“Let me add that, after the first shock was over, the survivors of the crew rendered willing help to navigate the ship to this port. Mr. Plissoneau, our agent in Martinique, happening to be on board, was saved, and I really believe that he is the only survivor of St. Pierre. As it is, he is seriously burned on the hands and face.
“FREEMAN,
“Master British Steamship Roddam.”
THE “ETONA” PASSES ST. PIERRE
The British steamer Etona, of the Norton Line, stopped at St. Lucia to coal on May 10th. Captain Cantell there visited the Roddam and had an interview with Captain Freeman. On the 11th the Elona put to sea again, passing St. Pierre in the afternoon. We subjoin her captain’s story:
“The weather was clear and we had a fine view, but the old outlines of St. Pierre were not recognizable. Everything was a mass of blue lava, and the formation of the land itself seemed to have changed. When we were about eight miles off the northern end of the island Mount Pelee began to belch a second time. Clouds of smoke and lava shot into the air and spread over all the sea, darkening the sun. Our decks in a few minutes were covered with a substance that looked like sand dyed a bluish tint, and which smelled like phosphorus. For all that the day was clear, there was little to be seen satisfactorily. Over the island there hung a blue haze. It seemed to me that the formation, the topography, of the island was altered.
“Everything seemed to be covered with a blue dust, such as had fallen aboard us every day since we had been within the affected region. It was blue lava dust. For more than an hour we scanned the coast with our glasses, now and then discovering something that looked like a ruined hamlet or collection of buildings. There was no life visible. Suddenly we realized that we might have to fight for our lives as the Roddam’s people had done.
“We were about four miles off the northern end of the island when suddenly there shot up in the air to a tremendous height a column of smoke. The sky darkened and the smoke seemed to swirl down upon us. In fact, it spread all around, darkening the atmosphere as far as we could see. I called Chief Engineer Farrish to the deck.
“‘Do you see that over there?’ I asked, pointing to the eruption, for it was the second eruption of Mont Pelee. He saw it all right. Captain Freeman’s story was fresh in my mind.
“‘Well, Farrish, rush your engines as they have never been rushed before,’ I said to him. He went below, and soon we began to burn coal and pile up the feathers in our forefoot.
“I was on watch with Second Officer Gibbs. At once we began to furl awnings and make secure against fire. The crew were all showing an anxious spirit, and everybody on board, including the four passengers, were serious and apprehensive.
“We began to cut through the water at almost twelve knots. Ordinarily we make ten knots. We could see no more of the land contour, but everything seemed to be enveloped in a great cloud. There was no fire visible, but the lava dust rained down upon us steadily. In less than an hour there were two inches of it upon our deck.
“The air smelled like phosphorus. No one dared to look up to try to locate the sun, because one’s eyes would fill with lava dust. Some of the blue lava dust is sticking to our mast yet, although we have swabbed decks and rigging again and again to be clear of it.
“After a little more than an hour’s fast running we saw daylight ahead and began to breathe easier. If I had not talked with Captain Freeman and heard from him just how the black swirl of wind and fire rolled down upon him, I would not have been so apprehensive, but would have thought that the darkness and cloud that came down upon us meant just an unusually heavy squall.”
CHIEF ENGINEER FARRISH’S STORY
“The Etona’s run from Montevideo was a fast one—I think a record breaker. We were 22 days and 21 hours from port to port. Off Martinique I stared at the coast for about an hour, and then went below. The blue lava that covered everything faded into the haze that hung over the island so that nothing was distinctly visible. Through my glass I discovered a stream of lava, though. It stretched down the mountain side, and seemed to be flowing into the sea. It was not clearly and distinctly visible, however.
“About 3 o’clock I went below to take forty winks. I had been in my berth only a few minutes when the steward told me the captain wanted me on the bridge.
“‘Do you see that, Farrish?’ he asked, pointing at the land. An outburst of smoke seemed to be sweeping down upon us. It made me think of the Roddam’s experience. Smoke and dust closed in about us, shutting out the sunlight, and precipitating a fall of lava on our decks.
“‘Go below and drive her,’ said the captain, and I didn’t lose any time, I can tell you. We burned coal as though it didn’t cost a cent. The safety valve was jumping every second, even though we were making twelve knots an hour. For two hours we kept up the pace, and then, running into clear daylight, let the engines slow down and we all cheered up a bit.”
CAPTAIN CANTELL VISITS THE “RODDAM”
Captain Cantell went on board the Roddam, whose frightful condition he thus describes:
“At St. Lucia, on May 11th, I went on board the British steamship Roddam, which had escaped from the terrible volcanic eruption at Martinique two days before. The state of the ship was enough to show that those on board must have undergone an awful experience.
“The Roddam was covered with a mass of fine bluish gray dust or ashes of cement-like appearance. In some parts it lay two feet deep on the decks. This matter had fallen in a red-hot state all over the steamer, setting fire to everything it struck that was burnable, and, when it fell on the men on board, burning off limbs and large pieces of flesh. This was shown by finding portions of human flesh when the decks were cleared of the debris. The rigging, ropes, tarpaulins, sails, awnings, etc., were charred or burned, and most of the upper stanchions and spars were swept overboard or destroyed by fire. Skylights were smashed and cabins were filled with volcanic dust. The scene of ruin was deplorable.
“The captain, though suffering the greatest agony, succeeded in navigating his vessel safely to the port of Castries, St. Lucia, with eighteen dead bodies on the deck and human limbs scattered about. A sailor stood by constantly wiping the captain’s injured eyes.
“I think the performance of the Roddam’s captain was most wonderful, and the more so when I saw his pitiful condition. I do not understand how he kept up, yet when the steamer arrived at St. Lucia and medical assistance was procured, this brave man asked the doctors to attend to the others first and refused to be treated until this was done.
“My interview with the captain brought out this account. I left him in good spirits and receiving every comfort. The sight of his face would frighten anyone not prepared to see it.”
THE VIVID ACCOUNT OF M. ALBERT
To the accounts given by the survivors of the Roraima and the officers of the Etona, it will be well to add the following graphic story told by M. Albert, a planter of the island, the owner of an estate situated only a mile to the northeast of the burning crater of Mont Pelee. His escape from death had in it something of the marvellous. He says:
“Mont Pelee had given warning of the destruction that was to come, but we, who had looked upon the volcano as harmless, did not believe that it would do more than spout fire and steam, as it had done on other occasions. It was a little before eight o’clock on the morning of May 8 that the end came. I was in one of the fields of my estate when the ground trembled under my feet, not as it does when the earth quakes, but as though a terrible struggle was going on within the mountain. A terror came upon me, but I could not explain my fear.
“As I stood still Mont Pelee seemed to shudder, and a moaning sound issued from its crater. It was quite dark, the sun being obscured by ashes and fine volcanic dust. The air was dead about me, so dead that the floating dust seemingly was not disturbed. Then there was a rending, crashing, grinding noise, which I can only describe as sounding as though every bit of machinery in the world had suddenly broken down. It was deafening, and the flash of light that accompanied it was blinding, more so than any lightning I have ever seen.
“It was like a terrible hurricane, and where a fraction of a second before there had been a perfect calm, I felt myself drawn into a vortex and I had to brace myself firmly. It was like a great express train rushing by, and I was drawn by its force. The mysterious force levelled a row of strong trees, tearing them up by the roots and leaving bare a space of ground fifteen yards wide and more than one hundred yards long. Transfixed I stood, not knowing in what direction to flee. I looked toward Mont Pelee, and above its apex there appeared a great black cloud which reached high in the air. It literally fell upon the city of St. Pierre. It moved with a rapidity that made it impossible for anything to escape it. From the cloud came explosions that sounded as though all of the navies of the world were in titanic combat. Lightning played in and out in broad forks, the result being that intense darkness was followed by light that seemed to be of magnifying power.
“That St. Pierre was doomed I knew, but I was prevented from seeing the destruction by a spur of the hill that shut off the view of the city. It is impossible for me to tell how long I stood there inert. Probably it was only a few seconds, but so vivid were my impressions that it now seems as though I stood as a spectator for many minutes. When I recovered possession of my senses I ran to my house and collected the members of the family, all of whom were panic stricken. I hurried them to the seashore, where we boarded a small steamship, in which we made the trip in safety to Fort de France.
“I know that there was no flame in the first wave that was sent down upon St. Pierre. It was a heavy gas, like firedamp, and it must have asphyxiated the inhabitants before they were touched by the fire, which quickly followed. As we drew out to sea in the small steamship, Mont Pelee was in the throes of a terrible convulsion. New craters seemed to be opening all about the summit and lava was flowing in broad streams in every direction. My estate was ruined while we were still in sight of it. Many women who lived in St. Pierre escaped only to know that they were left widowed and childless. This is because many of the wealthier men sent their wives away, while they remained in St. Pierre to attend to their business affairs.”
WHAT HAPPENED ON THE “HORACE”
The British steamer Horace experienced the effect of the explosion when farther from land. After touching at Barbados, she reached the vicinity of Martinique on May 9th, her decks being covered with several inches of dust when she was a hundred and twenty-five miles distant. We quote engineer Anderson’s story:
“On the afternoon of May 8 (Thursday) we noticed a peculiar haze in the direction of Martinique. The air seemed heavy and oppressive. The weather conditions were not at all unlike those which precede the great West Indian hurricanes, but, knowing it was not the season of the year for them, we all remarked in the engine room that there must be a heavy storm approaching.
“Several of the sailors, experienced deep water seamen, laughed at our prognostications, and informed us there would be no storm within the next sixty hours, and insisted that, according to all fo’cas’le indications, a dead calm was in sight.
“So unusually peculiar were the weather conditions that we talked of nothing else during the evening. That night, in the direction of Martinique, there was a very black sky, an unusual thing at this season of the year, and a storm was apparently brewing in a direction from which storms do not come at this season.
GREAT FLASHES OF LIGHT
“As the night wore on those on watch noticed what appeared to be great flashes of lightning in the direction of Martinique. It seemed as though the ordinary conditions were reversed, and even the fo’cas’le prophets were unable to offer explanations.
“Occasionally, over the pounding of the engines and the rush of water, we thought we could hear long, deep roars, not unlike the ending of a deep peal of thunder. Several times we heard the rumble or roar, but at the time we were not certain as to exactly what it was, or even whether we really heard it.
“There would suddenly come great flashes of light from the dark bank toward Martinique. Some of them seemed to spread over a great area, while others appeared to spout skyward, funnel shaped. All night this continued, and it was not until day came that the flashes disappeared. The dark bank that covered the horizon toward Martinique, however, did not fade away with the breaking of day, and at eight in the morning of the 9th (Friday) the whole section of the sky in that direction seemed dark and troubled.
“About nine o’clock Friday morning I was sitting on one of the hatches aft with some of the other engineers and officers of the ship, discussing the peculiar weather phenomena. I noticed a sort of grit that got into my mouth from the end of the cigar I was smoking.
“I attributed it to some rather bad coal which we had shipped aboard, and, turning to Chief Engineer Evans, I remarked that ‘that coal was mighty dirty,’ and he said that it was covering the ship with a sort of grit. Then I noticed that grit was getting on my clothes, and finally some one suggested that we go forward of the funnels, so we would not get dirt on us. As we went forward we met one or two of the sailors from the forecastle, who wanted to know about the dust that was falling on the ship. Then we found that the grayish-looking ash was sifting all over the ship, both forward and aft.
ASHES RAINED ON THE SHIP
“Every moment the ashes rained down all over the ship, and at the same time grew thicker. A few moments later, the lookout called down that we were running into a fog-bank dead ahead. Fog banks in that section are unheard of at nine o’clock in the morning at this season, and we were more than a hundred miles from land, and what could fog and sand be doing there.
“Before we knew it, we went into the fog, which proved to be a big dense bank of this same sand, and it rained down on us from every side. Ventilators were quickly brought to their places, and later even the hatches were battened down. The dust became suffocating, and the men at times had all they could do to keep from choking. What the stuff was we could not at first conjecture, or rather, we didn’t have much time to speculate on it, for we had to get our ship in shape to withstand we hardly knew what.
“At first we thought that the sand must have been blown from shore. Then we decided that if the Captain’s figures were right we wouldn’t be near enough to shore to have sand blow on us, and as we had just cleared Barbados, we knew that the Captain’s figures had to be right.
“Just as the storm of sand was at its height, Fourth Engineer Wild was nearly suffocated by it, but was easily revived. About this time it became so dark that we found it necessary to start up the electric lights, and it was not until after we got clear from the fog that we turned the current off. In the meantime they had burned from nine o’clock in the morning until after two in the afternoon.
THE ENGINE BECAME CHOKED
“Then there was another anxious moment shortly after nine o’clock. Third Engineer Rennie had been running the donkey engine, when suddenly it choked, and when he finally got it clear from the sand or ashes, he found the valves were all cut out, and then it was we discovered that it was not sand, but some sort of a composition that seemed to cut steel like emery. Then came the danger that it would get into the valves of the engine and cut them out, and for several moments all hands scurried about and helped make the engine room tight, and even then the ash drifted in and kept all the engine room force wiping the engines clear of it.
“Toward three o’clock in the afternoon of Friday we were practically clear of the sand, but at eleven o’clock that night we ran into a second bank of it, though not as bad as the first. We made some experiments, and found the stuff was superior to emery dust. It cut deeper and quicker, and only about half as much was required to do the work. We made up our minds we would keep what came on board, as it was better than the emery dust and much cheaper, so we gathered it up.
“That night there were more of the same electric phenomena toward Martinique, but it was not until we got into St. Lucia, where we saw the Roddam, that we learned of the terrible disaster at St. Pierre, and then we knew that our sand was lava dust.”
The volcanic ash which fell on the decks of the Horace was ground as fine as rifle powder, and was much finer than that which covered the decks of the Etona.
Returning to the stories told by officers of the Roraima, of which a number have been given, it seems desirable to add here the narrative of Ellery S. Scott, the mate of the ruined ship, since it gives a vivid and striking account of his personal experience of the frightful disaster, with many details of interest not related by others.
MATE SCOTT’S GRAPHIC STORY
“We got to St. Pierre in the Roraima,” began Mr. Scott, “at 6.30 o’clock on Thursday morning. That’s the morning the mountain and the town and the ships were all sent to hell in a minute.
“All hands had had breakfast. I was standing on the fo’c’s’l head trying to make out the marks on the pipes of a ship ‘way out and heading for St. Lucia. I wasn’t looking at the mountain at all. But I guess the captain was, for he was on the bridge, and the last time I heard him speak was when he shouted, ‘Heave up, Mr. Scott; heave up.’ I gave the order to the men, and I think some of them did jump to get the anchor up, but nobody knows what really happened for the next fifteen minutes. I turned around toward the captain and then I saw the mountain.
“Did you ever see the tide come into the Bay of Fundy. It doesn’t sneak in a little at a time as it does ‘round here. It rolls in in waves. That’s the way the cloud of fire and mud and white-hot stones rolled down from that volcano over the town and over the ships. It was on us in almost no time, but I saw it and in the same glance I saw our captain bracing himself to meet it on the bridge. He was facing the fire cloud with both hands gripped hard to the bridge rail, his legs apart and his knees braced back stiff. I’ve seen him brace himself that same way many a time in a tough sea with the spray going mast-head high and green water pouring along the decks.
“I saw the captain, I say, at the same instant I saw that ruin coming down on us. I don’t know why, but that last glimpse of poor Muggah on his bridge will stay with me just as long as I remember St. Pierre and that will be long enough.
“In another instant it was all over for him. As I was looking at him he was all ablaze. He reeled and fell on the bridge with his face toward me. His mustache and eyebrows were gone in a jiffy. His hat had gone, and his hair was aflame, and so were his clothes from head to foot. I knew he was conscious when he fell, by the look in his eyes, but he didn’t make a sound.
“That all happened a long way inside of half a minute; then something new happened. When the wave of fire was going over us, a tidal wave of the sea came out from the shore and did the rest. That wall of rushing water was so high and so solid that it seemed to rise up and join the smoke and flame above. For an instant we could see nothing but the water and the flame.
“That tidal wave picked the ship up like a canoe and then smashed her. After one list to starboard the ship righted, but the masts, the bridge, the funnel and all the upper works had gone overboard.
“I had saved myself from fire by jamming a metal ventilator cover over my head and jumping from the fo’c’s’l head. Two St. Kitts negroes saved me from the water by grabbing me by the legs and pulling me down into the fo’c’s’l after them. Before I could get up three men tumbled in on top of me. Two of them were dead.
“Captain Muggah went overboard, still clinging to the fragments of his wrecked bridge. Daniel Taylor, the ship’s cooper, and a Kitts native jumped overboard to save him. Taylor managed to push the captain on to a hatch that had floated off from us and then they swam back to the ship for more assistance, but nothing could be done for the captain. Taylor wasn’t sure he was alive. The last we saw of him or his dead body it was drifting shoreward on that hatch.
“Well, after staying in the fo’c’s’l about twenty minutes I went out on deck. There were just four of us left aboard who could do anything. The four were Thompson, Dan Taylor, Quashee, and myself. It was still raining fire and hot rocks and you could hardly see a ship’s length for dust and ashes, but we could stand that. There were burning men and some women and two or three children lying around the deck. Not just burned, but burning, then, when we got to them. More than half the ship’s company had been killed in that first rush of flame. Some had rolled overboard when the tidal wave came and we never saw so much as their bodies. The cook was burned to death in his galley. He had been paring potatoes for dinner and what was left of his right hand held the shank of his potato knife. The wooden handle was in ashes. All that happened to a man in less than a minute. The donkey engineman was killed on deck sitting in front of his boiler. We found parts of some bodies—a hand, or an arm or a leg. Below decks there were some twenty alive.
“The ship was on fire, of course, what was left of it. The stumps of both masts were blazing. Aft she was like a furnace, but forward the flames had not got below deck, so we four carried those who were still alive on deck into the fo’c’s’l. All of them were burned and most of them were half strangled.
“One boy, a passenger and just a little shaver [the four-year-old son of the late Clement Stokes, above spoken of] was picked up naked. His hair and all his clothing had been burned off, but he was alive. We rolled him in a blanket and put him in a sailor’s bunk. A few minutes later we looked at him and he was dead.
“My own son’s gone, too. It had been his trick at lookout ahead during the dog watch that morning, when we were making for St. Pierre, so I supposed at first when the fire struck us that he was asleep in his bunk and safe. But he wasn’t. Nobody could tell me where he was. I don’t know whether he was burned to death or rolled overboard and drowned. He was a likely boy. He had been several voyages with me and would have been a master some day. He used to say he’d make me mate.
“After getting all hands that had any life left in them below and ‘tended to the best we could, the four of us that were left half way ship-shape started in to fight the fire. We had case oil stowed forward. Thanks to that tidal wave that cleared our decks there wasn’t much left to burn, so we got the fire down so’s we could live on board with it for several hours more and then the four turned to to knock a raft together out of what timber and truck we could find below. Our boats had gone overboard with the masts and funnel.
PREPARED TO TRUST TO LUCK
“We made that raft for something over thirty that were alive. We put provisions on for two days and rigged up a make-shift mast and sail, for we intended to go to sea. We were only three boats’ length from the shore, but the shore was hell itself. We intended to put straight out and trust to luck that the Korona, that was about due at St. Pierre, would pick us up. But we did not have to risk the raft, for about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, when we were almost ready to put the raft overboard, the Suchet came along and took us all off. We thought for a minute just after we were wrecked that we were to get help from a ship that passed us. We burned blue lights, but she kept on. We learned afterward that she was the Roddam.”
Soundings made off Martinique after the explosion showed that earthquake effects of much importance had taken place under the sea bottom, which had been lifted in some places and had sunk in others. While deep crevices had been formed on the land, a still greater effect had seemingly been produced beneath the water. During the explosion the sea withdrew several hundred feet from its shore line, and then came back steaming with fury; this indicating a lift and fall of the ocean bed off the isle. Soundings made subsequently near the island found in one place a depth of 4,000 feet where before it had been only 600 feet deep. The French Cable Company, which was at work trying to repair the cables broken by the eruption, found the bottom of the Caribbean Sea so changed as to render the old charts useless.
New charts will need to be made for future navigation. The changes in sea levels were not confined to the immediate centre of volcanic activity, but extended as far north as Porto Rico, and it was believed that the seismic wave would be found to have altered the ocean bed round Jamaica. Vessels plying between St. Thomas, Martinique, St. Lucia and other islands found it necessary to heave the lead while many miles at sea.
It is estimated that the sea had encroached from ten feet to two miles along the coast of St. Vincent near Georgetown, and that a section on the north of the island had dropped into the sea. Soundings showed seven fathoms where before the eruption there were thirty-six fathoms of water. Vessels that endeavored to approach St. Vincent toward the north reported that it was impossible to get nearer than eight miles to the scene of the catastrophe, and that at that distance the ocean was seriously perturbed as from a submarine volcano, boiling and hissing continually.
In this connection the remarkable experience reported by the officers of the Danish steamship Nordby, on the day preceding the eruption, is of much interest, as seeming to show great convulsions of the sea bottom at a point several hundred miles from Martinique. The following is the story told by Captain Eric Lillien-skjold:
THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF THE “NORDBY”
“On May 5th,” the captain said, “we touched at St. Michael’s for water. We had had an easy voyage from Girgenti, in Sicily, and we wanted to finish an easy run here. We left St. Michael’s on the same day. Nothing worth while talking about occurred until two days afterward—Wednesday, May 7th.
“We were plodding along slowly that day. About noon I took the bridge to make an observation. It seemed to be hotter than ordinary. I shed my coat and vest and got into what little shade there was. As I worked it grew hotter and hotter. I didn’t know what to make of it. Along about 2 o’clock in the afternoon it was so hot that all hands got to talking about it. We reckoned that something queer was coming off, but none of us could explain what it was. You could almost see the pitch softening in the seams.
“Then, as quick as you could toss a biscuit over its rail, the Nordby dropped—regularly dropped—three or four feet down into the sea. No sooner did it do this than big waves, that looked like they were coming from all directions at once, began to smash against our sides. This was queerer yet, because the water a minute before was as smooth as I ever saw it. I had all hands piped on deck and we battened down everything loose to make ready for a storm. And we got it all right—the strangest storm you ever heard tell of.
“There was something wrong with the sun that afternoon. It grew red and then dark red and then, about a quarter after 2, it went out of sight altogether. The day got so dark that you couldn’t see half a ship’s length ahead of you. We got our lamps going, and put on our oilskins, ready for a hurricane. All of a sudden there came a sheet of lightning that showed up the whole tumbling sea for miles and miles. We sort of ducked, expecting an awful crash of thunder, but it didn’t come. There was no sound except the big waves pounding against our sides. There wasn’t a breath of wind.
“Well, sir, at that minute there began the most exciting time I’ve ever been through, and I’ve been on every sea on the map for twenty-five years. Every second there’d be waves 15 or 20 feet high, belting us head-on, stern-on and broadside, all at once. We could see them coming, for without any stop at all flash after flash of lightning was blazing all about us.
“Something else we could see, too. Sharks! There were hundreds of them on all sides, jumping up and down in the water. Some of them jumped clear out of it. And sea birds! A flock of them, squawking and crying, made for our rigging and perched there. They seemed like they were scared to death. But the queerest part of it all was the water itself. It was hot—not so hot that our feet could not stand it when it washed over the deck, but hot enough to make us think that it had been heated by some kind of a fire.
“Well that sort of thing went on hour after hour. The waves, the lightning, the hot water and the sharks, and all the rest of the odd things happening, frightened the crew out of their wits. Some of them prayed out loud—I guess the first time they ever did in their lives. Some Frenchmen aboard kept running around and yelling, ‘Cest le dernier jour!’ (This is the last day.) We were all worried. Even the officers began to think that the world was coming to an end. Mighty strange things happen on the sea, but this topped them all.
“I kept to the bridge all night. When the first hour of morning came the storm was still going on. We were all pretty much tired out by that time, but there was no such thing as trying to sleep. The waves still were batting us around and we didn’t know whether we were one mile or a thousand miles from shore. At 2 o’clock in the morning all the queer goings on stopped just the way they began—all of a sudden. We lay to until daylight; then we took our reckonings and started off again. We were about 700 miles off Cape Henlopen.
“No, sir; you couldn’t get me through a thing like that again for $10,000. None of us was hurt, and the old Nordby herself pulled through all right, but I’d sooner stay ashore than see waves without wind and lightning without thunder.”
FIERY STREAM CONTAINED POISONOUS GASES
Careful inspection showed that the fiery stream which so completely destroyed St. Pierre must have been composed of poisonous gases, which instantly suffocated every one who inhaled them, and of other gases burning furiously, for nearly all the victims had their hands covering their mouths, or were in some other attitude showing that they had perished from suffocation.
It is believed that Mont Pelee threw off a great gasp of some exceedingly heavy and noxious gas, something akin to firedamp, which settled upon the city and rendered the inhabitants insensible. This was followed by the sheet of flame that swept down the side of the mountain. This theory is sustained by the experience of the survivors who were taken from the ships in the harbor, as they say that their first experience was one of faintness.
The dumb animals were wiser than man, and early took warning of the storm of fire which Mont Pelee was storing up to hurl upon the island. Even before the mountain began to rumble, late in April, live stock became uneasy, and at times were almost uncontrollable. Cattle lowed in the night. Dogs howled and sought the company of their masters, and when driven forth they gave every evidence of fear.
Wild animals disappeared from the vicinity of Mont Pelee. Even the snakes, which at ordinary times are found in great numbers near the volcano, crawled away. Birds ceased singing and left the trees that shaded the sides of Pelee. A great fear seemed to be upon the island, and though it was shared by the human inhabitants, they alone neglected to protect themselves.
Of the villages in the vicinity of St. Pierre only one escaped, the others suffering the fate of the city. The fortunate one was Le Carbet, on the south, which escaped uninjured, the flood of lava stopping when within two hundred feet of the town. Morne Rouge, a beautiful summer resort, frequented by the people of the island during the hot season as a place of recreation, also escaped. In the height of the season several thousand people gathered there, though at the time of the explosion there were but a few hundred. Though located on an elevation between the city and the crater, it was by great good fortune saved.
The Governor of Martinique, Mr. Mouttet, whose precautions to prevent the people fleeing from the city aided to make the work of death complete, was himself among the victims of the burning mountain. With him in this fate was Colonel Dain, commander of the troops who formed a cordon round the doomed city.
Among all the islands of the Caribbees St. Vincent is unique in natural wonders and beauties. Situated about ninety-five miles west of Barbados, it has a length of eighteen and a width of eleven miles, the whole mass being largely composed of a single peak which rises from the ocean’s bed. From north to south volcanic hills traverse its length, their ridges intersected by fertile and beautiful valleys.
A ridge of mountains crosses the island, dividing it into eastern and western parts. Kingstown, the capital, a town of 8,000 inhabitants, is on the southward side and extends along the shores of a beautiful bay, with mountains gradually rising behind it in the form of a vast amphitheatre. Three streets, broad and lined with good houses, run parallel to the water-front. There are many other intersecting highways, some of which lead back to the foothills, from which good roads ascend the mountains.
The majority of the houses have red tile roofing and a goodly number of them are of stone, one story high, with thick walls after the Spanish style—the same types of houses that were in St. Pierre and which are not unlike the old Roman houses which in all stages of ruin and semi-preservation are found in Pompeii to this day.
Behind the general group of the houses of the town loom the Governor’s residence and the buildings of the botanical gardens which overlook the town.
Kingstown is the trading centre and the town of importance in the island. It contains the churches and chapels of five Protestant denominations and a number of excellent schools. Away from Kingstown, and the smaller settlement of Georgetown, the population is almost wholly rural, occupying scattered villages which consist of negro huts clustering around a few substantial buildings or of cabins grouped about old plantation buildings somewhat after the ante-bellum fashion in our own Southern States.
One of the tragedies of the West Indies was the sinking of old Port Royal, the resort of buccaneers, in 1692. The harbor of Kingstown is commonly supposed to cover the site of the old settlement. There is a tradition that a buoy for many years was attached to the spire of a sunken church in order to warn mariners. Three thousand persons perished in the disaster.
DESCENDANTS OF ORIGINAL INDIAN POPULATION
The northern portion of the island, that desolated by the recent volcanic eruption, was inhabited by people living in the manner just described, the great majority of them being negroes. The total population of the island is about 45,000, of whom 30,000 are Africans and about 3,000 Europeans, the remainder being nearly all Asiatics. There are, or rather were, a number of Caribs, the descendants of the original warlike Indian population of these islands. Many of these live in St. Vincent, though there are others in Dominico. As their residence was in the northern section of the island, the volcano seems to have completed the work for the Caribs of this island which the Spaniard long ago began. These Caribs were really half-breds, having amalgamated with the negroes. Many of the blacks own land of their own, raising arrow root, which, since the decay of the sugar industry, is the chief export.
In an island only eighteen miles long by eleven broad there is not room for any distinctly marked mountain range. The whole of St. Vincent, in fact, is a fantastic tumble of hills, culminating in the volcanic ridge which runs lengthwise of the oval-shaped island. The culminating peak of the great volcanic mass, for St. Vincent is nothing more, is Mont Garou, of which La Soufriere is a sort of lofty excrescence in the northwest, 4,048 feet high, and flanking the main peak at some distance away.
It may be said that all the volcanic mountains in this part of the West Indies have what the people call a “soufriere”—a “sulphur pit,” or “sulphur crater”—the name coming, as in the case of past disturbances of Mont Pelee, from the strong stench of sulphuretted hydrogen which issues from them when the volcano becomes agitated.
In 1812 it was La Soufriere adjacent to Mont Garou which broke loose on the island of St. Vincent, and it is the same Soufriere which again has devastated the island and has bombarded Kingstown with rocks, lava and ashes.
The old crater of Mont Garou has long been extinct, and, like the old crater of Mont Pelee, near St. Pierre, it had far down in its depths, surrounded by sheer cliffs from 500 to 800 feet high, a lake. Glimpses of the lake of Mont Garou are difficult to get, owing to the thick verdure growing about the dangerous edges of the precipices, but those who have seen it describe it as a beautiful sheet of deep blue water.
THE APPEARANCE OF THE SOUFRIERE
Previous to the eruption of 1812 the appearance of the Soufriere was most interesting. The crater was half a mile in diameter and five hundred feet in depth. In its centre was a conical hill, fringed with shrubs and vines; at whose base were two small lakes, one sulphurous, the other pure and tasteless. This lovely and beautiful spot was rendered more interesting by the singularly melodious notes of a bird, an inhabitant of these upper solitudes, and altogether unknown to the other parts of the island—hence called, or supposed to be, “invisible,” as it had never been seen. (It is of interest to state that Frederick A. Ober, in a visit to the island some twenty years ago, succeeded in obtaining specimens of this previously unknown bird.) From the fissures of the cone a thin white smoke exuded, occasionally tinged with a light blue flame. Evergreens, flowers and aromatic shrubs clothed the steep sides of the crater, which made, as the first indication of the eruption on April 27, 1812, a tremulous noise in the air. A severe concussion of the earth followed, and then a column of thick black smoke burst from the crater.
THE ERUPTION OF 1812
The eruption which followed these premonitory symptoms was one of the most terrific which had occurred in the West Indies up to that time. It was the culminating event which seemed to relieve a pressure within the earth’s crust which extended from the Mississippi Valley to Caracas, Venezuela, producing terrible effects in the latter place. Here, thirty-five days before the volcanic explosion, the ground was rent and shaken by a frightful earthquake which hurled the city in ruins to the ground and killed ten thousand of its inhabitants in a moment of time.
La Soufriere made the first historic display of its hidden powers in 1718, when lava poured from its crater. A far more violent demonstration of its destructive forces was that above mentioned. On this occasion the eruption lasted for three days, ruining a number of the estates in the vicinity and destroying many lives. Myriads of tons of ashes, cinders, pumice and scoriae, hurled from the crater, fell in every section of the island. Volumes of sand darkened the air, and woods, ridges and cane fields were covered with light gray ashes, which speedily destroyed all vegetation. The sun for three days seemed to be in a total eclipse, the sea was discolored and the ground bore a wintry appearance from the white crust of fallen ashes.
Carib natives who lived at Morne Rond fled from their houses to Kingstown. As the third day drew to a close flames sprang pyramidically from the crater, accompanied by loud thunder and electric flashes, which rent the column of smoke hanging over the volcano. Eruptive matter pouring from the northwest side plunged over the cliff, carrying down rocks and woods in its course. The island was shaken by an earthquake and bombarded with showers of cinders and stones, which set houses on fire and killed many of the natives.
THE TERRIBLE EARTHQUAKE AT CARACAS
For nearly two years before this explosion earthquakes had been common, and sea and land had been agitated from the valley of the Mississippi to the coasts of Venezuela and the mountains of New Grenada, and from the Azores to the West Indies. On March 26, 1812, these culminated in the terrible tragedy, spoken of above, of which Humboldt gives us a vivid account.
On that day the people of the Venezuelan city of Caracas were assembled in the churches, beneath a still and blazing sky, when the earth suddenly heaved and shook, like a great monster waking from slumber, and in a single minute 10,000 people were buried beneath the walls of churches and houses, which tumbled in hideous ruin upon their heads. The same earthquake made itself felt along the whole line of the Northern Cordilleras, working terrible destruction, and shook the earth as far as Santa Fe de Bogota and Honda, 180 leagues from Caracas. This was a preliminary symptom of the internal disorder of the earth.
While the wretched inhabitants of Caracas who had escaped the earthquake were dying of fever and starvation, and seeking among villages and farms places of safety from the renewed earthquake shocks, the almost forgotten volcano of St. Vincent was muttering in suppressed wrath. For twelve months it had given warning, by frequent shocks of the earth, that it was making ready to play its part in the great subterranean battle. On the 27th of April its deep-hidden powers broke their bonds, and the conflict between rock and fire began.
THE MOUNTAIN STONES A HERD-BOY
The first intimation of the outbreak was rather amusing than alarming. A negro boy was herding cattle on the mountain side. A stone fell near him. Another followed. He fancied that some other boys were pelting him from the cliff above, and began throwing stones upward at his fancied concealed tormentors. But the stones fell thicker, among them some too large to be thrown by any human hand. Only then did the little fellow awake to the fact that it was not a boy like himself, but the mighty mountain, that was flinging these stones at him. He looked up and saw that the black column which was rising from the crater’s mouth was no longer harmless vapor, but dust, ashes and stones. Leaving the cattle to their fate, he fled for his life, while the mighty cannon of the Titans roared behind him as he ran. For three days and nights this continued; then, on the 30th, a stream of lava poured over the crater’s rim and rushed downward, reaching the sea in four hours, and the great eruption was at an end.
On the same day, says Humboldt, at a distance of more than 200 leagues, “the inhabitants not only of Caracas, but of Calabozo, situated in the midst of the Lianos, over a space of 4,000 square leagues, were terrified by a subterranean noise which resembled frequent discharges of the heaviest cannon. It was accompanied by no shock, and, what is very remarkable, was as loud on the coast as at eighty leagues’ distance inland, and at Caracas, as well as at Calabozo, preparations were made to put the place in defence against an enemy who seemed to be advancing with heavy artillery.”
It was no enemy that man could deal with. Fortunately, it confined its assault to deep noises, and desisted from earthquake shocks. Similar noises were heard in Martinique and Guadeloupe, and here also without shocks. The internal thunder was the signal of what was taking place on St. Vincent. With this last warning sound the trouble, which had lasted so long, was at an end. The earthquakes which for two years had shaken a sheet of the earth’s surface larger than half Europe, were stilled by the eruption of St. Vincent’s volcanic peak.
BARBADOS COVERED WITH ASHES
Northeast of the original crater of the Soufriere a new one was formed which was a half mile in diameter and five hundred feet deep. The old crater was in time transformed into a beautiful blue lake, as above stated, walled in by ragged cliffs to a height of eight hundred feet.
It was looked upon as a remarkable circumstance that although the air was perfectly calm during the eruption, Barbados, which is ninety-five miles to the windward, was covered inches deep with ashes. The inhabitants there and on other neighboring islands were terrified by the darkness, which continued for four hours and a half. Troops were called under arms, the supposition from the continued noise being that hostile fleets were in an engagement.
The movement of the ashes to windward, as just stated, was viewed as a remarkable phenomenon, and is cited by Elise Reclus, in “The Ocean,” to show the force of different aerial currents; “On the first day of May, 1812, when the northeast trade-wind was in all its force, enormous quantities of ashes obscured the atmosphere above the Island of Barbados, and covered the ground with a thick layer. One would have supposed that they came from the volcanoes of the Azores, which were to the northeast; nevertheless they were cast up by the crater in St. Vincent, one hundred miles to the west. It is therefore certain that the debris had been hurled, by the force of the eruption, above the moving sheet of the trade-winds into an aerial river proceeding in a contrary direction.” For this it must have been hurled miles high into the air, till caught by the current of the anti-trade winds.
KINGSLEY’S VISIT TO SAINT VINCENT
From Charles Kingsley’s “At Last” we extract, from the account of the visit of the author to St. Vincent, some interesting matter concerning the 1812 eruption and its effect on the mountain; also its influence upon distant Barbados, as just stated.
“The strangest fact about this eruption was, that the mountain did not make use of its old crater. The original vent must have become so jammed and consolidated, in the few years between 1785 and 1812, that it could not be reopened, even by a steam force the vastness of which may be guessed at from the vastness of the area which it had shaken for two years. So, when the eruption was over, it was found that the old crater-lake, incredible as it may seem, remained undisturbed, so far as has been ascertained; but close to it, and separated only by a knife-edge of rock some 700 feet in height, and so narrow that, as I was assured by one who had seen it, it is dangerous to crawl along it, a second crater, nearly as large as the first, had been blasted out, the bottom of which, in like manner, was afterward filled with water.
“I regretted much that I could not visit it. Three points I longed to ascertain carefully—the relative heights of the water in the two craters; the height and nature of the spot where the lava stream issued; and, lastly, if possible, the actual causes of the locally famous Rabacca, or ‘Dry River,’ one of the largest streams in the island, which was swallowed up during the eruption, at a short distance from its source, leaving its bed an arid gully to this day. But it could not be, and I owe what little I know of the summit of the soufriere principally to a most intelligent and gentleman-like young Wesleyan minister, whose name has escaped me. He described vividly, as we stood together on the deck, looking up at the volcano, the awful beauty of the twin lakes, and of the clouds which, for months together, whirl in and out of the cups in fantastic shapes before the eddies of the trade wind.
BLACK SUNDAY AT BARBADOS
“The day after the explosion, ‘Black Sunday,’ gave a proof of, though no measure of, the enormous force which had been exerted. Eighty miles to windward lies Barbados. All Saturday a heavy cannonading had been heard to the eastward. The English and French fleets were surely engaged. The soldiers were called out; the batteries manned; but the cannonade died away, and all went to bed in wonder. On the 1st of May the clocks struck six, but the sun did not, as usual in the tropics, answer to the call. The darkness was still intense, and grew more intense as the morning wore on. A slow and silent rain of impalpable dust was falling over the whole island. The negroes rushed shrieking into the streets. Surely the last day was come. The white folk caught (and little blame to them) the panic, and some began to pray who had not prayed for years. The pious and the educated (and there were plenty of both in Barbados) were not proof against the infection. Old letters describe the scene in the churches that morning as hideous—prayers, sobs, and cries, in Stygian darkness, from trembling crowds. And still the darkness continued and the dust fell.
INCIDENTS AT BARBADOS
“I have a letter written by one long since dead, who had at least powers of description of no common order, telling how, when he tried to go out of his house upon the east coast, he could not find the trees on his own lawn save by feeling for their stems. He stood amazed not only in utter darkness, but in utter silence; for the trade-wind had fallen dead, the everlasting roar of the surf was gone, and the only noise was the crashing of branches, snapped by the weight of the clammy dust. He went in again, and waited. About one o’clock the veil began to lift; a lurid sunlight stared in from the horizon, but all was black overhead. Gradually the dust drifted away; the island saw the sun once more, and saw itself inches deep in black, and in this case fertilizing, dust. The trade-wind blew suddenly once more out of the clear east, and the surf roared again along the shore.
“Meanwhile a heavy earthquake-wave had struck part at least of the shores of Barbados. The gentleman on the east coast, going out, found traces of the sea, and boats and logs washed up some ten to twenty feet above high-tide mark; a convulsion which seemed to have gone unmarked during the general dismay.
“One man at least, an old friend of John Hunter, Sir Joseph Banks and others their compeers, was above the dismay, and the superstitious panic which accompanied it. Finding it still dark when he rose to dress, he opened (so the story used to run) his window; found it stick, and felt upon the sill a coat of soft powder. ‘The volcano in St. Vincent has broken out at last,’ said the wise man, ‘and this is the dust of it.’ So he quieted his household and his negroes, lighted his candles, and went to his scientific books, in that delight, mingled with an awe not the less deep, because it is rational and self-possessed, with which he, like the other men of science, looked at the wonders of this wondrous world.”