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A primitive people these French Creoles must be, as a printed notice strictly prohibits bathing in the small fountains in this inside garden. Unhappily the people appear disinclined even to walk in the pleasant grounds, and the casual visitor feels that a time may come when the few labourers will be withdrawn and a “Forsaken Garden” realised:

“Not a flower to be prest of the foot that falls not;

As the heart of a dead man the seed plots are dry;

From the thicket of thorns when the nightingale calls not,

Could she call, there were never a rose to reply.

Over the meadows that blossom and wither

Rings but the note of a sea-bird’s song,

Only the sun and the rain come hither

All year long.”[17]

One of the pleasantest drives from St. Pierre is to Morne Rouge. The village is situated high up in the hills, and near it and cut out of a rocky wall is a celebrated grotto dedicated to “Our Lady of Lourdes.” Morne Rouge is one of the localities which the negroes say is at certain seasons visited by the celebrated Dominican Friar, Père Labat, who arrived in Martinique in 1693. He is said to appear in the guise of a lambent flame.