The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-06-28
LOOKING INTO. THE CRATER.
ASCENT TO THE BURNING SUMMIT
OF PELEE.


ing somewhat DifHcuIt-The BrOk-
en- Peak of the Cross-ViOIent Boil
ing in the Pit-raking Snapshots
Fifty Hours Before the June
Eruption-Impossible Yet to Meas
ure the Active Crater.
From the New York Evening Post.
Fort De France, Martinique, June
Cit was easier that we expected
the ascent to the burning crater of
Mount Pelee. And as we had been
riding two days within the fire-drop-
ping radius, our nerves, seemingly,
had grown a bit callous. for. on the
morning of the walk up Pelee they did
not yield to the sensations we reas-
onably had a right to.
In measure this was, 1 suppose, TO
the fact that from the monument we
reached a point one-third from the
base. the smoke and steam curling
column rising ever upward from Pc
lee was cut off from sight. Yet we
had had many days of apprehension.
Skippers had refused TO touch at Mar
tinidue: the whole island according to
certain scientists) was likely to blow
up and disappear, creating tidal
wave that no nearby ship could with
stand (}.ccording to ship captains).
Even the French Admiral Servan had
cabled his government that ST. Pierre
should never be rebuilt, and that Fort
de France should not be allowed to
grow. This was notice to Fort de
France to quit.
one night, on the Royal Mail from
St Lucia, the next island to the south,
we came within view of Fort de
France; and outside the harbor, in the
roadstead, there Immediately flocked
about a steamer a fleet of rowboats,
each bearing a family and their be-
longings, mostly bedding, all eager to
get aboard and to get away, anywhere
from the island of Martinique. We
landed the corresp ondent of the Revue
des Deux Mondes and myself, in
shallop water up to the gunwales, and
waded ashore at midnight to hear sto-
ries of the panic two days before when
Fort lie France rushed first to the sea
and then back to the hills, fearful of
destruction, because Pelee was in ebul-
lition again. Three columns, with turn
ed rules, told in the local papers of the
citizens who had fed from Fort de
France-"Texode." After visiting st.
i 1CAlEs anu bClliS uilN CD awe y ny q
slight disturbance on June l, two of us
(the Revue des Deux Mondes called it
mere bravado and would not go) start
ed next day on ponies via Morne Rouge
for Vive whence we could climb most
directly to the crater), feeling that,
after these things, some strong per-
sonal sensations were sure to be our
portion when we actually assembled.
But they were Iiss ppointing.
Not a Hard Climb.
We found it mountain of not much
difficulty, as a mountain. Even the
scientists, les geolOgues, as the natives
called them, have, unwittingly, and
unhappily been a source of wrong in
formation and eXaggerations, when
the truth, surely, was big enough.
Prof. Hill had gone up to the volca-
no. the reports had it, and had come
back terrified. (Only the last part was
true. He had been really no farther
than within five kilometers, the safe
side of Morne Rouge, before he felt for
New York; Then Prof. Heilprin had
assembled Pelee and came back ex-
hausted, covered with mud" and 1t
made a column STORY in New York
at a cable expense of 81 a word. After
wards he and three others went to the
crater and we gathered that it was a
trying trip. We rose at 8 o'clock next
morning, believing we had a stupen-
dous days work ahead.
Our nights entertainment had been
through the kindness of M Fernand
Clerc. member of the French Chamber
of Deputies, whose note introduced us
to his factor. Two mules were placed
at our service. along with four black
guides. Hard as our experience had
been with ponies travelling from Fort
de France, it is no violence to a we'll
meant hospitality to say that with the
mules it was worse.
At every point of our journey peo-
pie had had a cheerful way of giving
us their most valueless saddles, brides,
ponies, mules, as if they never ex-
pected to see them or us again if we
assembled to the crater, and as if they
might as well make their own loss as
slight as possible. This l pondered,
cutting a new stick every little way
for the gray old mule that was gated
differently in three of his legs and
used his fourth one, with his tail, as
a rudder TO steer by / named him
Excelsior. A bride rein broke at one
of his stumbles and a stirrup strap
at another but we pressed on, through
cane fields, ravines, and gulches, up
to the side of Pelee. All the while
Pelee steamed beautifully, its cone
sending into the clear shining sky a
high wholly upward rolling convoluted
vapor, touched now and then with ecru
smoke. This clear shining sky might
not last long enough for our cameras,
so haste was desirable. Guides lag
ged, mules Jagged; but finally after
an hour and a half we got silk
cotton tree where we left Excelsior and
his mate, continuing upward afoot
So long as the smoke of Pelee was in
view the foolhardiness of what we
were about now and then suggested
itself. In the event of another erup-
ton, however, we were as we'll at the
crater as anywhere near the noun
tain-one-third up we were "goners
sure" as the boys say, and the closer
to the explosive, splitting ogre vo-
race" the quicker the process.
Walking on Hardened Ashes.
Under foot there was now the recent
ly outthrOwn ash, three, four. five
inches deep, hardened by rain and sun
and quilted sharply. 1t was to the
foot like an asphalt pavement in New
York on day when the sun has made
it elastic.
Hot as it was under the tropic
June sun, a minutes rest now
and then would enable the
breeze to blow under ones wet shirt
and cool the skin. The slope became
sleeper; the guides and water-carriers
paid no. attention TO commands to hur.
~. The ravine Of the River Talaise, in