t from this immense conflagration prevented the boat from proceeding
and it returned to Fort-de-France, reaching there at one o'clock,
bringing the sinister tidings.

At midday, the Acting Governor of Martinique ordered the _Suchet_ to go
with troops to be under the direction of the Governor, then at St.
Pierre. About three o'clock, a party was landed on the shore. The pier
was covered with bodies. The town was all in fire and in ruins. The heat
was such that the landing party could not endure more than three or four
minutes. The Governor was dead also.

"St. Pierre," writes a witness on another rescue ship, which arrived at
almost the same moment, "is no more. Its ruins stretch before us, in
their shroud of smoke and ashes, gloomy and silent, a city of the dead.
Our eyes seek the inhabitants fleeing distracted, or returning to look
for the dead. Nothing to be seen. No living soul appears in this desert
of desolation, encompassed by appalling silence.... Through the clouds
of ashes and of smoke diffused in our atmosphere, the sun breaks wan and
dim, as it is never seen in our skies, and throws over the whole
picture a sinister light, suggestive of a world beyond the grave."

Two of the inhabitants, and two only, escaped; one a negro prisoner, who
was not found until three days later, burned half to death in his prison
cell; and one, a shoemaker, who, by some strange eddy in the all-killing
gas, and who was on the very edge of the track of destruction, fled,
though others fell dead on every side of him.

A second eruption, coupled with an earthquake, on May 20, completed the
wreckage of the buildings. This outburst was even more violent than the
first. There was no loss of life, for no one was left to slay.

Five years later, Sir Frederick Treves visited St. Pierre. "Along the
whole stretch of the bay," he writes, "there is not one living figure to
be seen, not one sign of human life, not even a poor hut, nor grazing
cattle.... A generous growth of jungle has spread over the place in
these five years. Rank bushes, and even small trees, make a thicket
along some of the less traversed ways.... Over some of the houses
luxuriant creepers have spread, while long grass, ferns and forest
flowers have filled up many a court and modest lane."

Twelve years later, a visitor to St. Pierre found a small wooden pier
erected. A tiny hotel had been built. Huts were clustering under the
ruins. Several parties were at work clearing