and of bloom which covers the ghastly disfigurement
with surpassing beauty.
T o name the trees and plants of Martinique and
to speak of the animal life of its woods and waters
is hardly more than repetition of what has been said
of Guadeloupe and Dominica. I t has its great ceiba
trees with their hanging vines and orchids, the
graceful columns of the palm with tufted crown or
spreading umbrella-like shade, the lithe bamboo, the
round, dark top of the breadfruit tree, the orange
groves, the waving cane fields—
“ The glows
And glories of the broad belt of the world.”
In these woods and glens and on these rocky
shores the fierce Carib was allowed to remain undisturbed
until that adventurous Norman captain,
Esnambuc, came down from St. Christopher in
1635 and founded St. Pierre at the very foot of the
frowning peak of Pelée. It was a long struggle
with the resisting natives, but forty years later
France took up the colony and turned it over to a
chartered company as part of the royal domain.
The Caribs were killed, driven off, or transported,
the hapless negro and the sugar-cane were brought
in. Coffee was introduced here first of all in 1726,
and the plantation system, that made a few families
rich from the blood and sweat of thousands, was
established. Martinique shared in the vicissitudes
of the old contests of France and England against
Spain and with each other, and saw some stirring
incidents in West Indian history.
In that Titanic struggle for possession, while
Great Britain was engaged in the futile effort to
put down her American colonies on the Atlantic
coast, it was in Fort de France Bay that the Count
de Grasse gathered his formidable fleet which was
to join with the Spaniards off Hispaniola, capture
Jamaica, and drive the English out of West Indian
waters. It was behind the rock of Gros Islet on
the north coast of St. Lucia, only thirty miles to
the south, that Rodney lurked with the Formidable
and the other British men-of-war, waiting for the
enemy to come out into the open, watching day
by day upon the height, spy-glass in hand, for the
signal that De Grasse had ventured forth. It was
April 8, 1782, that the welcome word came, and
on the 9th Rodney was on the track of the French
admiral. Three days the baffling calms and uncertain
winds delayed the fight, but on the 12th,
off Dominica, the two great powers were face to
face, with the chief glory of their navies in fierce
combat for possession of the islands, all but one of
which had been torn from Great Britain in Rodn
e y ’s absence. That day not only saved the British
West Indies from France and Spain, but had much
to do with the terms of peace in 1783.
A mile or so south of Morne du Diamant, a great
volcanic rock springs from the sea to the height of
six hundred feet, with shaggy sides and a flat crest.
Its top is almost inaccessible, but can be reached by
perilous clambering and clinging to crags and vines.
In 1805, in the Napoleonic times, Sir Samuel Hood,
vexed that the French ships passed through the