Abstract
A SHORT excursion into the almost unknown interior of San Domingo was made last summer by Baron H. Eggers, in the course of which he explored the mountainous district, and made a complete study of the vegetation of this elevated region; he further discovered a route along which the exploration of this little-known mountain region may be carried out with facility. The following details are taken from the traveller's own account of his journey, published in Petermann's Mitteilungen (Part 2, 1888). He left Puerto Plata, on the north coast, on May 2 last, and about the middle of the same month found himself at Jarabacoa on the Rio Yagin, having passed through Santiago on his way. While at Jarabacoa he ascended Monte Barrero (4100 feet) in the vicinity of the town. The steep slopes of this peak are covered with lofty pine woods. In the small ravines and between rocks the traveller observed many interesting plants, e.g. the dark red Fuchsia triphylla, a bright red Siphocampylos, a large Pentarhaphia, and a beautiful Cyathea; he also found a large number of hitherto unnoticed plants, including an ilex, several Compositæ, Labiatæ, &c. The animal life in these pine forests appears to be very poor: there are scarcely any insects, and a species of crow is the only bird seen. At the end of May the traveller with a small party of blacks set out in a due southerly direction for the Valle de Constanza. The valley is well watered, and its height above the sea is 3840 feet. Its inhabitants, numbering 100, are engaged in cattle-rearing, and the cultivation of beans, maize, cassava, tobacco, &c. The climate is cool, and from November to March dry; during the rest of the year it rains. The thermometer at 6 o'clock in the morning of May 28 stood at 59° F. The higher part of the surrounding mountains, which almost everywhere contain gold, though in small quantities, are quite unexplored. From the Valle de Constanza the traveller made a further excursion to the south-east to a savanna region, situated in a depression among the mountains, and called by the natives “Valle Nuevo.” The path led over forest-clad mountains with intervening gorges, and formed a continual ascent till the Valle Nuevo was reached, which is 7450 feet above the sea. One of the forest tracts which the traveller traversed was especially dense and almost impassable; beautiful mosses, ferns, orchids, lycopods, and other epiphytes were growing on the trees. The Valle Nuevo is surrounded by low hills, which form the culminating points of the range; the highest of these, viz. Pico del Valle Nuevo (8630 feet above the sea-level) was ascended by the traveller.
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Geographical Notes . Nature 37, 545–546 (1888). https://doi.org/10.1038/037545b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/037545b0