I was still anxious to visit Hayti, that land of mystery and murder, and, in the guise of an English planter, I went there on a West Indian steamer. Hayti has had more internal troubles and more presidents than any other of the revolutionary republics and her domestic disorders will continue until they are stopped by some powerful outside influences, for the blacks and mulattoes are eternal enemies. In the first three years following the separation from Santo Domingo there were four presidents. In 1849 Soulouque, a negro, proclaimed himself Emperor, as Faustian I. He ruled with despotic power, renewed the war on Santo Domingo, and played hob generally with the nation’s finances and affairs. In 1858 General Geffrard, a mulatto whom Soulouque had condemned to death, revolted and proclaimed himself President. He restored the constitution and held on until 1867, when he was overthrown by General Salnave, who lasted three years before he was deposed and shot. He had four successors in twice as many years, the last one being General Salomon, who was at the head of affairs when I arrived on the scene. It did not take me long to make up my mind that Hayti was the warmest hotbed of intrigue I had ever run across and I felt that I was among friends and in a thoroughly congenial atmosphere. The very air seemed to breed revolutions; perhaps because it was peopled with the spirits of the old buccaneers who had their headquarters at the western end of the island in the entrancing early days. There were many plotters for the presidency, but there were two great rival camps, one headed by General F. D. Legitime and the other by General Florville Hippolyte. Legitime was planning to overturn the government at once, but it was the scheme of Hippolyte, who was more cunning and willing to wait, to continue Salomon in power until the election of 1886, when he expected to secure his own election as Constitutional President. All of the plots and counter-plots were laid in secret, of course, yet all men of influence knew in a general way what the others were doing and where they stood, with due allowance for the treachery always found in Latin countries, which creates a delightful element of uncertainty.