A TRIP TO TRINIDAD. 



389 



valley of the Arimao river. 1 All the streets of 

 Trinidad are very steep, and the inhabitants there 

 complain, as they also do in the greater part of 

 Spanish America, of the bad selection made by the 

 conquerors of sites for the towns they founded. 2 

 The church of Nuestra Senora de la Popa, a celebra- 

 ted place for pic-nics, stands on the northern side of 

 the town. 



Its site appeared to me to be about seven hundred 

 feet above the level of the sea, and commands, as do 

 also the greater part of the streets in the town, a 

 magnificent view of the ocean, the two ports, 

 Casilda and Guaurabo, a forest of palms, and the high 

 group of the hills of San Juan. As I had forgotten 

 to bring the barometer and other instruments to the 

 city, I endeavored on the following morning to 

 ascertain the height of the hill on which the church . 

 stands, by taking alternate altitudes of the sun above 



1 This river empties into the bay of Jagua, on its eastern side. — H. 



2 May not the city begun by Velasquez, have, perhaps, been 

 founded in the plain, nearer to the ports of Casilda and Guaurabo ? 

 Many of the inhabitants suppose that the fear of the French, 

 Portuguese, and English pirates (flibustiers) , induced the selection 

 of an inland site upon the sides of the hills, from whence, as from a 

 high tower, the approach of the enemy might be discovered ; but it 

 seems to me that these fears could not have existed before the time 

 of Hernando de Soto (1538). The city of Havana was first sacked 

 by the French corsairs, in 1539. — H. 



