One of those who suffered the most during that visitation wrote before the earth had ceased trembling, “Against the acts of God Almighty no one complains,” and then proceeded to relate how the dread earthquake shook down or seriously injured almost every house; how two-thirds of the inhabitants were buried beneath the fallen masonry; how the bands of blacks rushed in from mountain and plain, not to aid in saving their wretched countrymen, whose cries and groans could be heard for two or three days, but to plunder the stores replete with goods; and--what he did complain of--how the officers and men of the garrison, instead of attempting to keep order, joined in plundering the small remnants of what the rest of the inhabitants could save from the tottering ruins. What a people! The most striking objects near Cap Haïtien are the remains of the palace of Sans Souci, and of the citadel constructed by King Christophe, called La Ferrière. It requires a visit to induce one to believe that so elaborate, and, I may add, so handsome a structure, could exist in such a place as Hayti, or that a fortification such as the citadel could ever have been constructed on the summit of a lofty mountain, five thousand feet, I believe, above the level of the sea. Some of the walls are eighty feet in height, and sixteen feet in thickness, where the heavy batteries of English guns still remain in position. All is of the most solid masonry, and covering the whole peak of the mountain. We were really lost in amazement as we threaded gallery after gallery where heavy fifty-six and thirty-two pounders guarded every approach to what was intended to be the last asylum of Haytian independence. Years of the labour of toiling thousands were spent to prepare this citadel, which the trembling earth laid in ruins in a few minutes. What energy did this black king possess to rear so great a monument? but the reverse of the medal states that every stone in that wonderful building cost a human life. It is a popular idea in Hayti that the superiority of the northern department, and the greater industry of its inhabitants, date from the time of Christophe, and some express a belief that his iron system was suitable to the country; but the fact is that Moreau de St. Méry, writing in the last century, insists on the superior advantages of the northern province, its greater fertility, the abundance of rain, and consequently the number of rivers, as well as the superior intelligence and industry of the inhabitants, and their greater sociability and polish. They are certainly more sociable than in the capital, and people still seek northern men to work on their estates. As for Christophe’s system, no amount of increase in produce could compensate for its brutality.