handsome offspring of mingled blood, so often seen in our Southern States, we suspect that these of Martinique enjoy but a brief space of existence. The average life of a quadroon is less than thirty years.

Martinique is eight times as large as St. Thomas, containing a population of about one hundred and seventy-five thousand. Within its borders there are at least five extinct volcanoes, one of which has an enormous crater, exceeded by only three or four others in the known world. The island rises from the sea in three groups of rugged peaks, and contains some very fertile valleys. So late as 1851, Mont Pelée burst forth furiously with flames and smoke, which naturally threw the people into a serious panic, many persons taking refuge temporarily on board the shipping in the harbor. The eruption on this occasion did not amount to anything very serious, only covering some hundreds of acres with sulphurous débris, yet serving to show that the volcano was not dead, but sleeping. Once or twice since that date ominous mutterings have been heard from Mont Pelée, which it is confidently predicted will one day deluge St. Pierre with ashes and lava, repeating the story of Pompeii.

Sugar, rum, coffee, and cotton are the staple products here, supplemented by tobacco, manioc flour, bread-fruit, and bananas. Rum is very extensively manufactured, and has a good mercantile reputation for its excellence, commanding as high prices as the more famous article of the same nature produced at Jamaica. The purpose of the author is mainly to record personal impressions, but a certain sprinkling of statistics and detail is inevitable, if we would inform, as well as amuse, the average reader.

The flora of Martinique is the marvel and delight of all who have enjoyed its extraordinary beauty, while the great abundance and variety of its fruits are believed to be unsurpassed even in the prolific tropics. Of that favorite, the mango, the island produces some forty varieties, and probably in no other region has the muscatel grape reached to such perfection in size and flavor. The whole island looks like a maze of greenery, as it is approached from the sea, vividly recalling Tutuila of the Samoan group in the South Pacific. Like most of the West Indian islands, Martinique was once densely covered with trees, and a remnant of these ancient woods creeps down to the neighborhood of St. Pierre to-day.