Ballantyne Press BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. EDINBURGH AND LONDON [Illustration: A MAP OF HAYTI 1884] HAYTI OR THE BLACK REPUBLIC. BY SIR SPENSER ST. JOHN, K.C.M.G. FORMERLY HER MAJESTY’S MINISTER RESIDENT AND CONSUL-GENERAL IN HAYTI, NOW HER MAJESTY’S SPECIAL ENVOY TO MEXICO. “Haïti, Haïti, pays de barbares.” NAPOLEON III. LONDON: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE. 1884. INTRODUCTION. Whilst in Port-au-Prince, a Spanish colleague once remarked to me, “_Mon ami_, if we could return to Hayti fifty years hence, we should find the negresses cooking their bananas on the site of these warehouses.” Although this judgment is severe, yet from what we have seen passing under the present Administration, it is more than probable--unless in the meantime influenced by some higher civilisation--that this prophecy will come true. The negresses are in fact already cooking their bananas amid the ruins of the best houses of the capital. My own impression, after personally knowing the country above twenty years, is, that it is a country in a state of rapid decadence. The revolution of 1843 that upset President Boyer commenced the era of troubles which have continued to the present day. The country has since been steadily falling to the rear in the race of civilisation. The long civil war (1868-1869) under President Salnave destroyed a vast amount of property, and rendered living in the country districts less secure, so that there has been ever since a tendency for the more civilised inhabitants to agglomerate in the towns, and leave the rural districts to fetish worship and cannibalism. Fires, most of them incendiary, have swept over the cities; in the commercial quarters of Port-au-Prince, it would be difficult to find any houses which existed in 1863, and the fortunes of all have naturally greatly suffered. When I reached Hayti in January 1863, the capital possessed several respectable public buildings. The palace, without any architectural beauty, was large and commodious, and well suited to the climate; the Senate, the House of Representatives, the dwellings occupied by several of the Ministers, the pretty little theatre, were all features which have now entirely disappeared. The town of Pétionville or La Coupe, the summer and health resort of the capital, where the best families sought a little country life during the great heats, was almost entirely destroyed during the revolution of 1868, and nothing has taken its place. People are still too poor to afford to rebuild.