If the traveler takes the precaution to furnish himself with canned food before starting on a journey inland, he will not regret his foresight. Inns do not exist out in the country. In the larger cities, indeed, there are hotels, but all are modest establishments. Perhaps the most pretentious is the French Hotel in Santo Domingo City. In hotels which are located in important seaports or railroad termini and are frequented by travelers, the meals and accommodations are fair. In other localities the food is almost inedible to an unaccustomed palate, and the sleeping accommodations are primitive cots. Even in important towns like Moca and Azua I found the inns kept by poor mulatto women, widows with families, having one room for travelers, divided from the family apartment by a thin partition, through which all the proceedings on the other side could be followed throughout the night. The difficulty of land transportation explains why, with the exception of three cities in the Cibao, all important towns are located on the seacoast. It also makes plain why water transportation is preferred to travel by land, and the inhabitants of the north and south await the bi-weekly steamer rather than make the trip overland, which in the most favorable cases will take about three days. The roads and trails are used for travel locally or when boat connections are not convenient or feasible, and for mail transportation. The following are the principal highways: 1. Road from Santo Domingo to the Cibao, by way of Bonao. There are three roads from Santo Domingo City to the Cibao, the most westerly one being the Bonao trail, the most easterly one the Sillon de la Viuda and the middle one the Gallinas trail. The Bonao road leaves Santo Domingo by way of Duar Avenue and San Carlos and ascends gently in a northwesterly direction through slightly rolling land to the Santa Rosa plain, which it traverses. As far as Los Alcarrizos it has been improved, but further on it is merely a dirt road without drainage and becomes one long slough in rainy weather. On the Jobo savanna the road divides; the eastern branch runs along a range of hills and the western branch over to the Jaina River, where it passes the site of the old mining town of Buenaventura, of which only a few vestiges of walls remain. Whichever of the two branches the traveler takes, he will be sorry he did not choose the other, for they are equally bad. The branches meet on the plain of Las Nasas, from where the highway continues through wooded lands and natural meadows, crossing the Jaina River three times and the Guananitos River nine times. The soil is a rich, soft loam, pure vegetable detritus, and the frequent rains and the absence of drainage make this part of the road very difficult at all seasons. After crossing a stretch of beautiful savanna, known as Sabana del Puerto, the ascent of a range of the central mountain system begins. The road makes many windings along the