C H A P T E R X X X I I
GUADELOUPE
TH E three relatively large islands which constitute
the middle links of the great Caribbean chain
are distinctively French, though the middle one of
the three has been in the possession of Great Britain
for more than a hundred years, with a short interruption
early in the present century, and is now
a member of her Leeward Islands colony. The
largest and most northerly, Guadeloupe, marks the
convergence, almost the coalescence, of the great
igneous range, with its dead or slumbering volcanoes,
and the calcareous ridge that forms the external
barrier on the ocean side. In fact, it consists of two
islands lying side by side and separated by a passage
one hundred feet wide where they come nearest
to a junction,— one of them rugged and mountainous,
with exhausted and dilapidated craters here and
there, the other flat, with marshy spots, and still
wrought upon by the coral builders.
B y a curious freak of nomenclature, the one that
is full of mountain peaks and ridges and of lofty uplands
is called Basse-Terre; and the really lowland
segment, though smaller in area, is called Grande-
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Terre. But the French had a general way of calling
the upper end or the windward side of islands, in the
Caribbees, “ Capesterre,” or headland, and the leeward
side, which was generally lower, “ Basseterre,”
or lowland. The latter term seems to have been
first applied to the lower part of what may be considered
Guadeloupe proper, where the town of Basse-
Terre now is, and afterwards extended to the whole,
without reference to the character of the twin island
on the east, which came to be called Grande-Terre,
because it had a larger area that was available for
cultivation. \
In the north-west the highest peak is Grosse Montagne,
2370 feet, from which jagged ridges radiate
in different directions. Not far from the middle of
the west coast is Deux Mamelles, 2540 feet highland
toward the south the great cone of L a Soufrière,
which reaches an elevation of 4900 feet. T he crest
of the latter rises from a plain which was an ancient
crater, and there are other vestiges of volcanic action
in remote ages besides the comparatively modern
rupture. Not only are there filled-up craters and
deposits of sulphur, but gases and sulphurous vapours
still issue at times from the crevices, while
near the foot of the Mamelles, on the very verge of
the sea, are the Puits Bouillants, where vapours puff
out of the sand and bubble up from the water.
There is a sinuous ridge throughout the length of
the island, and at the southern extremity a peak
called Caraibe rises 2300 feet.
Among the mountain peaks and ridges are many
wild and verdurous gorges, and the upland valleys