V.VlUATtOXS 05 CtltllEXl’S. 
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and lli 0 current, renders tlie sea rough and agitated. In 
calm weather, the vessels going from Carthagena to Rio 
Sinu, at the mouth of the Atrato and at Portobollo, are 
impeded in their course hy the currents of the coast. The 
heavy or hrizote winds, on the contrary, govern the move- 
ment of the waters, which they impel in an opposite 
direction, towards W.S.AV. It is the latter movement 
"’hich Major Eennell, in his great hydrographic work, calls 
drift; and he distinguishes it from real currents, which are 
not owing to the local action of the wind, hut to dift'erences 
of level in the surface of the ocean ; to the rising and ac- 
cumulation of waters in very distant latitudes. The obser- 
vations which I have collected on the force and direction of 
the winds, on the temperature and rapidity of the currents, 
on the influence of the seasons, or the variable declination 
of the sun, have thrown some light on the complicated 
system of those pelagic floods that furrow the surface of 
the ocean : but it is less easy to conceive the causes of the 
change in the movement of the waters at the same seasoii 
and with the same wind. Why is the Gulf-stream some- 
times borne on tlie coast of Tlorida, sometimes on the 
border of the shoal of Bahama? Why do the waters flow, 
^or the space of whole weeks, from the Havannah to Ma- 
tanzas, and (to cite an example of the corrienle for arriba, 
'' hieh is sometimes observed in the most eastern part of the 
"lain land during the prevalence of gentle winds) from La 
tluayrato Cape Codera and Cumana? 
As we advanced, on the 25th of IMarch, towards the coast 
of^ Darien, the north-cast wind increased with violence. 
We might have imagined ourselves transported to another 
climate. The sea became very rough during the night, yet 
^he temperature of the water kept up (from lat. 10® 30', to 
47') at 25'S°. We perceived, at sunrise, a part of the 
‘irchipolago* of Saint Bernard, which closes the gulf of 
^lorrosquillo on the north. A clear spot between the clouds 
* It is composed of the islands Mucara, Ceycen, Maravilla, Tintipan, 
Panda, Palma, Mangles, and Salamanquilla, which rise little above the 
Several of them have the form of a bastion. There are two pas- 
in the middle of this archipelago, from seventeen to twenty fathoms, 
l-arge vessels can pass betw'ecn the Isla Panda and Tintipan, and 
^Ween the Isla de Mangles and Palma, 
