Near the Campo de
Marte is the Botanical Garden which is well worthy to fix the
attention of the government; and another place fitted to excite at
once pity and indignation - the barracoon, in front of which the
wretched slaves are exposed for sale. A marble statue of Charles III
has been erected since my return to Europe, in the extra muros walk.
This spot was at first destined for a monument to Christopher Columbus
whose ashes, after the cession of the Spanish part of St. Domingo,
were brought to the island of Cuba.*
(* Columbus lies buried in the cathedral of the Havannah, close to the
wall near the high altar. On the tomb is the following inscription:
O restos y Imagen del grande Colon;
Mil siglos duran guardados en la Urna,
Y en remembranca de nuestra Nacion.
Oh relics and image of the great Colon (Columbus)
A thousand ages are encompassed in thy Urn,
And in the memory of our Nation.
His remains were first deposited at Valladolid and thence were removed
to Seville. In 1536 the bodies of Columbus and of his son Diego (El
Adelantado) were carried to St. Domingo and there interred in the
cathedral; but they were afterwards removed to the place where they
now repose.)
The same year the ashes of Fernando Cortez were transferred in Mexico
from one church to another: thus, at the close of the eighteenth
century, the remains of the two greatest men who promoted the conquest
of America were interred in new sepulchres.
The most majestic palm-tree of its tribe, the palma real, imparts a
peculiar character to the landscape in the vicinity of the Havannah;
it is the Oreodoxa regia of our description of American palm-trees.
Its tall trunk, slightly swelled towards the middle, grows to the
height of 60 or 80 feet; the upper part is glossy, of a delicate
green, newly formed by the closing and dilatation of the petioles,
contrasts with the rest, which is whitish and fendilated. It appears
like two columns, the one surmounting the other. The palma real of the
island of Cuba has feathery leaves rising perpendicularly towards the
sky, and curved only at the point. The form of this plant reminded us
of the vadgiai palm-tree which covers the rocks in the cataracts of
the Orinoco, balancing its long points over a mist of foam. Here, as
in every place where the population is concentrated, vegetation
diminishes. Those palm-trees round the Havannah and in the
amphitheatre of Regla on which I delighted to gaze are disappearing by
degrees. The marshy places which I saw covered with bamboos are
cultivated and drained. Civilization advances; and the soil, gradually
stripped of plants, scarcely offers any trace of its wild abundance.
From the Punta to San Lazaro, from Cabana to Regla and from Regla to
Atares the road is covered with houses, and those that surround the
bay are of light and elegant construction.
