Geographic Character: West Indies. 125 
Gonaives is enclosed by the western peninsulas, and is an immense semicircular 
bay with a coast line of two hundred miles. Samana Bay on the northeast, 
Barahona Bay on the south coast and Manzanilla Bay on the north are also 
conspicuous indentations. Approached from the ocean, the island presents 
a huge mass of mountains rising precipitously from the sea, extending in all 
directions and apparently jumbled up in hopeless confusion. The mountains 
consist of lofty forest-covered peaks, resembling the Alleghanies, and Alps or 
the Pyrenees, but with this difference, that they are always without snow. 
There are four ranges of mountains which run in a general east-and-west 
direction, as follows: The northern fragment is the Monte Cristi Range; the 
main orographic section, the Sierra Cibao, consists of lofty mountains, with 
the third range as an outlier toward the south-west and the fourth mass is 
formed by the tall mountains of the southwestern peninsula. Between these 
ranges lie extensive fertile valleys, threaded by streams of limpid water. 
Many of these streams debouch on the plains which fringe the sea-coast, and 
irrigate those coastal areas which are more or less arid in condition, being 
shut off from the prevailing winds and rains by lofty mountain summits. 
There are many central valley plains in the island. The largest of these, Iying 
between the Monte Cristi Range and the Cordillera Cibao, extends from the sea 
at the Haitian border to Samana Bay, its eastern prolongation. The western 
portion, watered by the Yaqui, is an arid region covered by chaparral, where 
arborescent opuntias and cereuses abound. The windward area, or eastern 
division, watered by the Yuna, is covered by beautiful deciduous plants. South 
of the Cibao Range is the extensive plain of Seylo, covered in part by open 
prairie and forest. The terraced Caribbean coast supports a belt of forest 
‚averaging twelve miles in width. The tension line between coastal forest and 
inland prairie is park-like in aspect, carpeted by green grass and dotted by 
clumps of trees. At Azua, the whole neighborhood is barren, dry and thorny. 
The only lakes Assuei and Enriquillo are salt, occupying the east-and-west 
depression which separates the southern peninsula of Haiti from the main portion 
of the island. This basin, formerly an oceanic inlet, is said to be inhabited 
still by sharks, porpoises and even crocodiles. 
€ configuration of the Haitian division of the island appears an agglo- 
meration of mountains, hills. and valleys most irregular in form. There are 
precipices, deep hollows, vales apparently without outlet, but with water 
glistening below. The whole of the republic is more or less mountainous. 
The Hotte Mountains are most noted and they form a continuation of the 
great axial sierra of the island. There are many beautiful slopes and valleys. 
Those of Port-au-Prince, Gonaives, Artibonite, Arcahaie, Port Margot, Leogane, 
Aux Cayes are the most famous. Some large islands are attached to the coast, 
viz., Tortuga, L’Ile-a-Vache, Gonaive, Beata and Saona. — The coast of Santo 
Doimiigo is fringed in many places by coral reefs, that are developed inside 
the bays. Samana Bay is more than half filled by them, while Gonaive Island is 
connected on both sides with the shore by reefs broken by a number of passages. 
