I. 
<?% people of ga^tl 
A S in all the Republics of the tropics and Central and South 
America, the people of Hayti are. divided into two distinct 
parties, — the enlightened class and the uneducated mass. In 
Hayti we can discover, side by side with the highest intelligence 
and culture, many traces of the primitive superstitions and 
ideas. It is sufficient for the purpose of a Guide Book to speak 
briefly of both classes. The enlightened class may be de¬ 
scribed in three words: They are Frenchmen. All the dis¬ 
tinguishing traits of the Parisian gentleman are reproduced in 
the educated Haytian. The uneducated class, and particularly 
the people of the country — les habitans —have the character¬ 
istics that are attributed to the inland Irish ; they are hospita- 
able, superstitious, of a never-failing good-nature, thoughtless 
of the morrow, with a quaint and prompt mother-wit, polite and 
sociable, but without ambition, and with little disposition to 
regular work. Their vices are contentment, petty theft, and a 
tendency to polygamy. 
With these exceptions, they are characterized by all who 
know them, even by pro-slavery travellers, as essentially a 
good people, and capable of creating a great future. The aim 
of the fallen Government was to crush out the enlightened 
class, by encouraging the ancestral practices and ideas of the 
uneducated party; while all the energy of the present Admin¬ 
istration is, by educational and other civilizing agencies, to ex- 
