VISIT TO CUBA. 295 



the ship suddenly righted herself upon the top of another wave, 

 and we sought refuge behind the promontory of Grigante. 



'But here a new and almost a greater danger awaited inc. 

 For the better observation of an eclipse of the inoon, 1 I put oft' 

 to shore in a boat. I had scarcely landed with my assistants 

 when we were startled by the clanking of chains, and a party 

 of powerful negroes (cimarr<mes), escaped from the prisons of 

 Cartagena, rushed out upon us from the thicket, brandishing 

 their daggers, intent apparently on seizing our boat, as they 

 saw we were unarmed. We fled at once to the water, and had 

 barely time to embark and put off from shore. 



' On the following day, during a calm, we quietly entered the 

 harbour of Cartagena. It is a remarkable coincidence, that 

 the day on which I was thus twice exposed to imminent peril 

 was Palm Sunday (Domingo de ramos), and that it was on 

 Palm Sunday in the previous year that I was placed in almost 

 equal danger, when off the turtle banks of the Uruana, in the 

 Orinoco, a description of which I sent you at the time.' 2 



After giving detailed instructions concerning the disposition 

 of his collections and manuscripts, he proceeds : 



6 My health continues very good, and you will now have less 

 reason to be anxious about me, since for the future my voyages 

 will be prosecuted in the peaceful waters of the Pacific. My 

 plan is to go over land by Santa Fe and Popayan to Quito, 

 where I expect to arrive in July ; from Quito I hope to reach 

 Lima, and sail thence in February, 1802, for Acapulco and 

 Mexico ; from Acapulco I expect to take ship, some time in the 

 year 1803, for the Philippines, and in 1804 I trust we may 

 have the pleasure of meeting each other again. 



' I have been now for a long time without news from Europe. 

 I have received only one letter from you since I left Spain ; and 

 yet I know you must have written to me frequently. No one 

 here has received letters from Europe since March 1800.' . . . 



During a sojourn of three weeks at Cartagena the travellers 

 visited the environs of Turbaco, noted for a volcano which 

 emits mud and water, and for trees of enormous girth. While 



1 In the nisrht of March 29 and 30. 

 3 See p. 279. 





