268
Martinique
Sketches.
the buildings, — very melancholy by comparison with the apricot and banana yellows tinting the walls of St. Pierre. But this cheerless gray is the only color which can resist the climate of Morne Rouge, where people are literally dwelling in the clouds. Rolling down like white smoke from Pelée, these often create a dismal fog ; and Morne Rouge is certainly one of the rainiest places in the world. When it is dry everywhere else, it rains at Morne Rouge. It rains at least three hundred and sixty days and three hundred and sixty nights of the year. It rains almost invariably once in every twenty-four hours ; but oftener five or six times. The dampness is phenomenal. All mirrors become patchy; linen moulds in one day ; leather turns white ; woollen goods feel as if saturated with moisture ; new brass becomes green ; steel crumbles into red powder : wood-work rots with astonishing rapidity ; salt is quickly transformed into brine; and matches, unless kept in a very warm place, refuse to light. Everything moulders and peels and decomposes ; even the frescos of the church-interior lump out in immense blisters ; and a microscopic vegetation, green or brown, attacks all exposed surfaces of timber or stone. At night it is often really cold ;—and it is hard to understand how, with all this dampness and coolness and mouldiness, Morne Rouge can be a healthy place. But it is so, beyond any question: it is the great Martinique resort for invalids ; strangers debilitated by the climate of Trinidad or Cayenne come to it for recuperation. Leaving the village by the still uprising road, you will be surprised, after a walk of twenty minutes northward, by a magnificent view,—the vast valley of the ChampFlore, watered by many torrents, and bounded south and west by double, triple, and quadruple surging of mountains,— mountains broken, peaked, tormented-looking, and tinted (irisées, as the créoles say) with all those gem-