ABSTRACT
WHOEVER has read the history of St. Domingo, and has been impressed with an idea of its richness, of its varied scenery. and of its fertile condition previously to its feeling the ravages of the revolution, and now contemplates the desolate appearance of Hayti, will be astonished that such a contrast could ensue; that a period of twenty-two years having elapsed since the declaration of independence, there should not appear some symptoms ofimprovement on the face of the country; and that the people should not have been anxious to restore the plantations to their wonted state of productiveness. In my peregrinations through the island, I was at times struck with the extraordinary difference between what the country was represented to be by the people themselves, and its actual appearance in the different districts through which I had an occasion to pass; and a comparison of its once fertile state with its
now sterile aspect only excites a greater astonishment, and confirms my opinion of the indolence and apathy of the inhabitants.
