Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1902-07-24
LANDING DIXIE'S STORES
How They Were Received at
Fort de France.
UNEXPECTED APATHY OF NATIVES

UNE4PEUTED APATHY OF NATIVES
When the United States Cruiser Ar
rived, So Did Boatmen With Food
For sale-Deggars Were After Mon.
ey, Not Food-Contents of the Cruis-
er's Stores.
The arrival of vessel laden with
supplies from precipitately generous
| government in the roadstead of a city
reported to be harboring thousands OF
destitute, terrified refugees is usually
provocative of great interest, if not of
excitement but the United States
cruiser Dixie, bearing 1850 tons of
stores for the stricken of Martinique,
came to anchor in the harbor of Fort
de France tine other morning, and an
excursion steamer would, no doubt,
have aroused as much apparent com
motion ashore as she, writes tie New
York Evening Posts special cores
pendent under date of May 81.
| This is not to charge the people of
Fort de France with iugratitude nor to
| say an unkind thing of one of the
| quaintest, LATEST spots in the West
Indies. 1t is simply a commentary up
on the languor into which those living
south of latitude II north lapse two
minutes after an event occurs and, in
| cidentally, upon certain errors of COM
| putation as to the number of refugees
''crowding into Fort de France"
When the health officer, very small
man in very large white helmet,
came aboard the Dixie, we learned
that there had been an eruption of
Mont Pelee in the morning of the day
before, that ashes and stones had fall
en- in Fort de France and that the peo-
pie, including the refugees, had been
in panic.
These were the people we had come
to help, to feed and clothe and shelter;
these were the people for whom imme-
date assistance was necessary, to
whom emperors and kings were send
ing money. 1t was great satisfaction
to us-though we, as newspaper CORE
| spondents, were not absolutely neces-
sary to the success Of the expedition
that our ship had come upon the scene
with holds filled with food, clothing,
medical stores and tents and could be
of prompt and practical aid to the suf-
ferers.
The first blow came when one Of the
newspaper men asked some one in the
doctors party what stores were needed
| ashore for those who had fled south
ward from the region about Pelee The
answer was, that Fort de France had
stores sufficient to maintain them for
six months. The second blow was de-
livered by waterman, black, who
came off shore in his narrow ram
PROV dugout with fresh milk and bread
for sale.
The Dixie had cast anchor at 6
o'clock or therea bout, while the church
bells ashore were ringing the Angelus-
one imagined it sort of benediction
upon our coming-and many of us had
pictured the pellmell eagerness with
which the natives would welcome the
expedition and it's tons Of foodstuffs.
But Fort de France is too old, too Ian
guild, as we soon learned, to rouse itself
out of its somnolent groove
The shore line was dotted with peo-
pie 1--WE could almost see their hungry,
eager faces and the cable had just
ended its noisy journey through the
hawse pipe when the shore boats
swarmed alongside. Instead of eager
appeals for food, the one cry of these
boatmen was, GO ashore now, SIR" in
uncertain English, to the accompani.
ment of a brown hand waved toward
the city.
After the health officer had gone
oversize we did go ashore, and any
illusions we may have had as to re.
joicing over the coming of the Dixie's
provisions were dispelled by the horde
of beggars which made every moment
of our day in Fort de France running
fight. Any attempt to make the horde
understand that the American warship
in the harbor had come with food and
clothing for all-free, not to be paid
for, a gift-was amazingly unsuccess-
full in awakening the looked for rejoic.
ing. 1t may have been the bad French
| AL w A1SA luc ucMS WAS COuNGycu-
whatever it was it did not lessen one
iota the natives desire to carry ones
camera, to show one the way to the no.
tel, the cafe. the cable Office, the place
where panama hats were to be bought
lin fact, to do anything in the expecta.
ton of the rewarding sou.
We recalled what we had been told
Of the panic of the morning before, of
the rain Of ashes and stones-piles OF
ashes in the streets were pointed out
to us in substantiation-and of the
headlong fight Of many into the sea
to swim to safety, and it must be
said that for people who had suffered
and done these things only twenty -four
hours before the natives of Fort dc
France were the happiest, LATEST, most
]reposeful lot this correspondent has
ever seen.
One Of the first and most natural in
quiries made by the correspondence
was as to the whereabouts of the ref
ugees. the thousands @crowding into
Fort de France" This person an
swered that some of them were in the