196 GEOLOGICAL RECONNAISSANCE OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. 



Practically all the people lead an exceedingly primitive life. Their 

 labor is almost entirely agricultural and is carried on intermittently in a 

 haphazard manner. They have little idea of modern implements or their 

 use, but they are intelligent and readily learn where attempts are made to 

 teach them. The assurance of a stable government has been a great 

 stimulus to increased effort, as is shown in the enlargement of areas under 

 cultivation and the increase in cattle raising. Under the old state of affairs 

 there was little encouragement to industry, for the farmer was at the mercy 

 of roving bandits and revolutionists. 



Although showing the effects of intermingling with the black people 

 across the Haitian border, the features of a large percentage of the popu- 

 lation of the Provinces of Azua and Barahona suggest Indian ancestry 

 with a mixture of Spanish. Some of the influential people of the larger 

 towns are of direct Spanish origin. 



These border provinces have borne a reputation of lawlessness and 

 unfriendliness to strangers that made travel difficult if not dangerous, 

 yet our party had no experience whatever that would indicate unfriend- 

 liness and was invariably treated courteously and nearly everywhere 

 hospitably. 



ROUTES OF TRAVEL. 



The total length of regularly constructed highways in the two districts 

 is about 30 kilometers, all of which are near Azua. An excellent gravel 

 road leads northwestward from Azua for 22 kilometers. At a distance of 

 15 kilometers the road to San Juan branches to the left from this road. 

 In dry weather, when Rio Yaque is low, light automobiles are used for 

 travel from Azua to San Juan, a distance of about 75 kilometers, and also 

 to Las Matas, about 12 kilometers farther. They also traverse the road 

 from Azua eastward to the capital city when conditions are favorable, but 

 during the rainy months this road can be traveled only with difficulty even 

 by saddle horses. 



Wheeled vehicles can go from Barahona north to Cabral, thence west 

 through Las Salinas to Neiba and Barbacoa, on the north shore of Lake 

 Enriquillo, and to Duverg6, on the south shore. The distance from Bara- 

 hona to Neiba is about 55 kilometers and that to Duverge" a little less. 

 From Cabral a cart route has also been cleared northward to the vicinity of 

 Jobo and thence westward. In Barahona cars can be hired to travel all 

 these roads in dry weather. Although the natural conditions favor the 

 easy construction of excellent highways, few of those now existing are 

 worthy of the name, being merely trails littered with rocks and bristling 

 with stumps. 



Travelers go by land from Barahona to Azua by saddle, generally up 

 Rio Yaque to Quita Coraza, thence northeastward up an arroyo and across 

 a low divide to the Azua-San Juan road at a point about 10 kilometers 



