SANTO D OMIN GO.*

M.R. HAZARD, like most American travellers who intend to record their observations in print, informs himself thoroughly about the history and the geography of the places he means to visit, and studies them thoroughly when he gets there. The freshness characteristic of American books of travel of any merit, and' which makes them such pleasant reading, for they are always: pictorial and generally humorous, is not wanting in his case; he condescends to be amused and interested by novelty and by little. things, and rightly believes that he will amuse and interest by- describing or recording them. He has the readiness to receive new impressions and the active curiosity which are indispensable to the rendering of one's travels pleasant to other people, and he is not troubled with theories, always excepting the inevitable one

that annexation to the United States is the most blessed and' enviable event which can befall any country within geographical possibility of such a solution of its difficulties. He is not wide of the mark when he imputes very general ignorance of the " famous island—famous in years past, and to be celebrated in the time to come, as the cradle of the New World'—St. Domingo;"' but he goes a little too far in the following assertion :—" Notorious• for its misfortunes and those of its inhabitants in many decades of years, it had in the past almost lost its existence in.the political world ; and the names even of St. Domingo and Hayti were held by many intelligent people to be those of two separate countries,. until the efforts of the Republic of St. Domingo to find a place of safety and protection among the United States of America have attracted attention to this almost forgotten, yet historic isle." This little bit of bumptiousness apart, the book is charming, and no doubt the strange circumstances under which a Commission, which Mr. Hazard accompanied, was sent by the American Government; to survey the island, will ultimately prove beneficial to the interests.

of a wonderfully beautiful, miserable place. But the oddest feature in the history of the Republic, to our mind, is the sale of the peninsula of Samana to a soi-disant private American com-

pany, which has something remarkably like sovereign power, in- cluding the possession of the superb harbour of Samana, and the navigation of the river Yuna. This, of course, means annexation,, and so much the better ; only, as the people are poor and in a very low state of civilisation, and the neglected re- sources of the beautiful country, which has a delicious climate,.

are very great, it is to be hoped that no harsh or unfair efforts will be resorted to, to hasten that consummation. The past. history of the natives of St. Domingo, since the Indians of Columbus's time were condemned by his discovery to hideous sufferings, which he so vainly tried to mitigate, is a terrible one. Mr. Hazard says he does not pretend to be the historian of St. Domingo, but he tells all that it is necessary, much more than it is pleasant to read. At the hands of Spaniards, Frenchmen,, Englishmen, Haytians, and their own countrymen, the natives have had to undergo every kind of tyranny and cruelty, and the result of reading the details is, not that one shares the amazement of; the Commission when, in 1871, it " found so magnificent a part of the New World so generally uncultivated and even uncivilised,' the chief port, Puerto Plata, in a state of decay, and the in- habitants returned to an almost primitive condition in point of food and clothing, but that even such a climate and such a soil could have preserved them from extinction.

The innumerable revolutions, which have resulted in hopeless.

poverty and in such a state of political degradation that ',What's the good ?" is the answer to every inquiry into the existence of

defects, and every suggestion of improvement, from popular education to flower gardening, are melancholy to read of, but the later portion of the book is a relief after the earlier.

The author does not linger over them, but we wish he had not found it necessary to record the horrors of the

• Santo Domingo Past and Present, with a Glance at Hayti. By Samuel Hazard; Author of " Cuba with Pen and PenciL" London Sampson Low and Co.

European treatment of the Indians, the sufferings which drove I numbers of them, in a land where mere physical life had been so sweet, to self-destruction, the fiendish cruelties of the traffic in negroes, and the dealing of their brutal masters with the slaves. A more revolting history has never been told, to the shame and con- fusion of humanity, and the dreadful deeds of the revolution in Saiut Domingo which followed upon the great French Revolu- tion need to be studied in their context with the story of the French colonists in the eighteenth century, for the sake of justice to even such wretches as the perpetrators of them. One espe- cially interesting chapter is devoted to the striking history of Toussaint L'Ouverture, whom Mr. Hazard invokes as " Dark Haytien," and the awful monster Dessalines, whom he describes in a forcible account of the massacre of the French, after the declaration of the Republic of Hayti, 1st January, 1804, as " a rude, illiterate negro, who, by force of circumstances, strong physique, and undoubted bravery, came to have the power of life and death over thousands of human beings, the lowest of whom was perhaps his superior in the feelings which are but the natural adjuncts of man."

It is quite a relief to get away from the past of St. Domingo, to its dull, poverty-stricken present, for at least bloodshed and cruelty are not in the ascendant now, and the men at the head of public affairs seem to be particularly worthy and able. St. Domingo city is a sleepy place, with a lazy population, and but little trade ; but it is of great interest as the oldest existing settlement in the New World, and the grave of Christopher Columbus and his brother.

The "business street" is hardly less still and silent than the great Cathedral and the Mausoleum. The illustrations in this book are quite as good as those in Mr. Hazard's Cuba, and they give a delightful idea of the natural beauties of the country,—beauties with which the majority of its inhabitants are totally unacquainted, and which those who are aware of their existence care nothing about. They are not easy to be got at, for travelling is a difficult achievement in St. Domingo. The country people are very kind, amiable, simple, and hospitable, but they know nothing, and they do next to nothing, and they have no notion of helping one actively, while as for being guided to localities, the inhabitants of environs of the cities have not the least notion of anything beyond their own immediate district. The women are very idle, and have no idea of neatness or thrift, they lie in hammocks and smoke cigars most of their time, which sounds demoralised, but not as if they were ill-treated. Property is insecure, therefore no improvements are,made, there are no roads worth mentioning, and when a suspension of revolutions renders it safe for the traveller to go from one town to another, he must do so on horse- back, with fair chances of being unable to get food for himself and his horse. Cultivation is only occasional, and Mr. Hazard asserts that a plough does not exist in St. Domingo. To contrast with this picture, he gives a long list of natural productions which testifies to the extraordinary richness of the soil, which, " with irrigation, would be first-rate agricultural land for any and every thing." Even as it is, without irrigation, two most valuable plants can be grown there :—

" I allude," says the author, "to the cotton plant, which, in place of being a simple bush planted from the seed each year, is here a tree, growing two or three years, which needs only to be trimmed and pruned to produce a large yield of the finest cotton,—quite equal, some _ say, to the sea island ; and not only white in colour, but of the kind known as Nankeen. The other article is that of the 'Caballa,' a species of agave' which, being mixed with 'sisal' hemp, makes splendid rope. Both of these grow naturally and without care on this dry land, and with care and cultivation could be made to flourish in extensive plantations."

The Enos, the bays, and the water-caves, the wonderful ferns, the cacti, and the fruits—the frontispiece, which shows a cluster of them, is enough to make people want to go to St. Domingo immediately—are all beautiful ; and the Caves of Santana, though they do not possess the brilliancy of the crystal caves of Bellamar, in Cuba, nor the grandeur and extent of the Mammoth Cave, in Kentucky, have a weird interest of their own. It is easy to under- stand how a traveller who is at once an active, speculative, go- ahead American and a man of artistic taste and culture, must have chafed at the waste of beauty, salubrity, and the means of wealth, *hich met his gaze on every side ; how impatient he must have been with a people capable of thus "sinning their mercies," to use the quaint, expressive, Puritan phrase. " From St. Domingo city westward to the Haytian border," he says, " there is not a single town of any importance, though there are several villages of considerable size, scattered at intervals through- out a section of country comprising some of the finest agricultural lands in the world, capable of supporting a large and industrious population, and where the climate is as salubrious as that of any other part of the globe."

Travel in beautiful St. Domingo has all the excitement of ex- ploration. It is delightful to read of such an expedition as that through the Widow's Pass to the great mountain heart of the island, where the tropical trees and their wonderful parasites, the mountain brooks, the patches of savanna land, and the sky, gor- geous beyond imagination, offer every variety and surprise of beauty, and the towering Yaqui peaks, soft, distant, sublime, add the last exquisite touch of mountain mystery to the scene.

There are snakes in St. Domingo, but Mr. Hazard declares they are all harmless, and, indeed, seems to be sceptical as regards the evil qualities of ophidians in general ; but he acknowledges that the iguana attains a size which renders it unpleasant, while on the other hand he scoffs at the general belief in the harmfulness of the- horrid tarantula. Its bite pains, but does not injure. There are- no wild beasts, but tall, gaunt, savage hogs haunt the woods, and scare the traveller as he rides. The rivers harbour great numbers- of the cayman tribe, and give rise to the only story which seems like a " traveller's tale " in this book ; that of the terrapin, which also muster strong in the shallow waters, and hide themselves underneath the crocodiles. Mr. Hazard states that the negro- women, who have no fear of these mailed monsters, " gently tickling them on the belly, cause them to turn over, and quickly seize the terrapins beneath."

Mr. Hazard got on badly at Hayti, where the Government does- not cherish friendly feelings towards the Americans. He disclaims. with somewhat unnecessary fervour any hope or wish for the annexa- tion by the United States of that unfriended, slow, and melancholy Black Republic under any circumstances. He noticed, with sur- prise, that on the Haytian side of the frontier, with identically the same soil and climate as those of Dominica, tobacco was not grown, and was considered a great and rare luxury, while just on the other side the Dominicans grew abundance. So, also, with cattle ; on the Dominica side there are abundance, on the Haytian only a few- sheep and goats. The mass of varied information contained in Mr. Hazard's work is agreeably diversified with anecdotes and` humorous " bits " of the general experience of a traveller who is evidently as good-humoured as he is well informed and observant..