224 PORT OF CARTHAGENA. landscape scenery remarkable for beauty; they have furnished information respecting the inhabitants, and the different modes of travelling in barks, on mules, or on men's backs. These works, several of which are agreeable and instructive, have familiarized the nations of the Old World with those of Spanish America, from Buenos Ayres and Chili as far as Zacatecas and New Mexico. But unfortunately, in many instances, the want of a thorough knowledge of the Spanish language, and the little care taken to acquire the names of places, rivers, and tribes, have occasioned extraordinary mistakes. During the six days of our stay at Carthagena, our most interesting excursions were to the Boca Grande and the hill of Popa; the latter commands the town and a very extensive view. The port, or rather the bahia, is nearly nine miles and a half long, if we compute the length from the town (near the suburb of Jehemani or Xezemani) to the Cienega of Cacao. The Cienega is one of the nooks of the isle of Baru, south-west of the Estero de Pasacaballos, by which we reach the opening of the Dique de Mahates. Two extremities of the small island of Tierra Bomba form, on the north, with a neck of land of the continent, and on the south, with a cape of the island of Baru, the only entrances to the Bay of Carthagena; the former is called Boca Grande, the second Boca Chica. This extraordinary conformation of the land has given birth, for the space of a century, to theories entirely contradictory respecting the defence of a place, which, next to the Havannah and Porto Cabello, is the most important of the main land and the West Indies. Engineers differed respecting the choice of the opening which should be closed; and it was not, as some writers have stated, after the landing of Admiral Vernon, in 1741, that the idea was first conceived of filling up the Boca Grande. The English forced the small entrance, when they made themselves * Don Jorge Juan, in his Secret Notices, addressed to the Marques de la Ensenada, says: "La entrada antigua era por un angosto canal que llaman Boca Chica; de resultas de esta invasion se acordo deja cioga y impassable la Boca Grande, y volver a abrir la antigua fortificandola." [The old entrance was by a narrow channel called the Boca Chica; but after this invasion, it was determined to close up the Boca Grande, and to open the old passage, fortifying it.]--Secr. Not. vol. i, p. 4. THE BOCA GRANDE. 225 masters of the bay; but being unable to take the town of Carthagena, which made a gallant resistance, they destroyed the Castillo Grande, (called also Santa Cruz) and the two forts of San Luis and San Jose, which defended the Boca Chica. The apprehension excited by the proximity of the Boca Grande to the town determined the court of Madrid, after the English expedition, to shut up the entrance along a distance of 2640 varas. From two and a half to three fathoms of water were found; and a wall, or rather a dyke, in stone, from fifteen to twenty feet high, was raised on piles. The slope on the side of the water is unequal, and seldom 45°. This immense work was completed under the Viceroy Espeleta, in 1795. But art could not vanquish nature; the sea is unceasingly though gradually silting up the Boca Chica, while it labours unceasingly to open and enlarge the Boca Grande. The currents which, during a great part of the year, especially when the bendavales blow with violence, ascend from S.W. to N.E., throw sand into the Boca Chica, and even into the bay itself. The passage, which is from seventeen to eighteen fathoms deep, becomes more and more narrow,* and if a regular cleansing be not established by dredging machines, vessels will not be able to enter without risk. It is this small entrance which should have been closed; its opening is only 250 toises, and the passage or navigable channel is 110 toises. If it should one day be determined to abandon the Boca Chica, and re-establish the Boca Grande in the state which nature seems to prescribe, new fortifications must be constructed on the S.S.W. of the town. This fortress has always required great pecuniary outlays to keep it up. The insalubrity of Carthagena varies with the state of the great marshes that surround the town on the east and north. The Cienega de Tesca is more than fifteen miles long; it communicates with the ocean, where it approaches the village of Guayeper. When, in years of drought, the * At the foot of the two forts (San José and San Fernando), constructed for the defence of the Boca Chica, it may be seen how much the land has gained upon the sea. Necks of land are formed on both sides, and also before the Castillo del Angel, which, northward, commands the fort of San Fernando. VOL. III. 226 THE CONVENT DE LA POPA. heaped-up earth prevents the salt water from covering the whole plain, the emanations that rise during the heat of the day, when the thermometer stands between 28° and 32° are very pernicious to the health of the inhabitants. A small portion of hilly land separates the town of Carthagena and the islet of Manga from the Cienega de Tesca. Those hills, some of which are more than 500 feet high, command the town. The Castillo de San Lazaro is seen from afar rising like a great rocky pyramid; when examined nearer its fortifications are not very formidable. Layers of clay and sand, belonging to the tertiary formation of nagelfluhe, are covered with bricks, and furnish a kind of construction which has little stability. The Cerro de Santa Maria de la Popa, crowned by a convent and some batteries, rises above the fort of San Lazaro, and is worthy of more solid and extensive works. The image of the Virgin, preserved in the church of the convent, has been long revered by mariners. The hill itself forms a prolonged ridge from west to east. The calcareous rock, with cardites, meandrites, and petrified corals, somewhat resembles the tertiary limestone of the peninsala of Araya, near Cumana. It is split and decomposed in the steep parts of the rock, and the preservation of the convent on so unsolid a foundation is considered by the people as one of the miracles of the patron of the place. Near the Cerro de la Popa there appears, on several points, breccia with a limestone cement containing angular fragments of Lydian stone. Whether this formation of nagelfluhe is superposed on tertiary limestone of coral, and whether the fragments of the Lydian stone come from secondary limestone, analogous to that of Zacatecas and the Moro de Nueva Barcelona, are questions which I have not had leisure to investigate. The view from the Popa is extensive and varied, and the windings and rents of the coast give it a peculiar character. I was assured that sometimes from the windows of the convent, and even in the open sea, before the fort of Boca Chica, the snowy tops of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta are discernible. The distance of the Horqueta to the Popa is seventy-eight nautical miles. This group of colossal mountains is most frequently wrapped in thick clouds: and it is most veiled at the season when the gales blow with violence. Although only forty BARBAROUS REVENGE. 227 five miles distant from the coast, it is of little service as a signal to mariners who seek the port of Saint Marta. Fidalgo during the whole time of his operations, near the shore, could take only one observation of the Nevados. A gloomy vegetation of cactus, Jatropha gossypifolia, croton and mimosa, covers the barren declivity of Cerro de la Popa. In herbalizing in those wild spots, our guides shewed us a thick bush of Acacia cornigera, which had become celebrated by a deplorable event. Of all the species of mimosa the acacia is that which is armed with the sharpest thorns; they are sometimes two inches long; and being hollow, serve for the habitation of ants of an extraordinary size. A woman, annoyed by the jealousy and well founded reproaches of her husband, conceived a project of the most barbarous vengeance. With the assistance of her lover she bound her husband with cords, and threw him, at night, into a bush of Mimosa cornigera. The more violently he struggled, the more the sharp woody thorns of the tree tore his skin. His cries were heard by persons who were passing, and he was found after several hours of suffering, covered with blood, and dreadfully stung by the ants. This crime is perhaps without example in the history of human turpitude: it indicates a violence of passion less assignable to the climate than to the barbarism of manners prevailing among the lower class of the people. My most important occupation at Carthagena was the comparison of my observations with the astronomical positions, fixed by the officers of the expedition of Fidalgo. In the year 1783 (under the ministry of M. Valdès), Don Josef Espinosa, Don Dionisio Galiano, and Don Josef de Lanz, proposed to the Spanish government a plan for taking a survey of the coast of America, in order to extend the atlas of Tofino to the western colonies. The plan was approved; but it was not till 1792, that an expedition was fitted out at Cadiz, and they were enabled_to commence their scientific operations at the island of Trinidad. 228 THE ISLAND OF CUBA. CHAPTER XXXI. CUBA AND THE SLAVE TRADE. I MIGHT enumerate among the causes of the lowering of the temperature at Cuba during the winter months, the great number of shoals with which the island is surrounded, and on which the heat is diminished several degrees of centesimal temperature. This diminished heat may be assigned to the molecules of water locally cooled, which go to the bottom to the polar currents, which are borne toward the abyss of the tropical ocean, or to the mixture of the deep waters with those of the surface at the declivities of the banks. But the lowering of the temperature is partly compensated by the flood of hot water, the Gulf Stream, which runs along the north-west coast, and the swiftness of which is often diminished by the north and northeast winds. The chain of shoals which encircles the island, and which appears on our maps like a penumbra, is fortunately broken on several points, and those interruptions afford free access to the shore. In the south-east part, the proximity of the lofty primitive mountains renders the coast more precipitous. In that direction are situated the ports of Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo, Baitiqueri, and (in turning the Punta Maysi) Baracoa. The latter is the place most early peopled by Europeans. The entrance to the Old Channel, from Punta de Mulas, W.N.W. of Baracoa, as far as the new settlement which has taken the name of Puerto de las Nuevitas del Principe, is alike free from shoals and breakers. Navigators find excellent anchorage a little to the east of Punta de Mulas, in the three rocks of Tanamo, Cabonico, and Nipe; and on the west of |