The Duchy of Luneburg (on account of the heaths) : 550.
The least populous Department of Continental France : 758.(Hautes Alps)
Departments of France thinly peopled (the Creuse, : 1300. the Var and the Aude)
The central part of the Intendencias of : 1300.Mexico and Puebla, above
In the United States, Massachusetts, but having only 522 square leagues of surface : 900.
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, together : 840.
The whole Intendencia of Puebla : 540.
The whole Intendencia of Mexico : 460.
These two Mexican Intendencias together are nearly a third of the superficial extent of France, with a suitable population (in 1823 nearly 2,800,000 souls) to prevent the towns of Mexico and Puebla from having a sensible influence on the relative population.
Northern part of the Province of Caracas : 208. (without the Llanos)
This table shows that those parts of America which we now consider as the most populous attain the relative population of the kingdom of Navarre, of Galicia and the Asturias, which, next to the province of Guipuscoa, and the kingdom of Valencia, reckon the greatest number of inhabitants to the square league in all Spain; the maximum of America is, however, below the relative population of the whole of France (1778 to the square league), and would, in the latter country, be considered as a very thin population. If, taking a survey of the whole surface of America, we direct our attention to the Capitania-General of Venezuela, we find that the most populous of its subdivisions, the province of Caracas, considered as a whole, without excepting the Llanos, has, as yet, only the relative population of Tennessee; and that this province, without the Llanos, furnishes in its northern part, or more than 1800 square leagues, the relative population of South Carolina. Those 1800 square leagues, the centre of agriculture, are twice as numerously peopled as Finland, but still a third less than the province of Cuenca, which is the least populous of all Spain. We cannot dwell on this result without a painful feeling. Such is the state to which colonial politics and maladministration have, during three centuries, reduced a country which, for natural wealth, may vie with all that is most wonderful on earth. For a region equally desert, we must look either to the frozen regions of the north, or westward of the Allegheny mountains towards the forests of Tennessee, where the first clearings have only begun within the last eighty years!
The most cultivated part of the province of Caracas, the basin of the lake of Valencia, commonly called Los Valles de Aragua, contained in 1810 nearly 2000 inhabitants to the square league. Supposing a relative population three times less, and taking off from the whole surface of the Capitania-General nearly 24,000 square leagues as being occupied by the Llanos and the forests of Guiana, and, therefore, presenting great obstacles to agricultural labourers, we should still obtain a population of six millions for the remaining 9700 square leagues. Those who, like myself, have lived long within the tropics, will find no exaggeration in these calculations; for I suppose for the portion the most easily cultivated a relative population equal to that in the intendencias of Puebla and Mexico,* full of barren mountains, and extending towards the coast of the Pacific over regions almost desert. (* These two Intendencias contain together 5520 square leagues and a relative population of 508 inhabitants to the square sea-league.) If the territories of Cumana, Barcelona, Caracas, Maracaybo, Varinas and Guiana should be destined hereafter to enjoy good provincial and municipal institutions as confederate states, they will not require a century and a half to attain a population of six millions of inhabitants. Venezuela, the eastern part of the republic of Columbia, would not, even with nine millions, have a more considerable population than Old Spain; and can it be doubted that that part of Venezuela which is most fertile and easy of cultivation, that is, the 10,000 square leagues remaining after deducting the Llanos and the almost impenetrable forests between the Orinoco and the Cassiquiare, could support in the fine climate of the tropics as many inhabitants as 10,000 square leagues of Estramadura, the Castiles, and other provinces of the table-land of Spain? These predictions are by no means problematical, inasmuch as they are founded on physical analogies and on the productive power of the soil; but before we can indulge the hope that they will be actually accomplished, we must be secure of another element less susceptible of calculation—that national wisdom which subdues hostile passions, destroys the germs of civil discord and gives stability to free and energetic institutions.
When we take a view of the soil of Venezuela and New Grenada we perceive that no other country of Spanish America furnishes commerce with such various and rich productions of the vegetable kingdom. If we add the harvests of the province of Caracas to those of Guayaquil, we find that the republic of Columbia alone can furnish nearly all the cacao annually demanded by Europe. The union of Venezuela and New Grenada has also placed in the hands of one people the greater part of the quinquina exported from the New Continent. The temperate mountains of Merida, Santa Fe, Popayan, Quito and Loxa produce the finest qualities of this febrifugal bark hitherto known. I might swell the list of these valuable productions by the coffee and indigo of Caracas, so long esteemed in commerce; the sugar, cotton and flour of Bogota; the ipecacuanha of the banks of the Magdelena; the tobacco of Varinas; the Cortex Angosturae of Caroni; the balsam of the plains of Tolu; the skins and dried provisions of the Llanos; the pearls of Panama, Rio Hacha and Marguerita; and finally the gold of Popayan and the platinum which is nowhere found in abundance but at Choco and Barbacoa: but conformably with the plan I have adopted, I shall confine myself to the old Capitania-General of Caracas.
Owing to a peculiar disposition of the soil in Venezuela the three zones of agricultural, pastoral and hunting-life succeed each other from north to south along the coast in the direction of the equator. Advancing in that direction we may be said to traverse, in respect to space, the different stages through which the human race has passed in the lapse of ages, in its progress towards cultivation and in laying the foundations of civilized society. The region of the coast is the centre of agricultural industry; the region of the Llanos serves only for the pasturage of the animals which Europe has given to America and which live there in a half-wild state. Each of those regions includes from seven to eight thousand square leagues; further south, between the delta of the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare and the Rio Negro, lies a vast extent of land as large as France, inhabited by hunting nations, covered with thick forests and impassable swamps. The productions of the vegetable kingdom belong to the zones at each extremity; the intermediary savannahs, into which oxen, horses, and mules were introduced about the year 1548, afford food for some millions of those animals. At the time when I visited Venezuela the annual exportation from thence to the West India Islands amounted to 30,000 mules, 174,000 ox-hides and 140,000 arrobas (of twenty-five pounds) of tasajo,* or dried meat slightly salted. (* The back of the animal is cut in slices of moderate thickness. An ox or cow of the weight of 25 arrobas produces only 4 to 5 arrobas of tasajo or tasso. In 1792 the port of Barcelona alone exported 98,017 arrobas to the island of Cuba. The average price is 14 reals and varies from 10 to 18 (the real is worth about 6 1/2 pence English). M. Urquinasa estimates the total exportation of Venezuela in 1809 at 200,000 arrobas of tasajo.) It is not from the advancement of agriculture or the progressive encroachments on the pastoral lands that the hatos (herds and flocks) have diminished so considerably within twenty years; it is rather owing to the disorders of every kind that have prevailed, and the want of security for property. The impunity conceded to the skin-stealers and the accumulation of marauders in the savannahs preceded that destruction of cattle caused by the ravages of civil war and the supplies required for troops. A very considerable number of goat-skins is exported to the island of Marguerita, Punta Araya and Corolas; sheep abound only in Carora and Tocuyo. The consumption of meat being immense in this country the diminution of animals has a greater influence here than in any other district on the well-being of the inhabitants. The town of Caracas, of which the population in my time was one-tenth of that of Paris, consumed more than one-half the quantity of beef annually used in the capital of France.
I might add to the productions of the vegetable and animal kingdoms of Venezuela the enumeration of the minerals, the working of which is worthy the attention of the government; but having from my youth been engaged in the practical labours of mines I know how vague and uncertain are the judgments formed of the metallic wealth of a country from the mere appearance of the rocks and of the veins in their beds. The utility of such labours can be determined only by well directed experiments by means of shafts or galleries. All that has been done in researches of this kind, under the dominion of the mother-country, has left the question wholly undecided and the most exaggerated ideas have been recently spread through Europe concerning the riches of the mines of Caracas. The common denomination of Columbia given to Venezuela and New Grenada has doubtless contributed to foster those illusions. It cannot be doubted that the gold-washings of New Grenada furnished, in the last years of public tranquillity, more than 18,000 marks of gold; that Choco and Barbacoa supply platinum in abundance; the valley of Santa Rosa in the province of Antioquia, the Andes of Quindiu and Gauzum near Cuenca, yield sulphuretted mercury; the table-land of Bogota (near Zipaquira and Canoas), fossil-salt and pit-coal; but even in New Grenada subterranean labours on the silver and gold veins have hitherto been very rare. I am far, however, from wishing to discourage the miners of those countries: I merely conceive that for the purpose of proving to the old world the political importance of Venezuela, the amazing territorial wealth of which is founded on agriculture and the produce of pastoral life, it is not necessary to describe as realities, or as the acquisitions of industry, what is, as yet, founded solely on hopes and probabilities more or less uncertain. The republic of Columbia also possesses on its coast, on the island of Marguerita, on the Rio Hacha and in the gulf of Panama pearl fisheries of ancient celebrity. In the present state of things, however, fishing for these pearls is an object of as little importance as the exportation of the metals of Venezuela. The existence of metallic veins on several points of the coast cannot be doubted. Mines of gold and silver were worked at the beginning of the conquest at Buria, near Barquesimeto, in the province of Los Mariches, at Baruta, on the south of Caracas, and at Real de Santa Barbara near the Villa de Cura. Grains of gold are found in the whole mountainous territory between Rio Yaracuy, the Villa de San Felipe and Nirgua, as well as between Guigue and Los Moros de San Juan. M. Bonpland and myself, during our long journey, saw nothing in the gneiss granite of Spanish Guiana to confirm the old faith in the metallic wealth of that district; yet it seems certain from several historical notices that there exist two groups of auriferous alluvial land; one between the sources of the Rio Negro, the Uaupes and the Iquiare; the other between the sources of the Essequibo, the Caroni and the Rupunuri. Hitherto only one working is found in Venezuela, that of Aroa: it furnished, in 1800, near 1500 quintals of copper of excellent quality. The green-stone rocks of the transition mountains of Tucutunemo (between Villa de Cura and Parapara) contain veins of malachite and copper pyrites. The indications of both ochreous and magnetic iron in the coast-chain, the native alum of Chuparipari, the salt of Araya, the kaolin of the Silla, the jade of the Upper Orinoco, the petroleum of Buen-Pastor and the sulphur of the eastern part of New Andalusia equally merit the attention of the government.
It is easy to ascertain the existence of some mineral substances which afford hopes of profitable working but it requires great circumspection to decide whether the mineral be sufficiently abundant and accessible to cover the expense.* (* In 1800 a day-labourer (peon) employed in working the ground gained in the province of Caracas 15 sous, exclusive of his food. A man who hewed building timber in the forests on the coast of Paria was paid at Cumana 45 to 50 sous a day, without his food. A carpenter gained daily from 3 to 6 francs in New Andalusia. Three cakes of cassava (the bread of the country), 21 inches in diameter, 1 1/2 lines thick, and 2 1/2 pounds weight, cost at Caracas one half-real, or 6 1/2 sous. A man eats daily not less than 2 sous' worth of cassava, that food being constantly mixed with bananas, dried meat (tasajo) and panelon, or unrefined sugar.) Even in the eastern part of South America gold and silver are found dispersed in a manner that surprises the European geologist; but that dispersion, together with the divided and entangled state of the veins and the appearance of some metals only in masses, render the working extremely expensive. The example of Mexico sufficiently proves that the interest attached to the labours of the mines is not prejudicial to agricultural pursuits, and that those two branches of industry may simultaneously promote each other. The failure of the attempts made under the intendant, Don Jose Avalo, must be attributed solely to the ignorance of the persons employed by the Spanish government who mistook mica and hornblende for metallic substances. If the government would order the Capitania-General of Caracas to be carefully examined during a series of years by men of science, well versed in geognosy and chemistry, the most satisfactory results might be expected.
The description above given of the productions of Venezuela and the development of its coast sufficiently shows the importance of the commerce of that rich country. Even under the thraldom of the colonial system, the value of the exported products of agriculture and of the gold-washings amount to eleven or twelve millions of piastres in the countries at present united under the denomination of the Republic of Columbia. The exports of the Capitania-General of Caracas alone, exclusive of the precious metals which are the objects of regular working, was (with the contraband) from five to six millions of piastres at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Cumana, Barcelona, La Guayra, Porto Cabello and Maracaybo are the most important parts of the coast; those that lie most eastward have the advantage of an easier communication with the Virgin Islands, Guadaloupe, Martinique and St. Vincent. Angostura, the real name of which is Santo Tome de Nueva Guiana, may be considered as the port of the rich province of Varinas. The majestic river on whose banks this town is built, affords by its communications with the Apure, the Meta and the Rio Negro the greatest advantages for trade with Europe.
The shores of Venezuela, from the beauty of their ports, the tranquillity of the sea by which they are washed and the fine timber that covers them, possess great advantages over the shores of the United States. In no part of the world do we find firmer anchorage or better positions for the establishment of ports. The sea of this coast is constantly calm, like that which extends from Lima to Guayaquil. The storms and hurricanes of the West Indies are never felt on the Costa Firme; and when, after the sun has passed the meridian, thick clouds charged with electricity accumulate on the mountains of the coasts, a pilot accustomed to these latitudes knows that this threatening aspect of the sky denotes only a squall. The virgin-forests near the sea, in the eastern part of New Andalusia, present valuable resources for the establishment of dockyards. The wood of the mountains of Paria may vie with that of the island of Cuba, Huasacualco, Guayaquil and San Blas. The Spanish Government at the close of the last century fixed its attention on this important object. Marine engineers were sent to mark the finest trunks of Brazil-wood, mahogany, cedrela and laurinea between Angostura and the mouth of the Orinoco, as well as on the banks of the Gulf of Paria, commonly called the Golfo triste. It was not intended to establish docks on that spot, but to hew the weighty timber into the forms necessary for ship-building, and to transport it to Caraque, near Cadiz. Though trees fit for masts are not found in this country, it was nevertheless hoped that the execution of this project would considerably diminish the importation of timber from Sweden and Norway. The experiment of forming this establishment was tried in a very unhealthy spot, the valley of Quebranta, near Guirie; I have already adverted to the causes of its destruction. The insalubrity of the place would, doubtless, have diminished in proportion as the forest (el monte virgen) should have been removed from the dwellings of the inhabitants. Mulattos, and not whites, ought to have been employed in hewing the wood, and it should have been remembered that the expense of the roads (arastraderos) for the transport of the timber, when once laid out, would not have been the same, and that, by the increase of the population, the price of day labour would progressively have diminished. It is for ship-builders alone, who determine the localities, to judge whether, in the present state of things, the freight of merchant-vessels be not far too high to admit of sending to Europe large quantities of roughly-hewn wood; but it cannot be doubted that Venezuela possesses on its maritime coast, as well as on the banks of the Orinoco, immense resources for ship-building. The fine ships which have been launched from the dockyards of the Havannah, Guayaquil and San Blas have, no doubt, cost more than those constructed in Europe; but from the nature of tropical wood they possess the advantages of hardness and amazing durability.
The great struggle during which Venezuela has fought for independence has lasted more than twelve years. That period has been no less fruitful than civil commotions usually are in heroic and generous actions, guilty errors and violent passions. The sentiment of common danger has strengthened the ties between men of various races who, spread over the plains of Cumana or insulated on the table-land of Cundinamarca, have a physical and moral organization as different as the climates in which they live. The mother-country has several times regained possession of some districts; but as revolutions are always renewed with more violence when the evils that produce them can no longer be remedied these conquests have been transitory. To facilitate and give greater energy to the defence of this country the governments have been concentrated, and a vast state has been formed, extending from the mouth of the Orinoco to the other side of the Andes of Riobamba and the banks of the Amazon. The Capitania-General of Caracas has been united to the Vice-royalty of New Grenada, from which it was only separated entirely in 1777. This union, which will always be indispensable for external safety, this centralization of powers in a country six times larger than Spain, has been prompted by political views. The tranquil progress of the new government has justified the wisdom of those views, and the Congress will find still fewer obstacles in the execution of its beneficent projects for national industry and civilization, in proportion as it can grant increased liberty to the provinces, must render the people sensible to the advantages of institutions which they have purchased at the price of their blood. In every form of government, in republics as well as in limited monarchies, improvements, to be salutary, must be progressive. New Andalusia, Caracas, Cundinamarca, Popayan and Quito, are not confederate states like Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland. Without juntas, or provincial legislatures, all those countries are directly subject to the congress and government of Columbia. In conformity with the constitutional act, the intendants and governors of the departments and provinces are nominated by the president of the republic. It may be naturally supposed that such dependence has not always been deemed favourable to the liberty if the communes, which love to discuss their own local interests. The ancient kingdom of Quito, for instance, is connected by the habits and language of its mountainous inhabitants with Peru and New Grenada. If there were a provincial junta, if the congress alone determined the taxes necessary for the defence and general welfare of Columbia, the feeling of an individual political existence would render the inhabitants less interested in the choice of the spot which is the seat of the central government. The same argument applies to New Andalusia or Guiana which are governed by intendants named by the president. It may be said that these provinces have hitherto been in a position differing but little from those territories of the United States which have a population below 60,000 souls. Peculiar circumstances, which cannot be justly appreciated at such a distance, have doubtless rendered great centralization necessary in the civil administration; every change would be dangerous as long as the state has external enemies; but the forms useful for defence are not always those which, after the struggle, sufficiently favour individual liberty and the development of public prosperity.
The powerful union of North America has long been insulated and without contact with any states having analogous institutions. Although the progress America is making from east to west is considerably retarded near the right bank of the Mississippi, she will advance without interruption towards the internal provinces of Mexico, and will there find a European people of another race, other manners, and a different religious faith. Will the feeble population of those provinces, belonging to another dawning federation, resist; or will it be absorbed by the torrent from the east and transformed into an Anglo-American state, like the inhabitants of Lower Louisiana? The future will soon solve this problem. On the other hand, Mexico is separated from Columbia only by Guatimala, a country and extreme fertility which has recently assumed the denomination of the republic of Central America. The political divisions between Oaxaca and Chiapa, Costa Rica and Veragua, are not founded either on the natural limits or the manners and languages of the natives, but solely on the habit of dependence on the Spanish chiefs who resided at Mexico, Guatimala or Santa Fe de Bogota. It seems natural that Guatimala should one day join the isthmuses of Veragua and Panama to the isthmus of Costa Rica; and that Quito should connect New Grenada with Peru, as La Paz, Charcas and Potosi link Peru with Buenos-Ayres. The intermediate parts from Chiapa to the Cordilleras of Upper Peru form a passage from one political association to another, like those transitory forms which link together the various groups of the organic kingdom in nature. In neighbouring monarchies the provinces that adjoin each other present those striking demarcations which are the effect of great centralization of power in federal republics, states situated at the extremities of each system are some time before they acquire a stable equilibrium. It would be almost a matter of indifference to the provinces between Arkansas and the Rio del Norte whether they send their deputies to Mexico or to Washington. Were Spanish America one day to show a more uniform tendency towards the spirit of federalism, which the example of the United States has created on several points, there would result from the contact of so many systems or groups of states, confederations variously graduated. I here only touch on the relations that arise from this assemblage of colonies on an uninterrupted line of 1600 leagues in length. We have seen in North America, one of the old Atlantic states divided into two, and each having a different representation. The separation of Maine and Massachusetts in 1820 was effected in the most peaceable manner. Schisms of this kind will, it may be feared, render such changes turbulent. It may also be observed that the importance of the geographical divisions of Spanish America, founded at the same time on the relations of local position and the habits of several centuries, have prevented the mother-country from retarding the separation of the colonies by attempting to establish Spanish princes in the New World. In order to rule such vast possessions it would have been requisite to form six or seven centres of government; and that multiplicity of centres was hostile to the establishment of new dynasties at the period when they might still have been salutary to the mother country.
Bacon somewhere observes that it would be happy if nations would always follow the example of time, the greatest of all innovators, but who acts calmly and almost without being perceived. This happiness does not belong to colonies when they reach the critical juncture of emancipation; and least of all to Spanish America, engaged in the struggle at first not to obtain complete independence, but to escape from a foreign yoke. May these party agitations be succeeded by a lasting tranquillity! May the germ of civil discord, disseminated during three centuries to secure the dominion of the mother-country, gradually perish; and may productive and commercial Europe be convinced that to perpetuate the political agitations of the New World would be to impoverish herself by diminishing the consumption of her productions and losing a market which already yields more than seventy millions of piastres. Many years must no doubt elapse before seventeen millions of inhabitants, spread over a surface one-fifth greater than the whole of Europe, will have found a stable equilibrium in governing themselves. The most critical moment is that when nations, after long oppression, find themselves suddenly at liberty to promote their own prosperity. The Spanish Americans, it is unceasingly repeated, are not sufficiently advanced in intellectual cultivation to be fitted for free institutions. I remember that at a period not very remote, the same reasoning was applied to other nations who were said to have made too great an advance in civilization. Experience, no doubt, proves that nations, like individuals, find that intellect and learning do not always lead to happiness; but without denying the necessity of a certain mass of knowledge and popular instruction for the stability of republics or constitutional monarchies, we believe that stability depends much less on the degree of intellectual improvement than on the strength of the national character; on that balance of energy and tranquillity of ardour and patience which maintains and perpetuates new institutions; on the local circumstances in which a nation is placed; and on the political relations of a country with neighbouring states.
We sailed from Nueva Barcelona on the 24th of November at nine o'clock in the evening; and we doubled the small rocky island of Borachita. The night was marked by coolness which characterizes the nights of the tropics, and the agreeable effect of which can only be conceived by comparing the nocturnal temperature, from 23 to 24 degrees centigrade, with the mean temperature of the day, which in those latitudes is generally, even on the coast, from 28 to 29 degrees. Next day, soon after the observation of noon, we reached the meridian of the island of Tortugas. It is destitute of vegetation; and like the little islands of Coche and Cabagua is remarkable for its small elevation above the level of the sea.
In the forenoon of the 26th we began to lose sight of the island of Marguerita and I endeavoured to verify the height of the rocky group of Macanao. It appeared under an angle of 0 degrees 16 minutes 35 seconds; which in a distance estimated at sixty miles would give the mica-slate group of Macanao the elevation of about 660 toises, a result which, in a zone where the terrestrial refractions are so unchanging, leads me to think that the island was less distant than we supposed. The dome of the Silla of Caracas, lying 62 degrees to the south-west, long fixed our attention. At those times when the coast is not loaded with vapours the Silla must be visible at sea, without reckoning the effects of refraction, at thirty-three leagues distance. During the 26th, and the three following days, the sea was covered with a bluish film which, when examined by a compound microscope, appeared formed of an innumerable quantity of filaments. We frequently find these filaments in the Gulf-stream, and the Channel of Bahama, as well as near the coast of Buenos Ayres. Some naturalists are of opinion that they are vestiges of the eggs of mollusca: but they appear to be more like fragments of fuci. The phosphorescence of sea-water seems however to be augmented by their presence, especially between 28 and 30 degrees of north latitude, which indicates an origin of some sort of animal nature.
On the 27th we slowly approached the island of Orchila. Like all the small islands in the vicinity of the fertile coast of the continent it has never been inhabited. I found the latitude of the northern cape 11 degrees 51 minutes 44 seconds and the longitude of the eastern cape 68 degrees 26 minutes 5 seconds (supposing Nueva Barcelona to be 67 degrees 4 minutes 48 seconds). Opposite the western cape there is a small rock against which the waves beat turbulently. Some angles taken with the sextant gave, for the length of the island from east to west, 8.4 miles (950 toises); and for the breadth scarcely three miles. The island of Orchila which, from its name, I figured to myself as a bare rock covered with lichens, was at that period beautifully verdant. The hills of gneiss were covered with grasses. It appears that the geological constitution of Orchila resembles, on a small scale, that of Marguerita. It consists of two groups of rocks joined by a neck of land; it is an isthmus covered with sand which seems to have issued from the floods by the successive lowering of the level of the sea. The rocks, like all those which are perpendicular and insulated in the middle of the sea, appear much more elevated than they really are, for they scarcely exceed from 80 to 90 toises. The Punta rasa stretches to the north-west and is lost, like a sandbank, below the waters. It is dangerous for navigators, and so is likewise the Mogote which, at the distance of two miles from the western cape, is surrounded by breakers. On a very near examination of these rocks we saw the strata of gneiss inclined towards the north-west and crossed by thick layers of quartz. The destruction of these layers has doubtless created the sands of the surrounding beach. Some clumps of trees shade the valleys, the summits of the hills are crowned with fan-leaved palm-trees; probably the palma de sombrero of the Llanos (Corypha tectorum). Rain is not abundant in these countries; but probably some springs might be found on the island of Orchila if sought for with the same care as in the mica-slate rocks of Punta Araya. When we recollect how many bare and rocky islands are inhabited and cultivated between the 17th and 26th degrees of latitude in the archipelago of the Lesser Antilles and Bahama islands, we are surprised to find those islands desert which are near to the coast of Cumana, Barcelona and Caracas. They would long have ceased to be so had they been under the dominion of any other government than that to which they belong. Nothing can engage men to circumscribe their industry within the narrow limits of a small island when a neighbouring continent offers them greater advantages.
We perceived at sunset the two points of the Roca de afuera, rising like towers in the midst of the ocean. A survey taken with the compass placed the most easterly of the points or roques at 0 degrees 19 minutes west of the western cape of Orchila. The clouds continued long accumulated over that island and showed its position from afar. The influence of a small tract of land in condensing the vapours suspended at an elevation of 800 toises is a very extraordinary phenomenon, although familiar to all mariners. From this accumulation of clouds the position of the lowest island may be recognized at a great distance.
On the 29th November we still saw very distinctly, at sunrise, the summit of the Silla of Caracas just rising above the horizon of the sea. At noon everything denoted a change of weather in the direction of the north: the atmosphere suddenly cooled to 12.6 degrees, while the sea maintained a temperature of 25.6 degrees at its surface. At the moment of the observation of noon the oscillations of the horizon, crossed by streaks or black bands of very variable size, produced changes of refraction from 3 to 4 degrees. The sea became rough in very calm weather and everything announced a stormy passage between Cayman Island and Cape St. Antonio. On the 30th the wind veered suddenly to north-north-east and the surge rose to a considerable height. Northward a darkish blue tint was observable on the sky, the rolling of our small vessel was violent and we perceived amidst the dashing of the waves two seas crossing each other, one the from north and the other from north-north-east. Waterspouts were formed at the distance of a mile and were carried rapidly from north-north-east to north-north-west. Whenever the waterspout drew near us we felt the wind grow sensibly cooler. Towards evening, owing to the carelessness of our American cook, our deck took fire; but fortunately it was soon extinguished. On the morning of the 1st of December the sea slowly calmed and the breeze became steady from north-east. On the 2nd of December we descried Cape Beata, in a spot where we had long observed the clouds gathered together. According to the observations of Acherner, which I obtained in the night, we were sixty-four miles distant. During the night there was a very curious optical phenomenon, which I shall not undertake to account for. At half-past midnight the wind blew feebly from the east; the thermometer rose to 23.2 degrees, the whalebone hygrometer was at 57 degrees. I had remained upon the deck to observe the culmination of some stars. The full-moon was high in the heavens. Suddenly, in the direction of the moon, 45 degrees before its passage over the meridian, a great arch was formed tinged with the prismatic colours, though not of a bright hue. The arch appeared higher than the moon; this iris-band was near 2 degrees broad, and its summit seemed to rise nearly from 80 to 85 degrees above the horizon of the sea. The sky was singularly pure; there was no appearance of rain; and what struck me most was that this phenomenon, which perfectly resembled a lunar rainbow, was not in the direction opposite to the moon. The arch remained stationary, or at least appeared to do so, during eight or ten minutes; and at the moment when I tried if it were possible to see it by reflection in the mirror of the sextant, it began to move and descend, crossing successively the Moon and Jupiter. It was 12 hours 54 minutes (mean time) when the summit of the arch sank below the horizon. This movement of an arch, coloured like the rainbow, filled with astonishment the sailors who were on watch on the deck. They alleged, as they do on the appearance of every extraordinary meteor, that it denoted wind. M. Arago examined the sketch of this arch in my journal; and he is of opinion that the image of the moon reflected in the waters could not have given a halo of such great dimensions. The rapidity of the movement is no small obstacle in the way of explanation of a phenomenon well worthy of attention.
On the 3rd of December we felt some uneasiness on account of the proximity of a small vessel supposed to be a pirate but which, as it drew near, we recognized to be the Balandra del Frayle (the sloop of the Monk). I was at a loss to conceive what so strange a denomination meant. The bark belonged to a Franciscan missionary, a rich priest of am Indian village in the savannahs (Llanos) of Barcelona, who had for several years carried on a very lucrative contraband trade with the Danish islands. M. Bonpland and several passengers saw in the night at the distance of a quarter of a mile, with the wind, a small flame on the surface of the ocean; it ran in the direction of south-west and lighted up the atmosphere. No shock of earthquake was felt and there was no change in the direction of the waves. Was it a phosphoric gleam produced by a great accumulation of mollusca in a state of putrefaction; or did this flame issue from the depth of the sea, as is said to have been sometimes observable in latitudes agitated by volcanoes? The latter supposition appears to me devoid of all probability. The volcanic flame can only issue from the deep when the rocky bed of the ocean is already heaved up so that the flames and incandescent scoriae escape from the swelled and creviced part without traversing the waters.
At half-past ten in the morning of the 4th of December we were in the meridian of Cape Bacco (Punta Abacou) which I found in 76 degrees 7 minutes 50 seconds, or 9 degrees 3 minutes 2 seconds west of Nueva Barcelona. Having attained the parallel of 17 degrees, the fear of pirates made us prefer the direct passage across the bank of Vibora, better known by the name of the Pedro Shoals. This bank occupies more than two hundred and eighty square sea leagues and its configuration strikes the eye of the geologist by its resemblance to that of Jamaica, which is in its neighbourhood. It forms an island almost as large as Porto Rico.
From the 5th of December, the pilots believed they took successively the measurement at a distance of the island of Ranas (Morant Keys), Cape Portland and Pedro Keys. They may probably have been deceived in several of these distances, which were taken from the mast-head. I have elsewhere noted these measurements, not with the view of opposing them to those which have been made by able English navigators in these frequented latitudes, but merely to connect, in the same system of observations, the points I determined in the forests of the Orinoco and in the archipelago of the West Indies. The milky colour of the waters warned us that we were on the eastern part of the bank; the centigrade thermometer which at a distance from the bank and on the surface of the sea had for several days kept at 27 and 27.3 degrees (the air being at 21.2 degrees) sank suddenly to 25.7 degrees. The weather was bad from the 4th to the 6th of December: it rained fast; thunder rolled at a distance, and the gusts of wind from the north-north-east became more and more violent. We were during some part of the night in a critical position; we heard before us the noise of the breakers over which we had to pass, and we could ascertain their direction by the phosphoric gleam reflected from the foam of the sea. The scene resembled the Raudal of Garzita and other rapids which we had seen in the bed of the Orinoco. We succeeded in changing our course and in less than a quarter of an hour were out of danger. While we traversed the bank of the Vibora from south-south-east to north-north-west I repeatedly tried to ascertain the temperature of the water on the surface of the sea. The cooling was less sensible on the middle of the bank than on its edge, a circumstance which we attributed to the currents that there mingle waters from different latitudes. On the south of Pedro Keys the surface of the sea, at twenty-five fathoms deep, was 26.4 and at fifteen fathoms deep 26.2 degrees. The temperature of the sea on the east of the bank had been 26.8 degrees. Some American pilots affirm that among the Bahama Islands they often know, when seated in the cabin, that they are passing over sand-banks; they allege that the lights are surrounded with small coloured halos and that the air exhaled from the lungs is visibly condensed. The latter circumstance appears very doubtful; below 30 degrees of latitude the cooling produced by the waters of the bank is not sufficiently considerable to cause this phenomenon. During the time we passed on the bank of the Vibora the constitution of the air was quite different from what it had been when we quitted it. The rain was circumscribed by the limits of the bank of which we could distinguish the form from afar by the mass of vapour with which it was covered.
On the 9th of December, as we advanced towards the Cayman Islands,* the north-east wind again blew with violence. (* Christopher Columbus in 1503 named the Cayman Islands Penascales de las Tortugas on account of the sea-tortoises which he saw swimming in those latitudes.) I nevertheless obtained some altitudes of the sun at the moment when we believed ourselves, though twelve miles distant, in the meridian of the centre of the Great Cayman, which is covered with cocoa-trees.
The weather continued bad and the sea extremely rough. The wind at length fell as we neared Cape St. Antonio. I found the northern extremity of the cape 87 degrees 17 minutes 22 seconds, or 2 degrees 34 minutes 14 seconds eastward of the Morro of the Havannah: this is the longitude now marked on the best charts. We were at the distance of three miles from land but we were made aware of the proximity of the island of Cuba by a delicious aromatic odour. The sailors affirm that this odour is not perceived when they approach from Cape Catoche on the barren coast of Mexico. As the weather grew clearer the thermometer rose gradually in the shade to 27 degrees: we advanced rapidly northward, carried on by a current from south-south-east, the temperature of which rose at the surface of the water to 26.7 degrees; while out of the current it was 24.6 degrees. We anchored in the port of the Havannah on the 19th December after a passage of twenty-five days in continuous bad weather.
Cuba owes its political importance to a variety of circumstances, among which may be enumerated the extent of its surface, the fertility of its soil, its naval establishments, and the nature of its population, of which three-fifths are free men. All these advantages are heightened by the admirable position of the Havannah. The northern part of the Caribbean Sea, known by the name of the Gulf of Mexico, forms a circular basin more than two hundred and fifty leagues in diameter: it is a Mediterranean with two outlets. The island of Cuba, or rather its coast between Cape St. Antonio and the town of Matanzas, situated at the opening of the old channel, closes the Gulf of Mexico on the south-east, leaving the ocean current known by the name of the Gulf Stream, no other outlet on the south than a strait between Cape St. Antonio and Cape Catoche; and no other on the north than the channel of Bahama, between Bahia-Honda and the shoals of Florida. Near the northern outlet, where the highways of so many nations may be said to cross each other, lies the fine port of the Havannah, fortified at once by nature and by art. The fleets which sail from this port and which are partly constructed of the cedrela and the mahogany of the island of Cuba, might, at the entrance of the Mexican Mediterranean, menace the opposite coast, as the fleets that sail from Cadiz command the Atlantic near the Pillars of Hercules. In the meridian of the Havannah the Gulf of Mexico, the old channel, and the channel of Bahama unite. The opposite direction of the currents and the violent agitations of the atmosphere at the setting-in of winter impart a peculiar character to these latitudes at the extreme limit of the equinoctial zone.
The island of Cuba is the largest of the Antilles.* (* Its area is little less in extent than that of England not including Wales.) Its long and narrow form gives it a vast development of coast and places it in proximity with Hayti and Jamaica, with the most southern province of the United States (Florida) and the most easterly province of the Mexican Confederation (Yucatan).* (* These places are brought into communication one with another by a voyage of ten or twelve days.) This circumstance claims serious attention when it is considered that Jamaica, St. Domingo, Cuba and the southern parts of the United States (from Louisiana to Virginia) contain nearly two million eight hundred thousand Africans. Since the separation of St. Domingo, the Floridas and New Spain from the mother-country, the island of Cuba is connected only by similarity of religion, language and manners with the neighbouring countries, which, during ages, were subject to the same laws.
Florida forms the last link in that long chain, the northern extremity of which reaches the basin of St. Lawrence and extends from the region of palm-trees to that of the most rigorous winter. The inhabitant of New England regards the increasing augmentation of the black population, the preponderance of the slave states and the predilection for the cultivation of colonial products as a public danger; and earnestly wishes that the strait of Florida, the present limit of the great American confederation, may never be passed but with the views of free trade, founded on equal rights. If he fears events which may place the Havannah under the dominion of a European power more formidable than Spain, he is not the less desirous that the political ties by which Louisiana, Pensacola and Saint Augustin of Florida were heretofore united to the island of Cuba may for ever be broken.
The extreme sterility of the soil, joined to the want of inhabitants and of cultivation, have at all times rendered the proximity of Florida of small importance to the trade of the Havannah; but the case is different on the coast of Mexico. The shores of that country, stretching in a semicircle from the frequented ports of Tampico, Vera Cruz, and Alvarado to Cape Catoche, almost touch, by the peninsula of Yucatan, the western part of the island of Cuba. Commerce is extremely active between the Havannah and the port of Campeachy; and it increases, notwithstanding the new order of things in Mexico, because the trade, equally illicit with a more distant coast, that of Caracas or Columbia, employs but a small number of vessels. In such difficult times the supply of salt meat (tasajo) for the slaves is more easily obtained from Buenos Ayres and the plains of Merida than from those of Cumana, Barcelona and Caracas. The island of Cuba and the archipelago of the Philippines have for ages derived from New Spain the funds necessary for their internal administration and for keeping up their fortifications, arsenals and dockyards. The Havannah was the military port of the New World; and, till 1808, annually received 1,800,000 piastres from the Mexican treasury. At Madrid it was long the custom to consider the island of Cuba and the archipelago of the Philippines as dependencies on Mexico, situated at very unequal distances east and west of Vera Cruz and Acapulco, but linked to the Mexican metropolis (then a European colony) by all the ties of commerce, mutual aid and ancient sympathies. Increased internal wealth has rendered unnecessary the pecuniary succour formerly furnished to Cuba from the Mexican treasury. Of all the Spanish possessions that island has been most prosperous: the port of the Havannah has, since the troubles of St. Domingo, become one of the most important points of the commercial world. A fortunate concurrence of political circumstances, joined to the intelligence and commercial activity of the inhabitants, have preserved to the Havannah the uninterrupted enjoyment of free intercourse with foreign nations.
I twice visited this island, residing there on one occasion for three months, and on the other for six weeks; and I enjoyed the confidence of persons who, from their abilities and their position, were enabled to furnish me with the best information. In company with M. Bonpland I visited only the vicinity of the Havannah, the beautiful valley of Guines and the coast between Batabano and the port of Trinidad. After having succinctly described the aspect of this scenery and the singular modifications of a climate so different from that of the other islands, I will proceed to examine the general population of the Island of Cuba; its area calculated from the most accurate sketch of the coast; the objects of trade and the state of the public revenue.
The aspect of the Havannah, at the entrance of the port, is one of the gayest and most picturesque on the shore of equinoctial America north of the equator. This spot is celebrated by travellers of all nations. It boasts not the luxuriant vegetation that adorns the banks of the river Guayaquil nor the wild majesty of the rocky coast of Rio de Janeiro; but the grace which in those climates embellishes the scenes of cultivated nature is at the Havannah mingled with the majesty of vegetable forms and the organic vigour that characterizes the torrid zone. On entering the port of the Havannah you pass between the fortress of the Morro (Castillo de los Santos Reyes) and the fort of San Salvador de la Punta: the opening being only from one hundred and seventy to two hundred toises wide. Having passed this narrow entrance, leaving on the north the fine castle of San Carlos de la Cabana and the Casa Blanca, we reach a basin in the form of a trefoil of which the great axis, stretching from south-south-west to north-north-east, is two miles and one-fifth long. This basin communicates with three creeks, those of Regla, Guanavacoa and Atares; in this last there are some springs of fresh water. The town of the Havannah, surrounded by walls, forms a promontory bounded on the south by the arsenal and on the north by the fort of La Punta. After passing beyond some wrecks of vessels sunk in the shoals of La Luz, we no longer find eight or ten, but five or six fathoms of water. The castles of Santo Domingo de Atares and San Carlos del Principe defend the town on the westward; they are distant from the interior wall, on the land side, the one 660 toises, the other 1240. The intermediate space is filled by the suburbs (arrabales or barrios extra muros) of the Horcon, Jesu-Maria, Guadaloupe and Senor de la Salud, which from year to year encroach on the Field of Mars (Campo de Marte). The great edifices of the Havannah, the cathedral, the Casa del Govierno, the house of the commandant of the marine, the Correo or General Post Office and the factory of Tobacco are less remarkable for beauty than for solidity of structure. The streets are for the most part narrow and unpaved. Stones being brought from Vera Cruz, and very difficult of transport, the idea was conceived a short time before my voyage of joining great trunks of trees together, as is done in Germany and Russia, when dykes are constructed across marshy places. This project was soon abandoned and travellers newly arrived beheld with surprise fine trunks of mahogany sunk in the mud of the Havannah. At the time of my sojourn there few towns of Spanish America presented, owing to the want of a good police, a more unpleasant aspect. People walked in mud up to the knee; and the multitude of caleches or volantes (the characteristic equipage of the Havannah) of carts loaded with casks of sugar, and porters elbowing passengers, rendered walking most disagreeable. The smell of tasajo often poisons the houses and the winding streets. But it appears that of late the police has interposed and that a manifest improvement has taken place in the cleanliness of the streets; that the houses are more airy and that the Calle de los Mercadores presents a fine appearance. Here, as in the oldest towns of Europe. an ill-traced plan of streets can only be amended by slow degrees.
There are two fine public walks; one called the Alameda, between the hospital of Santa Paula and the theatre, and the other between the Castillo de la Punta and the Puerta de la Muralla, called the Paseo extra muros; the latter is deliciously cool and is frequented by carriages after sunset. It was begun by the Marquis de la Torre, governor of the island, who gave the first impulse to the improvement of the police and the municipal government. Don Luis de las Casas and the Count de Santa Clara enlarged the plantations. Near the Campo de Marte is the Botanical Garden which is well worthy to fix the attention of the government; and another place fitted to excite at once pity and indignation—the barracoon, in front of which the wretched slaves are exposed for sale. A marble statue of Charles III has been erected since my return to Europe, in the extra muros walk. This spot was at first destined for a monument to Christopher Columbus whose ashes, after the cession of the Spanish part of St. Domingo, were brought to the island of Cuba.*
(* Columbus lies buried in the cathedral of the Havannah, close to the wall near the high altar. On the tomb is the following inscription:
O restos y Imagen del grande Colon;Mil siglos duran guardados en la Urna,Y en remembranca de nuestra Nacion.
Oh relics and image of the great Colon (Columbus)A thousand ages are encompassed in thy Urn,And in the memory of our Nation.
His remains were first deposited at Valladolid and thence were removed to Seville. In 1536 the bodies of Columbus and of his son Diego (El Adelantado) were carried to St. Domingo and there interred in the cathedral; but they were afterwards removed to the place where they now repose.)
The same year the ashes of Fernando Cortez were transferred in Mexico from one church to another: thus, at the close of the eighteenth century, the remains of the two greatest men who promoted the conquest of America were interred in new sepulchres.
The most majestic palm-tree of its tribe, the palma real, imparts a peculiar character to the landscape in the vicinity of the Havannah; it is the Oreodoxa regia of our description of American palm-trees. Its tall trunk, slightly swelled towards the middle, grows to the height of 60 or 80 feet; the upper part is glossy, of a delicate green, newly formed by the closing and dilatation of the petioles, contrasts with the rest, which is whitish and fendilated. It appears like two columns, the one surmounting the other. The palma real of the island of Cuba has feathery leaves rising perpendicularly towards the sky, and curved only at the point. The form of this plant reminded us of the vadgiai palm-tree which covers the rocks in the cataracts of the Orinoco, balancing its long points over a mist of foam. Here, as in every place where the population is concentrated, vegetation diminishes. Those palm-trees round the Havannah and in the amphitheatre of Regla on which I delighted to gaze are disappearing by degrees. The marshy places which I saw covered with bamboos are cultivated and drained. Civilization advances; and the soil, gradually stripped of plants, scarcely offers any trace of its wild abundance. From the Punta to San Lazaro, from Cabana to Regla and from Regla to Atares the road is covered with houses, and those that surround the bay are of light and elegant construction. The plan of these houses is traced out by the owners, and they are ordered from the United States, like pieces of furniture. When the yellow fever rages at the Havannah the proprietors withdraw to those country houses and to the hills between Regla and Guanavacoa to breathe a purer air. In the coolness of night, when the boats cross the bay, and owing to the phosphorescence of the water, leave behind them long tracks of light, these romantic scenes afford charming and peaceful retreats for those who wish to withdraw from the tumult of a populous city. To judge of the progress of cultivation travellers should visit the small plots of maize and other alimentary plants, the rows of pine-apples (ananas) in the fields of Cruz de Piedra and the bishop's garden (Quinta del Obispo) which of late is become a delicious spot.
The town of the Havannah, properly so called, surrounded by walls, is only 900 toises long and 500 broad; yet more than 44,000 inhabitants, of whom 26,000 are negroes and mulattoes, are crowded together in this narrow space. A population nearly as considerable occupies the two great suburbs of Jesu-Maria and La Salud.* (* Salud signifies Health.) The latter place does not verify the name it bears; the temperature of the air is indeed lower than in the city but the streets might have been larger and better planned. Spanish engineers, who have been waging war for thirty years past with the inhabitants of the suburbs (arrabales), have convinced the government that the houses are too near the fortifications, and that the enemy might establish himself there with impunity. But the government has not courage to demolish the suburbs and disperse a population of 28,000 inhabitants collected in La Salud only. Since the great fire of 1802 that quarter has been considerably enlarged; barracks were at first constructed, but by degrees they have been converted into private houses. The defence of the Havannah on the west is of the highest importance: so long as the besieged are masters of the town, properly so called, and of the southern part of the bay, the Morro and La Cabana, they are impregnable because they can be provisioned by the Havannah, and the losses of the garrison repaired. I have heard well-informed French engineers observe that an enemy should begin his operations by taking the town, in order to bombard the Cabana, a strong fortress, but where the garrison, shut up in the casemates, could not long resist the insalubrity of the climate. The English took the Morro without being masters of the Havannah; but the Cabana and the Fort Number 4 which commands the Morro did not then exist. The most important works on the south and west are the Castillos de Atares y del Principe, and the battery of Santa Clara.
We employed the months of December, January and February in making observations in the vicinity of the Havannah and the fine plains of Guines. We experienced, in the family of Senor Cuesta (who then formed with Senor Santa Maria one of the greatest commercial houses in America) and in the house of Count O'Reilly, the most generous hospitality. We lived with the former and deposited our collections and instruments in the spacious hotel of Count O'Reilly, where the terraces favoured our astronomical observations. The longitude of the Havannah was at this period more than one fifth of a degree uncertain.* (* I also fixed, by direct observations, several positions in the interior of the island of Cuba: namely Rio Blanco, a plantation of Count Jaruco y Mopex; the Almirante, a plantation of the Countess Buenavista; San Antonio de Beitia; the village of Managua; San Antonio de Bareto; and the Fondadero, near the town of San Antonio de los Banos.). It had been fixed by M. Espinosa, the learned director of the Deposito hidrografico of Madrid, at 5 degrees 38 minutes 11 seconds, in a table of positions which he communicated to me on leaving Madrid. M. de Churruca fixed the Morro at 5 hours 39 minutes 1 second. I met at the Havannah with one of the most able officers of the Spanish navy, Captain Don Dionisio Galeano, who had taken a survey of the coast of the strait of Magellan. We made observations together on a series of eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter, of which the mean result gave 5 hours 38 minutes 50 seconds. M. Oltmanns deduced in 1805 the whole of those observations which I marked for the Morro, at 5 hours 38 minutes 52.5 seconds—84 degrees 43 minutes 7.5 seconds west of the meridian of Paris. This longitude was confirmed by fifteen occultations of stars observed from 1809 to 1811 and calculated by M. Ferrer: that excellent observer fixes the definitive result at 5 degrees 38 minutes 50.9 seconds. With respect to the magnetic dip I found it by the compass of Borda (December 1800) 53 degrees 22 minutes of the old sexagesimal division: twenty-two years before, according to the very accurate observations made by Captain Sabine in his memorable voyage to the coasts of Africa, America and Spitzbergen, the dip was only 51 degrees 55 minutes; it had therefore diminished 1 degree 27 minutes.
The island of Cuba being surrounded with shoals and breakers along more than two-thirds of its length, and as ships keep out beyond those dangers, the real shape of the island was for a long time unknown. Its breadth, especially between the Havannah and the port of Batabano, has been exaggerated; and it is only since the Deposito hidrografico of Madrid published the observations of captain Don Jose del Rio, and lieutenant Don Ventura de Barcaiztegui, that the area of the island of Cuba could be calculated with any accuracy. Wishing to furnish in this work the most accurate result that can be obtained in the present state of our astronomical knowledge, I engaged M. Bauza to calculate the area. He found, in June, 1835, the surface of the island of Cuba, without the Isla dos Pinos, to be 3520 square sea leagues, and with that island 3615. From this calculation, which has been twice repeated, it results that the island of Cuba is one-seventh less than has hitherto been believed; that it is 32/100 larger than Hayti, or San Domingo; that its surface equals that of Portugal, and within one-eighth that of England without Wales; and that if the whole archipelago of the Antilles presents as great an area as the half of Spain, the island of Cuba alone almost equals in surface the other Great and Small Antilles. Its greatest length, from Cape San Antonio to Point Maysi (in a direction from west-south-west to east-north-east and from west-north-west to east-south-east) is 227 leagues; and its greatest breadth (in the direction north and south), from Point Maternillo to the mouth of the Magdalena, near Peak Tarquino, is 37 leagues. The mean breadth of the island, on four-fifths of its length, between the Havannah and Puerto Principe, is 15 leagues. In the best cultivated part, between the Havannah and Batabano, the isthmus is only eight sea leagues. Among the great islands of the globe, that of Java most resembles the island of Cuba in its form and area (4170 square leagues). Cuba has a circumference of coast of 520 leagues, of which 280 belong to the south shore, between Cape San Antonio and Punta Maysi.
The island of Cuba, over more than four-fifths of its surface, is composed of low lands. The soil is covered with secondary and tertiary formations, formed by some rocks of gneiss-granite, syenite and euphotide. The knowledge obtained hitherto of the geologic configuration of the country, is as unsatisfactory as what is known respecting the relative age and nature of the soil. It is only ascertained that the highest group of mountains lies at the south-eastern extremity of the island, between Cape Cruz, Punta Maysi, and Holguin. This mountainous part, called the Sierra or Las Montanas del Cobre (the Copper Mountains), situated north-west of the town of Santiago de Cuba, appears to be about 1200 toises in height. If this calculation be correct, the summits of the Sierra would command those of the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, and the peaks of La Selle and La Hotte in the island of San Domingo. The Sierra of Tarquino, fifty miles west of the town of Cuba, belongs to the same group as the Copper Mountains. The island is crossed from east-south-east to west-north-west by a chain of hills, which approach the southern coast between the meridians of La Ciudad de Puerto Principe and the Villa Clara; while, further to the westward towards Alvarez and Matanzas, they stretch in the direction of the northern coast. Proceeding from the mouth of the Rio Guaurabo to the Villa de la Trinidad, I saw on the north-west, the Lomas de San Juan, which form needles or horns more than 300 toises high, with their declivities sloping regularly to the south. This calcareous group presents a majestic aspect, as seen from the anchorage near the Cayo de Piedras. Xagua and Batabano are low coasts; and I believe that, in general, west of the meridian of Matanzas, there is no hill more than 200 toises high, with the exception of the Pan de Guaixabon. The land in the interior of the island is gently undulated, as in England; and it rises only from 45 to 50 toises above the level of the sea. The objects most visible at a distance, and most celebrated by navigators, are the Pan de Matanzas, a truncated cone which has the form of a small monument; the Arcos de Canasi, which appear between Puerto Escondido and Jaruco, like small segments of a circle; the Mesa de Mariel, the Tetas de Managua, and the Pan de Guaixabon. This gradual slope of the limestone formations of the island of Cuba towards the north and west indicates the submarine connection of those rocks with the equally low lands of the Bahama Islands, Florida and Yucatan.
Intellectual cultivation and improvement were so long restricted to the Havannah and the neighbouring districts, that we cannot be surprised at the ignorance prevailing among the inhabitants respecting the geologic formation of the Copper Mountains. Don Francisco Ramirez, a traveller versed in chemical and mineralogical science, informed me that the western part of the island is granitic, and that he there observed gneiss and primitive slate. Probably the alluvial deposits of auriferous sand which were explored with much ardour* at the beginning of the conquest, to the great misfortune of the natives came from those granitic formations (* At Cubanacan, that is, in the interior of the island, near Jagua and Trinidad, where the auriferous sands have been washed by the waters as far as the limestone soil. Martyr d'Anghiera, the most intelligent writer on the Conquest, says: "Cuba is richer in gold than Hispaniola (San Domingo); and at the moment I am writing, 180,000 castillanos of ore have been collected at Cuba." Herrera estimates the tax called King's-fifth (quinto del Rey), in the island of Cuba, at 6000 pesos, which indicates an annual product of 2000 marks of gold, at 22 carats; and consequently purer than the gold of Sibao in San Domingo. In 1804 the mines of Mexico altogether produced 7000 marks of gold; and those of Peru 3400. It is difficult, in these calculations, to distinguish between the gold sent to Spain by the first Conquistadores, that obtained by washings, and that which had been accumulated for ages in the hands of the natives, who were pillaged at will. Supposing that in the two islands of Cuba and San Domingo (in Cubanacan and Cibao) the product of the washings was 3000 marks of gold, we find a quantity three times less than the gold furnished annually (1790 to 1805) by the small province of Choco. In this supposition of ancient wealth there is nothing improbable; and if we are surprised at the scanty produce of the gold-washings attempted in our days at Cuba and San Domingo, which were heretofore so prolific, it must be recollected that at Brazil also the product of the gold-washings has fallen, from 1760 to 1820, from 6600 gold kilogrammes to less than 595. Lumps of gold weighing several pounds, found in our days in Florida and North and South Carolina, prove the primitive wealth of the whole basin of the Antilles from the island of Cuba to the Appalachian chain. It is also natural that the product of the gold-washings should diminish with greater rapidity than that of the subterraneous working of the veins. The metals not being renewed in the clefts of the veins (by sublimation) now accumulate in alluvial soil by the course of the rivers where the table-lands are higher than the level of the surrounding running waters. But in rocks with metalliferous veins the miner does not at once know all he has to work. He may chance to lengthen the labours, to go deep, and to cross other accompanying veins. Alluvial soils are generally of small depth where they are auriferous; they most frequently rest upon sterile rocks. Their superficial position and uniformity of composition help to the knowledge of their limits, and wherever workmen can be collected, and where the waters for the washings abound, accelerate the total working of the auriferous clay. These considerations, suggested by the history of the Conquest, and by the science of mining, may throw some light on the problem of the metallic wealth of Hayti. In that island, as well as at Brazil, it would be more profitable to attempt subterraneous workings (on veins) in primitive and intermediary soils than to renew the gold-washings which were abandoned in the ages of barbarism, rapine and carnage.); traces of that sand are still found in the rivers Holguin and Escambray, known in general in the vicinity of Villa-Clara, Santo Espiritu, Puerto del Principe de Bayamo and the Bahia de Nipe. The abundance of copper mentioned by the Conquistadores of the sixteenth century, at a period when the Spaniards were more attentive than they have been in latter times to the natural productions of America, may possibly be attributed to the formations of amphibolic slate, transition clay-slate mixed with diorite, and to euphotides analogous to those I found in the mountains of Guanabacoa.
The central and western parts of the island contain two formations of compact limestone; one of clayey sandstone and another of gypsum. The former has, in its aspect and composition, some resemblance to the Jura formation. It is white, or of a clear ochre-yellow, with a dull fracture, sometimes conchoidal, sometimes smooth; divided into thin layers, furnishing some balls of pyromac silex, often hollow (at Rio Canimar two leagues east of Matanzas), and petrifications of pecten, cardites, terebratules and madrepores.* (* I saw neither gryphites nor ammonites of Jura limestone nor the nummulites and cerites of coarse limestone.) I found no oolitic beds, but porous beds almost bulbous, between the Potrero del Conde de Mopox, and the port of Batabano, resembling the spongy beds of Jura limestone in Franconia, near Dondorf, Pegnitz, and Tumbach. Yellowish cavernous strata, with cavities from three to four inches in diameter, alternate with strata altogether compact,* and poorer in petrifications. (* The western part of the island has no deep ravines; and we recognize this alternation in travelling from the Havannah to Batabano, the deepest beds (inclined from 30 to 40 degrees north-east) appear as we advance.) The chain of hills that borders the plain of Guines on the north and is linked with the Lomas de Camua, and the Tetas de Managua, belongs to the latter variety, which is reddish white, and almost of lithographic nature, like the Jura limestone of Pappenheim. The compact and cavernous beds contain nests of brown ochreous iron; possibly the red earth (tierra colorada) so much sought for by the coffee planters (haciendados) owes its origin to the decomposition of some superficial beds of oxidated iron, mixed with silex and clay, or to a reddish sandstone* (* Sandstone and ferruginous sand; iron-sand?) superposed on limestone. The whole of this formation, which I shall designate by the name of the limestone of Guines, to distinguish it from another much more recent, forms, near Trinidad, in the Lomas of St. Juan, steep declivities, resembling the mountains of limestone of Caripe, in the vicinity of Cumana. They also contain great caverns, near Matanzas and Jaruco, where I have not heard that any fossil bones have been found. The frequency of caverns in which the pluvial waters accumulate, and where small rivers disappear, sometimes causes a sinking of the earth. I am of opinion that the gypsum of the island of Cuba belongs not to tertiary but to secondary soil; it is worked in several places on the east of Matanzas, at San Antonio de los Banos, where it contains sulphur, and at the Cayos, opposite San Juan de los Remedios. We must not confound with this limestone of Guines, sometimes porous, sometimes compact, another formation so recent that it seems to augment in our days. I allude to the calcareous agglomerates, which I saw in the islands of Cayos that border the coast between the Batabano and the bay of Xagua, principally south of the Cienega de Zapata, Cayo Buenito, Cayo Flamenco and Cayo de Piedras. The soundings prove that they are rocks rising abruptly from a bottom of between twenty and thirty fathoms. Some are at the water's edge, others one-fourth or one-fifth of a toise above the surface of the sea. Angular fragments of madrepores, and cellularia from two to three cubic inches, are found cemented by grains of quartzose sand. The inequalities of the rocks are covered by mould, in which, by help of a microscope, we only distinguish the detritus of shells and corals. This tertiary formation no doubt belongs to that of the coast of Cumana, Carthagena, and the Great Land of Guadaloupe, noticed in my geognostic table of South America.* (* M. Moreau de Jonnes has well distinguished, in his Histoire physique des Antilles Francoises, between the Roche a ravets of Martinique and Hayti, which is porous, filled with terebratulites, and other vestiges of sea-shells, somewhat analogous to the limestone of Guines and the calcareous pelagic sediment called at Guadaloupe Platine, or Maconne bon Dieu. In the cayos of the island of Cuba, or Jardinillos del Rey y del Reyna, the whole coral rock lying above the surface of the water appeared to me to be fragmentary, that is, composed of broken blocks. It is, however, probable, that in the depth it reposes on masses of polypi still living.) MM. Chamiso and Guiamard have recently thrown great light on the formation of the coral islands in the Pacific. At the foot of the Castillo de in Punta, near the Havannah, on shelves of cavernous rocks,* covered with verdant sea-weeds and living polypi, we find enormous masses of madrepores and other lithophyte corals set in the texture of those shelves. (* The surface of these shelves, blackened and excavated by the waters, presents ramifications like the cauliflower, as they are observed on the currents of lava. Is the change of colour produced by the waters owing to the manganese which we recognize by some dendrites? The sea, entering into the clefts of the rocks, and in a cavern at the foot of the Castillo del Morro, compresses the air and makes it issue with a tremendous noise. This noise explains the phenomena of the baxos roncadores (snoring bocabeoos), so well known to navigators who cross from Jamaica to the mouth of Rio San Juan of Nicaragua, or to the island of San Andres.) We are at first tempted to admit that the whole of this limestone rock, which constitutes the principal portion of the island of Cuba, may be traced to an uninterrupted operation of nature—to the action of productive organic forces—an action which continues in our days in the bosom of the ocean; but this apparent novelty of limestone formations soon vanishes when we quit the shore, and recollect the series of coral rocks which contain the formations of different ages, the muschelkalk, the Jura limestone and coarse limestone. The same coral rocks as those of the Castillo and La Punta are found in the lofty inland mountains, accompanied with petrifications of bivalve shells, very different from those now seen on the coasts of the Antilles. Without positively assigning a determinate place in the table of formations to the limestone of Guines, which is that of the Castillo and La Punta, I have no doubt of the relative antiquity of that rock with respect to the calcareous agglomerate of the Cayos, situated south of Batabano, and east of the island of Pinos. The globe has undergone great revolutions between the periods when these two soils were formed; the one containing the great caverns of Matanzas, the other daily augmenting by the agglutination of fragments of coral and quartzose sand. On the south of the island of Cuba, the latter soil seems to repose sometimes on the Jura limestone of Guines, as in the Jardinillos, and sometimes (towards Cape Cruz) immediately over primitive rocks. In the lesser Antilles the corals are covered with volcanic productions. Several of the Cayos of the island of Cuba contain fresh water; and I found this water very good in the middle of the Cayo de Piedras. When we reflect on the extreme smallness of these islands we can scarcely believe that the fresh-water wells are filled with rain-water not evaporated. Do they prove a submarine communication between the limestone of the coast with the limestone serving as the basis of lithophyte polypi, and is the fresh water of Cuba raised up by hydrostatic pressure across the coral rocks of Cayos, as it is in the bay of Xagua, where, in the middle of the sea, it forms springs frequented by the lamantins?
The secondary formations on the east of the Havannah are pierced in a singular manner by syenitic and euphotide rocks united in groups. The southern bottom of the bay as well as the northern part (the hills of the Morro and the Cabana) are of Jura limestone; but on the eastern bank of the two Ensenadas de Regla and Guanabacoa, the whole is transition soil. Going from north to south, and first near Marimelena, we find syenite consisting of a great quantity of hornblende, partly decomposed, a little quartz, and a reddish-white feldspar seldom crystallized. This fine syenite, the strata of which incline to the north-west, alternates twice with serpentine. The layers of intercalated serpentine are three toises thick. Farther south, towards Regla and Guanabacoa, the syenite disappears, and the whole soil is covered with serpentine, rising in hills from thirty to forty toises high, and running from east to west. This rock is much fendillated, externally of a bluish-grey, covered with dendrites of manganese, and internally of leek and asparagus-green, crossed by small veins of asbestos. It contains no garnet or amphibole, but metalloid diallage disseminated in the mass. The serpentine is sometimes of an esquillous, sometimes of a conchoidal fracture: this was the first time I had found metalloid diallage within the tropics. Several blocks of serpentine have magnetic poles; others are of such a homogeneous texture, and have such a glossiness, that at a distance they may be taken for pechstein (resinite). It were to be wished that these fine masses were employed in the arts as they are in several parts of Germany. In approaching Guanabacoa we find serpentine crossed by veins between twelve and fourteen inches thick, and filled with fibrous quartz, amethyst, and fine mammelonnes, and stalactiforme chalcedonies; it is possible that chrysoprase may also one day be found. Some copper pyrites appear among these veins accompanied, it is said, by silvery-grey copper. I found no traces of this grey copper: it is probably the metalloid diallage that has given the Cerro de Guanabacoa the reputation of riches in gold and silver which it has enjoyed for ages. In some places petroleum flows* from rents in the serpentine. (* Does there exist in the Bay of the Havannah any other source of petroleum than that of Guanabacoa, or must it be admitted that the betun liquido, which in 1508 was employed by Sebastian de Ocampo for the caulking of ships, is dried up? That spring, however, fixed the attention of Ocampo on the port of the Havannah, where he gave it the name of Puerto de Carenas. It is said that abundant springs of petroleum are also found in the eastern part of the island (Manantialis de betun y chapapote) between Holguin and Mayari, and on the coast of Santiago de Cuba.) Springs of water are frequent; they contain a little sulphuretted hydrogen, and deposit oxide of iron. The Baths of Bareto are agreeable, but of nearly the same temperature as the atmosphere. The geologic constitution of this group of serpentine rocks, from its insulated position, its veins, its connection with syenite and the fact of its rising up across shell-formations, merits particular attention. Feldspar with a basis of souda (compact feldspar) forms, with diallage, the euphotide and serpentine; with pyroxene, dolerite and basalt; and with garnet, eclogyte. These five rocks, dispersed over the whole globe, charged with oxidulated and titanious iron, are probably of similar origin. It is easy to distinguish two formations in the euphotide; one is destitute of amphibole, even when it alternates with amphibolic rocks (Joria in Piedmont, Regla in the island of Cuba) rich in pure serpentine, in metalloid diallage and sometimes in jasper (Tuscany, Saxony); the other, strongly charged with amphibole, often passing to diorite,* has no jasper in layers, and sometimes contains rich veins of copper; (Silesia, Mussinet in Piedmont, the Pyrenees, Parapara in Venezuela, Copper Mountains of North America). (* On a serpentine that flows like a penombre, veins of greenstone (diorite) near Lake Clunie in Perthshire. See MacCulloch in Edinburgh Journal of Science 1824 July pages 3 to 16. On a vein of serpentine, and the alterations it produces on the banks of Carity, near West-Balloch in Forfarshire see Charles Lyell l.c. volume 3 page 43.) It is the latter formation of euphotide which, by its mixture with diorite, is itself linked with hyperthenite, in which real beds of serpentine are sometimes developed in Scotland and in Norway. No volcanic rocks of a more recent period have hitherto been discovered in the island of Cuba; for instance, neither trachytes, dolerites, nor basalts. I know not whether they are found in the rest of the Great Antilles, of which the geologic constitution differs essentially from that of the series of calcareous and volcanic islands which stretch from Trinidad to the Virgin Islands. Earthquakes, which are in general less fatal at Cuba than at Porto Rico and Hayti, are most felt in the eastern part, between Cape Maysi, Santiago de Cuba and La Ciudad de Puerto Principe. Perhaps towards those regions the action of the crevice extends laterally, which is believed to cross the neck of granitic land between Port-au-Prince and Cape Tiburon and on which whole mountains were overthrown in 1770.