242 Forestry Quarterly. 



crest indicating the source of the river. Long continuous ridges, 

 similarly interrupted by peaks, run from this back bone more or less 

 due South to the sea, dividing the river basins in a most pronounced 

 manner, and secondary ridges branch off from these, themselves 

 again divided by lateral ridges into a nimiber of canyons of the 

 third, fourth, etc. order. A most striking feature is that noted in 

 other mountains of the island and perhaps in all tropical mountains 

 more or less, namely the very narrow, often almost knife-edge sal- 

 ients or "cuchillas ;" even those forming main watersheds show this 

 character of the ridges. Thus the watershed between the Rio Se- 

 villa to the South and the Barracoa to the North is formed by a sad- 

 dle hardly 20 feet wide, with steep descents. All the canyons start 

 with such steep descents, sometimes almost precipitously, without 

 any terraces, changing into gentler slopes as the main river is reach- 

 ed, which may be in half a mile with 1000 feet descent. There is 

 rarely a broader mountain back or more extensive sink found on 

 the ridges. 



The rivers are wild, treacherous mountain streams with magnifi- 

 cent, clear and limpid waters running to the sea, winding between 

 more or less steep, sometimes precipitous banks, over boulders and 

 rarely over short falls. Towards their mouths they broaden into 

 deltas, forming more or less broad flood plains filled with sand and 

 rubble. During the flood tide — which may come after a single days' 

 rain, as the writer experienced — they spread over their banks and 

 make new channels, but during the dry season, they are mostly lost 

 in the sand and rocks, leaving dry rocky beds, within a mile or so 

 from their mouth. A sea wall of rubble, more or less high, usually 

 closes the latter, possibly leaving a pool behind it. 



There is little flat land to be found anywhere, except in these 

 river deltas and along the seashore, reaching rarely more than a mile 

 inland. The slopes of the main river basins divide the country more 

 or less systematically into valleys, separated by higher or lower hills. 

 The top of the ridges furnish the best and altogether smooth travel, 

 indeed they afford the only practicable approach to the interior and 

 to the crest, the rivers being impassable, and the slopes mostly too 

 steep and cut up with innumerable canyons, to be comfortable. 



One good harbor and a few less desirable ones furnish an outlet 

 for this otherwise practically inaccessible country, the veritable 

 Switzerland of Cuba. 



