Agricultural conditions.--Land titles and measures.--Wet and arid regions.--Exports.--Sugar.--Cacao.--Tobacco.--Coffee.--Tropical fruits.--Forest products.--Insects.--Reptiles.--Fishery.--Birds. --Cattle raising. Of all the islands visited by Columbus none impressed him so favorably as Santo Domingo. His enthusiasm is reflected in the glowing description given in his letter to his friend and patron, Luis de Santangel, dated February 15, 1493, of which the following forms part: "In it (la Espanola) there are many havens on the sea, coast, incomparable with any others I know in Christendom--and plenty of rivers, so good and great that it is a marvel. The lands there are high, and in it there are very many ranges of hills and most lofty mountains, incomparably beyond the Island of Cetrefrey (Teneriffe); all most beautiful in a thousand shapes and all accessible, and full of trees of a thousand kinds, so lofty that they seem to reach the sky. And I am assured that they never lose their foliage, as may be imagined, since I saw them as green and as beautiful as they are in Spain in May, and some of them were in flower, some in fruit, some in another stage, according to their kind. And the nightingale was singing, and other birds of a thousand sorts, in the month of November, round about the way I was going. There are palm trees of six or eight species, wondrous to see for their beautiful variety; but so are the other trees and fruits and plants therein. There are wonderful pine groves and very large plains of verdure, and there is honey and many kinds of birds and great diversity of fruits. There are many mines of metals in the earth, and the population is of inestimable number. Espanola is a marvel; the mountains and hills, and plains, and fields, and the soil so beautiful and rich for planting and sowing, for breeding cattle of all sorts, for building towns and villages. There could be no believing, without seeing, such harbors as are here, as well as the many and great rivers and excellent waters, most of which contain gold. In the trees and fruits and plants there is great diversity from those of Juana (Cuba). In this island there are many species and great mines of gold and other metals."