ITS ADVANTAGES. 2G7 



course would be in proximity with the best cultivated lands. 

 The roads are nowhere worse in the rainy season than in 

 this part of the island, where the soil is of friable limestone, 

 little fitted for the construction of solid roads. The transport 

 of sugar from Guines to the Havannah, a distance of twelve 

 leagues, now costs one piastre per quintal. Besides the 

 advantage of facilitating internal communications, the canal 

 would also give great importance to the surgidero of 

 Batabano, into which small vessels laden with salt provisions 

 (tasajo) from Venezuela, would enter without being obliged 

 to double Cape Saint Antonio. In the bad season, and in 

 time of war, when corsairs are cruizing between Cape 

 Catoche, Tortugas, and Mariel. the passage from the Spanish 

 main to the island of Cuba, would be shortened by entering, 

 not at the Havannah, but at some port of the southern coast. 

 The cost of constructing the canal de Guines, was estimated 

 in 1796 at one million, or 1,200,000 piastres: it is now 

 thought that the expense would amount to more than one 

 million and a half. The productions which might annually 

 pass the canal, have been estimated at 75,000 cases of sugar, 

 25,000 arrobas of coffee, and 8000 bocoyes of molasses and 

 rum. According to the first project, that of 1796, it was 

 intended to link the canal with the small river of Guines, to; 

 be brought from the Ingenio de la Holanda to Quibican, 

 three leagues south of Bejucal and Santa Rosa. This idea is 

 now relinquished, the Bio de los Guines losing its waters 

 towards the east in the irrigation of the savannahs of Hato 

 de Guanamon. Instead of carrying the canal east of the 

 Barrio del Cerro, and south of the fort of Atares, in the bay 

 of the Havannah, it was proposed at first to make use of the 

 bed of the Chorrera or llio Armendaris, from Calabazal to the 

 Ilusillo, and then of the Zanja Beal, not only for conveying 

 the boats to the centre of the arralales and of the city of the 

 Havannah, but also for furnishing water to the fountains, 

 which require to be supplied during three months of the year. 

 1 visited several times, with MM. Lemaur, the plains through 

 which this line of navigation is intended to pass. The utility 

 of the project is incontestible, if in times of great drought 

 a suflicient quantity of water can be brought to the point of 



At tbe Havannah, aa in every place There commerce and 



