196 DECEPTION AT 



like horns,* a little inclined. Notwithstanding the grea 

 lowering of the temperature during the season of the Nortes, 

 or north winds, snow never falls ; arid only a hoar-frost (escar 

 cha) is seen on these mountains, as on those of Santiago 

 This absence of snow is difficult to be explained. In emerging 

 from the forest, we perceived a curtain of hills, of which 

 the southern slope is covered with houses ; this is the town 

 of Trinidad, founded in 1514, by the governor Diego Velas- 

 quez, on account of " the rich mines of gold" which were 

 said to have been discovered in the little valley of Ric 

 Arimao.f The streets of Trinidad have all a rapid descent : 

 there, as in most parts of Spanish America, it is complained 

 that the Conquistadores chose very injudiciously the sitei 

 for new towns.J At the northern extremity is the church 

 of Nuestra Senora de la Popa, a celebrated place of pil 

 grim age. This point I found to be 700 feet above tha 

 level of the sea; it commands a magnificent view of tha 

 ocean, the two ports (Puerto Casilda and Boca Gruaurabo) ; 

 a forest of palm-trees, and the group of the lofty mountain! 

 of San Juan. "We were received at the town of Trinidad 

 with the kindest hospitality, by Senor Munoz, the Super- 

 intendent of the Real Hacienda. I made observations during 

 a great part of the night, and found the latitude near the 

 cathedral, by the Spica Virginia, a of the Centaur, and 

 /3 of the Southern Cross, under circumstances not equally 

 favourable, to be 21 48 f 20". My chronometric longitude 

 was 82 21' 7". I was informed, at my second visit to the 

 Havannah, in returning from Mexico, that this longitude 

 was nearly identical with that obtained by the captain of 



* Wherever the rock is visible I perceived compact limestone, whitish- 

 grey, partly porous, and partly with a smooth fracture, as in the Jura 

 formation. 



t This river flows towards the east into the Bahia de Xagua. 



J It is questionable whether the town founded by Velasquez was not 

 situated in the plain and nearer the ports of Casilda and Guaurabo. It 

 has been suggested that the fear of the French, Portuguese, and English 

 freebooters, led to the selection, even in inland places, of sites on the 

 declivity of mountains, whence, as from a watch-tower, the approach of 

 the enemy could be discerned ; but it seems to me that these fears could 

 hav had no existence prior to the government of Hernando de Soto 

 The Havannah wag sacked for the first time, by French corsairs, in 



