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 Meridian Of The
Havannah The Gulf Of Mexico, The Old Channel, And The Channel Of
Bahama Unite.
The opposite direction of the currents and the violent
agitations of the atmosphere at the setting-in of winter impart a
peculiar character to these latitudes at the extreme limit of the
equinoctial zone.
The island of Cuba is the largest of the Antilles.* (* Its area is
little less in extent than that of England not including Wales.) Its
long and narrow form gives it a vast development of coast and places
it in proximity with Hayti and Jamaica, with the most southern
province of the United States (Florida) and the most easterly province
of the Mexican Confederation (Yucatan).* (* These places are brought
into communication one with another by a voyage of ten or twelve
days.) This circumstance claims serious attention when it is
considered that Jamaica, St. Domingo, Cuba and the southern parts of
the United States (from Louisiana to Virginia) contain nearly two
million eight hundred thousand Africans. Since the separation of St.
Domingo, the Floridas and New Spain from the mother-country, the
island of Cuba is connected only by similarity of religion, language
and manners with the neighbouring countries, which, during ages, were
subject to the same laws.
Florida forms the last link in that long chain, the northern extremity
of which reaches the basin of St. Lawrence and extends from the region
of palm-trees to that of the most rigorous winter. The inhabitant of
New England regards the increasing augmentation of the black
population, the preponderance of the slave states and the predilection
for the cultivation of colonial products as a public danger; and
earnestly wishes that the strait of Florida, the present limit of the
great American confederation, may never be passed but with the views
of free trade, founded on equal rights.
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