SOUFRIEKE, AND ON A VISIT TO MONTAGNE PELEE, IN 1902. 
457 
water, friiits, and all other iDrovisions growing in their country, if they want them, taking in exchange 
wedges, hooks, and other implements of iron, which they much esteem. 
“ On the 24th March a French sloop arrived at Martinico, that passed by the island of St. Vincent the 
22nd, that, as the master reported, he bought some fish of some of the savages who inhabited there, and 
who came off to him in their canoes. He says that all was safe, and in very good condition there, for 
anything he perceived, only that some of his seamen report that since the disaster, that one of the Indians 
told them that they had been terribly frightened with earthquakes for some time, and with flashes of fire 
like lightning, which did not come out of the clouds as usual, but out of the earth, and that they had felt 
these earthquakes for a month past, to their very great amazement. 
“ On the 27th in the morning the aii’ was darkened in a dreadful mannei', rvliich darkness Iry all 
accounts seems to have extended over all the colonies and islands which were within 100 miles of the 
place, but was perceived to be more or less dark as those islands were further or nearer from the place. 
“ Bi;t that which is most remarkable of all is, that at some of the islands, and at Martinico in particular, 
a dreadful flash of lightning, as they called it, was seen on the 26th about 11 o’clock at night. This flash, 
which they called lightning, we shall account for in the following part of the relation. 
“ It is to be observed in the next place, that as there were several ships, or other vessels at sea, in several 
ports among the islands, some of these had a more terrible sight of this thing than others; particidarly 
they write that in one sloop which is come into Martinico, the men are so terrified still, and were so 
amazed at what they saw and heard, that they appeared perfectly stupified, and gave little or no account. 
Others are come into other ports so horribly frightened, that they scarce retain their senses; others give 
confused accounts, and so more or less distinct as they were nearer or farther from the place. The sum 
of what may Ire gathered from them all is this ; 
“ That they saw in the night that terrible flash of fire, that after that they heard innumerable clashes 
of thunder } some say it was thunder they heard, others that it were cannon oidy, that the noise was a 
thousand times as loud as thunder or cannon, considering that it appeared to be at a great distance from 
them. 
“ That the next morning, when the day began to break, the air looked dismally, viz., all overhead was 
a deep impenetrable darkness, but below, all around the edge of the horizon it looked as if the heavens 
were all on fire.* As the day came on still the darkness increased till it was far darker than it had been 
in any part of the night before, and as they thought the cloud descended upon them, the darkness still 
increased after this, viz., in the afternoon they were surprised with the falling of something upon them as 
thick as smoke, but fine as dust, and yet solid as sand ; this fell thicker and faster as they were nearer or 
farther off, some ships had it 9 inches, others a foot thick upon their decks; the island of hlartinico is 
covered with it at about 1 to 9 inches thick; at Barbados it is frightful, even to St. Christophers it 
exceeded 4 inches; it is fallen over the whole extent of the Island of Hispaiiiola, and there is no doubt but 
it has been seen on the continent of New Spain, about the point of Guiana, and the mouth of the River 
Orinoco, all of which will perhaps be accounted for in some measure in the following narrative. 
“ This continued falling for two or three days and'nights successively, and it was impossible for any 
man to find out or so much as guess at the meaning of it, or of any natural cause to produce it, till the 
whole came to discover itself, but all people stood amazed at the cause, and several letters were sent to 
England of it, from Barbados in particular, as of a strange, miraculous shower of sand, of which we gave 
an account in our Joiumal of the 20th past. The first news that was given of the whole thing was 
by some vessels that were under sail on the night of the 26th, belonging to Martinico, by which we had 
the following particulars : that on the said 26th, about midnight, the whole island of St. Vincent rose up 
into the air with a most dreadful eruption of fire from underneath the earth, and an inconceivable noise in 
* Compare with this the descriptions of the appearance of the sky immediately before the falTof 
dust in Barbados on the 7th of May, 1902, as given on p. 408 and p. 409. 
VOL. CC.—A. 3 N 
