64 



ON THE TOPOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY 



But little need be said about the Samba Hills. They are a low chain of dry 

 gravelly and sandy hills, two to four hundred feet high, and, as above stated, 

 occupy an isolated position in the valley. They are composed of the same Tertiary 

 rock as that underlying the valley itself, and are entirely destitute of Avater except 

 where the rivers from the main range have cut narrow channels through them. 

 They are covered with an almost continuous tangled thicket of thorny bushes, with 

 a plentiful sprinkling of cactus ; and are so nearly destitute of grass as to be almost 

 useless for grazing and utterly valueless for any other purpose. The narrow strip 

 of land between the range and the river is barely, if at all better than the hills 

 themselves. It is equally dry, equally barren and, except along the rivers, it is 

 entirely uninhabited. Some small spots in the river bottom are cultivated, and 

 others might be, if irrigated. 



In the region just described are the two most imjaortant rivers of the Republic. 

 The Yuna river drains all the region east of Santiago, and receives two or three large 

 tributaries. The i:)rincipal of these is the Camu, flowing past the village of La 

 Yega, itself 70 to 80 miles long, and which drains more than half the valley and 

 the adjoining hills. The Yuna rises further east than the Camu, and like all of the 

 streams flowing out of these mountains, first pursues a general northerly course, 

 afterwards bending abruptly to the eastward. This river is easily navigable at 

 present for twenty to thirty miles from its mouth, and canoes loaded with tobacco 

 descend every day, returning with merchandise for the store-keepers of Moca and 

 Macoris. I have descended it from Cotui to the mouth of the Camu in a canoe, 

 when the water was more than usually low, and Mr. A. Pennell, on a previous 

 occasion, ascended to the same point, from the mouth. His report is that large 

 trading canoes have no difficulty in ascending to El Platanal, just above the mouth 

 of the Camu, although a few shallow places exist. I found that over my part of the 

 route, no obstructions exist which cannot be overcome by the simplest of engineering 

 contrivances. In most cases, all that will be necessary will be an ordinary wing- 

 dam to throw the water into a narrower channel or the occasional rapids. The river 

 is usually about 100 yards wide and, at the ford at Cotui, is three feet deep in the 

 channel, with an average of one foot on the rapids, at extreme low water, in the di-y 

 season. I have not explored it in detail above Cotui, but am familiar with much of 

 it, and my opinion, backed by all the testimony that I have been able to collect, is, 

 that the same apjiliances which will be required below Cotui, can be successfully 

 used above, so as to give at least a hundred miles of navigable river on the Yuna 

 and its tributary, the Maiinon, certainly as far as, and perhaps some distance abov^, 



