At times, in grassy or stony
stretches, the road disappears entirely, and the traveler's best guide
is the telegraph wire, where there is one. Again it passes through
thorny woods with overhanging branches which continually threaten to
unhorse the rider. Thus it winds along, through forests and plains,
over fallen logs and trees, beside precipices, down steep banks,
across rapid streams. A trip into the interior in Santo Domingo
requires a good horse, a strong constitution and a large supply
of patience.
In rainy weather the traveled roads are even worse than the
unfrequented ones, for the ground is rendered more miry, and the bogs
are more frequent. On a highroad near La Vega I arrived at a mudhole
where an old man was being rescued by a passer-by from drowning in the
liquid mud; I snapped a photograph of the scene when he was still
knee-deep. Near the city of Moca there is a slope where many a horse
has fallen and thrown its rider on the slippery loam. A friend of mine
who for safety's sake alighted from his horse to walk to the other
side of the gully, had his foot so tightly lodged in the pasty mud
that, in his straining to withdraw it, the foot slipped out of the
shoe, which remained as firmly imbedded as before.
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