national religion is Roman Catholic, no other being
tolerated, but strictly prohibited. The president keeps up a standing
army of forty thousand men, well uniformed, disciplined and equiped. As
I shall have to refer to their laws, customs and manners in my next
voyage, I shall leave the subject for the present.
Not being able to sell my timber at Port au Prince without a sacrifice,
my consignee applied to the government agent to purchase it, of which he
acquainted the president, who gave me a letter addressed to the public
administrator of Jerimie, and requesting me to proceed with my vessel
and cargo to that port, which I immediately complied with, after getting
a letter of address from an Italian Jew I found in Port au Prince, but
who resided in Jerimie, addressed to Messrs. Laforet & Brier, to whom I
consigned my vessel and cargo. On my arrival at that place my consignees
sold to the administrator all the timber he wanted, and the remainder at
an under price to individuals. My provisions sold at a saving. Jerimie
contains about two hundred houses, most of them being in a dilapidated
condition, in consequence of the constant alarm in which the inhabitants
have been kept by a troop of banditti, headed by an insurgent colonel,
who had deserted from the army, and had so terrified the people that the
women and children took shelter in the forts during the night, while the
men were kept under arms, being obliged to suspend all agricultural
pursuits, and leave their villages to decay. A few months since, the
chief of the banditti had been killed, his troops surrendered their arms
and received a pardon from the president. The inhabitants were now
making great preparations to repair their buildings and call back their
former trade.
While in this port, the padre, or priest died; he was carried to the
church in a chair, being tied fast to it, in a sitting posture, a book
placed in his hands. The corpse remained in this situation until about
four o'clock in the afternoon, when a marble slab was taken out of the
floor, an excavation made in the ground, the body deposited in the hole
with the clothes on, and then covered with a thick coat of lime.
A friend of mine, named Ghio, arrived here from Port au Prince in
company with one Captain Mills, from New-York, and while he and the
captain were walking the streets of Jerimie, Ghio for the first heard of
the death of the padre, when bursting into a flood of tears, he
exclaimed,
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