CHAPTER XII 

 xaymaca: the island of many rivers 



" The privileges of the white man in Hayti are 

 not numerous, but exemplary conduct on his part 

 always enables him to overcome the social dis- 

 advantages attaching to his unfortunate color." 

 This epigrammatic sentence, embodying the spirit 

 of the Haytian Constitution, we heard from a 

 fellow-passenger on the stanch British steam- 

 ship Alene of the Atlas Line, commanded by a 

 thorough-going Yankee sea-captain, which con- 

 veyed our party to Jamaica, West Indies, in the 

 autumn of 1890. 



We laughed heartily over the reversal of the 

 white man's position in the Black Republic set 

 forth by Mr. W , and half believed it a travel- 

 ler's tale. Our own amusing, annoying, not to 

 say humiliating, experiences later on in an island 

 whose black population is six hundred thousand 

 and whose resident whites number less than 

 fifteen thousand, made the story quite credible. 

 We came to understand how a black man may 

 feel in a white man's country. But we had no 

 misgivings during the voyage, every moment was 



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