Il6 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



level in the several lake beds. The water, impregnated with salt, is in- 

 creasing in density owing to rapid evaporation. One of the lakes, Trou 

 Caiman, is now entirely dry, while another, fitang Saumatre, has re- 

 ceded much below its former shore line. Just over the Dominican 

 border on the east is the large Lake Enriquillo, whose present water 

 level is below that of the ocean. This may be in part due to diversion 

 of water from the Yaque River for purposes of irrigation. The shores 

 of these lakes yielded but little archeological material although the old 

 Indian trail from Xaragua eastward to Santo Domingo followed the 

 ancient shore line. A decade ago a collection assembled by Mr. Peters 

 of Port-au-Prince from sites on the " Isla de Cabritos " in Pake Enri- 

 quillo was forwarded to the British Museum. The island is now a 

 part of the mainland. 



Thanks to the energetic functioning of the Department of Public 

 Works under the direction of Commander Duncan of the L T nited 

 States Navy, many of the principal Haitian roads are suitable for 

 travel by automobile. When it became necessary to travel along the 

 more typical Haitian trails recourse was had to the more popular horse 

 and mule transport. Sailboats were used to reach Goat Island and 

 several of the Arcadins west of the town of L'Archaie. Islands off 

 the southern coast in the vicinity of Aquin were also reached by sail- 

 boat, while it became necessary to hire a motorboat to encircle the 

 larger He a Yache. Grand Cayemitte and the small islands in Bara- 

 dere Bay were not visited, nor was the visit to the Island of Gonave 

 more than casual. 



Haiti under present conditions is a peaceful country. People are 

 hospitable and willing to lend a hand in an emergency. They are not 

 at all the mysterious and cruel folk fiction writers would have them 

 be. Their almost universal poverty is correlated with a remarkable 

 freedom from economic opportunity. A dense population centers 

 about the more favored agricultural regions where rainfall is ample as 

 in the Plaine du Nord and in the Massif du Xord. The old Arawakan 

 irrigation system continued by the French planters and the modern 

 Haitians in the Cul de Sac and in the Plaine de Leogane makes pos- 

 sible the growing of crops sufficient to maintain a dense population in 

 the vicinity of the capital city, Port-au-Prince. In the large and fertile 

 but arid valley of the Artibonite River, the introduction of irrigation 

 is under consideration, but for the present agriculture there remains 

 restricted to a bean and corn crop planted on the sloping and moist 

 river banks. 



In the Republic of Haiti the small self-sufficient garden planting is 

 the lineal descendant of the primitive clearing in the forest. It remains 



