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erosion on the sides which faced the crater, while the lee sides were still covered with bark. When on May 5th the White River-so called from the iridescence of its waters-which swept into eternity the Guerin family and twenty-five others, hit the sea, the waters withdrew as if affrighted. It was an infuriated torrent hissing in its anger like a monstrous python, and carrying rocks, trees, fragments of houses, dead bodies and smoking mud with it in its devastating rush. All night this river of boiling mud rushed to the sea, and when daylight broke St. Pierre looked with stupefaction on the desolation.

After we returned to our quarters we sat till midnight hearing from the captain of the guard the painful and harrowing details of the cataclysm, and watching the play of fire on the lips and sides of the crater. Lightning was flashing incessantly over and around the crest of Morne La Croix, the highest peak of the mountain, the rising steam formed a cloud tremulous and shifting, and down the flanks of the monster rivulets of red matter, like blood, were streaming. The mountain gave forth a dull glow and the outlines of its summit were visibly thrown out by a fitful, intense and reddish glare.

On my return to Fort de France I was privileged, one morning after mass, to pass a half-hour with the parish priest of Morne Rouge, Père Mary, who was the last to abandon the pleasant village. He brought with him the brave and faithful remnant

which stood by him during the awful days succeeding the death of St. Pierre.

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'What, Mon Père," I asked, "was the actual population of the ill-fated city when the rain of death fell upon it? In Canada and the States so many and varied were the numbers reported in our journals that even now we do not approximately know the extent of the calamity."

"Well," he replied, "we have very often gone over the figures, and have agreed upon thirtysix thousand. In our diocesan ordo [records] are the names of twenty-seven thousand souls for the city of St. Pierre. Add to this number perhaps three thousand refugees from the neighbouring communes who had fled to the city for safety, at least five hundred sailors, who perished with their ships in the roadstead, the dead of the Guerin plantation, those who dropped dead at Carbet, and were drowned when Le Prêcheur was submerged in the deluge of boiling mud, and I believe the number of victims will be thirty-six or thirty-seven thousand. I may mention," he continued, “that among these were His Excellency the governor of Martinique, M. Mouttet and his pious wife; Colonel Gerbault, and Madame Gerbault, and many who went from here to view the volcanic phenomena. In this unparalleled holocaust perished twenty-four priests, twenty-eight sisters of St. Paul de Chartres, who attended the orphans and the destitute; thirty-three sisters of the teaching order of St. Joseph de Cluny; and ten sisters of the D'Elivorande, hospital nurses. Of the

many professors of the Lycée only five absentees are left."

He was hurrying through the names of the distinguished families that perished in the unparalleled desolation when the half-opened door of the room swung wide, and the Rev. Jean Alteroche, of Morne Vert, near St. Pierre, entered. I would like to describe the appearance and personality of this heroic and devout man, but time presses. He was among the first file which entered the ruined city, and his description of what he saw and experienced was of harrowing, but absorbing interest.

"I am told," he said, courteously bowing himself into the conversation, "that many in America, even priests and bishops, hint that St. Pierre perished for its sins."

I confessed my own leaning in the direction of that opinion.

"Well," he replied, "can you name a city in America that deserves to be spared?"

I was silent, and with the innate courtesy of the well-bred and cultured ecclesiastic, he relieved me of my embarrassment by directing the conversation into another channel.

"When we entered the city the morning after its destruction," said the priest, "the solitude was oppressive and the ruin appalling. Along the beach steam columns were rising from the hot chocolate-coloured mud which poured down the ravines and river-beds and were flowing into the ocean. The desolation was unparalleled. Frightful

sights met my view, all telling of the suddenness of the catastrophe. The atmosphere and volcanic heat were decomposing the dead, and the odour was that of a tropical battlefield after a prolonged engagement. In the ruins of the cathedral, where three priests and two thousand people perished, the smell was overwhelming a sweet, sickening odour peculiarly the property of dead human flesh, tainting the air. In ten seconds all activity, all life, human and animal, the throb of industry-factories, churches, convents, hospitals, schools everything, had ceased to exist. We entered the homes of the people and found the dead sitting at the coffee table, a father, his wife and two children, so lifelike that we spoke to them, but alas, the dead are not courteous and did not rise to welcome us. In one place a man had fallen from his chair, his pipe was in his hand and the caraffa of wine on the table was fused at the neck by the heat-blast. We upended it, but no wine came out. Nature did the corking, and unless you break the decanter, which is now in our museum, its wine will be an inseparable part of it. To the south-west of the city, looking towards Morne d'Orange, stood the home of M. Hudon, at whose house I was many times a guest. It was not only a beautiful, but a refined home. Here dwelt M. Hudon, his wife and family of ten. A tasteful, wrought-iron fence protected the lawn and its fountain. We entered from the rear and on the verandah looking to the mountain we found two bodies. They were perhaps watching

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From stereograph, copyright 1902, by Underwood & Underwood, New York

FROM ORANGE HILL LOOKING NORTH-EAST OVER DEAD ST. PIERRE TO MONT PELEE, MARTINIQUE

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