34
A Midsummer Trip to tlie Tropics.
. . . Another hour ; and Martinique looms before us.
At first it appears all gray, a vapory gray ; then it be-
comes bluish-gray ; then all green.
It is another of the beautiful volcanic family : it owns
the same hill shapes with which we have already become
acquainted; its uppermost height is hooded with the fa-
miliar cloud ; we see the same gold-yellow plains, the same
wonderful varieties of verdancy, the same long green spurs
reaching out into the sea,—doubtless formed by old lava
torrents. But all this is now repeated for us more impos-
ingly, more grandiosely;—it is wrought upon a larger scale
than anything we have yet seen. The semicircular sweep
of the harbor, dominated by the eternally veiled summit
of the Montagne Pelée (misnamed, since it is green to the
very clouds), from which the land slopes down on either
hand to the sea by gigantic undulations, is one of the
fairest sights that human eye can gaze upon. Thus view-
ed, the whole island shape is a mass of green, with pur-
plish streaks and shadowings here and there : glooms of
forest-hollows, or moving umbrages of cloud. The city
of St. Pierre, on the edge of the land, looks as if it had
slided down the hill behind it, so strangely do the streets
come tumbling to the port in cascades of masonry,—
with a red billowing of tiled roofs over all, and enormous
palms poking up through it,—higher even than the creamy
white twin towers of its cathedral.
We anchor in limpid blue water; the cannon-shot is an-
swered by a prolonged thunder-clapping of mountain echo.
Then from the shore a curious flotilla bears down upon
us. There is one boat, two or three canoes ; but the bulk
of the craft are simply wooden frames, — flat-bottomed
structures, made from shipping-cases or lard-boxes, with
triangular ends. In these sit naked boys,—boys between
ten and fourteen years of age,—varying in color from
a fine clear yellow to a deep reddish - brown or choco-
late tint.    They row with two little square, flat pieces of