4 miles in width, through which narrow arms the tidal river called the "Rivière Salée". A fine highway forty miles long connects Pointe à Pitre, its commercial center, with Basse Terre, the political capital. This road crosses the swamps on an earth causeway and the Rivière Salée by a pontoon drawbridge. 21-31-B The Rivière Salée, with its bordering swamps, is really an arm of the sea, but it receives much fresh water from permanent several rivers which drain the eastern slopes of the mountains of Basse Terre. Grande Terre on the contrary supplies gives discharges practically no surface drainage into the swamp.