Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-06-19
ISLAND OFMARTINIOUE|
xN1 0LDTuPLACE OF TIE WIFE O1 NAPOLEON IL

Donkeys the Common Means Of Con.
 veyance-Ths Fountain in the Place
 Bertin and the Fiahes it spouts in
 August Of Each Year
 Martinique is garden of romantic beauty extending from the edge of the pretty harbor to the foot hills of the mountains and looks like a fragment of France gone astray. Every building is of venerable stone, antique in structure, large and roomy and widowed by deep jalousies. The heavy tile roofs overhang the sills like the eyebrows of man and are covered with silvery mosses and trailing vines.
 The streets arc nearly all paved with Belgian blocks. and sparkling water rushes down the middle of each in the gutter toward which the pavement slopes.
 Everybody lives out of doors. The harbor Is skirted by wide boulevard, shaded by palm trees and furnished with iron seats, where the populace gather In the evening and chatter like magpies. During the day the women sit in the gardens, and at night sleep in hammocks under the verandas, except in the rainy season, when they keep their houses. There is no glass in the windows, and not a chimney in the place. All the cooking Is done in charcoal stoves, or upon shelves of stone like a blacksmith s forge.
 On an eminence overlooking the town stands q statue of the Blessed Virgin, like q protecting guardian, benignant | end serene. There are some fine l churches and one old cathedral that is worth visit. The people are mostly Catholics, but there is a large colony ot Jews engaged in banking and trade. The town of Fort de France, which l fhn | time of the empire, Is the seat of the | government, where the ieutenant-gov- 1 ernor lives and commands a garrison o1 three hundred or four hundred colored | soldiers. It Is about twenty miles from St. Pierre, and has 10000 inhabitants, | but the latter place Is the commercial capital and the fashionable residence. | brothers and sisters Of the common family, often intermarrying. Many oi 1 the colored families are wealthy and l aristocratic, and send their children abroad to be educated.
 The upper class wear the latest French fashions and live with considerable comfort, but the colored women, of the common class, as elsewhere ill the topics. are clad in a single garment oi coucealing or exposing their anatomy. 1 They load themselves with @ large amount of jewelry of peculiar designs, and on Sunday and feast days get them selves up in most elaborate and out landish manner, men and women both rlvaling the plumage of the birds in the myriad colors they assume. There are nc yoor, no almshouses, no asylum for the | indigent.
 The women of Martinique carry theil babies in a peculiar manner by placing them astride of the left hip and strapping them there by broad slings of cloth Martinique has & population of 154, ,OOO of which 12, ,OOO are white, SC, 900 of mixed blood and the remainder colored.
 The island is covered with fields o1 sugar cane, mostly cultivated by the women, while the men do the heavier la Dor in the sugar mills and in the harbor | There are no carriages or cartS but the women and donkeys are the common carriers.
 One of the most beautiful parks in the world is known as the Place Bertin where there Is magnificent fountain O. bronze, a graceful water nymph, fourteen feet high, bearing upon her head { basket, from the rim of which jets O. water bow.
 In August this fountain exhibits wha' to strangers is a most amazing phenome non, spouting myriads of little tishe. about as large as whitebait, with bodie: as transparent as crystal. These art called titire, and come from the noun tain streams with which the fountain is fed. In the month of August they start for the sea and are caught by the pipe. that feed the fountain. The people, ex pecting them, come down with baskets scoop them up, and, taking them home fry them in oil, when they make most de licious morsels.
 Martinique was the birthplace of thu Empress Josephine, whose family stil live near Fort de France, and their ol, home, a little one-story house, is still t. be seen. In the center of that little cit, a magnificent statue of white marble wa erected to her memory by the grea Emperor Napoleon III. Josephine wa the daughter of Joseph Gaspard Tache de Ia Pagerie, a lieuhenant of artillery and at Is married Alexander de Beau harnais. He was only 19, and after few yeurs of married life in France tn young couple were separated, Josephin returning to her parents at Martinique In 1794 Beauharnais died on the gull lotine, and two years afterward Josephin was married to Napoleon. Tho empres was divorced, and died In 1909. Tn people of Martinique revere her like saint. nt.-Philadelphia Press.
 Why tho Sky is Blue.
 Prof. Hartley, of London, has bee trying to find out why the sky IS blue