Martinique and St. Vincent: Morne Rouge and France
The years between 1600 and 1800 were years of awful disaster by volcano, earthquake, and tidal wave. In 1793, fierce eruptions destroyed 200,000 people in Yeddo, Japan. Twenty years later volcanic forces in a few minutes extinguished 400,000 human beings in Pekin. In 1754, 40,000 were destroyed in Grand Cairo, Egypt, and in the following year 50,000 in Portugal, principally in Lisbon. Six years after the first visitation of Martinique 80,000 persons were wiped out in Guatemala, and Santiago was destroyed in toto. In 1692 a volcanic eruption killed 2,000, and in 1538 Lisston suffered a loss of 30,000. History offers the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum, when the people fled from the flowing lava and were buried beneath falling ashes as were the unfortunate citizens of St. Pierre. In 446 B. C., Sparta lost 30,000 of its Greeks, and about 283, Lysimachina, a Greek city, was entirely destroyed. In 104 B. C., two cities in Greece and two in Galatia were annihilated in a few minutes. Mention might also be made of the legendary destruction of Lost Atlantis, of which volumes of numbers have been written, when a continent was submerged in a few hours by the action of fires at its foundations.
The consul at St. Pierre during the years 1895-1899, Col. J. G. Tucker, said in Washington, upon the first news of the great disaster:
It may possibly be wondered at why the people did not escape in time. When it is considered however that to one side lay the volcano, to another a steep mountain, and in front the sea, while the only avenue of escape towards Fort de France was within the radius of the volcano's power, the true situation may be seen. The people were simply like rats in a trap and had no way to turn.
We never thought of an eruption proceeding from the volcano. It seemed entirely extinct, and the fact that a little lake lay at the bottom of the crater lent strength to this supposition.
The crater lays about twelve miles to the north and west of St. Pierre, and could be climbed after hard work. It was very steep, with precipitous sides and rough rocks and lava beds. The crater proper was about 200 yards in diameter and 80 feet deep. At the bottom was the lake, containing clear, limpid water. The strange part about this lake was its unfathomable depth. All kinds of soundings were tried, but no one ever succeeded in finding the bottom.
There is only one industry on the Island of Martinique -- that of sugar raising. Surprising to state no sugar is exported. It is all turned into rum, and then shipped to France. Everything necessary to the life of the inhabitants is got from the United States. But nothing is exported to this country. Despite the fact that the manufacture of rum was the principal industry the inhabitants were never drunk. I never saw a drunken native on the island during my entire stay. The only intoxicated persons I ever saw were foreigners.
A lifelong resident of St. Pierre related in the New York World of May 10th the following facts:
Many times have I been on old Mount Pelee. It was a scene of gayety for the people of the town, the place where they went for their picnics, and, forty days after every Easter, the Mecca to which all the religious people of the town repaired for the feast of Pentecost. No one feared the old mountain, the highest of the thickly-grouped chain of mountains which rise up behind the town. Older people there tell of an eruption in August, 1851, when ashes were showered upon the town. Since then a little lake has formed right where the eruption spouted out, and it was there when I was last on the mountain not long ago.
St. Pierre lies curving along the water front. There is no harbor there, just an open roadstead, and the sailing vessels coming fasten to a chain brought from shore and throw an anchor out to seaward. There are no piers big enough for big steamers to come up to and the cargoes are discharged on lighters. There are three sections of the town. The first they call colloquially "The Moorage," and the others "The Old Town," and "The New Town." The old town is built on a level with the sea. Above it rises sheer up for several hundred feet a rugged cliff, bare rock.
Further around the bend of the coast is what is called the new town. It is built on sloping ground and is the better and more modern part of the town.
Mount Pelee rises up behind the town, some two miles away. To get to the top of it you must travel over twenty miles. Circuitous roads leading around the rugged mountains climb up to a point on the mountain where the vehicles must be abandoned and the rest of the journey made on foot.
Far up on the mountain is the village of Morne Rouge, the home of the rich merchants and plantation-owners. It is a place of between 3,000 and 4,000 people. It has many pretty homes, and is very cool and pleasant in summer, the sea breezes reaching it without obstruction. It is right in the shadow of the deadly crater. It is here that persons going up to the top must leave their carriages and walk the rest of the way. It is inevitable that the beautiful village of Morne Rouge was utterly destroyed if the eruption was anything like what it is described to be.