cut and pointed beards,―rather more carefully dressed, I think they were, than our own legislators, were discussing the new tariff laws. Everywhere we met gangs of ragged policemen, each one of whom wore a scarf of silk about his shoulders bearing the device in French, "The law supports the right." So we became bolder, and at last ventured to visit our legation and Consul. This official was absent, he being also accredited to Santo Domingo, and the Consul-General was away for his health. We were received most affably by his substitute, the Vice-Consul, a coloured gentleman from Philadelphia.

Before we well knew what he was about our official representative had arranged an audience with the President of the republic, who only a few days before had reached the capital after his arduous campaign against the present pretender and his predecessor in office, General Firmin. We were loath to visit the executive mansion, or Black House, as it is rather contemptuously called by the white dwellers in the capital, and our resistance only yielded to the statement of our representative from Philadelphia that the President would feel slighted unless we came. "He knows how well our people are received at the White House now," asserted the Vice-Consul.

"Then we will reciprocate," we answered, and so we started out. On the Champs de Mars the recruiting of men to support the new régime was going on actively, and the sight was certainly interesting. It resembled a scene in the French Revolution-all the actors, however, having blackened faces. The uniforms seemed to be full red balloon trousers, a dark-blue coat, and a flamingo-hued shako. This was the costume to which

all of the tatterdemalion crew aspired but only the recruiting sergeants realised.

After a few minutes' walking we came to the open square, in which rises the executive palace, and here we paused-in fact, there was nothing else to do, the Black House lot being surrounded by an iron stockade that it would take a daring cat to climb. Behind this entanglement lay the victorious army, seated upon their hams and resting upon their laurels. They had arrived only twenty-four hours before at the capital and were bent upon enjoying the fruits of victory. Their arms were stacked-all kinds of arms—but near at hand, and they were cooking and drinking and eating by their little charcoal fires. Had we not known upon such high authority that these men were the upholders of the constitution, we might have imagined ourselves in a brigands' lair. We looked about us and saw the executive mansion, a hideous edifice, with one side blown in, that was brought from Paris some years ago, our Consul informed us, in boxes. No one could tell us why or when the side was blown in-whether it was an earthquake or a revolution that struck the blow. The fact of the matter is-and I hope this will explain the scrappiness of my information on some points-there is no continuity of tradition in Haytian politics, for when one President gets out the new man makes a clean sweep of those who have been unwise enough to linger in loyalty around the steps of the deserted throne.

We wandered around the iron stockade until we came to the great gates, encrusted with burnished gold, that time and revolutions have tarnished. But the gates were closed and we could only peep in at the Black House, dusty and bare of trees, but filled with sullen, ragged

soldiers. The signs were certainly not propitious to our promised interview, but we continued our walk until at last we came to a slit in the iron stockade for all the great gates we saw had been bolted and barred and double padlocked. Here, indeed, an Here, indeed, an entrance was physically possible, if the military permitted. Even as we watched, an officer in gorgeous uniform of many colours and much gold braid came stalking by and passed out, having whispered the password to the sentry. But as we drew near and prepared to enter there was quite a movement among the soldiers. A tall, burly black came and stood in the slit and pressed his musket against the iron bars of the postern-and this was only the first line of defence. Behind him, in close supporting distance, was another ragged soldier with bayonet extended to greet us, and behind him, gathered in a little knot, were half a dozen barefooted bandits kneeling and crouching on the ground in the position in which, as history teaches us, infantry always prepares to receive a cavalry charge. The bayonets were the old three-cornered effective kind which have been discarded by all modern armies, and as we looked upon them we weakened. After all, what right did we have to force ourselves upon the privacy of Simon Sam (or was it Alexis Nord?) Certainly every one was vague on the subject-only a few violent partisans caring to commit themselves, and our Consul was diplomatic; at times he called the President Sam, at others Nord, and the indiscretion was always uttered in a low voice.

"There has been a mistake-an awful mistake," sighed our Consul, after he had talked for a minute or two in negroid French with the guardian of the gate. "He says we are not expected and cannot pass. The

President has received news from the Cape and soon there will be fighting again." We were not for insisting, and in fact very glad to get away. The Haytian army is a forbidding sight. There wasn't a smile in the whole regiment as it lay there eating and drinking and smoking. However, as we walked away our Consul pointed out a gorgeous-looking individual smoking away at the second-story window of the executive palace. "It's Sam," he whispered. "Simon Sam! He is eighty-seven years old and can jump into the saddle without assistance. He has twenty children; one was born only last week, the day of the great victory at Cape Haytien, but he hasn't got his household in working order yet. How much better they manage these things in Washington," he sighed.

Strange world! How uncertain and unstable are even the seats of the mighty! In September, 1908, I saw General Sam forcibly pushed out of Maloney's famous saloon in St. Thomas, where ex-Dictators muse and aspirant Presidents ply their followers with white

rum.

"No man can behave as you do in my saloon, even if he does have a gold-headed cane," shouted Maloney, and this emblem of high office followed the ex-President out into the sloppy streets. "I am a respectable barkeep," explained Maloney to my enquiries, " and I can't stand Sam's morals and manners, even if he did bring the goods with him on his getaway.' "'*

* A list of the changing governments and the political convulsions from which Hayti has suffered in the last hundred years will be found in Appendix B, Note II, page 407.

CHAPTER IV

THE BLACK REPUBLIC (continued)

As in every Haytian town, in Port-au-Prince the royal palm, or palma nobilis, rises out of the midst of the great public square. It is surrounded by ancient cannon, relics of the French war, or of the British attempts to lay hands upon the islands, which continued for several years at the beginning of the last century. Here Nord Alexis would often take his stand and talk in a rambling way to his people-rambling seemed his discourse, but it held the attention and charmed the faculties of all his listeners whose skins were black. In this place of assembly, under the blue sky, in the shadow of that palm which is the national emblem, the President often got into what he doubtless thought (I certainly did) was close touch with his people. Here he would talk to them about Dessaline, that arch-murderer of the independence wars, whose slogan, "Liberty or death," is on every childish tongue in Hayti, while the name of Toussaint l'Ouverture, the Haytian with the godlike character, who will live as long as history, is forgotten there altogether.

Nord Alexis was an accessible man. The doors to the palace were wide open every day in the week to those who took the trouble to announce their coming the day before, and on Thursday of every week you or any other man could drop in quite unannounced and you could show him your fighting gamecock or your jack