STREETS
OF
ROSEAU
153
themselves Christians believe that the spirits of the dead can be called up to amuse an evening party. The blacks in this respect are no worse than their white kinsmen. The priests have a genuine human hold upon them; they baptise the children; they commit the dead to the ceme tery with the promise of immortality; they are personally loved and respected; and when a young couple marry, as they seldom but occasionally do, it is to the priest that they apply to tie them together. From the cathedral I wandered through the streets of Roseau; they had been well laid out; the streets them selves, and the roads leading to them from the country, had been carefully paved, and spoke of a time when the town had been full of life and vigour. But the grass was grow ing between the stones, and the houses generally were dilapidated and dirty. A few massive stone buildings there were, on which time and rain had made no impression; but these probably were all Freneh — built long ago, perhaps in the days of Labat and Madame Ouvernard. The English hand had struck the island with paralysis. The British flag was flying over the fort, but for once I had no pride in looking at it. The fort itself was falling to pieces, like the fort at Grenada. The stones on the slope on which it stands had run with the blood which we spilt in the winning of it. Dominica had then been regarded as the choicest jewel in the necklace of the Antilles. For the last half-century we have left it to desolation, as a child leaves a toy that it is tired of. In Roseau, as in most other towns, the most interesting spot is the market. There you see the produce of the soil; there you see the people that produce i t ; and you see them, not on show, as in church on Sundays, but in their active working condition. The market place at Roseau is a large square court close to the sea, well paved, surrounded by ware houses, and luxuriantly shaded by large overhanging trees.