OF SANTO DOMINGO. 



125 



tlie river, in a little basin on the hill top, there is a single house, beyond which there 

 is not another inhabitant nearer than the banditti on the Haytien frontier. Very 

 soon after leaving the house the trail enters the region of gray syenite, nsually fine- 

 grained and showing much hornblende. This continues for a couple of miles to the 

 crossing of the ari'oyo Cenoba, where the northern margin of another synclinal of 

 quartz-bearing slate makes its appearance. The change in the underlyilig rocks is 

 almost always obvious on the surface by a change in the soil. The slates are usually 

 covered with a red open soil, retaining but little moisture and bearing a growth of 

 large pines with a carpeting of grass, and sometimes an undergrowth of fern. The 

 syenite, by its decomposition, produces on the other hand, a coarse sand, or perhaps 

 more jDroperly speaking, a fine gravel in which the pebbles are the less easily-decom- 

 posed ingredients of the parent rock, such as grains of quartz and occasionally crys- 

 tals of feldspar, though the latter mineral generally disintegrates rapidly. This soil 

 also bears pine, but the little ravines on the hill sides and the low places where a little 

 richer soil is accumulated by the rain washings are characterized by thickets of 

 various dicotyledonous trees, mixed with the Canna and guano palms, two species 

 belonging to the " fan palm " group, and even the manacle, one of the " cabbage 

 palms." 



After crossing the Cenoba, the route winds along a high narrow ridge, the tall 

 pines forming a constant shade, so thick do they grow, while the wind playing through 

 their branches, reminds one of the distant roar of the ocean. Every few moments 

 the tj-aveller catches sight of the deep canon of the Cenobi on one side and the 

 Cenoba on the othei", hundreds ofYeet deep, so far ofl:*that the i-iver looks like a silver 

 wire, and tall trees are dwindled to little bushes. The slopes are often precipitous, 

 and generally at such high angles that it is difficult, or nearly impossible, to climb 

 them. But wild as are these solitudes, the part that most surprises a foreigner is the 

 absence of wild animals. These black ravines look as though they ought to be the 

 favorite haunts of the grizzly bear and panther, and one who has been in their homes 

 can hardly divest himself of the undefined expectation of meeting one or the other, 

 ^^'ot even a deer is seen, timidly dashing through the trees, and the noblest game is 

 the long-legged, long-nosed, slab-sided porker, who, with ears and bristles erect, and 

 the last kink taken from his corkscrew tail, makes his Avay with a rush and a grunt 

 through the bushes ; or perchance a bull, not less timid, dashes bellowing across a 

 grass-grown flat, with a speed that has to be seen to be believed. The agouti, a 

 little animal the size of a hare, but allied to the guinea-pig, is the noblest wild quad- 

 ruped on the island, and it is so rare that in three years I have met but a single one. 



