RTTIiF OF B.VT.VEASO. 
181 
of Cuba, there are both crocodiles and caymans.”* To these 
Valuable observations of Dampier, I may add that the real 
crocodile (Crocodilus acutus) is found in the West India 
Islands nearest the main land, for instance, at the wland of 
Trinidad; at Marguerita ; and also, probably, at Curasao, 
notwithstanding the want of fresh water. It is obscr\ed, 
further south, in the Neveri, theEio Magdalena, the Apure, 
and the Orinoco, as far as the confluence of the Cassiquiare 
Mith the Eio Negro (lat. 2° 2'), consequently more than 
four hundred leagues from Batabano. It would he interest- 
ing to verify on the eastern coast ot Mexico and Guatimala, 
between the Mississippi and tlie Bio Chagres (in the isthmus 
of Panama), the limit of the different species of carnivorous 
W^rset sail on the 9th of March, somewhat incommoded 
tty the extreme smallness of onr vessel, \vhicl\ aiiorded us no 
sieepin'T-place but upon deck. The cabin (camera de pozo) 
received no air or light but from above ; it was merely a hold 
for provisions, and it was with difficulty that we could place 
our instruments in it. The thermometer kept up constantly 
at 32° and 33° (centesimal.! Luckily these inconveniences 
lasted only twenty days. Our several voyages in the canoes 
of the Orinoco, and a passage in an American vessel laden 
with several thousand arrobas of salt meat dried in tlie sun 
had rendered us not very fastidious. 
The gulf of Batabano, bounded by a low and inarshy 
coast, looks like a vast desert. The fishing birds, nine i aic 
generally at their post whilst the small land birds, and the 
indolent vulturest are at roost, arc seen only in small no™' 
hers. The sea is of a greenish-brown hue, as in some of tlie 
lakes of Switzerland ; while the air, owing to its extreiiie 
purity, had, at the moment the sun appeared aboie the 
horizon, a cold tint of pale blue, similar to that 11111011 land- 
scape painters obsen'e at the same hour in the south ot Ita _\ , 
and which makes distant objects stand out 111 strong relie . 
Our sloop was the only vessel in the gulf; for the road- 
stead of Batabano is scarcely visited except by smug-- 
glers, or, as they are here politely called, “ the traders, 
(los tratautes). The projected canal of G nines will render 
* Pampier** Vovages and Descriptions (1599). 
t Valtur aura. 
