LETTER VIII.

Dominican Republic.

SUMMARY OF STAPLES, EXPORTS, AND PRODUCTS.

“I came across a copy of Rousseau this morning,” said an American scholar, whom we had met before; and he added, “I should not have been more surprised had I seen it drop out of the clear sky.”

There are but very few books in Dominicana of any kind, and no reliable statistics. The government on the south side of the island appoints custom-house officers on the north side, allowing them little or nothing for their services. The consequence is, these officers pay themselves out of the import duties, and hence few returns are accurately made.

In the essay on the “Gold Fields of St. Domingo,”[D] to which I have previously referred, I find the following summary of staples, exports, and products, which, while it is but little more than the reader will have already gathered, may serve at least to confirm what has been said:

“The chief products of the Dominican part of the island are now mahogany, tobacco, indigo, sugar, hides, bees-wax, cocoa-nuts, oranges, lemons, some coffee and some fustic, satin and many other kinds of wood; but the trade in those articles now is not very considerable. There is a vast quantity of _mahogany_ in the territory, standing in groves on the mountains and the plains, and scattered over the valleys and along the rivers and streams. The best mahogany in the West Indies grows on this island. Some of these groves and trees are truly magnificent, growing straight and to a great height. The best is now found inland, as it has been nearly all already stripped off the coasts and cut away from near the mouths of the principal rivers and around the bays, where it was more accessible and of easier and cheaper carriage to market. It has been extensively used for building purposes by the inhabitants of the cities, more especially by those of the interior, the lumber now used in the coast cities being carried thither from the States, and exchanged for mahogany and other products. It is only of late years that the best mahogany cuts have begun to come to market, as heretofore they were carried to Europe, where they brought a better price.

“_Tobacco_ is now one of the principal exports. But little of it, however, finds its way to this market. There is a large quantity of it raised by the residents on the Spanish part of the island, particularly about Santiago, on the Royal Plains, and in the neighborhood of Maccrere. It is brought down in bales or ceroons on mules to Port Platte, and shipped on board Dutch bottoms to Holland and the Germanic states. There is also some cultivated about St. Domingo City and around the Bay of Samana. But the cultivation and traffic in this commodity compared with what it might be, were those fertile plains and rich savannahs settled by an industrious and enterprising people, is scarcely as a drop to the bucket. There are regions in the territory where tobacco can be grown equal to the best Havana brands, and, on account of the fecundity of the soil, with even much less labor.

“There are still some good _sugar_ plantations in the Dominican territory, chiefly about St. Domingo City and to the west as far as Azua, but they are ‘few and far between.’ The best sugar is now produced in the region about Azua and Manuel, and is of a very superior quality. The country people cultivate and manufacture, each on his own account, and, in his small way, pack it in ceroons and carry it down to the coast on mules. Indeed, the term ‘cultivate’ is not appropriately used in this connection, as the cane grows up wild and spontaneously from season to season, and from year to year in many places, and the inhabitants have nothing whatever to do but cut and grind it in wooden mills and boil day after day. The writer is not informed that they use the sugar-mills in use in other sugar-growing countries in their operations. It is easy to conceive what a source of incalculable wealth the culture of this staple there would become, if in the hands of a skilful and enterprising population.

“The trade in _hides_, compared with other products, is quite important, which arises from the fact that a majority of the population pursue grazing for a livelihood, and the rapidity with which stock increases and the little care required in preserving it. Owing to the heat and abundant oxygen which the atmosphere contains, the flesh of the beef, unless properly salted and cured, keeps but a day or two, so that the inhabitants are obliged to kill almost every other day. This now keeps up and supplies the traffic. Perhaps three-fifths of the population of the interior country and towns are now engaged in grazing.

“Compared also with other staples, the trade in _bees-wax_ is considerable. The island producing the greatest quantity and variety of flowering plants, shrubs, and trees, bees exist there in incalculable and immense swarms. The prairies of the West in June furnish no parallel to the flowers that perpetually unfold on these mountains, plains, and valleys. The writer has been informed by a gentleman who recently visited Dominica [Dominicana], that so strong and rank was the odor from the flowers in passing over the Royal Plains, that it so jaded his olfactories as to cause his head to ache, and almost made him sick. The swarms build in the rocks, in the trees and logs, under the branches, and even on the ground. Those who pursue this branch of business collect the deposits in tubs, wash out the honey in the brooks by squeezing the combs, and afterwards melt the wax into cakes, or run it into vessels preparatory to carrying it to market. Those engaged in this vocation are chiefly women. The trade in this article, however, bears no proportion to its production and abundance. They have recently begun to save some of the honey, and a small quantity of it has found its way to this market. The reason why it has not been hitherto saved is owing to the great cost of vessels to collect it in, as wooden-ware of all kinds has to be taken there from the States.

“There are some exports of _cocoa-nuts_, _oranges_, _lemons_, _limes_, and other fruit, all of which are both cultivated and grow wild in vast abundance on the island, and are not excelled by any in the Antilles, or on the Spanish main. The labor necessary to collect them, prepare them for shipment, and carry them to the ports is not there. From this cause, indeed, the whole Spanish end of the island languishes in sloth, and its transcendent wealth goes year after year incontinently to waste.

“There is some _coffee_, which grows wild in abundance through the island and on the mountains, and is collected and shipped. After the abandonment of the coffee plantations, the trees continued to grow thick on them, and finally spread into the woods and on to the mountains, where they now grow wild in great quantities. Lacking the proper culture, its quality is not the best, but the climate and soil is capable of producing it unexcelled by any in Porto Rico or any of the West Indies or Brazil. The writer is informed, however, that there are a few coffee plantations under culture about St. Domingo City. The labor of cultivating coffee and sugar in Dominica [Dominicana], with all the modern appliances of civilization, would be absolutely insignificant compared with the rich returns it would bring the planter.

“In addition to the staples and exports above-mentioned, the island produces a vast number of other valuable commodities, among which we may make notable mention of its lumber and different varieties of valuable wood other than mahogany. The pitch or yellow pine grows in vast abundance at the head of the streams and on the mountains, dark and apparently impenetrable forests of which cover their sides and tops. This lumber, with very little expenditure of labor and capital, could be brought down the streams during their rises almost any month in the year, to the principal cities. When the reader is made acquainted with the stubborn fact that all the lumber used on the north side of the island, except the little mahogany that is sawed there and at and about St. Domingo City, is carried there at great cost from the States, and sold at a price fabulous to our lumber-dealers here, he will measurably comprehend the undeveloped resources of Dominica [Dominicana] in that interest alone. Pine lumber sells at Port Platte for $60 per thousand feet. It has then to be carried back to Santiago, Moco, and La Vega on mules, where it sells for $100 per thousand, while those mountains and the banks of their streams stand thickly clothed with it, in its majestic and sublime abundance! There is but one saw-mill on the Spanish end of the island near St. Domingo City, and that not now in operation. They saw by hand a little mahogany at a cost of 80 cents a cut, ten feet long; and when an individual wishes to build a house at Santiago, Moco, La Vega, Cotuy, or any of the interior towns, he has to begin to collect his lumber a year beforehand!... In consequence of this scarcity and cost of lumber, those of smaller means build their floors of brick and flags, and roof their houses with the same material or with the leaf of the palm-tree. Besides the pine, there is the oak, the fustic and satin woods, compache, and an indefinite variety of others. Some of the hardest and most durable vegetable fibre in the world is to be found on the island.”

It may appear somewhat strange to the reader that mahogany should be used for building purposes, but so it is. The art of veneering is but little known, house furniture consisting generally of solid mahogany.