or SANTO DOMINGO. 



119 



hills, but perched on the summit of a ridge which, like all the others in the vicinit}'^, 

 is usually very narrow. The traveller, approaching it from either side, rides along 

 miles of mountain crests, generally surrounded by forest, but with little occasional 

 glimpses of deep canons on either side ; the black sierra to the south, a labyrinth of 

 peaks piled one above the other, and on the north the broad expanse of the Yaqui 

 Valley, not even shut off by the Samba Hills, which, too low to impede the view, lie 

 stretched along in the middle-ground of the picture. If approaching from the east, 

 the scene gradually changes to open grassy hills, with one ridge beyond another, 

 over which the red line of the road can be seen winding like a ribbon over the green 

 surface. Suddenly he finds himself in full view of the village, hardly a quarter of a 

 mile distant — a city set upon a hill, and yet completely hidden. Almost adjoining 

 the town is a branch of the Amina River, its canon three or four hundred feet deep, 

 and so narrow that a man can be heard distinctly calling across fi'om hill to hill. A 

 trail winds down the hill-side, disclosing at the bottom a pretty little stream of 

 twenty feet across, of clear, cold mountain water. The pebbles in its bed show only 

 slates ; but in the main Amina, pebbles and boulders of syenite pi'edominate. At 

 Los Corales, southwest of San Jose, there is much slate, here altered to a coarse, 

 semi-jaspery structure. From San J ose a but little-used trail crosses the mountains 

 by a pass at the head of the Bao River. 'No member of the survey has been across 

 this route, although I once attempted it. From the stories of co})per mines near the 

 summit of the mountains, it is probable that a tongue of the sedimentarj^ rock extends 

 eastward that far, or possibly the southern border of the eruptive mass may here bend 

 to the north. The former is the more probable hypothesis. The tradition exists 

 that nearly half a century ago, when the country was subject to Haytien rule, a 

 party of Haytiens spent a number of months at the head of the river working a 

 copper-mine. A fatal epidemic breaking out among them the}^ abandoned the spot 

 for a time, and before they were able to resume operations political changes, or some 

 other insuperable obstacle, interposed and prevented them. A few old men still 

 remain who, as boys, accompanied the party, and from one of these I obtained the 

 story. 



From San Jose north, the trail crosses the Amina, and then winds alono- the 

 summit and side of a long ridge west of the river to its end, descending at Bohio 

 Viego to the Guanajuma, where it strikes the Camino Real or main road. Along 

 this route, the gravelly beds of San Jose very soon give place to shale of a more or 

 less magnesian or talcose character. The soil is usually red, and the surface is 

 covered with heavy pine timber, with no undergrowth except grass. In one place 

 the shale is Avhite, though usually it is stained by oxide of iron. A little gray sand- 



