streets, men and women in tawdry
European costume, and officers on horseback with a tatter of lace and
gilding. We passed up the principal avenue, which opened on the market
place. Above the market was the cathedral, more hideous than even the
Mormon temple at Salt Lake. It was full of ladies; the rank, beauty, and
fashion of Port au Prince were at their morning mass, for they are
Catholics with African beliefs underneath. They have a French clergy, an
archbishop and bishop, paid miserably but still subsisting; subsisting
not as objects of reverence at all, as they are at Dominica, but as the
humble servants and ministers of black society. We English are in bad
favour just now; no wonder, with the guns of the 'Canada' pointed at the
city; but the chief complaint is on account of Sir Spenser St. John's
book, which they cry out against with a degree of anger which is the
surest evidence of its truth. It would be unfair even to hint at the
names or stations of various persons who gave me information about the
condition of the place and people. Enough that those who knew well what
they were speaking about assured me that Hayti was the most ridiculous
caricature of civilisation in the whole world. Doubtless the whites
there are not disinterested witnesses; for they are treated as they once
treated the blacks. They can own no freehold property, and exist only on
tolerance. They are called 'white trash.' Black dukes and marquises
drive over them in the street and swear at them, and they consider it an
invasion of the natural order of things. If this was the worst, or even
if the dirt and the disease was the worst, it might be borne with, for
the whites might go away if they pleased, and they pay the penalty
themselves for choosing to be there. But this is not the worst.
Immorality is so universal that it almost ceases to be a fault, for a
fault implies an exception, and in Hayti it is the rule. Young people
make experiment of one another before they will enter into any closer
connection. So far they are no worse than in our own English islands,
where the custom is equally general; but behind the immorality, behind
the religiosity, there lies active and alive the horrible revival of the
West African superstitions; the serpent worship, and the child
sacrifice, and the cannibalism. There is no room to doubt it. A
missionary assured me that an instance of it occurred only a year ago
within his own personal knowledge. The facts are