LA MULATA TO BAH I A HONDA 289 



shot through the welter of white and green into 

 the blue of safety. The long even swell of the 

 open sea made easier going and soon we entered the 

 harbor of Bahia Honda and made the schooner's 

 side. Lesmes was right ; the pilot had been neces- 

 sary. Without him we would have been obliged 

 to await better weather conditions before attempt- 

 ing that reef passage. 



Bahia Honda is a typical example of the ** flask'* 

 or "bottle "-shaped harbors so characteristic of 

 the Cuban shore. Many of these peculiar harbors 

 are met in the eastern end of the island where a 

 series of elevated reefs often provide a strip of 

 highland adjacent to the shore with a lower drain- 

 age area behind. The narrow deep harbor en- 

 trance (the neck of the bottle) represents a cafion 

 eroded down by a river during the course of a 

 gradual elevation of the shore; the open wide 

 expanse of the harbor (the body of the flask) re- 

 presents a wider inner valley or a drainage sink, 

 the present condition finally resulting from a sub- 

 sidence of the coast and drowning of the valley. 

 No better demonstration of the process involved 

 could be imagined than that presented by the 



Yumuri Valley and the cut through the limestone 

 19 



