It was Saturday afternoon when we went ashore, and it so happened there was to be a government proclamation. In due time the drum struck up, and down came the standing army, looking for all the world like a parcel of ragamuffin boys playing militia. I counted them, and I think there were four drummers, two fifers, and two lines of soldiers--thirteen in a line. Some were barefooted, others wore shoes; some of their guns had bayonets, and others none. The manner in which they bore them compared with the foregoing suggestions, and so on to the end of this ridiculous scene. Dominicana has a government--so poets have empires. In passing through the streets one is compelled to observe the non-progressive appearance of everything around him. There lie the unturned stones, just as they were laid a century ago. The houses are generally built one story high, with conical-shaped roofs, for no other reason than that that is the way this generation found them. Mr. Collins, who is a bachelor, lives in an airy two-story house, with a charming verandah running its whole length, cool and delicious, and surrounded by the sweetest fruit-trees outside of Eden. I found myself perpetually exclaiming, “Oh! what beautiful, bright roses!” what this, and what that, until I felt shamefully convicted of my own enthusiastic ignorance. I need not repeat the traveller’s story, for the certainty of exposure is sure. Look at a wood-cut and say that you have seen Niagara, but don’t read Harper’s picture-books and suppose you have any idea of Haytien floral beauty.[B] Of course I have not been here long enough to know whether it is a fit place for a man to live in, or for a number to colonize, and I am well aware, when the question of politics comes up, it turns on a very different pivot; but by all that is magnificent, lovely, exquisite, and delicious in its vegetable productions, I do set it down a perfect paradise. LETTER II. Dominican Republic. WANT OF INFORMATION--ONE SIDE OF A QUESTION.