194 
BKI,ICS OF TIIF ABOniGia^EE. 
ai*’ diminished at night to 23® 
ir'nfT'^ it ^I’ought that delicious 
nf T ?5i honey n hicli characterizes the shores 
^ +1 ° n ti’oha.* e sailed along the coast keeping 
Sh i. f miles distant from land. Oii the 13th March, a 
little before sunset, we were o^iposite the mouth of the Kio 
hmi.mIrnW? dreaded by navigators on account of tlie 
innumerable quantity of mosquitos and zancudos which fill 
the atmosphere, it is like the opening of a ra^ne in 
fnlacLT oWi^cf '’‘17 "’‘'t''*’’ hot that a sLal 
(placer; obstructs the jias.sage. Some horary anelea uave 
me the loncptude 82“ 41/ 51/, fin- this port, which is ^7 
quented by the smugglers of Jamaica and the corsaii-s of 
sVa7!l f “^“ontains that command the port 
scarcely rise to 230 toises. I passed a great part of the 
ight on deck. The coast was dreary and desolate. Not 
a light amioimccd a fisherman’s lint. There is no village 
between Batabano and Trinidad, a distance of fifty lea^ies; 
scarcely are there more than two or three corrales Sin 
yards, containing hogs or cows. Yet, in the time of 
^lumbus, this territory was inhabited along the Aore. 
When the ground is dug to make wells, or when torrents 
furrow the surface of the earth in floods, stone hatchets and 
copper utensilst pe often discovered; these are remains of 
the ancient inhabitants of America. remains oi 
At sunrise 1 requested the captain to heave the lead. 
There was no bottom to be found at si.vty fathoms ; and the 
ocean was warmer at its surface than anywhere else ; it was 
bv*th7beeso'f of trade, is produced 
oy tne pes ol Lurope (the species Apis, Latr.). Columbus savs emresslv 
loaf of tint snL7 “fCuba did not collect wax. The griat 
loat ot th.it substance which he found in the island in his first voraae. 
and presented to King Ferdinand in the celebrated audience of BarceJoiw, 
was afterwards ascertained to have been brought U.ither by Mexican 
ques from Yucutan. It is curious that the wax of melinones was tlie 
fh?s;r?i:o‘Lrr;«“ “ -iX— " 
t Doubtless the copper of Cuba. The abundance of this metal in its 
me7n the Indians of Cuba and Hay u to 
Havti ofthi^we”^? "“‘ive copper at 
Hayti, of the weiglit of six arrobas; and that the boats of Yucataif wliich 
he met with on the eastern coast of Cuba, carried, among oilier Mexican 
merchandiae, "crucibles to melt copper.” ® Mexican 
