The Sabbath, October 16th, was a very pleasant one, being spent in Christian intercourse and religious duties with the little Church. Soon after midnight, our saddle bags filled with food and clothes, Mr. Webley, the guide Lolo, and I, started for Port-au-Prince, the capital. It was bright moonlight as we set out; such moonlight as only the tropics can give, having a glow and a luminosity which render objects visible for considerable distances. By its beams we threaded our way through the forest, the path shrouded with the thick foliage of the trees. For a time the route was along quiet glades, crossing two or three streams. Here we passed a spot to be spoken of only with horror: in a deep pit near the roadside, Soulouque once collected a number of persons, and burnt them to death. No wonder the people speak of the deposition and exile of this sanguinary despot as the removal of a frightful nightmare. His was a reign of gloomy superstition and blood. Leaving the lowlands, for two hours we ascended and descended hills covered with impenetrable vegetation, the trees often quite bowed down with the weight of the numerous creepers, or parasites, which covered them; or, holding pendant in the most graceful festoons, the prolific lianes, from the topmost boughs. Silence reigned; not a bird chirped, nor a frog croaked.