The Lebanon express. (Lebanon, Linn County, Or.) 1887-1898, 1895-10-04
AN HISTORIC -EftAND,


Martinique is garden Of romantic
beauty, extending from the edge OF the
pretty harbor to the foothills OF the
mountains, and looks like a fragment
of France gone astray, says q writer
in the Waverly Magazine. Every
building is OF venerable stone, an.
tique 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 mosses 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
harbor is skirted by q 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 chimney in tho
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 visit.
The people are mostly Catholics, but
there is O 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 o garrison
Of three hundred or four hundred col
ored soldiers. 1t 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 eolored families are
wealthy and aristocratic and send their
children abroad to be educated.
The upper classes wear the 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 single garment %
cotton, without any particular design o.
concealing or exposing their anatomy
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 botf
riyaling the plumage Of the birds in thu
myriad colors they assume. There arr
no poor, no almshouses, NO asylum fol
the INDECENT.
The women Of Martinique carry theil
babies in peculiar manner by PLACING
them astride of the left hip, and strap
ping them there by WIDE strips o
cloth. Martinique has population Q
one hundred and fifty Thousand, Q
whom twelve thousand are white
thirty thousand Of mixed blood, and th
remainder colored.
The island is covered with fields @
sugar cane. mostly cultivated BY th
women, while the men do the heavie
labor in the sugar mills and in the hnl
Dor. There are no carriages or cart
but the women and donkeys are th
common carriers.
There is good opera house wher
performances are often given by loc;
talent and once in awhile an opera {
play by company from France.
One of the most beautiful parks
the world is known as the Place BERTH
where there is magnificent fountai
Of bronze, a most graceful waternymr
fourteen feet high, bearing upon hs
head basket, from the rim Of whie
Jets Of water flow
In August this fountain exhibits WIN
to strangers is most amazing phenon
enon, spouting myriads Of little fishs
about as large as whitebait with bodi'
as transparent as crystal. These al
called titire and come from the moul
tain streams with which the fountain
fed. In the month Of August the
come from the sea and are caught b
the pipes that feed the fountain. II
people expecting them come down wit
baskets, scoop them up, and takir
them home, fry them inoil; they NAL
delicious morsels.
Martinique was the birthplace
Empress Josephine, whose family sti
live near Fort de France, and the
old home, a little one-story house,
still to be seen.