ANTILLES. Autograph manuscript by M. LACOUR, 1872; 2 in-8 (16 x 13 cm) cloth-backed notebooks of 154 and 126 pages. Journal of a trip to Martinique and Guadeloupe, by a M. Lacour, whose name is given on page 1, as he is called upon to board the liner La France, January 8, 1872, at Saint-Nazaire. It may be, as an inscription indicates, the Nantes-based Charles Le Cour Grandmaison (1848-1901), shipowner, and future deputy and then senator of the Loire-Atlantique. He tells of the crossing and life on board, the arrival in Saint-Pierre on January 22; description of the city, visits to houses, meals, daily life, meetings and evenings; news of Thiers' resignation (February 4); walk to Morne-Rouge; Fort-de-France, visit to the Pointe Simon factory and construction sites; the carnival; details on wages; Rivière-Salée; Saint-Pierre; Ajoupa-Bouillon; departure for the English colonies of St. Lucia and Barbados (March 4); Guadeloupe: Basse-Terre (March 13), then Pointe-à-Pitre (March 15), Grande-Terre and its plantations, Petit-Bourg, la Goyave; Saint-Thomas (March 25); Puerto Rico (March 29)... The manuscript, in small, very legible handwriting, is illustrated with a few drawings: instruments and lifting gear, fish, native head, sugar mill tools, boats, drawing of map of western Guadeloupe with its factories, the hotel room in Puerto Rico...