334 
HAITI. 
naments, — that involuntarily led the remembrance 
to the household life of the meek and innocent race 
that once peopled them. The peculiar trees that 
shadowed their dwellings, — the calabash that supplied 
them with drinking bowls ; the starry caymite ; the 
russet nispero ; the golden marahon, the anacardium ; 
the guanabana ; theanona; the rose-apple ; the guava; 
the aguacate ; the mammea ; the orange ; the cirucla; 
the maimon ; the tamarind ; the pine-apple, fruits 
that made part of their simple repast, were all grow- 
ing, blossoming, and bearing, amid groves of palm. 
The nightingale * sings there, and the colibri visits 
the bowers at noonday, — but the people that sat 
beneath their shadows, where are they ? Their cot- 
tages are in the village — the upright boards of the 
palma real, braced with the unhewn hardwood and 
tied with stems of bejuco, and covered with sheaths 
of jagua, are the same sort of huts they inhabited. 
The very hamac that swings there is theirs, but 
another race are dwellers within them. The glitter- 
ing palaces of the Spaniard are crumbled to dust — 
earthquakes have buried them, and revolutions des- 
troyed them. The golden dreams have faded. The 
anticipated future has deceived the avarice of kings 
and the venality of nobles. The empire conferred 
by the high-styled vicegerent of God is passed away. 
All has been cheated, — the cupidity of ambition, 
and the eagerness of power. Nothing remains but 
the sheltered hut and the shadowy garden, — the 
* The Mocking-bird {Mimus polyglottus) is so called in the An- 
tilles. 
