OF SANTO DOMIXG'O. 



55 



pally in the raising of horses, cattle, goats and pigs, the cnltivation of their little 

 garden-patches and an occasional hnnting excnrsion into the mountains after wild 

 cattle and pigs. The women, besides their very simple domestic dnties, find abundant 

 employment in plaiting the leaf of the " guana" palm into ceroons for tobacco, which 

 command a ready sale in Santiago. 



East of this region is the first pass that is used habitually in crossing the range. 

 One route does exist, now never used however, fi'om near Saraneta to the Artibonite, 

 thence to Banica. A second, used very rarely, is along the canon of the Bao, thence 

 to San J nan. The present one is by way of Jarabacoa, across the head-waters of the 

 Jimenoa River to the Valley of Constanza, thence down the Rio del Medio to the 

 valley above Azua. The route is terribly rough, crossing high ridges and dee]) 

 ravines constantly. From Santiago, the road first winds over I'olling hills, skirting 

 the Yaqui River, sometimes at the water's edge, sometimes climbing a steep ascent 

 or plunging down a rapid slope to the village, or rather neighborhood called Tabera. 

 Here, scattered over a few thousand acres of nearly level land, is a little world of 

 itself, shut in by the high mountains behind and the wall of hills in fi'ont. Fi-om 

 Tabera, the trail climbs to the top of a pine-covered ridge and winds apparently to 

 every point of the compass until the traveller suddenl}^ finds himself on the end of a 

 high hill overlooking a beautiful valley several miles across, backed b}^ an unbroken 

 range of mountains. In this valley lies the pretty little village of Jarabacoa, the 

 centre of a population of perhaps a thousand souls, half of whom live in the village 

 itself. It is directly on the bank of the Yaqui River — here a brawling torrent twenty 

 yards wide — its bed strewn with granite boulders, often tons in weight, witnesses of 

 its prowess during the rains. The Jimenoa River which rises not more than ten 

 miles southwest of Jarabacoa describes a course of thirty-five or forty miles long, 

 nearly in a cii'cle, and empties into the Yaqui but half a dozen miles from the town. 

 A mile out of Jarabacoa, the trail crosses a stream of some size, a branch of the 

 Jimenoa and then almost immediately commences to ascend the ridge. A climb of 

 three miles brings the traveller to the top whence he can see on a clear day, not only 

 the village and valley at his feet, but an interminable sea of mountains, the Cibao 

 Yalley, and beyond it, the north range, indistinct in the hazy distance. To the west, 

 almost within reach, so close does it seem, stands the noble peak of the Rucillo, its 

 top almost always enveloped in cloud ; while to the south and east the eye becomes 

 bewildered in trying to reduce the innumerable ridges to some kind of an intelligible 

 system. The ridge along which the road runs is one of the most crooked I huxe ever 

 had occasion to traverse, though even it hardly justifies the very })octical description 



