Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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From The Cayo De Piedras We Could Faintly Discern In The Direction Of
East-North-East The Lofty Mountains That
Rise beyond the bay of Xagua.
During the night we again lay at anchor; and next day (12th March),
having
Passed between the northern cape of the Cayo de Piedras and the
island of Cuba, we entered a sea free from breakers. Its blue colour
(a dark indigo tint) and the heightening of the temperature proved how
much the depth of the water had augmented. We tried, under favour of
the variable winds on sea and shore, to steer eastward as far as the
port of La Trinidad so that we might be less opposed by the north-east
winds which then prevail in the open sea, in making the passage to
Carthagena, of which the meridian falls between Santiago de Cuba and
the bay of Guantanamo. Having passed the marshy coast of Camareos,* (*
Here the celebrated philanthropist Bartolomeo de las Casas obtained in
1514 from his friend Velasquez, the governor, a good repartimiente de
Indios (grant of land so called). But this he renounced in the same
year, from scruples of conscience, during a short stay at Jamaica.) we
arrived (latitude 21 degrees 50 minutes) in the meridian of the
entrance of the Bahia de Xagua. The longitude the chronometer gave me
at this point was almost identical with that since published (in 1821)
in the map of the Deposito hidrografico of Madrid.
The port of Xagua is one of the finest but least frequented of the
island. "There cannot be another such in the world," is the remark of
the Coronista major (Antonio de Herrera). The surveys and plans of
defence made by M. Le Maur, at the time of the commission of Count
Jaruco, prove that the anchorage of Xagua merits the celebrity it
acquired even in the first years of the conquest. The town consists
merely of a small group of houses and a fort (castillito.) On the east
of Xagua, the mountains (Cerros de San Juan) near the coast, assume an
aspect more and more majestic; not from their height, which does not
seem to exceed three hundred toises, but from their steepness and
general form. The coast, I was told, is so steep that a frigate may
approach the mouth of the Rio Guaurabo. When the temperature of the
air diminished at night to 23 degrees and the wind blew from the land
it brought that delicious odour of flowers and honey which
characterizes the shores of the island of Cuba.* (* Cuban wax, which
is a very important object of trade, is produced by the bees of Europe
(the species Apis, Latr.). Columbus says expressly that in his time
the inhabitants of Cuba did not collect wax. The great loaf of that
substance which he found in the island in his first voyage, and
presented to King Ferdinand in the celebrated audience of Barcelona,
was afterwards ascertained to have been brought thither by Mexican
barques from Yucatan.
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