The Irish standard., 1891-05-30
AN HIST RIC ISLAND.
Martinique. the Birthplace Of the
Empress JOSEF nine. zs.
"a Picturesque CenIn unity and Some Of
Its Principal Attractions-As
Fountain That Speuts
S Live Fishes.

St3s
Martinique is garden Of romantic
beauty, extending from the edge Of the
| pretty harbor TO the foothills OF. the
mountains, and looks like fragment
;of France gone astray. says a writer
in the Waverly Magazine. Every
building is Of venerable stone, an
tique in structure, large and roomy.
and Widowed by deep jalousies- The
like the eyebrows of man, and are
covered with silvery MOSES and trail
ing 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.
Everybody lives out Of doors. The
harDor is skirted by a wide boulevard
shaded by palm trees and furnished
with iron seats, where the populace
gather in the evening and chatter like
nagpies- During the day the women
sit in the gardens ard 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 char
coal stoves, or upon shelves of stone like
blacksmith's forge.
There are some fine churches, and
one old cathedral that is worth a visit.
The people are mostly Catholics, but
there is a 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
governor lives and commands garrison
of three hundred or four hundred col
ored soldiers. It is about twenty miles
from St. Pierre and has ten thousand
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
children abroad to be educated.
The upper classes wear tho latest
French fashions and live with consider
able comfort, but the colored women of
the common class, as elsewhere in the
tropics, are clad in a single garment of
cotton, without any particular design of
concealing or exposing their anatomy.
They load themselves with a large
amount Of jewelry of peculiar designs,
and on Sunday and feast days get them
selves up in q most elaborate and out
landish manner, men and women both
rivaling the plumage of the birds in the
myriad colors they assume. There are
no poor, no almshouses, no asylum for
the INDECENT. -
The women Of Martinique carry their
babies in peculiar manner by placing
them astride. of the left hip, and strap
ping them there by wide strips of
cloth. Martinique has population of
one hundred and fifty thousand, Of
whom twelve thousand are white,
thirty thousand 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
Dor. There are no carriages or carts,
but the women and donkeys are the
common carriers.
There is 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 Berth.
where there is a magnificent fountain
of bronze, most graceful water nymph
fourteen feet high, bearing upon her
head a basket, from the rim OF which
jets of water flow.
In August this fountain exhibits what
to strangers is most amazing phenom-
enon, spouting my1iads of little fishes
about as large as whitehall with bodies
as transparent as crystal. These are
called titire and come from the noun
tain 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 in oil; they make
delicious morsels
Martinique was the birthplace of
Empress Josephine, whose family still
live near Fort de France, and their
old home e, little one-story house, is
still to be seen.
will Versus Circumstances.
A writer in the New England Farm
er makes the following interesting
comments concerning the power Of will
over circumstances. Last summer
CHANGED to find an old school-book
which probably had never been opened
since its owner, a girl student, died
forty years ago. The book was filed
with loose sheets Of paper, covered with
hand riting, uniform and beautiful.
- and their