from his glass. Thus, each doubting the other, and each fearing the
other, they gazed over the busy desolation of Cap Haitien, a town unlike
any other on earth.

Save for a small and recently rebuilt section in the heart of the
town--which boasted some 10,000 inhabitants--flimsy frame houses rose in
white poverty upon the ruins of what was once known as "the little Paris
of the West Indies." Of the massive buildings of a century ago, not one
remained whole. The great earthquake of 1842 did much toward their
destruction; the orgy of loot and plunder which followed, did more; but
the chiefest of all agents of demolition was the black man's rule.

The spacious residences were never rebuilt, the fallen aqueducts were
left in ruins, the boulevards fell into disrepair and guinea-grass
rioted through the cracked pavements. Back of the town the plantations
were neglected, the great houses fallen, while the present owners lived
contentedly in the little huts which once had been built for slaves. The
ruthless hands of time, weather and the jungle snatched back "Little
Paris," and Cap Haitien became a huddled cluster of pitiful buildings
scattered among the rubbish-heaps and walls of a once-beautiful
stone-built town.

This appearance of desolation, however, was contradicted by the evidence
of commercial activity. The sea-front was a whirl of noise.

The din of toil was terrific. Over the cobblestoned streets came rough
carts drawn by four mules--of the smallest race of mules in the
world--and these carts clattered down noisily with their loads of
coffee-sacks, the drivers shouting as only a Haitian negro can shout. At
the wharf, each cart was at once surrounded by a cluster of negroes,
each one striving to outshout his fellows, while the bawling of the
driver rose high above all. Lines of negroes, naked to the waist, sacks
on their glistening backs, poured out from the warehouses like ants from
an anthill, but yelling to out-vie the carters. The tiny car-line seemed
to exist only to give opportunity for the perpetual clanging of the
gong; and the toy wharf railway expended as much steam on its whistle as
on its piston-power.

Stuart had visited the southern part of Haiti with his father,
especially the towns of Port-au-Prince and Jacamel, and he was struck
with the difference in the people. Cap Haitien is a working town and its
people are higher grade than the dwellers in the southern part of the
republic. The south, howev