BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1902-06-19

through the Petite Rue de Versailles.
once this street bore the name of En-
press Josephine Martinique SO lovingly
treasures the romance of this beautiful
woman it is strange the name was ever
changed.
Behind us, on the slopes of Morne
Parnasse, are the gray-brown ashes of
the Tardin des Plantes. at one time one
of the most luxuriant natural gardens
in the world. Mans handiwork there
had been turned to aid Nature, not to
mortify her not supplant her. and by far
the greater part of the gardens was as
she intended it to be. Much has been
written of the glory of these gardens,
of their cool, fragrant twilight into
which one might step from the blind
ing glare of MONDAY. AS We look
back upon the rising ground which
held this natural elfn-land, the ground
is bare, utterly bare, the tangle of tro-
pical vegetation, the riot Of fronded,
branching, creeping, swaying green has
been withered to dust and showered
upon the ground which bore it. Water
falls are dry, their basins dustbeds; the
Iardin des Plantes is scared hillside,
and once a man would have spent
week hewing his way through it.
Mont Pelee In Eruption.
The Riviere Roxelane, or the River
of the Anchorage or of the Washer
women, which you will is on Our right
as we face the harbor, its bed mud
gorged. Under the shadow of the
military wall is masonry bridge which
rises several feet above the mud mass
and has not, therefore, been carried
away. The river bed below is filed
with crusted, pltty-colored mud, which
rises to the second stories of the houses
along it's sides and extends from house
line to house-line, more than fifty feet.
Its depth varies from IS to forty feet.
The walls which lined it here, the walls
upon which strangers and idlers used
to lean to watch the black washer
women ply their interesting, if some
what destructive, trade, are not to be
seen. The story of the northern part
of the city is the story of the southern
part, save that in the north toward the
Riviere des Peres and Fonds Core and
the Riviere Blanch, and the site of the
Gurin sugar factory, the mud-fow is
the most pronounced destructive agent.
Beyond the Riviere des Peres and the
distilleries which occupied its southern
bank the view is across sticky mud
fields, from which great plumes of
vapor continuously arise to the parched,
san-swept slopes of Mont Pelee.
We stand for time gazing about us
and wondering. l speak for myself at
least, at the sublime wantonneSs Of the
destruction Not one moments chance
for flight had been accorded these thou
sands, as they stood or walked or lay at
ten minutes before eight o'clock on the
morning of May 8. The city rested in
the hollow of rocky hand, in Guide
sac; had it been founded thus to be des-
troyed. it's site could not have been bet |
ter chosen. The horror which flied
the hearts of the people when the blast
swept down upon them is beyond under
standing. The mind fills with an inef-
fable sympathy in contemplation of that
morning. We have turned to one
another, and are deploring the heat, and
thinking of the time o'day, when a Sc
ries of short booming blasts reach our
ears First our eyes sweep across the
blue harbor to the Suchet and the
steam futtering from her whistle, and
then, instinctively to Mt. Pelee, which,
during the last hour, we have entirely
ignored. The white cloud above the
crater has increased in volume, and is
blue black and threatening below; it
looks like thunder. cloud with its head
in the sunshine. The black undertake.
pillows sway horizontally and grow
denser every moment. Down thetl