402 



MEXICO, CEXTEAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES 



collects all its headstream? a short distance above San Domingo, capital of the 

 Spanish republic. Its tributary, the Rio Brajuelas ("Witch River"), appears to 

 be one of the few underground streams in the island. After flowing on the 

 surface to within 12 miles of the coast, it suddenly plunges into a chasm, its 

 course being here arrested by a long cliff skirting the limestone shore. The 

 tar.ns scattered over the plain are formed by the rainwater which collects in these 

 little closed basins. The whole region stretching east of the capital to the 

 extremity of the island appears to have been formerly under water. 



But elsewhere the only lacustrine basins still surviving are those of the 

 depression which extends north of the Selle and Baburuco chains, between 

 Port-au-Prince and Neyba Bays. So level is this plain, which was formerly a 



Fig. 192 — Isthmus of the Lakes, San Domingo. 

 Scile 1 : 530.000. 







. "F^hnrViU 



12 Miles. 



marine channel, that no fluvial basin has yet been developed in it, so that the 

 surface waters find no outlet seawards. 



The largest of the flooded depressions stands about the middle of the isthmus 

 at a height of some 300 feet. Its old Indian name was Xaragua ; but the 

 Spaniards usually call it Enriquillo (" Little Henry "), from a chief who long 

 held out against the conquerors. He had taken refuge at last in an islet of the 

 lake, which is now inhabited by wild goats, and hence called Cabritos. The 

 French negroes call the lake Étang Salé, from its saline water. This closed 

 basin, formerly a marine inlet, but now cut off by a bar from the ocean, is still 

 inhabited by sharks and porpoises, and even by caymans, although these 

 saurians generally avoid saline waters. 



The lake is very deep and has an area of 170 square miles. After heavy 

 rains it occasionally forms a continuous sheet of water with another basin, the 

 Laguna de Fundo, or Etang Saumache, which forms its north-western extension 



