FROM CORDOVA TO CATHAY.

it lies out of the track of travel, its very site was forgotten, and re-discovered
only recently. It was, in fact, absolutely forgotten until the year 1891, when
the writer of this sketch searched it out.

The nearest port is Puerto Plata, about sixty miles away. At this place I
disembarked, one day in May, 1891. The entrance to the harbor is very nar-
row; but once-inside, the steamer finds secure anchorage near the base of the
Silver Mountain.

Two days after arriving at Puerto Plata, I found a small coasting vessel,
called a goleta, the captain of which promised to drop me at Isabella, as he passed
on his way to the logwood district. The American Consul secured for me
letters of introduction to residents in the country near, and the manager of an
estate situated near Isabella gave me orders on his mayor-domo for shelter and
assistance.

From Puerto Plata down the coast the scenery is extremely picturesque; near
Cape Isabella great gray cliffs of limestone stand boldly out, like battlements
of vast fortifications, with a sea of verdure behind and crescent-shaped beaches
of snow-white sand inter-
vening. The ancient city
itself was situated on a plain
which terminates in a bluff
of coral conglomerate,
twenty to thirty feet high,
facing the west and the
ocean. A line of foaming
breakers seems to forbid
approach, but beyond them
is a shallow harbor, off the
mouth of a river which is
known as the Bajo-Bonico.
The goleta was called the
“ Olivia,’ a pretty name

fee eae for a very filthy vessel;

(The Haytien River on which Isabella was founded). and she was manned by

four black men, the black-

est of whom was the captain. The heavy seas and the nauseous ship-odors
made me very ill, and I had to endure six hours of condensed misery before the
breakers off Isabella were weathered, and the little harbor gained. As we
anchored, half a mile from shore, the rain came down in torrents, and for an
hour we were huddled together in the sweltering hole they called the “ cabin.”
After a while the rain ceased, my effects were loaded into the small boat, and we
made for the river. We could see no entrance, but we finally ran the breakers,
and after bumping on the sands several times, were well inside. Then we found