WHERE 
 
 It* 
 
 HESKRW PraCHARD 
 
 ,. r- 
 
Cl)e Lifitatp 
 
 of t|)e 
 
 Onlt)er0itp of Bottb Carolina 
 
 ^^i& hoo\i toa0 pte^enttti 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 ENDOWED BY THE 
 
 DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC 
 
 SOCIETIES 
 
 ^ 1901 
 
 .P9^ 
 1900 
 
UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 I mill II III 
 
 10003068458 
 
 This book is due at the LOUIS R. WILSON LIBRARY on the 
 last date stamped under "Date Due." If not on hold it may be 
 renewed by bringing it to the library. 
 
 DATE 
 DUE 
 
 RET. 
 
 DATE 
 DUE 
 
 RET. 
 
 DEC 1 8 
 
 i,^f^\f f f}' 
 
 C-'L ■' 
 
 lUl 
 
 NovTizooe 
 
 UTirrwii 
 
 r'jrrn No. 513 
 
J^ 
 
WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/whereblackruleswOOpric 
 

 WHERE 
 BLACK RULES WHITE 
 
 A JOURNEY ACROSS AND ABOUT HAYTI 
 
 BY 
 HESKETH PRICHARD 
 
 Joint author of "A Modern Mercenary" 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 ^53"^57 Fifth Avenue 
 
 I goo 
 
Printed at the Motley Press, IS, Eldon Street, London, E.G. 
 
4 
 
 en 
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 For the use of some of the illustrations in this volume 
 I am indebted to the courtesy of Dr. Rauch of Port-au-Prince, 
 Hayti. Owing to my departure on an expedition to Pata- 
 gonia, organized by " T/w Daily Express'' , I am unable to 
 correct the final proof-sheets of this book, and must therefore 
 beg my readers' indulgence should any inaccuracies have 
 crept into the text. 
 
 H. P. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 CHAPTER I. First Impressions of the Black Republic i 
 
 „ II, The High Road of Hayti 13 
 
 „ III. The Haytian General 39 
 
 „ IV. Vaudoux Worship and Sacrifice ... 74 
 
 „ V. The Haytian Navy 102 
 
 „ VI. Across Hayti' iii 
 
 „ VII. Into San Domingo 129 
 
 „ VIII. Haytian Police, Prisons and Hospitals 147 
 
 „ IX. A living city within a dead one . . . i6g 
 
 „ X. The Citadel of the Black Napoleon . 183 
 
 „ XL Justice and the Status of the White . 210 
 
 „ XII. The Haytian Press 225 
 
 „ XIII. The Haytian People as I knew them . 232 
 
 „ XIV. Hayti the Puff-ball 267 
 
 „ XV. Can the Negro rule Himself? .... 277 
 
 Index 2S5 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Page 
 
 A Haytian Scene {Frontispiece) — 
 
 Bananar at Jacmel 3 
 
 A Funeral 9 
 
 My Guide 15 
 
 Market-place, Port-au-Prince 23 
 
 Six o'clock Reveille in the Streets of Port-au-Prince . 29 
 
 Palms on the way to Bizotou 35 
 
 Some Generals 41 
 
 A General's evening Ride 49 
 
 The March Past 57 
 
 On Parade 65 
 
 About to be reviewed 71 
 
 The Wharf at Port-au-Prince 107 
 
 Street Scene in Petit Goave 113 
 
 Washerwomen 119 
 
 A Haytian Highway 133 
 
 Native Hut on the way to San Domingo ....... 137 
 
 Natives 141 
 
 Military Arrondissement 149 
 
 EcoLE Centrale 165 
 
 Port-au-Prince 175 
 
 The Town of Millot Facing 185 
 
 Palace of Sans-Souci at Millot „ 190 
 
 Interior of the Castle of La Ferriere .... „ 195 
 
 Bel-air 201 
 
 The Palace of the President , 213 
 
 On a journey 235 
 
 Typical Peasantry 239 
 
 In a Haytian Forest 247 
 
 Logwood 259 
 
WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE BLACK REPUBLIC. 
 
 The liner was hove to, awaiting daylight. Across the 
 leaden swell Hayti lay hazy and of a soft grey, her deli- 
 cate mountain crests cut sharply out against the brighten- 
 ing sky. Soon the east was alive and glowing in deep 
 orange and deeper red patched with livid green, a bar of 
 angry colour shut in between the sea and a jagged lid of 
 cloud. Four bells rang forward, and upon the stroke we 
 were under way and steaming slowly past the dim dead 
 shores. Between us and the distant heights ran a low 
 bluff, bristling with scrub. 
 
 No villages were visible, but here and there, through 
 
 glasses, we could discern a brownish speck which might 
 
 have been a solitary hut, but these did not break the sense 
 
 of desolation. Nothing seemed alive save the dawn and 
 
 I 
 
2 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 a clean, sweet wind that blew graciously cool after the 
 sweltering heats of the night. 
 
 Thus it was that in November of last year (1899) I saw 
 Hayti for the second time. Eighteen months had elapsed 
 since I first steamed along under the same shores, and 
 Hayti had lost none of her mystery and fascination. Since 
 the wholesale massacre of the whites by order of General 
 Dessalines, which followed immediately upon the procla- 
 mation of the Act of Independence in 1 804, Hayti has been 
 a sealed land. Very little could be told about her ; for 
 very little was known. Threaded in the circle of a hun- 
 dred civiHsed isles, she alone has drawn a veil between 
 herself and the rest of mankind. 
 
 A few scores of white men live in her coast towns, but 
 of the interior even they can tell you practically nothing. 
 The Black Republic, set between her tropical seas and 
 virgin mountain-peaks, keeps her secrets well. 
 
 In spite of endless inquiries, until I actually landed in the 
 island, I could gather no definite details. The ship I was 
 travelling in passed seven times a year along the southern 
 coast to drop the mails at the principal port of Jacmel, 
 but although many people on board had lived half their 
 lives on the neighbouring islands, I could glean no inform- 
 ation respecting Hayti. I was vaguely told that the place 
 was unhealthy, more unhealthy than Colon, and even more 
 abnormally dirty, and that men were rather more apt to 
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE BLACK REPUBLIC. 3 
 
 die suddenly there than elsewhere in the tropics. Even 
 the steamer seemed to hold herself aloof. It is her custom 
 to lie well out in the roadstead of Jacmel, and she only- 
 waits for the return of the mail boat before putting to sea 
 again. 
 
 BANANAR AT JACMEL. 
 
 There were of course various strange rumours drifting 
 about, stories that had oozed out from the guarded silence 
 shrouding those dark-green shores, stories of snake-worship, 
 and poisonings, human sacrifice and cannibalism. Hayti 
 appeared to be a stage with the curtain down, — all the 
 world knew that the dramas of life and death were bein"; 
 
4 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 played out over and over again behind that curtain, 
 but with what curious or horrible variations from the 
 ordinary tenor of human existence none could guess. I 
 had read one or two books about the place, notably that 
 by Sir Spencer St. John, who was British Minister in 
 Hayti for a considerable period, but even his book was 
 some years old. 
 
 Hayti the Mysterious 1 Her appeal to the imagination 
 is inevitable. Ships from Europe and America move per- 
 petually round and along her coasts and call at her open 
 ports, ocean cables link her to the rest of the globe, but 
 for all these things, five miles inland you lose touch with 
 civilisation, with the world. 
 
 From the sea, her mountains, bearded with dark forests 
 up to their wrinkled brows, scowl at you. To deny that 
 she is picturesque is impossible ; to do so would be to 
 acknowledge a sheer lack of imagination. 
 
 Mile after mile we slid along the coast cliff, until the 
 fjord-like bay turned in upon itself, and there was the town 
 of Jacmel lying inside its belt of sand. 
 
 Jacmel from the sea is not unlike towns in the Colombian 
 Republic or on the Pacific coast. The same white houses, 
 nestling in vivid foliage, give it the same false air of coolness. 
 
 Five minutes later the quarter-boat was shouldering her 
 way shorewards across the swell which broke in foam almost 
 at the foot of the palms. 
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE BLACK REPUBLIC. 5 
 
 We shot past the reefs, and I scrambled on to the dilap- 
 idated landing-stage among the crowd of negroes, — a crowd 
 which as to colour represented every shade of full-bodied 
 black. As to dress, there were degrees from gold lace 
 down to the simplicity of a cloth with a hole in the middle 
 for the wearer's head, supplemented by ragged trousers. 
 Most of them carried heavy jointed clubs. The boat that 
 had landed me put oft'; I saw the rowers slide into their 
 stroke ; I waited till they reached the shadow of the 
 steamer, the gangway was raised, the boat swung inboard, 
 and the liner dived away over the glinting sea. Then I 
 turned, stepped from the boarding, and was on Haytian earth. 
 
 I do not know precisely what I had expected, but I do 
 know that it was not at all like the reality. 
 
 Almost straight before me was a narrow street, lined 
 with irregular buildings, something like a street of old 
 London as you see it in pictures, save that the overhanging 
 first floors were wooden piazzas. 
 
 I walked slowly along, taking the measure of things. It 
 was a dirty street, albeit the chief one of the chief town of 
 southern Hayti, and the sun was scalding. The place was 
 also acrush with human beings of African race and their 
 donkeys. A lean dog or two basked in the alleys. There 
 were shops, open cavernous places, with the stock-in-trade 
 of the proprietor depending from ropes round the walls. 
 Pavement or foot-path there was none. 
 
6 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 The piazzas, jutting from the upper floors of the ungainly 
 houses, were supported by pillars of wood driven into the 
 earth; but walking under them in the shadow was an 
 athletic exercise of four-foot leaps up and down, for some 
 of the domiciles possessed brick thresholds leading to the 
 supports, while others had none. There were many empty 
 houses with smashed shutters, fire-scarred shells which 
 seemed all the emptier for the pitiless sunlight. In Hayti 
 they always start a revolution by firing the town. 
 
 I turned on the thought to observe the negroes in their 
 own preserve, where they may " revolute " as they like. 
 Most of them had dropped their work or business to look 
 at me. Through the dust and glare wizened donkeys trotted, 
 laden with huge bundles of guinea-grass, negresses hawked 
 about baskets of bananas and mangoes, the street was full 
 of men and women, screaming, gesticulating, and shouting. 
 A bareheaded negro was blowing a tin trumpet in long, 
 ringing blasts. The din was incredible. 
 
 There were women carrying loads upon their heads ; one 
 was half-running with a bottle balanced on a yellow bandana 
 tied round her brows. Most of them were dressed in white, 
 short-kilted to the knee, and nearly all wore the turban 
 handkerchief. As for the men, some had coats, some only 
 trousers, and some, more ragged than the rest, affected kepis 
 with red bands. These last I discovered later were policemen. 
 
 No carriages were to be seen, not even a broken-down 
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE BLACK REPUBLIC. 7 
 
 West Indian buggy. It was my first impression of the land 
 where Black rules White. The bawl and clatter of voices, 
 the jostling crowd, the scream of an angry man in the hot 
 street, the few cool stores with their proprietors seated on 
 chairs in the doorways, the ungainly wooden houses with 
 their sprawling side-posts, the sun, the smell, the dirt : — 
 this was Hayti. 
 
 The British Consular Agent, to whom I had brought a 
 letter of introduction, was most kind, and oftered to put me 
 up for the night, a proposal which I was only too glad to 
 accept. Failing this hospitaHty I should have been obliged 
 to bivouac in the open; for Jacmel, though the principal 
 port in southern Hayti, does not boast either hotel or rest- 
 house where one could hope for a night's shelter. 
 
 Half an hour later, as I sat at peace in the Consular 
 office, near the door for the sake of air, a sudden clamour 
 of voices arose outside. Then a thudding noise, — the gath- 
 ering of a bare-footed crowd. We turned out into the 
 scorching sun to where, in the centre of the arid waterside 
 space, a fight was in progress. A policeman, buttoned up 
 in a blue linen uniform like a butcher-boy's coat, only 
 double-breasted, was struggling with a big-headed negro. 
 The captive had hold of his captor's cocomacaque club, 
 and the pair swung to and fro in a heated struggle. 
 
 The big-headed negro was already wresting away the 
 weapon when two other policemen raced up. Smash went 
 
8 WHRRE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 a cocomacaquc on the big, stooping head, and a bubble of 
 red blood rose through the short fuzz. A bellow of excite- 
 ment went up from the bystanders. The prisoner turned 
 like a dazed bull for a moment, then he broke free and 
 fled down the street. 
 
 Experience soon taught me that similar scenes were by 
 no means uncommon: I also learnt to sympathise with the 
 frantic resistance of the prisoners. 
 
 The business in Jacmel is almost entirely in the hands 
 of the small foreign element. The RepubUcan Government 
 distrusts and dislikes the outlander, but it cannot get on 
 without him. On sufferance therefore he remains, but any 
 projects as to opening up the country, prospecting or 
 obtaining concessions, are blocked in one way or another. 
 Either the Government plants its foot firmly and refuses 
 permission point-blank, or if expediency suggests another 
 course, negotiations are begun, which are later on so 
 craftily manipulated that the white man finds himself finally 
 left in the lurch, saddled with a hopelessly bad bargain. 
 
 Again no foreigner can legally own land in the island, 
 but so far as private houses in the coast towns are concerned, 
 this law has been circumvented at various times. 
 
 There are in the town and district about 500 potential 
 soldiers, of whom no fewer than 200 are generals. A 
 general, as he is known in Hayti, must be spelt with a big 
 G. The general commanding this province is one of the 
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE BLACK REPUBLIC, ii 
 
 strong men of the country. He can neither read nor write, 
 and belongs to the lowest strata, yet he was one of the 
 great forces in the last revolution. General Johannis Meri- 
 sier cannot sign documents, but by way of making his mark 
 he adds the impress of his signet ring. What one man 
 writes for him he gets another man to read, thus securing 
 himself against deception. In person he is of the ultra- 
 negro type, and in his hands lies the power of life and death. 
 
 Towards evening I went for a ride about the surrounding 
 country ; there were some pretty-looking villas half hidden 
 in green dotted about the outskirts of the town. Returning 
 I passed by the arsenal under the walls of which public 
 executions take place. Not so long ago two criminals, a 
 man and a boy of fourteen (the latter had split open the 
 paternal skull with a hatchet) were condemned to be shot. 
 Upon the moment of firing a Roman Catholic priest went 
 up to the boy and asked him if he repented of his crime. 
 The boy said "No" — he would do it again if he had the 
 chance. 
 
 "If you repent you will be reprieved." 
 
 "I do not repent." 
 
 The priest withdrew, and the twenty assorted firearms 
 spoke. The man fell upon his knees, but the boy was 
 untouched. The volley rang out again. No result. Another 
 volley. The bleeding man pitched forward dead, but the 
 boy stood in the aching sunlight, still unhurt. 
 
12 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE 
 
 A general rode up, and borrowing a cocomacaque from a 
 bystander, beat the soldiers over the head for their bungling. 
 He swore that unless the next attempt took effect, the 
 men themselves should be shot. A second later, the boy 
 fell riddled with bullets. Then the drums beat, for the 
 justice of the Republic was satisfied. On this occasion it 
 was said that the soldiers had pity on the youth of the 
 boy, and purposely shot wide, each man hoping that his 
 comrade's bullet might do the deed. But it was a cruel 
 mercy. 
 
 Darkness had come on by the time I recrossed the 
 market-place. The scene was weird. Among the ruinous 
 wooden booths a few fluttering flames cut into the blackness 
 of the night, and from the gloom around came the inde- 
 scribable screeching babble of negro voices. Here and there 
 in the dim light I saw pale-palmed hands twisting in 
 gesticulation, or wide mouths that flashed white teeth over 
 slips of sugar-cane. And so the busy unseen night-life, 
 which the dark-skin loves, went on under the dense sky. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE HIGH ROAD OF HAYTI. 
 
 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY. 
 
 Permit to the Citizen Petit Saiis-Nom (Little Nameless), 
 mounted on a red mule bearing the brand S.S., to go to 
 Port-au-Prince as guide to Monsieur Plesketh Prichard, 
 an English subject. Request to the Authorities, Civil 
 and Military, to render to him any aid or protection of 
 which he may stand in need. 
 
 Jacmel, 22 November, 1S99. 
 
 This passport, (of which the original is in French) signed 
 and stamped with the round bhie stamp of the Communal 
 Council of Jacmel, made me free of some seventy miles of 
 the chief high road of Hayti, lying between the port of 
 Jacmel and the capital. Along it mails and money pass 
 every fortnight by the agency of couriers and mules. 
 Outside of Hayti this road bears a sinister reputation. To 
 quote from a letter written to me from a neighbouring 
 
14 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 island : " Persons may travel with great danger by land 
 over the hills from Jacmel to Port-au-Prince." 
 
 The country lying between is said to be a hotbed of 
 snake-worship, with its accompaniments of superstition and 
 sacrifice, as, indeed, is all the mountain-land of the Republic. 
 
 On first sight, my guide, Petit Sans-Nom, was a puny 
 Haytian of meek aspect. His duty in life was to clean 
 out the Custom House, with interludes of acting as courier 
 on the Port-au-Prince road. His face and head were curi- 
 ously small, and he wore a scanty curling goatee. In his 
 soiled white coat and ragged trousers he listened humbly 
 while the General of the Custom House was good enough 
 to say that if he misbehaved himself he should, on any 
 complaint from me, be immediately cast into prison. I 
 left him pursuing his vocation with a grass broom. 
 
 On the morrow we met again. His bearing was sur- 
 prisingly altered ; a heavy cutlass swung at his side, and 
 he was fiercely urging a little mule to the appointed start- 
 ing-place. Two grass bags were slung across the mule, 
 into which he stowed my baggage, and while one wondered 
 how so undersized an animal could be expected to carry 
 it. Petit Sans-Nom, perceiving that the two sides did not 
 balance, considerately added an enormous stone as a make- 
 weight. He then mounted on top of all, and sat awaiting 
 my convenience in the shade of a tamarind tree. Five 
 minutes afterwards I had bidden good-bye to H.B.M.'s 
 
MY GUIDE. 
 
THE HIGH ROAD OF HAYTI. 17 
 
 Consular Agent, to whose kindness I owed so much, and 
 was riding with my guide out of Jacmel, 
 
 I had been told that it would be necessary to ford the 
 two rivers, the Grande Riviere and the Gosseleine, any 
 number of times between a hundred and fifty and two 
 hundred. Rain had also fallen recently, and the fords were 
 deep. For a mile or so we threaded along the narrow 
 track overhung by creepers and trees, and we were at the 
 first ford. 
 
 The silver river, embedded in green and as clear as a 
 trout stream, came suddenly across our way in one of its 
 many bends. The water was about four feet deep, and 
 the hour at which we crossed it was half-past three. Before 
 the quarter to four I had counted nine fordages. lly half- 
 past five the number had swelled to eighty-one. After 
 that counting became monotonous. The road was, in fact, 
 the river-bed, with its loops and oval curvings, and we 
 followed it glen by glen through hollows clothed in fresh, 
 rain-flushed greenery. Sometimes we sagged up and down 
 hillsides, with now and then a glimpse upwards of a tree- 
 less, conical slope covered with pointed grey stones, or an 
 open valley massed with foliage of a dark potato-leaf tint, 
 flecked with the broad pale blades of banana palms. 
 
 Dusk came upon us while we were still making our way 
 through the thickly-wooded gorges; the river-bed, (con- 
 sidered as a high road) becoming worse every moment. 
 
1 8 WHERE black; RULES WHITE. 
 
 Fireflies came out and danced among the foliage overhead, 
 and all the myriad crickets and frogs ticked and croaked 
 about us, like an army of pigmies marking time. We had 
 arranged to sleep at the foot of the mountains, and my 
 guide had promised that we should arrive there before 
 nightfall. 
 
 When darkness unmistakably settled down, I asked him 
 how much farther we had to go. Petit Sans-Nom stooped 
 to no subterfuge. "Far, far," he said, frankly. And far 
 it was. Hour joined hour in the measureless past, and 
 still we struggled on. At this stage of the journey we 
 began to pass human habitations which in every particular 
 might have been borrowed wholesale from West Africa. 
 Here and there red fires burned in the gloom of a stockade. 
 Round them crouched figures clad in little, the children 
 clad not at all, and in the heart of the glow were people 
 dancing to the monotonous clap of hands. Outside the 
 circle you could see the squat outlines and the humpy 
 shoulders of thatch huts. 
 
 At last the small mule mutinied. She refused to face a 
 ford, and tipped off the baggage and Petit Sans-Nom with 
 one abrupt action. She submitted to the baggage being 
 loaded on again, but allow her human burden to remount 
 she would not. So the procession of two became a pro- 
 cession of three, the guide straining on the head-rope, the 
 mule throwing off the baggage whenever possible, and 
 
THE HIGH ROAD OF HAYTI. 19 
 
 the traveller and horse bringing up a weary and inglori- 
 ous rear. 
 
 The prospect of sleep and food receded while the hours 
 went by, but, as my horse gathered himself to scramble 
 up a steep bank of more than usual slipperiness. Petit 
 Sans-Nom encouraged him with the remark that it was the 
 last ford, and rising above us in the gloom I made out the 
 dim shoulder of a mountain. With renewed hope we 
 climbed upwards into a sound of voices singing. A palm- 
 thatched hut peeped through the foliage, and in it they 
 were holding high festival. Petit Sans-Nom pulled down 
 the gate of the enclosure, and led the way in, and by the 
 starlight I saw two or three subsidiary huts beside the one 
 where they were making merry. The guide shouted, and 
 the noise ceased abruptly ; the door opened, and questions 
 were asked in Creole, to which we were able to give satis- 
 factory rephes. Forthwith they invited us inside. 
 
 There were six people in the central windowless room, 
 which was lit by a flaming tin lamp that leaped in the 
 draughts, and showed the earthen floor, wooden table, and 
 red water-bottle, the ordinary furnishing of the peasant's 
 home. A little girl was stirred to wakefulness, a tablecloth 
 was produced, a mattress was laid upon the floor. I can 
 remember eating something, and lying down. My next 
 recollection is the being wakened some hours before daylight. 
 
 While it was still dark we ascended the lower spurs of 
 
20 WHERE BLACK RULES \VHITE. 
 
 the mountain, which rises eastward to Prince's Peak, 5,000ft. 
 high, and the dawn was not full when we could see both 
 grey seas, — to the south the Caribbean Sea, to the north 
 the bay of Port-au-Prince, with its misty island. 
 
 The river road had been bad, but the mountain road 
 was worse. When we met a cavalcade of donkeys we 
 spent half an hour in edging across the top of a precipice, 
 where the path only allowed of the passage of one at a 
 time. When at last we reached the level, the track 
 broadened out into a road some 30ft. wide, but horses and 
 donkeys had passed over it when it was soft with the rains, 
 and the sun had subsequently hardened the hollows and 
 mouldings of mud into ridges. We followed this route 
 across the plain through the forenoon until we came within 
 sight of the sea which lay be}'ond a broad belt of swamp. 
 A wind puffed lazily over the marsh, and the sun beat 
 furiously down upon the road as we were swept up into a 
 mile-long procession of negroes and negresses with laden 
 donkeys and mules on their way to the morrow's market. 
 
 We came to a bridge after a while, and my guide said : 
 "When you see a bridge ahva^'s go round it." Later I 
 discovered this to be a national proverb. It was sound 
 advice, too, for the bridge had a 6ft. hole in the centre of 
 it. Here the road, in spite of all its shortcomings, was a 
 highway, with its dark stream of people flowing ahead of 
 us into the capital. 
 
THK HIGH ROAD OF HAVTI. 21 
 
 So with the sun still boring a hole in the small of my 
 back, I at length jogged, wet and weary, into the heart 
 of Port-au-Prince, where, after a little searching, I found 
 a hotel. 
 
 They say that the first act of every nation in founding 
 a new colony is typical. Spain builds a church, England 
 founds a bank, and La Belle France opens and patronises 
 a cafe. For the moment, I preferred the P'rench plan in 
 that it administers to the primary necessities of the human 
 frame. 
 
 P" ranee has evacuated Port-au-Prince for a hundred years; 
 do her cafes survive ? In a degenerate form they do, for 
 Haytian life is negro life grafted upon French life, and the 
 black man possesses among his faults or virtues a strong 
 conservatism. The national impulse of the colonising 
 Frenchman is to imitate Paris. The nearer his handiwork 
 can approach to the original ideal, the nearer he is to bliss. 
 
 We have, therefore, in the town of Port-au-Prince an 
 imitation of Paris made a hundred years ago by men who 
 had seen the original ; and carried on and revised during 
 the last century by a negro race, who — the enormous 
 majority of them, at least — have not. 
 
 The hotel to which I had come was an oblong building, 
 rimmed below with narrow doors, and above with the usual 
 wooden piazza. Mules and horses were hitched to the 
 posts, and from the open doors an overpowering smell of 
 
22 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 coffee greeted you. The bar was filled with Haytians, 
 many in black frock-coats and straw hats, imbibing the 
 brown "rhum" of the country. 
 
 They were lean men, bony-shouldered, with long faces 
 pointed by fuzzy thin goatees, who greeted each other with 
 an elaborate politeness, shaking hands indifferently with 
 the right hand or the left. 
 
 The coloured barman manipulated a long drink, and the 
 question of a room in which to sleep was mooted. Had 
 they one ? Had they not 1 a fine big room, would le blanc 
 engage? No, le blanc would see first. Would le blanc 
 come this way then, and they would show him ? He followed, 
 and, passing through a dining-room of five or six tables, 
 furnished with dirty cloths and picturesque red earthen- 
 ware water-jugs, was once more in the street. 
 
 Turning to the left, we found an iron door on which 
 the ancient red paint was blotched and faded. It opened 
 upon a basement crowded with dogs and negroes ; from 
 this a wooden staircase climbed to the upper floor of the 
 establishment. The building was two rooms thick. First 
 came the ante-room and billiard-room, and here the after- 
 noon heat hung palpable. A wine-splashed table gave the 
 place an air of just awaking after a night of it, and the 
 idea was not refuted by after-experience. Then on along 
 a black passage to No. 9, and I was there. 
 
 The room had been but lately vacated, and the evidence 
 
THE HIGH ROAD OF HAYTI. 25 
 
 of another presence spoke aloud from bed and basin. Two 
 windows gave upon the street, further ventilation was pro- 
 vided by jalousies opening into the sleeping rooms on each 
 side, lack of privacy being a detail compared with the 
 luxury of a thorough draught. A mosquito-net of bygone 
 efficacy hung stagnant over the bed, and mosquitoes buzzed 
 round the dirty wooden walls in platoons. 
 
 This was the room, the waiter could not conceal his 
 pride in it — a fine room, as one could see ; would not le 
 blanc engage? 
 
 To whom did this hotel belong, — to a Haytian? But 
 yes, to a Haytian certainly. The rent of the room was 
 two dollars per day. Monsieur would stay en pension''^ 
 That would be two dollars more. Thus, for the sum of 
 four dollars a day (Haytian value), drinks extra, the wan- 
 derer in Hayti had secured a resting-place and stokerage. 
 
 Outside the windows coursed an open drain which told 
 plainly of its mission, and refuse of all indescribable sorts 
 lay inches deep in the street. The view extended over 
 the lower town, beyond which stood up the tall masts of 
 ships; farther still, the green, nameless islands of Port- 
 au-Prince Bay set against a background of blue tropic sea. 
 How the heat danced ! And the noises in the street, — the 
 uncouth yelling of negroes, the bark of dogs, and the 
 grunt of scavenging pigs, — came up in a babel. 
 
 What with the heat, the mosquitoes, and the noise there 
 
26 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 arose a yearning for that primary necessity — a bath. The 
 heavy-footed negro came padding back into the room. The 
 tin bath was at the service of le blanc. At once? He 
 would see. And after that, something to eat. Very good ! 
 It was a first experience of the Haytian gargoii, and things 
 hung fire. 
 
 But to describe the first night in that room 1 No wind 
 stirred the steaming air; it was Hke Hving at the bottom 
 of a well of vapour. Cocks crowed throughout the live- 
 long night, and poker was being played with vivacity at 
 the end of the passage from which one was only divided 
 by mere wooden slats. Not fifty odd miles in the saddle 
 could conquer these drawbacks and bring the welcome gift 
 of sleep. 
 
 Next morning le blanc turned up to dejewier weary and 
 heavy-eyed after a late morning sleep. 
 
 " Slept well? " asked an American, " any mosquitoes ? " All 
 visible skin-surfaces bore eloquent witness. '* Yes, by Josh 1 
 they've done you proud. Say, ever hear the story of the 
 man who shot a mosquito up in that room of yours with 
 an eight-bore duck gun, and only wounded it?" 
 
 For four days and nights I held the fort of No. 9, then 
 I gave in, capitulated miserably, and left the mosquitoes 
 and noises in possession. I departed towards evening, and 
 the loose-treading, good-hearted nigger waiters, who sleep 
 on three chairs, and don't know what a mosquito is, save 
 
THE HIGH ROAD OF HAYTI. 27 
 
 by the sense of sight, came round and demanded " petits 
 cadeaux." 
 
 After all, I left with some regret, for though the hotel 
 was dirty, it must in fairness be said that one could meet 
 with its equal in that respect in not a few places within 
 the Spanish frontier. And, at least, the proprietors were 
 amiably anxious to please, and spared no trouble. 
 
 I went up to the only other hotel in the town, which 
 stands above the palace of the President on the Champ-de- 
 Mars. There the arrangements accorded better with pre- 
 judiced English notions, and there was a night wind thrown 
 in. It is difficult to realise that in the whole State, con- 
 taining, it is said, some million and three-quarters of inhabi- 
 tants, there exist but three hotels. 
 
 Occasionally when I was feeling low I used to go down 
 and have a meal at my old quarters, and the thought that 
 it was no longer my fate to become mosquito-chop in 
 No. 9 never failed to throw a fresh luminance of relief over 
 my sojourn in the capital of the Black Republic. 
 
 So for some weeks I sojourned in Port-au-Prince and by 
 degrees acquired a knowledge of the Black Man's capital. 
 
 Within an arc of hazy blue mountains, threaded with 
 clouds of a hundred delicate shades, Port-au-Prince lies upon 
 its beaches like the white skeleton of a stranded whale, of 
 which the rib-bones are the houses. The grass, that seems to 
 grow between them, heads up into palm trees as you draw 
 
28 WHERE BLACK RULES WHFrE. 
 
 nearer. Viewed from afar you would call it one of the 
 most beautiful spots on God's earth. But go down into 
 the squalid streets, and you find the town is a fester, a 
 scar made by man, as it were of malice prepense, upon 
 the natural loveliness of his environment. 
 
 It was good on quiet evenings and on certain cloudy 
 dawns to ride away from this city of gutters and garbage, 
 out of earshot of the multiloquous negro voices, and look 
 down on the blue horse-shoe of the bay, where the island 
 of Gonave floats in shadow, and to watch the soft southern 
 greys and purples thrown on mountain, shore, and sea. 
 
 At first sight Port-au-Prince looks fair enough to be worth 
 travelling 5,000 miles to see; once enter it, and your next 
 impulse is to travel 5,000 miles to get away again. Passing 
 through the streets, the life around seems a strange graft 
 of Parisianism and savagery. Here is an idolatry of fashion, 
 an insistent militarism, and an exuberance of speech all 
 verging on the grotesque — a distended caricature of the 
 orginal. 
 
 Here the white man, as opposed to the black, has no 
 rights worthy of the name. Moreover, the town is under 
 martial law. This condition of things is permanent, although 
 the country has been for several years past at rest from 
 internal dissensions. After nine you are challenged in the 
 streets, and at no time of the day or night are you out of 
 sight of a soldier. 
 
THE HIGH ROAD OF HAYTI. 31 
 
 The chief boulevard is the Rue des Miracles, a broad 
 street some three-quarters of a mile in length. Trees over- 
 hang the roadway, a wheezy steam-tram makes half-hourly 
 journeys up and down from the quays to the Champ de 
 Mars. There are no footways ; road-mending appears to 
 be a lost art, and the whole surface is as rough as the 
 bed of a torrent. 
 
 At intervals of from 50 to 100 yards you find a post of 
 soldiers. They live in ramshackle guardrooms made of 
 wood turned rust-colour from lack of care and the corro- 
 sion of torrential rains, a longish hovel with the inevitable 
 piazza raised some two feet above the street. Below flows 
 an open drain. The heavy faces of the men are blotched 
 with sleep. Some play dice on the bench by the wall, 
 some lounge in hammocks slung from the trees over the 
 sluggish sewer ; two or three fires of boughs serve to cook 
 their slender meals, which are not provided by the State. 
 A collection of guns leans against the trees at various angles. 
 The whole is more like a mid-forest bivouac of a few ragged 
 blacks than a scene in the main thoroughfare of a capital. 
 
 The city has no architectural pretensions. The houses 
 are mostly built of wood, and fires are of frequent occurrence, 
 though it is now some time since they had a serious one. 
 The finest buildings are the Cathedral, which stands at the 
 head of the boulevard, and the white palace of the President. 
 When I passed the latter the President was sitting on the 
 
32 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 balcony, playing draughts. He is a full-blooded negro, with 
 a heavy face and huge negro mouth set between a grey 
 beard and grey hair brushed up from his forehead. He 
 must weigh close upon eighteen stone. 
 
 He is a superlative specimen of his race, and the black 
 faction in Hayti have at least secured an admirably repre- 
 sentative figurehead. To make this clear, it must be ex- 
 plained that Hayti for the black, as differentiated from the 
 mulatto or coloured man, is the watchword of the great 
 majority in the Republic. 
 
 The palace stands on the fringe of the Champ de Mars, 
 where the reviews are held ; — an open space, on which 
 the scanty grass breaks into patches of dusty baldness, 
 and bloated bull-frogs hold nightly concerts in the intersect- 
 ing ditches. 
 
 Turning back to the city, one passes by the steps of the 
 Cathedral, which is open and tropical, the interior hung 
 with dark curtains and supplied with a profusion of pictures 
 and colour. The town possesses a peculiar picturesqueness 
 of its own, unlike anything one sees in any other quarter 
 of the globe. But you walk through its cobbled streets with 
 circumspection, for they are ankle-deep in refuse. 
 
 Even in the Place, which contains the Consulates and 
 the chief shops, there is a heap of corruption five or six 
 feet high and more than proportionately long. The waspish 
 cab of the country, known as a "'bus," has just about 
 
THE HIGH ROAD OF HAYTI. 33 
 
 room to pass between this gigantic rubbish-shoot — or, as 
 it might more truthfully be called, dunghill— and a black 
 drain that skirts the beams supporting the piazzas of the 
 houses. And this is the cleanest street in Port-au-Prince. 
 
 It is appalling to imagine what might happen were an 
 epidemic to break out here. The town has its foundations 
 literally set upon decay. I have seen more than one of 
 those unhealthy spots to which is attached the sobriquet 
 of "White Man's Grave," but none of them have the invi- 
 tation to disease written so plainly across their faces as 
 this city of Port-au-Prince. And yet disease in its largest 
 sense seldom visits it. 
 
 At the corner of the Ruedu-Peuple I came upon a white 
 man, clad in sea-going blue, moving cautiously with dis- 
 gusted nostril. 
 
 "Hello!" he said; "would you be so good as to point 
 out to me the shortest way to the quay?" 
 
 I indicated the direction, 
 
 " I say," he continued, overlooking me with interest, 
 "how long have you lived here.'" 
 
 " Four days," I said. 
 
 "I wish I had your constitution then! Pve been ashore 
 here an hour and three-quarters, and if I haven't a museum 
 of the most virulent microbes inside me it isn't the fault 
 of this town, that's all." And he passed on hurriedly. 
 
 It is about the filthiest place in the world ; shut in by 
 
 3 
 
34 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 mountains from the cool north winds, it stews on from 
 year to year in stagnant heat. No smallest effort is made 
 at sanitation ; the street-drains with all their contaminations 
 flow down and help to fill up the harbour. At times the 
 rain flushes them, and this effort of Nature seems to be 
 the sole force that tends to cleanliness. Under these circum- 
 stances you would expect Port-au-Prince to pay a heavy toll 
 to the lords of disease. Surely this must be the most 
 unhealthy spot in the world. But it is not so. Why? 
 There you have a question no one can answer. 
 
 Of course the ordinary malarial fevers are by no means 
 uncommon, but the absence of other and more serious 
 diseases leaves one to speculate to what height Port-au- 
 Prince might soar as a health resort if an enterprising and 
 wholesome Government did away with the present-day 
 horrors of the streets. 
 
 Among this accumulated dirt, black ladies, in all cases 
 well-dressed — many of them in the handiwork of Parisian 
 artists — pick their perilous way or drive past in buggies 
 atilt at impossible angles over the unevenness of the streets. 
 Wherever you go the policeman, with his four-foot, ironshod 
 club of cocomacaque, is a constant and conspicuous figure. 
 
 He demands a chapter to himself, but it is difficult to 
 forego mention of him here, as his zeal is so significant a 
 factor in the Haytian daily life. When he has fairly got 
 his man down, and knocked most of the life out of him 
 
THE HIGH ROAD OF HAYTI. 37 
 
 with his club, the picture he makes standing over the 
 bleeding figure in the road, with the ancient litter about 
 them, and the blazing sun over all, could scarcely find its 
 counterpart out of wild West Afi'ica. 
 
 Passing under an arch bearing the name of a late Presi- 
 dent, " Hippolyte —President, Progress — Union," I entered 
 the chief market, and it was market-day. The buyers and 
 sellers spread themselves like an open camp into the streets 
 around, the smell was appalling; and here, seated upon 
 the leavings of bygone markets, the citizens of the Republic 
 do a brisk trade. 
 
 The meat market is well supplied ; it is presided over 
 by burly butchers and gorged bluebottles. In the various 
 approaches you can trace unpleasantly the evolution of 
 flesh-foods, the raw material of your future meals. Pigs 
 and goats, with their legs tied together, raise their voices 
 in expostulation as they lie in the sun. One has wriggled 
 to a neighbouring drain, and is gulping the thick fluid. 
 Women, with piles of vegetables and fruit, boast one 
 against the other; over the vociferous babble rises the 
 lilt of a monotonous song. Fires smoulder here and 
 there, and the acrid blue smoke hangs between sun and 
 scene. 
 
 The whole is uni(|ue, Haytian; politeness is mingled with 
 brutality, raucousness with a strange grace of demeanour. 
 Picturesque, but eminently nasty, the spirit of neglect, one 
 
38 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 inevitable accompaniment of a black Government, broods 
 over all, till one sickens in the sunshine. 
 
 "We are polite always," said a man to me. He spoke 
 in vindication of various evils. But one cannot justify 
 one's destiny by raising one's hat to a stranger. 
 
 Port-au-Prince leaves you with three impressions more 
 vivid than the rest: the puny beasts of burden, each sur- 
 mounted by a negress ; the blue pervasive soldier, and the 
 black pervasive dirt. Through the human torrent old hooded 
 cabs are driven recklessly, and the open market is the 
 backwash of the stream. 
 
 Just outside the town, towards the triumphal arch of 
 Hippolyte, is a building with a roof of corrugated iron. 
 You go in. The rude painting of a snake, a few soiled 
 flags, a few prints from illustrated papers, are almost its 
 sole furniture and ornament. You would not think it, but 
 here you are in a Vaudoux temple, clinging upon the very 
 skirts of civilisation. The worship is carried on, if not 
 openly, at least unrestrainedly. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE HAYTIAN GENERAL. 
 
 Hayti is governed by Generals in all sizes. I wonder 
 how many of them there are in the country. I wondered 
 all the time I was there. I am still wondering. The General 
 is so ubiquitous that it leads you to doubt whether it may 
 not be possible that while to be a General is no compliment, 
 not to be one is in the nature of a slap in the face. 
 
 I have been given the rank myself; given it by many, 
 in the hot white street ; given it by the drivers of wheezy, 
 weedy fiacres, by goateed Haytian gentlemen —General, 
 General. You could not, I am sure, walk along any of 
 the main streets of Port-au-Prince without meeting ten 
 Generals. 
 
 One day I tried to attract the attention of a small black 
 boy who sometimes did odd jobs for me. His age I should 
 put at ten years. A companion of his who saw my need 
 
40 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 shouted across to attract his attention. What did he shout? 
 Why — " General." 
 
 I occupied myself for some time in looking up the numeri- 
 cal force of military Hayti. I could find no exact statistics 
 of later data than 1867, when there were 6,500 Generals 
 of Division, 7,000 regimental officers, and 6,500 privates. 
 At this computation the troops commanded by each General 
 of Division consisted of one private and one regimental 
 officer, and one-thirteenth of a regimental officer. 
 
 I made a great many inquiries as to the army of 
 the Republic, I tapped a hundred possible sources of 
 information, but found no one able to supply me with 
 hard, sure, and certain facts on the subject. Like Hadji 
 Baba of immortal memory, when he was sent to discover 
 the number of the enemy's guns, they were wont to make 
 answer in the same illusory fashion, "One^two — three — 
 five —six hundred." 
 
 At length in a fortunate hour I purchased of an ancient 
 man a book which purported to give a list of the regiments 
 and some other details. I took it to one of the officials, 
 who I supposed might be able to help me, and asked him 
 if it was correct. He loosely said it was. Anyway, it was 
 not hopelessly incorrect, and he added that if I secured 
 the exact statistics for the moment I should probably find 
 them considerably modified in six months. There is evi- 
 dently no stagnation of this particular kind in Hayti. 
 
..^^- 
 
THE HAYTIAN GENERAL. 43 
 
 As I have said, the country is governed by Generals. 
 The biggest of all is President Tiresias Augustin Simon 
 Sam. Directly under him are the Generals of Departments ; 
 below them are Generals of Arrondissements and of Com- 
 munes. Lower again are Generals of subdivisions, Generals 
 of Postes Militaires, and so it goes on. There is a General 
 of the prison, and a General of the women's prison. 
 
 The man who kept the hotel I stayed at was not a 
 General, but then he was not a Haytian. At last I found 
 myself asking whether the waiter did not, on his evenings 
 off, also flower into a lace-bound General. There have 
 been waiters very much Generals, and one who made 
 himself not only a General-President, but a General- 
 Emperor. 
 
 It is beautiful, this militarism, but it has made me decide 
 never to return to Hayti. Raptiste of the soda-water syphon, 
 who nightly waged war with the little boys under the 
 door-slats, might in the meantime have become a General, 
 and who can say in what spirit he might remember the 
 former exactions of the white man? 
 
 The General is prolific ; not that I mean that all his sons 
 are Generals "ipso facto," but from the forcing-ground of 
 each revolution springs a new crop of honours. What 
 could be cheaper for the exchequer or more gratifying to 
 the individual than the bestowal broadcast of the rank of 
 General 1 
 
44 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 They say, but this 1 do not guarantee, that a certain 
 President beat a man at a game of draughts, and in his 
 dehght immediately presented him with a General 's com- 
 mission. There is only one thing of which I am absolu- 
 tely certain, which is, that they will not make me a General 
 for writing all this about them. 
 
 Lesser titles are very small potatoes indeed — " Aut General 
 aut nuUus." But when you look a little more closely, while 
 still criticising in the friendliest spirit, you cannot help 
 wondering if this elevation in the bulk to high military 
 rank is not due to the same spirit as that which impels 
 the savage to clothe himself in the rather quaint combina- 
 tion of a tall hat and a girdle of hearse feathers. 
 
 The same tendency towards display led in the year 1849 
 to the creation of a black nobility. At that time Soulouque 
 was Emperor, calling himself Faustin the First, and he 
 showered titles with a lavish hand among his supporters. 
 Black dukes and barons strutted it through the Court. 
 The Emperor gave the titles, but left it to the favoured 
 ones to choose their own designations, which they appa- 
 rently did more according to sound than to knowledge. 
 
 Of the four Princes one was Bobo, and it is almost 
 tragic to learn that among the fifty-nine dukes were their 
 Graces of Marmalade and Lemonade! But Mr. James 
 Anthony Fronde's allusion to dukes and marquises driving 
 over the white man in the streets of Port-au-Prince as late 
 
THE HAYTIAN GENERAL. 45 
 
 as 1887 is surely something of an anachronism, Hke certain 
 other of the same gentleman's statements. 
 
 To-day their places are taken by Generals. The Haytian 
 is tender upon the subject of their multiplicity. If you ask 
 him questions concerning the swollen list he grows restless 
 and prefers another topic. In Hayti they are always con- 
 jugating a compound verb. They begin young — in the 
 future tense: "I will be a General." Everyone hankers 
 to be a General. It is the hall-mark of success. He to 
 whom success comes vaunts himself, " I am a General 
 of the Republic" ; and the conjugation has rather often 
 been known to end abruptly in the past tense: "He 
 was a General." The man who lives to say the last of 
 himself says it from overseas, coupled with bitter reflec- 
 tions upon his native land. 
 
 An urban General is in most cases but a name, whereas 
 his congener of the country is usually a living power. 
 You find in the villages that the General of place and 
 commune has a distinct position. He lives in a house a 
 little larger and a little better than those of his neighbours 
 — I had almost said subjects — with an extra outbuilding in 
 his stockade, a better horse, and, perhaps, an extra wife or 
 two. Under his fierce rule the commune bows to the rigour 
 of the law; the peasantry cannot be said to prosper, but 
 at least they are inoffensive and polite. 
 
 The reason is not far to seek. The black man can no 
 
46 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 more govern his black brother successfully without tyranny 
 than you can reach a blind man's sense without touch or 
 speech. No appeal is made to his reason ; he is coerced 
 by solid fear. 
 
 Hear him pray, and you will understand him better. He 
 does not supplicate his God ; he demands of his God ; he 
 essays to bargain. That is because his deity is far away 
 out of sight; therefore, in relation to that unfelt power he 
 begins to esteem himself and his desires, and to be puffed 
 up out of all due proportion. Whereas the grip of his 
 General's iron hand is unmistakably evident over all the 
 hours of his daily life. 
 
 When I was at Thomazeau, the last Haytian town before 
 one reaches the Dominican frontier, an incident very typical 
 of the Spartan sway of these local pashas had occurred. 
 A man stole a cow. He was caught and shot dead the 
 next morning by orders of the General de la Place. The 
 result of this measure of summary justice was that you 
 might have left a handful of silver dollars — nay, more, your 
 open rum flask — in the village street, nor would any man 
 have dared to help himself to either. But these Generals, 
 with substantive power, are conspicuously in the minority. 
 
 Regarded from the point of view of possible leaders of 
 the Haytian army, it must be conceded that they have yet 
 to prove their significance and to win their spurs. Since 
 the war with San Domingo, in which no reputations were 
 
THE HAYTIAN GENERAL. 47 
 
 made, the Haytian Generals have not led the troops down 
 to ahen battle. They have contented themselves with being 
 up to the hilt in revolutions, and with sunning themselves 
 at dusty reviews. 
 
 If, however, the State ever calls them to its service, it 
 is unlikely that the troops will be left without a General. 
 Hayti calculates to throw at any moment 8,000 men into 
 the field, and of these only a smattering" would not be full 
 Generals. 
 
 It may be thought it is because of the emoluments that 
 the Haytian likes to become a General, but the State is 
 wiser than that ; out of the numbers who are entitled to 
 wear gold lace not one in ten ever sees the colour of State 
 money. Each subsists as he can, yet clings to the nominal 
 honour, although it brings many expenses in its train. A 
 story goes that the Haytian, while quite content to leave 
 his all of worldly wealth behind him, yet hopes to bear 
 with him his rank of General across the lonely frontier, 
 and still to cut a figure with it in another and a better 
 world. 
 
 But let us proceed to consider the Soldier. My first 
 speaking acquaintance with him occurred one night on the 
 Champ-de-Mars near the President's Palace. I repeated 
 the conversation with little variation on numerous occasions 
 afterwards. 
 
 '^ Blanc, I am a soldier, give me ten centimes." 
 
48 WHERE BLACK RULES WHFrE. 
 
 " You have your pay." 
 
 " My General has taken my pay. I am a poor man 
 and a soldier. Give me ten centimes." 
 
 "How long have you been a soldier?" 
 
 "Three years." 
 
 "When did you have your pay last.'^" 
 
 " Very long ago, and I am hungry. Give me ten centimes. 
 Merci, blancT 
 
 He stood before me, with his chinless, thick-lipped black 
 face under a blue cap banded with red. He wore dried 
 grass slippers, shabby tweed trousers, and a faded light-blue 
 coat. Over his shoulders by a rough hemp rope was slung 
 a flintlock gun, and he was hurrying towards beat of drum 
 to fall in for the evening parade. At half-past five p.m. the 
 bugle-calls come trickling through the crowded streets, drums 
 beat, and the army of Hayti arises from its benches and 
 its dice. The guard at the houses of Ministers and the 
 men at the police-stations gather together, shoulder arms, 
 and line up by fours to twenties. 
 
 Their officer stands in front of them with a drawn rusty 
 sword. The soldiers continue to be interested in their indi- 
 vidual concerns. One is chewing a banana, another is 
 wolfing sugar-cane, gnawing doglike at a piece two feet 
 long. They stand there, very much at ease, for about twenty 
 minutes, occasionally going through a slovenly series of 
 movements, then the General takes himself off, and the 
 
A GENERAL S EVENING RIDE. 
 
THE HAYTIAN GENERAL. 51 
 
 Haytian army once more disposes itself on its benches 
 and dozes if it is more than usually hungry. 
 
 Of course each regiment has a uniform of its own, but 
 the soldiery, save on review days — of which more anon — 
 put on the trousers the good God sends them and are 
 thankful. Of a score drawn up in line no two are dressed 
 alike; their workaday uniform is limited to the red-banded 
 kepi and rags. As to vv^eapons, a broken bristle of bayo- 
 nets sticks up along the file, but all the men have rifles. 
 They are of different calibres and decades — almost, one 
 might say, of different centuries. In one group I found a 
 decrepit magazine, a flintlock, and a self respecting Remington. 
 
 The State does not undertake any commissariat obliga- 
 tions, and the private's pay trickles down to him through 
 more than one absorbent channel. Visible means of sub- 
 sistence he has practically none; he seeks food to eke out 
 existence much as a stray cat does in England. He purrs 
 pitifully and pessimistically about the ' blanc ' when he meets 
 him, and pounces upon the weaker units of his own colour 
 with a highly-developed instinct of plunder. When there 
 happens to be a lack of such happy chances and he is 
 more than usually hungry, he goes to sleep. So in the hot 
 town the Haytian soldiery drowses unstirred by dreams of 
 golden glory. Its attention is fully occupied in strenuous 
 effort to keep its stomach full. At the worst it does odd 
 jobs and carries coftee-sacks. 
 
52 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 Every third man you meet is a General ; only every 
 tenth General, as I have said before, gets paid, but every 
 General tries to pay himself. The pay of these personages 
 is nominally -^^140 per amum for a General of Division, 
 and ^^105 for a Brigadier! The sums grow less in ratio 
 to the rank: a Captain is given a competency of i^i2, 
 and the Private wallows in the wild prodigality of about 
 £2 I OS a year — and that not always forthcoming. 
 
 When you know how the Haytian soldier is paid, you 
 know how Hayti is governed. The principle is one and 
 indivisible. The paymaster takes toll of the 50 centimes 
 and passes it on to the fir.st General. The first General, 
 who is a very big General indeed, hands it on in slimmer 
 bulk to the second General. He in his turn transfers it, 
 further diminished, to his next in command. The Captain 
 lightens it lest it should be too heavy for the Lieutenant 
 to carry, and the Lieutenant, not liking to break the chain 
 takes his own discount ; thus the soldier who receives five 
 centimes is in luck ; he who gets ten is a favourite of the 
 gods. And when at last he has pocketed it, his Lieutenant 
 comes along and wins it off him at the universal game of dice. 
 
 This sounds very grotesque, but it is none the less sober 
 truth. Nor is it a matter of isolated instances; it happens 
 every week as regularly as pay-day comes, and will in all 
 probability go on happening every week as long as the 
 Black Republic endures. 
 
THE HAYTIAN GENERAL. 53 
 
 "Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, " 
 so we say, but Hayti, as her custom is, twists the order 
 round, for the smallest flea is the soldier, and upon him 
 feed a whole series of larger fleas. 
 
 There are more ways than one of extracting sustenance 
 out of him, as witness the following case which occurred 
 quite recently. A countrywoman brought into market the 
 best yield of her plantation. By sale and barter she accu- 
 mulated a good store of provisions, and, being feeble, hired 
 a sample of the ubiquitous soldier to carry her possessions 
 to her mules some half-a-mile away. The soldier walked 
 in front of her, and all went well until she met an acquain- 
 tance in the street and stopped to exchange gossip. The 
 old lady was interested, and the soldier, for once finding 
 himself able to nip a smaller flea than himself, seized the 
 opportunity to decamp to his arrondissement with the loot. 
 
 On arrival he awoke his sleeping comrades, others left 
 off gambling for the moment at the rare prospect of food, 
 and the whole guard set to work to divide the spoil and 
 to put the butter, the pork, and the rum beyond the reach 
 of their original owner. But while they were engaged in 
 tearing open the second tin of butter, the Lieutenant of 
 the post hove in sight. Now when an officer sees a soldier 
 with a sufficiency of provisions he naturally jumps to the 
 conclusion that they must have been stolen ; therefore the 
 Lieutenant, having listened to two minutes of fluent lying. 
 
54 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 went off post-haste to acquaint the General next above 
 him with the condition of affairs. 
 
 This General was a prompt man. He lost no time in 
 committing the Lieutenant to prison for not having appro- 
 priated the food and brought it at once to him. Then he 
 got a horse, galloped down to the post, sent the guard off 
 to jail in bulk, and carried the whole plunder to his own 
 house. But, unluckily for that energetic individual, the 
 story got abroad, and a certain still more highly placed 
 black General despatched a message to say that the butter, 
 rum and pork would be just as safe under his care as any- 
 where else. Such hints from a superior in Hayti are, like 
 royal invitations, not to be refused. 
 
 The peasant woman returned home empty, the soldier 
 gained a few mouthfuls of food and prison, the Lieutenant 
 prison only ; the first General gained the sense of com- 
 placency consequent on possession for the space of an hour, 
 while the biggest flea of all pouched the booty that had 
 come up the long military ladder to enrich one of the 
 highest in the land. There can be no doubt if the old 
 lady ever applies for her own (which is unlikely) she will 
 also be put into prison for losing it. 
 
 There is no conscription, and the battalions are recruited, 
 not by any regular enforcement of law, but by a system 
 of press-gangs armed with the cocomacaque. A young 
 English subject, black, about eighteen years old, was im- 
 
THE HAYTIAN GENERAL. 55 
 
 pressed in this manner recently. He objected on the ground 
 of his nationah'ty, but the recruiting party cared not at 
 all for that, and, after beating him, flung him into jail. 
 He was of course released on the representations of his 
 Consul. 
 
 There is another evil which pervades the army, and that 
 is the influence of the Papaloi. At Vaudoux sacrifices 
 the soldier class is always well represented. This statement 
 is not upon hearsay evidence. I have seen a general in 
 uniform kill a cock in honour of the sacred snake under 
 the eyes of a large number of worshippers. If ever it 
 should come to pass that the Papaloi were to order one 
 thing and the authorities another, the average soldier would 
 be extremely likely to disregard the wishes of the Govern- 
 ment. He objects to a clubbing exceedingly, but he objects 
 even more strongly to brave the wrath and vengeance of 
 the unseen powers of darkness, whose representatives upon 
 earth he believes the Vaudoux priests to be. 
 
 It is this prevalence of the Vaudoux sect which aston- 
 ishes you. A priestess once boasted that if she beat the 
 sacred drum in the centre of the town of Port-au-Prince, 
 few even of the highest in the land would dare to disregard 
 the summons. And you must own that when the third 
 part of the spectators of the ceremonies is made up of 
 negroes wearing the kepi, it is not unlikely that the boast 
 of the priestess had good foundation as regards the army. 
 
56 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 The tendency of the soldiery towards these horrible and 
 grotesque superstitions is one of the safeguards of the 
 votaries from punishment. You may set a thief to catch 
 a thief if the first thief has any interest in so doing, but 
 is it not absurd to expect to stamp out snake-worship by 
 the agency of snake-worshippers, whom instinct inevitably 
 throws back upon the primal religions? 
 
 Nevertheless, although the Haytian becomes a soldier in 
 spite of himself, and is heavily handicapped by circum- 
 stances, he is astonishingly free of one serious fault. He 
 may be on occasion a bully and a thief, but he is not a 
 drunkard, although he could get cheaply and comfortably 
 drunk on tafia for two centimes. With steady handling 
 he could be turned out a first-class fighting man ; as he is, 
 however, he can hardly be deemed an eft"ective. Yet the 
 opinion in many Haytian circles is that it would be a bad 
 day for any European force when it came in the way of 
 the Republican troops. 
 
 "They would fight like heroes," said a General to me, 
 "these brave ones! If any attacking army landed in this 
 free Republic, they would without doubt instantly drive it 
 into the sea." 
 
 On the first Sunday of each month a review is held on 
 the Champ-de-Mars. On the particular Sunday when I had 
 the luck to be present, it was to be an even grander review 
 than usual, one of the events of the year. The earliest 
 
THE HAYTIAN GENERAL. 59 
 
 intimation of the great doings came from the National 
 Musical Company, whose martial strains drifted across in 
 the glow of the morning, and I turned out to see what 
 was going on. 
 
 The dusty Champ-de-Mars, with its fringe of white 
 houses, its meandering drains, and its extensive prospect 
 over calm waters, was just greeting the rising sun. The 
 dew was yet wet upon the grass, the air was growing 
 hotter with each moment. Beneath us the town was spread 
 out in a chess-board of white and green, and afar off a 
 few ships swung at anchor in the fjord-like bay. 
 
 Distant bugle calls tinkled like echoes from various points, 
 a couple of Generals met together under a tree, and soon 
 dark columns of soldiers began to crawl out from the town 
 below. As they drew nearer I saw that they were changed 
 from the men I knew. On week-days they lounge about 
 the streets in ragged unkemptness, but on review days 
 they blossom out into uniforms of gorgeous colours. Busy 
 black Generals caracoled ostentatiously upon their flanks 
 and in front of them, as they marched on to the field and 
 formed into a hollow square. The town was now stirring 
 like an ant-heap, and giving forth a broad stream of people 
 on foot and in carriages. 
 
 Every scene has its dominant note, that aspect which 
 first strikes the eye and afterwards lingers longest in the 
 memory. Here it was struck by the negro Generals. There 
 
6o WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 were three hundred of them at the least. Pink Generals, 
 green Generals, blue Generals, and Generals clad in the 
 paler Cambridge tint ; the plain was stiff with generals, 
 score upon score, important, imposing, each in a web of 
 gold lace, each mounted upon a small, long-tailed but 
 excellent horse, each riding well, though after the splay- 
 footed fashion of his race, each aware that the eyes of the 
 world were upon him, and each determined upon keeping 
 them fixed there. 
 
 They galloped hither and thither across the open square, 
 they ambled along the ranks, they impressed themselves 
 obtrusively upon the attention. To be a General it is not 
 necessary ever to have been a soldier or ofificer of lesser 
 rank, the title being bestowed for political purposes or, as 
 an article of the Haytian Constitution has it, " for eminent 
 services rendered to the State. " 
 
 The assembled troops numbered perhaps 2,000, and I 
 judged, from the diversity of equipment, that many of the 
 thirty-eight regiments of the Republic were represented 
 amongst them. There was a fine show of colour, although 
 there were also deficiencies in the matter of foot-gear and 
 rifles. Not a man of them all stood straight; they might 
 have been galvanised figures jerked into position by some 
 malignantly humorous intelligence. Yet you knew it was 
 a great occasion, for not one individual was eating sugar 
 cane, a height to which discipline rarely soars. 
 
THE HAYTIAN GENERAL. 6i 
 
 A bugle gave notice of developments. Generals smoothed 
 down projecting angles with their horses as, riding swiftly, 
 General St. Fort Colin, the Minister of War, curveted out 
 into the golden sunshine. He galloped round, a word 
 here, a sign there, and even as he finished his tour of 
 inspection the music of the palace band heralded the 
 approach of His Excellency General Tiresias Augustin Simon 
 Sam, President of the Republic. 
 
 The palace band moved forward playing, and wonderfully 
 well they played, and looked v/ell, too, in red and blue 
 and gold, with crested caps. After them came the President 
 and his staff, sixty of them, Generals all. 
 
 They rode out into the Champ-de-Mars and cantered 
 round, saluted and saluting. General Sam was in uniform, 
 and his charger was caparisoned with a saddle-cloth of 
 crimson and gold. He rides well, and has a soldierly 
 bearing. He looked not only the head of the army, but 
 the most soldierlike man in it, as he drew up under the 
 shade of some trees and his staff wheeled into line behind him. 
 
 Then the march past began, led off by the National 
 
 Musical Company. First the infantry, men in red trousers 
 
 with black kits and red blankets, their band following ; 
 
 squads with blue jackets and red-tasseled caps, contingents 
 
 more or less numerous in various blends of pink and green, 
 
 blue and red, with touches of yellow in stripe or cord or 
 tassel. 
 
62 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 The artillery passed, a battery of five guns and a 
 Nordenfeldt, each drawn by a single mule. Occasionally 
 an aide-de-camp received an order and galloped away with 
 it. Three or four times a standard-bearer was manoeuvred 
 into place by a vociferous General. Once a woman with 
 a basket of linen on her head was hunted off the ground 
 by another General in light green. 
 
 Two regiments of cavalry belonging to the bodyguard 
 filed by, each perhaps 200 strong, the first in gleaming 
 brass helmets, the second chasseurs in blue. So it went on, 
 colour after colour. General after General. 
 
 Little can be said as to the deportment of the troops. 
 They marched in step to a certain degree, but the files 
 lolloped past in a loose-backed zigzag that would have 
 broken the heart of a drill sergeant. Yet, untrained and 
 unstiffened as it was, there could be no doubt but that the 
 right material was there, if it could be put into efficient 
 hands. 
 
 The populace was, however, pleased with the performance, 
 and greeted the appearance of the different regiments with 
 that singular Oho which is the Haytian exclamation of 
 approval ; with it he welcomes everything, from a lady who 
 is fortunate enough to please his critical e}'e, to a cab 
 accident in the street. 
 
 Few of the regiments exhibited their nominal strength 
 of 250. This is no new failing. For many a day after 
 
THE HAYTIAN GENERAL. 63 
 
 the last war they were engaged in against San Domingo, 
 the President of the period was wont to say to any stranger 
 who remarked upon these depleted battalions: "Ahl they 
 suffered much in the last war!" in a tone which gave the 
 hearer to understand that he was looking upon the survivors 
 of a later Balaclava, fought out desperately among the 
 wooded tropic hills. 
 
 But tradition has it that the only people those heroes 
 shot in any number were their own officers, at the orders 
 of the then Emperor Soulouque, who, to excuse himself 
 when vanquished by the Dominicans, accused his staff in 
 bulk of having betrayed him, the army, and their country. 
 
 Hayti supposes herself to have modelled her army upon 
 that of France, only in this, as in all other things she is a 
 caricature rather than a copy of the original. She overdoes 
 all her effects; she is like the iwuveati ricJic who bought 
 an old oak balustrade and had it overlaid with gold-leaf. 
 
 At length the last General of all the Generals had saluted, 
 and the columns filed away into smallness down the road ; 
 the President and his staff trotted back to the palace near 
 by ; the grand review was over ; and I was left to reflect 
 upon the fact that Hayti is the most unconditionally military 
 State in the world, and that she makes no account of 
 anything beneath the rank of General. 
 
 The Haytian, in spite of his huge pretensions, is, however, 
 not naturally a soldier. Drill and discipline and the art of 
 
64 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 war are mere empty sounds to his ear. From his point of 
 view they are entirely beside the question. What he cares 
 for is to play at being a soldier ; he loves the accoutrement, 
 the uniforms, the gold lace — especially the gold lace. He 
 has a passion for military titles, military bombast, military 
 display. Even on his postage stamp a cannon sprawls 
 menacingly in front of his crossed flags ; but there it ends. 
 
 He brags perpetually of his patriotic determination to 
 defend the last inch of his native land from the usurpation 
 of the alien, yet he allows his neighbour, San Domingo, 
 to push the frontier between the States farther and farther 
 to the westward without offering the smallest elTective ob- 
 jection. 
 
 The following is an attempt to reproduce a conversation 
 between an Englishman and a trio of generals after the 
 review. 
 
 Scene. The piazza of a palm-thatched hut in the hot 
 tropic evening. The open space in front represents the 
 village street. It breaks up at once beyond the huts into 
 a straggling, loose-edged bridle path, which glints in the 
 oblique light of the rising moon until it disappears into 
 the forest. 
 
 Dark figures move to and fro in the half-dusk outside, 
 and crowing cocks, the sound of horses making a meal ofT 
 guinea-grass, the patter of donkeys, disturb the silence of 
 the night. Three consequential Haytians in blue, green, 
 
THE HAYTIAN GENERAL. 67 
 
 and pink, thickly netted over with gold lace, are seated 
 smoking. Also an Englishman. Mosquitoes, dust, sand- 
 flies, and a smell of coffee mixed with rank tobacco smoke 
 temper the sweetness of the air. 
 
 Haytian (in blue uniform): "General." 
 
 The other two: "Qui, mon General." 
 
 Blue General (stretching): "I am tired. But the review 
 of to-day — what a great spectacle!" 
 
 Pink General: " Oho 1 Assuredly, a great spectacle!" 
 
 Green General; "Without question the most magnificent 
 spectacle that one can see." 
 
 Englishman: "I was much interested." 
 
 Blue G : "Our army is composed of brave men. The 
 troops are the finest in the world! Do you not think so, 
 monsieur?" 
 
 E, (choosing his words): "I have seen none like it." 
 
 Pink G. (who is fat, with streaks of yellow on the bulg- 
 ing whites of his eyes): "The tenue, the discipline of the 
 men was admirable!" 
 
 Green G. : " The army of Hayti is one which reflects 
 credit upon its officers. An army without officers — what is it? " 
 
 Blue G. : "Nothing, absolutely nothing!" 
 
 Pink G. : "The army of Hayti has never been conquered! 
 The French were here : we drove them out ! The English 
 fought with us; where are they? But we — we — we are 
 here always! We have never been conquered!" 
 
68 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 Blue G. : " It would be impossible. We could not sur- 
 vive it." 
 
 Chorus : " It is true, my General, for in that case we 
 should be dead ! " 
 
 Blue G. : "But the Boers will conquer the English." 
 
 Pink and Green G's. (together) : " Yes, yes, Ladysmith 
 has fallen. The Boers have captured the town." 
 
 E. : "Indeed? When?" 
 
 Blue G. : "To-day or to-morrow — it goes without saying." 
 
 E. (with relief): "Quite so." 
 
 Blue General (puffing out his chest): "The Boers and 
 we Haytians are brothers. We also have fought for the 
 independence of our country. They are a bad people, 
 these FLnglish." 
 
 Pink G. (looking at the E.) : "The blaiic is perhaps an 
 Englishman." 
 
 Green G. : "The blanc is an American." 
 
 Blue G. : " Yes, yes, an American. I have always 
 said so." 
 
 E. : "Pardon, Generals, English." 
 
 Blue G. (with assurance): "Yes, yes, English, have I not 
 said so?" 
 
 E. : "I am sorry to find, General, that ) ou are on the 
 side of the Boers." 
 
 Blue G. (shaking his fat black cheeks in vehement de- 
 clamation) : "What would you, monsieur? They are our 
 
THE HAYTIAN GENERAL. 69 
 
 brothers, these Bo-o-ers ! If I were fighting for them! — 
 But, no, I am here. The white English, they would crush 
 the Bo-o-ers ! " 
 
 Chorus: "But they cannot! Vive les brave Bo-o-ers!" 
 
 E : "The l^oers are white also, messieurs." 
 
 Blue G. (not to be taken in) : " No, no, they are not 
 white." 
 
 E. : "I assure you — " 
 
 Blue G. : "The lioers live in Africa. All who live in 
 Africa, excepting the English, are black men." (The 
 General who made this astounding statement was an ex- 
 Minister of War.) 
 
 Chorus : "'It is true." 
 
 K. : " On the contrary, if you will pardon my presump- 
 tion in mentioning the fact, the Boers are, undoubtedl}', 
 white. They came from L^urope in the first place, and 
 took the land from the Africans. Now the English are 
 taking the land from the J^oers." 
 
 Blue General : " The English are brave men. I say so 1 
 They are the bravest men in the world. The Haytians 
 conquered them. My regiment — " (At this moment a 
 bugle call resounds in the village street, a commotion is 
 to be observed in the military arrondissement opposite. 
 A short score of ragged negroes in light- blue coats, and 
 trousers the worse for wear, tumble lazily out and form up in 
 irregular line before a short, goateed black with a little sword.) 
 
70 
 
 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 Pink G. : " Monsieur, see, the soldiers of the Repubhc." 
 
 E. : " How many men such as these could his Excellency 
 the President put into the field at a week's notice?" 
 
 Pink G. : " Twenty-five thousand 1 " 
 
 E. : "An army indeed! How many troops were present 
 today at the review on the Champ de Mars?" 
 
 Blue G. (not to be behindhand): "Ten thousand." (At 
 the outside there were hardly i,8oo.) 
 
 Pink G. : "I was there." 
 
 E. : "I observed you there. General. Your horse — " 
 
 Pink G. : ■' My horse r Oho 1 that is a horse 1 He can 
 go a hundred miles a day." 
 
 Blue G. (cutting in) : " President Sam is the father of 
 the army. He is undertaking reforms which will make our 
 army the equal of the first armies in Europe. Such men 
 as ours — as you saw to-day, monsieur — can do anything. 
 When all is ready we will drive the Dominicans into the 
 sea, and the whole island shall be ours!" 
 
 Chorus: "Vive la Republique." 
 
 Blue G. : " When all is ready we will send officers to 
 Europe to show the French, the Germans, and the English 
 what an ofificer can attain to." 
 
 Pink G. : "I will then go to Europe." 
 
 Blue G. (with excitement): " Oho 1 It is I who will go! 
 I have already been chosen. I am of the cavalry." 
 
 E. (hurriedly in the uproar) : " During the last revolution — " 
 
THE HAYTIAN GENERAL. 71 
 
 Pink G. (asserting himself): " If a revolution were to break 
 out I would proceed at once to the place and put a stop 
 to it." 
 
 Blue G. (with quivering cheeks) : " I also am not afraid 
 of a revolution." 
 
 All (clapping their hands to their swords): "Who is 
 afraid?" 
 
 ;^5SS^S^ifc^^JR« 
 
 ABOUT TO 1!E REVIEWED. 
 
 Blue G. : "Fear? I do not know what it isl" 
 
 Pink G. : "I have never been afraid. And you, monsieur ? " 
 
 E. : "I have been afraid very often." 
 
 Green G.: "If you feel afraid, talk! It will do you good." 
 
 E. : "Having seen the Grand Review to-day, I should like 
 
 to hear more about the Haytian forces. Will you be good 
 
 enough to tell me something- of interest?" 
 
72 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 Pink G. (after a moment's deep thought): "I am General 
 of Division." 
 
 E. (who has heard it rumoured that Generals outnumber 
 privates in the Haytian army, wishes to set the question 
 at rest): "How many men are in your command?" 
 
 Pink G. (shrugging his shoulders complacently) : "I do 
 not know. But what matters it? Two or three thousand, 
 at the least." 
 
 E., opening up a fresh subject, speaks of Hayti as a nation. 
 
 Blue G. (aggressively): "France a republic, Hayti a 
 republic, and America a republic"— (triumphantly shaking 
 three fingers in E.'s face) — "three republics 1 " 
 
 E.: "You have been to Paris?" 
 
 Blue G. : "I will go next month. I will see the Expo- 
 sition. I will review the troops." 
 
 (The Pink and Green Generals join in. To deepen the 
 impression already made upon the P^nglishman they also, 
 it seems, are going to Paris probably next month, and all 
 three launch into a chaos of conversation.) 
 
 Blue G. (surviving the chorus) : " Return here in two years' 
 time, my friend. You will see changes. Railways will 
 intersect the land. The army, already numerous, will be 
 enormous. And I shall be again a Minister!" 
 
 As this seems to place a cap upon the future, the En- 
 glishman disengages himself from his companions and goes 
 out into the stockade, where, beneath a tamarind tree, he 
 
^I'HK HAYTIAN GENKRAL. 73 
 
 finds his horse making frantic efforts to fight the puissant 
 steed of the Pink General. He on-saddles and rides round 
 by way of the piazza. The Pink General has fallen asleep 
 open-mouthed, the voice of the Blue General rumbles on 
 in continuous argument. He and the Green General are 
 taking a friendly " Rhum " together. They call out their 
 adieux as the h'nglishman passes, then a bend of the track 
 shuts them out from his life for ever. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 . VAUDOUX WORSHIP AND SACRIFICE. 
 
 Although much of the information incorporated in the 
 following chapter was only gradually gained during the 
 whole period of my stay in Hayti, I am giving it an early 
 place in this volume, because some slight knowledge of 
 what Vaudoux really is and its influence upon its votaries 
 is indispensable to the understanding of the condition and 
 character of the inhabitants of the Republic. 
 
 For Vaudoux is so inextricably woven in with every side 
 of the Haytian's life, his politics, his religion, his outlook 
 upon the world, his social and family relations, his pre- 
 judices and peculiarities that he cannot be judged apart 
 from it. 
 
 The underpart of Black life is full of strange beliefs. In 
 Hayti the nominal religion is Roman Catholicism, but it is 
 no more than a thin veneer ; beneath you find, not traces 
 
VAUDOUX WORSHIP AND SACRIFICE. 75 
 
 merely, but a solid groundwork of West African super- 
 stition, serpent-worship, and child-sacrifice. 
 
 This last assertion may seem almost incredible, made in 
 connection with a nation, not only living in the midst of 
 other civilised communities, but which was itself started a 
 century ago on the double lines of European laws and a 
 Christian creed. Nevertheless, all those who know anything 
 of Hayti by personal experience and residence there, know 
 too that the fact has been amply proved over and over again. 
 
 Little is known of the Black Republic outside of her own 
 shores, and even at home her policy is a policy of keeping 
 dark everything humiliating to her pretensions. The natio- 
 nal method is not to suppress these infamous crimes, but 
 simply to deny their existence. 
 
 The evil of Vaudoux worship is widespread. The Govern- 
 ment has, at all times, been too unstable to care to take 
 the risk of seriously opposing so powerful a combination. 
 The sect is universally feared, hence they carry on their 
 rites and their orgies with practical impunity. 
 
 At the root of this outgrowth of superstition are the 
 Papalois and Mamalois, the priests and priestesses, who 
 minister to the naturally credulous mind of the negro. 
 Papaloi, Mamaloi, are corruptions of "Papa le roi " and 
 " Mama le roi," the titles themselves showing the estimation 
 in which these people are held. They dwell chiefly in the 
 mountains. A famous priest lives on the road (save the 
 
76 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 mark!) between Port-au-Prince and Jacmel ; another towards 
 P\ircy ; but the old iniquity who is more especially in my 
 mind's eye sojourns in the sierras not so far from the 
 capital itself. 
 
 Vaudoux, according to its more elect disciples, is an 
 all-powerful deity, but the idea of the masses does not rise 
 above the serpent, which represents to them their god and 
 which presides, in its box, over all their services. These 
 usually take place at night and in pseudo-secrecy. They 
 consist of dancing, sacrificing, feasting, invocations, and a 
 Delphic delirium on the part of the Mamaloi, winding up 
 with scenes of an indescribable nature. 
 
 There are said to be two sects of Vaudoux ; one which 
 sacrifices only fruits, white cocks, and white goats to the 
 serpent-god ; the other, that sinister cult above referred to, 
 whose lesser ceremonies call for the blood of a black goat, 
 but whose advanced orgies cannot be fully carried out 
 without the sacrifice of "the goat without horns" — the 
 human child. 
 
 White is supposed to be the sacred colour of the former, 
 red of the latter, but on one occasion I was lucky enough 
 to witness a Vaudoux function where the flags and hand- 
 kerchiefs were red and white, pointing to an intermingling 
 of the two forms ; the cocks sacrificed were both black 
 and white, again bearing evidence in the same direction. 
 
 Testimony as to the order of the ceremonies used in 
 
VAUDOUX WORSHIP AND SACRIFICE. 77 
 
 Vaudoux worship differs, but this is not be wondered at, 
 being the natural result of an unwritten ritual, practised 
 by an utterly ignorant people. Each writer on Hayti gives 
 the order at secondhand as described by native witnesses, 
 and probably all are equally right as regards the instance 
 referred to. 
 
 For my own satisfaction I noted down on my cuff the 
 sequence of the rites as they took place before me. Of 
 these I will give a detailed description later. 
 
 The serpent used by these fetish sectaries is generally 
 believed to be the Macajuel, a species allied to the harmless 
 boa. When riding in a remote country district, I met a 
 man with a snake of this kind that he had caught. I 
 offered him five dollars for it, which he refused. The 
 Haytian peasant is very poor, and five dollars is for 
 him not merely a windfall, but absolute wealth, and he 
 would hardly have declined it without strong reason for 
 doing so. 
 
 Sir Richard Burton speaks of the "small green snake of 
 the Haytian negroes, so well known by the abominable 
 orgies enacted before the Vaudoux King and Queen." 
 Today the green snake is extinct in the island. More than 
 that, no white man I met would allow it ever existed, and 
 I was almost beginning to think that Burton had for once 
 made a mistake, when a certain old native, whom I may 
 describe as up to the neck in Vaudoux, told me certain 
 
78 WHERE BLACK RULES WHrfE. 
 
 facts which modified my conckision. I was subsequently 
 shown a green snake preserved in spirits. 
 
 Whether the snake enclosed in its box on the Haytian 
 altars of to-day during a child-sacrifice is of that species 
 or a harmless boa it is impossible to say, as no white man 
 has ever been allowed to set eyes upon one. 
 
 Vaudoux, Juju, Obi, or some analogous superstition seems 
 to belong to the bottom stratum of black nature. Vaudoux 
 is a religion of old, old time. When William the Norman 
 came to England it was no doubt flourishing amongst the 
 African tribes of the West Coast. 
 
 With the captured slaves, whose descendants the Haytians 
 are, it was brought to this distant island, and here it is 
 rampant still. It raises an unshamed head in all quarters. 
 The last President was even said to be a votary. A large 
 place like a casino, just outside of Port-au-Prince, is devoted 
 to its observances. 
 
 But Southern Hayti is its strongest rallying-point, and 
 Jacmel the hot-bed of its power. All along the road be- 
 tween the town and Port-au-Prince I know it thrives exceed- 
 ingly. In the north, at Cap Haytien, on the contrary, 
 the traces of it are slighter. 
 
 Vaudoux is cannibalism in the second stage. In the first 
 instance a savage eats human flesh as an extreme form of 
 triumph over an enemy ; so the appetite grows until this 
 food is preferred to any other. The next stage follows 
 
VAUDOUX WORSHIP AND SACRIFICE. 79 
 
 naturally. The man, wishing to propitiate his god, offers 
 him that which he himself most prizes. Add to this sacrifice 
 the mysteries and traditions of the ages, and you have 
 the Vaudoux of to-day. 
 
 Cannibalism has been brought as a very general accusa- 
 tion against the Haytians, but although there is no doubt 
 that the child sacrificed in the worst Vaudoux rites is after- 
 wards dismembered, cooked, and eaten, I do not think that 
 of recent years the practice of cannibalism, unconnected 
 with sacrifice, is in any degree prevalent, although it is 
 equally certain that scattered instances do still come to 
 light. The Government have been known to make feeble 
 and spasmodic efforts to punish the culprits, but as a rule 
 this iniquity, as well as most others, is allowed to run its 
 course unchecked. 
 
 To quote a case or two of these judicial attempts at 
 punishment: — A woman and her daughter, convicted red- 
 handed at Jacmel of killing and eating a child, were mounted 
 on asses and beaten round the town by the police with 
 cocomacaque clubs. Afterwards they were released. Two 
 years ago, in the northern part of the island, a party of 
 men and women were imprisoned for a few days only for 
 the same crime, which they indulged in as a conclusion to 
 a Vaudoux sacrifice. But this crime is, I both believe and 
 hope, on the decrease and may in time die out. 
 
 Not the least prominent feature of Vaudoux is the drum 
 
8o WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 that calls the worshippers together. One which I saw and 
 examined was four feet high. Its frame was made of some 
 jointed wood like bamboo, in girth it was as large as a 
 man's trunk. The upper surface was of black goatskin, 
 thinned by the thrumming of many fingers, with hair still 
 adhering to the edges where it was pegged to the frame. 
 
 This instrument is so singularly constructed that although 
 at a distance of a mile or more it sounds loudly, near at 
 hand its throbbing note is indistinct and low. 
 
 Where the negro picked up this secret in acoustics it is 
 hard to imagine. But the peculiarity has an important 
 use. A sect with rites like the Vaudoux have naturally 
 strong reasons for desiring that none but the initiated 
 should be present at their gatherings : hence the low, 
 misleading sound that mutters about you when the drum 
 is played close at hand, whereas the initiated, who have 
 warning of a sacrifice, hear the call at really wonderful 
 distances, and at once proceed to the appointed spot. 
 
 The difificulty of following up the dull throb at close 
 quarters is extraordinary. On several occasions I have 
 tried to trace from the ear alone the unmistakable vibra- 
 tion, and have failed. There is some thrilling quality 
 in the muffled and mysterious beat which cannot 
 be described, but which stirs the pulse in spite of 
 •familiarity. 
 
 Hayti is the sole country with any pretence to civilisation 
 
VAUDOUX WORSHIP AND SACRIFICE. 8i 
 
 where a superstition contaminated by such active horrors 
 exists. It would seem that the perpetuation of a cult so 
 degrading must have its source deep in the character of 
 the race. Yet you find that these undoubted cannibals 
 can on occasion be both kind-hearted and hospitable. 
 Perhaps the root of all lies in their squalid ignorance. 
 
 Then whose is the fault? 
 
 The answer must be given unhesitatingly. It is the fault 
 of the Government. Instead of rare and futile demonstra- 
 tions directed against some outlying evildoer, they should 
 strike at the Papalois, who are the heart and mainspring 
 of Vaudouxism. Let them destroy the Papalois, and the 
 whole edifice of horror will crumble to pieces of natural 
 decay. 
 
 I made it a special point while in the island to learn as 
 much of the sect as possible, to get at the truth concerning 
 them by personal experience, and to glean actual facts at 
 firsthand. With this object in view, I more than once 
 gained intelligence of the time and place appointed for the 
 performance of Vaudoux ceremonies and sacrifices. I 
 wanted to see for myself the mysteries of snake-worship, 
 and by good luck I succeeded to a certain extent. 
 
 On the first of these occasions, I understood that I must 
 
 find my way to a low part of the town after night had 
 
 fallen. It was getting on towards midnight when the 
 
 mufifled reverberation of a drum beating a swift measure 
 
 6 
 
82 ■■ WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 came up out of the hot darkness ; no wind stirred, and 
 the candle-flame by the open window stood up straight and 
 unwavering. 
 
 I descended into the evil odours of the street. I had 
 heard it before, that droning drum music, with a scream 
 or two at intervals, which in Hayti often beats upon the 
 overladen pulses of the night. The town was under martial 
 law, but passing steps were stirring up the ineffable rubbish 
 under foot. At the corner, "Qui vive.^" from a soldier 
 in the gloom, but a small coin settled the matter and I 
 passed on. 
 
 At last the challenges died away behind me ; the carpet 
 of dirt and garbage seemed to have grown thicker below 
 the tread : the streets were unlit even in the best quar- 
 ters of the town, and therefore to keep clear of drains 
 and arbitrary pools of slime was almost an impossibility. 
 
 Under a roof a concertina was playing to a crowd who 
 oscillated and turned in dance measure, but the drum was 
 calling from somewhere in the dark twist of streets beyond. 
 Above shone the serene stars ; beneath them the negro 
 and negress followed out their scheme of life. Past booths 
 crowded with talkers, past the vending-places of rich, un- 
 wholesome sweetmeats and drink in coloured bottles, pausing 
 occasionally to catch the vibration of the drum, across an 
 open market-place frilled with an edging of empty sheds, 
 and at length I was at the spot described to me. 
 
VAUDOUX WORSHIP AND SACRIFICE. S3 
 
 There was a crowd round the house, peering through a 
 window at the doings inside. A big negro stood at the 
 door with a cocomacaque chib. There was some demur 
 as to admittance, then the door opened and a stream of 
 muffled drum-music and a monotonous hum of voices broke 
 out on the ear. A hand beckoned me, and I found my- 
 self within. The shutters were closed, and it was difficult 
 through the obscurity to make out one's surroundings, but 
 I felt the presence of a crowd. The song they were sing- 
 ing their forefathers sang two hundred years ago in the 
 riverland of Africa. 
 
 Suddenly a negro set light to a candle, and at once the 
 scene leapt out to meet the eye. The song ceased, but 
 all mouths still hung upon its final note. There must have 
 been upwards of two hundred people in two small rooms. 
 They were ranged round the walls, those in front sitting 
 on their haunches, leaving only a narrow passage open in 
 the middle of the earthen floor. The faces were glistening 
 with heat, and all eyes were turned towards the Mamaloi. 
 
 The silence was broken by an abrupt bark of the drum 
 and the chant began again, the sitting figures swaying their 
 shoulders to its roll. It was led by an enormous negress, 
 wrapped in a white and purple print, who held a living 
 cock in her spatulate black fingers— you could see the 
 shining of her uncut nails. She sat and swayed and sang 
 in what at last became an insistent drone of sound. It 
 
84 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 was like something heard through a delirium of fever, you 
 could not forget or escape it for an instant, and the drum 
 drove it through the brain with blows. It neither waxed 
 nor waned ; it was merely the same, and endless. 
 
 Meantime the Mamaloi danced, back and forth, forth and 
 back, between the knees of the worshippers. She was 
 about forty years of age, small-faced, snub-nosed, round- 
 eyed. She gazed past you with a rapt stare, a streak of 
 foam lay across her chin. For covering she wore a thin 
 white robe, tied with a red sash, and a string of gold 
 beads gleamed round her neck. There were two candles 
 alight now, set in pots and decked with the pink flowers 
 of the melon. Beneath them, on the floor, was spread the 
 feast; bottles of coloured intoxicants, Congo beans, ground 
 rice, and red melon. At intervals the Mamaloi stopped to 
 sprinkle water over them, and as she did so the song rose 
 a little higher; but would it never end, never end? I had 
 time to notice that the walls were ornamented with prints 
 from the French illustrated papers. Upon how many strange 
 scenes do those pictures look ! You find them everywhere 
 in Hayti ; in the drawing-rooms of the rich and in the huts 
 of the peasantry, and now in a place used for Vaudoux 
 rites. 
 
 The song rose suddenly in volume, a candle flickered 
 and burnt up. Still the Mamaloi danced between the rows 
 of knees with stealthy, menacing, tigerish steps. Her excite- 
 
VAUDOUX ^VORSHIP AND SACRIFICE. 85 
 
 ment was intensifying, her eyes seemed to grow larger, 
 but they never met yours. As she danced she cleared her 
 throat and spat with a noise like artillery coming into 
 action. The huge black woman in the centre droned on, 
 and to the drum-beat was added the chink of a key on 
 metal. The Mamaloi quickened in her sinuous dancing. 
 The heat was terrific ; humanity sweltered there. And over 
 all presided a portrait of the German Emperor, whose eye 
 I seemed to catch at this juncture. 
 
 The Papaloi, a small and filthy old man, crouched at 
 one side, as the Mamaloi caught the cock from the hands 
 of the big woman, and, holding it by the neck, flung it 
 over her head and shoulder. Her face was distorted with 
 frenzy ; round and round she twisted, accompanied by a 
 swifter measure of the same ciead song. She laid the cock 
 upon the heads of the worshippers and began to whirl more 
 and more rapidly to the hurrying, maddening drumming. 
 Suddenly she straightened her arm, spun the cock round 
 and round, its flapping wings beating impotently upon the 
 air. A snowstorm of feathers floated up as she stood with 
 rapt eyes and bared teeth, twirling; then she flung up her 
 hand, and the headless body flew over her shoulder. 
 
 Her excitement was horrible ; she pressed the bleeding 
 neck to her lips, and, when she slowly withdrew her hand, 
 stood for an instant fixed and immovable, her lips and 
 teeth stained red. Then she began to run up and down 
 
86 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 screaming; at last she staggered and fell, and, with the 
 torn neck of the sacrifice still in her hand, rolled in under 
 the feet of the worshippers, while the song boiled over her. 
 
 In the interval various fetishes were brought out of a box, 
 uncouth wooden images, stones and bones, old and over- 
 handled, which must have come over with the ancestors 
 of these people from their original home. 
 
 After this the rites, dancing, sacrifice, sprinkling of blood 
 and of some pungent fluid, which was certainly not perfume, 
 followed one another in changing order. Six cocks were 
 slain, all in like manner to the first, with like monotony 
 and brutishness. One of them, however, was the chief 
 sacrifice, and its blood was set apart in a basin by itself. 
 With this blood the Mamaloi went outside and sprinkled 
 the doors and gates, putting marks upon them. 
 
 Then she returned, and with the remainder sealed the 
 foreheads of those present with the sign of the Cross ! 
 
 This intermingling of the ancient Jewish and Christian 
 symbolisms with their own nauseous ceremonies springs, of 
 course, from their acquaintance with Roman Catholic teaching. 
 The ignorant are always ready to incorporate the worship 
 of any other god with their own : from their point of view 
 it can do no harm, and may do some good. 
 
 After a time the frenzy grew, and the dancing became 
 universal. The whole crowd were moving and swaying and 
 jostling together, chattering out the unvarying, monotonous 
 
VAUDOUX WORSHIP AND SACRIFICE. 87 
 
 measure. The chink of the old key quickened riotously, 
 the drum thrummed out under the falhng thumb-joints with 
 stimulating haste, the mental atmosphere fermented and 
 rose to high pressure. They swung and whirled, they 
 writhed and danced in an intoxication of excitement. 
 
 A woman was contorting herself and hissing in an ill- 
 lighted corner. Near the end of the room another with a 
 child at her breast was carried away by the seething hysteria 
 about her, and began to shuffle to and fro, with eyes 
 distended in a sort of sightless stare. There was hardly 
 room for all, and the drums beat faster. The child at the 
 breast began to stretch its arms and wail, but the mother 
 danced blindly on. 
 
 Still the tumult and the music grew. The atmosphere 
 was suffocating, but there was no symptom of tiring or 
 cessation. On and on and on, the scene with its savagery 
 and blood and senselessness sickened you. When at last 
 I got out into the clear starshine once more I felt I could 
 not have endured another five minutes of it. Yet what I 
 had witnessed was only the beginning of an orgie which 
 was to go on for a couple of da}'s longer. 
 
 The belief of a people is the skeleton on which its char- 
 acter is moulded. Here in Hayti they have this gigantic 
 cult, superstition, call it what you will, possessing unbounded 
 influence, and in active existence, as I have personally seen, 
 all over the island. The tremendous hold it has gained 
 
88 WHERE BLACK RULES WHLrE. 
 
 over the people is proved by the fact, well known and 
 amply verified on many an occasion, that a mother will, 
 under the orders of the Papaloi, give up her own offspring 
 to be sacrificed. When reproached with inhumanity, the 
 reply has more than once been given : " Who had a better 
 right to eat them than I who brought them forth?" 
 
 No picture of Hayti will remain longer in my memory 
 than the remembrance of a mean old man in grass slippers, 
 heel-less, showing a long half-foot of veiny black ankle under 
 the faded trouser, the upper half of him almost bare, the 
 whole topped by a vinegar-coloured face graven by time 
 and wickedness into exaggerated wrinklings. He had wide- 
 open, far-away eyes, and sparse grey hair scattered on chin 
 and lip and head. 
 
 He was a Papaloi, or Vaudoux priest, otherwise a Haytian 
 witch-doctor and medicine-man. His home was far away 
 up in the mountains, where he dwelt as a patriarch. He 
 owned four palm-thatched huts within an enclosure of raw 
 stakes, where, hidden away among the potato-green foliage 
 of the bush, tamarinds, bananas, and mangoes ripened. All 
 day long he sat in the shade, and his wives waited upon 
 him. There were four of them, and their ages ranged from 
 sixty to sixteen. He was said to have other wives else- 
 where, but, then, he could afford it, for he was a man of 
 substance, and his fame was great in the land. 
 
 In Hayti the Papaloi is a living force. He is at once a 
 
VAUDOUX WORSHIP AND SACRIFICE. 8q 
 
 high priest and a consulting physician. He will cure the 
 body, and, for a consideration, touch the hidden springs 
 of life. People are very much afraid of him. They travel 
 up on foot, on donkey-back and pony-back, according to 
 their stations in life, from the plains to consult him ; and, 
 for payment, he will use his hereditary knowledge on their 
 behalf. He can cure, and he can kill, and the two are 
 often curiously allied in his practice. 
 
 A man has a revenge to accomplish ; he seeks a Papaloi. 
 He is the victim of an unrequited affection, he seeks the 
 Papaloi. He is sick, he seeks the Papaloi. The Papaloi 
 is, in fact, the pivot on which moves much of Haytian life. 
 All these powers over mind and body he lays claim to, 
 and in the matter of love some of his cures are nasty 
 enough, but there is one thing he can assuredly do — he 
 can give you a revenge for twenty dollars that would satisfy 
 the vindictiveness of a Corsican and leave him a balance 
 of remorse. The Papaloi can take away your reason, with 
 or without pain, at will. His ancient subtleties of poisoning 
 are unapproached. Of course, he winds into his woof much 
 useless mystery and ceremony of time and place and circum- 
 stance. This is natural, as well as useful and politic, for 
 a mere dose would seem of poor value to a sickness-smitten 
 negro compared with a remedy to be swallowed when the 
 moon is at her full, with mystic rites and incantations and 
 the bones of the dead thrown in. 
 
90 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 Nor is the white man outside the powers of the Papaloi. 
 Consider the simplicity of being poisoned. You unwittingly 
 offend a negro and he takes away with him the sense of 
 deadly injury. You eat and drink three times a day, and 
 on one occasion or another he seizes his chance, and puts 
 the Papaloi's prescription into your food or drink. Then 
 sickness grips you, ghastly sickness, and you are far beyond 
 the aid of doctors of your own colour. Some poison, old 
 as the world, is at your vitals. You must infallibly seek 
 a Papaloi or die. Being the local practitioner, he may be 
 the very man who has poisoned you. For twenty dollars, 
 or perhaps for as many centimes, he has brought this evil 
 upon you, and he asks a liberal advance on the first sum 
 to cure you. It is a mere matter of antidote. No man 
 but shudders at the grasp of these grim powers, they are 
 so potent and so hopelessly irresistible. You pay the 
 Papaloi fifty dollars ; you would pay him a thousand as 
 readily for no more than the feeling of relief. 
 
 To his credit be it said, he usually keeps his side of the 
 contract ; though he occasionally uses delay to extort a 
 little more. The real wonder of it is that he does not 
 spread his poisons broadcast, but it would appear that he 
 uses his power not for play, but for pay, or to carry out 
 some personal resentment. Once an attempt of this kind was 
 made under my own close observation,— a little something 
 in a little water-and-rum, — but it came to no serious issue. 
 
VAUDOUX WORSHIP AND SACRIFICE. 91 
 
 During my travels in the interior I carried a water- 
 bottle of military pattern topped by a cup of black vulcanite, 
 which was padlocked securely over the neck. In this I 
 usually carried some Haytian rum and water. On one 
 occasion I left the bottle at a hut, where I had bought corn 
 for my horse, while I went down to the river to bathe. 
 On my return I started with my guide and a pair of vil- 
 lagers. After a time it occurred to me that a drink all 
 round would be acceptable. I offered it. To my surprise 
 it was somewhat furtively refused. My suspicions were 
 aroused, and I also went thirsty. I afterwards discovered 
 that some vegetable poison had been put into the bottle ; 
 the leathern strap padlocked over the cup had been stretch- 
 ed, the cup turned, and the poison inserted. I could 
 not imagine any reason for the attempt. It seemed quite 
 gratuitous. Not till long after did a possible solution flash 
 upon me. I had petted a little plump child at the hut, 
 which, I believe, is in certain cases considered unlucky. 
 Perhaps they thought I had the evil eye. Certainly, as 
 the Zulus say, my snake stood up beside me that day. I 
 do not care to think over the incident, for Haytian poisons 
 do not kill painlessly, and I was alone in the heart of the 
 mountainous interior, miles away from a white face. 
 
 In a word, secret poisoning pervades the scheme of 
 Haytian life exactly as it pervades that of West Africa. 
 
 There was an English engineer at Petit Goave — he has 
 
92 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 now left Hayti, so I am free to tell the story — who dis- 
 charged a workman for a serious fault, and shortly after 
 left the place for Port-au-Prince. Arrived in the capital, 
 his legs began to swell with all the symptoms of the well- 
 known African disease beri-beri. He consulted doctors, but 
 they could do nothing for him. Making a pretty accurate 
 guess at the true state of the case, he at length sent a 
 messenger to the Papaloi at Petit Goave. 
 
 The Papaloi demanded fifty dollars, and promised for 
 that sum to effect a certain cure. The Englishman agreed 
 to pay, and the Papaloi, with many incantations, prepared 
 a bath of leaves, a thick brown bath. Into this the sick 
 man was plunged, and after three days was well enough 
 to return to Petit Goave. But the beri-beri returned, and 
 he was obliged to consult the Papaloi once more, who said 
 that he had again been poisoned, and that for a second 
 payment of fifty dollars he would again cure him, at the 
 same time warning him that if he were poisoned a third 
 time he would probably die. The white man took the hint, 
 and, as soon as he was cured, left the country. 
 
 The Papaloi is descended straight from the African witch- 
 doctor. Seven generations ago he was a secret king among 
 the slaves of French Hayti ; further back still he lived in 
 a wattle hut by the Congo and made Juju. And he makes 
 it in Hayti to this day. Here and there in talk with him 
 you stumble across some older African superstition, some- 
 
VAUDOUX WORSHIP AND SACRIFICE. 93 
 
 thing from which you could, without other evidence, deduce 
 the origin of his race. 
 
 There is another operation to which the Papalois — or 
 more often the Mamalois — turn their power. They can 
 produce a sleep which is death's twin brother. For in- 
 stance, a child marked for the Vaudoux sacrifice is given 
 a certain drug, shivers and in some hours sinks into a 
 stillness beyond the stillness of sleep. It is buried in due 
 course, and later, by the orders of the Papalois, is dug up 
 and brought to consciousness; of what occurs then I have 
 written in another place. It is ghoulish and horrible, but 
 beyond all question human sacrifice is offered up to a con- 
 siderable extent in the Black Republic at the present time. 
 
 Everywhere in Hayti you find charms against evil, sold 
 by Papalois and Mamalois. They assume all shapes — 
 sticks, stones, rags, and bags of leaves. I remember see- 
 ing a 'bus, as they call the local cab, overturn in Port-au- 
 Prince. The first thing that the driver scrambled for was 
 a nameless bundle which had fallen from under the seat. 
 It was his charm against being upset 1 
 
 Putting Vaudoux upon their enemies is another variation 
 of the priests' accomplishments. A bundle of garbage is 
 placed at your door, and if you pass over it you are sure, 
 the negroes say, to fall ill. So far the thing is absurd, 
 but it becomes less so when the action of the rotten egg 
 on }'our doorstep is aided by a sprinkling of powdered 
 
94 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 glass in your rice. No priestcraft gains so firm a grip of 
 the savage mind as that which lends solid temporal aid to 
 the passions of its devotees. There is a deep desire in- 
 grained in the black to get a pinch on the man above 
 him ; to be given this obscurely and surely is sufficient to 
 rivet his adhesion to any faith. Few whites in the island 
 have altogether escaped the far-off touch of the Papaloi 
 directed against them for some inscrutable offence by those 
 who are most probably of their own household. 
 
 In considering the character and influence of the Papaloi, 
 one fact should be borne in mind ; that he is the sacrificial 
 priest when the most culpable and hideous of the Vaudoux 
 rites is practised. He is also the guiding and dominant 
 intelligence amongst the bulk of his countrymen, the result 
 of which must be a continuous falling back deeper and 
 deeper into the savage state. But as long as Hayti retains 
 an entirely negro Government, at least so long will the 
 shadow of the Papaloi loom large in the land, for Africa 
 transplanted is Africa still, and she is so conservative that 
 the passage of uncounted years finds her ever the same. 
 
 The Papaloi is the rain-maker, the witch-doctor of West 
 Africa under another name. He is a kind of fortunate 
 vagabond battening upon the ignorance and credulity of 
 this New World negro. He is dirtier than an Indian 
 fakir, without that excuse which emanates from the religion 
 of the fakir, to whose mind our precept assumes an 
 
VAUDOUX WORSHIP AND SACRIFICE. 95 
 
 inverted form — with him dirtiness is next to godhness. 
 But the Papaloi, on the other hand, has no religion in his 
 dirt; he is filthy, because to be clean is troublesome. And 
 the Papaloi possesses a treble share of the universal laziness 
 of the children of Ham. 
 
 Rut he is not a subject to jest at. His power is par- 
 amount throughout the length and breadth of the Republic ; 
 he rules with an iron hand, and with that jealous insidious 
 grasp on the whole inner life of his fellow-countrymen 
 which is everywhere the distinctive trait of priestcraft. 
 From the highest to the lowest all yield him obedience; 
 it is true the majority believe, but the minority, who do not 
 believe, at least tremble. The whole land is netted over 
 with fear, fear of vague and occult potencies that harass 
 and harm and hurt, and in case of revolt inevitably kill. 
 
 Remove the Papaloi and the murders and superstitious 
 observances would, to a large extent, die out, and the land 
 shake off the influence which keeps it so degraded. The 
 debasing consequences of kindred superstitions acting on 
 the negro mind is keenly recognised in other countries 
 where the black man does not rule himself. Among the 
 American negroes the rites of Voodoo, Voudoo, Vaudoo, 
 Vaudoux — you can spell it as you like — are carried on in 
 secrecy, and sedulously screened from light of day. 
 
 In Jamaica the punishment for the practice of Obeah is 
 imprisonment and whipping, the latter having a wholesomely 
 
96 WHERE BLACK RULES WHFrE. 
 
 deterrent effect. For, though Obeah is to its Haytian 
 variant as water is to wine, the danger of it lies in the 
 fact that if unchecked it would only too easily merge into 
 the enormities and crimes which distinguish true Vaudoux 
 worship. Obeah is a cult of charm-wearing, of love-potions, 
 of the laying on of curses by means more or less absurd, 
 such as the tying of a bunch of red rags to a branch near 
 your door, or hanging up a beer bottle filled with nasty 
 concoctions, all of which go to prove its kinship in a puny 
 degree with the hideous Haytian sect. 
 
 It must be remembered that it is the Papaloi who is the 
 instigator and upholder of the vilest forms of snake-worship, 
 and they can be carried on by him with practical impunity. 
 When some grosser case than usual forces itself upon the 
 public notice it is never the priest who suffers. The vic- 
 tim is always some obscure votary, never the arch-criminal, 
 who is too powerful for the Government to interfere with. 
 A couple of unknown women, or a group of poverty-stricken 
 peasants, will be maltreated or imprisoned, or even on 
 occasion shot, while the Papaloi is permitted to go scot-free. 
 
 If you are a black man, either you belong to the sect 
 and are under deadly compulsion to perform the behests 
 of the Papaloi, or else you are not of the sect, and, as its 
 supposed enemy, are exposed to equally deadly dangers. 
 It is thus very evident that in a land publicly christened 
 with the names of Liberty and Brotherhood no man is free. 
 
VAUDOUX WORSHIP AND SACRIFICE. 97 
 
 The mysterious weapon of poison — which can kill body, 
 or mind, or both, or merely cause long languishing and 
 pain — is one against which no man can at all times guard 
 himself. And this is the chief weapon the Papaloi, with 
 his pre-eminent knowledge of vegetable venoms, is apt to use. 
 
 To give yet another illustration. I knew a negro in the 
 Triburon peninsula who was not of the sect of the Vaudoux. 
 He was at one time a white man's servant; he stood be- 
 tween his master and harm, and he was not to be bribed. 
 Nor did he buy charms to wear round his neck or inside 
 his shirt. Hence it was prophesied tiiat he would not 
 remain long in the employment he then held. He never 
 knew where he drank it for certain, but drink it he did, — a 
 malignant drug. It had its effects swiftly. He rolled in 
 the gutters. He stared at the sun with vacant eyes — to 
 use his own expressive words: "My head was filled with 
 boiling blood." His master noticed his condition, and sent 
 him to a white doctor, who gave him civilised medicines, 
 which had no effect whatever. At last he was taken to a 
 Papaloi in the mountains, who gave him a compost of 
 drugs in an earthen jug. He ate of it, and was cured. 
 He had paid his tax to the powers of darkness and of the soil. 
 
 Even in the highest places the hand of the Papaloi 
 makes itself felt. Since it is a matter of public notoriety 
 that he can kill his enemy in a number of painful ways, 
 none dare offend him. He is a licensed criminal. 
 
 7 
 
98 WHERE BLACK RULES WHrfE. 
 
 Occasionally he will admit to the white man that he is 
 a bit of a fraud, but for the most part he keeps up appear- 
 ances. How much he believes in his own pretensions or 
 in Vaudoux as a religion it is impossible to guess. He 
 uses both to forward his own ends. He seldom has a 
 tendency towards discussion. His argument in favour of 
 the sacred snake is old as the hills. "You have an 
 enemy," he says, "who is not a snake-worshipper. I will 
 put Vaudoux upon him. If his god be stronger than mine, 
 he will save him." Afterwards poison is conveyed into the 
 victim's food, and when the man dies the Papaloi's disciples 
 agree that the serpent is a great god indeed. 
 
 The Papalois feed like leeches upon their negro 
 following. The country is honey-combed by that system 
 of terrorism. The profession is not necessarily hereditary, 
 although the son often follows in the footsteps of his father. 
 The knowledge of poisons, which is, after all, their stock-in- 
 trade, passes down through the generations, nor will they, 
 any more than the Indian jugglers, divulge any particle of 
 their secret lore. These priests are no doubt to a certain 
 extent hypnotists. They achieve the unexplainable. And, 
 of course, what is to us a trick is to the savage mind a 
 miracle. 
 
 In full dress a Papaloi makes at once a grotesque and 
 an alarming figure. His piecemeal vestments are red, the 
 sacred colour ; his aged face, bandaged about the brows 
 
VAUDOUX WORSHIP AND SACRIFICE. 99 
 
 with a red handkerchief, peers out malignantly. It is he 
 who in the course of the ceremonies initiates the hysteric 
 fervour and dehrium of the priestess and the worshipping 
 crowd ; it is he again who leads the orgies into frenzied 
 and horrible excesses which it is impossible to describe. 
 These orgies continue for three or four days at a time, 
 and their result must infallibly lead to the continuous 
 debasement of the national character. 
 
 There is no doubt also that the priests prompt the action 
 of the 'Toup-garous", the child-stealers, who are usually 
 women, generally old, pilot-fishes to the priestly sharks. 
 The Papaloi chooses the victim, but it is the " loup-garou " 
 who steals it or otherwise secures it. The drugged child 
 is borne away to some secure place, be it a hut in the 
 centre of a town or in some lonely forest clearing. The 
 little body bears all the appearance of death, and so it is 
 allowed to remain until the appointed time, when an antidote 
 to the sleeping drug is given, and the dazed child wakes 
 to become the central figure in a tragedy of sacrifice. 
 
 What are the three galls of this priest-ridden people? 
 
 First, there is superstition. Who keeps it alive? 
 
 Next, there are the impure and tragical rites. Who 
 instigates them ? 
 
 Lastly, there is the opposition to all enlightenment. Who 
 obscures the light? 
 
 In every case the answer is the same. The Papalois. 
 
loo WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 Their own manner of life, their traditions, their very 
 appearance, their budget of endeavours are all mean, self- 
 seeking, squalid. They have absolutely no good point, 
 no clean impulse ; no characteristic that you can even 
 distantly respect. 
 
 It is well to understand exactly the position these men 
 occupy in Hayti. In the unhealthy atmosphere which they 
 create evil becomes alive and flourishes. They encourage 
 the worst tendencies innate in negro nature as assiduously 
 as a gardener nourishes his forcing-beds. They permeate 
 Hayti with their influence. Until they are smitten down 
 the country can never flourish. 
 
 At present the greatest obstacle to an almost universal 
 terrorism is the sprinkling of white men dwelling in the 
 coast towns. The better Haytians are ashamed of Vaudoux, 
 but they are afraid of its revenge. The Government are 
 either unwilling or unable to cope with it. In West Africa 
 the first endeavour of the advancing white is to break the 
 rule of the witch-doctors, and they succeed in so far that 
 superstition moves slowly backwards into the heart of 
 Africa. But in Hayti, instead of meeting with relentless 
 opposition the Papaloi meets with tacit encouragement, or 
 at best a puerile interference, with results such as I have 
 even now only partially shown. As the case stands, were 
 one to subtract the very small white element, his authority 
 would increase fourfold. And it is in the mountainous 
 
VAUnOUX WORSHIP AND SACRIFICE. loi 
 
 interior, where no white man goes, that his autocracy 
 reaches its high water mark. 
 
 But it is absurd to pretend that the Papaloi possesses 
 supernatural powers, though I would not deny for a moment 
 that he has inherited certain knowledge which seems at 
 present to lie outside the white man's range. He is a 
 Borgia in poisons, and to fill in the rest of his hollow 
 pretensions he is an actor, a colossal quack, and a terrorist. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE HAYTIAN NAVY. 
 
 Most nations keep a navy to fight against their foes. 
 In this extraordinary country the navy couples that mission 
 with the high honour of being a potential factor towards 
 either internal peace or war. The case stands thus. Hayti 
 is a place somewhat given over to political strife ; a country 
 in which, as has been said of Mexico, " all things are pos- 
 sible, and most things come to pass," a country in which 
 an enterprising man can easily bring off a coup d'etat. 
 
 For the last eleven years there has been no bloody 
 revolution such as the past has so often seen, but there 
 have been two or three attempts to upset the Government, 
 and under Hippolyte a good deal of quiet shooting. Port- 
 au-Prince might quite conceivably go to sleep under one 
 Government, and wake up under another. But to-day the 
 capture of the Capital would only be equivalent to carrying 
 
THK HAYTIAN NAVY. 103 
 
 the entrenchments of a fort — the inner bastions would still 
 remain, and the navy answers to the bastions. 
 
 You may see it every day at anchor in the harbour, 
 four ships in a line. One presented a sufficiently ghastly 
 aspect, its tubby white sides being splashed and smeared 
 with red paint in a manner horribly suggestive of human 
 blood. This was the " Dessahnes ", and as she remained in 
 the same unsightly condition during the whole period of 
 my stay in Port-au-Prince I incline to believe that the Hay- 
 tian Navy had run out of paint. 
 
 But the show ship is the " Crete-a-Pierrot ", the third in 
 the line that runs across from the lighthouse to the Bizoton 
 side of the bay. She is a fat, white vessel with a yellow 
 funnel and gold scrollwork upon her bows and stern, and 
 over her floats the angry blue and red of the Black Re- 
 public. Away on the lighthouse side is the " Toussaint ", a 
 cargo steamer of chequered career ; once a fruit boat, next 
 a Haytian warship, now a sad example of the pilfering 
 habits of the personnel of the navy. In the words of the 
 bull-necked, slouch-hatted mate of an American sailing ship : 
 "They're a set of thieves. You wouldn't believe, but I've 
 had niggers off that ship come here with brasswork they've 
 scofted. Yes, and boiler-fittings — anything, any blooming 
 thing for which they thought they'd get a red cent. Why, 
 I know a captain in this trade who was offered fittings that 
 must have cost this chirruping black Government thousands 
 
I04 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 of dollars, for any bid he liked to make. Jes' you go 
 and see I" 
 
 And so it was. A few boys lived hugger-mugger 
 in the stripped, deserted hulk, the tides beat a tattoo 
 on her rotten skin, and she was full of rats and empty 
 noises. 
 
 Then, having seen the worst of the Haytian Navy, I 
 decided to go and see the best of it. Therefore upon a 
 certain December morning an ancient rowboat, propelled by 
 the united exertions of two small negroes, crawled slowly 
 out upon the lazy blue waters of Port-au-Prince Bay. 
 
 "■Blanc, which sheep you go for?" 
 
 *' There's an Englishman in command of one. Put me 
 on board of her." 
 
 The pink conch-shells, the sucking fish, and the lump 
 of white coral loaded down the old leaky boat. At some 
 risk of up-setting it was pulley-hauled out towards the 
 centre of the bay where the " Crete-a-Pierrot " lay blistering 
 under a scalding sun. She was designed at the request of 
 the Haytian Government in England. The plans in due 
 time were forwarded to Hayti, where one Minister took 
 upon himself to move the ward-room a few yards forward, 
 and another thought the engine-room might with great 
 profit to the Republic be shifted a {&\\ feet to starboard. 
 When they had had their will of them, the revised plans 
 were sent back to the designer, who, so the story goes, 
 
THE HAYTIAN NAVY. 105 
 
 said that either he or the Haytian Government must design 
 the ship. In the event they thought it well to leave it to 
 him. So the end of it was that the " Crete-a-Pierrot " was 
 finished, built in England, armed in France, and three 
 years ago was added to the Haytian Navy. 
 
 ''Blanc,'' said the small negro, "the Anglais is leaving 
 the sheep." And through the dancing heat-haze I saw a 
 white gig being manned ; a figure descended the gangway, 
 the squeak of rowlocks followed, and the boat slipped out 
 from the warship's shadow. 
 
 With a gasp and a gurgle my boat gathered more way. 
 I had not braved the sun and the unsavoury approaches 
 to the wharves for nothing, and another opportunity of 
 catching the English commander might not readily present 
 itself. The warship's gig came on with laborious strokes. 
 and when within hailing distance : 
 
 "May I go and take a look over your ship, sir?" 
 
 "Hey, what's that.' Got a pass from the admiral .f'" 
 
 "Afraid I haven't." 
 
 "They won't let you aboard without." 
 
 "Thanks, sorry to have troubled you." 
 
 There was a silence. Then Captain Gilmour drew out 
 his watch. 
 
 "I've a few minutes to spare. I'll come back and show 
 you over." 
 
 It took some moments to get my boat alongside the 
 
io6 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 gangway. Rarely has a foreign navy been visited in so 
 unimposing a craft. 
 
 Captain Gilmour, R. N. R., is a Scotsman who served 
 in the Ashanti business, and is now under contract with 
 the Haytian Government to command their best warship. 
 He is a sunburnt, kindly man, who takes a very real interest 
 in his work. 
 
 "You are heavily armed," I said, looking round. 
 
 "Why, yes. Gunner!" A grinning black stepped for- 
 ward and opened the breech of a big gun. It shone clean 
 and oily. "We are pretty heavily armed, as you say. 
 For'ard there we carry a sixteen centimetre gun. This is 
 a twelve, and there are four tens besides. Also we have 
 five Nordenfeldts, two five-barrelled, the others three. Those, 
 with two inch and a half Maxims, are all the ironmongery 
 we carry." 
 
 The guns were clean and in excellent order, and the 
 decks bore evidence of recent stoning, but Captain Gilmour 
 told me that had I come a week later things would have 
 been still more shipshape. 
 
 "She steams fifteen knots and carries a crew of one 
 hundred and seventy-five. My chief engineer is a white 
 man, and my first lieutenant a Barbadian, who was for- 
 merly in the merchant service. Yes, the admiral comes 
 aboard sometimes. Admiral Killick. A Haytian .' Yes. 
 He used to command a barque. I brought this ship out 
 
/ 
 
THE HAYTIAN NAVY. 109 
 
 from England, and my chief engineer came with me. I 
 am under contract with the Government here lor three 
 years more. Uo I like it.? Oh, yes. If you'll step this 
 way I'll show you the accommodation." 
 
 "Do you do much target practice."" I asked. 
 
 " Well, no, not with the big guns. But we do what 
 we can. We tie a rifle on them and shoot with it up to 
 1,000 or 1,500 yards. It teaches the men to work the 
 gun, you know, and is nearly as good as the real thing, 
 besides being less expensive." 
 
 "Have you taken her any long cruises?" I said as he 
 ushered me into the cabin, where a portrait of the president 
 looked down upon the scene. 
 
 " We don't go farther than Jacmel and the Cape. Named 
 after? After a battle when the I laytians drove the French 
 out of the island. Well, I don't think there's any more 
 to see. She'd have been more shipshape next week. I'll 
 give you a cast ashore in my boat if you care for it." 
 
 As we left the ship, and the six negro rowers settled 
 down into their slow, jerky stroke, I said : 
 
 " Do you think that if the occasion arose your men 
 would — er — rise to it?" 
 
 Captain Gilmour stroked his chin. 
 
 "I do," he said. " When there was that German trouble 
 here in December '97, they sent two warships, as you 
 know, to try and force an indemnity out of this country. 
 
no WHERE BLACK RULES AVHITE. 
 
 Well, we were cleared for action, the men lying down 
 behind their guns, and I have never in all my life seen 
 so grim a look of determination on any faces as I saw 
 then on theirs. Yes, I think they'd put up a very good 
 fight indeed." 
 
 "You get a fair class of men then?" 
 
 "We do. The pay's good, though they don't always 
 get it quite to time. The Government has embarrassments, 
 you know." 
 
 We were nearing the wharf, and each stroke of the oars 
 raised mud and smell. 
 
 "You don't losemenfromyellowfever or that sort of thing? " 
 
 " No, we hardly ever have a case of sickness. These 
 fellows are mostly immune, anyway." 
 
 Captain Gilmour gave an order in Creole. 
 
 "I don't speak it," he explained, "or French either. 
 But I can give my orders in both. Many of my men can 
 speak English. The authorities chose them with a view 
 to that when I first came out." . _ 
 
 The boat paddled along, looking among the rotten, black, 
 and jagged piles for a landing-place. 
 
 '• In that German business," said Captain Gilmour remi- 
 niscently, as the boathook caught, " we should have sunk 
 the ' Charlotte ' for certain. She was right under our guns. 
 Be careful of that plank. It's loose. No, you won't take 
 a cocktail? Well, good-bye." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ACROSS HAYTI. 
 
 I HAD lingered so long in the city that the prospect of 
 leaving its fetid streets behind me to breathe the purer air 
 beyond their influence was very welcome. On my way 
 to San Domingo I rode out of the capital towards the 
 Plain of Cul-de-Sac, which in the days of the French occu- 
 pation had contained many flourishing plantations, the soil 
 being rich and productive beyond the average even in 
 prolific Hayti. 
 
 "Yes, sir, you are right plumb in the centre of the 
 most fertile district in Hayti — in the world. Do you know 
 how much the revenue from this Plain of Cul-de-Sac totted 
 up to in the time of the P^rench colony a hundred years 
 back.? It was 20,000,000 francs, and what would you put 
 it at now.'" 
 
 I had overtaken the speaker. I looked round. We were 
 
112 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 riding up a steady but hardly perceptible incline, and were 
 in the heart of the plain. Ever since the first streak of 
 dawn I had been passing ruined walls matted with vege- 
 tation, a few irregular patches of corn, a few clumps of 
 Guinea grass about each solitary palm-thatched hut, yet 
 mangoes, bananas, and tamarinds bore witness to the soil's 
 unaided fruitfulness. As we went on the surroundings 
 grew more lonely. Save for the town of Pompadette no 
 village broke the desolate ranges of forest on either hand. 
 
 Here among wild and hardy trees some hint of the old- 
 time occupation of man might be traced in the existence 
 of gentler-bred shrubs, but the splendid country houses of 
 the French period had apparently been absorbed by the 
 jungle, which had closed in about them when man ceased 
 to dwell there. Mules, bred between the parrot and the 
 blackbird, chattered in the riotous foliage, and droves of 
 lean pigs eked out a precarious existence on the land that 
 the forest had reclaimed from the dominion of man. 
 
 "The present revenue? I have not an idea," I replied. 
 
 My questioner laughed. ''Not a red cent, sir! Each 
 year the forest comes forward, and no effort is made to 
 keep the ground clear, much less to cultivate it. There 
 is a proverb in this island which you may have heard — 
 'In Hayti there are only three classes who work; the 
 white man, the black woman, and the ass.' What would 
 it cost to lay a railroad along? Just nothing. And a rail 
 
STREET SCENE IN PETIT GOAVE. 
 
I 
 
ACROSS HAYTI. 115 
 
 would tap the plain and the lakes. Sir, if America owned 
 this country there would be a track here before midsum- 
 mer. As it is, the place is dead and getting deader. It 
 tires me to look at it." 
 
 The Plain of Cul-de-Sac is, roughly, twenty-seven miles 
 by twenty- four. Port-au-Prince lies at one end of it, and 
 there the ships of all nations offer a ready outlet to its 
 wealth. And yet, for all practical purposes, its wealth is 
 not. A few huts, primitive enough to cost the labour of 
 but half a day, lie scattered over its surface, but the occu- 
 piers are satisfied to subsist on the produce of the land as 
 Nature gives it into their hands. The very sugar-boiling 
 pans of a hundred years ago lie rusting where the dawn 
 of slave-emancipation found them, and in these evidences 
 of a bygone prosperity the lizard has its dwelling-place. 
 
 Yet the people are poor, sordidly poor. They eke out 
 a living, as the pigs do, upon the wild fruits they are too 
 lazy and too improvident to cultivate. They glean where- 
 with to exist from that which French energy bequeathed 
 to them. The wild descendants of the coffee shrubs planted 
 by the settlers still bear berries, which the negroes are 
 almost too idle to pick ; and if there is a rainy season of 
 unusual duration they pick them green. As for cleaning 
 or caring for the shrubs, such a thing is never thought of 
 save in isolated cases. 
 
 The negroes lounge away their lives in the sun, reckoning 
 
ii6 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 their age by the Presidents who come and go in the town 
 by the sea. Nature does all their thinking for them, pro- 
 vides them with necessaries, the sole article she fails to 
 supply them with being clothes, and they are rapidly coming 
 to think clothes a superfluity. All that savours of civilisa- 
 tion is a legacy of the white nations who sent their bat- 
 talions to win a colony which eventually slipped through 
 the fingers of them all. 
 
 England gave Hayti the road I was traversing. It has 
 degenerated into a bridlepath, but the great frame of it 
 can still be discerned, clear and straight, and eloquent of 
 the strong arm which cut it out from the virgin forest. 
 But a hundred years of utter neglect has ruined it. It is 
 perhaps sixty feet wide, in many places wider, but it is 
 so maimed and damaged that only a slender line beaten 
 down by the passing feet of asses is passable. 
 
 The interior of the huts by the wayside showed stark 
 and bare ; a cobbled floor was a sign of enterprise, but 
 for the most part the earth, hardened by the feet of the 
 inmates, did duty for the house-floor. Stars looked in 
 through many a palm thatch. For the rest, a mat to 
 sleep upon, gourds to hold water, a cooking pot, a couple 
 of game-cocks tethered in a corner, with a broken chair 
 or two, formed all their belongings, while flat-sided pigs 
 fought with hens and guinea-fowls for any chance refuse 
 of food. 
 
ACROSS HAYTI. 117 
 
 Once a week most of the adults and all the children, 
 make for the nearest market to barter Guinea-grass for 
 tafia, what they have for what they have not. 
 
 Passing through this dreamlike land you often heard 
 the noise of drums, or you came in sight of a single 
 individual dancing alone in a clearing. It was a happy 
 existence, no doubt, where the future was always left to 
 adju.st itself. 
 
 At length the mountain-bordered plain gave way to swamp, 
 high green tufts of Guinea-grass standing in pools of black 
 water. I crossed a river some half an hour before I came 
 in sight of the village of Thomazeau. It was merely an 
 African collection of huts lumped in clusters, each cluster 
 within its own stockade, with scant vestige of plant or tree 
 about them. The red-shot sunset had given way to a pale 
 green overhead and purple tropic dusk below. I was very 
 hungry as I rode through the open part of the village, 
 which was merely a space of bare earth. 
 
 On inquiry it turned out that the man in whose hut I 
 had intended to pass the night had left early that morning 
 for a neighbouring hamlet, and was not expected to return 
 till the next day. This was sad, but food seemed the first 
 and most urgent necessity ; the problem of finding a place 
 to sleep in could be faced later on. 
 
 Ambling slowly on, I asked a likely-looking woman where, 
 if anywhere, I might hope to get something to eat. She 
 
ii8 WHERE BLACK RULES WHLrE. 
 
 said she did not know, but, as an after-thought, suggested 
 that there was a cock-fight going on at the other end of 
 the village, and that le blanc might as well try there. 
 
 The cock-fight was taking place inside one of the usual 
 enclosures, under the shelter of a wall-less roof, which rose 
 above the scene on its corner posts like a four-stemmed 
 brown toadstool. It was a manifestly critical moment in 
 the cockpit, for three tiers of gesticulating negroes were 
 bending over it with craning necks, raving in their 
 excitement. My arrival was almost unnoticed, so I reined 
 up to wait until public interest had simmered down. 
 
 In two or three minutes a long-drawn exclamation arose 
 from the crowd, a white bird, splashed with ominous red, 
 was gathered up by an angry-looking negro, and you 
 could hear the victor crowing joyfully in the ring. Upon 
 this the women with the baskets of bottles containing red 
 and yellow drinks left the outskirts of the crowd to squat 
 beneath the palisade. 
 
 To one of these I addressed myself. Could I get a 
 fowl? No. A turkey.' No; nothing save pork. Rut I had 
 too intimate a knowledge of the habits of Haytian pork in 
 the pig stage to find the offer alluring, even though I had 
 been in the saddle since daylight. In the long run I 
 succeeded in securing "biscuits" of sour bread and a few 
 brown, seed-covered, gluey cakes, with which I went off 
 to seek for a lodging. As I passed up the street for the 
 
m 
 
 i 
 
ACROSS HAYTI. 121 
 
 second time, a Haytian with a grey beard and a well-cut 
 mouth came towards me. 
 
 ** Do you sleep to-night at Thomazeau?" he asked civilly, 
 and on my saying yes, he placed his house at my disposal. 
 
 This courteous old gentleman turned out to be the 
 magistrate of the village. The ancient virtue of hospitality 
 still flourishes in the rural districts ; it is a very marked 
 characteristic in Hayti, and is absolutely disinterested, for 
 the offer of payment mortally offends. My host took charge 
 of my horse, sent off a small boy to cut a bundle of grass, 
 to which I added corn, and then ushered me into his hut. 
 He introduced me to his wife, an old lady in blue print, 
 who brought me a cane-backed chair and busied herself 
 in laying out my purchases on a table cloth. 
 
 When I had finished my meal, my host led me across 
 the stockade to a hut where a mattress was spread on the 
 floor, and there, with the help of my flask and a cigar, we 
 passed the hour that is ended all over the island by the 
 bugle call. We had discussed the possibilities of tobacco- 
 culture, for he had brought me some native tobacco, and 
 talked of the birds that haunt the lakes and one or two 
 other subjects when the bugle sounded. 
 
 Just across the road was the local guard-house. In front 
 of it the soldiers jjaraded, seven of them, under the General 
 de la Place, or Governor, and finally disappeared into their 
 hut. My host bade me good-night. I blew out the oil 
 
122 WHERE BLACK RULES WHLrE. 
 
 lamp, but then the mosquitoes, and with them hordes of 
 sand-flies, came out to hold revel in the gloom. The last 
 thing I remembered was a firefly with its pale lamp of 
 intermittent green lighting up the dark roof. 
 
 In the morning, between night and dawn, I parted from 
 my friend the magistrate and rode to the limit of the plain 
 where the mountains began to swell upwards and a break- 
 neck track led away over the round backs of the lower 
 hills. They were green and heavily forested, and amongst 
 them bird-life became noticeably more abundant. 
 
 Dawn grew to day, and day to afternoon ; the road 
 commended itself to attention as one of the worst even 
 in Hayti. Almost perpendicular in places, peppered with 
 loose sliding falls of stone, overhung by branches and 
 intertwining creepers — if the ingenuity of man ever constructed 
 a highway here it had vanished out of all recognition. On 
 and up, with a peep at some towering summit or flowing 
 outline of a blue, far-off" ridge, and hour by hour the forest 
 closed in behind, shutting one ofT from the life of the 
 ordinary world. 
 
 Soon I learned to expect one prominent feature wherever 
 a clearing in the trees showed the presence of man. 
 Whatever owed its origin to human handiwork was falling 
 into decay and ruin, while Nature, fresh and vigorous, was 
 always advancing her outposts to the verge of each little 
 circle and plot where the frail ragged dwellings held their 
 
ACROSS HAYTI. 123 
 
 own, like forlorn hopes that might at any time be ruthlessly 
 smothered in the living tide of rank foliage. 
 
 So I went on, lingering by the way, eating the food I 
 obtained from the negroes and sleeping beside their huts. 
 One day was very like another. The people in the lonely 
 groups of hovels only seemed to grow more poor, more 
 ignorant, more superstitious, and in some ways more degraded 
 as I penetrated further into the interior of the country. 
 Few had enterprise enough to go to any place more distant 
 than the nearest market, everyone lived from hand to 
 mouth and seemed content to have it so. 
 
 Native life showed few attractions, no new features 
 presented themselves, even individuality appeared to die 
 out in that stagnation of existence. 
 
 One evening I was seated on a mat of water-reeds in 
 the shadow of an old hut, the single room of which gave 
 shelter night by night to eleven natives. 
 
 Compared to this, Thomazeau was civilisation incarnate. 
 
 The scene before me consisted of a few isolated huts 
 huddled together inside a dilapidated stockade. Old Papa, 
 the patriarch of this disparate knot of human beings, sat 
 in shadow, dozing on a broken-down bench. In the fore- 
 ground, under the usual four-legged toadstool roof, a fire 
 smouldered, about which two or three girls were squatting, 
 and the smoke curled lazily out into the sunlight. A youth, 
 clothed only in a torn coat, which he used as a loin-cloth. 
 
124 WHERE BLACK RULES WHFrE. 
 
 was gnawing at a banana in the middle distance. Beside 
 these, nothing but tamarinds, sand-flies, sun, and dust. 
 
 Papa was a senile figure, with a wrinkled mild old face. 
 For thirty years he had watched the slow decay of things 
 and of himself. I warmed him into life with a little rum, 
 and he chattered innocuously of times forgotten, when 
 Boyer was President and he, the old fossil, was young. 
 
 He had seen strong men shot down and buried, whose 
 very graves have been lost for half a century, for Boyer 
 was in power in the twenties. He was, undoubtedly, "old, 
 old," as he called himself, and his wife was old, old, also, 
 and so was everything that was his. His children and grand- 
 children were dead. The fourth generation lived around 
 him, and his grandson's grandson brought fire to light his pipe. 
 
 All around the stockade the trees bore witness to the 
 mischievous spirit of the dwellers there. The machette, a 
 knife like a cutlass, had been used for wanton destruction 
 often, sometimes to extract gum; in all cases the trees so 
 wounded were dying. These people were the poorest I 
 had come across ; they might have almost belonged to a 
 lower race. 
 
 They were dirty and squalid beyond imagination, some 
 went naked. A bow-legged boy, long-armed as a gorilla, 
 evidently half-witted, prowled about making beast noises, 
 or shambled with an attempt at the swaying shufifle common 
 to dancine here. 
 
ACROSS HAYTl. 125 
 
 One or two of the people had come to show me sores, 
 asking me to cure them. I doled out carbolised vaseline 
 and similar remedies, with instructions, but probably they 
 were taken internally. 
 
 At nightfall the negroes retired into the hut, and I could 
 not accept Papa's offer to me of the hospitality of its over- 
 burdened stowage space. A mat and a waterproof blanket 
 under the stars served me better. I rolled myself up, for 
 the dew was heavy, but night brought no silence or 
 cessation of speech. One or other of the crowd in the hut 
 would waken at intervals; he at once waked someone else, 
 and talked. All through the dark hours the chattering 
 never ceased. Dawn was still sketched out in black and 
 white when they arose and trooped out. 
 
 The old man at once sought his bench, and began his 
 day-long vigil. A small, fat, black girl raked among the 
 flaky ashes of the wood-fire, and soon collected a little heap 
 of glowing red for the coffee. The gorilla boy brought 
 me a cup of water for my ablutions, but I preferred the 
 lake down in a valley about a quarter of a mile away. 
 There you could bathe in shallow water, underneath which 
 was a quicksand which took you to the knees. 
 
 By the time I returned, the day had grown into lemon 
 colour, and a smell of burning coffee berries arose with 
 the gouts of rich blue- black smoke from the fire. In the 
 midst of the blossoming, fruitful land, this unsightly home 
 
126 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 was a fresh ofifence. About the huts small Haytians fronted 
 the morning sun, naked and unashamed. The luxuries of 
 life had no place here; necessity is the only queen in wild 
 Hayti. Truly it may be said of man here that naked he 
 comes into the world, and naked, using the term in its 
 widest sense, he goes out of it again. 
 
 Of the peasant's attitude towards the stranger in the 
 more remote districts, I have nothing to say but good. 
 His virtue of hospitality is beautiful. His politeness is 
 beyond reproach. He is Nature's gentleman in many ways, 
 and though he is poor in worldly goods, he is rich in some 
 of the higher qualities. 
 
 Riding through the rural districts you find it hard to 
 obtain anything to eat, but easy enough to get a place in 
 which to sleep. The people cannot give you what they 
 have not, but they do give what they have, and that with 
 both hands. 
 
 Even nearer to the towns I have known a peasant rise 
 from his own bed, place sheets upon it, and lead his guest 
 to it. If you offered him money-payment in the morning 
 he refused it aggrieved, but a knife or some such trifle, 
 presented as from one equal to another, was received with 
 pleasure. 
 
 The average diet, if you except the fruits which grow 
 of themselves, is limited to a little rice, sticky seed 
 cakes with brown sugar, that make you sleep, and, if 
 
ACROSS HAYTI. 127 
 
 luck is good, sour bread. In mango season, they may 
 say, as in Jamaica, "Turn up the pot;" while the fruit 
 lasts there is no need for cooking. 
 
 Sometimes a pig is killed, one of the sharp-snouted, slab- 
 sided scavengers that are everywhere in evidence. A 
 European digestion would infallibly fail before this special 
 brand of pork, but the robuster negro appears to put it 
 away without inconvenience. 
 
 Their relaxations are twain — dancing and cock-fighting. 
 Their ideas of wealth take the form of the possession of 
 these plumed warriors. But it is good to note that they 
 have never heard of such barbarous things as steel spurs. 
 The cocks are permitted to fight with such weapons as 
 Nature has given them. 
 
 But the mountain people among whom Papa and his like 
 reigned were not at all representative of the average native. 
 They were a wilder race, with the shyness of the woods 
 upon them, and what I have written above as to other 
 districts must not be taken as applying to them. Here 
 were no such civilised adjuncts as sheets ; life was raw, 
 crude, rudimentary. Taken all in all, it was the sordid, 
 purblind life of savages. 
 
 To-day in that lonely stockade was but a replica of yester- 
 day, the one barren as the other. The old mumbling man 
 sitting on the old bench, the large-headed, solemn child 
 carrying him an ember for his pipe. Birth and death in 
 
128 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 scarcely-heeded sequence visited the hut, but the old man 
 drowsed on. Fie reigned there amongst the dust, the sand- 
 flies, the hot wind, the parched tamarinds in the stale and 
 rotting stockade, and his kingdom was only existence and 
 the passage of hours. And there he will go on reigning 
 until he goes out of a world that has already passed 
 beyond him. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 INTO SAN DOMINGO. 
 
 Every country has its own modes of travelling, more 
 or less pleasant. In this tropical land you either ride 
 through the heat of the day or you continue your journey 
 far into tiie night, and if the night should happen to be 
 starless your direction and your life are both at the mercy 
 of your horse. 
 
 One night comes back to me above all others. I was 
 in the far interior. The road ? There was no road. A 
 track led round boulders, and branches hung low over it. 
 You had to be careful of your eyes, for thorn bushes 
 thrust out inch-long prongs to maul you. I was haunted 
 by the fear of them. Think what blindness would be up 
 there in those remote solitudes 1 
 
 We were passing over the mountains beside Lake Assauei, 
 and there was nothing to guide one through the forest, for 
 
 9 
 
I30 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 in the sky was only the Hght of the evening star and a 
 white moon in her first quarter. We had ridden many 
 miles, and many more lay in front of us before any chance 
 of rest or food. The so-called bottomless lake was on the 
 left hand, the trail wound in and out about loafshaped 
 hills crowded with forest and tangled with those inwoven 
 creeping plants which one always associates with the idea 
 of a South American jungle. The scent of the water was 
 in the air. Stones shifting under the horse-hoofs supplied 
 the dominant sound ; you heard them fall over the precipice, 
 and long afterwards the echo of their plunge in the unseen 
 lake came up feebly. 
 
 We were riding along a cHff, unable to see more than four 
 yards ahead ; my white horse was moving forward with 
 a sort of irritable caution, feeling the trail. The guide, who 
 had no taste for night-pioneering, followed on a shaggy mule. 
 
 Occasionally, by the light of your cigar, you could see 
 a dark bush or a thick tree-limb close above your head. 
 You dodged to evade it, and the thorns ripped away jagged 
 strips of hat or coat. This sort of thing seemed to go on 
 for hours. The forests, almost untraversed by man, cer- 
 tainly by white men, were silent save for the occasional 
 movement of some bird, a wind in the leaves, or the pulsat- 
 ing fall of a stone as it struck the cliff-side on its long 
 leap into the lake. You felt gigantically alone — in the heart 
 of the Black Republic and the black night. 
 
INTO SAN DOMINGO. 131 
 
 Presently it was certain we had lost our way ; the forest 
 raised up an impenetrable wall in front of us. We turned, 
 and by the help of a series of lit matches tried to come 
 upon the path again. This happened four times. Two 
 hours later (by the watch — by one's feelings four at least) 
 we began to descend towards the lake, where it was more 
 likely we might come upon some stray hut. Our respective 
 mounts leaped and scrambled and slid down tunnel-like 
 declivities, over-arched with trees and paved by a water-cut 
 lane, which lent itself to unexpected steep drops at frequent 
 intervals. Riding of this sort would of course, be quite 
 impossible in a country ranged over by big game, but here 
 there is nothing more formidable to be met with than an 
 escaped pig or a dog run wild. At length we came upon 
 a solitary hut, where my guide managed to raise the materials 
 for a torch. 
 
 And now it was that we reached the difficult part of 
 the journey. The torch with its comet tail of sparks moved 
 in the blackness like a red tracery on a ground of black 
 velvet. The shadows made rushes at you as you swayed 
 your light this way and that above your head. The horse 
 kept his footing after the extraordinary manner of Haytian 
 horses, despite the fact that the ground at his feet was a 
 moving panorama of light and dark. 
 
 On, and on. and on, and the guide seems less hopeful than 
 ever of the end of our ride. The truth is he has long ago 
 
1,32 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 lost himself. Finally, the torch burns itself out, and again 
 we plod on at haphazard through a gully. The night grows 
 in round us again. As we top the next incline a scream 
 pierces upwards to us. We push on. Now you can hear 
 the short, sullen bark of the Vaudoux drum, and, advancing 
 from behind a curtain of black trees, in which are netted 
 stars and fire-flies, we come in sight of a great red glow 
 set in the heart of the forest. 
 
 A group of negroes are dancing round the fires; it is 
 the wind-up of a three-days-long Vaudoux orgie. Two 
 days ago a black goat was sacrificed to the sacred snake, 
 and the frenzy of the worshippers is still unexhausted. 
 There they are, screaming, writhing, and swaying, apparently 
 blind to all outward things. You rein up your horse to 
 watch. They take no heed of you, for they have no eyes 
 in this remote and lonely spot save for their excesses. 
 Here they are not afraid of interference : not that interference 
 is to be expected anywhere in the island, but in these wild 
 districts, cut off from civilisation and the towns by the slabby 
 and unmanageable mud of the rainy season and by the 
 pathless hills, they omit all precaution. 
 
 Easily you can pick out the Mamaloi. There she is in 
 dirty white, bound round the waist with a red sash. Op- 
 posite to her dances a large, fierce-eyed, splay-footed negro. 
 The fires, the posturing black forms, the uncouth howls — 
 it is like a scene from Hell. You may be the bravest man 
 
A HAYTIAN HICHWAV. 
 
INTO SAN DOMINGO. 135 
 
 in the world, but when you recollect that the probabilities 
 are hugely in favour of these same people having sacrificed 
 a child to their god at some date not too remote, your 
 hand goes creeping to your revolver. 
 
 When you grow tired of watching, you turn and make a 
 detour, skirting the far edge of the clearing, and, finding 
 the track again, you pass through a deserted village, the 
 inhabitants of which are all at the Vaudoux dance. The 
 fires, which the negro always keeps alight, still shine, mere 
 glow-worms on the bare brown earth. 
 
 While upon the subject of child-sacrifice, let me state 
 that although there can be no doubt that at certain seasons 
 of the year, and more particularly at Easter and Christmas, 
 such sacrifices do most certainly take place, still, regardless 
 of what has been written upon the subject, I strenuously 
 believe that no European, with the single exception of one 
 Catholic priest, has ever actually been present on an 
 occasion of the kind. The dead child sacrificially dis- 
 membered has frequently been seen afterwards, but the 
 actual ceremony excludes most rigorously all save the 
 initiated. 
 
 The noise of the dance dies away behind. We are now 
 in lower and marshier land. The young moon has set, 
 the trees seem taller and tower up above us. Monkej's 
 move restlessly in their branches, disturbed by our passing. 
 The going on the mountains was bad, but this gorge is 
 
136 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 worse. The trees advance on you like a regiment in open 
 order; you are swallowed up amongst them. A night's 
 bivouac in the forest is all that we can look forward to. 
 We are hopelessly lost and only day can deliver us. I 
 mention this to the guide. He acquiesces. This is in fact 
 the point towards which his diplomacy has all along been 
 directed. Regardless of the chorus of frogs and the more 
 than marshy ground, he proposes to bivouac on the spot, 
 but the unhealthy chill speaks eloquently of malaria, and 
 we move on. 
 
 More quagmires, more boulders, more branch-dodging, 
 more slipping of the tired beasts we ride. Will it never 
 end ? At last we come to a possible halting-place, a deserted 
 hut, with no walls, and a broken roof, its supporting posts 
 scarred with flame. In the centre of the floor a heap of 
 white and flaky ashes, the remains of a dead fire. You 
 put your hand to it. A faint heat. Someone camped 
 here last night. Probably a game-cock farmer from one of 
 the Haytian villages, who was working his way eastwards 
 to the good markets of San Domingo City or Barahona. 
 
 The guide rekindles the fire and fetches water from a 
 stream, and you manufacture a meal of rice and soup in 
 a tin mug. After that one pipe. Then you stretch your 
 hammock between the joists of the open hut, and the next 
 thing you know is that the light of dawn is filtering down 
 into your eyes through the trees. You arise and take your 
 

 fS,..^^-/ 
 
INTO SAN DOMINGO. 139 
 
 bearings to find you have wandered four miles only out 
 of your intended path. 
 
 Farther and farther we plunged into the doublings of the 
 sierra, valleys closed up behind us, and hills folded in 
 one upon another, and still we pushed on through the 
 almost virginal forest. The trees above were dark against 
 a sky where the morning stars shone together. Presently, 
 as the woodland thinned away to more open countr}', a hot 
 wind, bearing on it the exhalations of the marshes which 
 fringe Lake Fundo, blew idly by. 
 
 Then all at once in the rising day you come in sight of 
 the lake vi^hich is half in Haytian, half in Dominican terri- 
 tory. It is deep and still and blue, cradled in towering 
 hills about which cling turquoise clouds, and the whole 
 wide scene shines out upon you with a strange insistent 
 beauty, the essential charm of which it is hard to analyse. 
 A few plumes of soft grey smoke rise straight as palm 
 stems from the other shore, and high up, lark-high in 
 heaven, a breeze catches them and blows them abroad into 
 great wisps and fronds that melt slowly out of sight. 
 
 Up on the mountain side the air is like champagne, cool 
 and bracing. All around, from peaked summit to the 
 water's edge, the forests spread in an unbroken sea of 
 green — an uncalculated wealth of timber. A few trees are 
 occasionally felled on the other side of the mountains, and 
 in due time reach I'ort-au-Prince for export, but very little 
 
T40 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 is done : absence of roads or of any means of communi- 
 cations dams up the riches of the country into the interior. 
 The Consular Report for 1898 masses the export of mahogany 
 with six other items under the remark : " Not of sufficient 
 importance to be quoted 1 " Golden opportunities lie ripe 
 to be plucked, but here is no hand to pluck them. 
 
 By the shore herons stalk through the shallows and 
 show their awkward grey-blue bunch of body set between 
 the angles of legs and beak. Alligators lie abask in the 
 strong, sweet sunshine. The whole picture with its broad, 
 vivid tones of blue and green is magnificently tropical and 
 rich and high-coloured. 
 
 If the flag of any other country flew over the land, how 
 long would this glorious lake and its fellow across the 
 border retain their present opulent desolation? No boat 
 pushes a venturesome forefoot through the brackish water 
 —(for these lakes are salt, yet fed by fresh springs, so that 
 here and there you can stand in salt water and drink fresh) -- 
 save one which American enterprise has brought with infinite 
 trouble through the blocked-up land and set afloat on Fundo. 
 
 In the French times there were country houses here, but 
 they lie in ruins, swarmed over by the ingrowing forest. 
 I sought out the almost lost vestiges of a colonial estate. 
 The fierce fingers of the tropic seasons had torn and twisted 
 it into untimely decay ; no doorways, no outline of living 
 rooms, nothing but a heap of tumbled walls not as high 
 
NATIVES. 
 
INTO SAN DOMINGO. 143 
 
 as your knee, with lizards sleeping on the sun-warmed 
 stones and forest vines tangled over their downfall. 
 
 It is the same all over Hayti wherever you go; all that 
 savours of industry, energy, civilisation, in short, has been 
 and is not. All that the white races left behind as mile- 
 stones on the path leading up out of sheer savage waste 
 and idleness is obliterated. As far as the interior is 
 concerned, the situation in the present day is retrogression 
 with regard to the human element, and retrocession to the 
 forest-powers of once cultivated lands. 
 
 There you are among a people who prefer a thatched 
 hut to a palace. The inhabitants scattered about that part 
 of the country are few, but none of them have made their 
 presence felt. A shanty of, so to speak, sticks and leaves 
 buried in the trees is all you find. At the distance of 
 fifty yards you are unaware of the presence. The land is 
 empty but for a few birds and reptiles. 
 
 In the remoter places you may see a dog run wild, and 
 breeding wild, slink with its litter from foliage to foliage ; 
 or perhaps, when camping, a herd of pigs, also run wild 
 and lacking the forked stick which is the domestic emblem, 
 the sign of man's ownership, comes out upon you unaware 
 and fiies grunting to thicker cover. On Gonave Island 
 wild pigs proper, descendants probably of those droves 
 hunted by the buccaneers in bygone days, still haunt the 
 recesses of the woods. 
 
144 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 Late that night, as we came through a wilder defile than 
 usual under the dark green forest shadows, a fire, small as 
 a firefly, twinkled on a ledge above the track. 
 
 ''Qui vive?" 
 
 A little ramshackle guardhouse, showing against a wall 
 of trees, was perched on a clearing just big enough to 
 hold it. It was of wood, rust-coloured and dreary-looking. 
 Broken walls stood up awry from the floor of the forest, 
 and on the narrow piazza in front two ragged soldiers, like 
 a pair of vultures, craned over the road. They unslung 
 their rope-suspended rifles and demanded passports. For 
 this was the Frontier Guard of Hayti. They came down 
 the slope of broken weedy ground until an arm stretched 
 up from horseback could reach them, and examined the 
 passports, and before they had recovered their places at 
 the fireside and sunk back upon their haunches, we were 
 over the border and in the Republic of San Domingo. 
 
 The Laguna de Fundo used to be entirely on Haytian 
 territory, but now the Dominican landmark has moved slowly 
 and ominously half-way up its blue waters. Even on the 
 lake level the air was balmy, the temperature ranging from 
 90 degrees on the shore to anything you prefer on the 
 rise of the mountain sides. Neither Cuba nor Jamaica can 
 give you a climate so perfect as Hayti. 
 
 Evening came with a wind, and the lake was transformed. 
 Seen from the lower ground it now appeared like a menacing 
 
INTO SAN DOMINGO. 145 
 
 eye, set beneath the rough and scowHng brow of the 
 mountain. No wonder legends have grown round about it. 
 
 The Laguna de Fundo and its companion, which hes 
 altogether within the limits of San Domingo, are both 
 about 200 feet above the sea-level, and in times of heavy 
 rains or floods are connected by water lying in the lowlands 
 between. Lake Enquirillo, the larger lake, is supposed 
 once to have been connected with the sea by a subter- 
 ranean river ; the waters are salt, and it is said sharks and 
 porpoises still exist in them ; but to this last I cannot bear 
 any personal testimony. 
 
 I remained in the Dominican State but a short time, and 
 the little I saw of the people did not strike me too favour- 
 ably. They are not nearly so likeable as the Haytian peasan- 
 try, and hospitality does not flourish in the same degree as 
 on the western side of the border. On the other hand, the 
 Government of San Domingo is lessjealous of foreign influence. 
 
 The Dominicans speak Spanish, and have preserved the 
 purity of their language to a far greater degree than can 
 be said of the Haytians, whose French has degenerated 
 into a Creole patois so corrupt that it can with difficulty 
 be understood by outsiders. A reason for this may be 
 adduced from the fact that in San Domingo we find a colour- 
 ed as opposed to an entirely black population. 
 
 For San Domingo is the Mulatto Republic, and the mixture 
 of races has probably done much towards keeping the general 
 
146 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 status of its people on a higher level ; yet the lack of energy 
 is very apparent there also. There is no doubt that both States 
 contain a vast amount of mineral wealth, of wealth of all 
 kinds, but the output is blockaded hopelessly by their 
 respective Governments and the inertness of the people. 
 
 The trail into San Domingo is little travelled. A few 
 natives work across to sell fighting-cocks, a few more have 
 an interest in cutting wood beside the lakes, a few who 
 have committed misdeeds break cover there for safety. 
 For the rest there is no traffic ; it is left to the parrots 
 that fly above and the wild pigs which range in the woods. 
 And this, you must understand, is the chief highway be- 
 tween Hayti and San Domingo. 
 
 In the time of the late Dominican President Hereaux, 
 who was assassinated some months ago, there used to be 
 a few soldiers posted on the frontier, but either Jimenez 
 recalled them or they have recalled themselves. If a 
 history of Hereaux comes to be written, I think the lie 
 will be given to many superficial observers who have 
 committed their ideas upon him and his methods of ruling 
 to paper and added praise. It is hard to believe that 
 certain of them had any personal knowledge of the man 
 or of his country. Here was a ruler masterful certainly, 
 but whose mastery was obtained by the foulest of means. 
 He was a President of the Central American type, unscrupu- 
 lous, pliable, fair-seeming, and immutably vengeful. 
 
CHAPTER VII I. 
 
 HAYTIAN POLICE, PRISONS AND HOSPITALS. 
 
 He was lightly attired in the remnants of a striped shirt, 
 and what the passage of years had left of a pair of sky- 
 blue cotton trousers. On his head he carried a blue cap 
 with a red band, and in his hand a dirty yellow club. 
 He was a very black and lowering negro, with the invariable 
 scanty imperial on his chin, which accentuated the resem- 
 blance that sprang at once into my mind — a humanised 
 black goat. 
 
 I was told that he was a policeman of the Republic, 
 and experience afterwards substantiated the fact that he 
 was quite a fair sample of the force. 
 
 They are Hke no other police all the world over; they 
 stand curiously alone in respect of many particulars. When 
 on duty they loaf about the streets, and are very frequently 
 fulfilling their duties in a manner that you are glad to 
 
148 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 escape from witnessing. Elsewhere one seldom sees the 
 colour of human blood ; in this island the chances are that 
 you will see it flowing in broad daylight whenever the 
 guardians of the peace think fit to make an arrest, for 
 they are prone to use their cocomacaque clubs, and in the 
 cases where the victim is not picked out at random as a 
 medium whereby they may secure a meal, they are sure 
 to be beating the wrong man. 
 
 The police are merely soldiers told off casually for the 
 maintenance of the public safety. Their pay is ordinarily in 
 arrears, and when remitted to someone in authority for distri- 
 bution, reaches them in an attenuated form. In addition to 
 this, they have to "keep themselves," but the administration 
 has invented an ingenious method by which a truly zealous 
 officer can manage to stave off" starvation very well indeed. 
 
 In some towns, at any rate, they receive a capitation 
 fee of fifty centimes — a fluctuating sevenpence-halfpenny 
 according to the exchange — for every man they arrest. 
 Fortunately, living is cheap, so that when hunger bears too 
 hardly upon them the remedy of a timely prisoner is easily 
 come by. There need be no superfluous scruples, such as 
 waiting until a man commits an offence against the law. Pick 
 a quarrel with any stray passer-by or pounce down upon 
 him unawares. There will be some howls and a patter of flying 
 feet as the victim understands his ill-luck, and flies from it. 
 
 But the policeman is not to be so easily baulked ; he 
 
HAYTIAN POLICE, PRISONS AND HOSPITALS. 151 
 
 bounds in pursuit. Perhaps the pursued doubles, and 
 catches a thud on the shoulder from the cocomacaque club. 
 With a cry, he rushes in to close with the policeman : in 
 every arrest I witnessed the procedure was the same — the 
 two struggled for possession of the club. 
 
 Not for long, however. A sleeping policeman reels into 
 wakefulness up the hot street, and rushes out with flying 
 coat-tails from the nearest arrondissement. " Tenez, tenez!" 
 he shouts, as he makes to the aid of his companion, and 
 smash goes his club on the head or face of the offender, 
 who lets go his hold, and the first accuser takes the 
 opportunity to indulge in a thorough-going revenge. The 
 victim is taken away to the lock-up afterwards in a more 
 or less unspeakable condition. 
 
 If he were a white, one would say, knowing where he 
 is going to, that he must die of his injuries. As he is 
 black, the chances are that after some days of pain he will 
 recover from the beating. The back is suited to the burden, 
 says the proverb; also in Hayti the thickness of the skull 
 to the stick. The cocomacaque club is a cane jointed like 
 a bamboo, but solid and unbreakable. It is heavy enough 
 to fell an ox, and it is used indiscriminately over the heads 
 and bodies of the prisoners. It is iron shod to add piquancy 
 to the blows. Even the negro occasionally succumbs to 
 its powers, and has been known to die by the roadside 
 on his way to the jail. 
 
152 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 The cocomacaque, like the poHceman, is indigenous to 
 the Black Republic. 
 
 I cannot take an example of this singular method of 
 action from the contemporary newspapers of Hayti, as they 
 rarely, if ever, print news of this sort, either because such 
 occurrences are too common to call for comment, or they 
 are too wise to mention what is in the nature of a grave 
 scandal. But formerly, when a more independent paper 
 existed, cases like the following were duly published. Sir 
 Spencer St. John, British Minister in Hayti, quotes from 
 "La Verite" of August 23rd, 1887: — 
 
 " A Death in Prison. — Our readers may remember that 
 the individual who had tried to pillage the house of M. 
 Marmont Flaubert had been wounded by the police : he 
 was taken to prison in this state. His leg was horribly 
 fractured. From want of attention mortification soon set 
 in, and presently the existence of this unfortunate was in 
 peril. A good woman, of whom a few are still found 
 among us, overcoming her repugnance, wished to assist 
 him in his last moments. She tended as well as she could 
 the putrid limb, and talked of God to the dying wretch. 
 He was touched, sent for a priest, and confessed with 
 every sign of sincere repentance, received extreme unction, 
 and died quietly shortly after imploring Divine mercy." 
 
 Another example : — "On Sunday, about eleven o'clock at 
 night, two countrymen who were not sleepy were amusing 
 
HAYTIAN POLICE, PRISONS AND HOSPITALS. 153 
 
 themselves playing with dice or cards under the gallery of 
 a house in Courbe-street. The patrol arrived. One of the 
 young men bolted and gained the courtyard where he was 
 accustomed to sleep. The other was not so prompt : he 
 is caught: a blow from a cocomacaque stops him. Struck 
 on the nape of the neck, he fell dead without uttering a 
 cry. No means of passing this unfortunate off as a thief." 
 -(July 1 6th, 1887.) 
 
 Other instances could be given, but these suffice to show 
 the shameful licence permitted to the police in Hayti, and 
 their wanton brutality. Such cases are sufficiently horrible, 
 and I adduce them to show what another Englishman 
 — one who was not only on the spot to judge for himself, 
 but who also took the trouble to verify details, — has said 
 upon the subject. 
 
 He bears ample witness to the state of affairs several 
 years ago, and I can add on personal observation that they 
 continue to be in precisely the same condition to-day. 
 During my second walk through the streets of Port-au-Prince 
 I came upon a Haytian scene of arrest. I need only say 
 that the prisoner had been so cruelly battered that a gen- 
 tleman passing offered the police a dollar to take the wretch- 
 ed man to gaol without further man-handling. For answer 
 they attacked him again with their clubs. The man was 
 a soldier who had omitted to turn up to drill because he 
 was doing some work to earn a few centimes to buy food. 
 
154 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 On another occasion I saw a captain of police called in 
 by a negress who had attempted to steal from a store. The 
 owner of the place, a Danish subject, naturally interfered 
 to save his goods. The woman went out and returned in 
 a few moments with the police officer, who threatened to 
 shoot the Dane, and then stood by while the woman, under 
 the protection of his revolver, wreaked her vengeance with 
 a heavy stick. The upshot of this case, when brought into 
 court, was a sentence of imprisonment on the Dane, with 
 the option of a heavy fine. 
 
 At the time of arrest white men are mostly exempt from 
 violence, although there have been several exceptions. But 
 the negro, whether guilty or only under suspicion, or, as 
 I have shown, really innocent of any offence against the 
 law, is liable to murderous treatment both at the time of 
 arrest and afterwards in the prison itself. 
 
 Moreover, the condition of the prisons all over the country 
 is almost incredible when one considers that they exist in 
 the midst of a community that calls itself civiHsed. I am 
 well aware that the curse of the present police and prison 
 systems is a source of shame and regret to every Haytian 
 who has the good of his country at heart. Many have 
 spoken of the matter to me, but the Government appear 
 to be entirely indifferent. 
 
 A little brief authority is poison to a negro, whose inflated 
 vanity is not tempered by education and whose intelhgence 
 
HAYTIAN POLICE, PRISONS AND HOSPITALS. 155 
 
 seems too dwarfed to afford hina any adequate idea of the 
 pain he inflicts. One can only account for it on the sup- 
 position, which close acquaintance with the race certainly 
 goes to support, that negroes have far duller nerves and 
 are less susceptible to pain than P2uropeans. They recover 
 from injuries that no white man could hope to survive, and 
 that without tendance or medical aid of any kind. 
 
 The policeman still strides through the land in the name 
 of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. Within the limits of 
 his office he has absolute power, and this absolute power 
 is placed in the hands of a man the mysterious workings 
 of whose mind leads him occasionally to shoot his prisoner, 
 not while resisting arrest, but afterwards for having resisted it ! 
 It is scarcely surprising that few negroes from other 
 countries become naturalised Haytians. 
 
 Realism, as some understand the word, can be studied 
 with effect in the prisons of the Black Republic. 
 
 To begin with, the prisoner, as has been said, usually 
 enters jail suffering from maltreatment more or less severe 
 at the hands of his captors. He is flung among his fellows 
 into a narrow courtyard to live or die, as destiny and the 
 strength of his constitution may decide. No tendance of 
 any kind is given to him, whatever his condition, nor does 
 the State provide him with any food. He begs from casual 
 visitors, or his friends bring him provisions when they can 
 from time to time. 
 
156 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 The date of his trial in the courts is vague — persons are 
 now in the jails whose very crimes are forgotten, but there 
 they still remain — the police or soldiers in authority keep 
 him in subjection according to rough-handed customs of 
 their own. There is no power to which he can appeal, for 
 no one has the slightest interest in his fate. Justice and 
 mercy are alike denied to him — he is helpless. 
 
 So you will find men in the various prisons of the island 
 herded together under conditions which would disgrace the 
 worst cattle-boat that ever crossed the Atlantic. I have 
 seen them myself in more than one jail starving, dirty, 
 suffering, without the barest elements of sanitation in their 
 surroundings. 
 
 The prison of Port-au-Prince is situated in the middle of 
 the town. The high, pinkish walls are set on the top with 
 broken glass. It is divided into courts, some containing 
 political prisoners, others the common criminals. A narrow 
 door, through which you are obliged to pass sideways, 
 admits you. 
 
 When I entered, the General of the prison was sitting 
 cleaning his nails. His noble name I did not gather, al- 
 though I was duly introduced to him. He told me that 
 I could not see the prison unless I had a pass from the 
 Minister of the Interior. I had not a pass, and knew 
 excellently well that I could not obtain one, for the Black 
 Government, though they take no care to cure the sores 
 
HAYTIAN POLICE, PRISONS AND HOSPITALS. 157 
 
 of the body politic, are careful to cover them from the 
 pubUc gaze. And the prison of Port-au-Prince is a sore 
 indeed. 
 
 I pressed my request, but it was explained to me that 
 the law wisely forbade the visits of strangers, as they not 
 infrequently brought messages for the political prisoners. 
 Finally, I put forward a plea which procured me the per- 
 mission I wanted. 
 
 Under the guidance of a soldier, I was led away to the 
 left, where round a large enclosure prisoners live in sheds. 
 This was the best part of the prison, as I soon found out. 
 The men had little articles to sell. I asked my guide what 
 crimes they were guilty of. All sorts of things — uttering 
 false money, theft, and murder. 
 
 "Why are they here, while others are so much worse 
 off?" I asked. 
 
 "They pay for it." 
 
 It was onl}' by sheer perseverance that I at length looked 
 in upon the quarters which the Government provides for 
 the poorer sort of malefactor. It is difficult to choose words 
 to describe this noisome place. Here men live like dogs, 
 and on occasion die like dogs also. I believe they are 
 carried away when they are dead, but that is the sole 
 sanitary precaution taken. 
 
 Doorless cells were round the walls, with straw upon the 
 earth as in cages for wild beasts. Some prisoners were 
 
158 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 practically naked ; a few had converted worn-out jackets into 
 loin-cloths; all were in the last stage of destitution. Men, 
 in iron anklets with a short chain between, stood or squatted 
 round. All shades of colour were there, from yellow ochre 
 to coal black, and everyone looked half-starved. Not a 
 few had gaping wounds, and others were wearily ill, their 
 backs furred with sickness and neglect. 
 
 In the centre of the court there was a filthy pool, and 
 pigs rooted about amongst the accumulations of all sorts 
 which strewed the ground. Hercules cleaned the Augean 
 stables ; I scarcely know how he would have faced a task 
 such as Hayti could offer him here. 
 
 In this part of the world they do not provide political 
 prisoners with every luxury short of freedom. On the 
 contrary, they are frequently chained to a bar in the clothes 
 they stand up in, and it is not impossible to see a gentle- 
 man in a black frock-coat tethered by the legs. 
 
 Escape from the court where the rabble are confined 
 seemed to be childishly easy, but the negro lacks enterprise. 
 As in freedom, so in confinement, he takes the world as it 
 comes. There are several hundreds in Port-au-Prince prison, 
 and it is rightly regarded as a hotbed of disease. 
 
 Later on I visited another large gaol in the north at 
 Cap Haytien. There also, as has been said before, the 
 conscientious seeker after realism, upon whom perhaps the 
 slum miseries of London have begun to pall, would find not 
 
HAYTIAN POLICE, PRISONS AND HOSPITALS. 159 
 
 only the hunger, the crowding, the disease, and the misery 
 reproduced, but withal an indescribable residuum calculated 
 to titillate the most jaded experience. All prisons in the 
 Republic have the same essential features, and it is no 
 more than a necessary precaution to take quinine before 
 going on a tour of inspection. 
 
 In Cap Haytien as in Port-au-Prince the prison was 
 divided into two chief sections, one for the civil and one 
 for the criminal cases. There were 130 of the former and 
 280 of the latter, all dwelling in the stifling heat of two 
 uncleansed, roofless yards. One man I spoke to had been 
 awaiting trial for four months, another for three years. 
 
 It is hardly possible to imagine a white man imprisoned 
 under such conditions of horror, yet, of course, it sometimes 
 happens. For instance, if you have the misfortune to have 
 your house burned down, there is a law in Hayti which 
 regards it as a criminal oftence. 
 
 A gentleman living in a certain town was consigned to 
 the criminal side of the local gaol on this charge until 
 investigation should be made. By making representations 
 he had himself removed to the civil side, where, after a 
 little time, he fell ill. The doctor supposed to be attached 
 to the prison did not visit him. He became worse, and 
 was at times delirious, but his request to be allowed to see 
 his own doctor was steadily refused. 
 
 When the prison doctor did chance to come in, he saw 
 
i6o WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 that my friend was very likely to die, and knowing that 
 this event might produce unpleasant complications — seeing 
 that the prisoner was not a Haytian — he ordered him to 
 be taken to the military hospital, which is little better than 
 the gaol. At length, on payment of fifty dollars, he was 
 allowed to be moved to the Hospice, where he was nursed 
 back to life by the Soeurs de la Sagesse, a French sisterhood 
 whose gentle care is the only tendance the sick can procure. 
 Five hundred dollars in lawyers' fees was subsequently paid 
 by the late prisoner. All this, in addition to the loss of 
 his house and property, on account of an accident for which 
 he was not in any way responsible ! 
 
 In course of time, I visited the Military Hospital, a place 
 chiefly distinguished by the absence of everything that goes 
 to make a hospital — cleanliness, comfort, nurses. In the 
 dreary shed which goes by that name patients and attend- 
 ants were represented by a man lying on the earthen 
 floor, suffering from a broken leg, and a negress smoking 
 a pipe on an upturned tub by the doorway. 
 
 It seems impossible under black government for any 
 undertaking or institution to be cared for, or kept up, or 
 carried on. Some individual, in an ambitious moment, 
 makes a start, but the beginning of any enterprise what- 
 soever is also the end ; no one bothers to go on with it. 
 
 The Hospice Justinien at Cap Haytien is, however, under 
 French management, eight Filles de la Sagesse, who have 
 
HAYTIAN POLICE, PRISONS AND HOSPITALS. i6i 
 
 devoted their lives to the cause of Haytian humanity, 
 taking charge of it. It stands on the edge of the Champ 
 de Mars, fronting the blue, sun-scorched bay. 
 
 Crossing from the Military Hospital, I entered the Hospice, 
 and was met by a nun, in a cool grey habit, her pale face 
 almost as white as the starched wimple which framed it. 
 
 She led me up a flight of steps into a piazza, 70 or 80 
 yards long, grey-shuttered and shadowy, with whitewashed 
 pillars and full of wandering winds. In the chapel some 
 function was in progress, and the faint sound of chanting 
 reached us. As I listened, heat, glare, dirt, and Hayti faded, 
 and I was bacV: for a moment in another land. 
 
 Long rows of black bedsteads, furnished with sheets 
 spotless as snow, lessened away into long perspective. Few 
 of them were occupied, and by one or two sat doleful 
 figures that to all appearance would occupy their places 
 on earth but a few days longer. 
 
 " Oh, massa, I am very ill 1 " said oneto me in English, and her 
 face broke up. " And, oh, massa, I shall die here in the quiet " 
 
 She was a Jamaican negress. 
 
 Presently I was taken through a variety of rooms to the 
 little chapel, where an old priest's fragile hands were raised 
 from his black cassock towards the cool white roof. 
 
 Thence on through the men's ward, the women's ward, 
 
 and out among the sick on the piazza. 
 
 "What is the matter with him.'" 
 
 II 
 
1 62 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 The kindly-faced nun looked up at me and made a 
 gesture with her hands. 
 
 "This, that, everything,"' she replied; "they have terrible 
 diseases here in Hayti." 
 
 The man was sitting on a bed with a cloth over his 
 head. He raised it as I spoke. He had no face, nothing 
 save teeth and a few red strips of flesh. 
 
 "Poor creatures!" the nun said softly; "here, at the 
 worst, they can die in peace. We help them to pass their 
 last hours, if we cannot help them back to health." 
 
 The Haytian easily thinks himself sick, and takes his 
 physic with the greatest appreciation. The more he swal- 
 lows the greater his enjoyment. Here was one man who 
 told me his head ached, and very black his face looked 
 against the purity of his pillow. A fat little youngster 
 was laughing and romping, riding a broom-stick up and 
 down along the piazza. 
 
 After that I visited the well-ordered garden. Vegetables, 
 fruit, and flowers of all climes — a place of green fragrances. 
 
 The Hospice is supported by private subscriptions, and 
 deserves to be well maintained, for it is the only haven 
 for the sick in a country where illness bespeaks little care 
 for the sufferer. 
 
 I was told that rich patients were admitted, who could 
 be attended by any doctor they chose ; for the poor the 
 Hospice provided all medical treatment. 
 
HAYTIAN POLICE, PRISONS AND HOSPITALS. 163 
 
 When at last I passed out from under the broad shadow 
 of the front piazza under the palms, I went dreaming. The 
 cool and the peace and the silence and the cleanliness and 
 the purity, the echo of Latin song — it might have been 
 another far-away home of nuns burled in green Breton woods. 
 
 All that I saw in the Hospice was so entirely the oppo- 
 site of all that you find everywhere else in Hayti. 
 
 "Is monsieur pleased?" my guide asked me as I left. 
 
 I told her that it had been a rest even to see the place. 
 
 She bowed to me with a quaint courtesy, and so we parted. 
 
 The nominal religion of Hayti is Roman Catholic. It is 
 the religion of the State, and an archbishop and four 
 bishops are supposed to be paid by a grant from the 
 Republican budget. 
 
 Up to i860, when a concordat with Rome was signed, 
 the condition of the Catholic clergy in the island was a 
 source of scandal. So-called priests, whose "creed was 
 need," set themselves up in the various parishes. But all 
 that was altered forty years ago. Yet the process of 
 evangelising the island goes on but slowly. Vaudoux has 
 a strong hold upon the people. Its mummeries and horrors 
 attract them, and a well-defined fear lies at the root of all. 
 
 The Catholic priests have a hard life of it, whether in 
 the unhealthy suburbs of the towns or travelling through 
 the mountains under a tropical sun, at one season choked 
 with dust, at another drenched with torrential rains. These 
 
i64 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 hardships, joined to the inadequate food which alone can 
 be obtained in the country districts, brings down the aver- 
 age length of life to a deplorably low figure. 
 
 One of the numberless difl^culties which lies in their way 
 is the absorption of some points of their teaching into the 
 mummery of fetishism. For instance, I have myself seen 
 the sign of the Cross made on the forehead with the blood 
 of a goat sacrificed to the snake-god. In the absence of 
 the priest some of the chapels in which they are wont to 
 celebrate mass have been used for the rites of snake- 
 worship. The Papalois, the arch-priests of the cult, refer 
 to the priests of Catholicism as brother ministers. Yet the 
 Papalois are jealous of Catholic influence, and do all in their 
 power to undermine it. 
 
 When you consider that no priestcraft has so strong a 
 hold over a semi-savage people as that which can aid its 
 votaries in the affairs of this present life, you will see why 
 it is that snake-worship should be so serious a rival to 
 Christianity. The Haytian naturally prefers a religion which 
 not only permits but abets him in vengeance, which aids 
 him to strike secretly at his enemy with poison. Here, 
 indeed, the negro feels that reward is not shadowy, that 
 he is getting his money's worth. 
 
 For these reasons Christianity labours under consider- 
 able disabilities in the Black Republic. Nevertheless, the 
 Republic owes much to Christianity : all charity, all self- 
 
HAYTIAN POLICE, PRISONS AND HOSPITALS. 167 
 
 sacrifice, all care for the sick in Hayti spring from that 
 source. 
 
 But since the Catholics do so much for Hayti, is it not 
 inconsistent to fix the marriage-fees so high that the peasant 
 cannot afford to marry? These fees amount to many dol- 
 lars, as much perhaps as a peasant-farmer can make in the 
 round of the year. 
 
 The natural result is that for every married couple there 
 are 50 couples " places," as they call it. There is no need 
 to say more on the subject. It speaks for itself. 
 
 Hayti boasts of its religious toleration, nor is it an empty 
 boast. Many sects of Protestants not only exist, but are 
 encouraged in their efforts to evangelise. One writer whose 
 articles had something of a run in Hayti speaks of the 
 Protestants as follows : " Let us try to Protestantise the 
 country . . . the Protestant is economical, respects the law, 
 loves reading, is a friend of peace, rich in gallant hope 
 and perseverance . . . The nations that are dreamy, sleepy, 
 imaginative, easily discouraged, depressed, are Catholic. . . . 
 All who engage in commerce, agriculture, manufacture, 
 progress, enrich themselves, prosper, are Protestants." Yet 
 it cannot be said that Protestantism makes any way 
 in Hayti. 
 
 I have referred in a former chapter to an instance, the 
 only one, I believe, on record, when human sacrifice was 
 actually beheld by a white man. The witness was a young 
 
i68 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 French priest whom Sir Spenser St. John met at the palace 
 of the Archbishop in Port-au-Prince. 
 
 This young cure had persuaded some of the people to 
 take him to a Vaudoux service. They blackened his face 
 and hands, and disguised him as a peasant. After a 
 prelude of the usual frenzied dancing and whirling, a cock 
 and a goat were sacrificed. 
 
 Later on, one of those present knelt and prayed the 
 Mamaloi to complete the sacrifice by the offering of the 
 "goat without horns." Upon this a child was disclosed, 
 sitting with its feet bound. As the Papaloi approached 
 the victim with the knife, the child screamed aloud, and 
 the young priest rushed forward, shouting "Spare the 
 child 1" He was at once surrounded by his friends, who 
 smuggled him away. 
 
 On his return to the town he tried to rouse the author- 
 ities, but they would do nothing until the morning, when 
 on going to the spot they found the remains of the feast 
 and the boiled skull of the child. No action was taken 
 against the criminals, but the priest was deported under 
 the excuse that it was dangerous for him to remain in the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 There are undoubted difficulties in the way of evangelis- 
 ing Hayti. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A LIVING CITV WITHIN A DEAD ONE. 
 
 When I reached Cap Haytien revolution was in the air. 
 
 The " OHnde Rodriguez" came to anchor, and I went 
 ashore — to be received as a conspirator. 
 
 I could not conceive the reason, but the fact remained 
 that I, the correspondent of the "Daily Express," landing 
 in Cap Haytien, produced all the effect of a stone falling 
 into a pool of shrimps. 
 
 When I arrived they were expecting a Minister; the 
 troops and Generals, in about equal numbers, had turned 
 out in full gorgeousness to meet him. Drums were beating 
 and flags were flying, but when it became known that the 
 expected grandee had not put in an appearance the military 
 and the twenty-seven mounted Generals took themselves off. 
 
 As I had come from a port within the borders of the 
 Republic I hardly expected any trouble with the Customs, 
 
T70 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 but herein I found myself mistaken. My light baggage 
 was pounced upon by a tall soldier, and, in spite of remon- 
 strances and protestations, vv-as carried into the presence of 
 a gold-laced General, who ordered me to open it. 
 
 I explained that coming from Port-au-Prince my effects 
 were not liable to inspection. 
 
 "Have you letters.^" 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 "Give the letters to me." 
 
 The scene had shifted towards the door into the sun- 
 light, and a crowd of guff'awing negroes gathered to super- 
 intend the discomfiture of le hlanc. An assistant of the 
 General's rummaged through my belongings until he came 
 upon the MSS. of these papers and a few private letters, 
 which things were clearly suspicious and produced a profound 
 sensation. 
 
 The General seized them. "What has le d/anc got here?" 
 
 I explained that I was in the habit of keeping a diary 
 of my daily doings. My private letters were impounded 
 on the spot. Searching questions were then put to me 
 concerning my name, my destination, and my business in 
 the Republic. Soon an official informed me that I was 
 at liberty to go away. This was not to be thought of, 
 as I knew in my heart that, with my manuscript, I was 
 leaving my liberty and, possibly, my life behind me ; for 
 Hayti is a country in which it is by no means healthy to 
 
A TJVING CITY WITHIN A DEAD ONE. 171 
 
 write down exactly what the traveller may see. You must 
 not under any circumstances express a political sentiment, 
 least of all, ye gods, on paper ! Why, only the other day 
 a gentleman of sporting tendencies shouted " A bas President 
 Sam" in the street at Port-au-Prince. A negro guard leaped 
 out of the shadows and shot him dead. I remembered 
 this also, that no English Consul existed within two hundred 
 miles of me. 
 
 There was nothing for it but to produce my Foreign 
 Office passport and to speak vaguely of my position as a 
 British subject and the long arm of the British navy. I talk- 
 ed of the "Powerful" and the "Terrible." They whispered 
 together, and, after a considerable interval, returned my 
 notes. May the shadow of the British Empire never grow less ! 
 
 The official activity was afterwards made clear to me. 
 An ague-fit of revolutionary hankerings had swept across 
 Northern Hayti, and at the time I chanced to arrive the 
 Government were still keeping a wide-open eye on all 
 correspondence. With my MSS. in my kit I lived on without 
 having attained to either the picturesqueness or the incon- 
 venience which inevitably attach to a political schemer. 
 But let us explore Cap Haytien. 
 
 They say that your outlook, or perhaps I should say 
 your inlook, upon a country is largely influenced by the 
 door through which you happen to enter it. 
 
 Hayti is no exception to the rule. Her three gates of 
 
172 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 ingress present each of them a definite and characteristic 
 feature. 
 
 That of Port-au-Prince is dirt. That of Jacmel is fire- 
 scorched and gutted black interiors. But Cap Haytien is 
 a mushroom town of wood, built among imposing stone 
 ruins. 
 
 Go in whatever direction you like the sights that meet 
 you are the same. Ruined houses, ruined aqueducts, ruined 
 fountains of stone, ruined walls, ruined forts. She bears 
 upon her the indelible impress of the tremendous earth- 
 quake of 1842. From the sea the town is but a little 
 cluster of dwellings heaped together beneath the wooded 
 mountains in the corner of a big purple plain. Her jetties 
 are broken, black, and old ; the usual wreck lies ashore in 
 her harbour — there is one in the harbour of every important 
 port in the Repubhc — but once ashore you are in the 
 cleanest and the best kept town in all Hayti. The principal 
 street fronts down almost directly on the harbour; it is 
 wide and perhaps two miles long. Once in the old French 
 days the town was the centre of luxury and fashion. It 
 was called the "little Paris" of the West. Since then ruin 
 and devastation have swept over it. 
 
 Half the hillside was torn away by the shock which 
 annihilated the city. The dread earthquake shook down or 
 seriously injured almost every house, two-thirds of the inhabit- 
 ants were buried beneath the fallen masonry; bands of blacks 
 
A LIVING CITY WITHIN A DEAD ONE. 173 
 
 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 rob the stores and 
 houses, while the officers and men of the garrison, instead 
 of attempting to keep order, joined in plundering the small 
 remnants of what the surviving inhabitants could save from 
 the tottering ruins. What a people! 
 
 An American journaHst is said to have heard the above 
 story of the earthquake and the looting of the town. His 
 comment was : " My aunt I What copy for any duck who 
 happened to be browsing around!" 
 
 To-day Cap Haytien is like a sparrow's egg laid in the 
 deserted nest of an eagle. Wherever you walk you are 
 among old ruins, knee high and over-grown. Among them 
 have cropped up the wooden dwellings of the present 
 masters of the land. The hills which back the town are 
 guiltless of human habitation. Away to the north, guarding 
 the harbour mouth, is Fort Picolet, garrisoned by two sol- 
 diers. It contains a few old cannon, which lean their black 
 nozzles over the ruined parapets like a colony of basking seals. 
 
 It is a common saying in the Republic that no revolution 
 can be successful unless it emanates at the Cape. It was 
 the seat of Government under the Emperor Christophe, 
 that terrible and masterful figure, to the days of whose 
 iron rule the greater virility, energy, and enterprise of the 
 population of the north are often attributed. 
 
174 WHERE BLACK RULES WHFrE. 
 
 The town itself is well laid out, its cobbled streets are 
 the cleanest I have seen in Hayti ;— not too clean, you under- 
 stand, but still far in advance of those of the capital or 
 pestiferous Jacmel. And the people are superior also. 
 They work harder, the soldiers have straighter backs and 
 less ragged uniforms. These things are in some measure 
 due to General Nord Alexis, the head of the department. 
 He is an old man now, but if all the officials of the Re- 
 public did her as good service as this high-handed old 
 General the country would be a wholesomer and a happier 
 land. 
 
 Spread in all the main streets are sail-cloths covered 
 with coffee berries, whose shining green bears witness to 
 their high quality. Wild-eyed men, with naked torsos, 
 toil shouting under sacks of it; bearded natives (whose 
 extraordinary likeness to the Riffs of North Africa forces 
 itself upon you), driving carts drawn by four, mules, take 
 it with an accompaniment of indescribable din to the wharf, 
 and there another horde screams for possession of it. In 
 the South you do not see men working like that. 
 
 And all this riotous life boils and struggles in the midst 
 of the old dead city, within the broken shell of its fallen 
 palaces and aqueducts and baths, whose walls have mostly 
 sunk to the ebb-tide level of destruction, and are hardly 
 more than ridges above the ground. Time and weather 
 and the strong soft fingers of tropical vegetation are slowly 
 
A LIVING CITY WITHIN A DEAD ONE. 177 
 
 wiping out the remembrance of them from the face of the 
 earth. To-day an occasional Ilaytian will point out with 
 pride the tin erection of the new custom-house, proudly 
 marked with the name of the reigning President. The 
 white man built a hundred years ago, the black builds now. 
 
 Apropos of the threatened revolution I have alluded to, 
 an extremely frightened gentleman once presented himself 
 at the British Consulate, and begged the Consul to advise 
 him what course he had better pursue if there should 
 happen to be — as was then most likely— an)' shooting in 
 the streets. The Consul, who was used to Hayti, slowly 
 stroked his beard. 
 
 "What should you do?" he said slowly. " If I were 
 you, Mr. Blank, I should at once get out of the — ah — line 
 of fiahl" 
 
 Hayti is a chameleon. She has been a Republic, an 
 Empire, then once more Republic, again an Empire, and 
 now a Republic over again. 
 
 Her history is one gigantic patchwork of revolutions. 
 Whatever she may be like when her political temperature 
 is normal, she changes completely when it goes up a degree 
 or two. With her rulers a few suspicions are enough to 
 be magnified into an attempted revolution, and, when once 
 her temperature reaches this fever point, strange things of 
 many kinds occur. Having been a suspected conspirator 
 myself, do I not write with the diploma of experience? 
 
178 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 Everyone is interested in revolution tales. Here are some 
 true ones from the best forcing-bed in the world for such 
 productions. They are dramatic tales fitting this land of 
 tropical skies, and pronunciamentos, and vengeful Presidents. 
 But these stories are something more than true and drama- 
 tic ; they were once everyday occurrences. The following 
 are selected at hap-hazard from a thousand such, and they 
 all happened during the last two revolutions. The point 
 to bear in mind is that they are pretty sure to happen 
 again during the next; for once the delirium of political 
 excitement and strife begins to take hold upon the people 
 they break away from the leash of civilisation. 
 
 Upon the death of President Salomon the usual sanguin- 
 ary struggle took place for the possession of power, and 
 it was in the course of this struggle that the ominous and 
 daring personality of General Dardignac forged to the front. 
 He was an adherent of Legitime, who eventually seized 
 the Presidential chair. Dardignac was a mulatto with an 
 iron-grey moustache and determined eyes, bloodshot with 
 staring through dust and sun. 
 
 Now Dardignac was one of those strong men who make 
 more enemies than friends. On one occasion he was going 
 north with troops on a Riviere steamer (she trades between 
 the Haytian ports to this day). About dawn they put in 
 for supplies at a little seaside town, and some fresh pas- 
 sengers came aboard. While breakfasting Dardis^nac heard 
 
A LIVING CITY WITHIN A DEAD ONE. 179 
 
 on the deck above him two voices, one of which he had 
 reason to know too well. It was that of a prominent per- 
 sonage nicknamed Rude Raide, who for public or personal 
 reasons had crossed the designs of Dardignac in past days. 
 The General went on deck. 
 
 "My friend," he said, "I have been looking forward to 
 a meeting such as this for years." 
 
 Rude Raide turned green and made a feeble attempt to 
 offer conventional greetings. Dardignac called his men. 
 
 "Tie him up!" said he, and went below to finish his 
 meal. 
 
 When he returned the affair developed. He ordered the 
 steamer to be stopped. Fire-bars were tied to Rude Raide's 
 ankles, and with his own hand Dardignac shoved him 
 overboard. Those who saw it say that Rude Raide wriggled 
 down upright into the depths of the sea. Then Dardignac 
 laughed aloud ; it was his form of humour. 
 
 During the same revolution he fought a battle near 
 Grand Saline ; the casualties mounted up to heavy numbers 
 on each side, which is not a very common characteristic 
 of this internecine warfare. Seven prisoners were taken. 
 Dardignac, seated in an arm-chair, ordered them to be 
 brought before him. By his directions they were placed 
 in a semicircle, and with a small Winchester he shot them 
 one after the other from his chair with his own hand. 
 Very brutal, of course ; but there was another and a no 
 
i8o WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 less definite side to the General's character. He was a 
 man of fantastic bravery. He is known to have captured 
 one of the enemy's ramparts unaided, riding at it armed only 
 with a cocomacaque club. He sat in full view upon the 
 ramparts, being shot at (and wounded), until the last man 
 of his following was in. 
 
 At another engagement he was wounded in the groin. 
 To show his contempt of pain, he was in the habit of 
 giving audiences while the doctor probed his wound, and 
 more than once the last footfall of his retiring officers had 
 hardly died away before he fainted. 
 
 The end of his career was tragic. He was shot by his 
 own soldiers. 
 
 As for the lower class of Haytian, he fights in a revolu- 
 tion, and knows not why he fights. The leader has his 
 stake in the contest, the soldier has none ; he merely runs 
 the chance of losing all he ever possessed — his life. Be 
 the President who he may, the private remains the same 
 ragged, unfed private still. 
 
 From this standpoint a revolution is pathetic. Here are 
 these ignorant soldiers fighting, reinforced by a rabble of 
 wild peasants and vociferous wharf-side negroes, helping to 
 turn things upside down, and to make that peculiar con- 
 coction — Haytian history — and getting no good out of it 
 for themselves. So it goes on : always a few military oper- 
 ations, a good deal of promiscuous shooting in the street 
 
A LIVING CITY WITHIN A DEAD ONE. i8i 
 
 and round corners, with a great deal of talk ; and as an 
 aftermath pronunciamentos, imprisonments, and a heavy bill 
 of mortality within prison gates or against the arsenal wall. 
 
 The revolutionist, it is true, wears no gloves of mercy, 
 but the negro is hard to kill. Somewhere about 1888 a 
 bold vanguard, numbering some five men, marched into a 
 village upon the banks of the Artibonite. The villagers, 
 believing the main body to be close behind, fled. The 
 famous five seized food and ate, maltreated women and 
 children, and otherwise enjoyed themselves each after his 
 kind. The village people, who were hiding in the woods, 
 presently found out that the five men were unsupported, so 
 they flocked back to vengeance. Two of the five they 
 killed, two escaped, and the fifth unfortunate was taken 
 prisoner. They cropped his ears as they cut a pig's, they 
 cut the tip off his nose, they slit his mouth to his neck. 
 To crown all they broke both his legs with musket balls, 
 and threw what half an hour before had been a man into 
 a cactus bush. 
 
 Meantime the two fugitives had returned to the camp, and 
 on their representations a force was at once sent out to 
 immolate that gentle village. When the butchery was over, 
 groans were heard to issue from the cactus bush. They 
 pulled out the wreck of a man. He recovered. It is hard 
 to believe this story, but there is the scarred man walking 
 about Port-au-Prince to-day. 
 
1 82 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 I do not know whether anyone, allured by my descrip- 
 tion of the country, feels moved to emigrate to Hayti, 
 there to carve out a career for himself. To such I make 
 a free present of the following revolutionary prescrip- 
 tion. In a revolution the theory for the individual is — go 
 for your worst enemy, and go quickly, or you will find him 
 coming for you. When you have killed him, send in the 
 bill to whatever Government has come into power, and 
 demand a reward for patriotism. It is by working on this 
 simple principle that many big local reputations have been 
 made in Hayti. 
 
 When first I arrived in the island the country was drift- 
 ing pretty surely towards revolution. The people were 
 starving and discontented. Exchange stood at 190, and 
 all because the price of coflee had fallen. Then came the 
 news that an outbreak of the plague in Brazil had scotched 
 the export of coffee from that quarter, exchange leaped 
 back to 120 and iio in four days, and the Government 
 was saved. Even the bubonic plague has its uses. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE CITADEL OF THE BLACK NAPOLEON. 
 
 I LINGERED Oil at Cap Haytien. 
 
 For days I had waited. 
 
 For days it had become my habit to gaze across at the 
 citadel, which I had travelled the length of Hayti to visit. 
 There it was, seeming small as a crow's nest upon its 
 mountain peak far away across the plains. 
 
 For days word was brought to me that the journey was 
 hopeless — it could not be attempted. 
 
 Why? The roads were impassable. 
 
 First, because the rain had increased the fords and flooded 
 the lower-lying parts of the intervening plain. 
 
 Second, because the sun had dried the mud to the con- 
 sistency of glue, and no horse could do otherwise than stick 
 helplessly in it. 
 
 Lastly, because there had been more rain. 
 
 Then I saw my opportunity. 
 
WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 184 
 
 With Haytian volubility I was implored to wait a week, 
 a month, a fortnight, until, at the least, the ground was 
 passable. 
 
 Through the kindness of a gentleman to whom I am 
 most deeply indebted, I secured a guide and set out. 
 
 That road ! How shall I bring it before you ? Take a 
 farmyard, a thunderstorm, a horse-pond, a fat ploughed- 
 field, mix them thoroughly, spread over with unwholesome 
 green scum, and you have it. Here and there you came 
 upon a pool of the consistency of porridge. A negro fell 
 into one just outside a village ; it rose shoulder high upon 
 him. You tacked along like a boat in a shifting wind. 
 To my middle I was sopped in mud. Never before did 
 I realise the beauty of the profession followed by those 
 gentlemen who drive water-tight carts round London, gath- 
 ering up fluid street-slime. And the mud smelt, hot, thick, 
 marshy. Up to the waist I was a mudlark, above that I 
 was spotted in black on my yellow khaki like an Ethiopian 
 leopard. 
 
 The vagaries of the road irritated one. Across the level 
 plain it took you meandering half a mile out of your way 
 for every three-quarters you went forward. My first object- 
 ive was Millot, where I was to pass the night. It was a 
 pleasant prospect, that of sleeping wet to the skin, yet I 
 knew it to be unavoidable, for my small change of clothes 
 had sunk long since into a sticky and revolting mass. 
 
z 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 X 
 H 
 
THE CITADEL OF THE BLACK NAPOLEON. 1S5 
 
 My guide, Petit Col by name, on hearing that I was 
 an Englishman, christened me John. "This way, John," 
 he would say. And "John" followed meekly for a time, 
 until he discovered that Petit Col was as innocent as him- 
 self of the geography of the quagmires. Then "John" 
 led, encouraged by the shouts of his retainer. Through 
 morasses, into sloughs, wading rivers of mud, you entered 
 into the spirit of it after a time. '' The muddier the mer- 
 rier." As long as I did not fall bodily into a hole I ceased 
 to care what happened. Yet the first splash which painted 
 me black from ear to mouth had produced unseemly language. 
 The sky above was cloudless blue, and the sunlight, scalding 
 yellow on the road, made the black surface of the slime 
 dance and steam. 
 
 Much in the same manner we were still toiling on when 
 sunset found us. At last we came in sight of Millot, the 
 halfway house to the citadel of La Ferriere, which was 
 built at infinite cost of human life some eighty years ago 
 by the black Emperor of Hayti, Christophe, or, as he loved 
 to call himself, Henry the First. 
 
 Millot itself is but a collection of a few hundred huts 
 regular as the ranks of a regiment. Armed with letters 
 and permits I rode into the village at the rising of the 
 moon. In the shifting lights the place reminded me of 
 Broadway in the Cotswolds of happy memory. Over the 
 huts a blue haze hune low under the china-blue reflections 
 
1 86 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 of the moon. This haze was made by the smoke of many 
 fires, that winked and burned small in the distance as 
 fireflies. Riding nearer, one saw black forms crouching 
 on their haunches, and other black figures dancing in the 
 glow. In some hut at the back they were beating a drum 
 with the rolling booming finger-motion which has come 
 from Africa. And through this blue fog it was necessary 
 for the traveller to seek out the General de la Place, that 
 local potentate who is about as absolute a monarch as the 
 Czars of Russia used to be, but are no more. 
 
 The General was not at his house, a straw-thatched 
 building, consisting of three rooms and a narrow brick- 
 paved verandah. Nor was he at the little guard-house in 
 the central street. So we must seek him away up the 
 hill through the pufiy blue haze. 
 
 ''Qui vive?'"' The challenge was slung at us, as it 
 seemed, from nowhere. 
 
 '■^ Ayizlaisy We moved forward to find a dozen soldiers 
 seated by a fire in the gloom of a wall-less shed very like 
 an English cart-house. They caught up their rifles and 
 proceeded to ask our business with one voice. I mentioned 
 that I wished to see the General de la Place, for whom I 
 had letters. ' As usual, they attempted to confiscate them, 
 but upon one of their number spelling out the addresses 
 they became polite. Endless chattering followed. 
 
 At last, weary of waiting, wet from the rigours of the 
 
THE CITADEL OF THE BLACK NAPOLEON. 187 
 
 road, I handed over my letters, and begged the officer of 
 the post to inform the General that I should do myself 
 the honour of calling upon him to pay my respects in the 
 morning. Then I followed Petit Col down the hill to find 
 some place wherein to sleep. 
 
 The morning came with a grateful smell of strong sweet 
 coffee. Then it was on-saddle again after a tin-full of that 
 same excellent coffee, and away, guided by a large-headed, 
 thin-legged four-year-old, to pay my promised visit to the 
 General de la Place. 
 
 Now, the General de la Place holds an authority from 
 which there is no sort of appeal. This time I found him 
 at home. I rode into his yard and dismounted, not without 
 some qualms as to the possible failure of my expedition. 
 The Government are very much opposed to permitting 
 foreigners to inspect the fortress of La Ferriere, but they 
 are diplomatic in their refusals. The General at Cap Haytien 
 will graciously give you a pass, which the General at Millot 
 invariably cancels. As all this had been explained to me 
 before starting I was, naturally, apprehensive. For a long 
 time no one had been allowed to see La Ferriere — was I 
 going to be more fortunate ? 
 
 The General was a large coal-black man, in a frock-coat 
 of shepherd's plaid check and a cream-coloured military 
 cap. He was most affable. The usual compliments and 
 some polite remarks passed between us. He was, he 
 
i88 WHERE BLACK RULES WHLrE. 
 
 told me, thirty-five years old, and I? I trusted him with 
 the secret of my age, and we found ourselves at once on 
 an excellent footing. In his remarks about the citadel he 
 was vague. Afterwards I discovered the reason of the 
 prohibition to visit it. 
 
 The Emperor Christophe is said to have died worth 
 fifteen millions, and this hoard of treasure no one has yet 
 discovered. But some time ago a man — his name is of 
 no import — appeared at a Cap Haytien gaming-table, and 
 tempted luck with what ? Spanish doubloons 1 No less 
 than that most romantic and piratical coin? He did not 
 deny having discovered the treasure of Christophe. The 
 Government heard of it. Hippolyte was President at the 
 time, and Hippolyte sent for him. 
 
 " Confide in me," said Hippolyte, " and become a General ! " 
 
 Lured by this tempting bait, the discoverer came perilously 
 near to giving up his secret, but not quite. He was then 
 sent back to the north to Cap Haytien, where the General 
 made the mistake of threatening him. The limpet might 
 have yielded to caresses, but the finger of force closed his 
 mouth. He was put into prison, and there by every bar- 
 barous means they strove to wrench his secret from him. 
 Yet ever he bore his tortures, and closed his mouth the 
 tighter. 
 
 At length they set him free, and had his movements 
 carefully shadowed, but with no result. Finally hundreds 
 
THE CITADEL OF THE BLACK NAPOLEON. 189 
 
 of soldiers were sent to excavate. These again failed to 
 find a trace of gold, and there the matter rests unto this 
 day. The discoverer is still at large with fifteen millions 
 locked up in his inviolable silence. Strange, bloodstained, 
 old-world money like to Kidd's treasures, which are said 
 to be buried near by in the Haytian Island of Tortuga. 
 
 But to return to the General de la Place. We exchanged 
 cards, and from his I learned that he was " General Anahim 
 Amazan, General de Division aux Armees de la Republique, 
 Aide-de-camp honoraire de son P'xcellence le President 
 d'Haiti, Commandant de la Place et de la Commune de 
 Millot." In poor exchange he read mine, which held no- 
 thing but my name. I shall always look back upon General 
 Amazan with gratitude. Nowhere could you meet with 
 more courtesy than he showed to the bedraggled wanderer 
 who presented himself before him. 
 
 The creator of La Ferriere has been called the Black 
 Napoleon. Black as the purest African blood could make 
 him, and born a slave, he yet showed himself, in the 
 afterdays of his power, to be possessed of a right royal 
 taste for splendid architecture of the most enduring type. 
 
 The mountain upon whose crest the fortress of La 
 Ferriere is built takes two hours of hard climbing to 
 surmount. But you have evidences of Christophe's ambitions 
 long before you arrive at it. He loved b^oad and spacious 
 roads and noble vistas, and these he forced his people to 
 
igo WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 hew out for him from rock and plain and forest. But they 
 are gone now, wiped out of sight by those two remorseless 
 dissolvents of the results of human labour, neglect and 
 nature. 
 
 Riding out of Millot I saw what is left of the black 
 ruler's chief Palace of Pleasure, Sans-Souci. He had many 
 other handsome dwellings, country-seats scattered about the 
 rich plain of the Artibonite, bearing names which smack 
 rather of the East than of the West — "Queen's Delight," 
 "The Glory," "The King's Beautiful View," and so forth. 
 Sans-Souci is built on a rising ground at the apex of a 
 narrow and lovely ravine, set between steep green hills. 
 It stands a grey ruin of lost effort, among the waste of its 
 fallen gardens. The solid hne of stone steps leading up to 
 it still remains, though green things are pushing between 
 the slabs. 
 
 You look up into the face of the main building above. 
 It is a pale and shattered face, and from some of its blank 
 windows trees are growing outwards. But there is not a 
 memory connected with it that could raise a regret or 
 make you wish to perpetuate one single association. For 
 the history of the Emperor Christophe's fourteen years of 
 power is one unbroken record of self-seeking, corruption, 
 and cruelty. 
 
 Yet the man must have had great quahties besides those 
 which enabled him to make himself autocrat and tyrant 
 
o 
 
 D 
 
 O 
 
 m 
 
 in 
 z 
 < 
 CO 
 
 < 
 
 a. 
 
THE CITADEL OF THE BLACK NAPOLEON. 191 
 
 over his fellows. He was curiously different from the mass 
 of his race, who love idleness, who do not seem to heed 
 squalor, and whose liking for gaudy personal adornment 
 is grotesquely devoid of all sense of congruity ; whereas 
 Christophe's representative in England told, not only of 
 extensive public works, ravines filled up, mountains levelled, 
 and public roads laid out, but also of the inlaid work and 
 rare tapestry with which the Emperor's apartments were 
 embellished. 
 
 Leaving Sans-Souci we began the climb upwards. I was 
 accompanied, not only by my own guide. Petit Col, but 
 by the military escort provided for me through the agency 
 of the General. This escort consisted of one small soldier 
 armed with a club. 
 
 Outside the village we met a murderer being taken to 
 prison by one of the country police, who was, of course, 
 also a soldier. ' The prisoner was pinioned by a rope tied 
 tightly round his upper-arms, and his captor drove him 
 along with vigour. The poor wretch was nearly naked, 
 and miserably thin. He had been wounded in the face, 
 and a few broken teeth showed under his swollen lips. I 
 gave cigars to each of the men, but I have no doubt that 
 the soldier who was armed with a rusty modern revolver 
 with a handle of mother-of-pearl, smoked both. 
 
 After a long rough climb through the ever-thickening 
 forest, we reached the region of the clouds. A hail rang 
 
192 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 down upon us from the thicket of trees overhead, and a 
 six-foot negro, armed with a machette, dropped down from 
 the heights above the track. His clothing was not in 
 keeping with the bitter cold. It consisted of the remains 
 of a pair of trousers, of which the thorns had had their will, 
 hanging in tatters about his thighs, while a piece of blue 
 shirting, adjusted for wear by holes for head and arms, 
 completed his costume. This was the chief warder of the 
 Black Napoleon's great citadel. 
 
 He and a companion, similarly armed and yet more 
 sparsely clad, now led the way. All trace of a path was 
 gone, and to reach the Citadel, which full in view, towered 
 starkly up above us, grim and ruinous and red-stained with 
 lichen and overgrowth — it was necessary to cut out a track 
 through the close mesh of underbush and creepers. 
 
 Yet, if report speaks truly, Christophe was wont in his 
 own day to drive up to his fortress in the mountains. The 
 warder guided us by devious turns and with many delays, 
 while he cleared away the encroaching vanguards of the 
 forest, until at length at the outer bastions of the fort the 
 trees stopped short. From under their shelter we plunged 
 out into a blinding, hurtling cloud of rain, and waited, 
 chilled to the bone, until the sense of sight should be 
 vouchsafed to us again. 
 
 The guards of the Citadel, inadequately provided in 
 every way as they are, would have a poor time of it were 
 
THE CITADEL OF THE BLACK NAPOLEON. 193 
 
 it not for the fact that the Government, jealous of the 
 discovery of buried treasure, changes the men every month. 
 
 After a time the rain thinned, I urged my horse to 
 frantic effort, and shortly we gained the comparative shelter 
 of the guard-house. A log to sit upon, a mass of fluffy, 
 flaky wood-ash, eloquent of a dead fire, and a broken tin 
 roof, supported on posts, but wall-less as usual, which 
 merely served to increase the chill of wind and cloud 
 that shot and drove under it as through a funnel, made 
 up the sum of barrack accommodation furnished by the 
 Republican Government for its servants. 
 
 Personally I found that khaki, though all very well down 
 below in the ports and on the plains, was not the ideal 
 material for facing this fierce weather. While we waited on 
 the pleasure of the storm, the wild warder had plucked an 
 orange from a tree hard by, and was peeling it with his 
 machette. I remember I could hardly see what it was 
 when first he cut into it, and yet, before the coil of peel 
 fell to the ground, the overhanging cloud had flicked away 
 its tail and the mountain summit was bathed in yellow, 
 opulent sunshine. 
 
 And then came repayment to the fullest. 
 
 The whole green place laughed with a thousand dew-lit 
 mouths. The trees dripped moisture and exquisite shades 
 of colour from their low-hanging branches. Nature breathed 
 warm in your face. You seemed to see her, savage and 
 
194 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 beautiful, flinging her unchecked arms about the great 
 fortress as if to drag it down from its place of pride. 
 Involuntarily I glanced up at the grim, walls, draped in 
 their torn garment of orange-red mosses. Signs of decay 
 and time show clearly enough upon them, yet they stand 
 erect against the pale blue sky-line in impressive bulk. 
 And then came that other contrast between the wild 
 figures of the two warders and their great empty ward of 
 solid stone and brick and masonry. They choose to live 
 in their sordid dwelling-place, puny and tumble-down as it 
 is, by force of race preferring it to the enormous ruin. Of 
 that they were — afraid ! 
 
 So it was ; they were terribly afraid. Gingerly they 
 opened the huge, nail-rusted, iron-bound door, pausing 
 hang-footed on the vast threshold. For here ghosts move, 
 they say, with shrill pipe through the blackness. 
 
 I gave the order to move forward. 
 
 But they held back. Something seemed to trouble them. 
 
 The four negroes gathered themselves into a little knot 
 and gabbled together. Then one advanced and pushed 
 back the creaking door. Old smells came out to meet us, 
 and noises like giants laughing. It was only a landslip 
 far away in the bowels of the mountain. 
 
 Well, we entered. I took three steps forward and a 
 hand plucked me back. 
 
 I struck a match. A mouth of blackness gaped at my feet. 
 
194 WHERE T^T \ri- 
 
THE CITADEL OF THE BLACK NAPOLEON. 195 
 
 "Deep, deep I You dead if you walk there 1" 
 
 After which I moved hang-footed too. 
 
 The great door of the ruin closed between us and the 
 sunlight, and we were in the dark interior of the huge old 
 citadel on Mont La Ferriere. Long deserted by man, and 
 left to natural decay, its mighty structure shaken to danger- 
 point by the violent earthquake of 1842, the Citadel is 
 precisely the place where one prefers to walk by sight. 
 
 We groped our way up a flight of steps, and presently 
 reached daylight again. We found ourselves in a long 
 gallery, lit by narrow embrasures, each guarded by an 
 ancient black-snouted cannon. There were nineteen of them, 
 nineteen out of an aggregate of three hundred in the 
 whole fort. Behind the cannon and all about the gallery 
 were rolled and piled the rusty balls they were never 
 destined to send forth. The flooring, as you moved over 
 it, quivered like the bed of a snipe-marsh, and the place 
 reeked of old wet smells. 
 
 Outside you could see the world alive and hot with 
 glowing sunshine ; here nothing stirred save the lizard 
 startled from its bask. Of the long row of cannon some 
 were of brass, and marked " Georgius IV. Rex," and some 
 were strangely bearded with shining stalactites of pallid 
 white, grovv'n from the endless drippings of the roof. A 
 little further on the floor did not look like bearing a heavy 
 weight, so the lighter negroes went on alone like prying 
 
196 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 children, until ten yards ahead the rotten wood creaked 
 and gave ominously, and they came scuttling back. 
 
 From the gallery we passed out into an open courtyard 
 and the welcome warmth of the sun. Here, about the 
 tomb of dead Christophe, the jungle, fought back and 
 checked by the outer walls, has undermined them and 
 broken out into fresh riot. Between the stems of the young 
 tamarinds and through Guinea-grass head-high and higher, 
 we pushed our way until we reached the resting-place, 
 pink and age-stained, of the most dominant black in history, 
 the negro who reproached Napoleon for surviving defeat, 
 and who, true to his convictions, in the supreme moment 
 chose death. In front of the tomb, under the covering slab, 
 a hole had been broken through the masonry; inside it 
 looked like a rabbit-earth where dogs had been scratching. 
 Close over it from an orange tree hung fruit in ripe 
 golden clusters. 
 
 Petit Col, the guide, stooped down and burrowed in the 
 opening, and drew forth something yellowed, curved, and 
 furred, — a human rib. 
 
 "Take it — Christophe," he said briefly, and diving again, 
 plucked out what seemed to be a finger-bone. I declined 
 the souvenir. It was a little too grisly. But the tall warder 
 had no such scruples. He wrapped it in what served him 
 for a shirt, for it was saleable. In the loneliness of the 
 stark interior he would, I think, have shrunk from the act, 
 
 I 
 
THE CITADEL OF THE BLACK NAPOLEON. 197 
 
 but here he had company and the sunHght to stiffen his 
 courage. 
 
 We pkuiged again into the jungle of Guinea-grass, and 
 the men cut a path to some broken steps ; then, after 
 passing through one more dark passage, we emerged upon 
 the battlements. They are flat and wide enough for a 
 carriage to drive along. From them one gains some notion 
 of the vast thickness of the walls, fifteen to twenty feet of 
 solid stone-work. Below, the whole plain spread out in 
 gigantic bars of colour. The foreground of deep potato- 
 green, dotted with huts small and black, like ranked dominoes, 
 the distances fading into smoky grey, and far to the left 
 the sea in a band of gleaming blue underscored the horizon. 
 
 It is not until you look suddenly straight downwards 
 that you lealise you are two thousand feet sheer above 
 the plain. Two thousand feet — it does not seem very 
 much in print, but when the eye follows the clean drop of 
 grey wall and cliff to dim depths below, you become aware 
 that the words have a pregnant meaning. A red mo.ss 
 creeps like old blood-stains about the stones. Here a few 
 inches under the edge each minute feather is distinctly 
 visible, a little further down you have a wide-spread blur, 
 lower, lower, and lower, till the distance grows brown and 
 your head reels, for at last the field of view comes up to 
 you with a wavering sea-floor glimmer through the fathoms 
 of air. 
 
1 98 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 Old blood-stained walls in fact, are these of Christophe's 
 Citadel. From the battlements men have leaped into 
 space at his order, or been flung screaming out into the 
 shuddering emptiness. The stories of his cruelty are endless. 
 You wonder why the people submitted to tyranny they 
 could have shaken oft", until you recollect that the will of 
 a strong man usually holds the key to any situation. 
 
 A stone dislodged under the hand tumbled over the edge, 
 and we hung breathless to hear it strike bottom. After 
 we had ceased to listen an echo rose faintly upwards and 
 surprised the ear. In due time we went back to the 
 massive chill and silence of the ruin. Through the King's 
 chamber, the Queen's chamber, and the dining-hall, a 
 lofty, round, be-windowed place. While we loitered there, 
 the sun went out as before. Billowing, smoky cloud- 
 wreaths came vomiting in through the blank windows, 
 and threw us into a sudden twilight. It occurred to the 
 wild warder to choose this juncture as a fitting moment 
 to tell me something of the habits of the local ghosts. 
 
 " A ghost, if he can hurt you, looks at you and you 
 die," he muttered; "the first time he comes he looks only 
 at his feet, and the second time he is looking down, down 
 at his feet; the third time he looks at you" — he flung up 
 his two large-jointed hands with a gesture that depicted 
 sudden death, and left very little to the imagination. 
 
 When, after some minutes, the cloud rolled off. Petit 
 
THE CITADEL OF THE BLACK NAPOLEON. igg 
 
 Col looked up. "There is nothing more to see," he 
 said. 
 
 But I explained that the Emperor Christophe was not 
 the man to leave out those old-time necessities, dungeons; 
 and those all-time necessities, wells, from any building with 
 which he had to do. 
 
 I was not disappointed in finding the Citadel dungeons 
 quite up to the quality of their best European prototypes. 
 The bottle-necked variety appears to have appealed especi- 
 ally to Christophe's practical mind. He had constructed 
 four of them in a row ; each one deeper than the last. A 
 prisoner thrust through the throat of the first would fall, 
 say, twenty feet ; in the next the drop was deeper ; the 
 third was deeper still. In the last the victim plunged into 
 the bottomless blackness of the mountain's heart. 
 
 There were many other dungeons, too, so safe, so chill, 
 and so remote, a man might shriek himself to death within 
 a few yards of sunshine and orange trees and flowers, and 
 none know save God and the stone walls. There can be 
 no manner of doubt that many so perished — men, women, 
 and children, for Christophe's mercy was not. 
 
 I think the Black Emperor must have looked forward 
 to a day when he would have to defend himself from his 
 foes. The well he had constructed was deep and clear 
 and freezing-cold, and fed by an inexhaustible spring. La 
 Ferriere was his Tower of Babel ; he built it to save him- 
 
200 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 self from the incoming flood of revolt which he feared ; 
 built it at an incredible waste of life and labour, and after 
 all it never answered the purpose of its being. 
 
 It is magnificent. The price paid for it was thirty thou- 
 sand lives. 
 
 To-day it is a cloud-hung ruin. The lizard keeps its 
 gates, and the wind is alone in its vast emptinesses. 
 
 A ruin has always stamped upon it the traces of some 
 human passion. This frowning helmet of La Ferriere bears 
 the sign manual of the ferocity and merciless vigour of 
 Christophe. 
 
 On the battlements you find yourself, as it were, on the 
 roof of the world, looking upon the other side of the 
 cloud-rack. One reaches it by a faint track curling up the 
 mountain side, and in three hours you pass from the sun- 
 dried breathless plain below to a region of wind, grey-black 
 mists, and aching cold. It towers upon the last and highest 
 precipice like some sinister monster of the elder world 
 ready to launch itself forth upon the spreading lands below. 
 
 Seen from afar the Citadel reminds one of a Chitrali 
 fort, one flat step of masonry above another, but nearer at 
 hand it resolves itself into its true bold and menacing out- 
 lines. The conception of placing a fortress of such immense 
 strength and size in such a position could only have come 
 to a ruler who did not count cost in lives and labour. 
 But the black Emperor was a man who knew his own mind 
 
Ai 
 
THE CITADEL OF THE BLACK NAPOLEON. 203 
 
 and understood thoroughly the gentle art of tearing down 
 the barriers of laziness behind which the negro entrenches 
 himself at all times. 
 
 The materials for the whole huge pile of building, and 
 the three hundred pieces of ordnance with which it was 
 fortified, were dragged up those steep mountain scarps and 
 clififsides by human hands. Christophe employed the troops 
 mercilessly in this labour, seconding them by levies of 
 peasants raised as required. These poor wretches had no 
 pay and no food ; they lived as they could, while their 
 terrible master forced them on to a fever of toil by methods 
 which left little chance of resistance. 
 
 Neither sex nor age was spared ; the royal works had 
 to be carried on in spite of exhaustion or death. Whips 
 of cowskin, mercilessly applied by the ofificers in command, 
 drew forth almost incredible reserves of energy. The mortal- 
 ity was frightful, but Christophe had the whole of the 
 populous north to draw upon, and he used up human lives 
 unsparingly. 
 
 It took a whole regiment a whole day to drag up a 
 32-pounder. On another occasion the Emperor watched a 
 long line of a hundred men hauling a cannon upwards to 
 its mountain resting-place. Now and then they paused in 
 their labour, and these frequent stoppages annoyed Chris- 
 tophe ; he sent to ask the why and wherefore. The labourers 
 returned for answer that the gun was over much for the 
 
204 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 strength of a hundred men, and prayed that another hundred 
 men might be provided to help them. 
 
 Christophe ordered them before him and talked softly 
 with them, and at length told them to fall in and number 
 off. He then directed every fourth man to fall out, and, 
 calling up his guards, had them shot. When it was over, 
 he informed the remaining seventy-five that he was but 
 half-way through his lunch, and he would consider it a 
 favour if they would run the gun up into place before he 
 had finished. 
 
 The diminished band went back to work, but by the 
 time Christophe's meal was over the cannon had made but 
 little progress up the mountain side. When he arrived on 
 the scene the seventy-five bore witness with one voice that 
 the thing he required was, for so small a number, impossible. 
 
 Christophe laughed. "So it seems," he said, "but I 
 have a remedy. Fall in." 
 
 They fell in, and numbered off as before. 
 
 "Every third man fall out. Guards, shoot these men." 
 
 The volley had scarcely died away and the last limb 
 ceased to quiver, when Christophe gave his ultimatum. 
 
 "Now," he said to the frightened residue, "I will require 
 every second man to fall out next time. The gun was 
 too heavy for a hundred men, surely fifty will find it light." 
 
 They did. At any rate, they towed it up to the summit 
 of La Ferriere, and in its appointed casemate it probably 
 
THE CITADEL OF THE BLACK NAPOLEON. 205 
 
 stands to this day. By such means the Citadel came to 
 be the wonderful achievement it is. 
 
 On those towering heights it was painfully laid, stone 
 on stone, by men and women driven to superhuman effort 
 by the fear of unheard-of punishments. For Christophe 
 was of an original turn of mind, and an epicure in torture. 
 A man does not, I take it, know how he can work until 
 he has real fear dogging him. 
 
 Christophe's agent in England (a prince, by the way, 
 created under the new empire) boasted of his master's 
 public works, "ravines filled up" and the like. He did 
 not add the modus operandi; which was simple. If Chris- 
 tophe, in driving, came to a hollow place he caused a drum 
 to be beaten. All within hearing were compelled to come 
 to the spot on pain of death. The Emperor would point 
 to the offending hole or valley — it mattered little which it 
 was — and remarked that he would pass by that way again 
 at such a time. That was all. When he returned, if the 
 work did not suit his ideas or had not been completed, 
 the drum sounded again, and on the people assembling 
 he would choose out a casual half-dozen and have them 
 shot then and there. 
 
 There seems to have been nothing to appeal to in this 
 man's nature. Bravery, humility, all alike failed to touch 
 him. He had no bowels of mercy. He was one day on 
 the battlements with a youth, who, perhaps presuming on 
 
2o6 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 past favours, in some manner displeased him. The drop 
 from those sheer waUs is 2,000ft. to the plain below. 
 
 "You are, of course, about to die," said Christophe, 
 " but I will be kind to you. You shall have a choice of 
 deaths. Either you throw yourself over here or the soldiers 
 shall shoot you." 
 
 The young man chose to fling himself into space. But 
 by a miracle he fell amongst some trees or bushes on the 
 cliff-side, and so escaped with a broken arm. He gathered 
 himself up somehow, and presented himself again before 
 the Emperor. 
 
 "Your bidding has been done, sire," he said. 
 
 "Yes, it has," remarked Christophe, "and I am very 
 much interested to find that you survive. Oblige me by 
 trying if you can do it again!" 
 
 These are the stories which cling round the name of 
 Christophe. He was not a Haytian negro, but from one 
 of the English islands near. For this reason, perhaps, one 
 takes an unwholesome pride in the man, as possessed of a 
 rare character and indomitable resolution, much in the same 
 way as we are proud of the great pirate, Captain Kidd, 
 another gentleman who had to do with Hayti, for his 
 treasure is said to be hidden in the neighbouring island of 
 Tortuga, which lies close to the coast and belongs to the 
 Republic. 
 
 The Black Napoleon was a man of rapid rise. He en- 
 
THE CITADEL OF THE BLACK NAPOLEON. 207 
 
 tered the army, did some service in a tumult of revolution, 
 then contrived a coup-d'etat, and he was master of the 
 situation. By these few steps he raised himself to the 
 head of events, and at once created an Empire out of the 
 Northern Provinces. 
 
 Unlike the majority of his race, he possessed many of 
 the qualities of a born ruler. He made himself immortal 
 by his masterful vigour, which on the one side, it is true, 
 degenerated into callous brutality, but on the other rose 
 to that energising force of character that is said to have 
 initiated a spirit of enterprise and industry in the north — 
 a spirit that up to the present day differentiates his old 
 kingdom from the rest of the Black Republic. On the 
 whole, it can hardly be denied that he was somewhat of 
 a kingly figure. And the manner of his death was in 
 keeping with his life. 
 
 Towards the close he had an attack of paralysis, and as 
 soon as he recovered sufficiently to give orders he had 
 himself placed in a bath of rum and pepper, a remedy 
 that somewhat restored him. Immediately after a revolution 
 broke out against him at Cap Haytien, provoked by his 
 merciless exactions of labour from the people. From the 
 belvedere of his Palace of Sans-Souci he watched the rebels 
 burning his fields of cane; he sent for his body-guard, and, 
 as they defiled before him, he gave each man a dollar, and 
 bade them go and fight against the rebels. Later, news 
 
2o8 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 was brought that the guard had deserted, and gone over 
 to the enemy. He must have felt that the end of his 
 power was come. He rose and bade farewell to his wife 
 and family, and, going to his own chamber, blew out his 
 brains. 
 
 As always happens in such cases, the servants and officers 
 of the court looted the palace, but his wife and daughters 
 managed to carry away his dead body with them to the 
 Citadel on the mountain above. At times, they say, a 
 grim shadow rises from the jungle grown tomb and wanders 
 about the battlements, overlooking the plains that were 
 once his own. 
 
 The climate of the Citadel up there among the clouds 
 is full of rapid and bewildering changes. One moment 
 the heat is tropical. Then you see far away a cloud ; it 
 approaches, rearing up into the zenith, rushing at you like 
 a regiment of cavalry in a wide swirl of black dust. The 
 next moment it is belching in at all the embrasures, chilling 
 you to the bone, and the climate becomes that of the 
 outer Hebrides, During these sudden invasions the place 
 gives you the concrete representation of all that is chaotic 
 and ruinous and abysmal. 
 
 When the rain and the mist had passed over we went 
 out again across the threshold. The sun was shining, and 
 over the vista of potato-green plain and amethyst sea the 
 cloud was gathering up its ragged skirts in flight. 
 
THE CITADEL OF THE BLACK NAPOLEON. 209 
 
 As I left the tall warder was pessimistically picking over 
 the remnants of my late repast, and he had warmed the 
 fire into flickering life. Another heavy-breasted cloud had 
 invested the frowning walls ; beneath their shadow the men 
 were crouching together in their dreary hut, and above 
 them the dying fortress hung hooded. 
 
 14 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 JUSTICE AND THE STATUS OF THE WHITE. 
 
 WHERE HE IS RULED BY THE NEGRO. 
 
 In most countries where they put forward race distinc- 
 tions a man is called Englishman, American, German — by 
 the name of whatever nation may claim him. But in Hayti 
 the point of complexion carries the day, and estabhshes 
 your designation. If you do not happen to be of the reg- 
 nant colour, you are a white, a blanc — \\\Q Haytian recog- 
 nises no minor distinction among the lighter-hued foreigners. 
 As you walk about the streets you catch, at the tags and 
 tails of sentences, the labial " blajic,'' as the curious or 
 antagonist negro delivers his criticism upon you, your pro- 
 bable station in life, your present business and your per- 
 sonal charms. For, above all things, the negro is extra- 
 ordinarily inquisitive. 
 
JUSTICE AND THE STATUS OF THE WHITE. 21 t 
 
 Jealousy of the foreigner is a very pronounced trait, 
 from the Government down to the wharf-side loafer. His 
 immigration is discouraged in every way. He may be 
 said to have practically no rights ; he can own no property 
 in land, and if he gets a concession from the Government 
 he is likely to find himself, sooner or later, left in the lurch. 
 
 Yet it is not too much to say that the presence of the 
 white element, small as it is, makes for good. Remove it, 
 and the Republic would go sliding back into the depths 
 of barbarism. This applies more especially to the repre- 
 sentatives of foreign Powers accredited to the island. Time 
 and again has Hayti, in the course of her hundred years 
 of independence, owed the continuance of that independ- 
 ence to the kind offices of these gentlemen. 
 
 Occasionally she flounders diplomatically, and then it is 
 that the white man's aid must be called in to adjust a 
 difificulty beyond the powers of the black. A schedule of 
 the cases where the diplomatic representatives of foreign 
 nations have saved Hayti from the wrath and reprisals of 
 some insulted Power would make an interesting document, 
 and, to those who are not behind the scenes, a surprisingly 
 lengthy one. 
 
 P^or all this, Haytian gratitude is not. Unless the quid 
 pro quo be down in black and white, and, moreover, in- 
 sisted upon, it quietly drops into oblivion and no more is 
 heard of it. 
 
212 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 Here is an instance when the diplomatic corps formed 
 the buffer between Haytian maladroitness and foreign re- 
 sentment. The 6th of December, 1897, was a day to be 
 long remembered in Port-au-Prince, for on that morning 
 the German Government sent in an ultimatum. It is un- 
 necessary to enter at length into the origin of the dispute, 
 suffice it to say that a German subject had been imprison- 
 ed, and his release, on the intervention of his Minister, 
 refused. In the end the man was set at liberty through 
 the good offices of the American representative. But Ger- 
 many considered herself insulted. The Kaiser sent a tele- 
 gram, followed up by two gun-boats, with orders to receive 
 the indemnity demanded, and, in the event of a refusal to 
 pay, they were instructed to shell the capital. 
 
 Port-au-Prince was in an uproar. The inhabitants fled 
 to the hills, the families of many leading citizens were sent 
 on board the ships that happened to be lying in the har- 
 bour. The rougher part of the populace boasted that on 
 the first shot fired they would begin a massacre of every 
 white man, woman, and child in the town. The Cabinet 
 met at the palace of the President to discuss the situation. 
 Meantime the minutes were flying, but the foreign repre- 
 sentatives procured an extension of the time-limit given in 
 the German ultimatum. The final hour fixed upon was 
 one o'clock, on the stroke of which, as the German com- 
 mander was careful to assure them, the first shell would 
 
JUSTICE AND THE STATUS OF THE WHITE. 215 
 
 be dropped upon the roof of the palace unless a white 
 flag, the signal of compliance, should be hoisted there. 
 
 The Cabinet were on the horns of a dilemma ; they did 
 not know how the populace would take surrender. For 
 the Haytians at large have no idea of their position in the 
 catalogue of the nations, being fully convinced that they 
 could engage on equal terms with any one of them. With- 
 out the advice and mediation of the foreign delegates, 
 there can be little doubt that the time-limit would have 
 expired and that Hayti must in consequence have felt the 
 weight of Germany's hand, even if the wild anarchy that 
 would inevitably have broken out had not marked the end 
 of her century of independence. 
 
 And the German affair is only one of many. Thanks, 
 then, to events such as these, while he is, with rare excep- 
 tions, disliked and distrusted, the average foreigner has 
 earned at least the toleration which is invariably accorded 
 to usefulness. In this connection the visit of the German 
 warships had one good effect. It brought home to the 
 Haytian in the street, the knowledge that white is a colour 
 worthy of respect. For a foreign gun- boat in Port-au-Prince 
 bay is worth more as a deterrent than a navy at Port 
 Royal. The black man must see to understand. 
 
 As to the personal safety of the foreigner, he has under 
 the present regime little cause for complaint. Of course it 
 is fatally easy, if you are not known, to get into trouble, 
 
2i6 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 and once in you will find it an uncommonly hard matter 
 to get out again. 
 
 On many occasions during my stay in Port-au-Prince I 
 crossed the Champ-de-Mars late at night. A better place 
 to rob a man you could not find in the two hemispheres. 
 It is lonely, it is dark, its lamps are broken, it is honey- 
 combed with treacherous holes and ditches, whence the 
 bull-frogs croak ceaselessly. It would not be wise to cross 
 it in the small hours, were it situated in Venezuela, where 
 the early pedestrian is apt to find such objects as unidenti- 
 fied fingers on the public paths — three were found in Car- 
 racas not a month ago — but here beyond the ubiquitous, 
 cent-desiring soldier, you are never molested. At least, 
 that was my experience. 
 
 This is a surprising condition of affairs when you con- 
 sider the state of Hayti. It is another of those violent 
 contrasts in which this country is so rich. Her people, 
 whatever may be their other faults, have not that knife-in- 
 your-back instinct which permeates so many of the Spanish- 
 American Republics. 
 
 And now, having dealt with the safety of the white man 
 from the attacks of the lawless, let us see how he is likely 
 to fare if he chances to be attacked by the law. 
 
 The blanc is not infrequently thrown into prison on 
 frivolous charges, and when one takes into account the 
 chances of maltreatment on arrest, and the horribly insan- 
 
JUSTICE AND THE STATUS OF THE WHITE. 217 
 
 itary condition of the prisons, this in itself constitutes a 
 grave danger. Further, his evidence in the courts does not, 
 under any circumstances, hold good against counter-evidence 
 offered by a Haytian. Whatever the rights of the case 
 may be, it is a foregone conclusion that the Juge de Paix 
 will decide in favour of his own countryman. 
 
 Outside the Legations, the Consulates, and the chief 
 mercantile houses, the white man in Hayti cannot be called 
 a particularly fine example of the aristocracy of colour. Five 
 men out of six have had chameleon careers, and have been 
 fired at last by the rigour of stark necessity into their 
 present berths. The greater number of them are, of course, 
 Germans. At the close of the last century it was estimated 
 that the white population of Hayti reckoned 46,000 souls; 
 to-day you might knock off the last two ciphers. 
 
 And with the disappearance of the white colonists pros- 
 perity fled from the land. Government policy, as has been 
 said, is directed towards keeping out the foreigner. The 
 result is that the immense natural resources of the country 
 remain entirely undeveloped. The white man has of neces- 
 sity to be very circumspect in his dealings with the Haytian. 
 He lives and trades in the Republic under protest, as it 
 were, against a regime that is always antagonistic, and ready 
 to hamper his efforts whenever opportunity offers. 
 
 As far as the towns are concerned, then, the white man, 
 if he can keep clear of the entanglements of the law, will 
 
2i8 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 not, save in unusual cases, be molested. A revolution, of 
 course, alters the aspect of things, promiscuous shooting 
 goes on, and underlying dislike of the outlander comes to 
 the surface. But even when things are taking their normal 
 course, if he happens to be unfortunate enough to come 
 within the grasp of the law, the White, under the present 
 Government, has no rights the Black need respect save 
 those which can be enforced by his diplomatic representative, 
 which means by the brute power of his nation. 
 
 In all the principal coast towns there exists a little nucleus 
 of white men, who form the core of the virile part of the 
 community, and who, if they make their money out of the 
 country, bring much into it. Their daily life is monotonous 
 enough. Take, by way of example, the routine at the 
 Cape. A man is up with the sun or before it, and arrives 
 at his office early. Breakfast is taken at noon, after which 
 he returns to work. About four he adjourns as one man 
 to the local club, and there he stays till seven, playing 
 billiards or dominoes, or sitting on the wooden piazza that 
 overlooks the ragged weed-grown marsh. After that he 
 goes home to dinner and bed. And to-morrow he travels 
 the same old round. So runs life for the foreigner in Hayti. 
 
 If you are a white man, then don't go to law in Hayti. 
 Bribery is not unknown, but it is nearly always far cheaper 
 to submit to injustice than to try conclusions in a law 
 court. For you cannot bribe away, even if you wished to, 
 
JUSTICE AND THE Sl'ATUS OF THE WHITE. 219 
 
 the self-evident fact of race, and your opponent usually 
 happens to be of the ruling colour. 
 
 The basis of the law is the Code Napoleon, modified to 
 Haytian necessities, and altered in lesser particulars from 
 time to time. The judicial machinery of the courts, from 
 the Court of Cassation downwards, is modelled upon the 
 French system. The judges are black, for any admixture 
 of blood is regarded with strong disfavour, and even mulat- 
 toes are rigorously excluded from positions and authority. 
 The better class do not seek the office, and judges, oddly 
 enough, are rarely drawn from the grades of the legal 
 profession. 
 
 The President has the right of nomination, and he and 
 his party put forward any person they please, for a judge's 
 most prominent recommendation is his usefulness as a par- 
 tisan or supporter. The actual salary is small, but the 
 appointment can be and is so handled as to prove highly 
 remunerative. 
 
 It is a fact of common knowledge that cases are .syste- 
 matically prejudged ; now and then a politician intervenes 
 quietly for purposes of his own; he gives a hint to the 
 bench, and the verdict is arranged before the litigants set 
 foot in court. Curious impediments are thrown in the way 
 of justice, and grotesque excuses have been given for the 
 non-fulfilment of ordinary legal forms. 
 
 In this connection a story may be told which has a 
 
220 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 moral, but no end. In a certain town there is a firm whom 
 we will call Da Costa and Co. Some years ago they made 
 an arrangement with a Haytian to buy for them certain 
 materials required in their business. 
 
 To carry out his side of the contract, and for the ex- 
 press purpose of procuring the various articles in demand, 
 the Haytian went to Europe, taking with him a large 
 advance of some thousands from the company. He visited 
 most of the Continental cities, spending a long interval at 
 the Mecca of Haytians — Paris, and by the end of a year 
 or so returned home empty-handed. He had no money 
 left, nor had he any supplies to show. 
 
 Da Costa and Co naturally objected to the complete 
 disappearance of their money, and took the matter into 
 court, and there it still remains. The evidence was so clear 
 that a record was broken and judgment given for the plain- 
 tiffs. But, having done this, the judges manifestly thought 
 they had done enough. They had given a verdict in 
 favour of a firm of foreigners, and it was now necessary 
 to remove the stain of so doing from their characters. 
 
 The course they adopted was of a simplicity akin to 
 genius — they refused to execute the judgment. On the 
 occasion of Messrs. Da Costa's last appeal, the excuse was 
 beautifully consistent with Haytian traditions. The court 
 (and it was not an inferior court, quite the opposite) replied 
 that they had at the moment no money to buy the neces- 
 
 ■*- - 
 
JUSTICE AND THE STATUS OF THE WHITE. 221 
 
 sary stamped paper to execute the judgment, and Messrs. 
 Da Costa must wait until they had ! 
 
 To show the converse side of the shield of Republican 
 justice — at this moment there is more than one foreigner 
 in gaol for the crime of owing a dollar or some similar 
 small sum to a Haytian. 
 
 Those who gain their cases may safely be divided into 
 three classes. First, the black, whose opponent is white, 
 wholly or partially ; secondly, as among themselves, the 
 man with the biggest purse and pull ; and, lastly, in the 
 lower classes, the man who has the luck. Occasionally 
 extraneous influences are brought to bear. As in the old 
 Roman days, the sword thrown into the balance brings 
 down the scales of justice with a run. 
 
 Recently a Haytian merchant sued the active Chief of 
 Police for debt. On the day the case was called the Chief 
 of Police made up a snug little escort of his men, and, to 
 give due weight to the proceedings, served out a few 
 rounds of ammunition, and marched them in a body up 
 to the court. Three black judges were on the bench 
 ready to try the case — two of them forestalled trouble by 
 recollecting pressing engagements elsewhere, and the third 
 sought cover. The case was adjourned for a fortnight. 
 
 On the day fixed for the second hearing the Chief of 
 Police played trumps again, the judges departed at the 
 double and there was no quorum. 
 
222 • WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 Upon this the Chief Justice wrote to the defendant. He 
 begged him to bear in mind his duties as a citizen, and 
 to present himself before the Civil Tribune in a costume 
 and manner conforming to the laws of his country. 
 
 For answer, upon the appointed day the Chief doubled 
 his escort, dressed himself in full uniform, served out some 
 extra boxes of ammunition for his men to carry, and rode 
 his horse into the court. The case was postponed, and 
 postponed it remains at the hour of writing. It is reported 
 that political animus was here the wheel within the wheel. 
 
 In criminal cases the courts move slowly about their 
 business. The law of habeas corpus is a dead letter. A 
 man may lie in prison awaiting trial for no small period 
 of time. There is to-day a prisoner in the jail at Port-au- 
 Prince. He has been there for many years, and no record 
 of his offence remains ; the why and the wherefore have 
 been long forgotten. Only the man himself is extant, still 
 undergoing the punishment of his lost crime. 
 
 There is in the constitution a law abolishing the penalty 
 of death for political misdemeanours, but it was consistently 
 ignored by every President, without exception, who has 
 held power in the island, until General Sam, who is now 
 at the head of the Government, came into office. To his 
 credit be it said that he usually sends his political enemies 
 to prison instead of shooting them out of hand against the 
 crumbling arsenal wall, after the immortal principles of his 
 
JUSTICE AND THE STATUS OF THE WHITE. 223 
 
 predecessors Salomon and Hippolyte. But I could name one 
 gentleman at least who, if he succeeds to the Presidential 
 chair, which is quite on the cards, will revive the good 
 old customs of the past. 
 
 In spite, however, of the very general corruption and 
 deliberate miscarriage of justice, the Court of Cassation has 
 of late taken up an attitude which approximates more nearly 
 to the universal idea of equity, and has decided some cases 
 upon their own merits and not upon those of the litigants. 
 
 Judicial procedure is in certain instances not untouched 
 by humour. A Haytian owed a trader twenty-eight dollars. 
 A judgment requiring the Haytian to pay four dollars a 
 week into court was given, and the trader agreed to send 
 a messenger every week to the magistrate for the money. 
 In due time he sent for the first instalment, and was informed 
 that the Haytian had not paid up, but that he should be 
 thrown into prison for his failure.- 
 
 Three weeks passed with the same result. One morn- 
 ing the Haytian came to the trader's store. He was, he 
 said, a poor man, much married, a man to whom there- 
 fore expense came. What good, he asked, would accrue 
 to the trader if he, the poor man, was thrown into prison? 
 Let the trader forgive him his debt, and earn thereby 
 untold rewards in a future state. 
 
 After some talk the trader gave him a letter of remission, 
 which he went oft" to present to the magistrate. The affair 
 
224 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 was settled, but the Haytian was struck by the bad grace 
 with which the magistrate dismissed him, and he forthwith 
 returned to the trader and asked him if he had received 
 the eight dollars already paid into court. The trader looked 
 surprised, and said he had received nothing. 
 
 " Then, since you have remitted the debt, that eight dollars 
 is mine," said the Haytian. 
 
 Accordingly he went off to the court to present his claim. 
 The magistrate at once committed him to prison. A consul 
 who had heard the story asked the magistrate what the 
 Haytian was sent to prison for. 
 
 "For contempt of court," was the reply. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE HAYTIAN PRESS. 
 
 If I were condemned to write down the names of all 
 the newspapers of Hayti, past and present, I should have 
 to spend a considerable time upon the task. The reason 
 of their multiplicity is not on account of any great demand 
 for news in the Black Republic, but because from a number 
 of causes the journals of the daily press are apt to be 
 short-lived. 
 
 Whenever there is a revolution each party, each powerful 
 leader, must perforce have an organ through which he 
 may address the public generally and the inhabitants of 
 Port-au-Prince in particular. So each political commotion 
 brings in its train a crop of newspapers, proclamations, 
 pamphlets — call them what you will — whose average length 
 of hfe is limited to half-a-dozen issues. 
 
 Moreover, a paper which starts its career in print as 
 
 15 
 
226 WHERE BLACK RULES WHLrE. 
 
 "The Evening News of Hayti " may pass through various 
 re-incarnations; so that when "The Evening News" happens 
 to be suppressed on a Saturday, it makes its reappearance 
 on Monday under the alias of (say) "The Mirror of the 
 World;" after being once more put down it turns up 
 shortly as "The Thunderer of the Republic." 
 
 These journals have a humour of their own for the 
 European reader. They are conducted by Haytian jour- 
 nalists whose styles appear to lend themselves to a rather 
 bombastic tone, and whose grasp upon foreign affairs is 
 superlatively French. 
 
 Although there appears to be some competition among 
 the newspapers, circulation is counted by tens instead of 
 by thousands, and the means by which the chief Republican 
 organs exist are drawn from the subsidies granted to them 
 by the State. This system naturally militates against a 
 free and fearless press. In any case, it must be difficult 
 to preserve freedom of utterance when, at the first symptom 
 of independence, the enterprising editor is dragged off to prison. 
 Ten years ago the Haytian press was in a more healthy 
 condition than it is to-day. At that time grievances were 
 published, brutal arrests condemned, and the evils of the 
 country, even cannibalism and snake-worship, were occasion- 
 ally dealt with. The greatest newspaper of those days was 
 run by the Consul-General of the rival black Republic of 
 Liberia. 
 
THE HAYTIAN PRESS. 227 
 
 At the present time Port-au-Prince possesses two papers, 
 " Le Soir " and " Le Nouvelliste," whose views upon local 
 questions are absolutely colourless. In form they are like 
 a single page of "The St. James's Gazette," but the paper 
 upon which they appear has vast margins. Their contents 
 include telegrams from P'rench sources, an article by a 
 leading Haytian, and a patchwork of utterly unimportant 
 local news. When they find themselves short of copy they 
 print a eulogy of the President of Hayti, or of the editor 
 of the paper. 
 
 In the front column of one of these papers, directly 
 under the head of " P'oreign Telegrams," appeared the 
 following interesting announcement : 
 
 " M. Salmon has removed for M. C. Rigaud four corns 
 and an ingrowing nail without pain or effusion of blood. 
 He was very satisfied with the manner in which Pedicure 
 Salmon operated. To-morrow will be the turn of D. Nar- 
 cisse and on PMday that of the P^ditor of this paper." — 
 " Le Peuple." 
 
 Another gem is the following: — 
 
 "Extraordinary Fact. — One of the sons of Dr. Maitre 
 Bonaventure, the Port doctor, was a victim last night of 
 an attempted assassination accomplished under circumstances 
 which have yet to be explained. Being in his bed alone 
 in the house, and all the means of ingress absolutely closed, 
 he received several blows from a poignard 1 We have 
 
228 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 ourselves heard certain persons seriously lay this mysteri- 
 ous crime to the charge of Satan ! We believe that Justice 
 has accepted this interpretation with a wise reserve. We 
 await further revelations with expectation." — "La Revue 
 Expres." 
 
 The price of newspapers ranges from five centimes to 
 half a dollar. I understand that their circulation occasion- 
 ally attains four figures, but I believe three would be 
 nearer the mark. 
 
 During the earlier part of the Boer War I suffered con- 
 siderably at the hands of the Haytian press. Their render- 
 ing of events, being drawn from the French point of view, 
 was alarmist. 
 
 Under date 13th December, General "Forestier" includes 
 in his despatch from the Cape the following news of General 
 Methuen : — " The Boers being perfectly entrenched this 
 morning in their position, I retired in good order, and up 
 to the present / am safe.'' 
 
 We have heard a great deal latel}' of the French press 
 campaign against us. Hayti lies, as everyone knows, 4,000 
 miles distant from France, yet one of these Haytian papers, 
 which I have described above, published an article last 
 December, some extracts from which are worth quoting. 
 
 Napoleon, risen from his tomb at the Invalides, addresses 
 his old soldiers : " The English, the eternal enemy who 
 conquered you — for in conquering me she conquered you 
 
THE HAYTIAN PRESS. 229 
 
 — the English of Trafalgar and of Waterloo, recoil before 
 the energy of a little people of Africa. The mercenaries 
 of the Old Queen draw back, and are broken ; the officers 
 fall to save the honour of the flag that these mercenaries 
 have not the heart to defend ; Albion fights no longer , . . 
 Albion dies . . . And thou, France, thou wilt look on and 
 thou wilt not budge ! 
 
 " What then is the blood that flows in thy veins ? Hast 
 thou forgotten that I fought for twenty years to deliver 
 thee from her commercial yoke ? That I conquered at Jena, 
 at Austerlitz, at Eylau, to chastise, not the Prussian, not 
 the Russian, not the Austrian, but to destroy the English? 
 Hast thou forgotten that thy last glory, the purest of all, 
 that which lit up the end of the century with a ray of 
 greatness and hope, the glory of Marchand and of his band 
 of heroes, has been torn from thee by this race of shop- 
 keepers ? 
 
 "And if thou hast not forgotten these sorrows, why 
 dost thou delay to avenge them ? 
 
 " Already at Boulogne I had gathered an army. . . . 
 Under their eyes, notwithstanding their cruisers, I was 
 preparing to invade them. In a few days I should have 
 thrown 100,000 men into their island. To-day 20,000 
 would suffice to muzzle them. Their vessels are at the end 
 of the earth ; thine are here. 
 
 " They will escort thy transports, which, in less than 
 
230 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 twenty-four hours, will disembark on this accursed island 
 the sons of my old Grenadiers ! France, to arms ! It is 
 not to a conquest that I invite you, it is to give a vital 
 blow to these insolents ! Republic, remember Hoche ! 
 France, bethink thee of Bonaparte 1 " On coming to an 
 end of these inspired words, the shade disappeared. 
 
 At times the editors of the Haytian papers have singular 
 difficulties to contend with. One organ announced its 
 desire to buy new forms, but said it must postpone the 
 purchase until the newsagents who retailed its copies paid 
 some of their debts on account. 
 
 To wind up, I will give you some war correspondence 
 in the Haytian style. The following were produced during 
 the Dominican War or one or other of the many revolu- 
 tions : — 
 
 "The two armies met; after a terrible battle lasting 
 two hours, which cost the life of a man, our troops carried 
 the enemy's camp by assault." 
 
 Here again: — 
 
 "To-day, rising to the height of the sublime sentiment 
 of independence, the citizens of Valliere shouted the cry 
 of indissoluble fraternity ! The enemy launched against 
 us the whole of their forces ; the lesson has been a terrible 
 one; three drums, a trumpet, and various other objects 
 remained in the hands of the troops of the Government. 
 Honour to the Generals A — , B — , C — , D — , E— , &c." 
 
THE HAYTIAN PRESS. 231 
 
 And here is an address from a General to his soldiers : — 
 
 "Soldiers! — I promised to conduct you to victory, and 
 your first enterprises have been fruitful 1 Put your trust 
 then in the wisdom and the experience with which I direct 
 your steps. Soon, the God of Armies blessing our arms, 
 complete triumph will crown our efforts, for we defend a 
 just cause, a holy cause — that of public liberty!" 
 
 A week later this patriot emptied the Treasury, sold 
 his party to the enemy, tried during a night disturbance 
 to overthrow the President, and fled to P^urope. 
 
 To conclude, I give an advertisement of a different kind. 
 
 " The undersigned wishes to bring to the notice of the 
 public the fact that since his return from Panama, now 
 almost six years ago, he has not meddled with any sums 
 in gold or silver belonging to an)' person whatsoever. 
 He trusts that having said this an impartial public will 
 meditate on the announcement." — " Le Peuple." (Advt.) 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE IIAYTIAN PEOPLE AS I KNEW THEM. 
 
 TiiEV are kindly. They are hospitable. They are good- 
 hearted. They are a song-loving and a cheerful people. 
 
 They are ignorant. They are lazy. They are leavened 
 with the horrors of serpent-worship, and a certain, though 
 I think a diminishing, proportion of them consent (to say 
 the least of it) to human sacrifice. 
 
 That is the good and bad of the Black Republic of the 
 West. In their defence, let it be said that they are brutally 
 misgoverned. And by reason of the secret influence of 
 the Papalois their worst faults and superstitions are kept 
 alive and pandered to. Yet, in spite of all these drawbacks, 
 I have never during all my travels in the wild districts 
 asked for a drink of water in vain. Small farmers, or 
 those who in any other country would answer to such a 
 description, men who had never seen me before, dwelling 
 
THE HAYTIAN PEOPLE AS I KNEW THEM. 233 
 
 in nnor hnmp-backcu huts, have given me a mattress and 
 what meagre food they had, without ever expecting repay- 
 ment, and indeed they were insulted if I offered it. 
 
 It is a country of gigantic contrasts, of no sort of medio- 
 crity. The Haytian is either one thing or the other, a 
 sort of Man in the Moon, entirely lacking in mental atmos- 
 phere, capable of passing instantaneously from intensest 
 light to blackest shadow, from kindly hospitality to hopeless 
 cruelty. 
 
 The so-called wild people of the interior are utterly 
 maligned. You may chance, as I did, to run up against 
 some priest-dominated Vaudoux worshipper who will try 
 to poison you by means of some obscure and potent drug. 
 You may witness orgies and sacrifices, if you can contrive 
 to be present and are willing to take the risk. They go 
 on all the year round, although with greater license at 
 certain periods. If you offend the authorities in any out- 
 of-the-way place, yours may not be a very enviable fate, 
 for when the negro finds a white man in his power the 
 result, as far as the white man is concerned, becomes 
 precisely what the negro's whim may make it. 
 
 Yet the rural Haytian is all that I have said, for the 
 foreigner who gets into trouble amongst them has to deal, 
 not with them, but with the local authority — that is, the 
 General de la Place. He is a black endowed with arbitrary 
 powers, and, consequently, is often of swollen pretensions. 
 
234 WHERE BLACK RULES WHLrE. 
 
 He rules precisely as rules the biggest boy at school ; he 
 deals out a rough and ready justice that would be humo- 
 rous were it not terrific. He awards the penalty of death 
 with the same lightness of heart that a large boy bestows 
 on a smaller the harmless and necessary kick. Yet, to 
 judge broadly from effects, this off-hand system excellently 
 suits the character of the people. 
 
 In the towns matters are rather different. The town- 
 loafer is not deserving of much praise. The wharfside 
 nigger steals with as much frequency as he eats ; that is, 
 he seeks the chance all the day and most of the night. 
 When working on a lighter, his favourite game is to drop 
 a barrel overboard, sink it, and fish it up again in the 
 small hours. He hangs about ships in his boat, picking 
 up every trifle he can lay hands on. 
 
 Occasionally someone in authority breaks up his foolish 
 jackdaw's hoard, he is arrested and clubbed by the police, 
 taken away to the prison where no food is, and there 
 chained to an iron bar. It does him no good. He is a 
 thief of thieves, and will go on stealing until he is dead, 
 and then probably some of his friends will come along 
 and steal the boots from the corpse. Above these petty 
 offenders are the great Generals, who steal the soldiers' 
 pay; and, still higher, the Government, who steal promis- 
 cuously from all and everywhere. 
 
 As to the negro's position in the Government, there are 
 

 ;.,-** ^ 'lit-* 
 
 •A;^4<#^ -i«l^« 
 
=£=^ 
 
THE HAYTIAN PEOPLE AS I KNEW THEM. 237 
 
 in the Cabinet some capable men of African race, but 
 sandwiched in amongst them are others who are mere 
 caricatures — men whose deserved place, I really do not 
 think I am unjust or unfair in saying, ought to be rather 
 the stoke-hole of a steamer. One of the strongest tenden- 
 cies in the Republic of to-day is the desire to keep the 
 coloured, as opposed to the black, man from office and 
 emolument. There is a rooted jealousy between the two 
 classes, to which is added race-hatred. 
 
 If you look into Haytian history you will find cropping up 
 throughout its pages the record of these fierce and sangui- 
 nary struggles ; you will find the coloured element dwindling 
 and continually growing smaller and less powerful. The 
 personnel of the present Government is black enough to 
 delight the heart of the most advanced negro-phile. Pre- 
 sident Sam is of the ultra-negro type, and all the higher 
 posts around him are filled with men of his own race. 
 "Hayti for the Haytians," that war-cry of the people of 
 the Republic, means really Hayti for the negro — no mulatto 
 need apply. 
 
 The people as a whole will rarely consent to vote for 
 a mulatto, whilst when a negro enters the arena the result 
 is a foregone conclusion. It is an every-day fact that the 
 masses, who would individually poison a white man for a 
 fancied slight, or would resent justice at the hands of a 
 mulatto, submit contentedly to tyrannical oppression from 
 
238 WHERE BT-ACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 one of their own colour ! In the same way a regiment 
 will cheerfully watch one of their comrades being clubbed 
 into oblivion if the orders emanate from a negro officer, 
 whereas they would mutiny were a mulatto in command 
 to exercise a like right. In this brotherhood of colour lies 
 the power of the Papaloi. 
 
 One of the points that strike you most is that Hayti is 
 essentially a country of extremes and contrasts. Logic is 
 always at fault. A Haytian's honesty is like a Haytian's 
 mind ; it is apt to surprise you round odd corners. 
 
 For example : hundreds of thousands of Haytian dollars 
 pass annually along the lonely track, which is called by 
 courtesy a high road, between Jacmel and Port au-Prince. 
 The men who bear them are low-class Haytians — ragged, 
 uncouth, uneducated, wild, and untutored. Yet, in spite 
 of the temptations of poverty, only once have the dollars 
 failed to arrive. 
 
 This strange blend breeds theory. It is advanced that 
 the courier does not steal because he has no use for the 
 money, because his idea of wealth takes the form of fighting- 
 cocks, and surplus roosters are not his necessity. I have 
 heard it said that ten dollars would tempt his cupidity, 
 whereas ten thousand would awe him into immaculate 
 honesty. 
 
 But over and above it all you may safely put it down 
 that within certain set bounds the courier's honesty burns 
 
TYPICAL PEASANTRY. 
 
THE HAYTIAN PEOPLE AS I KNEW THEM. 241 
 
 in a clear flame. To go back to the story of the one 
 exception who broke the rule. He was a poor man, as all 
 couriers are, and he was engaged to ride across from Jacmel 
 to Port-au-Prince. Before he started certain other men came 
 to him and put the theft into his mind. Somewhere on 
 the road over the mountain he was to transfer the thirty 
 thousand dollars to them, then they would clear off. To 
 induce the courier to do this they offered him — what? Fifty 
 dollars of the whole amount ! His pay would have been 
 about ten, so thus for forty dollars our courier fell from 
 his high estate. 
 
 The story has a pathetic note in it, especially as the 
 unfortunate man disappeared into prison and was heard of 
 no more. During the last thirty years uncounted couriers 
 have made the desolate journey by the lonely riverside 
 track and over the mountain passes, each with his load of 
 wealth, and the above is the only instance known of the 
 betrayal of trust. A fine record. 
 
 As to these fellows, to trust them gives them the staff 
 of self-respect. Yesterday the courier was a wandering 
 nigger, a common bad-egg citizen of Hayti ; to-day he is 
 a man entrusted with thirty thousand dollars. He is not 
 the same. From the chrysalis of obscurity he has become 
 a butterfly in the fierce light of trust. He lives for the 
 moment, to-morrow he will be nothing again. Never mind. 
 For the moment he finds honesty to hang with the gourds 
 
242 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 and the money-bags upon his saddlebow, yet he is probably 
 a serpent-worshipper. 
 
 His self-respect, unlike the self-respect of a white, is not 
 intrinsic ; no man, indeed, has less. It is from outside that 
 he gains it, and it consolidates him, stififens him, changes 
 him from a bad loafer into a good servant. He girds on 
 a cutlass and sets forth singing a rude song, and he sings 
 and smokes, fords rivers and climbs mountains for many 
 hours, a Man. Once the strain is over, alas, he is apt to 
 sink back into what he was before. 
 
 A courier who had brought thirty thousand dollars from 
 Jacmel across the passes made them over intact to their 
 consignee, and when leaving his office stole thirty cents and 
 a penknife ! The thirty thousand dollars were confided to 
 his care, the thirty cents were a prey to his enterprise. 
 
 You must not forget that the negro has been for a cen- 
 tury in touch with white men on the coast : in the interior 
 he rarely sees a white face. Now, while on the coast I 
 hold him to be often a very objectionable person, in the 
 interior I have accepted the hospitality of his roof and lived 
 with him, and, apart from his natural laziness and his inclin- 
 ation towards snake-worship, have found him a simple and 
 unobtrusive being. Yet, the moment he prospers his good 
 points fall away from him ; he loses his perspective. 
 
 And here you come to the question of how far the 
 Haytian negro has advanced from his initial .stage of sav- 
 
THE HAYTIAN PEOPLE AS I KNEW THEM. 243 
 
 agery. The huts in which he lives in the interior are the 
 same as those in which his forefathers used to hve beside 
 the Congo. He dresses Httle, but after the age of puberty 
 rarely goes quite naked. He has few ambitions. His chief 
 desire is to be let alone. Moreover, he firmly believes 
 that if any white nation were to take over Hayti he would 
 again become a slave. 
 
 The negro, then, in Hayti mostly turns his energies into 
 one of three channels. He either helps to govern the 
 country, is in Government service, or does odd jobs for a 
 Hving. Otherwise he lives behind the big scarred, purple 
 mountains, trusting to the soil to supply his wants, and 
 dreaming away his life in a land where it is always afternoon. 
 
 Nine-tenths of the population of Hayti are negroes, and 
 they form an ever-growing class. The tendency all over 
 the country is to breed back to the African type. It is 
 a curious fact that the negro hates the half-breed, the 
 mulatto, considerably more than he hates the white man ; 
 but the negress, when she cannot get them white, prefers 
 her admirers yellow, nor does this predilection on her part 
 tend to lessen the loathing the man of mixed blood inspires 
 in the breast of the black. 
 
 Although Hayti is by no means large, yet you find in 
 different parts of the island almost separate races, dissimilar 
 in build and features, and speaking distinguishable variants 
 of Creole French. In the west and around the capital you 
 
244 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 have the descendants of the Mandingo tribes ; in the Tiburon 
 peninsula the Congo negro predominates. There are, of 
 course, representatives of many other African races, and 
 each of these has had some influence in modifying the 
 dialect and mode of life in the particular part of the Re- 
 public which fortune may have made his headquarters. 
 
 In travelling through the country one is struck by the 
 sorts, sizes, and shades to be met with. Black has varia- 
 tions of its own. There is the polished, jet-black skin 
 and the dull, sooty complexion, while a fine mahogany 
 black-brown often accompanies an upstanding figure and a 
 pleasant face. As in Africa itself, so here one finds the 
 black man fashioned on widely different patterns. Yet I 
 have heard white men say that the power to distinguish 
 one black face from another is the result of time and 
 training, — that to the unaccustomed eye all really dark 
 persons look much alike 1 
 
 In a book of Haytian proverbs a story is told which 
 possesses at least the seasoning of truth that is essential 
 to artistic success in caricature. A white man, a mulatto, 
 and a negro were one day summoned into the presence 
 of their Maker, and each was asked what it was in the 
 world that he most desired. The white man was prompt, 
 he knew his own mind. He wanted knowledge. The 
 mulatto desired beautiful women. But at first the negro 
 had no answer to the question. After some sheepish 
 
THE HAYTIAN PEOPLE AS I KNEW THEM. 245 
 
 evasions he pleaded that he had been brought there by 
 the mulatto, and that if he really was to be given that 
 which he most wanted he would like a piece of gold lace 1 
 After seeing a Haytian review you are inclined to credit 
 the tale. 
 
 Hayti is rich in proverbs, most of which turn on the 
 colour question. They are, of course, in the Creole dialect, 
 and many are at once humorous and mordant, but they do 
 not bear translating as a rule, for a large number deal 
 with conditions of life that are local. Here is one, however, 
 which has a general significance. "Wood is wood, but 
 maple is not mahogany." 
 
 The greater part of the trade of the interior is in the 
 hands of itinerant Syrian pedlars, of whom there are many 
 thousands in Hayti. It is strange to find them in these 
 Western islands. They are a race unspeakable, living ten 
 in a room, consummate cheats; they are usurers and 
 parasites sucking the blood from the country and in no 
 way enriching their adopted land in return. 
 
 The Haytians do not like them, and legislate against 
 their immigration, yet they are there in numbers. You 
 meet them in the country districts, dirty, under-sized, well- 
 featured people, followed by a boy carrying their box of 
 goods. For a long time the Haytians regarded this com- 
 paratively fair-skinned race as white men, but they have 
 learned that the Syrian will do anything for a five-cent 
 
246 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 piece. I have seen them take part in a Vaudoux sacrifice 
 evidently belonging to the initiated. 
 
 The Haytian rarely marries ; not because he does not 
 wish to do so— indeed, it is considered a highly distinguished 
 thing to be married — but because marriage by the rites 
 of the Roman Catholic Church, which is supposed to be 
 the religion of the State, costs about a hundred dollars, a 
 prohibitive sum for the lower classes who favour the looser 
 and less binding tie, which seems to serve them very well. 
 
 Family life with them appears to run on smooth lines. 
 You rarely hear of a negress "changing" her husband, 
 and the negro, owing to the predominant number of the 
 opposite sex, indulges himself in as many wives as he can 
 afford. I came across one man, who, like Priam, was the 
 father of fifty, only the Haytian's brood was mixed, and 
 not, as were the Trojan king's, all sons. 
 
 Every influential negro — this statement holds true of the 
 wild rural districts, at any rate — is a polygamist. The 
 number of his wives may range from two to fourteen — this 
 last being the largest which came under my personal notice. 
 If he has money enough he probably marries one of them, 
 and the lady thus favoured will be thereafter the chief of 
 his harem. Of course, these peculiar circumstances of life 
 are not conducive to morality. 
 
 In fact, the rural Haytian blacks have no sense of morality 
 in our meaning of the term. Wives are to the negro a 
 
I 
 
THE HAYTIAN PEOPT.E AS I KNEW THEM. 24Q 
 
 source of wealth. They work for him, while he, with con- 
 stitutional and ineradicable laziness, sits in the shade of his 
 largest hut, and smokes a pipe with a red clay bowl all 
 day long. Meantime his women and young children work. 
 They will walk miles across a lonely and, during the rainy 
 seasons, almost impassable country, carrying heavy loads 
 upon their heads to the most favourable market. I say 
 advisedly the young children, for directly the young buck 
 becomes of an age to understand the dignity of his sex, 
 he joins his father in lolling away the days, and works no 
 more thenceforward for ever. If the patriarch deigns to 
 go to market, he goes mounted on a small donkey, while 
 his wives do the journey afoot. 
 
 And now to turn to their pleasures. They dance. In 
 the capital, as in the country, it is their passion. Never 
 are they too tired, never can a dance go on too long. 
 The dances themselves are direct importations from the 
 West Coast, and cannot be described as either graceful or 
 in any degree beautiful. Their chief characteristic can be 
 readily guessed at, considering that the performers are of 
 the negro race. As you are riding through the country at 
 night it is quite a common occurrence to come upon one 
 of these dances going on within the stockade of old wood 
 which surrounds each group of huts. A drum is always 
 in the orchestra, and the sound of tom-toms is never absent. 
 
 You see the scene painted like a picture in red upon 
 
250 WHERE BLACK RULES WHriE. 
 
 the blackness of the night. Fires throw up great wings of 
 smoke, flaming lamps set in iron sockets and a torch or 
 two light up the scene. The screams and the writhing 
 contortions of the dancers, the ring of fire, the humpbacked 
 huts throwing their monstrous shadows far beyond the 
 circle of red light, the darkness of the listening forest — you 
 have a scene which you are never likely to forget. 
 
 At other times, riding through the woodlands in the 
 freshness of the morning or the evening, you see a solitary 
 dancer posturing away grotesquely under a tree in some 
 green nook. 
 
 The Bamboula, the Martinique, the Vaudoux are a few 
 of the dance names. Sometimes these gatherings centre 
 round a professional, who, clothed in a dress of barbaric 
 colour, performs on a dais, and any man who likes may 
 offer himself as her partner. It is common enough for a 
 negress, who has walked twenty or perhaps many more 
 miles since dawn, to spend the hours of darkness dancing 
 monotonously until day comes to change the tints of the 
 landscape. 
 
 In the capital there are four or five dances in progress 
 every night. They are attended by all the lower classes ; 
 soldiers, boatmen, police, coffee-workers — that is, porters 
 who carry bags of coffee for lading. 
 
 As for the upper ten in the towns you frequently see a 
 stalwart Haytian followed by one, or it may be several 
 
THE HAYTIAN PEOPLE AS I KNEW THEA[. 251 
 
 boys (I fancy it is cJiic to employ many), the first carrying 
 his walking-stick, another a newly-purchased packet of cigar- 
 ettes, and so on, for to carry a parcel an inch long would 
 bring a lasting stigma upon his pretension to fashion. 
 
 Fashion in Hayti, as elsewhere, is all-powerful. In its 
 name the negro cheerfully endures many a weariness of 
 the flesh. Fashion compels its votaries to a reign of black 
 frock-coats in a tropical climate. F"ashion it is, again, which 
 decides that the "only wear" of the Haytian army on 
 high days and holidays must be a uniform of cloth about 
 a quarter of an inch in thickness. Fashion drives every 
 man to wish to become a General, even though the State 
 gives him no substantial means of supporting the position, 
 and, as is the case in every country under the sun, rank 
 brings its own expenses. 
 
 Among the richer classes there is a good deal of social 
 life. Balls frequently take place, and are well attended, 
 for Haytians high and low love dancing. From what I saw, 
 however, I gathered that domestic bliss was more commonly 
 to be found in the homes of the poorer peasantry than 
 among the well-to-do of the towns. As soon as a man can 
 afford to punctuate his day freely with " rhums " beseems 
 to see no special reason for restraint, and this reacts not 
 a little upon his family relations. 
 
 Marriage is the privilege of the wealthier part of the 
 community, although only a proportion avail themselves of 
 
-f 
 
 252 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 it. This is an omission upon which the local Mrs. Grundy 
 looks with a lenient eye. And as by Haytian law the 
 children of these looser unions are regarded as legitimate, 
 the parents lack the strongest inducement to legalise their ties. 
 
 The Haytian politician forms a distinct section of the 
 community, and cannot be dismissed with only a passing 
 mention. 
 
 Take Paris, cut its comb, reduce and minimise it in 
 almost all directions, material as well as intellectual, let it 
 go to rack and ruin for a century, turn its whites into 
 blacks and its blacks into whites, the temperate sky above 
 it into tropical, scorching blue, and you would have some 
 presentment of Port-au-Prince. Haytian life bears stamped 
 upon it the likeness of France, and no individual shows it 
 more palpably than the politician. 
 
 He is in many ways a highly superior specimen of his 
 race. More French than a Frenchman, which means just 
 too French, his ambitions are usually one of twain: either — if 
 he is not one already — he has hopes of being a General, 
 or else he desires to retire for the close of his life to Paris. 
 
 Personally the political gentleman is for this part of the 
 world a well-dressed man. You meet him in all public 
 places in a black frock-coat and straw hat. He talks with 
 many gesticulations. He brags with a wonderful fluency. 
 When there is no revolution going on, and there has not 
 been a real one for eleven years, he is polite, theatrical. 
 
THE HAYTIAN PEOPLE AS I KNEW THEM. 253 
 
 showy and kind-hearted. He is ahvays shaking hands, and 
 he is mostly a General. 
 
 One is presented. He takes off his hat and shakes hands, 
 and you are swept up into conversation in a moment. He 
 expects you to drink with him ; indeed, he desires this 
 ceremony so strenuously that it is well in Hayti to be a 
 teetotaler. He is not reserved, and he dislikes your being 
 so. He is ready to strip off the cloak of his privacy and 
 to take you for a stroll into his personal affairs. And yet 
 not quite inside. 
 
 There is always a well-defined line in the confidence 
 between the white man and the black, be he of Asia or 
 of Africa, that is seldom over-stepped. It is the reticence 
 of race which has its source in congenital differences which 
 are seldom bridged, and it is by reason of these that the 
 relations between them so often fall short of mutual under- 
 standing. 
 
 The Haytian wears a goatee, but his face tells the tale 
 of his descent. He is very touchy, and if he tries to "get 
 at" you over any question, and you listen quietly and 
 smile, he shrinks back at once and changes the subject. 
 He has a horror of ridicule, and perhaps some dim appre- 
 hension of his own lack of knowledge. 
 
 He is very hospitable, and will always play to an audience. 
 He is excessively ambitious, and will readily bow the knee 
 to Baal. He is often brave, but fails in power of continuity 
 
254 wherp: black rules white. 
 
 of thought and effort. He cannot forego the small praise 
 of to-day for the great success of to-morrow. 
 
 He does not talk much of his own country, unless you 
 get him alone, but he will readily give you his opinion of 
 every other country under the sun, and if you speak of 
 Paris, he will blossom out into plentiful and real enthusiasm. 
 His views on most subjects are catchy, and he never quite 
 forgives you for being white. 
 
 From half-past twelve, when the offices close for lunch, 
 until half-past two, when they open again, you find him 
 everywhere. He sits in the cafes smoking a dark Havana 
 cigarette, which does not go out, but burns away to ash 
 if you leave it. In the cool of the day, he rides outside 
 the town, still clad in his frock-coat, on a small horse that 
 ambles comfortably. All round Port-au-Prince are his 
 houses, and very nice houses they are, broad, cool, open, 
 tropical, half-hidden in a luxuriance of trees and greenery. 
 
 Whether he believes in the future of his country I 
 cannot say, but he is wordily and wildly attached to its 
 independence. He can always tell you what would be its 
 salvation, but each time he will tell you something different. 
 In his own mind, he is often largely mixed up with its 
 salvation himself. He is a red-hot politician, and often 
 related to a former President. He is easy in morals, and 
 his motto is: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we 
 die." In religious matters he is a tolerant Roman Catholic, 
 
THE HAYTIAN PEOPLE AS I KNEW THEM. 255 
 
 and if you press him about the present condition of things 
 among the masses he will shrug his shoulders and talk of 
 Toussaint I'Ouverture. 
 
 In all ways he would model himself upon his Parisian 
 prototype. With his whole heart and soul he admires 
 France ; on that one point he is absolutely sincere. More- 
 over, he regards the rest of the world through French 
 eyes. This peculiarity is encouraged by his newspapers : 
 he has two of them which retail telegrams and opinions 
 taken from French sources and from no other. Nevertheless, 
 they are to the Haytian the actual mirror of all that is 
 passing between the poles. 
 
 He is a warm partisan, and during the Spanish-American 
 War he drank cocktails to the success of Spain, just as he 
 drank them at the time I was in Hayti to the success of 
 the Boer. England and America are bugbears to Hayti. 
 Individually, I believe, he likes the Englishman, but he 
 cordially hates England — or, rather, that presentation of 
 John Bull with the large and taloned hands, by the creation 
 and perpetuation of whom the French journalists have 
 striven to avenge all things from Waterloo to Fashoda, or, 
 perhaps one should say to Dreyfus, for whose existence 
 we are apparently held to be responsible. 
 
 A General, an ex-Minister of War, hoped the Boers 
 would beat us. He was asked why. Because he had 
 gathered from a French print that Boers were negroes 
 
256 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 persecuted by the British. He was, however, open to 
 conviction, and, after the explanation was given, said 
 naively that he thought all people in Africa must be black 1 
 In what other land could this happen ? 
 
 The most blatant talkers are frequently bewildering and 
 astonishingly ignorant. Exception must be made in favour 
 of those who have been educated in France. 
 
 The negro is, considering his numbers, most conspicu- 
 ously absent from the middle class. He forms the lower, 
 and he predominates in the governing, but from the best 
 class of Haytian society he is largely self-excluded. He is 
 not, with some exceptions, at home there. 
 
 The best class of Haytian does not touch politics. He 
 knows too well how much there is to lose and how little 
 to gain under existing circumstances. But, then, the best 
 class of Haytian is often a mulatto. If you were to pick 
 out the most advanced and promising men in the Republic, 
 you would choose a very small proportion of the pure 
 blacks among them. 
 
 In this connection I asked a gentleman who knows as 
 much of Hayti as any living man, if, after his long residence 
 in the island, he really considered the negro educated up 
 to — in fact, fitted for — the task of self-government. He 
 replied that he believed he could put his hand on a score 
 or two of coloured men, and a few, very few, pure-bred 
 negroes who were certainly capable. But when I asked 
 
THE HAYTIAN PEOPLE AS I KNEW THEM. 257 
 
 him why such men did not come forward for the sake of 
 their country, he shook his head. 
 
 "They are hopelessly in the minority," he said, "and 
 they know it." 
 
 To-day the Government is centred in a group of ultra- 
 negro proclivities, who look with an almost ferocious sus- 
 picion upon the small party who, were they to come to 
 power, might do lasting good. But it must be remembered 
 that the unalterable tradition of Hayti is, Hayti for the 
 black as distinguished from the mulatto. 
 
 It has been advanced that there must be progress, since 
 the people, or, rather, the politicians, " revolute" much less 
 frequently than they used to do. How far this improvement 
 in conduct is a sign of inward grace is open to question. 
 The Haytian man of politics is not quite a fool, and he 
 is pretty well aware that there are countries who might 
 not put up with him if events boiled over too often es- 
 pecially if they boiled over with the accompaniments of 
 bloodshed which have signalised his revolutions in the past. 
 
 The following open letter from a political Haytian is 
 drawn entirely from views expressed in various pamphlets 
 by Haytian writers, and is given in as close a rendering 
 as possible of the French. 
 
 " Mon ami, — Now that evil war has ceased from the land, 
 and peace, the beautiful, has for some years dwelt amongst 
 us, the time has come for us, the piously devoted sons of 
 
 17 
 
258 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 Hayti, to be silent no longer, in face of the mistakes and 
 deceptions that promise to ruin our country. 
 
 "We are credulous, we are well-disposed, we believe in 
 the false friends who run from the ends of the earth to 
 enrich themselves at our expense. On all sides promises 
 are lavished upon us and miracles of prosperity are pre- 
 dicted should we yield to the voice of the charmer. One 
 would exploit the treasures of timber in our virgin forests ; 
 some plead for concessions to begin mining operations ; 
 others dream of railroads, canals, telegraphs, irrigation works, 
 bridges, and lighthouses. 
 
 "They caress us, these beggars, for do we not possess 
 to-day the wealth of Hayti? 
 
 " But behind our backs these perfidious villains, what do 
 they not say of us? They call us a "nation of monkeys!" 
 They say we are human crabs, who do not advance in 
 the march of civilisation, but move always backwards. In 
 saying this they add we must be driven forward — they 
 propose a foreign protectorate. Before it is too late let 
 us guard ourselves against these adventurers, these liars. 
 Let us do nothing blindly, hastily, in the dark, at the 
 gallop. 
 
 "Listen, while I sound the trumpet of danger 1 
 
 " Let us not forget Poland, who confided herselfto strangers. 
 It was they who killed her ! 
 
 " Let us recollect Egypt. 
 
 W: 
 
THE HAYTIAN PEOPLE AS I KNEW THEM. 261 
 
 "Fifty years ago to whom did Egypt belong? To the 
 Egyptians. A singular fury to become civilised inflamed 
 them. Fatal disease ! They were promised prosperity, they 
 gave concessions for canals, railways, docks. Have they 
 benefited by these things? No I All concessions have been 
 converted into fetters for the once free limbs of Egypt, 
 One day she awoke to find herself under the boots of 
 England. Formerly the Egyptians were whipped and 
 oppressed in the name of the Koran, but at least the 
 tyrants who despoiled them were of their own blood and 
 born in their midst, speaking the same language, professing 
 the same religion as themselves. Are they happier to-day, 
 when they are whipped in the name of the Bible, when 
 British howitzers stand ready to blow into pieces those 
 patriots who raise a voice in the defence of their liberties r 
 
 "Let us beware; let us not imitate them. Let us avoid 
 the stranger ; let us spurn his attentions 1 Hayti is a maiden 
 of generous proportions. We must not allow her to give 
 herself in marriage save to her own sons ! 
 
 " Let us take precautions. Arm ! Fortify ! Intrench our- 
 selves ! Practise the evolutions of the military 1 But let us 
 be secret in our preparations. Then we can answer the 
 stranger who calls us a race of monkeys (' un peuple de 
 singes ') — with our guns ! The hearts of our people are 
 ready, they do not want in courage. 
 
 " The English are brave. We conquered the English. 
 
262 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 " The French are a great nation. We drove them into 
 the sea. 
 
 " The victorious Napoleon himself sent his myrmidons to 
 snatch back our new-bought liberty. We hurled them back. 
 
 "For a nation of monkeys, it was colossal! 
 
 " We will be wise. We will adopt to ourselves the doctrine 
 of Monroe, the American — Hayti for the Haytians ! Cry 
 aloud the watchword. Repulse in a manner the most formal, 
 the most energetic, any interference of foreign nations in 
 the interior affairs of our country. Our history contains 
 the illustrious names of Toussaint L'Ouverture and of 
 Tiresias Sam. We need not despair. 
 
 "The night is dark about us, let us wait for the moon, 
 the moon of education and of reason that soon must rise. 
 Let us take no step in the dark. Let us endeavour to 
 make our military organisation still more complete. They 
 laugh at our many Generals, those others. Have they seen 
 us on parade.? They forget that we in Hayti are born 
 soldiers. From being a soldier those who have training 
 advance easily to the grade of General. They forget this 
 when they smile. 
 
 " Hayti for the Haytians ! Here alone one can show a 
 black face without receiving upon it a buffet. It is the 
 corner of the earth sacred to our rights. Elsewhere, in 
 Africa, in America, the black man is governed by the 
 white. In Hayti alone the black man governs himself, the 
 
THE HAYTIAN PEOPLE AS I KNEW THEM. 263 
 
 black is the equal of the white. It is here in Hayti that 
 we prove that fact. Here we hve by right and not by 
 tolerance. In Hayti has been gained the first foothold of 
 the doctrine of equality of nations. 
 
 " Let us sound the trumpet ! 
 
 " It has been said we are incapable of guiding ourselves, 
 that we cannot govern, yet to whom do we as a nation 
 owe our liberty? To our forefathers 1 Alone they created 
 the Haytian nation ; alone, without help of any kind, they 
 paid in gold and blood and the sweat of their brow for 
 the right of freedom ! They bought for this small portion 
 of the great African race the right to live in independence. 
 We do not need foreigners to aid us. Since we were born 
 without consulting them, let us live without doing so. 
 
 "But I must tell you, my dear friend, of the progress of 
 events. 
 
 "On Sunday there was a review on the Champ-de-Mars. 
 What a magnificent revelation of our national resources 1 
 Uniforms, horses, soldiers, cavalry ! One dreams of it in 
 the night. Above all things let us remind our people that 
 we are a nation of soldiers — that our very independence 
 is rooted in a military struggle wherein the armies of Europe 
 were worsted. 
 
 "More than that. Hayti stands for a symbol of liberty. 
 Not the one-sided liberty that others scream about, but 
 the true Liberty, Equality. Eraternity. which equalises the 
 
264 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 status of the black man and the white. It may be said 
 our republic is not so large in extent as that of France or 
 of the United States. On that I offer no opinion, but I 
 maintain that our very existence has a meaning altogether 
 unique, 
 
 " But to fulfil our mission, we must rid ourselves of the 
 whites. They trade in our coast towns, they suck the life- 
 blood of Hayti. What do they give to us in return? 
 Nothing but absurd and impudent projects by which they 
 profess to assure our national credit, to improve our com- 
 merce, to ameliorate our material condition. We need 
 money, it is true. We can borrow, but we must refuse 
 foreign aid in disturbing the funds. We have responsible 
 Ministers ; we have the whole machinery of the State to 
 depend upon, who will see that all is done for the national 
 honour, the national good. 
 
 "Up to to-day have we not built our towns alone? With- 
 out the invidious help of strangers we have conducted 
 naval, military, and commercial operations. We have tilled 
 our own fields, we have sown, planted, and reaped. We 
 are a people gay, light-hearted, kind. What do we need 
 more? We have all that produces happiness. Rut, if we 
 would not see these days of pleasure change, we must 
 combine to keep out the foreigners, the men of different 
 blood, those, in a word, who are jealous of our prosper- 
 ity ! Those who, speaking smooth things, are preparing 
 
THE HAYTIAN PEOPLE AS I KNEW THEM. 265 
 
 to rob us of all 1 They say we neglect the education of 
 the masses. Well, then, let us build schools. They re- 
 proach us because we have no railways, and few roads. 
 In answer let us point to many already surveyed. They 
 tell us we live in fine dreams, we content ourselves 
 with great projects. Is the fact of our independence a 
 dream ? No 1 
 
 "Sons of brave fathers, awake, and be warned in time! 
 The envious peoples threaten us on all sides ; they plot 
 against our liberties, they groan to enrich themselves at 
 our expense ! If we would live, we must be on the watch 
 day and night. The foreigner is insidious ; he creeps in 
 upon us. We must load those now amongst us with 
 taxes; we must push back others who would follow them. 
 Let us maintain our traditions. Let each Haytian show 
 himself proud and of an imperious will. We are conquer- 
 ors, we are free, we do not wish to fall, to degrade our- 
 selves, to become valets and vassals. Then beware ! 
 
 " And I ? — I hear you say ; ' Oho, here is a sly one, he 
 says nothing of himself As for me, I remain tranquil, 
 I am calm. I advise, I sow the seed. Some day my 
 country will be grateful to me. The people will say, 
 ' What do we not owe to Monsieur le General ! ' Does 
 this surprise you, my friend? Already a Minister in the 
 Cabinet, they have now made me a General of the forces 
 of Ilayti! A General of Division. I am saluted in the 
 
266 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 streets. I have chosen a green uniform. I parade the 
 capital on my horse. 
 
 " I have deserved it, you will say, yet is my heart full 
 of pride. My country has recognised her deliverer. Others 
 have also been made Generals, but that does not affect 
 me. They are puffed up. But I, as I have said, I remain 
 tranquil, I am calm always. Adieu, my friend. 
 " Agreez, etc., 
 
 "GENERAL MILES BOBO." 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HAYTI, THE PUFF BALL. 
 
 What astonishes the traveller most in Hayti is that they 
 have everything there. Ask for what you please, the answer 
 invariably is, " Yes, yes, we have it." 
 
 They possess everything that a civilised and progressive 
 nation can desire. Electric light? They proudly point to 
 plant on a hill-top outside the town. Until you have had 
 some experience of the people and the land, you are taken 
 aback by this galloping of events. Here is a nation hidden 
 away in the depths of the Atlantic, which is not only 
 abreast of the times, but ahead of many towns in England. 
 So you say to yourself. 
 
 Constitutional Government? A Chamber of Deputies, 
 elected by public vote, a Senate, and all the elaborate 
 paraphernalia of the law ; they are to be found here, seem- 
 
268 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 ingly all of them. Institutions, churches, schools, roads, 
 railways, forts. What more can you ask for? 
 
 On paper their system is flawless. If one puts one's 
 trust in the mirage of hearsay the Haytians have all desir- 
 able things, but on nearer approach these pleasant prospects 
 are apt to take on another complexion. 
 
 For instance, you are standing in what was once a build- 
 ing, but is now a spindle-shanked ghost of its former self. 
 A single man, nursing a broken leg, sprawls on the black 
 earthen floor; a pile of wooden beds is heaped in the 
 north corner ; rain has formed a pool in the middle of the 
 room, crawling and spreading into an ever wider circle as 
 the last shower drips from the roof. Some filthy sheets 
 lie wound into a sticky ball on two beds, one of which is 
 overturned. A large iron washing-tub stands in the open 
 doorway, and a black woman sits on its edge, smoking a 
 red earthen pipe. 
 
 Now, where are you ? 
 
 It would be impossible to guess. As a matter of fact, 
 you are in the Military Hospital of the second most impor- 
 tant town of Hayti, a State-supported concern, in which the 
 soldiers of the Republic are supposed to be cured of all 
 the ills of the flesh. No need to linger; you have seen 
 all there is to see. Besides, the place is used occasionally 
 for smallpox cases to die in. 
 
 This is how I came there. I had met a General in the 
 
HAYTI, THE PUFF BALL. 269 
 
 street, a fine, big negro, resplendent in uniform of gaudy 
 green, I had heard that a soldier had met with an acci- 
 dent the night before. The train of thought was thus 
 supplied. Where does this ideal country, which possesses 
 everything, put her maimed soldiers? I was new in the 
 land and curious. It is easy to ask a question. I asked 
 it. My friend in gold lace waved his hand towards the 
 building I have described — from where we stood, a blot in 
 the distance — and said, "To the Military Hospital!" For 
 the moment I was properly impressed. "Lucky people!" 
 I thought to myself; " everything is arranged for you by 
 a paternal Government." But when you get to the spot 
 the illusion fades. 
 
 It is the same with the electric light. The plant is here, 
 but it does not act. 
 
 It is the same with the cannon. They are cannon, but 
 they won't go off. It is the same with their railways. 
 They are being "hurried forward," but they never progress. 
 It is the same with everything. Everything is arranged. 
 Everything is drafted upon paper. It seems as if, with a 
 people so hedged in, nothing could go wrong. They simply 
 cannot get off the paths of progress. And yet, and yet — 
 they have begun everything — and dropped it. Then the 
 prisons. I have read a notable code of rules referring to them, 
 drawn up with a view to their proper maintenance. Under 
 this system, you say again, nothing can go wrong. On 
 
270 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 reading it you picture a model house of detention, ruled 
 wisely by grave officials with one eye on the regulations 
 and the other on the welfare of their prisoners. 
 
 Go to the prison. Obtain admission if you can. The 
 grave officials of your fancy are replaced by a dozen trucu- 
 lent vagabonds with cocomacaque clubs. The place is the 
 haunt of disease, blow-flies, and vermin. A pestiferous 
 swamp, surrounded by ramshackle walls, is inhabited by 
 the starving, naked prisoners. You will be lucky if you 
 do not bring away with you smallpox or some kindred 
 evil as a memento. The code of regulations is for show, 
 the prison is for use. 
 
 But while I am on the subject of prisons, let us thresh 
 it out. If all the realists of all the nations could be formed 
 into one realist, and all their powers of describing the 
 disgusting could be delegated to that one chosen individual, 
 he might write an account of the Haytian prisons and 
 never take the imagination of his readers within miles of 
 the reality. 
 
 Four hundred men in two enclosed yards, stale and foul 
 with years of use. Access is gained to the interior by a 
 gate of iron bars. Inside, a swelter of filth, green scum, 
 diseased bodies, nakedness, and red, raw wounds (the 
 warders keep up the supply of these last with their clubs). 
 That is what you will see. 
 
 It is horrible, yet it is pale to the reality. Let us leave 
 
HAYTI, THE PUFF BALL. 271 
 
 the subject for ever. I should never have entered upon it 
 save for the hope that when this description comes to be 
 read in Hayti, it may stir up prison reform. 
 
 As for the Government it is nominally Republican, but 
 under existing conditions supreme power is practically con- 
 centrated in the hands of one man, who keeps the laws 
 or breaks them according to whim or expediency. If you 
 come to think of it, the difficulties of governing on the 
 Republican system are almost insuperable with high offici- 
 als, many of whom can neither read nor write, and whose 
 main idea is to fill their pockets, and eventually to succeed 
 to the headship of the State by the rawest methods of 
 revolution. It is therefore not to be wondered at that the 
 regime has developed into a military despotism. 
 
 The machinery of constitutional government is complete ; 
 there are Ministers, a Senate, and a Chamber of Deputies. 
 But these bodies have little independent power, and are 
 expected to carry out the wishes of the President. If they 
 do not, the head of the State promptly suppresses all 
 symptoms of disobedience ; otherwise there ensues a revo- 
 lution. Perhaps, as matters stands, personal rule is inevit- 
 able, besides being the form most popular with the 
 masses. 
 
 Supreme power incorporated in a strong man appeals 
 to the imagination of the ignorant. The presidents of 
 Hayti have been not infrequently venal, corrupt, and hor- 
 
272 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 ribly cruel, but the man who knows how to make his will 
 felt becomes for the time the hero of the people. 
 
 The surprising part of it is that these negroes, who bear 
 with incredible wrongs and tyrannies from their illiterate 
 masters, would resent the mildest sway attempted by those 
 not of their own race and colour. The lowest of the 
 people are as frantically opposed to annexation by a white 
 Power as are the ruling classes, and this feeling is not so 
 much love of their insular independence as a fear of 
 results. 
 
 When a negro gets an idea into his head, it remains 
 there unalterable and unmodified until the day of his death, 
 and it happens that one of the strongest certainties in the 
 Haytian's limited field of knowledge is that if a white 
 Power were to become supreme in his country, he him- 
 self would be forced back into slavery. 
 
 It must of course be remembered that the Haytian — 
 speaking of him in the bulk — has no education, no inter- 
 course with the outer world, no means of acquiring any 
 information outside a certain narrow cast-iron set of opini- 
 ons which have been handed down to him from his fathers, 
 and which it is to the interest of the Government to keep 
 inviolate. 
 
 I have before described the network of generals which 
 governs the country, so there is no need for repetition. 
 In a sentence, Hayti is governed by about a thousand 
 
 \ 
 
HAYTI, THE PUFF BALL. 273 
 
 generals, and as its area is approximately 10,000 square 
 miles, it is difficult to get very far from the founts of 
 power. 
 
 The members of the Government live in some state. 
 One of the highest and most powerful Ministers, however, 
 received me most haughtily at a desk set in his bedroom. 
 
 The State offices are crowded with clerks. When I 
 went to beg an audience of the President, the office of the 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs, an able man, was packed with 
 secretaries, generals, and minor officials, who appeared to 
 have nothing to do but to smoke cigarettes. 
 
 The daily life of the President, General Tiresias Augus- 
 tin Simon Sam, seems to be chiefly passed in playing 
 draughts near the window of a room opening upon a bal- 
 cony which overlooks the Champ-de-Mars. Sometimes he 
 drives in the streets attended by a numerous suite. During 
 the time I spent in Port-au-Prince I saw him in all four 
 times. On the whole, I cannot think his office an envi- 
 able one. 
 
 "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," but I would 
 sooner take the risk of any crown than be President of 
 Hayti. Precedent is so cheerless, as the following list shows. 
 
 Emperor Dessalines Assassinated. 
 
 President Petion (Soutliern Hayti) . Died of fever. 
 Emperor Christophe (Northern Hayti) Suicide. 
 
 President Boyer Exiled. 
 
 President Herard Deposed after four months. 
 
 18 
 
274 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 Emperor Sovilouque Fled. 
 
 President Geffi-ard Fled to Jamaica 
 
 President Salnave Shot. 
 
 President Nissage-Saget Abdicated hurriedly. 
 
 President Domingue Fled wounded. 
 
 President Boisrond Canal .... Abdicated. 
 
 President Salomon Abdicated and fled to Cuba. 
 
 President Legitime Fled to New York. 
 
 President Hippolyte Died as President! 
 
 President Sam Present head of the Republic. 
 
 There were also some others whose day of power was 
 so brief, that I have not thought it worth while to include 
 them. 
 
 But there is one thing common to the whole country, 
 of which every Haytian denies the existence. Vaudoux is 
 the one thing which they declare they have not. They 
 tell you there is no snake-worship (I am speaking of the 
 higher classes) within the bounds of the Repubhc. But 
 when you betray certain knowledge of the subject, they 
 admit that though sacrifices and savage dances may take 
 place in other departments, no such things are known in 
 that one in which you at the moment find yourself. 
 
 Thus in Jacmel they told me I should find Vaudoux in 
 Port-au-Prince and the Plain of Cul-de-Sac. In Port-au-Prince, 
 as I was actually returning from witnessing a sacrifice within 
 the limits of the town, I was advised to go to the Cape, 
 where alone such rites flourished. And at the Cape they 
 told me to take ship for Jacmel, for there I would assuredly 
 find them. As a matter of plain fact, the traveller riding 
 
HAYTI, THE PUFF BALL. 275 
 
 across the country in any direction is quite likely, to come 
 suddenly in view of the ceremonies in full swing. He will 
 see the tell-tale dances, the faces smeared in blood, perhaps 
 even the body of the black goat, the sacred sacrifice. 
 
 Nor are they grotesque pictures only ; the element of 
 horror darkens them all, for wherever you hear the palpi- 
 tating throb of the big bullock-skin drum, and wherever the 
 votaries of Vaudoux foregather there is always the possibility 
 that human sacrifice has been or is to be accomplished. 
 
 Oddly enough, your most prominent feeling when first 
 you look upon these things leads you to reflect that the 
 boys' books are all wrong, and so is popular fancy. In 
 both the votaries of human sacrifice parade it, as objection- 
 able barbarians indeed, but with a savage picturesqueness 
 of their own. Here in Hayti you have all the elements of 
 the picturesque, forests, red fires, blood, the flash of steel, 
 the red robes of the priest. Surely the worshippers will 
 be in keeping with the rest of the picture ^ But they are 
 not. They are neither very brave nor very fierce. They 
 are not even barbaric ; they are merely barbarians. 
 
 It was a disappointment to me, I admit it. I do not 
 think in the whole world you could have found a more 
 disillusioned person than myself when first I saw a sacrifice 
 of animals to the sacred snake. I had expected a grisly 
 crew of fanatics, I found a medley of squalid negroes. The 
 accepted description catches some of the salient points and 
 
276 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 brings them vividly before your eyes, but it ignores the 
 meanness of it all while it gives rein to the picturesque. 
 You get the rude huts where the sacrificers dwell, but you 
 are never brought face to face with the draggle, the foul- 
 ness, the sordid repulsiveness. 
 
 It is moving, it is terrible, it is savage, it is grisly, we 
 know all that, but it is also cheap, unsavoury, eminently 
 nasty. It is a drama of realities, not played out against a 
 background of romance, but upon a rubbish-heap with dirty 
 straw in the foreground. And this it is which strikes you 
 first and leaves the lasting effect and impression. If the 
 realist would but take a turn at describing Vaudoux sacrifice, 
 he would let you have the smell, the staleness, the ugliness, 
 the squint and leer of it all. 
 
 So Vaudoux flourishes and electric light fails. But you 
 are told that the Government has for some time been taking 
 measures to suppress the one and to set the other on a 
 working basis. But there is no symptom that they are 
 advancing in either direction. 
 
 Can we not christen it the pufT-ball system, by which all 
 fair seeming ends in a little explosion of dust.^ "Only this 
 and nothing more." 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 CAN THE NEGRO RULE HIMSELF? 
 
 Can the negro rule himself? Is he congenitally capable ? 
 
 That is a question which has been mooted at various 
 times and by various writers. In nearly all cases the line 
 of argument has been the same The negro apologist has 
 selected some examples of great men of negro race, has 
 used them as the foundation of his logical edifice, and in- 
 stead of arguing from the masses to the individual, has 
 reversed the order of things, and has argued from the in- 
 dividual to the masses. 
 
 Can the negro rule himself? 
 
 The present condition of Hayti gives the best possible 
 answer to the question, and, considering the experiment 
 has lasted for a century, perhaps also a conclusive one. 
 For a century the answer has been working itself out 
 there in flesh and blood. The negrro has had his chance, 
 
278 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 a fair field and no favour. He has had the most fertile 
 and beautiful of the Carribbees for his own ; he has had 
 the advantage of excellent French laws ; he inherited a made 
 country, with Cap Haytien for its Paris, " Little Paris," as 
 it was called. Here was a wide land sown with prosperity, 
 a land of wood, water, towns, and plantations, and in the 
 midst of it the Black Man was turned loose to work out 
 his own salvation. 
 
 What has he made of the chances that were given to him? 
 
 To begin with, we must define the term "negro," and 
 it is this definition that we find at the root of so many 
 errors. The negro referred to here is the full-blooded 
 African, not the man of mixed race, the Alexandrian, the 
 Numidian, the Moor, or the white throw-back who has in- 
 herited a dash of the tar-brush. It is possible by arguing 
 from the individual outwards to prove anything on earth. 
 This fact is sufficiently obvious to need no demonstration. 
 And yet in the whole history of the Haytian Republic there 
 is only one instance which could give any solid support to 
 the pro-negro line of argument —Toussaint I'Ouverture 
 
 Here we certainly find a great historical figure. Born 
 a slave, his grandfather, it has been said, was an African 
 prince. Judging from his pictures, you cannot but form the 
 opinion that Toussaint was not a pure-blooded negro; the 
 features, the shape of the head, the setting of the eyes 
 are all so many strong reasons against such a supposition. 
 
CAN THE NEGRO RULE HIMSELF? 279 
 
 Among all the leaders that jostle each other in the story 
 of Haytian Independence, his is the only name untainted by 
 obloquy, or unsmirched by the memory of some foul and 
 savage massacre. 
 
 In Toussaint you have a man whose word was his bond, 
 whose acts of mercy are the sole bright episodes against 
 one of the darkest backgrounds of history. A man really 
 sans peur et sans reproche, who was actuated throughout 
 his life by no other feeling than that of love for his 
 country. The many tales of his acts of generosity, no one 
 of which militated in any degree against the cause of 
 Haytian liberty, are legion. 
 
 Over against him stands a far different figure, that of 
 General Dessalines, who spared no man in his anger and 
 no woman in his lust, who was corrupt and venal to an 
 unheard-of degree. The man who crystallised his political 
 tenets in the famous saying: "Pluck the fowl, but take 
 care she does not cry out," a saying which to this day is 
 honoured in the observance throughout every department 
 of the Government. The man who ordered a woman to 
 be beaten to death at Les Cayes under the most horrible 
 circumstances, and around whose name each story or legend 
 which has gathered merely adds one other instance of his 
 cruelty. 
 
 To-day, in Hayti, which of these two men is the national 
 hero.^ It is Dessalines. 
 
28o WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 And the act upon which his fame chiefly rests is the bar- 
 barous decree issued by him for the massacre of every 
 living French soul, man, woman and child. From Toussaint, 
 then, if he was a negro — and this I do not concede — an 
 argument might be built up which would be, at all events 
 to some extent, a vindication of the claim of the negro 
 race to rule itself. But by their own choice and their own 
 act the Haytian people have chosen Dessalines as their 
 national hero. 
 
 There is no space here to pass in review the score or 
 so of rulers Hayti has known. Suffice it to say that her 
 best President was Geffrard, a mulatto, and that the dictator- 
 ship of her black Heads of State has always been marked 
 by a redder smear than usual upon the page of history. 
 The better, the wiser, the more enlightened and less bru- 
 talised class has always been composed of the mulattoes, 
 and the blacks have recognised the fact, and hated the 
 mulatto element accordingly. 
 
 But to pass from the earlier days of independence to 
 more recent times. We had not long ago the savage rule 
 of President Salomon, a notorious sectary of snake-worship, 
 beneath whose iron hand the country groaned for years, 
 and public executions, assassinations, and robbery were the 
 order of the day. And at the present time? 
 
 To-day in Hayti we come to the real crux of the question. 
 At the end of a hundred years of trial, how does the black 
 
CAN THE NEGRO RULE HLNLSELF? 281 
 
 nmn govern himself? What progress has he made ? 
 Absolutely none. When he undertakes the task of govern- 
 ment, he does so, not with the intent of promoting the 
 public weal, but for the sake of filling his own pocket. 
 His motto is still, "Pluck the fowl, but take care she does 
 not cry out " 
 
 Corruption has spread through every portion and every 
 department of the Government. Almost all the ills of the 
 country may be traced to their source in the tyranny, the 
 ineptitude, and the improbity of those at the helm of state. 
 
 Port-au-Prince, the seat of Government, is the cesspool 
 of the Republic. The reason is obvious. The capital is 
 filled with men who are in the employ of the Government, 
 but who are seldom paid ; indeed, who are rather expected 
 to make use of their positions to pay themselves, and who 
 therefore go to make up a class grasping, dishonest, dis- 
 contented, and dangerous. It is not overstating the case 
 to say that the ambitions of the average Haytian politician 
 on entering office are not towards the advancement of his 
 country or projects of reform ; his main idea is to make 
 a fortune for himself and to use his power to avenge his 
 personal resentments. In the former connection there is a 
 national proverb, wdiich may be rendered : " It is no robbery 
 to rob the State." 
 
 The bond, therefore, which consolidates a Government 
 is not that the Ministers hold similar opinions or political 
 
282 WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 convictions; it is one of common interest in keeping the 
 ship of State under way while they help themselves as 
 liberally as possible from its treasure-room. Suppose the 
 present Government fell to-morrow, there is not one member 
 of it whose first impulse would not be to put leagues of 
 sea between himself and his native land. 
 
 Since the Black Republic arose out of the ashes of the 
 French Revolution, it has been twice an Empire, and a 
 Republic for the rest of the time — nominally. But under 
 whatever category the Government may for the moment 
 have stood, it has always been in reality a military despo- 
 tism. It is that to-day, and it is possible to bribe your 
 way to almost anything. Republicanism is, after all, a 
 perilous form of government for a young nation, its bounds 
 are so wide and it gives room for the working of mutual 
 jealousies as well as infinite scope to the ambitions of the 
 individual. " France a Republic, America a Republic, Hayti 
 a Republic," so say the Haytians. The saying needs no 
 comment. 
 
 I have been assured, however, by a European who has 
 long resided in the country that there exists to-day a sec- 
 tion of negroes who if they could win their way to power 
 would soon make a beneficial change in the condition of 
 things. I own that I have seen but slight trace of such a 
 class. Besides, there seems to be little doubt that the 
 advent into the arena of active politics of a truly patriotic 
 
CAN THE NEGRO RULE HIMSELF? 283 
 
 party would be resented in the most lively manner by the 
 bigoted populace, who would regard any measures of re- 
 form or progress as indicative of a design to sell them 
 into the hand of the white, and thus back under the old 
 yoke of slavery. This belief it is the policy of the Govern- 
 ment to keep alive and active. 
 
 The lower classes have for their idols black generals, 
 who can neither read nor write, whose sole claim to notori- 
 ety is their supernormal fierceness and push. And when 
 all is said and done it is on the influence of these men 
 that the safety and .stability of the Government depend. 
 They possess the ear of the multitude, they are puffed up 
 with their own importance. While they retain their present 
 ascendency there can be no going forward for the Republic. 
 
 Their watchword is " Hayti for the Haytians," which, 
 being interpreted, means conservatism to savagery. 
 
 To return then to the question put at the beginning of 
 this article. 
 
 " Les Amis des Noirs ", who in the days of the French 
 Revolution gave the black man his first hint of and help 
 towards freedom, have long since passed away themselves, 
 but they set the thinking world a colour-problem. For a 
 century the answer has been working itself out in flesh 
 and blood. Can the negro rule himself? Is he congenit- 
 ally capable ? 
 
 The non-proven of the Scottish courts seems hardly strong 
 
284 WHERE P3LACK RULES WHITE. 
 
 enough by way of a reply. Up to date he certainly has 
 not succeeded in giving any convincing proof of capability, 
 has not indeed come within measurable distance of success. 
 I think we may go a full step beyond the non-proven. 
 We may say that, taken en masse at any rate, he has 
 shown no signs whatever which could fairly entitle him to 
 the benefit of the doubt that has for so long hung about 
 the question. 
 
 He has had his opportunity. That opportunity has lasted 
 for a hundred years in a splendid land which he found 
 ready prepared for him. Yet to-day we find him with a 
 Government which, save in the single point of force 
 majeure, has degenerated into a farce ; and as for the 
 country itself, houses and plantations have disappeared, 
 and where clearings once were there is now impenetrable 
 forest. Certainly he has existed through one hundred years 
 of internecine strife, but he has never for six consecutive 
 months governed himself in any accepted sense of the word. 
 Today, and as matters stand, he certainly cannot rule himself. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Alexis, General, 174. 
 Amazan, General, i8q. 
 
 Army, 40, 56—64 ; see Generals, 
 
 Soldiers. 
 Assauei, Lake, 129. 
 
 Bobo, General Miles, Open Letter Boyer, President, 124, 273. 
 of, 257—266. I Burton, Sir Richard, 77. 
 
 Cannibalism, 75, 79, 88, 93, 168, 
 
 274- 276. 
 Cap Haytien, 78, 169—175. 
 Charms, 93. 
 Child-stealing, 99. 
 Christophe, Emperor, 173. 
 
 citadel, 185, 189, 192— 
 
 204. 
 cruelty, 198, 199, 203 — 
 
 206. 
 death, 207, 208. 
 palace of Sans-Souci, 
 
 190. 
 treasure, 188, 189. 
 
 Cock-fight, 118. 
 Cocomacaque, 151. 
 Coftee, 115, 174, 182. 
 Consular Agents, 211, 212, 215, 218. 
 of Great Britain, 7, 17, 
 
 55. 177- 
 of Liberia, 226. 
 Corruption, 51—54, 221, 224, 271, 
 
 281, 282. 
 Cul-de-Sac, Plain of, in — 122. 
 fertility, in. 
 neglect, 115, 116. 
 Custom House, 14, 170, 171. 
 
 Dardignac, General, 178—180. I Dessalines, General, 2, 273, 279. 
 
 Dancing, 84—87, 132, 249, 250, 251. ] Dress, Haytian, 6, 22, 245, 252. 
 
286 
 
 Enquirillo, Lake, 145. 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 E 
 
 I Execution at Jacmel, 11. 
 
 Food, 126, 127. 
 
 Foreigners in Hayti, 8, 100, 21c— 224. 
 
 life, 218. 
 
 number, 217. 
 
 treatment of, 154, 159, 
 160, 217, 218, 220, 221. 
 
 Forest, Life in the, 123 — 128. 
 
 riding in, 129—139. 
 
 rich in timber, 139—140. 
 France, see Haytians. 
 Froude, J. A., 44. 
 Fundo, Lake, 139, 140, 144, 145. 
 
 Geffrard, President, 280. 
 Generals, 8, 39-73, 231, 273. 
 
 conversation with, 64— 
 
 73- 
 grades, 43. 
 number, 40. 
 pay, 41, 52. 
 tyranny, 45, 46. 
 ubiquity, 39, 40, 43. 
 uniform, 60, 64. 
 
 Germany, Dispute with, 109, no, 
 
 212, 215. 
 Gilmour, Captain, 105— no. 
 Government, 271, 272. 
 
 tyranny, 45, 155, 233, 
 
 237- 
 instability 177, 182, 
 
 273. 274. 
 Guides, Petit Sans-Nom, 14, 130, 131. 
 Petit Col, 185, 196. 
 
 H 
 
 Haytians, 232—266. 
 
 capability for self-govern- 
 ment, 46, 235, 256, 271, 
 272, 277 — 284. 
 
 dishonesty, 103, 104, 234, 
 242. 
 
 honesty, 216, 238, 241. 
 
 hospitality, 121, 126, 232. 
 
 ignorance, 255, 263, 272. 
 
 Haytians, jealousy of foreigners, 
 211, 217, 258 — 265, 272. 
 
 laziness, 115— 117, 143, 
 249. 
 
 love of physic, 125, 162. 
 
 morality, 246, 249. 
 
 relations to France, 21, 
 63, 72, 160, 172,219,226, 
 228, 243, 252, 255, 278. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 287 
 
 Haytians, vanity, 67—72, 215, 251, 
 262, 264. 
 varieties, 243, 244. 
 vindictiveness, 89—94, 
 164. 
 
 Hereaux, President, 146. 
 Hippolyte, President, 102, 188, 274. 
 
 Arch of, 37. 
 Hospice Justinien, 160, 162 — 163. 
 Hospital, Military, 160, 268. 
 
 Jacmel, 2—8. 
 
 hot-bed of Vaudoux, 78. 
 
 Jamaica, Obeah-worship in, 95, 96. 
 
 Law Courts, 219 — 224. 
 
 Mamaloi, 75, 76, 83-86, 93, 132. 
 Marriage, 167, 246, 251. 
 Martial Law, 28. 
 Merisier, General, 8. 
 
 M 
 
 Millot, 185, 186. 
 
 Minerals, 146. 
 
 Mulatto, 145, 146, 237, 238, 243, 256, 
 
 257, 280. 
 
 N 
 
 Navy, 102— no. 
 
 "Crete-a-Pierrot", 103 — 109. 
 " Dessalines ", 103. 
 
 Navy, "Toussaint", 103, T04. 
 Nobility, 44. 
 
 Papaloi, 55, 75, 81, 85, 88-90, 
 
 92—96, 98 — 101, 164. 
 Passport, 13. 
 
 Poisoning, 89—93, 97> 98- 
 Policemen, 7, 34, 147, 221. 
 
 brutality, 151 — 154, 191. 
 pay, 148. 
 Politicians, 252—254. 
 Port-au-Prince, 21 — 38. 
 
 by night, 26, 81, 216. 
 
 cafes, 21. 
 
 description, 27, 28^ 31. 32. 
 
 Port-au-Prince, drainage, 25. 
 
 filth, 32-34- 
 
 hotels, 21,22, 25, 27. 
 
 market, 37. 
 
 mosquitoes, 26. 
 
 streets, 31. 
 Press, 152, 153, 225—231. 
 Prisons, 152, 154, 155, 156, 269, 270. 
 in Port-au-Prince, 156—158. 
 in Cap Haytien, 158, 159. 
 Protestantism, 167. 
 
288 
 
 Religion, see Roman Catholicism 
 
 and Vaudoux. 
 Review at Port-au-Prince, 56—64. 
 Revolutions, 102, i6g, 178—182. 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 R 
 
 Roads, 17 — 20, 116, 122, 129 — 136, 
 
 184—186. 
 Roman Catholicism, 86, 163—168, 
 246. See Hospice. 
 
 Salomon, President, 178, 274, 280. 
 Sam, President, 32, 43, 61, 222, 274. 
 San Domingo, 63, 64, iii, 145, 146. 
 Soldiers, 31, 47. 
 
 arms, 51. 
 
 character, 56. 
 
 dishonesty, 53. 
 
 parade, 48. 
 
 Soldiers, pay, 48, 51, 52. 
 
 recruiting, 54. 
 
 review, 56, 59, 60. 
 
 uniform, 51. 
 Soulouque, Emperor, 44, 63, 273. 
 St. John, Sir Spencer, 4, 152—153. 
 Syrian pedlars, 245. 
 
 Thomazeau, 46, 117 — 122. 
 
 Toussaint TOuverture, 278, 279. 
 
 ft Vaudoux, 74—101. 
 ' cannibalism and child- 
 
 sacrifice, 75, 76, 135, 
 168, 274, 275, 276. 
 dances, 84—87, 132, 135. 
 drum, 80. 
 fetishes, 86. 
 power in army, 55. 
 priests, see jMamaloi, 
 Papaloi. 
 
 Vaudoux, relation to Government, 
 81. 
 
 relation to Roman Ca- 
 tholic Ritual, 86, 
 164. 
 
 sacrifices, 76, 81 — 87. 
 
 sects, 76. 
 
 serpent, 77. 
 
 temples, 38, 83. 
 
 Printed at the Motley Press, iS, Kldoti Street, E.C.