The traveler who visits Puerto Plata carries away with him pleasant memories of the clean city, its comfortable clubs, its hospitable citizens and its beautiful surroundings.
Other towns of the province are Altamira, 18 miles southwest of Puerto Plata, astride a hill rising in the middle of a valley of the coast range of mountains; Blanco, on the coast 20 miles northwest of Puerto Plata and 10 miles east of the site of Isabela, the first city in the new world; and Bajabonico, 10 miles southwest of Puerto Plata, a village called into being by the building of the Central Dominican Railroad.
PROVINCE OF MONTE CRISTI
San Fernando de Monte Cristi, 196 miles northwest of Santo Domingo City, the capital of Monte Cristi province, was founded during the government of Ovando by sixty Spanish families, and after giving promise of prosperity decayed with the rest of the colony. It was supported for a time by a brisk contraband trade which sprang up with the Dutch and other nations and to put a stop to which the town was destroyed in 1606 like Puerto Plata and the inhabitants transferred to Monte Plata, to the south of the central mountain range. In 1750 a royal dispensation granted it the right to free trade with all nations for a period of ten years and it began to attain prominence as a port, but the wars with the Haitians, the War of Restoration with the Spaniards and the many civil wars have retarded its progress. Only in the last few years has it received a new impetus. The town is built about a mile from the shore, with which it is connected by a tiny horse car. About thirty houses are connected with a private system of waterworks which supplies water from the Yaque river. Situated as it is in the arid region of Santo Domingo the city bears much resemblance to some of the western towns of the United States.
Other towns are Guayubín, 24 miles, Sabaneta, 36 miles, and Monción, 46 miles southeast of Monte Cristi; and Dajabón, 22 miles, Restauración, 40 miles, and Copey, 12 miles southwest of Monte Cristi. They are all small villages. Dajabon, founded towards the middle of the eighteenth century, is situated on the east bank of the Massacre river, which constitutes the Haitian boundary, and is one of the inland ports of entry. Restauración is peopled largely by French speaking negroes from Haiti.
PROVINCE OF AZUA
Azua de Compostela, about 83 miles west of Santo Domingo City, was founded by Diego de Velazquez in 1504 at a point four miles southwest of its present location. It was first called Compostela after a Galician official who held some property here, but the Indian name of the region prevailed. Hernando Cortez, later the conqueror of Mexico, settled here and for some five years was the notary of the town. At first prosperous, the city soon suffered a serious decline, but was beginning to revive when on August 18, 1751, it was entirely destroyed by an earthquake. The inhabitants then transferred the town to its present location on the western bank of the Via River. The ruins of the old city are still visible near the hamlet called Pueblo Viejo, Old Town. Azua was destroyed by fire three times in the Haitian wars: in 1805, by order of the Haitian emperor Dessalines, in 1844 by President Herard, and in 1849 by President Soulouque. To-day it is the most important town in the southwestern part of the Republic. Situated in an arid region, like Monte Cristi, it is similar to many a town in New Mexico and Arizona, with hot, sunny, shadeless streets beginning and ending in space, one story houses, a great plain of dark green beyond the town and purple mountains in the distance. The houses here are of wood or stone and with thatched or zinc roofs. There is a large new church, the images in which seem to be very old and do not distinguish themselves for beauty. The town is about three miles inland from the port, but a branch of a narrow gauge plantation railroad connects the city with the wharf and on steamer days a passenger car makes several trips. Azua is famous throughout Santo Domingo for its excellent "dulce de leche," a kind of milk taffy, which is well made elsewhere in the Republic, but is better in Azua as it is here prepared from goat's milk.
San Juan de la Maguana, 48 miles northwest of Azua, was founded in 1504 by Diego Velazquez in the beautiful Maguana valley where the Indian chief Caonabo had his residence, became almost extinct in 1606, but revived in 1764 with the establishment of new cattle ranches in the vicinity. During the Haitian wars it was burned repeatedly. Near the town is a curious relic of Indian times called Anacaona's circus or "el corral de los Indios," consisting of large stones laid in a huge circle, and in the center a strange cylindrical stone, carved with Indian figures, which is supposed to have served as the throne of the Indian queen Anacaona.
Las Matas de Farfán, 64 miles northwest of Azua, was established in 1780 and suffered greatly during the wars with the Haitians. Like the other villages of the Maguana valley its chief industry is stockraising. Bánica, 75 miles northwest of Azua, on the Haitian frontier, was one of the towns established by Diego Velazquez in 1504. Though an important town in the early days it decayed, and in the beginning of the nineteenth century was abandoned entirely. During Haitian rule it was reestablished, but upon the declaration of Dominican independence was again abandoned for fear of Haitian vengeance, remaining so until the War of Restoration during which it was settled anew.
Other villages are San José de Ocoa, also known as Maniel, 18 miles northeast of Azua, founded in 1844 in a picturesque region; Túbano, 34 miles northwest of Azua; El Cercado, 12 miles southwest of Las Matas de Farfan; and Comendador, near the Haitian frontier, 13 miles west of Las Matas de Farfan, the seat of one of the inland custom-houses.