The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-06-12

and Courier)
 Castres, Santa Lucia, E. w. [
 May Sd, 1902
 About thirty miles from Martinique
 and an equal distance from Barbadoes
 lies the most interesting island of the
 whole West India archipelago, whose
 present peaceable possession by the
 British has cost literal rivers of blood during centuries of warfare. The Eng
 fish call it Santa Lu-cee-ah, after the Spanish pronunciation, accenting the second syllable. The French, it's former owners, speak of it as Sant Leu-zee, accenting the last syllable; while the natives themselves say San Loo-see, with the accent on the first syllable. It | is forty miles long by a maximum breadth of twenty miles, and has the | deservedly bad reputation of being one of the most unhealthful places on our side of the world. Indeed, from end to end it is one beautiful graveyard, with | layer upon layer of Corpses of various periods and nationalities, it's excessive ly rank, bright green vegetation grue- somely suggestive of fertilization by human blood. When Columbus found and named this island, near the begin ming of the sixteenth century, it was densely populated by peaceable and happy Carlos who lived to great age and seemed to have no idea what sick ness meant. But alas! As to other primitive paradises, civilization and christianity cost unnumbered woes, After Columbus visit, the Caribs re- mained in peace and contentment for a full century-until 1639, when the English attempted to colonize Santa Lucia. Then for more than a century and half, the little territory was given over to bloody conflicts between France and England; up to 1S03 when the lat ter gained it flor good" During the long struggle for supremacy thousands of the bravest soldiers of both countries pershed miserably in it's dark forests and noxious marches-as many by local levers and that terrible serpent, the iron lance" as by the ordinary for tunes of war. The world wondered at the time why England considered this small island worth such tremendous expenditure of human life, to say noth-
 
 when in the final adjustment of &C., counts Great Britain restored Mar unique to the French, in order to keep insignificant Santa Lucia. It was done on the advice of Admiral Rodney, the Saem doughty sea-dog who boasted of his exploits in these waters; within two short years l have captured two Span ish, one French and one Dutch admiral He held that, Santa Lucia, owing to it's windward situation and incomparable would render Martinique and other islands in the neighborhood of lit- tie use in time of war, and that from 1t, as a rendezvous and base of supplies, every other British possession on this side of the world, might receive timely | succor But the most important part of | his advice was not carried out-that of making permanent naval station at Little Carenage, with dock-yards and | fortifica tions and that town should | oe built there by the government which | would inevitably become the West h. iian metropolis. Had the whole of Ad- niral Rodney's idea been carried out. it | night have been better for Santa Lucia, To-day, after a century of peaceful oc- ,upation by the English, the island is ,f no consequence to anybody except as coaling station for an occasional war ship or mail steamer, but if either need 'epairs, it must go into dock elsewhere.
 The admirable Carenage harbor which was strongly fortified andsan im- 1ortant naval station, is now empty; md Castres Capital of the island, re- mains a dirty, ramshackle village, Cele- ,rated for nothing but it's deadly levers, which at certain seasons of the year ender the place uninhabitabe to for igners. Nature did her part nobly in making Santa Lucia paradise of beau y and fertility; and all authorities gree that with good government and ell-directed energy, the island might ave been converted into a rich and hickly populated garden, up to the cry tops of it's mountains.
 Approaching from the southeast, the rst you see of Santa Lucia are those wo extraordinary mountains, the 'itoms, towering straight up out of the ca, Hike a donkey's ears" as the ir- everent sailors say. Coming nearer nto the deep blue water at their base, ! he twin peaks open outward, about a lille apart, and you see that they are belisks. rather than mountains, three , feet high, densely wooded and ark green to their summits. Between Is' hem is the lovelest little blue bay in he world; and just behind rise forest . OVered hills, one peering over the 7 houders of another, to the central fountain of La Souffriere. No words = m do justice to the fantastic grandeur the scene--to the crazy-looking peaks ! ,ssad about in wild confusion, the dark, lscrutable forests, and the ever ; lreatening, forbidding Souffriere | lack depths of cloud and grey sheets ' rain shroud the central highlands in | ystery and sadness, while the fore round glitters bright and clear in the Q aging sunshine-all silhouetted gainst the buest sea and sky this Q 'eat round globe can show. q While all conicaI hills in the French | lands are called "PitOns," you do not 1 d onder that these are characterized as V le Pitons, par excellence, They have | ever been Climbed-unless the follow r ue. It is told and believed by the isl a lders that in the year ITS some of II odney's English sailors, about sixty b them, determined to scale the tallest O lumn-one Piton being more than a. W lndred feet higher than the other. k