continue until midnight, and often till the break of day. Thus the Sabbath ends with confusion as it began.

Were I to stop here, after what I have said in regard to the politeness, taste in dress, skill in dancing, &c., &c., that I found in Port au Prince, I am sure that a very wrong estimate of the character and condition of the people would be formed from what I have written. I have already alluded to the fact that there is here a strange blending of Parisian refinement and civilization, with native African barbarism and morals. Having said what I have of the first, my account would not be truthful were I to pass over the last.

I witnessed one large fire in Port au Prince. As soon as it began to spread, the merchants who had foreign vessels in port consigned to them, ran immediately to their stores, and tumbling their money into trunks and bags, ran with them to the wharf, in the quickest time possible, and sent them on board these vessels. Many of the captains were unwilling to take the bags and trunks in that way, without knowing their contents, and begged their consignees, if they would have it so. to send some one on board in whose care the property might be left; but they invariably preferred to leave it in that way. A fire is the signal for universal theft and dishonesty. Scarcely an article that is thrown into the streets can be secured, and a man does not know whom to trust. One man intrusted a bag of money to one of his neighbors in the midst of the confusion of the fire, and when he called for it the next day, the man denied having received it, and as there was no proof the owner could not recover it. When I heard this and similar facts, I was not surprised at their readiness to trust foreign captains. The best stores here have a small building adjoining, which is without windows and fire-proof; on purpose to have a place where they can store their money and valuables in times of fire. Thieving seems the great bane of the island. Those who are disposed to be industrious have no certainty that they will reap the rewards of their industry. While they are laboring, others are sleeping, who in the dead of the night will prowl around and seize upon the fruits of their toils. Corn, vegetables, fruits, &c., are stolen from the fields where they are growing; pigs, fowls, &c., are stolen from their inclosures. An American negro, who was disposed to be industrious. told me that often while he was at work at one end of his garden, thieves would be watching him and steal

ing his vegetables and fruits from the other end. This practice is so universal that the law allows any man to shoot down a thief in the act of plundering. I was told of a case where a young man, hearing some one in the act of stealing his bananas, went out in the dark and fired at him, and on going to the spot was startled to find that he had killed one of his most intimate friends. In 1842 the city of Cape Haitien was shaken down by a most terrific earthquake, and probably one half or two thirds of its population were instantly killed. Of those who escaped in the general ruin, multitudes from the city and surrounding country rushed to the terrible scene, and engaged in plundering the bodies of the dead and the dying! And yet, paradoxical as it seems, money may be transmitted from Port au Prince to any other part of the island with the utmost safety. Packages of bills containing thousands of dollars, may be intrusted to a native, who will carry it, unmolested, across the country, sleeping with it under his head at night, and deliver every dollar with unfailing certainty. But after it is once delivered and counted the same man would not hesitate to appropriate a package if an opportunity were offered.

Another central African characteristic of the Haitians is their almost universal licentiousness. I have taken no pains to obtain statistics, but think I cannot err in saying that a majority of the births upon the island are illegitimate. To live together as husband and wife without a civil or religious marriage ceremony is scarcely less respectable than regular marriage. Many men, among the first in wealth and social position, live in this manner; and the respectability of the connection may be inferred from the fact that when they commence housekeeping they give a party, and subsequently appear together in parties, at church, and other public places, precisely as if they were regularly married. By a law of the island, marriage at any subsequent period, makes all the children born in this state legitimate. When the present Emperor was elected president he was living in this state of concubinage, but his subsequent marriage makes the present princess a legitimate successor to the throne. Such a state of things being tolerated among the more respectable of the people, it can readily be understood that among the lower classes the state of morals in this respect is most deplorable, and such as to forbid description.

It is well known that in severing them

The Encans, with 136LS TWO *hda of the populacon, possess CDLY acont one that of the term. Its greatest lenges from east to west is about 400 miles. Its breadth varies from 40 mlea near its eastern extremity to about 15 near its centre, and it embraces, according to Mr. Lindenau, an area of nearly 29,500 square miles. Columbus called the island Hispaniola, and it has also been called St. Domingo from the city of that Tame on its southeastern coast; but Hayti or Haiti (the mountainous country) was its original Carrib name. The French bestowed upon it the deserved name of la Reine des Antilles. All descriptions of its magnificence and beauty, even those of Washington Irving in his history of Columbus, fall far short of the reality. It seems beyond the power of language to exaggerate its beauties, its productiveness, the loveliness of its climate, and its desirableness as an abode for man. Columbus labored hard to prove to Isabella that he had found here the original garden of Non; and any one who has wandered ever these mountains and plains, breathed Pox's air, and feasted his soul and A eine Riva the ses every where paved wer bedre 17, & qute ready to Parance of the to a large extent the ~ Name 43 present unWACOM £5°C/N$ wide ce trast

40,000 whites, 500,000 slaves, and 24,000 free colored. Not only its rich plains, but in many parts its mountains were cultivated to their summits. The cultivated lands amounted to 2,289,480 acres ; which were divided into 793 plantations of sugar, 3117 plantations of coffee, 3160 of indigo, 54 of chocolate, and 623 smaller ones for raising grain, yams, and other vegetable food. Its exports, as stated by the intendant of the colony, were £4,765,229 sterling. An active commerce united it with Europe, and twenty ports of trade were filled with 1500 vessels, waiting to freight home its rich productions. In riding over the island the mementos of this prosperity are every where to be seen. Large broken kettles, the remains of immense sugar houses, are scattered along the roads and over the fields. The remains of massive and magnificent gateways, and the ruins of princely dwellings, scattered over the island are evidences of the highest state of wealth and luxury. But these rich plains and mountains, are now almost an uncultivated waste. A few coffee plantations are to be found, which are kept up with the greatest difficulty on account of the impossibility of securing among the natives the necessary laborers. The most of the people out of the towns live in rudely constructed houses, unfurnished with the usual comforts of life, and but a few degrees above the huts upon the shores of their native Africa. The soil is so exceedingly productive, and there is so much that grows spontaneously, that very little labor indeed is necessary to secure the food necessary to sustain life; and the climate is such that, if so disposed, they need spend very little for clothing. Being thus under no compulsory necessity to labor, industry is the exception, indolence and idleness the rule.

They generally inclose around or near their dwellings a small patch of ground, which is cultivated mostly by the females, and where, with very little labor, they raise coffee, bananas, corn, and other vegetables for their own consumption, and a small surplus for sale, from the proceeds of which they procure their clothing and such other articles of convenience as they are able or disposed to purchase. I should judge that far the largest part of all the coffee that is exported from the island is raised in these small quantities, and brought to market in small lots upon the backs of mules. The logwood, mahogany, and other exports are mostly procured in small quantities in much the same way,the men of course doing most of this heavy labor.

Bountiful as are the provisions for supplying the wants of man here, there is, incredible as it may seem, a vast deal of suffering for want of the very necessaries of life. The government being in reality an irresponsible despotism, every male citizen is liable to be seized at any moment and forced into the army; so that if he raises a crop there is no certainty but that in the very act of securing it, he may be torn away from his family, and the fruits of his labor be left to perish while he is marched away to the frontier, to return he knows not when. In addition to this, multitudes are so thriftless and improvident that they will not make any provision for the future-they will not even gather those productions that are every where so bountifully spread around them. I have rode through wild uncultivated woods, and seen on every hand groves of orange trees groaning under their delicious golden loads, as I have seen the orchards of western New-York weighed down with their heavy burdens. A little farther on, I have come upon thickets of coffee bushes matted over with their rich purple berries. Besides these, tobacco, ginger, and other valuable products grow wild in the same profusion over these mountains, and year after year there waste away and perish like the rank grass of our own prairies. I have wandered over the rich rice and cotton fields of the South, and the prairie and bottom lands of the West, but their bountiful products are meagre compared with those to be seen here.

But bountiful and Eden-like as is this island, the contemplation both of its past history and present state excites only the saddest emotions. The history of Hayti from its discovery to the present day is a most melancholy history. When discovered by Columbus it is supposed to have contained more than 1,000,000 of the Carrib tribe of Indians, but, incredible as it may appear, in consequence of their wholesale butchery by the Spaniards, and the severe drudgery they were compelled to undergo in the mines, in the short space of sixteen years they were reduced to 60,000. These outrages upon humanity, entailing such a lasting stigma upon the Spanish name, were followed by the wellknown introduction of slavery into the island, with all its indescribable cruelties and horrors, and its subsequent fearful end. But the gloomy chapter of its woes does not terminate with the tragic, wellknown "horrors of St. Domingo." From that day to the present it has been an almost uninterrupted scene of conflict and

Internal dissensions and dekang en ware have contained to LUK Be Boatory g and recently three great and nations have intervened in van wwrure for this ill-starred island the bimy nge of peace. No soil has so long ans ao constantly been ensanguined with woman blood. Blood marks every page of her history, from the time her beasti 4stores first greeted the delighted vision of Columbus until the present day;-the blood of the peaceful inoffensive Carribs,the blood of the wronged and outraged

children of Afrin-the blood of their butmbered masters-the blood of Le Clerc and his noble, but ill-fated army,-the Blood of Dessalines, Christophe. and of thousands more who have perished in the insurrections and revolutions that have desclated this fair Sand. Sad, sad indeed has been the fate of the "Queen of the Antilles." I leave it to others to deduce the lessons that her history suggests, and will not attempt to penetrate the dark vail that hides her future.

ין

was between six and seven in the evening of the first of April. before I could make the necessary arrangements for a tour with a party who intended setting out on the morrow from Athens for Nauplia. Mr. N- late an antiquarian attached to the British Museum, and now appointed Vice Consul for the Island of Mitylene, and C, son of a London publisher, were to be my companions; and we had engaged Demetrius, or Demetri, for our guide. By the time we had fully made up our minds to leave, it was well nigh dark, and yet neither Demetri nor I had procured our passes, without which we were liable at any time to be stopped on our way, and might be subjected to considerable trouble in clearing ourselves from the suspicion of being either robbers or vagrants. The passport office was closed, but the timely expendi ture of two or three drachms readily opened it for us, A new difficulty presented itself; for not a blank pass was to be found high or low. The ingenuity of the clerk easily surmounted this obstacle. An old pass which had seen service was discovered; the name was transmuted to what might reasonably be supposed to bear a slight resemblance to mine; and the words "with his man, Demetrius" were added. So we were permitted to visit Argolis

We rose early the next morning; and by five o'block were in a carriage, and on our way to Piraeus, about five miles east from

TALFOURD'S Iox.

Athens, by the macadamized road, which for three fourths of the distance runs in a perfectly straight line across the meadows. The northern of the great walls of Themistocles occupied exactly the same ground; or rather I should say that the German surveyors employed its ruins for the substruction of the road, and every violent rain uncovers for a time the upper course of stones. Our driver did himself credit, and we reached the harbor in three quarters of an hour, and in plenty of time for the little Austrian steamer, Archiduca Ludovico, in which we took passage for Nauplia. The weather was cloudy and dull when we started, but as we advanced, the atmosphere became clearer, and we saw with great distinctness the shores of the Saronic Gulf, upon which we entered. We were soon out of the small harbor of Piraeus, passing through its narrow mouth, which is still further contracted by the remains of the old walls. They abutted in two piers, about two hundred feet apart. When a heavy chain was drawn across this narrow opening, as was done by the old Athenians, the harbor was considered well protected. Just beyond them, our attention was called to the simple monument of Miaulis, and only a few feet further were the ruined frag ments of what has been by popular tradition dignified with the name of Themistocles' tomb. Whether it be his sepulchre or not, the bones of the great general of ancient times, and the most famous

admiral of modern Greece, lie mouldering on the shores of the Egean, within a few yards of each other. Themistocles, it is well known, was buried by the sea side, in full view of the Straits of Salamis, the scene of his most splendid victory over the Persian fleet.

We varied our course as soon as we had cleared the promontory of Munychia, and leaving on our right the island of Salamis, took a southerly direction towards the eastern headland of Argolis. This brought us within a very short distance of the temple of Egina, dedicated of old to Jupiter Panhellenius. Through the Captain's glass we could distinguish the different columns without difficulty in this clear atmosphere. It is one of the most perfect ruins out of Athens itself; but we saw it to little advantage, and I reserved a visit for a future occasion.

There are quite a number of passengers on board our little steamer, and as the day was fair and mild, every body congregated on deck. Indeed, most of them were deck passengers, the trip being a short one. The Greeks are talkative and easy of access, so that it is not at all difficult to form a number of acquaintances in a short time. Our company was a lively one, too; and, as they had nothing else to do, most of them amused themselves with cards. One party of eight or ten were seated in Turkish fashion on the deck near the helm, forming a circle around a cloth, on which figured a large piece of cold mutton and several bottles of wine. The men helped themselves plentifully, and disdaining forks, made use of their jackknives to cut the meat, or else tore it in pieces with their fingers. These evidently were all from the same neighborhood, and members of the same clan. Some of them had that free and easy look, mingled with a considerable share of fierceness, which distinguish the old Klefts; others who were younger, evidently belonged to the no less energetic but more tractable class, which is now springing up to take the place of the others. I fell into conversation with some students of the University, who were returning from Athens to spend the Easter week vacation at home.

Like

all the rest of Greek students they were poor, and evidently were self-made men. Another set were gathered around a musician, who diverted them by playing on an instrument much resembling the banjo, and singing their country songs.

There were but two cabin passengers besides ourselves; and they were members of the house of representatives. One of them, M. A., I found disposed to be very

communicative. He informed me that an election was to take place at Argos, the next day or the day after, and that he was going there to see about it. Being a partisan of the king, he was commissioned to procure as favorable a result for the ministry as he could. The officer to be chosen on the occasion was the demarch, or mayor of the town, the most important municipal authority. The mode of election is certainly a most curious one. The people choose twelve men as electors, with twelve more for substitutes. These twelve choose from their own number four men, with their substitutes; and finally these four select three candidates for the office of mayor. Their names are presented to the king or ministry, and they designate the one who shall be mayor. Out of the three candidates, I presume, the monarch may safely depend on one who will advocate the ministerial measures for the purpose of gaining office. Of course in so complicated a procedure the government will find plenty of opportunity for wielding an influence over the election. My friend A had undoubtedly some part to take in the election of a mayor in the important town of Argos, as he was furnished by the ministry with an order for an escort of soldiers through the dangerous passes from Argos to Corinth, of which he invited me to avail myself in returning to Athens.

By eleven o'clock we had crossed the Saronic Gulf, passing close to the island of Poros, remarkable of late years for the burning of the Greek fleet in its little harbor; but much more famous under the name of Calauria, as the scene of the death of Demosthenes. It is a bleak, barren rock, without the sign of a habitation on this side. We kept on close to the ' mainland, and inside of the island of Hydra, which rises high and rocky from the sea. The town of Hydra itself is picturesquely situated on the side of the hill, rising in the shape of a theatre. A ridge, however, divides it into two parts, which running out into the water, forms two harbors, the smaller of which, as usual, serves for quarantine. The house of Conduriotti, the famous Hydriote, stands on the narrow tongue of land between the two harbors, and was pointed out to me. Hydra, I am told, has declined very much of late years. Its losses were immense during the revolutionary war. All its commerce was, of course, ruined, and as, together with Spezzia, it sustained the whole burden of the war by sea, the prizes obtained never compensated for the expenditures it incurred. Since the revolution