The Animals Sent To Us From Batabano Had The Snout Nearly As Sharp As The Crocodiles Of The Orinoco And The Magdalena (Crocodilus Acutus, Cuv.); Their Colour Was Dark-Green On The Back, And White Below The Belly, With Yellow Spots On The Flanks.

I counted, as in all the real crocodiles, thirty-eight teeth in the upper jaw, and thirty in the lower; in the former, the tenth and ninth; and in the latter, the first and fourth, were the largest.

In the description made by M. Bonpland and myself on the spot, we have expressly marked that the lower fourth tooth rises over the upper jaw. The posterior extremities were palmated. These crocodiles of Batabano appeared to us to be specifically identical with the Crocodilus acutus. It is true that the accounts we heard of their habits did not quite agree with what we had ourselves observed on the Orinoco; but carnivorous reptiles of the same species are milder and more timid, or fiercer and more courageous, in the same river, according to the nature of the localities. The animal called the cayman, at Batabano, died on the way, and was not brought to us, so that we could make no comparison of the two species.* (* The four bags filled with musk (bolzas del almizcle) are, in the crocodile of Batabano, exactly in the same position as in that of the Rio Magdalena, beneath the lower jaw and near the anus. I was much surprised at not perceiving the smell of musk at the Havannah, three days after the death of the animal, in a temperature of 30 degrees, while at Mompox, on the banks of the Magdalena, living crocodiles infected our apartment. I have since found that Dampier also remarked an absence of smell in the crocodile of Cuba where the caymans spread a very strong smell of musk.) I have no doubt that the crocodile with a sharp snout, and the alligator or cayman with a snout like a pike,* (* Crocodilus acutus of San Domingo. Alligator lucius of Florida and the Mississippi.) inhabit together, but in distinct bands, the marshy coast between Xagua, the Surgidero of Batabano, and the island of Pinos. In that island Dampier was struck with the great difference between the caymans and the American crocodiles. After having described, though not always with perfect correctness, several of the characteristics which distinguish crocodiles from caymans, he traces the geographical distribution of those enormous saurians. "In the bay of Campeachy," he says, "I saw only caymans or alligators; at the island of Great Cayman, there are crocodiles and no alligators; at the island of Pinos, and in the innumerable creeks of the coast of Cuba, there are both crocodiles and caymans."* (* Dampier's Voyages and Descriptions, 1599.) To these valuable observations of Dampier I may add that the real crocodile (Crocodilus acutus) is found in the West India Islands nearest the mainland, for instance, at the island of Trinidad; at Marguerita; and also, probably, at Curacao, notwithstanding the want of fresh water. It is observed, further south, in the Neveri, the Rio Magdalena, the Apure and the Orinoco, as far as the confluence of the Cassiquiare with the Rio Negro (latitude 2 degrees 2 minutes), consequently more than four hundred leagues from Batabano. It would be interesting to verify on the eastern coast of Mexico and Guatimala, between the Mississippi and the Rio Chagres (in the isthmus of Panama), the limit of the different species of carnivorous reptiles.

We set sail on the 9th of March, somewhat incommoded by the extreme smallness of our vessel, which afforded us no sleeping-place but upon deck. The cabin (camera de pozo) received no air or light but from above; it was merely a hold for provisions, and it was with difficulty that we could place our instruments in it. The thermometer kept up constantly at 32 and 33 degrees (centesimal.) Luckily these inconveniences lasted only twenty days. Our several voyages in the canoes of the Orinoco, and a passage in an American vessel laden with several thousand arrobas of salt meat dried in the sun had rendered us not very fastidious.

The gulf of Batabano, bounded by a low and marshy coast, looks like a vast desert. The fishing birds, which are generally at their post whilst the small land birds, and the indolent vultures (Vultur aura.) are at roost, are seen only in small numbers. The sea is of a greenish-brown hue, as in some of the lakes of Switzerland; while the air, owing to its extreme purity, had, at the moment the sun appeared above the horizon, a cold tint of pale blue, similar to that which landscape painters observe at the same hour in the south of Italy, and which makes distant objects stand out in strong relief. Our sloop was the only vessel in the gulf; for the roadstead of Batabano is scarcely visited except by smugglers, or, as they are here politely called, the traders (los tratantes). The projected canal of Guines will render Batabano an important point of communication between the island of Cuba and the coast of Venezuela. The port is within a bay bounded by Punta Gorda on the east, and by Punta de Salinas on the west: but this bay is itself only the upper or concave end of a great gulf measuring nearly fourteen leagues from south to north, and along an extent of fifty leagues (between the Laguna de Cortez and the Cayo de Piedras) inclosed by an incalculable number of flats and chains of rocks. One great island only, of which the superficies is more than four times the dimensions of that of Martinique, with mountains crowned with majestic pines, rises amidst this labyrinth. This is the island of Pinos, called by Columbus El Evangelista, and by some mariners of the sixteenth century, the Isla de Santa Maria. It is celebrated for its mahogany (Swietenia mahagoni) which is an important article of commerce. We sailed east-south-east, taking the passage of Don Cristoval, to reach the rocky island of Cayo de Piedras, and to clear the archipelago, which the Spanish pilots, in the early times of the conquest, designated by the names of Gardens and Bowers (Jardines y Jardinillos). The Queen's Gardens, properly so called, are nearer Cape Cruz, and are separated from the archipelago by an open sea thirty-five leagues broad.

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