OF >SAN^TO DOMINGO. 



57 



de las Cuevas, when his troubles are practically over ; since he finds himself at last 

 on the plains, an hour's ride from Tubanos and a good half day's travel from Azua. 

 JSTobody who has crossed this pass once will be apt to repeat the trip for pleasure, 

 even with the reward in view of the picturesque beauties of the mountains south of 

 Constanza. They are certainly grand, unsurpassed, and hardly rivalled by anything I 

 have ever .seen in the Sierra l^evada; but not grand enough to warrant a second journey. 



East of the country of the Yaqui and its branch, the Jimenoa, the character of 

 the range changes rapidly. The pine forests disappear almost at once, the hills 

 just west of Yega and those of. the upper portion of the Maimon River being the last 

 bearing this class of vegetation. A peculiar feature is, that where pine grows at all 

 it makes the entire forest, and when it disappears it does so suddenly and along 

 well-defined lines. 



Towards Bonao the range becomes much narrower and the spurs are lower, the 

 valleys running up between them becoming more marked both in length and widtli. 

 The road from Yega to Cotui, running east-southeast, skirts along the extreme outer 

 margin of the hills, often making long reaches out in the plain far off from them. 

 From Cotui to Cevico a few of the minor spurs are crossed, although the latter 

 village is still further to the southward. From Cotui a trail runs to Bonao, thence 

 up a valley and across the hills where the head-waters of the Maimon and the 

 J aina ajiproach to within a few miles of each other. The mountain pass is a trifle, 

 so far as height and roughness are concerned; though in all ordinary seasons it is a 

 river of mud, worn into stepping holes by the feet of the animals that have been 

 travelling it for centuries. The first high point reached on this route, in travelling 

 from north to south, is a grassy hill-top called the Laguneta Savana ; although why 

 it should be called Laguneta, when the nearest water is hundreds of feet down in 

 the ravine, can only be explained by the rule of contraries. The view from this 

 point, in beauty, in variety, in all that goes to make the picturesque, is only equalled 

 by one point, if any, and is certainly not surpassed on the Island. Its rival is the 

 "Santo Cerro," or Holy Hill, a few miles from Yega. From the Laguneta a large 

 part of the north side of the range can be seen — all of the Yega Real or Royal 

 Meadow, so called by Columbus ; and the horizon is bounded northward by a high 

 range of ragged mountains. A friend once travelling as a tourist, not accustomed 

 to " roughing it," who had reached this point, half dead from a protracted struggle 

 through the mud of the whole mountain pass, declared to me in his first rapture that 

 he was fully repaid for the whole journey from New York to the spot. To one who 

 had been all day in the wet woods, almost out of reach of sunlight, wading through 

 mud knee deep to his horse, obliged repeatedly to dismount to extricate the poor ** 



A. r. S. — VOL. XV. o. 



