194 EEMCS OF THE ABOKIG1KES. 



When the temperature of the air diminished at night to 23 

 and the wind blew from the land, it brought that delicious 

 odour of flowers and honey which characterizes the shores 

 of the island of Cuba.* We sailed along the coast keeping 

 two or three miles distant from land. On the 13th March, a 

 little before sunset, we were opposite the mouth of the Bio 

 San Juan, so much dreaded by navigators on account of the 

 innumerable quantity of mosquitos and zancudos which fill 

 the atmosphere. It is like the opening of a ravine, in 

 which vessels of heavy burden might enter, but that a shoal 

 (placer) obstructs the passage. Some horary angles gave 

 me the longitude 82 40* 50^, for this port, which is fre- 

 quented by the smugglers of Jamaica and the corsairs of 

 Providence Island. The mountains that command the port 

 scarcely rise to 230 toises. I passed a great part of the 

 night on deck. The coast was dreary and desolate. Not 

 a light announced a fisherman's hut. There is no village 

 between Batabano and Trinidad, a distance of fifty leagues ; 

 scarcely are there more than two or three corrales or farm 

 yards, containing hogs or cows. Yet, in the time of 

 Columbus, this territory was inhabited along the shore. 

 When the ground is dug to make wells, or when torrents 

 furrow the surface of the earth in floods, stone hatchets and 

 copper utensilsf are often discovered ; these are remains of 

 the ancient inhabitants of America. 



At sunrise I requested the captain to heave the lead. 

 There was no bottom to be found at sixty fathoms ; and the 

 ocean was warmer at its surface than anywhere else ; it was 



* Cuban wax, which is a very important object of trade, is produced 

 by the bees of Europe (the species Apis, Latr.). Columbus says expressly, 

 that in his time the inhabitants of Cuba did not collect wax. The great 

 loaf of that substance which he found in the island in his first voyage, 

 and presented to King Ferdinand in the celebrated audience of Barcelona, 

 was afterwards ascertained to have been brought thither by Mexican 

 barques from Yucatan. It is curious that the wax of melipones was tne 

 first production of Mexico that fell into the hands of the Spaniards, in 

 the month of November, 1492. 



f Doubtless the copper of Cuba. The abundance of this metal in its 

 native state, would naturally induce the Indians of Cuba and Hajtl to 

 melt it. Columbus says that there were masses of native copper at 

 Hayti, of the weight of six arrobas; and that the boats of Yucatan, which 

 he met with on the eastern coast of Cuba, carried, among other Mexiccu 

 merchandize, " crucibles to melt copper." 



