Opera Bouffe Republic.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 20, 13 May 1908, Page 53

Opera Bouffe Republic.

BOW HIPPOLYTE BECAME TILE PRESIDENT OF HAYTI. (By a War Correspondent.) Hayti is a land of logwood, negroes, atrociously bad French, and cigarettesmoking field marshals trailing immense cavalry swords behind them. It is a country of burlesque and tragedy. Its negro inhabitants live between the extremes of savagery and civilisation, and there is little of the medium. In the interior, where the negroes have lived unchecked! in licentious savagery for the past hundred years since the French gave up the island, there is the most terrible degeneracy, with the practice of what is called Voodooism—a pagan orgy of bloodshed and sacrifice, in which children are frequently offered on the altar. Cannibalism, too, is not unknown m this island, which is endowed by Nature with all the proverbial riches of Golconda. My first and only experience of Hayti might be taken from the second act of a: comic opera. It is now twenty years ago. General Hippolyte—they are all generals after they have ceased to he privates —found it was his turn to organise a revolution, and l , in order to prevent him from obtaining outside aid, President Legitime blockaded all his ports. Outside help meant gun-running from New York, where for many years successful revolutionary agents have donea flourishing trade in the purchase of the castoff rifles of other armies. HAYTI’S SEA POWER. In blockading his own ports Legitime took it on himself to lay violent hands on an American fruit steamer, the “Haytian Republic.” The American Government, after ineffectual demands for the steamer's release, sent a fleet of war vessels to take the ship by force, and as the American Navy Department declined to give me permission to sail with the fleet, as a special correspondent, I took the only other course, and stowed away in the flagship. When I was discovered: the Admiral, making the most of a bad job, took me under his protecting wing, and gave me a room in his quarters. On our arrival at Port-au-Prince we found a French and an English man-of-war off harbour. Also we saw ill-fated “Haytian Republic” surrounded by the entire

Haytian navy, the latter composed of three vessels which could not possibly have stood half an hour’s broadside from the recently discarded penny steamers on the Thames. The Haytian navy, under the command l of at least eight black admirals, was composed of the “Toussaint I’Ouverture,” the “Dessalines,” and the “Fourteenth of May,” and they were armed with harmless but vicious looking swivel guns, which would not have made much impression on a briek wall.

The American admiral’s aide was sent ashore to make a formal demand for the surrender, and I went with him. We were met at the quay by at least twenty field-marshals, in the most magnificent but somewhat shop-worn uniforms, and a tatterdemalion crowd of blacks, men, women, and children. This motley array followed us up the hill to the “palace,” where we found President Legitime trying to soothe his agitated mind by playing the flute to himself. He was a tall, grizzled negro. He had been educated in Paris, and had the manners of a Chesterfield. It was a liberal education to see him mix a eoektail for the representatives of his country’s enemies who had come to threaten him with instant bombardment unless he gave up the ship—which he did. REVIEWED. The fruit steamer was released, and tne Admiral and his party were invited to a review of the army, which we attended on the balcony of the palaee. The army was composed of some thousands of negroes, who were attired in rags made of coffee sacks. They were barefooted, and in most'instances bareheaded, and they were the most dismal looking army that has perhaps ever been brought together under one flag. The review lasted half an hour, and the evolutions were heartrending in their comic turns. The next day Hippolyte and his dreaded army of revolutionists attacked the town, and we went out to see it. The attack lasted some hours, and! Legitime’s army was completely routed, so much so that Legitime himself, knowing that all was lost save honour, quickly scraped together all the money in the public treasury and took refuge on board the French man-of-war. I believe he is still alive in Paris.

The attack on the hill commanding the town, on which were posted Legitime’s guns, and from whicn we viewed the operations, was a fine spectacle. Hippolyte’s regiments, bunched together like bananas on a stem, ruehed up the hill yelling lige demons, and rolling their eyes as if they had ball-bearings under them. So formidable and so violent was the assault, that Legitime’s army wavered and broke; and we had much difficulty, with the aid of heavy sticks, in driving the President’s gunners back to work their weapons. But it was of no avail. We were hopelessly defeated:, and the President’s army streamed back towards the town, followed by their coffee-sack victors. We held our ground at headquarters and saw the last of the Tout. Indeed, 1 believe I was the first to congratulate Hippolyte, who came along mounted on a mule. THE VICTOR.

Hippolyte, who was a great, hulking, heavy-jowled man as black as night—it will be remembered that he was assassinated a few years ago—was very much incensed when he heard that the “Haytian Republic” had been released. He wanted to begin his term of office—for he elected! himself —with a generous act of restoration. But he did the next best thing, which was to give us a gorgeous dinner at the palace, and then he inflicted on us another review-—this time of the victorious army—and they were even in a worse plight than their opponents had been. Nevertheless, they made good use of their opportunities by “looting” the town, and, here, too, the sacking was more of a comic opera procedure than anything else. Ordinarily one associates ]oot with fire, bloodshed, murder, and all the terrible outrages attendant on war,but the only looting Hippolyte’s victorious soldiers resorted to was that of hen roosts and larders. It was a common thing On the evening after the battle to sec dozens of soldiers at the street corners regaling themselves with roast chicken and fresh bread, to which they had been strangers for many months. A. black man in his native state would sooner rob a henroost than rob a bank, for a live chicken represents to his imaginative soul everything that is delightful ou earth, —K- D. M.