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.
