I.
THE first attempt made to colonize Martinique was abandoned
almost as soon as begun, because the leaders of the expedition
found the country "too rugged and too mountainous," and were
"terrified by the prodigious number of serpents which covered its
soil." Landing on June 25, 1635, Olive and Duplessis left the
island after a few hours' exploration, or, rather, observation,
and made sail for Guadeloupe,—according to the quaint and most
veracious history of Père Dutertre, of the Order of Friars-Preachers.
A single glance at the topographical map of Martinique would
suffice to confirm the father's assertion that the country was
found to be trop haché et trop montueux: more than two-thirds of
it is peak and mountain;—even to-day only 42,445 of its supposed
98,782 hectares have been cultivated; and on page 426 of the last
"Annuaire" (1887) I find the statement that in the interior there
are extensive Government lands of which the area is "not exactly
known." Yet mountainous as a country must be which—although
scarcely forty-nine miles long and twenty miles in average
breadth—remains partly unfamiliar to its own inhabitants after
nearly three centuries of civilization (there are not half a
dozen creoles who have travelled all over it), only two elevations
in Martinique bear the name montagne. These are La Montagne
Pelée, in the north, and La Montagne du Vauclin, in the south.
The term morne, used throughout the
French West Indian colonies
to designate certain altitudes of volcanic origin, a term rather
unsatisfactorily translated in certain dictionaries as "a small
mountain," is justly applied to the majority of Martinique hills,
and unjustly sometimes even to its mightiest elevation,—called
Morne Pelé, or Montagne Pelée, or simply "La Montagne,"
according, perhaps, to the varying degree of respect it inspires in
different minds. But even in the popular nomenclature one finds the
orography of Martinique, as well as of other West Indian islands, regularly
classified by
pitons,
mornes, and
monts or
montagnes. Mornes
usually have those beautiful and curious forms which bespeak volcanic
origin even to the unscientific observer: they are most often pyramidal
or conoid up to a certain height; but have summits either rounded or
truncated;—their sides, green with the richest vegetation, rise
from valley-levels and coast-lines with remarkable abruptness,
and are apt to be curiously ribbed or wrinkled. The pitons, far
fewer in number, are much more fantastic in form;—volcanic
cones, or volcanic upheavals of splintered strata almost at right
angles,—sometimes sharp of line as spires, and mostly too steep
for habitation. They are occasionally mammiform, and so
symmetrical that one might imagine them artificial creations,—
particularly when they occur in pairs. Only a very important
mass is dignified by the name
montagne … there are, as I have
already observed, but two thus called in all Martinique,—Pelée,
the head and summit of the island; and La Montagne du Vauclin,
in the south-east. Vauclin is inferior in height and bulk to
several mornes and pitons of the north and north-west,—and owes
its distinction probably to its position as centre of a system of
ranges: but in altitude and mass and majesty, Pelée far outranks
everything in the island, and well deserves its special
appellation, "La Montagne."
No description could give the reader a just idea of what
Martinique is, configuratively, so well as the simple statement
that, although less than fifty miles in extreme length, and less
than twenty in average breadth, there are upwards of
four hundred
mountains in this little island, or of what at least might be
termed mountains elsewhere. These again are divided and
interpeaked, and bear hillocks on their slopes;—and the lowest
hillock in Martinique is fifty metres high. Some of the peaks
are said to be totally inaccessible: many mornes are so on one or
two or even three sides. Ninety-one only of the principal
mountains have been named; and among these several bear similar
appellations: for example, there are two Mornes-Rouges, one in
the north and one in the south; and there are four or five Gros-Mornes.
All the elevations belong to six great groups,
clustering about or radiating from six ancient volcanic centres,—
1. La Pelée; 2. Pitons du Carbet; 3. Roches
Carrées;
*
4. Vauclin; 5. Marin; 6. Morne de la Plaine.
Forty-two distinct mountain-masses belong to the Carbet system
alone,—that of Pelée including but thirteen; and the whole
Carbet area has a circumference of 120,000 metres,—much more
considerable than that of Pelée. But its centre is not one
enormous pyramidal mass like that of "La Montagne": it is marked
only by a group of five remarkable porphyritic cones,—the Pitons
of Carbet;—while Pelée, dominating everything, and fiIling the
north, presents an aspect and occupies an area scarcely inferior
to those of AEtna.
—Sometimes, while looking at La Pelée, I have wondered
if the enterprise of the great Japanese painter who made the Hundred Views
of Fusiyama could not be imitated by some creole artist equally proud
of his native hills, and fearless of the heat of the plains or the
snakes of the slopes. A hundred views of Pelée might certainly be made:
for the enormous mass is omnipresent to dwellers in the northern part of
the island, and can be seen from the heights of the most southern mornes.
It is visible from almost any part of St. Pierre,—which nestles
in a fold of its rocky skirts. It overlooks all the island
ranges, and overtops the mighty Pitons of Carbet by a thousand
feet;—you can only lose sight of it by entering gorges, or
journeying into the valleys of the south. …
But the peaked character of the whole country, and the hot moist
climate, oppose any artistic undertaking of the sort suggested:
even photographers never dream of taking views in the further
interior; nor on the east coast. Travel, moreover, is no less
costly than difficult: there are no inns or places of rest for
tourists; there are, almost daily, sudden and violent rains,
which are much dreaded (since a thorough wetting, with the pores
all distended by heat, may produce pleurisy); and there are
serpents! The artist willing to devote a few weeks of travel and
study to Pelée, in spite of these annoyances and risks, has not
yet made his appearance in Martinique.
*
Huge as the mountain looks from St. Pierre, the eye under-estimates
its bulk; and when you climb the mornes about the town,
Labelle, d'Orange, or the much grander Parnasse, you are
surprised to find how much vaster Pelée appears from these
summits. Volcanic hills often seem higher, by reason of their
steepness, than they really are; but Pelée deludes in another
manner. From surrounding valleys it appears lower, and from
adjacent mornes higher than it really is: the illusion in the
former case being due to the singular slope of its contours, and
the remarkable breadth of its base, occupying nearly all the
northern end of the island; in the latter, to misconception of
the comparative height of the eminence you have reached, which
deceives by the precipitous pitch of its sides. Pelée is not
very remarkable in point of altitude, however: its height was
estimated by Moreau de Jonnes at 1600 metres; and by others at
between 4400 and 4500 feet. The sum of the various imperfect
estimates made justify the opinion of Dr. Cornilliac that the
extreme summit is over 5000 feet above the sea—perhaps
5200. *
The clouds of the summit afford no indication to eyes accustomed
to mountain scenery in northern countries; for in these hot moist
latitudes clouds hang very low, even in fair weather. But in
bulk Pelée is grandiose: it spurs out across the island from the
Caribbean to the Atlantic: the great chains of mornes about it are
merely counter-forts; the Piton Pierreux and the Piton
Pain-à-Sucre (
Sugar-loaf Peak), and other elevations varying from
800 to 2100 feet, are its volcanic children. Nearly thirty
rivers have their birth in its flanks,—besides many thermal
springs, variously mineralized. As the culminant point of the
island, Pelée is also the ruler of its meteorologic life,—cloud-herder,
lightning-forger, and rain-maker. During clear weather
you can see it drawing to itself all the white vapors of the
land,—robbing lesser eminences of their shoulder-wraps and head-coverings;—though
the Pitons of Carbet (3700 feet) usually
manage to retain about their middle a cloud-clout,—a
lantchô.
You will also see that the clouds run in a circle about Pelée,
—gathering bulk as they turn by continual accessions from other points.
If the crater be totally bare in the morning, and shows the broken
edges very sharply against the blue, it is a sign of foul rather
than of fair weather to come.
*
Even in bulk, perhaps, Pelée might not impress those who know
the stupendous scenery of the American ranges; but none could
deny it special attractions appealing to the senses of form and
color. There is an imposing fantasticality in its configuraion
worth months of artistic study: one does not easily tire of
watching its slopes undulating against the north sky,—and the
strange jagging of its ridges,—and the succession of its
terraces crumbling
down to other terraces, which again break into
ravines here and there bridged by enormous buttresses of basalt:
an extravaganza of lava-shapes overpitching and cascading into
sea and plain. All this is verdant wherever surfaces catch the sun:
you can divine what the frame is only by examining the dark and
ponderous rocks of the torrents. And the hundred tints of this
verdure do not form the only colorific charms of the landscape.
Lovely as the long upreaching slopes of cane are,—and the
loftier bands of forest-growths, so far off that they look like
belts of moss,—and the more tender-colored masses above,
wrinkling and folding together up to the frost-white clouds of
the summit,—you will be still more delighted by the shadow-colors,—opulent,
diaphanous. The umbrages lining the wrinkles,
collecting in the hollows, slanting from sudden projections,
may become before your eyes almost as unreally beautiful as the
landscape colors of a Japanese fan;—they shift most generally
during the day from indigo-blue through violets and paler blues
to final lilacs and purples; and even the shadows of passing
clouds have a faint blue tinge when they fall on Pelée.
… Is the great volcano dead? … Nobody knows. Less than forty
years ago it rained ashes over all the roofs of St. Pierre;—
within twenty years it has uttered mutterings. For the moment,
it appears to sleep; and the clouds have dripped into the cup of
its highest crater till it has become a lake, several hundred
yards in circumference. The crater occupied by this lake—called
L'Étang, or "The Pool"—has never been active within human
memory. There are others,—difficult and dangerous to visit
because opening on the side of a tremendous gorge; and it was one
of these, no doubt, which has always been called La Souffrière,
that rained ashes over the city in 1851.
The explosion was almost concomitant with the last
of a series
of earthquake shocks, which began in the middle of May and ended in
the first week of August,—all much more severe in Guadeloupe
than in Martinique. In the village Au Prêcheur, lying at the foot of
the western slope of Pelée, the people had been for some time
complaining of an oppressive stench of sulphur,—or, as chemists
declared it, sulphuretted hydrogen,—when, on the 4th of August,
much trepidation was caused by a long and appalling noise from
the mountain,—a noise compared by planters on the neighboring
slopes to the hollow roaring made by a packet blowing off steam,
but infinitely louder. These sounds continued through intervals
until the following night, sometimes deepening into a rumble like
thunder. The mountain guides declared: "
C'est la Souffrière qui
bout!" (the Souffrière is boiling); and a panic seized the negroes
of the neighboring plantations. At 11 P.M. the noise was terrible
enough to fill all St. Pierre with alarm; and on the morning of the
6th the city presented an unwonted aspect, compared by creoles who
had lived abroad to the effect of a great hoar-frost. All the roofs,
trees, balconies, awnings, pavements, were covered with a white
layer of ashes. The same shower blanched the roofs of Morne
Rouge, and all the villages about the chief city,—Carbet, Fond-
Corré, and Au Prêcheur; also whitening the neighboring country:
the mountain was sending up columns of smoke or vapor; and it was
noticed that the Rivière Blanche, usually of a glaucous color,
ran black into the sea like an outpouring of ink, staining its
azure for a mile. A committee appointed to make an
investigation, and prepare an official report, found that a
number of rents had either been newly formed, or suddenly become
active, in the flank of the mountain: these were all situated in
the immense gorge sloping westward from that point now known as
the Morne de la Croix. Several were visited with much
difficulty,—members of the
commission being obliged to lower
themselves down a succession of precipices with cords of lianas;
and it is noteworthy that their researches were prosecuted in
spite of the momentary panic created by another outburst. It was
satisfactorily ascertained that the main force of the explosion
had been exerted within a perimeter of about one thousand yards;
that various hot springs had suddenly gushed out,—the temperature
of the least warm being about 37° Réaumur (116° F.);—that there
was no change in the configuration of the mountain;—and that the
terrific sounds had been produced only by the violent outrush of
vapor and ashes from some of the rents. In hope of allaying the
general alarm, a creole priest climbed the summit of the volcano,
and there planted the great cross which gives the height its name
and still remains to commemorate the event.
There was an extraordinary emigration of serpents from the high woods,
and from the higher to the lower plantations,—where they were killed by
thousands. For a long time Pelée continued to send up an immense column of
white vapor; but there were no more showers of ashes; and the
mountain gradually settled down to its present state of quiescence.
[_]
* Also called La
Barre de 'Isle,—a long high mountain-wall
interlinking the northern and southern system of ranges,—and
only two metres broad at the summit. The "Roches-Carrées",
display a geological formation unlike anything discovered in the
rest of the Antillesian system, excepting in Grenada,—columnar
or prismatic basalts. … In the plains of Marin curious
petrifactions exist;—I saw a honey-comb so perfect that the eye
alone could scarcely divine the transformation.
[_]
* Thibault de Chanvallon, writing of Martinique in 1751,
declared:—"All possible hinderances to study are encountered
here (tout s'oppose à l'etude): if the Americans [creoles] do
not devote themselves to research, the fact must not be
attributed solely to indifference or indolence. On the one hand,
the overpowering and continual heat,—the perpetual succession of
mornes and acclivities,—the difficulty of entering forests
rendered almost inaccessible by the lianas interwoven across all
openings, and the prickly plants which oppose a barrier to the
naturalist,—the continual anxiety and fear inspired by serpents
also;—on the othelr hand, the disheartening necessity of having
to work alone, and the discouragement of being unable to
communicate one's ideas or discoveries to persons having similar
tastes. And finally, it must be remembered that these
discouragements and dangers are never mitigated by the least hope
of personal consideration, or by the pleasure of emulation,—since
such study is necessarily unaccompanied either by the one or the
other in a country where nobody undertakes it."—(Voyage à la
Martinique.) … The conditions have scarcely changed since
De Chanvallon's day, despite the creation of Government roads, and
the thinning of the high woods.
[_]
* Humboldt believed the height to be not less than 800 toises
(1 toise=6 ft. 4.73 inches), or about 5115 feet.
[_]
* There used to be a strange popular belief that however
heavily veiled by clouds the mountain might be prior to an
earthquake, these would always vanish with the first shock. But
Thibault de Chanvallon took pains to examine into the truth of
this alleged phenomenon; and found that during a number of
earthquake shocks the clouds remained over the crater precisely
as usual. … There was more foundation, however, for another
popular belief, which still exists,—that the absolute purity of
the atmosphere about Pelée, and the perfect exposure of its
summit for any considerable time, might be regarded as an omen of
hurricane.