VISIT
TO THE
INTERIOR.
455
Protest" to the Commissioners, who, on my quizzing him about it, laughingly replied, " Well, Cabral signed it, even if I did write it." This same party confessed to me that though it was his business to write against annexation, he was perfectly aware the people of St Domingo were unanimous in favour of it. I was a little puzzled for a day or two to know how to get back into the country, as I was quietly informed no permission would be granted me, if asked for, by the autho rities. As I had, however, a passport regularly vised by government authority, I determined to take my chances and " go it alone." This was more easy for me to do from the fact that I had a letter to an American merchant here who owns a large sugar estate some distance back in the interior, and, as he was at his place, made my arrange ments to pay him a visit. Having found a horse to carry me and my traps, and having very luckily found a guide in the person of an engineer, who was going to the very place of my destina tion to repair some of the sugar-mill machinery, I started out of the northern gate of Port-au-Prince for the sugar place of La Selle, in the grand plain, of the Cul-de-sac, famous m all time for its splendid agricultural qualities. Our road was a broad, level one, leading through an immense plain, the sides of which were bounded by moun tains clad in verdure, and about which were heavy clouds rolling before us that promised rain. This road, like all I have thus far seen in Hayti, waB a perfectly good one, capable of being travelled in good weather by vehicles of every kind, though, with the excep tion of an ox-cart we occasionally met, all the travelling was on mule or horse back. The sides of the road were almost universally lined by the hedges of logwood, that had grown to such an extent as to be now a valuable article of export,while the coffee-tree was, as usual, seen here and there growing almost wild. The houses were of the most ordinary