384 humboldt's cuba. 



tions of the land and sea breezes, we kept to the 

 eastward as far as the port of Trinidad, in order to 

 take advantage during our voyage to Carthagena, 

 of the constant northeast winds which then pre- 

 vailed. 



Passing the marshy coast of Camareos, where 

 Bartolome de las Casas, so celebrated for his 

 humanity and noble valor, obtained in 1514, from 

 his friend Yelasquez the governor, a good assign- 

 ment of Indians, 1 we arrived off the bay of Jagua. 

 This harbor is one of the most excellent, and at the 

 same time least frequented in the island. "There 

 may not be another like it in the world," said the 

 old chronicler, Antonio de Herrera ; and the surveys 

 and plans for its defence, made by Senor Lemaur, 

 under commission from the Count de Jaruco, have 

 demonstrated that the haven of Jagua is worthy of 

 the celebrity it has obtained from the times of the 

 conquest. A hamlet and a small castle is all that is 

 yet found there, but they serve to prevent the Eng- 

 lish from careening their ships in the harbor, as they 

 did, without concern, during the war with Spain. 2 



1 He renounced it in the same year during a short stay in Jamaica, 

 from conscientious scruples. — H. 



2 The flourishing town of Cienfuegos now stands upon the borders 

 of this fine harbor, which is the scene of an active commerce at the 

 present time, and the germ of rich promise for the future. 



