236 Foreign Notices : — West Indies. 



It was necessary, however, to continue our journey to other parts of the 

 island, because latterly we had found nothing new, and in the more distant 

 parts of the northern coast of Cuba we could not expect a rich booty. Most 

 willingly would 1 have gone by the steam-boat, which leaves Havanna every 

 month for St. Jago de Cuba on the south-east side, where no one has yet 

 searched for botanical treasures, but the necessary means were wanting ; 

 and it was the same with Dr. Bellard, who visited the island to examine the 

 mineral springs and baths, and who had with him a dozen of negroes, by the 

 permission of Governor Tacan, to conduct him wherever he pleased. I medi- 

 tated a journey in company with a German of the name of Herrmann, a native 

 of Berlin, who intended to use the warm baths for his health at St. Jago (pro- 

 bably St. Jago de Vega), four days' journey from Havanna, but this also was 

 not accomplished, and I now determined to visit the southern coast of the 

 island, viz. Trinidad de Cuba. On the 2d of March I set out from the suburbs 

 of Havanna, called Garcini, by the railroad to Guines and St. Felipe, which 

 we reached in the course of two hours, at 10 o'clock in the morning. The train 

 consisted of fifteen carriages and twenty-four passengers, besides fifty newly 

 purchased slaves not yet emancipated. We did not go at a more rapid rate 

 than the trains do between Berlin and Potsdam, and we did not proceed over 

 sandy flat surfaces, and under the shade of the sombre-formed pine tribe, but 

 through sugar and coffee plantations and under the palm and the musa. St. Fe- 

 lipe consists of only six houses, and our journey from here was obliged to be 

 continued on horseback. Forty persons were going the same way ; I only 

 required one horse for my luggage, but the others required from three to five, 

 which were chosen at high prices out of hundreds, the swiftest of them, 

 however, could hardly have gained the prize in a race course. Three ladies, 

 as many priests in their pontificals, French, English, and Americans, jour- 

 neyed agreeably with me to Batabano, where we arrived, half-roasted and 

 covered with dust, in the course of three hours. We had our passports 

 examined here, and then set out on our journey towards the coast, where the 

 steam-boat lay that was to convey us to Trinidad. The slaves, who came 

 from St. Felipe on foot, did not arrive till 1 1 o'clock at night, and the ship 

 sailed at half-past two in the morning. I had obtained one of the sixteen 

 beds, and on the following morning found we were at sea. After sailing for 

 twenty-four hours between sandbanks and the so-called cajas overgrown 

 with mangle, we arrived in the small but very safe harbour of Cienfuego, a 

 small town with white wooden houses and unpaved streets, and here the ship 

 remained eighteen hours. We set sail again about midnight. There were 

 no longer any banks, and the sea was deep and rough, so that some of us 

 were sea-sick ; and when on the 5th of March I appeared on deck at an 

 early hour in the morning, I saw the beautiful chain of hills along the coast, 

 and afterwards the city of Trinidad appeared in view, and at 8 o'clock we 

 entered the harbour, having been conveyed from the northern to the southern 

 coast of Cuba in the course of three days and three nights. Trinidad may 

 be said to be as large as Potsdam, only more solitary, and human beings are 

 almost only seen in it after the sun is down. It is situated at the foot of beautiful 

 and tolerably high mountains, which, however, like the environs of the town 

 itself, have a scorched and melancholy appearance, and I found the tempe- 

 rature, compared with that of Havanna, considerably higher, being 5° or 6° R. 

 warmer. Some of the streets are in a slanting direction towards the sea, and 

 but badly causewayed, and those that intersect them are not causewayed at all, 

 and terminate with the most miserable negro huts covered with palm leaves. 

 Negroes and mulattoes seem to be the only inhabitants, and they were 

 astonished to see me in the streets with a fishing apparatus and collections, 

 and looked upon me as an unknown inhabitant of some menagerie. I put up 

 at the first hotel in the place, where, besides my bed, I had the greatest dif- 

 ficulty in procuring a table and a chair. But what are these inconveniences 

 compared with the expected booty on this southern coast ? {Garten 

 Zeitung.) 



