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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My Chronometric Longitude Was 82
Degrees 21 Minutes 7 Seconds.
I was informed at my second visit to the
Havannah, in returning from Mexico, that this longitude was nearly
Identical with that obtained by the captain of a frigate, Don Jose del
Rio, who had long resided on that spot; but that he marked the
latitude of the town at 21 degrees 42 minutes 40 seconds.
The Lieutenant-Governor (Teniente Governadore) of Trinidad, whose
jurisdiction then extended to Villa Clara, Principe and Santo
Espiritu, was nephew to the celebrated astronomer Don Antonio Ulloa.
He gave us a grand entertainment, at which we met some French
emigrants from San Domingo who had brought their talents and industry
to Spanish America. The exportation of the sugar of Trinidad, by the
registers of the custom-house, did not then exceed 4000 chests.
The advantage of having two ports is often discussed at Trinidad. The
distance of the town from Puerto de Casilda and Puerto Guaurabo is
nearly equal; yet the expense of transport is greatest in the former
port. The Boca del Rio Guaurabo, defended by a new battery, furnishes
safe anchorage, although less sheltered than that of Puerto Casilda.
Vessels that draw little water or are lightened to pass the bar, can
go up the river and approach the town within a mile. The packet-boats
(correos) that touch at Trinidad de Cuba prefer, in general, the Rio
Guaurabo, where they find safe anchorage without needing a pilot. The
Puerto Casilda is more inclosed and goes further back inland but
cannot be entered without a pilot, on account of the breakers
(arrecifes) and the Mulas and Mulattas. The great mole, constructed
with wood, and very useful to commerce, was damaged in discharging
pieces of artillery. It is entirely destroyed, and it was undecided
whether it would be best to reconstruct it with masonry, according to
the project of Don Luis de Bassecourt, or to open the bar of Guaurabo
by dredging it. The great disadvantage of Puerto de Casilda is the
want of fresh water, which vessels have to procure at the distance of
a league.
We passed a very agreeable evening in the house of one of the richest
inhabitants, Don Antonio Padron, where we found assembled at a
tertulia all the good company of Trinidad. We were again struck with
the gaiety and vivacity that distinguish the women of Cuba. These are
happy gifts of nature to which the refinements of European
civilization might lend additional charms but which, nevertheless,
please in their primitive simplicity. We quitted Trinidad on the night
of the 15th March. The municipality caused us to be conducted to the
mouth of the Rio Guaurabo in a fine carriage lined with old crimson
damask; and, to add to our confusion, an ecclesiastic, the poet of the
place, habited in a suit of velvet notwithstanding the heat of the
climate, celebrated, in a sonnet, our voyage to the Orinoco.
On the road leading to the port we were forcibly struck by a spectacle
which our stay of two years in the hottest part of the tropics might
have rendered familiar to us; but previously I had nowhere seen such
an innumerable quantity of phosphorescent insects.* (* Cocuyo, Elater
noctilucus.) The grass that overspread the ground, the branches and
foliage of the trees, all shone with that reddish and moveable light
which varies in its intensity at the will of the animal by which it is
produced. It seemed as though the starry firmament reposed on the
savannah. In the hut of the poorest inhabitants of the country,
fifteen cocuyos, placed in a calabash pierced with holes, afford
sufficient light to search for anything during the night. To shake the
calabash forcibly is all that is necessary to excite the animal to
increase the intensity of the luminous discs situated on each side of
its body. The people of the country remark, with a simple truth of
expression, that calabashes filled with cocuyos are lanterns always
ready lighted. They are, in fact, only extinguished by the sickness or
death of the insects, which are easily fed with a little sugar-cane. A
young woman at Trinidad de Cuba told us that during a long and
difficult passage from the main land, she always made use of the
phosphorescence of the cocuyos, when she gave suck to her child at
night; the captain of the ship would allow no other light on board,
from the fear of corsairs.
As the breeze freshened in the direction of north-east we sought to
avoid the group of the Caymans but the current drove us towards those
islands. Sailing to south 1/4 south-east, we gradually lost sight of
the palm-covered shore, the hills rising above the town of Trinidad
and the lofty mountains of the island of Cuba. There is something
solemn in the aspect of land from which the voyager is departing and
which he sees sinking by degrees below the horizon of the sea. The
interest of this impression was heightened at the period to which I
here advert; when Saint Domingo was the centre of great political
agitations, and threatened to involve the other islands in one of
those sanguinary struggles which reveal to man the ferocity of his
nature. These threatened dangers were happily averted; the storm was
appeased on the spot which gave it birth; and a free black population,
far from troubling the peace of the neighbouring islands, has made
some steps in the progress of civilization and has promoted the
establishment of good institutions. Porto Rico, Cuba and Jamaica, with
370,000 whites and 885,000 men of colour, surround Hayti, where a
population of 900,000 negros and mulattos have been emancipated by
their own efforts. The negros, more inclined to cultivate alimentary
plants than colonial productions, augment with a rapidity only
surpassed by the increase of the population of the United States.
CHAPTER 3.30.
PASSAGE FROM TRINIDAD DE CUBA TO RIO SINU.
CARTHAGENA.
AIR VOLCANOES OF TURBACO.
CANAL OF MAHATES.
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