PORT 01 XAGUA. 193 



site Snn Juan de loa Kemedios, on the northern coast of 

 the island of Cuba, merits great attention. Its age is 

 doubtless more remote than historic times, and no geologist 

 will believe that it is the work of the mollusca of our seas. 



From the Cayo de Piedras we could faintly discern in the 

 direction of E.N.E., the lofty mountains that rise beyona 

 the bay of Xagua. During the night we again lay at 

 anchor; and next day (12th March), having passed between 

 the northern cape of the Cayo de Piedras and the island 

 of Cuba, we entered a sea free from breakers. Its blue 

 colour (a dark indigo tint), and the heightening of the 

 temperature, proved how much the depth of the water had 

 augmented. We tried, under favour of the variable winds 

 on sea and shore, to steer eastward as far as the port of La 

 Trinidad, so that we might be less opposed by the north-east 

 winds which then prevail in the open sea, in making the 

 passage to Carthagena, of which the meridian falls between 

 Santiago de Cuba, and the bay of Guantanamo. Having 

 passed the marshy coast of Camareos,* we arrived (latitude 

 21 50') in the meridian of the entrance of the Bahia de 

 ia. The longitude the chronometer gave me at this 

 point was almost identical with that since published (in 

 1>'J1) in the map of the Deposito hidrografico of Madrid. 



The port of Xagua is one of the finest, but least fre- 

 quented, of the island. " There cannot be another such in the 

 world," is the remark ul* the Coronista major (Antonio de 

 Ifcrrera.) The surveys and plans pi defence made by M. 

 Le Maur, at the time of the commission of Count Jaruco, 

 prove that the anchorage of Xagua merits the celebrity it 

 acquired even in the first years of the conquest. The town 

 now consists merely of a small group of nouses and a fort 

 illito.) On the east of Xagua, the mountains (Cerros 

 de San Junn) near the coast, assume an aspect more and 

 more majestic ; not from their height, which does not seem 

 to exceed three hundred toises, but from their steepness and 

 i-al form. The coast, I was told, is so steep that a 

 tribute may approach the mouth of the Bio Guaurabo. 



* Here the celebrated philanthropist Bartolomeo de las Casas obtained, 

 in 1M4, from his friend Velasquex, the governor, a good repartimietite 

 de Indios (grant of land so called). But this he renounced in the game 

 year, from scruples of conscience, during a short stay at Jamaica. 



TOL. III. O 



