ISLAND OF HAYTI

MARCH 3d we sailed from Ponce, and the next day arrived at Santo Domingo, a remarkable sixteenth-century Spanish-American walled city, built at the mouth of the Ozama River,-the oldest city of European foundation in the new world. In 1496 a fort was built on the opposite side of the river, which is narrow at this point. Columbus was confined there in 1500. That fort was destroyed by an earthquake in 1502, and this castle was built about 1509. It is the most conspicuous object in the city, and the oldest castle in America. The first university in America was at Santo Domingo.

The cathedral, built of solid stone, commenced in 1512 and finished in 1540, is one of the most notable buildings in the western hemisphere. It is claimed that the remains of Columbus are in the stone coffin under a great monument to him in this church. Much evidence-conclusive, I think has been adduced in support of this claim, and that it was the remains of Diego Columbus, the son of the great discoverer, that were taken by mistake to Havana. We found Santo Domingo most interesting, although vilely dirty.

Passing the "House of Columbus," which belonged not to the discoverer, but to his son Diego, who here maintained a splendid viceregal court, we went in the launch about five miles up the Ozama, on which there were many long dugout canoes. We wished we had time to go much farther up this large river, but we wanted to see more of the city. We returned and drove inside and outside of the walls. On all sides children of both sexes without any clothing were playing in the dirty streets. The appearance of the soldiers was grotesque. There were many ruins of once fine buildings, and disorder and decay everywhere.

We were told that there was a revolution going on, and that eight revolutionists had been captured the preceding day. One of these revolutionists we saw and talked with. The government is nominally a free republic, but is practically a military despotism. One part of the community is pleased at having certain laws made, and another part is pleased by the liberal non-enforcement of these laws. Politicians in our country may suppose that they have invented this clever, double-acting scheme. But it is precisely the Santo Domingo plan; and the politicians there thrive under it so well that the outs

are constantly getting up revolutions, hoping to obtain a chance to construe the laws liberally to the profit of themselves and their partizans.

Santo Domingo has a colored man's government. Hayti, the western part of the island, has a black man's government. These two classes here, as in some other parts of the Caribbean Sea, hate each other.

In most of the islands, the distinction between colored and black people is very sharply drawn.

We sailed past Jacmel, Hayti, but did not land. Jacmel is an open roadstead, and the sea was rolling in, as there was a little south in the wind that day. Even the mail-steamers seldom anchor there.

The island of Hayti, seen from the south, has not the grand and mysterious aspect that I noted when sailing along the northern shores in 1899 and in 1902. The government is, like that of Santo Domingo, nominally a free republic, but practically a military despotism. In 1867, according to Hesketh Pritchard's book on Hayti, the army was composed of 6500 generals, 7000 regimental officers, and 6500 privates. Ober, in 1893, says the nominal strength of the army is about 20,000, of which some 14,000 are general, staff, and regimental officers.