, man,
woman, and child. Napoleon sent an army to punish the murderers and
recover the colony. Toussaint, who had no share in the atrocities, and
whose fault was only that he had been caught by the prevailing political
epidemic and believed in the evangel of freedom, surrendered and was
carried to France, where he died or else was made an end of. The yellow
fever avenged him, and secured for his countrymen the opportunity of
trying out to the uttermost the experiment of negro self-government. The
French troops perished in tens of thousands. They were reinforced again
and again, but it was like pouring water into a sieve. The climate won a
victory to the black man which he could not win for himself. They
abandoned their enterprise at last, and Hayti was free. We English tried
our hand to recover it afterwards, but we failed also, and for the same
reason.

Hayti has thus for nearly a century been a black independent state. The
negro race have had it to themselves and have not been interfered with.
They were equipped when they started on their career of freedom with
the Catholic religion, a civilised language, European laws and manners,
and the knowledge of various arts and occupations which they had learnt
while they were slaves. They speak French still; they are nominally
Catholics still; and the tags and rags of the gold lace of French
civilisation continue 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 honour after
the manner of their forefathers. Perhaps nothing better could be
expected from a liberty which was inaugurated by assassination and
plunder. Political changes which prove successful do not begin in that
way.

The Bight of Leogane is a deep bay carved in the side of the island, one
arm of which is a narrow ridge of high mountains a hundred and fifty
miles long and from thirty to forty wide. At the head of this bay, to
the north of the ridge, is Port au Prince, the capital of this
remarkable community. On the south, on the immediately opposite side of
the mountains and facing the Caribbean Sea, is Jacmel, the town next in
importance. We arrived off it shortly after daybreak. The houses, which
are white, looked cheerful in the sunlight. Harbour there was none, but
an open roadstead into which the swell of the sea