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membered, has most closely followed the black Emperor in the method he has taken to reach his present position) will remember that the honor came upon him most unexpectedly. Parties were SO nearly balanced that neither of them was able to succeed, and after several unavailing ballots he was taken up as an available military candidate, and moreover as one that the leaders thought could easily be managed. But they soon found out their mistake. The very men who had procured his election were the first to suffer. In a very short time he dismissed them from the ministry and chose a cabinet to his own liking, and from that day onward he has sacrificed whoever has dared to oppose him, or been suspected of plotting his overthrow, with apparently as little feeling as he would have taken the life of a centipede. It is a very difficult matter to judge of the future in regard to the Haitian government and people, but to all appearances he bids fair to be their ruler for many years to come. At least if he be not it will not be because he would hesitate to sacrifice hecatombs of opposing subjects to secure this end.

It is not easy to give a truthful impression of the real state of things upon this island. A gentleman who, for many years, occupied the chair of history in one of our distinguished institutions, and whose knowledge of the past history and present state of the world is equalled by very few of any land, remarked to me that he found it more difficult to get satisfactory views of the state of things in Hayti, than of any other part of the world. Probably every one who has given any attention to what has been passing here for the last half century has experienced the same difficulty. I will therefore make this general remark in regard to the island, which will serve to explain the conflicting statements that are made by those who visit it. In Hayti you have every thing from extreme Parisian refinement and civilization down to the lowest African superstition and degradation! You may therefore believe any statement that would be true of any state of society between these wide extremes.

From all that I had known of them, of their revolutions and their almost constant sanguinary conflicts, I had not supposed that any portion of them were as far advanced in civilization as I found some of them to be. Those who transact the commercial and mercantile business of the city have an air of intelligence quite similar to the same class in our own cities.

Their style of dress is so remarkably neat and tasteful that it attracts your attention at once. The climate being warm, their clothing is generally light, and most of it the most pure and beautiful white I have ever seen worn. This is the result of much bleaching in a tropical sun, and of great painstaking and skill in washing. The dress of the common working people, however, what little they wear, is of the very opposite extreme. These, however, dress differently on certain occasions, which I shall hereafter describe.

Another characteristic of the people that at once arrests your attention, is their remarkable politeness. A foreigner who has resided among them for some years told me that this was the great matter in their education; that the better class of Haitian mothers flogged their children oftener for delinquencies in this matter than for any thing else. In walking with them in the streets, or whenever they ar meeting others, they are constantly dis ciplining them to make a handsome bow and salutation. To a foreigner the people are especially polite. In passing through the streets and meeting those of the higher class, they lift their hats to you, and with a graceful bow, give you a respecful "Bor jour," or "Bon soir, Monsieur." I have seen an entire family who were sitting upon an outer gallery, in the cool of the evening, rise to their feet and bow most gracefully to a foreigner and his wife who were passing. A gentleman from Alabama, who spent some weeks on the island, remarked as he was about leaving, that he should have to be very careful when he reached home, or he should find himself tipping his hat to every negro he met on his plantation. A waggish downeast captain broke out, one day as I met him; "Don't these people make most beautiful bows? I've been practising since I've been here; and I believe I've got so I can lift my hat up about as handsome as they do, but somehow it won't come down right." To explain these things I need only remind the reader that there is not a little French blood coursing in the veins of these people, and that their education and habits are derived from that nation. From speaking their language, their intercourse and associa tions have been mainly with them, and those of them who have been educated abroad, have almost invariably been educated in France. These facts, and the remarkable powers of imitation inherent in the negro character, will, I think, prepare the reader for the statement (which I should not dare to make without

terred; and, following her uncle to the place, in the plain red dress of a peasant girl, she formally demanded of the captain his escort to the king, since the Lord would secure to him the throne. Still repulsed, she remained with a citizen's wife, with whom she went daily to mass. Her devout life and enthusiastic confidence gradually won believers within her little circle. She said "I must to the Dauphin, although I would much rather sit with my poor mother and spin-for the King of heaven has intrusted me with this mission, and by Mid-Lent I must be with the Dauphin, even if I creep along on my knees." Old legends of the salvation of France by a woman of Lorraine came to strengthen her conviction, and to add to the excitement, which went so far that, somewhat to her amusement, she was thought by some of the people to be a witch. Joanna, however, did not prevail upon the captain to attend her to the Dauphin; and she returned to her uncle, but found no peace. Again she came to Vaucouleurs, and again in vain. She induced her uncle to go with her on foot to the royal camp; but it occurred to her on the way, that she could not be received at court without a letter of recommendation from home, and she went back to Vaucouleurs. The faith in her divine mission so grew, that the Duke of Lorraine sought her aid in a mortal sickness, when she said that nothing was revealed to her upon that point-yet she would pray for his recovery; and she demanded his son and troops to lead her to France. Finally, two noblemen volunteered to conduct her to the king, and the captain consented. "Come what may!" he said as he took his departure. He had given her a sword, and her adherents had provided her with a horse and with the dress of a knight. She kept her calm confidence during the dangerous journey, through a hostile region; wished to stop to hear mass; and on the eleventh day, shortly before reaching the camp, she heard three masses before the image of her saints, and sent word to the king, at Chinon, of her approach. It was. doubted whether his Majesty could with propriety receive an adventurer like this girl; but his despair of human help forced him to rely upon preternatural aid; and Joanna, as soon as she reached the Loire, and entered the public street, was preceded by the cry that a young shepherdess, sent by God, had come to free Orleans, and to lead the king to Rheims. After three days' consultation and examination, she was admitted to the castle of Chinon, and knelt before the king. He

had stood aside to test her prophetic gift, and when she knelt before him he pointed to one of the lords in the great hall of audience, and said—“That is the king." She replied "By my God, noble prince, you are he, and none other." Upon this, the king asked her name. "Noble Danphin, I am called Joanna the Maiden, and the Lord of heaven bids you, through me, to be crowned in the city of Rheims, and be a lieutenant of the King of heaven, who is the true King of France. God has pity upon you and your people, because Saint Louis and Charles the Great are upon their knees before Him, and pray for you."

Joanna stood bravely, and often answered very smartly the questions of the University, and Parliament of Poictiers, to whom the king referred her claims, and the very dignitaries who had pronounced the whole affair the merest fantasy, said after the interview that she was surely a marvellous creature of God. One eye-witness testifies that she appeared at Court as if born there, whilst another asserts that she seemed as humble as a shepherd girl. Both witnesses agree in the opinion that, respecting her mission, her speech was grand and noble; but otherwise it was that of a poor child of the people. She was eighteen years old at this time, and if we may venture to complete the traits drawn from authentic sources by the less authenticated testimony of an ancient statue, she was rather large for her sex, very strong, yet slender and delicate in shape, countenance pleasant, complexion uniform and very pale, eyes large and almond-shaped, the apple of the eye, light brown, with a greenish tinge, in expression somewhat melancholy, but unspeakably lovely, the forehead of moderate height, the nose straight and a little thin, the lips finely cut and red, the hollow between the lower lip and chin strongly marked, rich chestnut brown hair, put back over the temples, fell upon the white neck, but was cut rounding in the knightly fashion.

Such was the fair creature who went forth in mailed armor to fight the battles of France against an enemy whose hate had grown with centuries, and whose invading force was now strengthened by French factions. At Blois she unfurled her banner, and the great host there assembled were inflamed with new enthusiasm, as they saw upon its pure white folds the figure of the Saviour, two angels kneeling with lilies on each side, and underneath, the inscription, Jesus Maria. The way towards Orleans lay by the

Modern Prophets.

banks of the Loire, through that garden of France, in the very bloom of spring; and preceded by chanting priests, and escorting large herds of cattle for victualling the city, the army had the appearance of a peaceful pilgrimage. What poet could create a scene more expressive of whatever was noblest and fairest in those old ages of chivalry and devotion! It was but the faith of the times incarnated in one whose sex and purity every Ave Maria had taught the people to adore; it was the spirit of the prevalent Mary-worship carried from the sanctuary into the camp, and stirring the fiercest of passions by the gentlest of affections. Need we say that this vision of light must go out in darkness, and that nothing but a perpetual miracle could keep a human creature upon the ethereal height where Joanna stood? The story of her destiny is too familiar to repeat. Soon Orleans

called her its deliverer, and there, and in other cities in quick succession, the lilies of France waved loyally from towers so lately insulted by the invader's flag. In spite of all opposition, the Maid insisted upon pushing to Rheims; she stood with her banner by the altar at the coronation of the Dauphin, and was first to kneel at his feet after he received the crown. This was the meridian of her glory. simple girl of Domremy was now the foremost personage of France, and history itself plays the artist in telling us that her father, and brother, and uncle were witnesses of her honors, contrasting thus by their presence the splendors of the Court with the simplicity of her native home.

This

As rapidly as her success her downfall came. Who does not know of her rash attack upon Paris, the misgivings that began to question her inspiration, and the series of disasters. ending in her capture at Compiegne, and her execution in 1431. Never did grim inquisitors doom to death a fairer victim by baser arts; and never did a holier light shine out from the crackling fires of a martyr's pile, than when this lily of France was cast into the flames. The attendant priest heard her, as the fire was doing its deadly work, invoke her saints-and her last word was her Saviour's name. The cross afterwards planted upon the place of execution at Ronen was a fitting memorial of her self-sacrifice, and of the penitence of her murderers.

Never more interest was attached to the character of Joan d'Arc, as a philosophical study, than now. It is very easy to call her a half-crazy enthusiast.

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and set down her story in the vulgar annals of superstition. But the candor and good sense of our age seeks a worthier solution, and no fair-minded student of history is willing to allow so interesting a chapter to pass by without connecting its lessons with some traits of our common nature. The Maid of Orleans was a human creature like ourselves, and the mind which in her was so strangely moved was essentially the same organ that we possess. That she was an impostor no sane thinker will now assert, for it would be far more remarkable for an ignorant, sensitive girl to carry out such an imposture in the camp and Court, at the altar, and even at the stake, than to have received the supernatural commission which she claimed. Nor do we explain the chief fact in her career when we ascribe her influence over France to the force of religious and martial enthusiasm, so inflamed by her pretensions or her faith. She herself is the great problem, and we cannot settle it without some due recognition of the emotional powers of our nature in connection with religious influences. Nothing can be clearer than that she thought she saw visions and heard voices which moved her to her most conspicuous acts. We do not mean to say that there were external objects corresponding with those vows and visions; but that such impressions as she insisted upon declaring were actually made upon her perceptive organs. Before her inquisitors, when severely threatened, she sometimes wavered in asserting this; but her misgiving at last wholly ceased, and in prison and at the stake she maintained the reality of the communications. Now we do not feel bound to explain all the strange experiences of the soul any more than the strange phenomena of Nature, and we are ready to allow that there are many dark nooks and corners in the human mind, in spite of the doctors and metaphysicians. We may nevertheless connect Joanna's visitations with those of a large class of minds similarly constituted, and who are still to be found. The old devotees thought little of hearing voices and of seeing visions in the open day, and a man of exact science like Swedenborg could be as familiar with the people of his day-dream land as with his acquaintance in the street or social circle, noting down the words of Plato or Luther as readily as his own table-talk. It is very clear that if, in the ordinary state of the system, external objects are needed to act upon the nerves of sight and hearing, there may be an extraordinary state of the system in which internal

down here from generation to generation. Others are entirely informal, the dancing of any promiscuous company that chance may bring together. These dances are uniformly in the open air, though many of them are under the cover of a tent or awning belonging to the "société." Their music is made by pounding with the palm of the hands upon a drum, which is made by stretching a skin over the head of a small barrel, like a drum-head. To this they have various accompaniments, such as pounding with two sticks upon an old herring or soap box, the clicking of pieces of iron, singing, clapping of hands, &c. Though to the uninitiated the music thus made seems a monotonous, unintelligible jargon, there is said to be a great variety of tunes which they seem perfectly to understand. I procured from a Haitian musician some of this dancing music. These tunes are like the real plantation songs of the South, the productions of excited ignorant minds, having no knowledge of the science of music whatever. This music, executed in the manner already described, has an electrical effect, and immediately collects large groups, who will stand for hours in a charmed circle surrounding the dancers. Sometimes there will be quite a number engaged in dancing, sometimes half a dozen, and sometimes one or two will enchain the attention of the spectators with their movements. These are the most grotesque imaginable; now a shaking movement somewhat like those of our shakers, -now a peculiar balancing of the body,now dashing off suddenly in a whirling, sailing motion around the entire circle,— now with feet fixed upon the ground, moving the body up and down-as the Aztecs uniformly did when told to dance -and continuing this motion more and more vigorously, until it would seem that they must dislocate every bone in the body, and now leaping with great rapidity to a remarkable height in the air, like the bounding of a India-rubber ball. These are among the more common feats. As these dances form the almost sole amusement for the numerous holidays of the Haitians, I have very often witnessed them. They have a very ingenious method of making a foreigner pay for his amusement, after this manner. As soon as he is seen in the crowd some one of the dancing women begins to move toward him holding out her hands for a gift; and continues to dance back and forth, before and around him, her hands still extended, until he is "the observed of all observers." After this was understood, I generally had

some change ready so as to pay my tribute in the quickest time possible. One night as I was going through the street, I passed an open yard where a company was dancing that seemed more merry and excited than usual, and without any forethought I turned in. I had hardly reached the group before one of the dancing women was before me with open palm. I thrust my hand into my pocket, found I had no change, and the first thing I could get hold of was a two-dollar Haitian bill, which I handed over as soon as possible. It was the best investment in this line that I ever made. She just glanced to see what it was, and then waving it in the air went whirling and sailing around the circle, and among other demonstrations giving me an opportunity to see some almost incredible feats that I had often heard described but had never witnessed. Placing a small crockery cup, about the size of a teacup, upon the top of her head, she danced, whirled, and sprung suddenly several feet, and back at the same bound, making apparently the most convulsive jerks possible, the cup meanwhile remaining untouched upon the top of the head. This jumping and jerking was gone through with several times, and far surpassed any feat of jugglery that I had ever witnessed. A colored woman, a member of the Baptist Mission Church in Port au Prince, told me she had often seen her mother go through the same feats with a wineglass upon her head. So universal is this custom of dancing among the Haitians upon their fête day's and Sunday, that I have often thought, that including the various grades from the regular balls in the city down to the lowest field dances, two thirds, or even a greater proportion of the people of Hayti must be engaged in dancing. The influence of this habit is all pervading. Children catch the spirit, and will sway their bodies to and fro, keeping time to the music, when they can scarcely go alone; and as soon as they have strength to spring clear from the ground, without the hazard of a fall, they are ready on any occasion to exhibit their dexterity to a stranger. The music of a drum and fife, especially on a public day, is almost certain to set all the children in a street to hopping, and I have been greatly amused to see boys with no other dress on than a shirt who were going along the streets, step, and balance, and whirl, and sail on, keeping time to the music. By sundown upon Sabbath evening the music of these dancing companies is heard in all directions, and the noise and dance

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

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