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The temperature here was only five or six degrees lower than 
that on the lowlands, but the clearer and more bracing air made the 
difference seem much more. A mountain 3,000 feet high to the 
west of camp was ascended, and in a patch of dense humid woods 
near its summit many interesting plants were found. It was not 
until elevations of over 2,500 feet were reached that the flora 
became really interesting, the lower reaches exhibiting a vegeta- 
tion which became most monotonous by its constant repetition. 
It is for this reason that I am desirous of visiting some of the 
higher mountains, some of which are to the south of the savannah 
region and could be plainly seen from San Michel, their summits 
being mantled with clouds. The highest mountains occur, ac- 
cording to colonial records, I am told, in the Cibao and Cordillera 
ranges of the Republic of Santo Domingo, where elevations of 
9,000 to 10,000 feet are said to occur, and in the southern part of 
the Republic of Haiti. 
Returning again to this mountain, I would say that its lower 
reaches were bare of trees and covered with guinea-grass, Panicum 
maximum, and so steep were its sides that it was necessary to pull 
one’s-self up by grasping the tussocks of grass — the angle was 
surely 45°. e left-hand slope of this ridge, up which we were 
climbing, had an angle of about 30° from the perpendicular ; 
c my surprise, upon this was located a garden of beans. 
It is difficult to understand how these people clear and plant such 
steep slopes. Mt. Piment, nearly northwest across the valley 
from camp, was also visited, and its summit found to be 2,550 feet. 
This showed me how useless it was to rely upon the judgment of 
the natives as to the height of mountains, for the mountain people 
assured me that Mt. Piment was the highest point around there, 
and yet it was 450 feet lower than the mountain we ascended the 
day before, and which was plainly in sight from Mt. Piment. The 
summit of this mountain was flat and covered with a growth of a 
fern, a species of Preridium, which gave quite a northern aspect to 
the surroundings. Several melastomads were also found. 
any of the mountains in this region are bare of all arbores- 
cent vegetation, and in its place is a dense growth of guinea- 
grass, due to the improvident methods of the mountain people. 
