1GO THE MORO AND FOETB. 





have been larger and better planned. Spanish engineer^ 

 who have been waging war for thirty years past with the inha- 

 bitants of the suburbs (arrabales), have convinced the govern- 

 ment 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 sub- 

 urbs, and disperse a population of 28,000 inhabitants col- 

 lected 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 impreg- 

 nable, 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 

 jegin 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 Tort 

 No. 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 Gruines. We experienced, 

 in the family of Senor Cuesta (who then formed with Sen or 

 Santa Maria, one of the greatest commercial houses in 

 America), and in the house of Count O'Eeilly, the most 

 generous hospitality. We lived with the former, and 

 deposited our collections and instruments in the spacious 

 hotel of Count O'Eeilly, wheie the terraces favoured our 

 astronomical observations. The longitude of the Havannah 

 was at this period more than one fifth of a degree un- 

 certain.* It had been fixed by M. Espinosa, the learned 



* I also fixed, by direct observations, several positions in the interi or of 

 the island of Cuba : viz. Rio Blanco, a plantation of Count Jaruco y Mopex j 



