The Town Of The Havannah, Properly So Called, Surrounded By Walls, Is Only 900 Toises Long And 500 Broad; Yet More Than 44,000 Inhabitants, Of Whom 26,000 Are Negroes And Mulattoes, Are Crowded Together In This Narrow Space.

A population nearly as considerable occupies the two great suburbs of Jesu-Maria and La Salud.* (* Salud signifies Health.

) The latter place does not verify the name it bears; the temperature of the air is indeed lower than in the city but the streets might have been larger and better planned. Spanish engineers, who have been waging war for thirty years past with the inhabitants of the suburbs (arrabales), have convinced the government that the houses are too near the fortifications, and that the enemy might establish himself there with impunity. But the government has not courage to demolish the suburbs and disperse a population of 28,000 inhabitants collected in La Salud only. Since the great fire of 1802 that quarter has been considerably enlarged; barracks were at first constructed, but by degrees they have been converted into private houses. The defence of the Havannah on the west is of the highest importance: so long as the besieged are masters of the town, properly so called, and of the southern part of the bay, the Morro and La Cabana, they are impregnable because they can be provisioned by the Havannah, and the losses of the garrison repaired. I have heard well-informed French engineers observe that an enemy should begin his operations by taking the town, in order to bombard the Cabana, a strong fortress, but where the garrison, shut up in the casemates, could not long resist the insalubrity of the climate.

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