OF SAXTO DOMIXCiO. . 75 



neighborhood, and the difficulty of explaining the existence of the cellar in iinj better 

 manner. Immediately below Monte Pueblo, on the east side of the Jaina, the savanas 

 begin, here high rounded hills, which fall gradually into the savanas of Porto Rico 

 and Santa Rosa. 



West of the river, and entirely across to the I^igua, the hills are of pretty nearly 

 the same contour ; but they are mostly wooded. This tract is well watered by a 

 succession of pretty little creeks emptying into the Jaina, and most of them are 

 lined with settlements, a house and its accompanying " conuco " being found at 

 almost every turn, their presence indicated at a distance by the inevitable cluster of 

 cocoa-palm. These hills end rather abruptly in an elevated plateau, where thei-e is a 

 little cluster of houses called Cobre, which owes its existence to the effort — unsuccess- 

 ful, however — to establish here a mining town. The principal condition of success was 

 unfortunately wanting. I^obody has been able to find a mine of copper, or anything 

 else. 



Similar attempts, with no better results, have also been made on the Upper Nigiia 

 River, about nine miles above San Cristobal, where a few houses were built and a 

 trail cut. The houses have nearly fallen to pieces, but the road remains, and, poor 

 as it is, it is a boon to the scattered mountaineers who live through these hills. The 

 jN^igua River is a small stream with a wide, gravelly channel, often dry, except in 

 holes, for several months, and again, during the rain, a torrent that nol)ody dare cross. 

 At Tablasas it forces its way through and over a bed of limestone, forming a fine group 

 of falls and rapids. Further down the bed is usually a dry gravel beach. The l^eauti- 

 ful spring of "La Toma," (San Tomas?) three miles above San Cristobal, from which 

 pours a never-failing body of water, that gave me, on measurement, fifteen square 

 feet of cross section, fully accounts for the phenomenon. This is one of the most 

 beautiful little spots on the Island. The spring is a basin of over twenty feet across, 

 eight or ten feet deep, as clear as crystal, and boils out from subterranean channels, 

 some of them as large as a man's body. It is at the foot of a steep hill, the part over 

 the pool being a precipice of white limestone, overgrown with moss, festooned with 

 vines, and with a graceful cluster of fern springing from every crevice. On one side 

 is a magnificent clump of bamboo overhanging the pool, while on the other, large 

 trees shut out the sun, and almost the light of day. The water runs down a narrow 

 valley for a few hundred yards before it enters the main channel of the ISfigua River. 

 At a couple of hiuidred yards below the spring was a fall of some twelve or fifteen 

 feet, and this was taken advantage of (tradition says) by the Spaniards, to build a fine 

 dam of mason work. The water was thus carried ofi'by a ditch, partly to a mill, ruins of 

 which still remain, and part was carried thi'ough a hill by a- tunnel, of which some traces 



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