Photograph by Harriet Chalmers Adams 

 THL STRONGHOLD OP CHRISTOPHL 



"Two" hours further back in the hills stands the stupendous castle erected by the King as 

 a retreat when the French should come to avenge his murdered masters. They never came, 

 having had enough of Haiti; but .there Christophe immured himself behind walls twenty feet 

 in thickness and a hundred feet in height, in -the long galleries and on the parapets mounting 

 more than three hundred cannon, most of which may be seen today. Here at last died the 

 great black king, self-slaughtered by a silver- bullet driven into his brain." — Ob£r. 



CONDITIONS UNBELIEVABLY BAD 



Conditions always have been unbeliev- 

 ably bad in that Republic. To begin with, 

 it is a place where black rules white, 

 where the Caucasian is referred to as the 

 ''blanc," just as we refer to the "negro." 

 Froude, whose verdict agrees with those 

 of Sir Frederick Treves, who lived in 

 the island ; Sir Spencer St. John, who was 

 for 15 years British -Minister there, and 

 F. A. Ober, who spent the best part of 

 two decades studying the islands of the 

 Caribbean, says of the Haitians : "They 

 speak French still ; they are nominally 

 Catholics still; and the tags and rags of 

 the gold lace of French civilization con- 

 tinue to cling about their institutions. 

 But in the heart of them has revived the 

 old idolatry of the Gold Coast, and in the 

 villages of the interior, where they are 

 out of sight and can follow their instincts, 

 they sacrifice children in the serpent's 



honor after the manner of their fore- 

 fathers." 



Sir Spencer St. John adds to this the 

 statement: "I have traveled in almost 

 every quarter of the globe, and I may say 

 that, taken as a whole, there is no finer 

 island than that of Santo Domingo — 

 Haiti. No country possesses greater ca- 

 pabilities, or a better geographical posi- 

 tion, more variety of soil, of climate, and 

 of production, with magnificent scenery 

 of every description, and hillsides where 

 the pleasantest of health resorts might be 

 established, and yet it is now the country 

 to be most avoided, ruined as it is by a 

 succession of self-seeking politicians, 

 without honesty or patriotism, content to 

 let the people sink to the condition of an 

 African tribe, that their own selfish pas- 

 sions may be gratified." 



F. A. Ober, commenting upon the story 

 of the country written by Sir Spencer, 



159 



