Haiti: Its dawn of progress after years in a night of revolution

by John Dryden Kuser

As I left the house one morning at two, the yard boys next door were already at work and in town the "white wings"—an American institution—were about. Three of us joggled along for 22 miles for an early duck shoot and talked of many things, among them concerning a proposed map of Haiti. The existing one is grossly inaccurate as is easily shown by an airplane flight or a ship attempting to follow many of the channels. There is no triangulation point in Haiti and so the present coast line on the maps is the result of a certain number of bearings from off shore, with the remainder a matter of freehand filling-in. The use of airplanes in heretofore untried ways will be employed to aid in the exact location of towns and be a means of a great saving of tedious traverse work.

In town, life was already stirring, as I have shown. This is nothing unusual for it is the customary hour for the Haitian to begin his day. By 6 the "gentlemen about town" are in the streets with their canes and Stetsons, debating the fall of the cabinet or the latest development in the gourde situation. But out in the country everything was still dark and the market women had barely started to bring their load into town. So we met no one—except twice the marine patrol car on its route.

Just outside the portals marking the limits of Port-au-Prince on which are inscribed the words: "Peace, Justice, Work," is the historic Pont Rouge. This is the spot where revolutionary troops coming down from the mountains and across the plains would first meet the forces of the existing government of Port-au-Prince. Here the great Dessalines, coming into town at the head of his troops, met what he believed to be a guard of his own troops. His own general was leading them, but had betrayed Dessalines, and the President was soon left wounded in the roadway to die. It had been Dessalines who, it is said, sported himself by pulling out the eyes of his prisoners with corkscrews.

The streets in Port-au-Prince are wide asphalt pavements and would be adapted for speeding but for the presence in the center and sides promiscuously of unruly "burros," naked babies playing in the dirt, odd Haitian pigs looking like some new species of animal, and pedestrians of strange sorts. This is true, also, for some distance out on the Hasco road, over which we went. But after a few miles we came out upon one of the new roads which has been put down throughout the island by the Haitian Government under the supervision of the Gendarmerie and of an engineering force loaned to them by the United States. In all, about 500 miles of excellent roadways have been put down since the American intervention.

In this work the budget system is now used and as every payment is actually handed out by one of the American engineers himself, the graft which was formerly rampant has been eliminated. In the days of pre-American intervention a sum of, let us assume, $50,000 was voted to build a road. $5,000 of this regularly went to the President and $500 to each Senator who would vote for the appropriation. This left, generally, about $10,000, or one-fifth, for actual road building work.

The Haitians have proven to be good engineers and except for the pay roll, large pieces of work are often carried on by them without assistance from the Americans.

The first part of the road which we struck was excellent but after branching off the main road to Pont Beudet we came to the new part. Roads of this type, which is the one generally used, are macadam with good foundation of different sized stones and 20 feet in width. The top dressing is a good binding gravel which can be found within short distances along almost all of the roads which they are now building. A temporary track is run from each gravel pit along the side of the road until a mile or so on another pit is dug and the rails taken up and laid down from the new pit on. The gravel is thus carried to where it is needed by a small engine and a few cars. There is in this way no long-distance hauling.

Finally we turned off the new road to a clearing through a cactus desert at the edge of Lake Troucaiman. Above either shore two mountain ranges run parallel for miles, far above the lake. The lake itself is open water in the central portion but by far the greater part is filled with a mass of lily, mangrove and reed growth. Often it is so dense as to be entirely impenetrable.

When we arrived at Troucaiman it was not yet daylight and only the candles in the few "cailles" along the road could be seen. Upon the approach of the car, five or six natives appeared, knowing from past experience what we had come for, and with our French and their Creole, interspersed by numerous gestures, we made our plans. Each of us started out, alone in his own tiny dugout of about a foot wide and four feet long and with his own native in the back to pole him about. The guides had taken off the few rags which they wore and one by one we were shoved off. Part of the time we were poled, part of the time the craft stuck and the native had to wade along beside to keep us going.

We went on and on in the blackness until finally one could distinguish black shapes arising from the water or whirring past. It came at last—the gray dawn for which we had been waiting. A teal went overhead with its characteristic rapid flight. A slower-flying redhead and later a scaup passed. And all around were hundreds upon hundreds of Egrets, great white forms which flappingly arose when we approached too near.