La
Pelée.
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and Pelée, although looming high over it, looks a trifle less lofty now. One's first impression of Morne Rouge is that of a single straggling street of gray- painted cottages and shops (or rather booths), dominated by a plain church, with four pursy-bodied palmistes facing the main porch. Nevertheless, Morne Rouge is not a small place, considering its situation ;—there are nearly five thousand inhabitants ; but in order to find out where they live, you must leave the public road, which is on a ridge, and explore the high-hedged lanes leading down from it on either side. Then you will find a veritable city of little wooden cottages,—each screened about with bananatrees, Indian-reeds, and pommiers-roses. Y o u will also see a number of handsome private residences—countryhouses of wealthy merchants ; and you will find that the church, though uninteresting exteriorly, is rich and impressive within : it is a famous shrine, where miracles are alleged to have been wrought. Immense processions periodically wend their way to it from St. Pierre,—starting at three or four o'clock in the morning, so as to arrive before the sun is well up. . . . But there are no woods here, — only fields. An odd tone is given to the lanes by a local custom of planting hedges of what are termed roseaux a" Inde, having a dark-red foliage; and there is a visible fondness for ornamental plantswith crimson leaves. Otherwise the mountain summit is somewhat bare ; trees have a scrubby aspect. You must have noticed while ascending that the palmistes became smaller as they were situated higher : at Morne Rouge they are dwarfed,—having a short stature, and very thick trunks. In spite of the fine views of the sea, the mountainheights, and the valley-reaches, obtainable from Morne Rouge, the place has a somewhat bleak look. Perhaps this is largely owing to the universal slate-gray tint of