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. At the distance of half a mile from the coast, the sea water was not more than 2.5 degrees; we had no opportunity of sounding but the depth of the water had no doubt diminished. On the 14th of March we entered the Rio Guaurabo, one of the two ports of Trinidad de Cuba, to put on shore the practico, or pilot of Batabano, who had steered us across the flats of the Jardinillos, though not without causing us to run aground several times. We also hoped to find a packet-boat (correo maritimo) in this port, which would take us to Carthagena. I landed towards the evening, and placed Borda's azimuth compass and the artificial horizon on the shore for the purpose of observing the passage of some stars by the meridian; but we had scarcely begun our preparations when a party of small traders of the class called pulperos, who had dined on board a foreign ship recently arrived, invited us to accompany them to the town. These good people requested us mount two by two on the same horse; and, as the heat was excessive, we accepted their offer. The distance from the mouth of the Rio Guaurabo to Trinidad is nearly four miles in a north-west direction. The road runs across a plain which seems as if it had been levelled by a long sojourn of the waters. It is covered with vegetation, to which the miraguama, a palm-tree with silvered leaves (which we saw here for the first time), gives a peculiar character.* (* Corypha miraguama. Probably the same species which struck Messrs. John and William Fraser (father and son) in the vicinity of Matanzas. Those two botanists, who introduced a great number of valuable plants to the gardens of Europe, were shipwrecked on their voyage to the Havannah from the United States, and saved themselves with difficulty on the cayos at the entrance of the Old Channel, a few weeks before my departure for Carthagena.) This fertile soil, although of tierra colorada, requires only to be tilled and it would yield fruitful harvests. A very picturesque view opens westward on the Lomas of San Juan, a chain of calcareous mountains from 1800 to 2000 toises high and very steep towards the south. Their bare and barren summits form sometimes round blocks; and here and there rise up in points like horns,* a little inclined. (* Wherever the rock is visible I perceived compact limestone, whitish-grey, partly porous and partly with a smooth fracture, as in the Jura formation.) Notwithstanding the great lowering of the temperature during the season of the Nortes or north winds, snow never falls; and only a hoar-frost (escarcha) is seen on these mountains, as on those of Santiago. This absence of snow is difficult to be explained. In emerging from the forest we perceived a curtain of hills of which the southern slope is covered with houses; this is the town of Trinidad, founded in 1514, by the governor Diego Velasquez, on account of the rich mines of gold which were said to have been discovered in the little valley of Rio Arimao.* (* This river flows towards the east into the Bahia de Xagua.) The streets of Trinidad have all a rapid descent: 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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