BAHIA HONDA TO CABANAS 297 



Alas for the little tree ducks. Our tenderest 

 care could not save them. Their ambitions to 

 climb the companionway stairs and range the 

 deck proved to be their undoing. We dropped 

 their limp fluffy little bodies overboard and watched 

 them drift away with the tide. 



As further stay at Bahia Honda seemed useless, 

 we decided to proceed at once to Cabanas. Bartsch, 

 Clapp, Rodriguez, and I landed again, and at the 

 town caught the motor-bus that makes a daily 

 run to Cabaiias, arriving at our destination 

 about 5 o'clock. The country traversed en route 

 takes on more and more the aspects of the Havana 

 region. Low hills of an impure limestone capping 

 a loose disintegrated serpentine are a feature. 

 The decomposition of this rock provides a soil of 

 high fertility as evidenced by many royal palms, 

 ceibas, poinciana, and the dense foliaged Ficus 

 religiosa — the latter grown for ornamental pur- 

 poses. Sugar estates appear along the road, and 

 the indication of prosperous farming is every- 

 where sensed. The same range of rather high 

 wooded hills that we recalled as beginning near 

 Guajaibon and continuing unbrokenly to the east 

 still forms the dominant feature of the landscape. 



