The roadbed
is very rough and the passengers are considerably shaken up, but the
memory of what used to be helps to mitigate the discomfort. On one of
my trips over the road, when a fellow-passenger made a remark about
the severe jolting that almost shook us off our seats, an elderly
Dominican gentleman observed: "My friend, you evidently never took a
trip from Santiago to Puerto Plata before the railroad was built.
Compared with travel then, this mode of conveyance is like being
carried in angels' arms." As on the Samana-Santiago Road, the regular
trains are mixed trains, that is, a freight and passenger together,
usually looking like a freight train with a small passenger car
attached. Except in unusually dull periods there is one daily train
each way. The city of Santiago is about 600 feet above the level of
the sea; from here the course is over a rich plain among tobacco farms
and meadows full of cattle, for a distance of about twelve miles,
until the foothills are reached and the ascent of the coast range is
begun. Higher and higher along the mountainside, through country
wilder and wilder, the train winds its way to the highest point of the
road, 1580 feet above sea-level and 20 miles from Santiago, where a
short tunnel pierces the mountain.
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