PART II
CALUMNIES AND THEIR REFUTATION
CHAPTER I
Limits of Haiti—Area—Mountains and rivers—Adjacent islands—Population—Government Divisions of the territory into Departments, arrondissements, communes, and rural section—Financial organization; the national debt—Academic organization; public instruction—Judiciary organization—Religious organization.
Haiti is bounded on the east by the Dominican Republic, on the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the south by the Caribbean Sea. She derives from her position at the entrance of the Gulf of Mexico and almost in the centre of the Antillean archipelago exceptional facilities for communications with foreign countries. Cuba is at a distance of 50 miles to the northwest, Jamaica 100 miles to the southwest, and New York but 1,400 miles away.[1]
The length of the island from east to west is over 400 miles, the breadth from north to south, ranging from 160 to 17 miles, and its perimeter about 900 miles.
According to B. Ardouin's Geography, its area, including the adjacent islets, is 52,000 square leagues,[2] of
- ↑ Handbook of Haiti issued by the Bureau of American Republics.
- ↑ A league is equal to 3.89 kilometres. In his dictionnaire administratif d'Haiti, Mr. S. Rouzier gives the following figures: Length of the island from east to west, 638 kilometres; width, from 264 to 12 kilometres; perimeter, 2,600 kilometres; area, not including the adjacent islets, 75,074 square kilometres, of which 26,000 belong to the Republic of Haiti. The adjacent islets have an area of 2,100 square kilometres.
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