OP SANTO DOMINGO. 



63 



Cristi range, and the fall of the Yaqui is comparatively trifling, so that the diflflcnlty 

 of obtaining a sutiicient supply would be great. The nearer we approach Monte 

 Cristi, the drier and more parched the country looks, the more abundant becomes the 

 cactus, and the more scarce and wilted the grass. I was assured by a friend, riding 

 along the road, that at that spot no rain had fallen for fourteen months previously. 



South of the river, the same causes pi'oduce like effects, modified, however, to 

 some extent, by the proximity of the mountains. Outside of the mountains the 

 country consists of a broad belt of foot hills, a curious basin, bordered by an east 

 and west range of tertiary hills, outside of which, adjoining the Yaqui, is a flat plain 

 of variable width. From Santiago to the Amina River most of the ridges of the foot 

 hills are rather narrow and steep ; gradually become broader towards San J ose de las 

 Matas. West of the Amina, towards Guaraguano they develop into broad rolling 

 hills, and finally lose themselves in beautiful level savanas at Savaneta, Below the 

 mouth of the Bao River, adjoinging the Yaqui, and for a distance of half a dozen or 

 more miles west of Santiago, there is a reasonably level tract, with excellent soil and 

 and admirably adapted for farming, if the crops in the little "conucos" or garden 

 patches scattered through it are a criterion. From this same region runs a range 

 of low hills extending westward, parallel with the river, to a point beyond Savaneta. 

 They are cut through only where the rivers Amina, Mao, Gurabo and other southern 

 tributaries of the Yaqui have forced for themselves passages. At the eastern end, 

 these hills are hardly separated or distinguishable from the foot hills proper of the 

 main range ; but fi-om the Amina to the Mao they are separated by a deep though 

 narrow valley, and from the Mao westward the separation is rendered complete by 

 the broad savanas of Savaneta and their eastern prolongations. On the Mao River, 

 at Cana Fistula and Hato Yiejo, the valley which separates the foot hills below 

 Guaraguano from the Samba Hills, as this range is called, is terraced ; four well- 

 marked levels, making an aggregate of perhaps as much as 300 feet from the river 

 to the surface of the upper terrace. The terraces seem to indicate that the Samba 

 range once acted as a dam to the river which thus widened out into a small lake. 



About Savaneta the foot hills of the main chain retreat southward, forming, as it 

 were, a sort of bay and a broad, nearly level tract, clothed with grass and dotted 

 with trees, makes a pleasing variation in the landscape and furnishes admirable, 

 -grazing ground for numerous herds of cattle and goats. This savana country 

 extends to the Haytien frontier with very little variation. The soil is gravelly and 

 the atmosphere, owing to the proximity of the mountains, is more moist than 

 further out towards the centre of the valley. 



