Joyously and quietly passed away the first years of the life of the
little Joseph, or little Josephine, as her kind parents called her.
Only once, in the third year of her life, was Josephine's infancy
troubled by a fright. A terrible hurricane, such as is known to
exist only in the Antilles, broke over Martinique. The historians of
that period know not how to depict the awful and calamitous events
of this hurricane, which, at the same time, seemed to shake the
whole earth with its convulsions. In Naples, in Sicily, in the
Molucca Islands, volcanoes broke out in fearful eruptions; for three
days the earth trembled in Constantinople. But it was over
Martinique that the hurricane raged in the most appalling manner. In
less than four hours the howling northwest' wind, accompanied by
forked lightning, rolling thunder, heavy water-spouts, and
tremendous earth-tremblings, had hurled down into fragments all the
houses of the town, all the sugar-plantations, and all the negro
cabins. Here and there the earth opened, flames darted out and
spread round about a horrible vapor of sulphur, which suffocated
human beings. Trees were uprooted, and the sugar and coffee
plantations destroyed.
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