HE LABORED ON THIS STATION FOURTEEN YEARS AND A HALF. HE WAS BELOVED BY ALL WHO KNEW HIM; AND DIED ON THE 25TH OF AUGUST, 1853, UNIVERSALLY REGRETTED. 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.