe. 
This tradition has been handed down from parent to 
child among the negroes, whose ancestors were slaves 
here, on this very estate, and is better based than the 
tales of distant biographers. “Le bain de ?lmpéra- 
trice,” it is called to this day. Though time and flood 
and earthquake have changed it much since then, and 
its original proportions somewhat lessened, it still 
