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THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 1956.

from that Las Palmas holiday

*If you caught them in Las Palmas they'll be the first they've had on the island; if you bought them as trophies you're liable to a heavy fine anyway.”

London Express Servion

Page

Henri of Halti.

B

ARREN, neglected.

POPULAR SATURDAY FEATURE: WORLD'S STRANGEST STORIES

THE SLAVE WHO BECAME

THE

Open revolt flared up

in

One Boukmann, led yet still magnificent. 1793,

the slaves In a week of The Citadel of 1

Ferriere rides carnage, burning 600 cuffer

mountain plantations, 200 sugar r

vast fineries and massacring hun-

adreds of white settlers.

some

Haiti's highest

like peak man-o'-war, ready to fire thundering broadside.

The capture and execu- Boukmann his Yet the great stronghold ton of was never attacked, never head was stuck on a pole --- had to defend itself; and did not stop the

revolt.

BLACK

BONAPARTE

ཏིམ+ •i=4l*

By C.D.T. BAKER-CARR

Д

the

to

pared to meet the fate ho felt the valleys below through smail brass telescope. One day was invitable in his bedroom p't the Palace of Sans Souci. He he spied a labourer asleep in the doorway of his

hut during

heard the rebels smashing his working hours. Calling up his

furniture below, mounting the chief gunner, the Black Emperor stairs....

Henri

crawl helped to train a large cannon

managed across on the unsuspecting loafer, took be crowned King, and so Chris- with

invincible force to careful

polished door to a alm and touched the cupboard. He took out a pistol, tophe had to learn to pen destroy him. The Citadel of

dow leri " on offelal documents. La Ferriere, steadily growing laper. With a roar the missile reatly primed, and loaded it with

The to fls mark. truc

bullet. Just before the a golden took place on

stop Le Bonnet д L'Eveque, His coronation

sleeper never wolte; his hut was door was burst open he put the became his main obsession,

demolished about his torn body. pistol to ide temple and pulled Henri believed that laws were the trigger, made to be obeyed.

June 22.

The negro mongrch appointed four princes, eight dukes, 22

today between the Atlantic merely drove it under counts, 37 barons and 40 cheva- and the Caribbean, it serves with a new leader, the cele- to a ruth brated Toussaint ('L'Ouver

am a moment

less ruler, a coal-black giant ture").

of a man.

who died Just

Over 100

years ago.

when

Or

The world knew him as The Bonaparte startimes It

Black

Napoleon.

He Obliged

the Negro AND where, during all this

2]

uproar. was Heuri Chris tophe? He was just keep

liers in form his nobility.

In September 1812, his four- toreyed Palace of Sans Souc) (a

translation free

would

**Palace

Care Couldn't Less") was com- pleted. A moun→

fain

aiream

flowed beneath

How

The floors of the

There were banqueting rooms,

and

main state rooms. Henri Christophe was ing out of trouble, work- Grand stairways Tyrant and a dielator, yet he ing diligently, marrying led up to wide the sends of de- the daughter of his boss, terraces, sowed

when Marie-Louise in an age mocracy

then aged we all coloured people, were about 15. "niggers": and today Haiti it ont of 1111 three auto- nomous negro countries the worki.

Eventually he found him-

arsenal, a Royal chapel, barracks,

stables ond

self in uniform, as a aer- offices. geant, and he began

to

be

an

The mountain wa9 3,000ft, climb. Yet every day thousands high and almost impossible to of labourers tolled to complete the great castle. When finished a mulatto, was architect, murdered

PTCGETYC

THE CITADEL OF LA FERRIERE

The new nobi- make up for loat time; with- lity mincod in ROYER

he

about the Court yeurs

เร

the 10 Toussaint's second-in-com. arrayed

height of fashion, mand, and living in a fine hearing much mansion in Cap Francois resounding titles of Duke 18 Governor-General of the s

Marmplado and My Lord northern sector.

Lemonade.

to

Perhaps it is not surprising that a spirit of revolt spread once more, Hemi was openly its called a tyrint, a monster, Now

-3,000 ft, high and almost impossible to climb. When finished, its mulatto archi- tect was murdared to preservè its secrets.

Henri Christophe WAS born to slavery in 1767. the child of slaves taken from West Africn to the island of St Kitts and sui to work on the estates of a

It seemed that the revo- French planter. At seven

nothing But lution was complete. he was apprenticed to A

sent Napoleon Bonaparte stonemason; at 12 he ran away to sea aboard a French 86 men-o-war to subdue the ship. That is how he first rebel army, and in Feb 1802, General Le set foot on Haiti, or Saint ruary

olerc landed with 16,000 Domingue, as it then

was. The little black boy Was sok to a French naval off- cer whose boots

men.

Hearl Christophe had learned military diplomacy from his he kept mercurial leader; he knew he

of secrets. The walls were any he lived alone, apart oven from thing from B0 to 130ft. high and his family-the devoted Marie- 25ft. thick; 865 bronze cannon Louise, their fat, good-for

son Prince were manhandled to the top,

Victor with hundreds of casks of gun- Henri, ant their two daughters, non balls. powder and thousands of caz-

Perhaps Henri's most signi- cant step was to Introduce the "Code Henri. Under this law every adult, male and female, had to work from dawn to B

then one hour off, for breakfast on the spot, from 9-12 noon, then two hours off, and from 2 p.m. until sunset,

But still Henri nursed the fenr

The castle was enormous. It included a palace, store rooms, secret treasure chambers, am- munition magazines and garricon space for some 10,000 troops,

its Brom

walls the King

polished until the ship re- could not oppose such an in- that the French would return watched his people at work in turned to Haiti from nvasion, so he obliged Leclord by

American burning Cap Francois to the

voyage to the

coast, when again

changed hands.

New Master

he groundstarting with his own beautifully appointed mansion, This gesture had is reward, for Henri Chistophe was made general of the French Army and ordered to disarm the rebels, Toussaint being imprisoned for Ute, Christopho carried out his orders, but the weapons never HIS new master was a free reached French hands. They ly hotel proprietor, whom next opportunity. Henri Christophe served as groom, waiter and billiard marker even after, in his twenties, the young negro had bought his free dom..

negro, Coidovic, a kind- were

stockplied against

Free Men

the

BOY

OR GIRL?

TILL it be a boy or a

But before there is a rusl of

W girl? Expectant women demanding this inst und

But his family had disobeyed his last command and stayed cowering in the palace. The fat murdered and the Rave her richest Prince was oid queen jewels in return for her hus band's body and her own tree- dom. It was a small, forlorn

that struggled party

up the sleep approach to La Ferriere that night in 1820.

Second to None

QUERN Marie-Louise and ber

and

daughters, Athenaire Amethiste, escaped to Italy to live on the millions in gold the astute Heart had deposited in the Bank of England, Amethiste died in 1831, her sister eight years after

while their her, mother llyed on for more than

30

years, The Citadel of La Ferrière remains, decaying but magni- alone but for tourists——— the fortress where discipline was second to none in the world, For today the guides will tell you that, to impress on English visitor, King Henri called out squad af hle guards each a giant in his own right and roared and order.

With the bright sunlight was the opportunity his enemies uniform on their resplendent

Suddenly, in 1820, Henri was struck down with paralysis. This

had been waiting for with grow ing impatience.

they

marched for

Four by four they

E into spare, to drep

hundreds of feet on to the rocks They disappeared to his Ordering

and below. wife, children to socic protection at their doom in silence and in step. the English consulate, he pre-

(CÓFYRIGHT)

Science has at last found a way of discovering the sex of an unborn child. But now the question arises: Is it wise to tell the mother-to-be?,

detective story to discover who conducive to an easy labour.

looking at the end of a which would be by bo means

like

did it.

parents need wonder asking "Will it, bo a boy or a

I have often seen a mother по longer for doctors girl?** It might be as well to Already many boys are entered who greatly wanted a girl, but now have an infallible consider whether it is right for for father's old school is soon had a boy, change her mind ns"they" gre born, 10 a few completely as soon as she had mathod of determining sox their curiosity to be satisfied.

parents are going to "jump the seen her baby and fallen in love before birth. For some

gun" and get in six months with it. But it is much more Generally speaking it is just ahead of the others, there will difficult to fall in love with an

and there is no real bo much il fooling! years medicine has known curiosity

unborn baby, and. I think this that every cell in a body is advantage in knowing before.

A much more serious objec unlikaly, Igorance is actu

change of mind would be very the hand which, sex a child will be, as male or female. as

apart whole person,

from thro alight con- tion is that so many people do times bliss..

and examined under a

puis was not long in coming. On January 1, 1804, all Haiti's slaves were declared fres men. But the taste of freedom He was happier than brought an appetite for power; many of his follows. Hult the negroes rose spain, and

Stained in a certain way By Dr. BELLAMY HOBSON Water mandin by, a

must remember too, that was simmering towards re- slaughtered thousands of whites. bellion against the French Henri Christophe found himself in undisputed milliwy, command

arport, who has many other rule. Its population was an of Hall-then President and powerful microscope, a cell venience of knowing whether to make up their minds that they things to do, and it would not explosive mixture of white finally, in 1087, Governor and from any part of a woman's buy blue cot trimmings or pink, want a girl or perhaps a boy, be right to fake up his time to (40,000) free mulattoes Generalissimo for 11fo:

body has a dark speck in But his dictatorship was no the nucleus which a man's. When it is a question of

Right up to the time the baby satisfy curiosity and nothing. (24,000) and black slaves

the is born there is a good chimico megalomaniac tyranny. Homan

helr to a frotic, or to some of getting what they want, and (some 500,000). In Frolician became the official cella lack.

This boat La'accurate, but 19 the Bastille had fallen and

though complete tolera

for outst But' should be reserved. A year ago doctors carries out rage, there may be advan- both parents are happy, the French revolutionary tion was allowed; alvores was

on 1410 people. Their ges in knowing as early as if they know for certain that where the Roswords ireally government decreed that banned; children could not be frat

mouth were lightly scraped, and possible if a boy is on the way. they were getting what they nooded. disinherited; the counter would

• did not, want, one-esh”, well free men In its Colonies

(obinined...wero not interfere

with foreign businessmen word examined. In every case the But for many people, empecially imagine the quarrels and d

young couples having their flist satisfaction 'that mightṣqlik J. tions. Haiti's whitow; main.

child, ond of the great vicite="zi ly Royalista, hated the walory was fund at about Then a Dr James of Amater ments in the continual specula The miserable, sinhapp

£1,000.

| din applied ... thìa, ta' whborn slots on the baby's neofa, Italf mother, decreo and there was much

In March 1811 The Council slidemi Every time the sex-adds to the fun and the topmeal confinamy dissension:

... of State decided that Henri mush Anan was nortrate, y

spa fa Bad qus,taro, BOGEN. IN JANGAN

neigh-

علامي

be allowed toʻyote, in decal clad and zerri's personal correct sox, was given

might approach, hör

Ong various Valdelightýˆgitis

· give, a positiva, tort, boya ‘Iegna Live. It thuire, were twins, ‘onu

of the

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