The age-herald., 1902-05-12
ST. PIERRE THE BEAUTIFUL.
GIories of Martinique's IlI-Fated City
 Which Will be Seen No More.

| Whoever wrote of view of Naples as
 fitting climax to ones life would have | forgotten to coin the trite phrase we l know so well had he first seen St. Pierre, the city now scared with great earth
 quake cracks and buried under thousands I of tons of lava and ashes. Picturesque and beautiful the city has always called forth expressions of wonder and amaze
 ment, of admiration and delight from all
 who have ever seen 1t. and to those who
 know 1t the shudder over it's fate is ac- centuated by the sorrow the destruction of so lovely a place creates, Even the breasts of the toughest sailors, where
 the aesthetic never had loot, thrilled
 when the prov of their vessels rounded
 the horns of the great crescent-shaped
 bay, on whose shores St Pierre nestled
 at the foot of the verdure-clad volcanoes,
 and the glory of the city burst into view. Long since has the phrase beautiful as
 St. Pierre" come to be considered in the
 Caribbean as the highest compliment to
 beauty that could be paid.
 Though volcanic outbursts have occa- sionally disturbed the serenity of the pie | ture in the past, nature usually appears | in her most charming mood around St. | Pierre. Even the scars left after Mont Pelee's angry moods have been tenderly covered with a coat of luxuriant foliage and nidecus rocks that might be left gaunt and bare in other quarters of the world have here been dressed to the point of beauty with clinging vines and flower Ing shrubs. The water of the bay is so clear that in the shallower portions sub marine plants may be plainly seen and | above no sky so azure arches over any | part of sunny Italy. And amid all this | joy of nature rests St. Pierre, its white | houses with their red roofs stretching | lazily up the green slopes of Mont Pelee, | looking fer all the world from the sea | like patch of snow kissed by the rosy
 colors of a great, brilliant emerald.
 | Man has tried to keep St. Pierre in har- | mony with the happiness of natures | mood there, and the result has not been
 entirely devoid of success. The streets | are narrow. out they are well paved. and | along each side in the gutters run | streams of pure water fed by the rivulets pouring down the green breast of Pelee | and Morre Jacob, very much after the
 manner of the streams in Salt Lake City, | except in St. Pierre the gutter streams | are much swiiter and Of greater volume | These streams are used for sewer pur-
 poses, and as they corry quickly away | everything thrown into them from soap
 studs to the carcasses of small animals, | the city is rendered the cleanest and most | healthful in all the West Indies.
 | The houses in the town are for the most | part only one or two stories high, general 1 ly built of stone and covered with stucco | but true to their French training the | artistic is never forgotten and even the | abodes of the poor are made picturesque | with yellow sides and crimson roofs Windows, like stoves and freplaces are | almost entirely unknown, but wooden | shutters are used as a protection against | whatever fury wind and rain may see | fit to expend on the city, or from the visits of midnight marauders and thieves | The shops, the retail shops, are nearly all | located on one street, the Rue Victor | Hugo and here, were it not for the l burning tropical sun, the giant head of | Pelee breeding everywhere over the town | and the clouds of negroes around one one might well imagine himself in l Paris There is the same vivacity and