{28} We could well believe, as the steamer ran into English Harbour, that Antigua was still subject to earthquakes; and had been shaken, with great loss of property though not of life, in the Guadaloupe earthquake of 1843, when 5000 lives were lost in the town of Point- a-Pitre alone.

The whole island, indeed, is somewhat unsafe; for the hapless town of Point-a- Pitre, destroyed by that earthquake, stands not on the volcanic Basse Terre, but on the edge of the marine Grande Terre, near the southern mouth of the salt-water river.

A consensus of critical opinion presumes that Marie was a subject of the English Crown, born in an ancient town called Pitre, some three miles above Rouen, in the Duchy of Normandy.

This speculation is based largely on the unwonted topographical accuracy of her description of Pitre, given in "The Lay of the Two Lovers."