ASCENT OF THE GUADELOUPE SOUFRIERE. 329 
1694. Two years later he was sent to Guadeloupe. 
Later, returning to Martinique, he found his place 
occupied by another, and was, as a mark of confi- 
dence, appointed procureur général of the mission. 
In this capacity he visited all the isles of the Antilles, 
French, English, and Dutch; but passed the greater 
portion of his time in Martinique and Guadeloupe. 
In 1703 he founded the town of Basse Terre, and 
‘took an active part in the defence of the island against 
the attack of the English, in March of the same year. 
The “Bellicose Pére Blanc,” as he was called by the 
people of the island, could not prevent his monastery 
from being burned, by which disaster he lost all his 
books, manuscripts, and instruments. He returned to 
France in 1705, resided in Paris and Rome, and in 
the former city prepared his different voyages for 
publication. He there died in 1738. His most im- 
portant work, “Wouveau Voyage aux Iles d Amér- 
ique,” is as valuable as it is at the present time rare. 
It was published in Paris in 1722. He wrote, besides, 
six large works of travel, chiefly from the manuscripts 
of other travelers. A genus of plants, containing a 
species indigenous to Cuba and one to Cayenne, was 
named, in his honor, Labatza. The old Basilique re- 
mains, in defiance of earthquakes and hurricanes, a 
monument to the activity and zeal of this good father. 
Its front, however, was rebuiltea few years ago. 
During ‘my stay in Basse Terre I was struck by the 
number of children fatherless and motherless, and 
upon inquiry was told that these orphans, whose 
sweet faces so appealed to one’s sympathy, were sur- 
vivors of the great cholera plague not many years 
since, in which some fifteen thousand persons, I be- 
