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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In The Churches Of Mexico
There Is A Great Consumption Of Cuban Wax.
The price varies from
sixteen to twenty piastres the arroba.
Trinidad and the small port of Baracoa also carry on a considerable
trade in wax, furnished by the almost uncultivated regions on the east
of the island. In the proximity of the sugar-factories many bees
perish of inebriety from the molasses, of which they are extremely
fond. In general the production of wax diminishes in proportion as the
cultivation of the land augments. The exportation of wax, according to
the present price, amounts to about 500,000 of piastres.
COMMERCE.
It has already been observed that the importance of the commerce of
the island of Cuba depends not solely on the riches of its
productions, the wants of the population in the articles and
merchandize of Europe, but also in great part on the favourable
position of the port of the Havannah. This port is situated at the
entrance of the Gulf of Mexico, where the high roads of the commercial
nations of the old and the new worlds cross each other. It was
remarked by the Abbe Raynal, at a period when agriculture and industry
were in their infancy, and scarcely threw into commerce the value of
2,000,000 piastres in sugar and tobacco, that the island of Cuba alone
might be worth a kingdom to Spain. There seems to have been something
prophetic in those memorable words; and since the parent state has
lost Mexico, Peru and so many other colonies declared independent,
they demand the serious consideration of statesmen who are called upon
to discuss the political interests of the Peninsula.
The island of Cuba, to which for a long time the court of Madrid
wisely granted great freedom of trade, exports, lawfully and by
contraband, of its own native productions, in sugar, coffee, tobacco,
wax and skins, to the value of more than 14,000,000 piastres; which is
about one-third less than the value of the precious metals furnished
by Mexico at the period of the greatest prosperity of its mines.* (*
In 1805 gold and silver specie was struck at Mexico to the value of
27,165,888 piastres; but, taking an average of ten years of political
tranquillity, we find from 1800 to 1810 scarcely 24 1/2 million of
piastres.) It may be said that the Havannah and Vera Cruz are to the
rest of America what New York is to the United States. The tonnage of
1000 to 1200 merchant ships which annually enter the port of the
Havannah, amounts (excluding the small coasting-vessels), to 150,000
or 170,000 tons.* (* In 1816 the tonnage of the commerce of New York
was 299,617 tons; that of Boston, 143,420 tons. The amount of tonnage
is not always an exact measure of the wealth of commerce. The
countries which export rice, flour, hewn wood and cotton require more
capaciousness than the tropical regions of which the productions
(cochineal, indigo, sugar and coffee) are of little bulk, although of
considerable value.) In time of peace from 120 to 150 ships of war are
frequently seen at anchor at the Havannah.
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