,!g                      Martinique Sketches.
in their lineage to a surprising degree by conditions of
climate and environment.
The precise time of the first introduction of slaves
into Martinique is not now possible to  ascertain,—no
record exists on the subject; but it is probable that the
establishment of slavery was coincident with the settle-
ment of the island.    Most likely the first hundred colo-
nists from St. Christophe, who landed, in 1635, near the
bay whereon the city of St. Pierre is now situated, either
brought slaves with them, or else were furnished with
negroes very soon after their arrival.     In the time of
Père Dutertre (who visited the  colonies in  1640, and
printed his history of the French Antilles at Pans in
1667)  slavery was   already a flourishing  institution,-
the foundation of the whole social structure.    Accord-
ing to the Dominican missionary, the Africans then in
the colony were decidedly repulsive;   he describes the
women as "hideous" (hideuses).    There is no good rea-
son to charge Dutertre with prejudice in his pictures of
them     No writer of the century was more keenly sensi-
tive to natural beauty than the author of that "Voyage
aux Antilles" which inspired Chateaubriand, and which
still  after  two  hundred and  fifty years, delights even
those perfectly familiar with the nature of the places
and things spoken of.    No other writer and traveller 0
the period possessed to  a more  marked   degree that
sense of generous pity which makes the unfortunate ap-
pear to us in an illusive, almost ideal aspect.    Nevertne-
less, he  asserts that the négresses were, as a general
rule, revoltingly ugly,-and, although he had seen man)
. strange sides of human nature (having been a soldie
before becoming a monk), was astonished to find tii
miscegenation had already begun.    Doubtless the far
black women thus favored, or afflicted, as the case m.g
be, were of the finer types of négresses;  for he note
remarkable differences among the slaves procured