As I wanted Miss May to see the island as soon as possible, a carriage was summoned immediately, in which we took the road to Fort de France, where we viewed the statue of the Empress Josephine, erected to commemorate the fact that she was born in that vicinity. We had a nice lunch at a hotel there and took rooms to secure the siesta to which we had both grown accustomed. Then we drove back to St. Pierre, and arrived at the Hotel des Bains in season for dinner. The Carnival, which lasts here for four or five weeks, had already begun. The streets were crowded with masquers and sounds of strange music filled the air. There was something very odd in this imitation by the negro race of the frivolities of the Latin countries of Europe as a precedent of the forty days of Lent. Miss May viewed it with me from the balcony of a restaurant until nearly ten o'clock. A number of the steamer people were also there and I fancied we were the object of more than ordinary attention from their eyes. After reaching the hotel again I asked Miss May if she would mind being left alone for an hour or so, while I went to see a peculiar dance. I assured her that the house was absolutely safe. She made no objection and I went with a party of Pretoria people--no women--to witness the spectacle of which I had heard so much. It was not half as entertaining as I had expected, but there were several girls of the Métisse variety that well repaid me for going. The Métisse is a mixture of races, the original Carib prevailing, one of the most fetching types extant. They were dressed becomingly, in thin gowns, of which silk was at least one of the textures used. On their heads were party-colored handkerchiefs, draped as only a Martinique beauty can drape them. At the risk of being thought extravagant in my statement I must say they appeared to me strikingly handsome, both in their faces and their lithe figures. I was told that each of those I saw was the mistress of some well-to-do merchant of the place and strictly true to her lover. The dance was not of a kind one would wish to take his sisters to see, but it was evident the negroes put a less libidinous interpretation upon it than the Caucasian visitors. It was one, however, where "a little goes a long way," and before twelve I was in my room at the hotel. I had just lit the lamp when I was surprised to hear a knock at the door and opened it to find Miss May standing there, with an anxious expression on her face. "Don't undress," she said, in a slightly shaking voice. "I have been full of all sorts of fears since you went away. I want you to sit up awhile and talk to me." I accepted the amendment, as they say in deliberative bodies, with the greatest pleasure, for I would rather sit up with her than to sleep on the softest down ever made into a couch. She went to the window, which was innocent of glass, and threw open the wooden shutters. "What did you hear to disturb you, a mouse?" I asked, jocularly.