A TRIP TO TRINIDAD. 



357 



contains many springs. In the open spaces the 

 indigo and cotton plants grow wild for want of culti- 

 vation. As the capsnle of the Gotsijpium opens at 

 that season of the year when the northern storms are 

 most frequent, the fibre which surrounds the seed is 

 torn from side to side, and the cotton, which in other 

 respects is of the be'st quality, suffers greatly when 

 the period of the storms coincides with its ripening. 

 Further south we found a new species of the palm, 

 with fan-like leaves {corifa ma/ritimcC)^ having a free 

 filament in the interstices between the teaves. This 

 corifa abounds through a portion of the southern 

 coast, and takes the place of the majestic royal palm, 

 and the coco crispa of the northern shore. Porous 

 limestone (of the Jurassic formation) appeared from 

 time to time in the plain. 



Batabano was at this time a poor hamlet, where a 

 church had been built a few years before. Half a 

 league beyond it the swamp begins, which extends 

 to the entrance of the Bay of Jagua, a distance of 

 seventy leagues from west to east. It is supposed at 

 Batabano that the sea continues its encroachments 

 upon the land, and that the oceanic irruption has 

 been observed particularly at the time of the great 

 upheaving at the close of the eighteenth century, 

 when the tobacco mills near Havana were destroyed, 

 and the course of the river Chorrera was changed. 



