The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-06-19
France average 10000 francs per an

odd years ago; and then he remembers
 that it has been virtually destroyed three times within the memory of citi-
 zens now living. Formerly it's build
 ings were of stone, large and massive
 but all were shaken down in the awful
 earthquake of 1843. Then the houses
 were reconstructed of wood, and teW
 years later a hurricane swept over one
 summer afternoon, reducing them all tc
 splinters. Again the city was rebuilt
 mostly of wood, and fire broke out
 and left hardly a standing wall. When
 the indominitable Frenchmen built up
 their city fourth time, they carefully
 studied the question of how to be sal
 est from hurricanes, earthquakes and
 fires; and finally decided upon the
 present system of oonstruction-a
 strong iron framework, filled in with
 brick and composite. In those success
 sive disasters the lose of life was fear
 full, but not wore than the plague of
 cholera, against which no precaution
 can guard and which reaps it's annual harvest. A few yers ago, upWrds of
 15,000 people died of cholera in
 Guadeloupe in a single season. The
 cholera cemetery is visible from the
 harbor-on low sand-bluff, mile
 from the city. marked by wooden cross es and quaint French tombs. Just be-
 low it is a slight depression in the hill
 side which. I am told, was once deep
 hollow. The bodies of hundreds who died of the plague were cast into it, and
 then the great trench Wass filled up
 with easily-dug sand from the beach.
 So rapidly were people stricken down
 that not enough of the living were left to bury them. As at Galveston in the recent horror, they gave up trying to inter the dead in mother-earth, and ves- sells were employed to take the corpses out and dump them in the harbor
 Night after night, under cover of dark ness, line of ships departed with their gruesome freight. and there was scant ceremony in the taking away of cadavers from the place where they had enjoyed life, to be given over to the waves. It is said that for months after wards the sands were strewn with hu- man bones, picked clean by denizens of the deep, and for years sea-f1sh were | banished from the tables of the isl- 1 anders. l taken for a village in France, were it not for the black faces seen everywhere. Its population is about 14000, of whom fully nine-tenths are more or less ''col- ored." The broad, straight streets are well paved and cross one another at right angles, bordered by houses three or four stories high. None of the houses have courts and few have gardens; but the market space and the great square in which the theatre is situat,d are sur rounded by trees, the greatest of lux uries in this treeless island-horse- chestnuts brought from France and the giant sand-box tree, (hura crepitans) whose dense foliage, of lovely, soft green, affords refreshing shade. There is big fountain in the central square; several old fashioned churches and con- vents, and a fine cathedral-or, rather, we should say basilique-dating back to the days of Pere Lakat. As in all French seaports, hospitals are espe- eially numerous and excellently man aged by the Catholic Sisterhood; and the good Lord knows there are few places on earth where hospitals are more needed The scavengers of the
  Ponce de Leon, the noblest and gentlest of all those old conquistadores, came to Guadeloupe, fresh from his discovery of Florida, in search of the fabled foun- tain They are the great black ugly looking vultures that you see clumsily Hoping about the streets thick as flies in fy-time, with awkward, sideway hops like winged crabs, gorging them selves on all manner of filth and grow ing fat on the French and fishy smells
 Columbus discovered this and the ad- jacent islands at the same time with i, Dominica on that memorable second l voyage in 1493; and he named this one l in honor of Our Lady of Guadeloupe, | in accordance with VOW he had made | to some monks of Estramadura. | Guadeloupe has several dependencies. | They are Marie Galante, a small isl- and IT miles to the southeast, which | Columbus named after t's own caraval; Deserade St. Martin and the group | called Les Saintes," because they were sighted on All Saints day. Of course they are all French possessions, and a brisk trade is carried on between them and Guadeloupe, their surplus products Del1lS SHlDpeu IO II TdHCe Iiblll a-Pitre and their imports from the mother-country received at the same port. They, and the other French isl- ands in these waters are in marked contrast with most of the English pos sessions-Dominica, for example, which seems dead beyond hope of resurrection. is densely populated, con- sidering it's small size, but it's industries are so diversified that it does not suffer from over- -crowding. Sugar-planting is not allowed to monopolize all the ener- gies of the people, but is managed with wise economy. The consequence is that commerce has never encountered set back and the best creole race on this side of the world are at home here 3ontented, prosperous and loyal to the Guadeloupe and Mar ,inique are both represented in the French Ascsemby. as our territories Ire at Washington; and each has also ts own local legislature and all the privileges of responsible home rule
 The French managed wisely in nak- ng Basse-Terre Guadeloupe's seat of and the depot of govern nent property, so that the more i'm ,ortant commercial port of Pointe-a- oftre should not absorb all the popula-