The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1891-07-29
MARTINIQUE.
An Island That Looks Like a Bit of
France Gone Astray.

Martinique is a garden of romantic
beauty, extending from the edge of
the pretty harbor to the foothills of
the mountains and looks like frag-
ment of France gone astray, says a
writer in the WaUerty Magazine. Every
building is of venerable stone, antique
in structure, large and roomy, and
windowed by deep jalousies. The
heavy tile roofs overhang the sills like
| the eyebrows of man, and are covered
with silvery MOSES and trailing vines.
The streets are nearly all paved with
Belgian blocks. and sparkling water
rushes down the middle of each in the
gutter, toward which the pavement
slopes.
Every ybody 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 blacksmith's forge.
There are some fine churches and
one old cathedral that is worth visit.
The people are mostly Catholics, but
there is large colony of Jews engaged
in banking and trade.
The town of Port de France, which
was known as Port Royal during the
time of the empire, is the seat of the
government, where the lieutenant-gov-
ernor lives and commands garrison
of 800 or 400 colored soldiers. 1t is
about twenty miles from st. Pierre
and has 10000 inhabitants, but the
latter place is the commercial capital
and the fashionable residence. The
blacks and whites live together as
brothers and sisters of the common
family, often intermarrying. Many
of the colored families are wealthy
and aristocratic and send their chill
dren abroad to be educated.
The. upper classes wear the latest
French fashions and live with consid-
cradle comfort, but the colored women
of the common class, as elsewhere in
the tropics, are clad in single gar
ment of cotton, without any partiou-
lar design of concealing or exposing
their anatomy. They load themselves
with large amount of jewelry of
peculiar designs, and on Sunday and
feast days get themselves up in most
elaborate and outlandish manner, men
and women both riyaling the plumage
of the birds in the myriad colors they
assume. There are no poor, no aims
houses, no asylum for the INDECENT.
The women of Martinique carry
their babies in a peculiar manner by
placing them astride of the left hip,
and strapping them there by wide
strips of cloth. Martinique has pop
ulation of $50, 600. of whom II, 900 are
white, 80, 900 of mixed blood, and the
remainder colored.
The island is covered with fields of
sugar cane, mostly cultivated by the
women. while the men do the heavier
labor in the sugar mills and in the
harbor. There are no carriages or
carts, but the women and donkeys are
the common carriers.
There is a good opera house where
performances are often given by local
talent and once in awhile an opera or
play by company from France.
One of the most beautiful parks in
the world is known as the Place Ber-
tin, where there is magnificent
fountain of bronze, a most graceful
water nymph fourteen feet high, bear
ing upon her head basket, from the
rim of which jets of water flow.
In August It's fountain exhibits
what to strangers is most amazing
phenomenon, spouting myriads Of |
little fishes about as large as whitehall
with bodies as transparent as crystal.
These are called titire and come from
the mountain streams with which the
fountain is fed. In the month of
August they come from the sea and
are caught by the pipes that feed the
fountain. The people expecting them
come down with baskets. scoop them
Up, and, taking them home, fry them
n oil; they make delicious morsels.
Martinique was the birthplace of the
Empress Josephine. whose family still
i've near fort de France, and their old |
home, little one-story house. is still
o be seen.