radiate color; and the azure light intensifies the hue: it is
idyllic, incredible;--Coomans used paler colors in his Pompeiian
studies, and his figures were never so symmetrical. This flesh
does not look like flesh, but like fruit-pulp....



XIV.


... Everywhere crosses, little shrines, way-side chapels,
statues of saints. You will see crucifixes and statuettes even
in the forks or hollows of trees shadowing the high-roads. As
you ascend these towards the interior you will see, every mile or
half-mile, some chapel, or a cross erected upon a pedestal of
masonry, or some little niche contrived in a wall, closed by a
wire grating, through which the image of a Christ or a Madonna is
visible. Lamps are kept burning all night before these figures.
But the village of Morne Rouge--some two thousand feet above the
sea, and about an hour's drive from St. Pierre--is chiefly
remarkable for such displays: it is a place of pilgrimage as well
as a health resort. Above the village, upon the steep slope of a
higher morne, one may note a singular succession of little
edifices ascending to the summit,--fourteen little tabernacles,
each containing a _relievo_ representing some incident of Christ's
Passion. This is called _Le Calvaire_: it requires more than a feeble
piety to perform the religious exercise of climbing the height,
and saying a prayer before each little shrine on the way. From
the porch of the crowning structure the village of Morne Rouge
appears so far below that it makes one almost dizzy to look at