356 HUMBOLDT S CUBA. 



Ygnacio O'Farril y Herrera, his brother, kindly 

 did all they could to forward my projects at the time 

 of my unexpected departure from Havana. 



On the sixth of March, we learned that the 

 schooner I had chartered was ready for sea. The 

 road to Batabano led us again through Guines, to 

 the sugar plantation of Rio Blanco, the residence of 

 Count de Jaruco y Mopox, which was adorned with 

 all the luxuries that good taste and a large fortune 

 can command. That hospitality which generally 

 wanes as civilization advances, is still practised in 

 Cuba with the same profusion as in the most distant 

 countries of Spanish America. We naturalists and 

 simple travellers accord with pleasure to the inhabi- 

 tants of Havana, the same grateful acknowledg- 

 ments that have been given to them by those 

 illustrious strangers, 1 who, everywhere that I have 

 followed their route, have left in the New "World 

 the remembrance of their noble simplicity, their 

 ardor for learning and their love for the public 

 weal. 



From Eio Blanco to Batabano, the road passes 

 through an uncultivated country, a portion of which 



1 The young princes of the House of Orleans (the Duke d'Orleans, 

 the Duke de Montpensier, and the Count de Beaujolois), who visited 

 the United States and Havana, descending the Ohio and Mississippi 

 rivers, and remained a year in the island of Cuba. — H. 



