The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 15, 1902, Page 12

12 THE SUNDAY CALL. SUNDAY CALL: REPRESE BY C. C. CARLTON. URSUANT to The (}all's instructions of May 12, and with the permission of the Navy Department, I em- barked miJ the United States relief ship Dixie, bound for Martiniqgue and St. Vincent islands. We sailed on May 14. morning of the seventh day, after the 4 tch_had been called, the bridge officer of the ounced t Martinique Island was sighted and s were soon out on the spar deck. Off the port directly ahead, was a lurid glow in the sky itful spasms. The light was from nd soon the vague outlines of Martiniqus guished through the haze. The site of oyed city w dotted with funeral pyres, for, even d hour of the work of exhuming and bury- ce was being conducted un- ench troops. At this hour we tself. As we steamed past the Dixie's deck was most The full moon looked down v ¢ i figures, for most of the X eir bunks and were € € icers and crew, thc deleg ¥ repre atives lined the port T stern. Two white-robed priests, the Dixie od with ur ads. Then wh t ped over ter and t her Pelee wa above the Martiniqu. lling from her crater, spasmodically ascended in the harbor of Fort de riding at anchor—the d gunboat Potomac, the h cruiser Pallas and the the latter vessel having helmina on an order written “rench battleship La Tage after- from New Orleans. venty-one guns and a reply natives and the harbor was soon mall boats rowéd by negro men, Were a most exc d and voluble chattered like monkeys as each tried bor and bear the first news of had occurred only the day before. passengers, former residents of St. relatives and considerable pro ersed ra with the natives in nd volley of questions and answers were over the rail cely recovered from their fright of ; were not able to tell a coherent story, but from { the Potomac we gathered the first details of the nent of Fort de France the day before by rocks on an air lee’s crater, nine miles dista cruiser the Potomac and Brit from Fort de France to St. d w from Landing parties were com of the Potomac. impressive fun r on its where it was lighted cold wave n came a by vol- before. for stracted m ts and s d_men, wo d merchantmen shower of and the reques ied perm prep- St. Lucia, wise tugs wers ght soon resumed their usuaj however, for they re- rection of the threat- & as yet steaming and rumbling. The t al and churches in Fort de ¥ n the 30,000 dead and buried ur he ashes at St. Pierre. These candle-lighted edi- . were filled with old men and women, w ne flagging and with bowed heads pr alvation and for the souls of was celebrated sev hes. The melancholy tolls of >cessions, with mourners all thelr shoulders and carrying picture wn would have been all too and picturesque dress of eet scenes as they hurried marketing, with brilliant foic al times we silk twined and tucke to grace- r ack halr, skirts looped up we t belt, exposing their ba ain flowed beh led t g of kerchi hrow cz These women are as | 1 tom of carrying anced on their h has given t red and ca; Y are the there were to be seen all the d_ through the quaint pping now and i to cast fearf 1sels were seen h orted by a delegation of ads they passed along. now and then knelt in the street a | crossed themselves usly or and mumbl At night the , for the te Tuptions to the introduc- ;: demanded that the Mayor stop the This cial being a discreet person and a clever humored their superstitious fears and the light for two days discharging one-hal -haif bei retained for St. Vin t od and provisions, were distributed > Mayor's direction. first dispatch of act- State Department (based upon appropriation) stated that 40,000 it was found that, inasmuch as s population were past all need of not more than €, all tol C Ayme aft in convers oT: and pleaded that the excitement and confusion following the first eruption and conflicting reports from various quarters misled him. He said: - ‘“The Dixle brings* 900,000 rations, the relief committee in each State appointed by President Roosevelt will possibly send as much more. and the powers of BEurope have relief ships en route. Thera must be two or three million rations in sight—enough to feed and clothe all the people of Martinique for months, ‘while there are only 5000 who actually need help. But it is an ill wind that blows no good. The furious blast from Pelee, though fraught with such direful re- sults, was a God-send to the natives of Martiniaue. No soorer had the first lighters discharged thelr loads than the supplies were distributed by the Mayoris orders. One All Fhotos Copyrighted by New York Herald, 1902. p/ thousand pairs of shoes were brought by the Dixle, and stoc galore for the women, to say nothing of hats, bright calico dresses. e simple natives, delighted with their new posses- ded the streets for the admiration of all be- 0 use (the natives of these ixury of shog: cks to excite however, big, black, becorned feet, estraint, were squeezed into the new yed in high-topped tan shoes an ite variety of millinery seen qually as well on the men, in new shirts wjth and gaudy ribbons admiration of the t of all beholders. Solo- yved like these. rgo w well under r offic command ered the gunboat Poto- y of scientists, writers clocked stol would have cre: Bowery as on Br 2d stripes, erTy of the Dixie, port entire compa d photographers to St. Pierre, about twelve m up the € coast. Eager were all to cateh the first daylight view of the ruine We steamed along a green and shore, fringed trees, cocoanut and cabbage paims and The hills were verdant with tropic shrubbery a mile or two of the stricken city all living n ceased abruptly, and the parched, withered and v Pelee’s hot b had devastated e of demarcation betw On one 1d hills reaching far back from the shore, t a few yards to the north and east, w uction—a dismal, ash-hued stretch with the burned and uprooted from the ps_as far as the eye could and blasted cliff rocks, jutted and beetled e odor of burned wood and ashes and 3 human flesh came from ashore as we silent city. The glaring noonday sun beat y on the gray waste of rocks and ashes. few straggling parties of natives could be seen, and were engaged in_ ghastly work about the nd soared over the sc while all about was the awful still wn r the ruined e of it, for nowhere could be ai f a tow: do you think of it?” asked Captain McCormick stomace, pointing to the gray waste, which de- crescent round the roadstead—in front the sea, vel beach reaching back for a hundred yards; adual nt that soon rose precipitously c g but a dreary waste of sea all ash and rock covered e intact; no blance o a e appeared to be fairly 1 olished stone walls. This was been a city—the metropolis of I marts of the Windward Isl schools of learning, of libraries and rare b ical Beautiful St. Plerre, famed through- out ‘the West Indies as the garden city of the Caribbean Sea, the hcme of a light-hearted and joyous people, was Pelee—Pelee, whom the Caribs “Fire God,” and who would some in wrath and punish the came to pass, as the Caribs had proph- ot breath of Pelee visited its wrath upen ke. They perished like the host of their r the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 1 breathed o thousand-two-scors as he passed, e eyes ¢ ed deadly and chill, then forever grew still. The general ‘aspect of the ruined city, as viewed from the sea, reminds one of n £ so much as the Aztec ruins v Mexico and Arizona. The adobe (mud-colored) and half-demolished walls, in regular and irregular rows as- ng gradually from the sea and then rising abruptly to the ¢ W for all the world like the ruins of the Aztec cliff dwellers. ground by the eruptior al towér, which, L th ands po' with its cl r of eight, h: oads, and befors Captain Berry arose in | and admonished .t} t the first blast » Potomac's siren T was prearranged rom Pelee. He also warned us not Freach authorities by carryin ht possibly be considered as “loo touched at a point near the cathedral and the two parties divided into smaller companies nd army officers, selentists, writers and phot armed with their cameras fin: stood or esolute, not knowing which w to go. 5 seemed no choice of route over a monotonous waste of ashes and rocks, with no street to gu prominent object of any kind to“be used days before the streets had been fairly many walls standing as far as the se blue enameled iron signs bore the na streets, but the second eruption had r ground and obliterated all marks. The city w: totally annihilated. We stumbled and fell ove S ash heaps, picking our way as best we could to ay quagmires and the sterch of corpses. Sometimes we w shoetop deep in ashes and mud. The odor of decasi s human corpses was sickenin: e trovical sun beat m cilessly down on the rccks; the grewsome sight of ning at us from between bowlders, of limbs and h uding from the mud, as if in mute a horrifying. On every side lay strewn the wreckage of once hap homes. There were bedsteads of iron kitchen pots and pans, and ail things non-com found shops and stores with their haif-e buried over f to their respecti signal of danger The scientists in the party—Professor J vard, Professor Russell of Michigan Unive Hovey of the Museum of Natural Histor: Yorl fessor Borchgrevink, an Arctic explorer of note and m¢ of the Royal Geographical Soclety, and Dr. the United States Geological Survey, gat of rock and ashes, made copious motes in : took observations of Pelee, which wa. aming f both from the crater and from new fissures on th The camera contingent photographed everything (and some things that were not). Most of the ever, had organized themselves into smaller comp: relic-hunters, and many were the finds they made. a pottery shop were dug flowered cups and sauc china and porcelain. A lot of clay pipes was disc in_the shop of a tobacconmist; kitchen utensils and dinins table china, knives, forks and spoons In a more or les3 melted and battered ccndition were dug from the 2 Even the cathedral was not too sacred. From the I were gathered slabs of marbie (to be wrought Into ? ndi- weights) and miniature statues and statuettes in ma and bronze. An onyx clock was found, with hands cating 8 o’clock. One of the party came down to the beach