The New York Times, September 25, 1898, p.7:
WHERE DREYFUS IS EXILEDDescription of the Ile du Diable, Off the Coast of French Guiana, South America.
HOW HE IS TREATED THERE...
Alfred Dreyfus has been a prisoner on the Ile du Diable since March 10, 1895. Much interest has naturally attached itself to this small piece of land off the coast of French Guiana, South America, and much has been written about it often with no better base than general rumor augmented by the imagination...
The Ile du Diable, or Devil's Island, is the smallest of three pieces of land known as the Safety Islands [Îles du Salut or Salvation Islands]. They lie stretched along the coast about three miles off the point where the Kouron River empties into the Atlantic. Cayenne, the capital of French Guiana, is about fifteen miles away on the mainland in a southeasterly direction.
French historians make first mention of the group owing to the fact that on these islands in 1764 the unfortunate expedition undertaken by de Choiseul to revenge the loss of Canada found refuge, but which ultimately cost France 6,000 subjects and 30,000,000 livres. On Sept. 13, 1799, the English frigates Unity and Amphitrite seized the islands, took away the garrison as prisoners, and destroyed or carried away the artillery.
Guiana itself had long been used as a place of exile. During the French Revolution some 600 Royalists and other political prisoners were sent to Cayenne, where two-thirds of them perished by fever and starvation in ten months. This city, its immediate territory, and the islands surrendered to the British after a naval demonstration made off the coast in 1869, but were restored to France the same year by the treaty of Paris. The present penal settlement was then established. Cayenne has now 4,400 confined or ticket-of-leave convicts.
Although the climate is generally called salubrious by geographers, it is heated and moist along the coast; yellow and bilious fevers abound and in a malignant form that is particularly fatal to white prisoners. For this reason, since 1864, French white convicts have been sent to New Caledonia.
From 1809 to 1855 the chronicles are silent concerning Devil's Island, but in the latter year Admiral Bonnard, under orders from Napoleon III, landed on the island about 100 Republicans, who had made themselves particularly offensive to the Emperor in Paris, and an attempt was made to establish a permanent settlement there. The prisoners cleared the island of trees and built huts, and tried to cultivate the soil; their food was brought to them twice a week from Cayenne. This settlement was abandoned as a prison island in 1864, when a leper colony was set up there.
As has been said, the Safety group is composed of three islands--the Ile Royale, which is about a mile in length; Ile St. Joseph, and Ile du Diable. A narrow channel separates one from another.
On St. Joseph, the Governor of Cayenne has a Summer residence, and there is a very strong stone prison there, built in the style of the early part of the century. Here there is also a signal station, which communicates with Cayenne three times a day.
The Ile du Diable includes about five acres of land. Here the climate, owing to the ocean breezes, is less pernicious than on the mainland, the atmosphere is dryer and cooler. There is very little difference in time between day and night throughout the year, the longest day being twelve hours, eighteen minutes, and the shortest eleven hours, forty-two minutes.
When Dreyfus was sent to the island, the lepers were removed to the Ile Royale, and a convenient hut was built containing rooms for himself and his guards. Of the latter there are six, which relieve one another at stated intervals, two being on watch at the same time.
Escape from the Safety Islands to Dutch Guiana or Brazil is difficult, although not impossible, as was shown about a year ago by the experience of six convicts who seized a whaleboat at the Ile Royale and succeeded in reaching the coast, where they disappeared. Particular pains are taken to guard Dreyfus, however, and at the first intimation of an attempt at rescue the guards have orders to shoot him.
Communication is exchanged several times a day with St. Joseph's, in the harbor of which a torpedo boat is stationed.
How Dreyfus is Treated.
The only story concerning the life that Dreyfus leads on the Ile du Diable that is at all worthy of belief is that told a few months ago by the Captain of a Dutch vessel which passed near the island on her way from the Dutch colony to Antwerp. The story was first printed in the Dutch journals, and was afterward copied in one form or another into most of the newpapers of the Continent.
If the story of the Dutch shipmaster be true, the lot of the ex-Captain of Artillery is not as bad as is generally believed. It seems that the vessel, a steamer, while passing near the island was boarded by some French mariner, who asked for the loan of the ship's cook for a few hours. The reason given was that the man who did the cooking on the island had broken his arm and had been taken to the hospital on St. Joseph's, and another one had not been provided. The Dutch Captain accordingly sent a sailor named Weinheber to Devil's Island to act as cook for a while. During his very brief sojourn on the island Weinheber is said to have seen Dreyfus, and to have had an opportunity of observing how the ex-Captain was treated.
According to the Dutchman, the prisoner rose every morning between 6 and 7 o'clock, had a cup of chocolate, a bath, and, if the weather permitted, a walk. While taking the bath the prisoner's wrists were tied around with a cord, one end of which was held by a warder. This was to prevent any attempt to commit suicide.
After the bath, the ex-Captain breakfasted on bread and butter, and egg, and a bottle of beer. This meal being over, he read books on military topics and wrote letters and his memoirs, the epistles being always sent to his friends through the Military Governor at Cayenne.
Dreyfus is also allowed to play cards with his guards, but not for money, as he is not allowed to retain the possession of a sou. At 2 o'clock in the afternoon the prisoner receives bread, roast meat, vegetables, dessert, and beer. At 6 in the evening he has supper of cold ham, with more bread and beer.
Weinheber being allowed to draw near the prisoner, Dreyfus shook him by the hand and said: "Greet the outside world for me when you return to it." The Dutchman further asserts that the ex-Captain has grown quite stout; that he is not in an iron cage, but has the whole range of the island under the eyes of the warders.
If not entirely true in detail, the Dutchman's tale apparently has some foundation in fact, for there is nothing to lead one to suspect that the prisoner is not as well treated as the circumstances permit. If such had been the case, it seems that Dreyfus could have conveyed some intimation of his true state in the letters that he has written his wife.
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All of French Guiana is one time zone at GMT-3, with no Daylight Savings time.
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