INTRODUCTION.

The most difficult chapter to write was that on “Vaudoux Worship and Cannibalism.” I have endeavored to paint it in the least somber colors, and none who know the country will think that I have exaggerated; in fact, had I listened to the testimony of many experienced residents, I should have described rites at which dozens of human victims were sacrificed at a time. Everything I have related has been founded on evidence collected in Hayti, from Haytian official documents, from trustworthy officers of the Haytian Government, my foreign colleagues, and from respectable residents—principally, however, from Haytian sources.

It may be suggested that I am referring to the past. On the contrary, I am informed that at present cannibalism is more rampant than ever. A black Government dares not greatly interfere, as its power is founded on the goodwill of the masses, ignorant and deeply tainted with fetish worship. A Haytian writer recently remarked in print, “One takes great pleasure in the fact that Vaudoux has reappeared, grandiose and serious.” original: "On se plaît beaucoup de ce que le Vaudoux a reparu grandiose et sérieux." The fetish dances were forbidden by decree under the Government of President Boisrond-Canal. That decree has been since repealed, and high officers now attend these meetings, and distribute money and applaud the most frantic excesses.

President Salomon, who is now in power, lived for eighteen years in Europe, married a white woman, and knows what civilization is. He probably, on his first advent to the Presidency, possessed sufficient influence in the country to have checked the open manifestations of this barbarous worship; but the fate of those of his...