SANTA LUCIA TO AZUCAR 71 



tion below charge the dirty water of many shallow 

 pools. An army corps of fiddler-crabs scuttled 

 about in the slimy mush and a fetid odor thick- 

 ened the air. Clouds of mosquitoes and jejenes 

 added to the discomfort of our half-hour's delay, 

 and the heat was appalling. 



We finally embarked in a big ore wagon for our 

 slow journey inland. Passing the swamp region, 

 which is but a narrow coastal belt, we entered a 

 semi-open prairie country of gentle undulations. 

 There many royal palms caress the eye and groves 

 of live-oak, scattered about in park-like fashion, 

 suggest the hand of a landscape architect. Lack 

 of communication prevents this unpeopled stretch 

 of rich country from becoming a garden spot of 

 Cuba. This prairie belt is about two miles wide, 

 and then begins the hilly region of pine-bearing 

 elevations — the typical pine lomas already noted 

 that flank the central sierras on both sides. These 

 hills are not regularly aligned, but suggest a once 

 elevated plateau, now eroded into a confused 

 jumble of rounded knobs of from one hundred to 

 five hundred feet. They are composed of soft 

 friable sandstone and shale, iron-stained and dis- 

 posed in strata much tilted, distorted, and twisted, 



