386 



humboldt's cuba. 



of the innumerable mosquitoes and sand-flies that 

 fill the air. 



The mouth of the river looks like the break of a 

 deep ravine, in which large vessels might enter, 

 were it not for a shoal that closes the channel This 

 port is much frequented by smugglers from 

 Jamaica, and even by pirates from New Providence. 

 The hills which rise back of it have a height of 

 about 1,450 feet. I passed a great portion of the 

 night upon deck. What lonely shores are these, 

 where not even the light of a fisherman's hut is to 

 be seen ! From Batabano to Trinidad, a distance 

 of fifty leagues, there is not a single village, and 

 only two or three farms where swine and cattle are 

 reared ; yet in the time of Columbus, that land was 

 inhabited along its whole extent of shore. When 

 wells are dug here, and when torrents of water, 

 during the heavy rains, wash the surface of the 

 earth, stone hatchets and a few copper utensils 1 are 

 found, the only remains of the ancient inhabitants of 

 the place. 



doubtless, from the copper of Cuba, for the abundance of this 

 metal, in a native state, must have stimulated the Indians of Cuba 

 and Hayti to smelt it. Columbus states, " that in Hayti, masses of 

 native copper of one hundred and fifty pounds weight were found, 

 and that the pirogues of Yucatan, which he met on the south coast 

 of Cuba, carried among other Mexican merchandise, crucibles for 

 smelting copper."— Herrera, Dec. 1, pp. 86 & 131. — H. 



