around St. Esprit, and on the southern side Diamant
and Marin. The chief towns of the east coast
are L e François, L e Robert, and Trinité, and Ma-
couba is on the north. But the oldest, most populous,
picturesque, and flourishing place of all is St.
Pierre in the north-west. I t is also the chief seat of
the island’s trade. There is a lower and an upper
town, and from the bay it seems to rise in terraces
of yellow houses with red roofs embowered in gardens
and groves. T he streets within the city are
mostly narrow, steep, and well paved, and are
periodically washed down by the rains. The sloping
country around is productive of anything tropical
to which attention may be given, and rises to
verdant heights far above the sea-level, cultivated
to the top.
L ik e Guadeloupe, Martinique is a department of
France, with one senator and two deputies to represent
it. I t is divided into the two arrondissements of
St. Pierre and Fort de France, and into twenty-five
communes. A governor and council are appointed
by the home government, and there is a general
council of thirty-six elected members.
We must not overlook the interesting fact that
Martinique was the birthplace of the Empress
Josephine. A marble statue gazing out to sea from
the palm-shaded savanna of Fort de France is a
constant reminder of that fact. Those decayed
scions of French gentility, the Taschers de la Page-
rie, came out here early in the last century, and
Joseph Gaspard de Tascher de la Pagerie was an
artillery officer in the time of the Seven Y e a r s ’ War