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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It Is Like The Opening Of A
Ravine, In Which Vessels Of Heavy Burden Might Enter, But That A Shoal
(Placer) Obstructs The Passage.
Some horary angles gave me the
longitude 82 degrees 40 minutes 50 seconds for this port which is
frequented by the smugglers of Jamaica and the corsairs of Providence
Island.
The mountains that command the port scarcely rise to 230
toises. I passed a great part of the night on deck. The coast was
dreary and desolate. Not a light announced a fisherman's hut. There is
no village between Batabano and Trinidad, a distance of fifty leagues;
scarcely are there more than two or three corrales or farm yards,
containing hogs or cows. Yet, in the time of Columbus, this territory
was inhabited along the shore. When the ground is dug to make wells,
or when torrents furrow the surface of the earth in floods, stone
hatchets and copper utensils* are often discovered; these are remains
of the ancient inhabitants of America. (* Doubtless the copper of
Cuba. The abundance of this metal in its native state would naturally
induce the Indians of Cuba and Hayti to melt it. Columbus says that
there were masses of native copper at Hayti, of the weight of six
arrobas; and that the boats of Yucatan, which he met with on the
eastern coast of Cuba, carried, among other Mexican merchandize,
crucibles to melt copper.)
At sunrise I requested the captain to heave the lead. There was no
bottom to be found at sixty fathoms; and the ocean was warmer at its
surface than anywhere else; it was at 26.8 degrees; the temperature
exceeded 4.2 degrees that which we had found near the breakers of
Diego Perez.
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