Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 72
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[Page 72]
whenever we came across her.
The British Consul put unlimited motor cars at our disposal and there was many a pleasant jaunt amongst the hills than which there are none prettier in the whole West Indies.
One early morning a party of us chartered a car and motorist thirty miles to Mount Pelee. We passed thro' the ruins of St Pierre all grass grown and nearly buried these days and we gazed upon some of the grisly relics in the form of charred & lava baked corpses which still remain. The town was utterly destroyed above those in ships and at sea were burnt by the ashes which fell for sixty miles around.
Leaving the car we walked the last four miles with a guide to the Crater
Leaving the car and procuring a guide we walked the last four miles over rugged mountain country up to the Summit and there gazed upon the Crater.
The Volcano had for years been thought extinct and the old crater had filled up but suddenly one morning the whole mountain split in halves and vomited ashes and lava which destroyed practically every Soul.
The writer met several people in Fort de France who were the only remaining members of their families; they had happened to be away at the other end of the island when the storm broke and had thus escaped.
The crater these days is quiescent now and is almost overgrown but memories of the havoc of 1902 are still sufficiently strong to make the place deserted.
In Martinique was the French cruiser Descartes the good pal of many a future cruise.
She had been lying at anchor one morning when a Spanish merchantman evidently in the Pay of Germany steamed in and rammed her.