ently destined for
New England seems to have got entangled and lost among these fervid
hills. The languid Creole life is overtaken by universal discomfort.

Great fires break out over the elevated plateaus and hill-sides, during
the dry season. They sweep with incredible rapidity across great tracts,
levelling everything in the way. The mountains seem tipped with volcanic
flames. The angry glow spreads over the night, and its smoke mixes with
the parched air by day. These fires commence by some carelessness,
though they are sometimes attributed to the action of the son's rays,
concentrated by the gray cliffs upon great masses of vegetation dried to
tinder.

In the rainy season the earthquakes occur; and not a year passes without
the experience of several shocks in different parts of the island. The
northern part is exempt from them.[D] Those which take place in the
west, around the shores of the great bay upon which Port-au-Prince is
situated, are severe, and sometimes very disastrous. At mid-day the
wind falls instantly, there is a dead calm on land and sea, the heat
is consequently more intense, and the atmosphere suffocating; then the
vibrations occur, after which the wind begins to blow again. Sometimes,
at an interval of ten or twelve hours, there is a supplementary shock,
less violent than the first one. It is said that the coast-caves bellow
just before an earthquake. Their noise probably seems more emphatic In
the sudden calm which is the real announcement of the earth's shudder.

[Footnote D: Not entirely. The great earthquake of the 7th of May, 1842,
was very destructive at Cap Haytien. On this occasion Port-au-Prince
escaped with little injury.]

Port-au-Prince was entirely destroyed by an earthquake in June, 1770.
The Inhabitants built the new town upon the edge of the gulf which had
just swallowed up their old one, convinced that the same disaster would
not recur in the same spot. But that region is peculiarly sensitive: the
subterranean connections with the Mexican and South-American volcanic
districts chronicle disturbances whose centre is remote.

The rains are short and frequent showers, very heavy, and almost always
accompanied by violent electric phenomena. By June they are at their
height. Then the land-slides take place, which often affect seriously
the cultivation, not only by their direct ravages, but by the changes
which they make in the water-courses: large tracts of good soil are
turned in