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The first few days of my sojourn in this “Faubourg St. Germain of the tropics”—as the French love to call it—were certainly depressing. The heat was great, the food very indifferent, and the rain almost incessant. Much stress has been laid on the streams of clear, crystal water which here run through the streets. I should call them gutters, and, after one has seen the use to which they are put—the houses being entirely free from what we consider the most necessary requirements—the crystal romance is dissipated. Fortunately, owing to the slope of the streets and the ample supply of water which is brought down through fine aqueducts from the mountains, the flow is swift, and thus the gutters are kept pretty clean. Otherwise, the town of St. Pierre would be unbearable, as even now it rivals Cologne in the number of its smells. Under such conditions, it is not surprising that the stranger feels the effects of an “acclimatizing fever,” as they here designate it.

Morning after morning I awoke dull, listless, and tired, and with all sorts of pains and aches in my limbs, but as the day advanced health returned and fever was forgotten.