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 4 
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 4 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 @ Pitre in the evening — the sea like glass, thé 
mosquitoes like fiends. For many hours we drifted 
aimlessly. The cabin was a black hole full of mer- 
