Several small bays indent this portion of the shore, the one most
favorable for shipping being Las Aguilas Bay, also known as Bahia sin
Fondo, or Bottomless Bay. This part of the country, the Baboruco
peninsula, is very sparsely inhabited. In the beginning of the
nineteenth century it was the abode of maroons, half-savage fugitive
slaves and their descendants.
Four miles to the southwest of Cape Beata lies Beata Island, sloping
down from an elevation in the south to a long point in the north. Its
greatest length is about 7 miles, its maximum breadth 3 miles, and
access is difficult as the only anchorage is on the eastern side
almost two miles from land. The island is covered with dense forests
in which wild cattle abound. During the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries the island was a convenient resort for the pirates that
infested the Spanish main; at one time it is said to have contained
fine plantations, but at present it is only occasionally visited by
Dominican or Haitian fishermen.
Rising precipitously from the sea, at a distance of about ten miles
southwest of Beata Island, is a huge bell-shaped mass of rock, 500
feet in height, almost two miles in length and a mile in width.
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