The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-06-19
THINGS IN THE WEST INDIES
TWIN ISLAND, GUADELOUPE
 AND RASSE-TERRE.

Special Correspondence of the Jour
 nal and Courier),
 Ponte-a- Pitre, Guadeloupe
 French, w. l.
 May 10th, 1902
 I presume there are many persons tolerably we'll versed in geography who have never heard of these small French islands; and many more, who having a vague idea of their existence, do not imagine them of special consequence in the endless chain of the great West In dian archipelago. For such people an immense surprise is in store when they visit this part of the world, Guadeloupe, particularly is series of surprises and contradictions. She was born double, like the Siamee twins-that is, she con- sists of two islands, of nearly equal size but directly opposite in character, unit ed by narrow, sWampy isthmus, across which runs the salt water, local ly known as La Rivere Salee. Though both peninsulas rejoice under the gen. eral name of Guadeloupe, the eastern half called by the natives and marked on all French maps as "Grande-Terre" and the western as "Basse-T -Terre." The two names were somehow strangely nnsappled, for BasseTerre, (French for "Lowlands'D is one lofty volcanic mass, completely hiding from passing vessels it's low, sandy twin, which, &C., cording to it's ambitious name, ought to be the higher of the two So far as mere grandeur is concerned, the noun tains of the miscalled Lower penin- sula are perhaps the grandest in all the West Indies Including no fewer than fourteen extinct volcanoes, they mount higher and higher toward the southern end, where they culminate in the great, semi-dormant crater-peak of La Souf- friere at whose foot lies the port of Basse-Te capital city of the twin islands. These curiously piled-up heights are worth sailing around the world to see, not because of their ex- traordinary altitude, but for their un- likeness to anything else in the nature of mountains. There are elevated glens which look like veritable hanging gar dens, and dark gullies of incalulable depth which represent the mad rush Of torrents that have been scooping them deeper and deeper on their downward way to the sea through thousands of rainy seasons. Their forests, too, are as magnificent to-day as when Pere Lakat-who came to these islands with the earliest paniards--described them in his quaint book, "Nouveau Voyage aux Illes d'Amerique. From the steamers deck you see what looks like an incalculable number of dark knobs, stuck all over the tops and sides of the distant hills. Take a glass to investf- gate the phenomenon, and you find that each knob is single tree, of stu penduous height and size, it's far-reach- ing branches coming down to the ground on every side givng it the ap- pearance of a great green dome,
 Pointe-a-Pitre lies on the Grande- Terre side of the salt water, where it's northern mouth, set with struggling teeth in the shape of islets, reefs and shoals forms commodious but rather uncertain bay. Some time in the night your ship comes to anchor outside this alleged harbor, amid crowd of other vessels, none of which dare to risk an entrance in the darkness amid the dan gerous reefs and shoals, Straight ahead is the town of POinte-a-P -Ptire, looking very large and handsome on it's terraced hillside-another example, so numerous in this latitude of " ''Tis dis tance lends enchantment to the view" As the morning msts gradually lift, the great mountain mass in front seems to lom up higher and higher, it's head hid- den in its own canopy of cloud. To leeward the islands drops off sharply into the sea; while to windward, where a furious surf breaks over sandy beach, it stretches out long flat arm covered with cane-f1elds and sugar. factories and groups of tall slender palms holding aloft their green um- brellas a hundred feet toward the bluest and brightest sky that ever arched the horizon. Though most of misnamed | Grande Terre is fiat as the back of your hand, it has afew remarkable hills, call ed namelons. They are small. steep and | round, averaging thousand feet in height and are manifestly of marine | formation. being full of shells and cor als of the same species as those found | in the neighboring sea. The marshes that border the Riviere Salee are lined i. with enormous mangrove trees, but all | the rest of Grande- -Terre is treeless, ex- cept for occasional groups of palms. It | IS also ueSClIute Ol SpEluSS anu SlItdHlS' l. 0 that want of water is severely felt in the dry season, There is not hotter place in the West Indies if anywhere on earth, the thermometer seldom fall ing below 100 degrees; and scarcely of water seems worse when surrounded by ocean, as Byrons unfortunate mariner found it with Water, water every where, and not drop to drink"
 Yet the red, sandy soil of Grande- Terre is covered with some of the most important sugar plantations in all the , West Indies, and among it's several great sugar factories is one of the larg est in the world, second only to that be- longing to the Khedive of Egypt. From eighty to hundred ships may always be seen lying off Pointe-a-Pitre, mostly French commodities to the wealthy planters and their dependents; and freighted with return cargoes of sugar, rum, dyewods and coffee. Of late years considerable trade has sprung up with the United States and of the pine-apples and april i cots for which Guadeloupe is famous, 20 to New York and Boston. These , islands on our side of the Atlantic are I