Haytian Correspondence.--No. II.

Friends Douglass & Delany:—More than three weeks have winged themselves away, with lightning-like rapidity, since I last wrote to you; and although no obtruding business cares have prevented me, I have not, until now, found sufficient leizure time to resume my pen. In truth, I have scarcely, even yet, been able to arouse myself from the intoxicating influence which my sojourn in this Isle of the south has thrown around me.—You are not to infer from thence that Port-au-Prince is a model of beauty and magnificence, affording, with its glittering domes and lofty minarets, a realization of the bright picturings of oriental fiction. Far from it.—When launching out upon the Atlantic, I left the princely city of New York behind me, and found myself upon the broad waters, out of sight of my native land,

"Coelum undique, et undique pontus,"

I had looked my last upon cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces. True, there is a pleasurable something in a view of Port-au-Prince, situated, as it is, in the bosom of its ampitheatre of hills, with its long and regular streets gradually rising in almost terrace-like gradations from the harbor to its eastern extremity. And it is also indebted for a portion of the favor with which a stranger regards it, to the sense of novelty which he experiences while gazing upon houses with roofs abruptly rising to a peak, and long galleries over-hanging the side-walks. But we would search our bosoms in vain for that feeling of awe and admiration which a contemplation of the old-world capitals is said to awaken, by the combination of pilaster, and shaft, and architrave in their architectural magic—a magic to which many of the cities in our own republic can pretend; and although there are quite a number of fine buildings in this Island Metropolis, still, they only seem to bring into bolder relief the saddening desolation which the ravages of time and fire have produced. Yet, amidst it all, there still breathes a spirit of former magnificence; and in the variously designed fountains, terraced promenades and public squares, neglected, we read the evidences of an earlier and a brighter beauty. But if art and its achievements have been suffered to languish into decay, and reflect back no longer the borrowed light of genius, nature, that requires no foreign aid, still revels here in untrammeled splendor; and in the contemplation of its creation-dated excellence, we forget to sigh over the perishable results of human effort.

Well, indeed, does this lovely spot deserve the appellation of its aboriginal inhabitants—Hayti—the Hilly and Well-Wooded Land; and right wisely have those into whose hands it has fallen, restored to it the name bestowed by its earlier possessors. As it was in the time when the smoke of its fishing-huts greeted the eyes of the world-discoverer, so is it now—the same reinvigorating influence in its air, the same bright smile curling upon its waters, and in its forest-glades, the same delightful commingling of music, beauty, and perfume, that prompted the wild fancy of the followers of Columbus to imagine an El Dorado of wealth and immortality in the distant savannahs of the Floridas, or upon the coasts of the Spanish main: still,

The waves dash gaily on thy shore,

Fair Island of the Southern Sea!

As bright in beauty as when, of yore,

It blossomed a welcome to the brave Genoese,

Who had left his dear home o'er a stormy main,

To bring a new world 'neath his monarch's reign;

To reap the rewards of a monarch's breath,

Honors and praise, disgrace and death.

Basking in beauty, it doth seem

Like the bright picturings of a dream,

Which marks some smiling infant's sleep,

Ere it hath bitter cause to weep

O'er all the sorrowings and ills,

The guilty woes, the deeds of crime,

With which man's wayward folly fills

His life, e'en in its earliest time;—

As when the Grecian artist wrought

Upon a master-piece of art,

To form his ideal beauty, sought,

From various shapes, each lovely part,

And blent them in one glorious whole,

To charm the eye, transfix the soul,

And hold it in enraptured fires;

So seem the glad waves to have sought

From every place its richest treasure,

And bound it to this blessed spot,

To found hereon a home of pleasure—

A home where balmy airs might float

Through spicy bower and orange grove,

Where bright-winged birds might tune the note

Which tells of pure and constant love;

Where the earthquake might nurse into slumber its force,

And the hurricane cease from its wrathful course;

Where the wave-nymph and dryad might find them a home,

And the foot of the spoiler might never come.

In fact, too much can scarcely be said with regard to the beauty and fertility of this country and the salubrity of its clime, varying, as you mount from the plains to its mountain-peaks, from the genial warmth of the tropics to the refreshing coolness of the Temperate zone. The Queen of Summer here holds her perennial court, and scatters abroad her richest treasures with a most lavish hand. Every plant that is calculated to administer to the comfort of man; every flower that can add another hue to the brilliant parure of Nature; every species of fruit that can charm the eye by its beauty, or gratify the palate by its taste, blossoms to beauty and ripens to perfection in this region of eternal sunshine. Even in the rainy season, the clouds, as if loathe to obscure a sky so transparently azure that the eye fancies it can almost penetrate into its remotest recesses, or to cast a shade over a sun which nowhere else shines with so much lustre, generally gather their dark folds together during the night-time, and the retiring light of morning only shows the traces of their generous labors in the freshened aspect which the showers have imparted to every object.

Nor are associations wanting to endear these scenes to the heart of the philanthropist. Every glistening hill-top, every shaded glen, has witnessed the wrongs of the bondman, and his successful struggle with the oppressor. Each has its appropriate note to add to the anthem pealed by Bunker Hill and Lexington. Yet those are not wanting who can gaze upon them and draw disparaging contrasts between their present appearance and that which they presented in the days of colonial servitude.—It is indeed to be deplored, that the brake now springs up too frequently where the sugarcane should wave, and wild flowers where the coffee-tree should flourish. But better that than the bowed body, the crushed hope, and the broken spirit. Rather than to look upon the misery, and listen to the despairing accents of one solitary slave, the lovers of their race would gladly prefer to see the present denizens of this Island sinking back into the barbarism of their fathers; and, in lieu of the boon of civilization, hear the rude music of the tambour and the gumbil, as it marks the fantastic measures of some Ashantee dance. Thank Heaven! there is much reason to be confident that they will never be called upon to witness either occurrence! In the liberal Constitution which Hayti is possessed of; in the Chief who has been chosen by her people; in the confidence which is due from that people to the man of their selection, and in the reliance which is its appropriate return, lies her hope of ranking among the first of free, enlightened and prosperous republics. In the sincere trust that all which her friends hope for her will be fully realized, I subscribe myself,

As ever, yours, &c.,

HAROLD.

P.S.—I had prepared this letter to send almost a month ago, but unfortunately I let the vessel slip me, and have had no opportunity of forwarding it until the present. Since it was written, some pretty serious doings have taken place here, of which, probably, you may have already heard. Perhaps I may make them the subject of a future letter—that is, when I can fully determine what version of "causes of this unfortunate affair" is the correct one. So far, I fear me, that those are only reaping the whirlwind who have sown the wind.

H.

Port-au-Prince, April 12, 1848.