La
Pelée.
289
wood — probably the same put up by the Abbé Lespinasse during the panic of 1851, after the eruption. This has been splintered to pieces by a flash of lightning ; and the fragments are clumsily united with cord. There is also a little tin plate let into a slit in a black post : it bears a date,—8 Avril, 1867. . . . The volcanic vents, which were active in 1851, are not visible from the peak: they are in the gorge descending from it, at a point nearly on a level with the Etang Sec. The ground gives out a peculiar hollow sound when tapped, and is covered with à singular lichen,—all composed of round overlapping leaves about one-eighth of an inch in diameter, pale green, and tough as fish-scales. Here and there one sees a beautiful branching growth, like a mass of green coral : it is a gigantic moss. C a bane-Jésus ( " b e d o f - J e s u s " ) the patois name i s : at Christmas-time, in all the churches, those decorated cribs in which the image of the Child-Saviour is laid are filled with it. The creeping crimson violet is also here. Fireflies with bronze-green bodies are crawling about ;—I notice also small frogs, large gray crickets, and a species of snail with a black shell. A solitary humming-bird passes, with a beautiful blue head, flaming like sapphire. All at once the peak vibrates to a tremendous sound from somewhere below. . . . It is only a peal of thunder; but it startled at first, because the mountain rumbles and grumbles occasionally. . . . From the wilderness of ferns about the lake a sweet long low whistle c o m e s — three times ;—a siffleur-de-montagne has its nest there. There is a rain-storm over the woods beneath us : clouds now hide everything but the point on which we rest ; the crater of the Palmistes becomes invisible. But it is only for a little while that we are thus befogged : a wind comes, blows the clouds over us, lifts them up and folds them like a drapery, and slowly whirls them away northward. And for the first time the view is clear over 23