midnight
These mute testimonials to the glories of the French occupation are common in Hayti , but since the blacks rose under Toussaint l'Ouverture they have been steadily disappearing ; the greedy fingers of the jungle have destroyed them bit by bit ; what were once farms and gardens are now thickets and groves ; in place of stately houses there are now nothing but miserable hovels . Cities of brick and stone have been replaced by squalid villages of board and corrugated iron , peopled by a shrill-voiced , quarreling race over which , in grim mockery , floats the banner of the Black Republic inscribed with the motto , `` Liberty , Equality , Fraternity . '' Once Hayti was called the `` Jewel of the Antilles '' and boasted its `` Little Paris of the West , '' but when the black men rose to power it became a place of evil reputation , a land behind a veil , where all things are possible and most things come to pass . In place of monastery bells there sounds the midnight mutter of voodoo drums ; the priest has been succeeded by the `` papaloi , '' the worship of the Virgin has changed to that of the serpent . Instead of the sacramental bread and wine men drink the blood of the white cock , and , so it is whispered , eat the flesh of `` the goat without horns . '' As he picked his teeth , Colonel Petithomme Laguerre turned his eyes to the right , peering idly into the shadows of a tamarind-tree , the branches of which overtopped the hut . Suspended from one of these was an inert shape , mottled with yellow patches where the moonbeams filtered through the leaves .