“One of the passengers tells me that Hayti is a great place for revolutions,” said Mark to the professor, on the morning of the second day out.
“Hayti has been a hot-bed of revolutions for years,” answered Amos Strong, “and even to-day matters are far from settled there. At one time the island, which contains about twenty-eight thousand miles of territory and a population of 1,300,000 souls, was under a single government, but to-day it is divided into Hayti and Santo Domingo. The great majority of the inhabitants are black, and the whites have, in consequence, had a hard time of it. The French buccaneers used to make Hayti a stopping place and they had many a fierce fight with the blacks, and there was a continual struggle between the blacks that were slaves and their masters.”
“I don’t imagine it is a nice place to visit,” put in Frank, who was listening to the talk.
“There are many better places, I admit. Yet, as it is right on our way we can very well stop off a day at Cape Haytien and take a look around.”
“Somebody said they had earthquakes there,” put in Sam.
“All these islands are of volcanic origin and earthquakes are frequent. Hayti has a mountain range from one end almost to the other, and one peak, Cibao, is seven thousand feet high. The mountains are covered with valuable timber and the island exports large quantities of mahogany and other woods. The mountains are, like those north of Santiago de Cuba, full of rich minerals, but so far only a few mines have been opened.”
Directly after this conversation the professor brought out his largest map of the islands and the boys looked it over with care. They found that Hayti lay about equally distant from Cuba and Porto Rico. On the west was the Windward Passage, separating it from Cuba, and on the east the Mona Passage, separating it from Porto Rico.
“The Mona Passage,” mused Sam, “That’s the Monkey Passage, that we passed through on our way from New York to Venezuela.”
“I see Port-au-Prince is the capital city,” remarked Frank. “But that is about a hundred miles south of our stopping place.”
The evening proved a most delightful one and nobody thought of going to bed until a late hour. As a consequence hardly any of the boys felt like arising early, and it was not until the breakfast gong had sounded the second time that Mark and Frank leaped up.