Hayti is now a much more flourishing island than it was; the Emperor, Faustin Soulouque, does every thing in his power to render it a civilized and polite country. He encourages all the arts and industrial sciences; and, in his court is kept up the grandeur of a great and powerful state; though the Haytians are black people, and were for the greater part negro slaves.
Barbadoes is an exceedingly warm country, and is unfortunately liable to dreadful hurricanes, which sometimes overthrow whole towns and villages. The products are sugar, cotton, ginger, and rum. The tall sugar-canes, which grow as high as five or six feet, are set in plantations and tended by negroes; and the cotton plants are also taken care of by the negroes, who are almost the only persons who can work in the open air, on account of the heat. The houses of the planters are numerous all over the country; and, with the green hills, and the luxuriance of the vegetation, make an extremely picturesque scene.
Since slavery has been abolished in our West India islands, schools for the children, and chapels for religious worship, have been erected at the expense of the negroes; numbers of whom have also become small landowners.
What a number of specimens have been despatched to the Exhibition from Algeria, Tunis, and the Cape of Good Hope: one, a model of a winged head, moulded in fine yellow clay, is really pretty; and the preserved fruits have quite a tempting look. And here are some boxes, made of most brilliant fancy woods; a few knives, soaps, cigars, herbs, and specimens of various woods, in blocks and in polished pieces. Here is also opium, paper made from the palm-tree, articles manufactured from native woods, with essences, perfumes, and splendid veils, slippers, caps, guns, and swords.
Algeria now belongs to France; it was formerly one of the Barbary States, in the north of Africa, and many very useful plants and trees flourish there; oranges, melons, cucumbers, cabbages, lettuces, and artichokes, grow in great luxuriance. The sugar-cane is cultivated with success; and everywhere may be seen quantities of white roses, from which a sweet essence is extracted. The stems of the vines, which the people tend, are sometimes so thick, that a man can hardly put his arms round them; and the bunches of grapes are a foot and a-half long. Only think of bunches of grapes half a yard long! they must be something like those which we read of in the Bible, that were brought to Joshua, to show him what a fertile country was the land of Canaan.
Acacia and cork trees grow in the woods of Algeria; the natives obtain gum from the acacia. There are many mines, but the Algerines make no use of them. The people themselves are strong in body, and of a tawny complexion.
Tunis is another of the Barbary States, and contains a great number of people,—Moors, Turks, Arabs, Jews, and Christians, merchants and slaves. All these carry on a large trade in Morocco leather, linens, gold-dust, oil, woollen cloth, lead, ostrich feathers, horses, and soap. There are the same variety of vegetable productions that there are in Algeria.
