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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There, As In Most Parts Of Spanish
America, It Is Complained That The Couquistadores Chose Very
Injudiciously The Sites For New Towns.* (* It Is Questionable Whether
The Town Founded By Velasquez Was Not Situated In The Plain And Nearer
The Ports Of Casilda And Guaurabo.
It has been suggested that the fear
of the French, Portuguese and English freebooters led to the
selection, even
In inland places, of sites on the declivity of
mountains, whence, as from a watch-tower, the approach of the enemy
could be discerned; but it seems to me that these fears could have had
no existence prior to the government of Hernando de Soto. The Havannah
was sacked for the first time by French corsairs in 1539.) At the
northern extremity is the church of Nuestra Senora de la Popa, a
celebrated place of pilgrimage. This point I found to be 700 feet
above the level of the sea; it commands a magnificent view of the
ocean, the two ports (Puerto Casilda and Boca Guaurabo), a forest of
palm-trees and the group of the lofty mountains of San Juan. We were
received at the town of Trinidad with the kindest hospitality by Senor
Munoz, the Superintendent of the Real Hacienda. I made observations
during a great part of the night and found the latitude near the
cathedral by the Spica Virginis, alpha of the Centaur, and beta of the
Southern Cross, under circumstances not equally favourable, to be 21
degrees 48 minutes 20 seconds.
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