Marie-Galante

Marie-Galante is a flat round limestone island an hour by ferry from Pointe-à-Pitre, and it is called the island of a hundred mills because that many windmills once ground its cane. Some stand ruined in the fields and one at Bézard has been restored to working order. Three distilleries still make rum here at fifty-nine degrees, the strongest sold in France. Ox carts are used on the smallholdings. The beaches on the west coast are long and empty, and the cliffs at Gueule Grand Gouffre are undercut into a collapsed arch. Grand-Bourg is the ferry port and the largest of three villages.