ASCENT OF THE GUADELOUPE SOUFRIERE. 333 
right beneath the volcano itself, where I found a com- 
fortable little country house, was greeted in English 
by the proprietor, who had heard of me before, and 
welcomed. A delightful week was passed here, for 
my host, Monsieur Colardeau, was a graduate of Yale 
College, and had lived in America, practicing his 
profession of physician, for eighteen years. He was 
a naturalist withal, and the remainder of that day was 
devoted to the animal life of the mountains, and espe- 
cially the birds. 
The “hurricane season,” from July through Octo- 
ber, is one of calms, tempests, and rains, and it was 
several days before the weather cleared sufficiently 
for me to undertake the ascent of the Soufriére. At 
last, one night, just before the sun dipped beneath the 
sea, the jagged outlines of the volcano showed against 
a clear sky, and my friend predicted a fair day for 
the morrow. At daybreak, the Indian provided by 
my friend came for me; not an Indian native to the 
island, they were long since extinct, but one from the 
far East, the land to which Columbus in his voyages 
thought he was discovering a shorter route — an In- 
dian da indenture, a coolie from Calcutta. He 
brought a knapsack full of provisions which Madame 
Colardeau had provided the night before, and he car- 
ried upon his head my photographic apparatus, and 
marched before me into the mists of the morning which 
came pouring down from the mountain-tops. After 
drinking a cup of black coffee, I seized my gun and 
followed my guide. 
Behind the house, far up the slope, stretched a broad 
area of coffee-trees, an inheritance, this coffee estate, 
from the ancestors of Monsieur Colardeau, who in no 
