St Michaels College - Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

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IIDQ Seconb lbtsit to St. llbiettfe, flbarttnique SEE by the New York papers, which I received this morning, that the Puyehue volcano in Vaidivia, Chile, is again in violent eruption. The dispatch adds that the explosions were preceded by awful subterranean rum- blings and intense darkness, and accompanied by electrical displays, showers of ashes and boiling water. The flowing lava is invading the surrounding forests, and the inhabitants are fleeing in terror. Permit me to mail you the record of my visit to St. Pierre, Island of Martinique, on the 25Il'1 of january, 1903. Cn August 30, 1903, Morne Rouge, the Newport of Martinique, situated on a commanding eminence four miles southwest of St. Pierre, was destroyed by an explosion of Mount Pelee, greater in its intensity and terrifle detonations than that of May S, which obliterated the doomed city and its thirty thousand people. The explosion which I witnessed on Sunday afternoon, Janu- ary 25, 1903, was equal in its intensity, according to Professor Lacroix, then at Fort de France, Martinique, to the August eruption. I was now about to pay my second visit to St. Pierre since the fatal morning of May S, 1902, the morning of the human sacrihce. I happened to be a visitor on the Island of St. Lucia, llfest Indies, when the blockade of the Venezuelan ports by the German fleet threw one of the boats of the Royal Mail Company temporarily out of commission. The manager of the lliest India end of the line, hoping to pick up a few nimble sixpencesf' advertised an excursion from the Island of St. Yincent to Martinique by the Royal Mail steamship Esk, which was the boat then off her route. They wired us at St. Lucia to know how many of our people would accom- pany them, and we answered to book us for I5O. :Xt 6.30 on Sunday morning the Esk. Captain Newton on the bridge. tied up to her snubbing posts on the north wharf. having on board 200 Yincentians, and the police band. which played The Dance of the Creolesn while the lfsk was docking. At 7 o'clock the lisk threw off her lines and prowed for Martinique. lYe 39 had a choice and most interesting list of passengers. There were members of the legislature, clergymen of the various denominations, many olllcers and non-coms. of the two British regiments of Castries and Kingstown, lawyers, doctors, mer- chants and their clerks. big planters and high officials, and quite a number of ladies. Before we were well out in the Caribbean Sea, the police orchestra tuned up, a floating ball was im- provised, and my friend, Captain Calder, chief of the St. Vincent black police, with Miss Clavier, of Castries, St. Lucia, opened the dance. lVhat! dancing on Sunday, is it pos- sible F Oh, yes, they're not very particular down in these buccaneer islands, and the nearer you go to the equator the less particular they are. They do not consider a little innocent recreation on Sunday a violation of the Sabbath. In all that makes for honorable manhood and pure womanhood the whites of the lYest Indies have no superiors. I voice the opinion of every honest man who has been honored with admission to their society and their homes. llfe floated into Fort de France at ll o'clock, four hours after we threw off at Castries, St. Lucia. The purser of the Esk and three of us, who accompanied him by invitation, went ashore to obtain from the Governor permission for our pas- sengers to visit the ruins of St. Pierre, for without a prennt no one was allowed to cross the boundaries of the ill-fated city. ll'e were received with characteristic French courtesy. obtain- ed our permit. and in less than an hour were steaming for St. Pierre. view or 11111212 Picon 'rms si-1.x. ll'hen we rounded thc lloint of Carlvet, the now historic Mount Pelee 14.500 feetl towered aloft in majestic isolation. Its shaggy sides were torn and deeply furrowed. its flanks were yet bleeding with cement-gray matter, and the granite muscles of the monster told of its giant strength. Around its imperial crest were gathered masses of clouds which at times drifted

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Imp Seconb visit to St. llbierre, flbartinique-Gominueb apart and revealed the hot steam escaping from the crater of the volcano. High pressure steam generates electricity, and intermittently flashes of lightning played around the lips of the volcanic opening. High above the top of the mountain rose. as rises the spire over a great cathedral, the obelisk, of which you have read so much-the cone-which is built up with such marvelous rapidity to-day, and to-morrow or to-night is shattered in whole or in part by an explosion. On this Sunday afternoon, under the fierce blaze of a tropical sun, the obelisk shone like burnished metal, reflecting upon the trembling clouds an iridescence of striking beauty. W'hen I focused my glass upon the monstrous hill I could perceive jets of steam and puffs of smoke escape from nssures opened around the body of the crater. I saw the awful devastation, the wounds and frightful scars on the mountain's slope, the solidified lava that, in its fluid state, zigzagged now here, now there, the huge bowlders tossed aside by the rush of the burning river of magma and, above all, I saw the wreck and ruin of forest life that went down and out when the monster swept across it to get at St. Pierre. The steamer moored to a buoy off the Place du Mouillage, near the southern limit of St. Pierre proper, and many of the passengers were taken ashore in the ship's boats, manned by the crew of the steamer. I was again with the purser who, in his naphtha launch, was the hrst to leave the Esk, carrying with him our oflicial pass to visit the ruined city. Two mounted gendarmes-cavalrymen with police powers-received and ex- amined our permit, saluted, and asked the purser if he spoke French. The purser answered in English that he did not. And you, Rev. Sir? addressing himself to me. I do, sir, I replied, lifting my hat in obedience to the custom of the island. Then, sir, if you please, tell those ladies in the boats they ought not to land. There was a slight eruption of the volcano yesterday, and a more serious one is predicted for to-dayf' 'I he appearance of the destroyed city had changed very much Q0 since I saw it last October. Then it lay under a heavy pall of ashes. Since then the torrential rains, the winds, and maybe a tidal wave, had swept it clean in places, and left exposed walls that had been hidden by volcanic ash and the torrents of boil- ing mud that on the loth day of August had overwhelmed the unhappy city for the second time. Many of the streets in the llouillage quarter which had been filled up to the second storey of the houses, had returned to their normal levels, which permitted easier access and, for those of us who knew the city in other and happier days, helped to recognize the sites of familiar buildings. In some places the street pavements had been washed clean, exposing the rails of the tramway. lilfashings from the mountain had deposited fertile soil, and amid the ruins already a luxuriant vegetation was appearing. Vines and creepers were coiling themselves around blackened fragments and grass and weeds were growing in exposed places. In company with Mr. 'loseph Bouadie, of the St. Yin- cent Times, and Mr. Sproot, of the Kingstown Sentry, l. was struggling through the street of Victor Hugo making for the cathedral, where three priests and 1,700 whites, blacks and mulattoes perished on the eventful morning of May 8. when the l2sk's guns signalled her shore passengers to return. Almost at the same moment, and as if by concerted signal, a jet of white vapor escaped from the crater near the base of the cone. Then without further warning the mountain opened with a roar that reverberated through the ruined city and was heard far out at sea. From the womb of the angry Pelee there was discharged, high in air, a monstrous accumulation of in- candescent sand, ashes, scoria and burning rocks, which, fall- ing. apparently fused together, and like billows of cotton wool, gathering height and depth, rolled, tossed and tumbled down the side of the mountain. On hrst issuing from the crater the great thing was lurid, but as it raced downwards the dominant color was white, changing as it cooled to ashen gray. lifest- ward to the sea rolled the mighty mass, Between it and the ocean lay four miles of land stripped to the skin, and in three