Smith observes that "away from the towns in the interior and rural districts but few diseases or distempers are known. Indeed, the interior of the country is so healthful as not to be at all the physician's Eldorado. People die there as they must die everywhere, but it is very seldom that we hear of any illness of a complicated or alarming character, such as is common in America and elsewhere." Let it be repeated that no foreigner who is temperate in habit and cleanly in person, and who will avoid the midday sun, the rains and unnecessary exposure to dampness, and take care to sleep a little back from the immediate seacoast, need have the slightest anxiety about his health in Haiti. In regard to the wet and the dry season, it ought to be stated that neither the one nor the other prevails over the whole country at the same time. At Port au Prince, the rainy season covers the summer months and runs up to "les pluies de la toussaints" (the beginning of November). But in other parts of the Republic, the rains run into and cover most of the winter months, so that there is never a season when rains are not prevalent in some parts of the island, and never a season which is dry everywhere there.

INSECTS, REPTILES, BIRDS, AND ANIMALS.

The presumption that all tropical countries are teeming with insect life is quite correct. Mosquitoes, fleas, chigres, cockroaches, ants, butterflies, fireflies, bees, locusts, spiders, scorpions, centipedes, and the like do abound there. But, generally speaking, those that are most troublesome are less numerous in Haiti than elsewhere in the West Indies; a fact that may be due to its peculiarly mountainous character.

But there are a few localities that are in this respect an exception to the general rule; for instance, the vicinity of the lake wells in the interior is pestered with clouds of noisome insects. On some of the practically uninhabited islets, as Gonaïve and l'Ileà-Vaches, mosquitoes are found in profusion, and on the latter islet,

the chigre, an infinitesimal insect of the tick species, is a source of annoyance. The chigre seeks a hiding place anywhere it can on the person, preferably on the feet or lower limbs; there unseen, and for the time unfelt, burrowing itself and laying its eggs in a kind of tiny sack. If these eggs be not discovered and carefully extracted in due time, quite serious consequences may follow. But the chigre is scarcely known in the parts of the country which are well inhabited.

In general, mosquitoes and fleas are no more numerous in Haiti than in portions of the United States during the summer season, so that Haiti can not at all be considered a mosquito country. Cockroaches and ants, the latter of almost every conceivable sort and description except the African "driver," confront the housekeeper at every turn. The former seem gifted with extraordinary omniverous powers, spreading havoc among books, papers, and even articles of clothing, unless checked in their ravages. Still, with ordinary care, both ant and cockroach can easily be kept from doing injury or even occasioning much inconvenience. The common house fly, so annoying to some people in northern homes during the warm seasons, is not at all abundant in Haiti; but of butterflies and fireflies of the most brilliant species, there is no lack. The honey bee of several different species is plentiful, and its culture, particularly in the southern and western districts, has resulted in the production of honey and wax for exportation. Centipedes, scorpions, and the most repellent-looking creatures in the form of spiders abound. The bite or sting of all this class of creatures is considered .poisonous, but ordinarily, it is no more harmful than the sting of the northern wasp. The land crab is also plentiful, and is sold in the markets regularly, as under the culinary art, it makes a palatable dish.

There are no poisonous snakes and comparatively few of any kind in Haiti. Land turtles are found in abundance, and, like the crab, they are made to add to the delicacies of the table.

But of all reptiles, lizards are by far the most common. They abound everywhere and are of almost every known species, but they are entirely harmless. And so, too, of frogs, whose vocal power is in no way inferior to that of their northern kindred.

Once on the spot, the foreigner never bothers himself about any of the insects or reptiles in Haiti, or even thinks of them. And so, too, of hurricanes and earthquakes; they do sometimes visit the island, but nobody ever suffers by anticipation of them.

It is stated on scientific authority (see Wallace's Geographical Distribution of Animals, Vol. 1, page 66) that there are forty different species of birds in Haiti, of which seventeen are peculiar to it; but it must be borne in mind that the island has never yet been wholly subjected to the scrutiny of modern science in any respect. Certain it is that birds are very numerous everywhere. The ortolan and other toothsome birds are daily sold in the markets, and this is true of all the common domestic fowls and poultry.

With the exception of wild hogs on the Ile de la Tortue and possibly in one or two other localities, some untamed horses and horned cattle running at large in the eastern part, and some wild goats, particularly on the islets in the lakes and their vicinity, there are no wild animals on the island. Even the agouti, which is still mentioned in the books, is believed to be entirely extinct.

All the ordinary domestic animals, horses, donkeys, horned cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, dogs, cats, etc., are common and generally plentiful.

It is said that no city, in proportion to extent and population, has more dogs than Port au Prince except Constantinople, but they are mostly of the "cur" species, and they never fail to announce their presence on the slightest provocation, especially in the night time. Still, hydrophobia is almost unknown in the island. Until recent years, cats were rather scarce, and were bought and sold there as well-bred dogs are now bought and sold in Chicago and

New York, though not at such high prices. The cats of Haiti are of symmetrical form and beautiful in appearance.

The donkey is very common and very useful everywhere in the country, and his proverbial docility, reliability, and enduring strength there reach their height. He seems, besides, to have acquired an understanding of the creole irtonations on the word la, which would puzzle even the intelligent foreigner for weeks, for his mountaineer master cries out to him là là when he is to go ahead, or back, or stop, or turn to the right or the left, and he appears to know what is expected of him by the intonation.

Of native horses, there seems to be an ample supply. They were originally of the Andalusian breed. They are noticeably smaller than the average horse of the temperate zones, but they are spirited, strong, very hardy, and very seldom intractable, and are generally trained to the saddle. Those in use in the cities. especially are almost all stallions. Except on market days, when the country folks bring them, mares are seldom seen in the cities; they are kept in the back country and the mountains for constant breeding. Horses are never exported commercially from Haiti. There have been a few isolated attempts at introducing some of larger and more improved types from Jamaica and the United States, but they have been mostly geldings, and those from the north have not thrived well.

The horned cattle in use as beasts of burden are universally bulls, hardy and of good size. The cow does not produce milk in sufficient quantities to render making of butter and cheese an industry even for home consumption. This must be greatly owing to the fact that the grasses on which these animals and sheep thrive in the temperate zones grow only sparsely in the tropics, and can not there be made to grow from sowing the seeds. It may also be partly due to this fact that the sheep-producing industry has never been attempted on a commercial scale, and that the beef and mutton are decidedly inferior to those meats in more northern climes.

Sheep and goats are found everywhere. The former are never shorn, and the milk of the latter is used to supply the lack of that article from cows.

Either the native supply of cattle is diminishing or there has come about within the past few years an increased demand for them, for within that period, the importations of them, mostly for slaughtering purposes, from San Domingo, Puerto Rico, and Cuba have been notably augmented.

The Haitian hog is, to the northern eye, a queer-looking creature. He is usually lean; his legs, his head, and his caudal appendage are very long, so that he presents the appearance of an elongated caricature of the average sleek and chunky American hog. It would be easy to improve him by crossing him with a better breed.

There has never been any attempt to raise any of the domestic animals in Haiti for exportation, and the curing of meats by the ordinary processes is, owing to the climate, well-nigh impossible there without resort to refrigerating methods, which have never yet come into use. It may be affirmed that these animals are raised in the country only for domestic use and home consumption.