21 JUNE 1902, Page 3

A correspondent of the Daily Mail living in St. Vincent

forwards two facts thence which are both of interest. One is that the volcanic dust has acted there as a fertiliser, the crop of flowers in places covered many inches deep being unprecedented; and another that La Souffriere killed its victims with merciful instantaneousness. "In some houses in St. Vincent people were found still sitting round their tables at tea. One man had a smile on his face, and had evidently died with a word on his lips. Another had a pipe in his mouth and his hand outstretched for a match." Similar accounts come from Martinique, where the Governor protests against the abandonment of the island. He says that the hundred and sixty-five thousand who still remain cannot be removed by sea, and that although St. Pierre must be abandoned, it is only necessary to shift the people in the neighbourhood to the districts still remaining productive.