iv e ly ; and toward the west lower ridges and broken
plateaus continue to the great bay, while still farther
south and near the coast a longer and loftier range
runs out into the peninsula to Cape Tiburon. From
a densely wooded region of hills near Cape Beata, it
begins with the Sierra Baburuco and rises to a height
of 8900 feet in the Sierra de la Selle, sending a spur
to the north-west toward Port-au-Prince, which culminates
in Mont Noir, or Prince’s Peak, 5000 feet
high. T h e western extension is interrupted by a
rather deep depression, and then springs up in the
Montagnes de la Hotte, of which the highest peak
is 7400 feet, and ends abruptly in the Tiburon headland,
2870 feet above the sea.
Not only is Haiti the most mountainous of the
Antilles, but it is the only one that has much in
the way of rivers. It has little of that porous shell
of limestone which we have encountered in the other
islands, and in which the copious rainfall gets dissipated
and lo s t ; but it is endowed with a rugged
structure of rock, not primitive, indeed, but of the
secondary formations,— slate, conglomerate, and
metamorphic masses, sometimes broken by protruding
syenite. Between the great central mountain
ridge and the Monte Cristi range on the north,
stretching all the way from Manzanillo Bay to the
Bay of Samana, one hundred and forty miles, is
that broad valley which Columbus called L a V e g a
Real. Through its western part flows the great
Y aqui River, coming down from the heights of
Cibao and turning westward to the bay at Monte
Cristi’s feet. A slight elevation near the middle of