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The steamer passed Carbet, that town on the edge of the great eruptive flood, which had its own death-list, and they turned the point of land into the harbor of St. Pierre. Before the boy's eyes rose the Mountain of Destruction, sullen, twisted, wrinkled and still menacing, not all silent yet. The hills around were green, and verdure spread over the country once deep in volcanic ash.
At Martinique, Vauclin, Montagne Pelee, and the crater surrounded by the five Paps of Carbet, must be considered as three extinguished volcanoes. The effects of thunder have been often confounded in that place with subterranean fire. No good observation has confirmed the supposed eruption of the 22nd of January, 1792.
Pierre only one escaped, the others suffering the fate of the city. The fortunate one was Le Carbet, on the south, which escaped uninjured, the flood of lava stopping when within two hundred feet of the town. Morne Rouge, a beautiful summer resort, frequented by the people of the island during the hot season as a place of recreation, also escaped.
It reached half-way, then, finding that the rain of stones and ashes threatened to sink it, returned. The boat started anew at ten o'clock and rounded the point of Carbet. The volcano was shrouded in smoke and ashes. For three miles the coast was in flames. Seventeen vessels in the roadstead, two of which were American steamers, burned at anchor.
Vincent, slope up to one central peak. In Martinique, for instance, there are three separate peaks, or groups of peaks the Mont Pelee, the Pitons du Carbet, and the Piton du Vauclain. But all have that peculiar jagged outline which is noticed first at the Virgin Islands.
A kind of grave was then dug in the carbet where he died, about 4 feet square and 6 or 7 feet deep. The body was let down in it, when sand was thrown in, which reached to the knees, and the body was placed in it in a sitting posture, resembling that in which they crouched round the fire or the table when alive, with the elbows on the knees and the palms of the hands against the cheeks.
Lucia, a very active solfatara, named Oualibou, two or three hundred toises high; jets of hot water, by which small basins are periodically filled. Martinique, three great extinguished volcanoes; Vauclin, the Paps of Carbet, which are perhaps the most elevated summits of the smaller islands, and Montagne Pelee. Thermal waters of Precheur and Lameutin. Dominica, completely volcanic.
My recollection of Martinique and Guadaloupe bring them back to me as lovely green islands of volcanic outline. The former especially struck me as being exceedingly picturesque, its hills covered with pleasant- looking habitations with the peaks of the Carbet veiled in the dark clouds brought by the trade winds, for background.
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