POllt OS XAGDAi 
193 
site San Juan de los Eemedios, on the northern coast of 
the island of Cuba, merits great attention. Its age is 
doubtless more remote than historic times, and no geologist 
nill believe that it is the work of the raollusca of our seas. 
From the Cayo de Piedras we could faintly discern in the 
direction of E.N.E., the lofty mountains that rise beyonu 
the bay of Xagua. During the night we again lay at 
anchor; and next day (12th March), having passed between 
the northern cape of the Cayo de Piedras and the island 
of Cuba, we entered a sea i'rce from breakers. Its blue 
colour (a dark indigo tint), and the heightening of the 
temperature, proved how much the depth ot the water had 
augmented. We tried, under favour of the l ariable winds 
on sea and shore, to steer eastward as iar as the port of La 
I’rinidad, so that we might be less opposed by the north-east 
winds which then prevail in the open sea, in making the 
passage to Cartbagena, of which the meruliau falls between 
Santiago de Cuba, and the bay of Guantanamo. Having 
passed the marshy coast of Camareos,* we arrived (latitude 
21° 50') in the meridian of the entrance of the Bahia de 
Xagua. The longitude the chronometeu gave me at this 
point was almost identical with that since publi.shed (in 
1821) in the map of the Deposito hidrografico of Madrid. 
The port of Xagua is one of the finest, but least fre- 
quented, of the island. “ There cannot be another such in the 
World,” is the remark of the Coronista major (Antonio 
Herrera.) The surveys and plans oi defence made by M. 
He Maur, at the time of the commission ot Count Jarueo, 
prove that the anchorage of Xagua merits the cckbnty it 
acquired even in the first years of the conquest. The toivn 
Row consists merely of a small group of houses^ RRu a fort 
(castillito.) On the east of Xagua, the mountains (Cerros 
’ie San Juan) near the coast, assume an aspect more and 
more majestic ; not from their height, wdiich does not seem 
to exceed three hundred toiscs, but from their steepness and 
general form. The coast, I was told, is so steep that a 
frigate may approach the mouth of the Rio Guaurabo. 
* Here the celebrated philanthropist Bartolomeo de las Casas obtained, 
1514, from his friend Velasquez, the governor, a good repartimients 
Indioa (grant of land so called). But this he renounced in the same 
year, from scruples of conscience, during a short stay at Jamaica. 
TOL. hi. O 
