away the ruins, but slowly,
for the government of the colony would not assist in the work,
believing that the region was unsafe. At the time of this visit, Mont
Pelee was still smoking.

This was the ruined city which Stuart was going to see. On board the
steamer were the two or three books which tell the story of the great
eruption, and the boy filled his brain full of the terrible story that
he might better feel the great adventure that the next day should bring
him.

The steamer reached Fort-de-France in the evening, and the boy found the
town, though ill-lighted, gay. A band was playing in the Plaza, not far
from the landing place and most of the shops were still open. Morning
showed an even brighter Fort-de-France, for, though when St. Pierre was
in its glory, Fort-de-France was the lesser town, the capital now is the
center of the commercial prosperity of the island. For this, however,
Stuart had little regard. Sunrise found him on the little steamer which
leaves daily for St. Pierre.

The journey was not long, three hours along a coast of steep cliffs with
verdant mountains above. Small fishing hamlets, half-hidden behind
coco-nut palms, appeared in every cove. The steamer passed Carbet, that
town on the edge of the great eruptive flood, which had its own
death-list, and they turned the point of land into the harbor of St.
Pierre.

Before the boy's eyes rose the Mountain of Destruction, sullen, twisted,
wrinkled and still menacing, not all silent yet. The hills around were
green, and verdure spread over the country once deep in volcanic ash.
But Mont Pelee was brown and bald still.

Nineteen years had passed since the eruption, but St. Pierre had not
recovered. At first sight, from the sea, the town gave a slight
impression of being rebuilt. But this was only the strange combination
of old ruins and modern fishing huts. The handsome stone wharves still
stood, but no vessels lay beside them.

The little steamer slowed and tied up at a tiny wooden pier. A statue,
symbolical of St. Pierre in her agony, had been erected on the end of
the pier. The boy landed, and walked slowly along the frail wooden
structure, to take in the scene as it presented itself to him.

Alas, for St. Pierre! As Lafcadio Hearn described it--"the quaint,
whimsical, wonderfully colored little town, the sweetest, queerest,
darlingest little city in the Antilles.... Walls are lemon color, quaint
balconies and lattices are green. Palm tre