e day itself
rushes precipitately into the sky, and is gone as suddenly: there is no
calm broadening of dawn, and no lingering hours of twilight. The light
itself is a passion which fiercely revels among the fruits and flowers
that exhale for it ardently; it gluts, and then suddenly spurns them
for new conquests. Nothing can live and flourish here which has not the
innate temperament of the place.

One would not expect to find great wealth in these gray-looking
mountains of simple and uniform structure; yet they abound in stones and
metals. Besides the different kinds of marble, which it is not strange
to find, diamonds also, jasper, agates, onyx, topaz, and other stones, a
kind of jade and of malachite, are found in a great many places. Copper
exists in considerable quantities in the neighborhood of Dondon and
Jacmel, and in the Cibao; silver is found near San Domingo, and in
various places in the Cibao, together with cinnabar, cobalt, bismuth,
zinc, antimony, and lead in the Cibao, near Dondon and Azua, blue cobalt
that serves for painting on porcelain, the gray, black specular nickel,
etc.; native iron near the Bay of Samana, in the Mornes-du-Cap, and at
Haut-and Bas-Moustique; other forms of that metal abound in numerous
places, crystallized, spathic, micaceous, etc. Nitre can be procured in
the Cibao, that great storehouse which has specimens of almost every
metal, salt, and mineral; borax at Jacmel and Dondon, native alum at
Dondon, and aluminous earth near Port-au-Prince; vitriol, of various
forms, in a dozen places; naphtha, petroleum, and asphaltum at Banique,
and sulphur in different shapes at Marmalade, La Soufriere, etc. The
catalogue of this wealth would be tedious to draw up.

The reports concerning gold do not agree. It is maintained that there
are mines and washings which have been neglected, or improperly worked,
and that a vigorous exploration would reopen this source of wealth; but
it is also said as confidently that the Spaniards took off all the gold,
and were reduced to working mines of copper, before the middle of the
sixteenth century. It is certain, however, that great quantities of gold
were taken from the island by the Spaniards, while they had the natives
to perform the labor. The principal sources from which gold can be
procured are in the part of the island formerly occupied by the
Spaniards; and when their power decayed, all important labors came to an
end. But Oviedo records several lump