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The Neiba Valley, situated in the southwestern portion of the Republic between the Neiba and the Baboruco Mountains is more regular. It is part of the valley which stretches from Neiba Bay, in Santo Domingo, to Port-au-Prince in Haiti. The Dominican portion is 65 miles long by 12 miles wide, and over one-half of its area is covered by the waters of Lake Enriquillo.
The lake is over 70 miles in circumference, having a length of about 33 miles and a width ranging from 3 to 9 miles, Cabras Island, 6 miles long by one in width, is the home of herds of goats. Lake Azuei is but 15 miles in length with a width of from 2 to 7 miles. Though the two lakes are scarcely five miles apart, Lake Enriquillo is 102 feet below and Lake Azuei 56 feet above sea-level.
Both lakes have at least one variety of ocean fish, though the nearest point of the seacoast is some twenty miles distant; turtles abound in both and there are many alligators in Lake Enriquillo and a few in Lake Azuei. The climate of Santo Domingo is that of the torrid zone and is characterized by heat and humidity.
The only lakes of any size are two which lie in the Neiba Valley, the larger one, Lake Enriquillo, being comprised entirely within Dominican territory, while of the smaller one, variously called Etang Saumatre, or Lake Azuei, or Laguna del Fondo, through which the frontier line passes, less than one-fourth is under Dominican jurisdiction.
Both lakes receive the waters of several small fresh water creeks, yet they apparently have no outlet and their water is salt, that of Lake Azuei only slightly, but that of Lake Enriquillo more so than the sea. On Cabras Island, however, there is a fresh water spring, and three lagoons to the east and south of Lake Enriquillo also contain fresh water.
Other villages of the province are: San Lorenzo de los Minas, 3 miles northeast of Santo Domingo, first settled in 1719 by negroes of the Minas tribe, refugees from French Santo Domingo; San Antonio de Guerra, situated in the plains 19 miles northeast of the capital; Boya, 32 miles northeast of the capital, founded in 1533 by Enriquillo, the last Indian chief and by the last survivors of the Indians of the island: it contains an old church of composite aboriginal Gothic architecture, in which the remains of Enriquillo and of his wife Dona Mencia are believed to rest; Mella, 7 miles, and La Victoria, 12 miles north of the capital; Yamasa, 30 miles northwest of Santo Domingo; and Sabana Grande, or Palenque, 22 miles west of the city.
Lake Enriquillo derives its name from the last Indian cacique of the Island, the romantic chieftain Enriquillo, who after fiercely resisting the Spaniards finally in 1533 concluded an honorable peace with them on the island of Cabras in the center of this lake.
An army was dispatched against the insurgent chief Enrique who still menaced the tranquillity of the colonists from his mountain fastnesses. When it was found impossible to reach him, peaceful methods were employed. Negotiations were opened, and a treaty of peace signed in 1533, on an island in the beautiful lake still known as Lake Enriquillo.
There is further a main road or rather trail westward from Azua along Lake Enriquillo and leading on to Port-au-Prince; another from Azua northwesterly through the fertile valley of San Juan, also leading into Haiti; and two perilous trails branching off from the latter road and running through remote mountain regions to Santiago and La Vega.
Hot and cold sulphur springs are found in the outskirts of San Jose de las Matas, southwest of Santiago, and hot springs at Banica, and to the east and west of Lake Enriquillo. While there are no volcanoes on the island, severe seismic disturbances have at times occasioned great havoc and loss of life.
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