Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne - "Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v13"

Harold MacGrath - "The Man on the Box"

Thames Ross Williamson - "Problems in American Democracy"

Sinclair Lewis - "Our Mr. Wrenn"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
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PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
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Books: Equinoctial Regions of America V3

A >> Alexander von Humboldt >> Equinoctial Regions of America V3




The result of those labours of which it is not for me to appreciate
the importance have long since been published. My map of the Rio
Magdalena, multiplied by the copies of the year 1802 in America and
Spain, and comprehending the country between Almaguer and Santa Marta,
from 1 degree 54 minutes to 11 degrees 15 minutes latitude, appeared
in 1816. Till that period no traveller had undertaken to describe New
Grenada; and the public, except in Spain, knew the navigation of the
Magdalena only by some lines traced by Bouguer. That learned traveller
had descended the river from Honda; but, being in want of astronomical
instruments, he had ascertained but four or five latitudes, by means
of small dials hastily constructed. The narratives of travels in
America are now singularly multiplied. Political events have led
numbers of persons to those countries: and travellers have perhaps too
hastily published their journals on returning to Europe. They have
described the towns where they resided, and landscape scenery
remarkable for beauty; they have furnished information respecting the
inhabitants and the different modes of travelling in barks, on mules
or on men's backs. These works, several of which are agreeable and
instructive, have familiarized the nations of the Old World with those
of Spanish America, from Buenos Ayres and Chili as far as Zacatecas
and New Mexico. But unfortunately, in many instances, the want of a
thorough knowledge of the Spanish language and the little care taken
to acquire the names of places, rivers and tribes, have occasioned
extraordinary mistakes.

During the six days of our stay at Carthagena our most interesting
excursions were to the Boca Grande and the hill of Popa; the latter
commands the town and a very extensive view. The port, or rather the
bahia, is nearly nine miles and a half long, if we compute the length
from the town (near the suburb of Jehemani or Xezemani) to the Cienega
of Cacao. The Cienega is one of the nooks of the isle of Baru,
south-west of the Estero de Pasacaballos, by which we reach the
opening of the Dique de Mahates. Two extremities of the small island
of Tierra Bomba form, on the north, with a neck of land of the
continent, and on the south, with a cape of the island of Baru, the
only entrances to the Bay of Carthagena; the former is called Boca
Grande, the second Boca Chica. This extraordinary conformation of the
land has given birth, for the space of a century, to theories entirely
contradictory respecting the defence of a place which, next to the
Havannah and Porto Cabello, is the most important of the main land and
the West Indies. Engineers differed respecting the choice of the
opening which should be closed; and it was not, as some writers have
stated, after the landing of Admiral Vernon, in 1741, that the idea
was first conceived* of filling up the Boca Grande. (* Don Jorge Juan
in his Secret Notices addressed to the Marques de la Ensenada says: La
entrada antigua era por un angosto canal que llaman Boca Chica; de
resultas de esta invasion se acordo deja cioga y impassable la Boca
Grande, y volver a abrir la antigua fortificandola. [The old entrance
was by a narrow channel called the Boca Chica; but after this invasion
it was determined to close up the Boca Grande and to open the old
passage, fortifying it.] Secr. Not. volume 1 page 4.) The English
forced the small entrance when they made themselves masters of the
bay; but being unable to take the town of Carthagena, which made a
gallant resistance, they destroyed the Castillo Grande (called also
Santa Cruz) and the two forts of San Luis and San Jose which defended
the Boca Chica.

The apprehension excited by the proximity of the Boca Grande to the
town determined the court of Madrid, after the English expedition, to
shut up the entrance along a distance of 2640 varas. From two and a
half to three fathoms of water were found; and a wall, or rather a
dyke, in stone, from fifteen to twenty feet high, was raised on piles.
The slope on the side of the water is unequal, and seldom 45 degrees.
This immense work was completed under the Viceroy Espeleta in 1795.
But art could not vanquish nature; the sea is unceasingly though
gradually silting up the Boca Chica, while it labours unceasingly to
open and enlarge the Boca Grande. The currents which, during a great
part of the year, especially when the bendavales blow with violence,
ascend from south-west to north-east, throw sand into the Boca Chica,
and even into the bay itself. The passage, which is from seventeen to
eighteen fathoms deep, becomes more and more narrow,* and if a regular
cleansing be not established by dredging machines, vessels will not be
able to enter without risk. (* At the foot of the two forts San Jose
and San Fernando, constructed for the defence of the Boca Chica, it
may be seen how much the land has gained upon the sea. Necks of land
are formed on both sides, and also before the Castillo del Angel
which, northward, commands the fort of San Fernando.) It is this small
entrance which should have been closed; its opening is only 250
toises, and the passage or navigable channel is 110 toises. If it
should one day be determined to abandon the Boca Chica, and
re-establish the Boca Grande in the state which nature seems to
prescribe, new fortifications must be constructed on the
south-south-west of the town. This fortress has always required great
pecuniary outlays to keep it up.

The insalubrity of Carthagena varies with the state of the great
marshes that surround the town on the east and north. The Cienega de
Tesca is more than fifteen miles long; it communicates with the ocean
where it approaches the village of Guayeper. When, in years of
drought, the heaped-up earth prevents the salt water from covering the
whole plain, the emanations that rise during the heat of the day when
the thermometer stands between 28 and 32 degrees are very pernicious
to the health of the inhabitants. A small portion of hilly land
separates the town of Carthagena and the islet of Manga from the
Cienega de Tesca. Those hills, some of which are more than 500 feet
high, command the town. The Castillo de San Lazaro is seen from afar
rising like a great rocky pyramid; when examined nearer its
fortifications are not very formidable. Layers of clay and sand,
belonging to the tertiary formation of nagelfluhe, are covered with
bricks and furnish a kind of construction which has little stability.
The Cerro de Santa Maria de la Popa, crowned by a convent and some
batteries, rises above the fort of San Lazaro and is worthy of more
solid and extensive works. The image of the Virgin, preserved in the
church of the convent, has been long revered by mariners. The hill
itself forms a prolonged ridge from west to east. The calcareous rock,
with cardites, meandrites and petrified corals, somewhat resembles the
tertiary limestone of the peninsula of Araya near Cumana. It is split
and decomposed in the steep parts of the rock, and the preservation of
the convent on so unsolid a foundation is considered by the people as
one of the miracles of the patron of the place. Near the Cerro de la
Popa there appears, on several points, breccia with a limestone cement
containing angular fragments of Lydian stone. Whether this formation
of nagelfluhe is superposed on tertiary limestone of coral, and
whether the fragments of the Lydian stone come from secondary
limestone analogous to that of Zacatecas and the Moro de Nueva
Barcelona, are questions which I have not had leisure to investigate.
The view from the Popa is extensive and varied, and the windings and
rents of the coast give it a peculiar character. I was assured that
sometimes from the windows of the convent and even in the open sea,
before the fort of Boca Chica, the snowy tops of the Sierra Nevada de
Santa Marta are discernible. The distance of the Horqueta to the Popa
is seventy-eight nautical miles. This group of colossal mountains is
most frequently wrapped in thick clouds: and it is most veiled at the
season when the gales blow with violence. Although only forty-five
miles distant from the coast, it is of little service as a signal to
mariners who seek the port of Saint Marta. Hidalgo during the whole
time of his operations near the shore could take only one observation
of the Nevados.

A gloomy vegetation of cactus, Jatropha gossypifolia, croton and
mimosa covers the barren declivity of Cerro de la Popa. In herbalizing
in those wild spots, our guides showed us a thick bush of Acacia
cornigera, which had become celebrated by a deplorable event. Of all
the species of mimosa the acacia is that which is armed with the
sharpest thorns; they are sometimes two inches long; and being hollow,
serve for the habitation of ants of an extraordinary size. A woman,
annoyed by the jealousy and well founded reproaches of her husband,
conceived a project of the most barbarous vengeance. With the
assistance of her lover she bound her husband with cords, and threw
him, at night, into a bush of Mimosa cornigera. The more violently he
struggled, the more the sharp woody thorns of the tree tore his skin.
His cries were heard by persons who were passing, and he was found
after several hours of suffering, covered with blood, and dreadfully
stung by the ants. This crime is perhaps without example in the
history of human turpitude: it indicates a violence of passion less
assignable to the climate than to the barbarism of manners prevailing
among the lower class of the people.

My most important occupation at Carthagena was the comparison of my
observations with the astronomical positions fixed by the officers of
the expedition of Fidalgo. In the year 1783 (under the ministry of M.
Valdes) Don Josef Espinosa, Don Dionisio Galiano and Don Josef de Lanz
proposed to the Spanish government a plan for taking a survey of the
coast of America, in order to extend the atlas of Tofino to the
western colonies. The plan was approved; but it was not till 1792 that
an expedition was fitted out at Cadiz, and they were enabled to
commence their scientific operations at the island of Trinidad.


CHAPTER 3.31. CUBA AND THE SLAVE TRADE.

I might enumerate among the causes of the lowering of the temperature
at Cuba during the winter months, the great number of shoals with
which the island is surrounded, and on which the heat is diminished
several degrees of centesimal temperature. This diminished heat may be
assigned to the molecules of water locally cooled, which go to the
bottom; to the polar currents, which are borne toward the abyss of the
tropical ocean, or to the mixture of the deep waters with those of the
surface at the declivities of the banks. But the lowering of the
temperature is partly compensated by the flood of hot water, the Gulf
Stream, which runs along the north-west coast, and the swiftness of
which is often diminished by the north and north-east winds. The chain
of shoals which encircles the island and which appears on our maps
like a penumbra, is fortunately broken on several points, and those
interruptions afford free access to the shore. In the south-east part
the proximity of the lofty primitive mountains renders the coast more
precipitous. In that direction are situated the ports of Santiago de
Cuba, Guantanamo, Baitiqueri and (in turning the Punta Maysi) Baracoa.
The latter is the place most early peopled by Europeans. The entrance
to the Old Channel, from Punta de Mulas, west-north-west of Baracoa,
as far as the new settlement which has taken the name of Puerto de las
Nuevitas del Principe, is alike free from shoals and breakers.
Navigators find excellent anchorage a little to the east of Punta de
Mulas, in the three rocks of Tanamo, Cabonico, and Nipe; and on the
west of Punta de Mulas in the ports of Sama, Naranjo, del Padre and
Nuevas Grandes. It is remarkable that near the latter port, almost in
the same meridian where, on the southern side of the island, are
situated the shoals of Buena Esperanza and of Las doce Leguas,
stretching as far as the island of Pinos, we find the commencement of
the uninterrupted series of the cayos of the Old Channel, extending to
the length of ninety-four leagues, from Nuevitas to Punta Icacos. The
Old Channel is narrowest opposite to Cayo Cruz and Cayo Romano; its
breadth is scarcely more than five or six leagues. On this point, too,
the Great Bank of Bahama takes its greatest development. The Cayos
nearest the island of Cuba and those parts of the bank not covered
with water (Long Island, Eleuthera) are, like Cuba, of a long and
narrow shape. Were they only twenty or thirty feet higher, an island
much larger than St. Domingo would appear at the surface of the ocean.
The chain of breakers and cayos that bound the navigable part of the
Old Channel towards the south leave between the channel and the coast
of Cuba small basins without breakers, which communicate with several
ports having good anchorage, such as Guanaja, Moron and Remedios.

Having passed through the Old Channel, or rather the Channel of San
Nicolas, between Cruz del Padre and the bank of the Cayos de Sel, the
lowest of which furnish springs of fresh water, we again find the
coast, from Punta de Icacos to Cabanas, free from danger. It affords,
in the interval, the anchorage of Matanzas, Puerto Escondido, the
Havannah and Mariel. Further on, westward of Bahia Honda, the
possession of which might well tempt a maritime enemy of Spain, the
chain of shoals recommences* (* They are here called Bajos de Santa
Isabel y de los Colorados.) and extends without interruption as far as
Cape San Antonio. From that cape to Punta de Piedras and Bahia de
Cortez, the coast is almost precipitous, and does not afford soundings
at any distance; but between Punta de Piedras and Cabo Cruz almost the
whole southern part of Cuba is surrounded with shoals of which the
isle of Pinos is but a portion not covered with water. These shoals
are distinguished on the west by the name of Gardens (Jardines y
Jardinillos); and on the east, by the names Cayo Breton, Cayos de las
doce Leguas, and Bancos de Buena Esperanza. On all this southern line
the coast is exempt from danger with the exception of that part which
lies between the strait of Cochinos and the mouth of the Rio Guaurabo.
These seas are very difficult to navigate. I had the opportunity of
determining the position of several points in latitude and longitude
during the passage from Batabano to Trinidad of Cuba and to
Carthagena. It would seem that the resistance of the currents of the
highlands of the island of Pines, and the remarkable out-stretching of
Cabo Cruz, have at once favoured the accumulation of sand, and the
labours of the coralline polypes which inhabit calm and shallow water.
Along this extent of the southern coast a length of 145 leagues, only
one-seventh affords entirely free access; namely that part between
Cayo de Piedras and Cayo Blanco, a little to the east of Puerto
Casilda. There are found anchorages often frequented by small barks;
for example, the Surgidero del Batabano, Bahia de Xagua, and Puerto
Casilda, or Trinidad de Cuba. Beyond this latter port, towards the
mouth of the Rio Cauto and Cabo Cruz (behind the Cayos de doce
Leguas), the coast, covered with lagoons, is not very accessible, and
is almost entirely desert.

At the island of Cuba, as heretofore in all the Spanish possessions in
America, we must distinguish between the ecclesiastic,
politico-military, and financial divisions. We will not add those of
the judicial hierarchy which have created so much confusion amongst
modern geographers, the island having but one Audiencia, residing
since the year 1797 at Puerto Principe, whose jurisdiction extends
from Baracoa to Cape San Antonio. The division into two bishoprics
dates from 1788 when Pope Pius VI nominated the first bishop of the
Havannah. The island of Cuba was formerly, with Louisiana and Florida,
under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of San Domingo, and from the
period of its discovery it had only one bishopric, founded in 1518, in
the most western part at Baracoa by Pope Leo X. The translation of
this bishopric to Santiago de Cuba, took place four years later; but
the first bishop, Fray Juan de Ubite, arrived only in 1528. In the
beginning of the nineteenth century (1804), Santiago de Cuba was made
an archbishopric. The ecclesiastical limit between the diocese of the
Havannah and Cuba passes in the meridian of Cayo Romano, nearly in the
80 3/4 degree of longitude west of Paris, between the Villa de Santo
Espiritu and the city of Puerto Principe. The island, with relation to
its political and military government, is divided into two goviernos,
depending on the same capitan-general. The govierno of the Havannah
comprehends, besides the capital, the district of the Quatro Villas
(Trinidad, Santo Espiritu, Villa Clara and San Juan de los Remedios)
and the district of Puerto Principe. The Capitan-general y Gobernador
of the Havannah has the privilege of appointing a lieutenant in Puerto
Principe (Teniente Gobernador), as also at Trinidad and Nueva
Filipina. The territorial jurisdiction of the capitan-general extends,
as the jurisdiction of a corregidor, to eight pueblos de Ayuntamiento
(the ciudades of Matanzas, Jaruco, San Felipe y Santiago, Santa Maria
del Rosario; the villas of Guanabacoa, Santiago de las Vegas, Guines,
and San Antonio de los Banos). The govierno of Cuba comprehends
Santiago de Cuba, Baracoa, Holguin and Bayamo. The present limits of
the goviernos are not the same as those of the bishoprics. The
district of Puerto Principe, with its seven parishes, for instance,
belonged till 1814 to the govierno of the Havannah and the
archbishopric of Cuba. In the enumerations of 1817 and 1820 we find
Puerto Principe joined with Baracoa and Bayamo, in the jurisdiction of
Cuba. It remains for me to speak of a third division altogether
financial. By the cedula of the 23rd March, 1812, the island was
divided into three Intendencias or Provincias; those of the Havannah,
Puerto Principe and Santiago de Cuba, of which the respective length
from east to west is about ninety, seventy and sixty-five sea-leagues.
The intendant of the Havannah retains the prerogatives of
Superintendente general subdelegado de Real Hacienda de la Isla de
Cuba. According to this division, the Provincia de Cuba comprehends
Santiago de Cuba, Baracoa, Holguin, Bayamo, Gibara, Manzanillo,
Jiguani, Cobre, and Tiguaros; the Provincia de Puerto Principe, the
town of that name, Nuevitas, Jagua, Santo Espiritu, San Juan de los
Remedios, Villa de Santa Clara and Trinidad. The most westerly
intendencia, or Provincia de la Havannah, occupies all that part
situated west of the Quatro Villas, of which the intendant of the
capital has lost the financial administration. When the cultivation of
the land shall be more uniformly advanced, the division of the island
into five departments, namely: the vuelta de abaxo (from Cape San
Antonio to the fine village of Guanajay and Mariel), the Havannah
(from Mariel to Alvarez), the Quintas Villas (from Alvarez to Moron),
Puerto Principe (from Moron to Rio Cauto), and Cuba (from Rio Cauto to
Punta Maysi), will perhaps appear the most fit, and most consistent
with the historical remembrances of the early times of the Conquest.

My map of the island of Cuba, however imperfect it may be for the
interior, is yet the only one on which are marked the thirteen
ciudades; and also seven villas, which are included in the divisions I
have just enumerated. The boundary between the two bishoprics (linea
divisoria de los dos obispados de la Havana y de Santiago de Cuba)
extends from the mouth of the small river of Santa Maria (longitude 80
degrees 49 minutes), on the southern coast, by the parish of San
Eugenio de la Palma, and by the haciendas of Santa Anna, Dos Hermanos,
Copey, and Cienega, to La Punta de Judas (longitude 80 degrees 46
minutes) on the northern coast opposite Cayo Romano. During the regime
of the Spanish Cortes it was agreed that this ecclesiastical limit
should be also that of the two Deputaciones provinciales of the
Havannah and of Santiago. (Guia Constitucional de la isla de Cuba,
1822 page 79). The diocese of the Havannah comprehends forty, and that
of Cuba twenty-two, parishes. Having been established at a time when
the greater part of the island was occupied by farms of cattle
(haciendas de ganado), these parishes are of too great extent, and
little adapted to the requirements of present civilization. The
bishopric of Santiago de Cuba contains the five cities of Baracoa,
Cuba, Holguin, Guiza, Puerto Principe and the Villa of Bayamo. In the
bishopric of San Cristoval de la Havannah are included the eight
cities of the Havannah, namely: Santa Maria del Rosario, San Antonio
Abad or de los Banos, San Felipe y Santiago del Bejucal, Matanzas,
Jaruco, La Paz and Trinidad, and the six villas of Guanabacoa, namely:
Santiago de las Vegas or Compostela, Santa Clara, San Juan de los
Remedios, Santo Espiritu and S. Julian de los Guines. The territorial
division most in favour among the inhabitants of the Havannah, is that
of vuelta de arriba and de abaxo, east and west of the meridian of the
Havannah. The first governor of the island who took the title of
Captain-general (1601) was Don Pedro Valdes. Before him there were
sixteen other governors, of whom the series begins with the famous
Poblador and Conquistador, Diego Velasquez, native of Cuellar, who was
appointed by Columbus in 1511.

In the island of Cuba free men compose 0.64 of the whole population;
and in the English islands, scarcely 0.19. In the whole archipelago of
the West Indies the copper-coloured men (blacks and mulattos, free and
slaves) form a mass of 2,360,000, or 0.83 of the total population. If
the legislation of the West Indies and the state of the men of colour
do not shortly undergo a salutary change; if the legislation continue
to employ itself in discussion instead of action, the political
preponderance will pass into the hands of those who have strength to
labour, will to be free, and courage to endure long privations. This
catastrophe will ensue as a necessary consequence of circumstances,
without the intervention of the free blacks of Hayti, and without
their abandoning the system of insulation which they have hitherto
followed. Who can venture to predict the influence which may be
exercised on the politics of the New World by an African Confederation
of the free states of the West Indies, situated between Columbia,
North America, and Guatimala? The fear of this event may act more
powerfully on the minds of many, than the principles of humanity and
justice; but in every island the whites believe that their power is
not to be shaken. All simultaneous action on the part of the blacks
appears to them impossible; and every change, every concession granted
to the slave population, is regarded as a sign of weakness. The
horrible catastrophe of San Domingo is declared to have been only the
effect of the incapacity of its government. Such are the illusions
which prevail amidst the great mass of the planters of the West
Indies, and which are alike opposed to an amelioration of the
condition of the blacks in Georgia and in the Carolinas. The island of
Cuba, more than any other of the West India Islands, might escape the
common wreck. That island contains 455,000 free men and 160,000
slaves: and there, by prudent and humane measures, the gradual
abolition of slavery might be brought about. Let us not forget that
since San Domingo has become free there are in the whole archipelago
of the West Indies more free negroes and mulattos than slaves. The
whites, and above all, the free men, whose cause it would be easy to
link with that of the whites, take a very rapid numerical increase at
Cuba. The slaves would have diminished, since 1820, with great
rapidity, but for the fraudulent continuation of the slave-trade. If,
by the progress of human civilization, and the firm resolution of the
new states of free America, this infamous traffic should cease
altogether, the diminution of the slave population would become more
considerable for some time, on account of the disproportion existing
between the two sexes, and the continuance of emancipation. It would
cease only when the relation between the deaths and births of slaves
should be such that even the effects of enfranchisement would be
counterbalanced. The whites and free men now form two-thirds of the
whole population of the island, and this increase marks in some degree
the diminution of the slaves. Among the latter, the women are to the
men (exclusive of the mulatto slaves), scarcely in the proportion of
1 : 4, in the sugar-cane plantations; in the whole island, as 1 : 1.7;
and in the towns and farina where the negro slaves serve as domestics,
or work by the day on their own account as well as that of their
masters, the proportion is as 1 : 1.4; even (for instance at the
Havannah),* as 1 : 1.2. (* It appears probable that at the end of
1825, of the total population of men of colour (mulattos and negroes,
free and slaves), there were nearly 160,000 in the towns, and 230,000
in the fields. In 1811 the Consulado, in a statement presented to the
Cortes of Spain, computed at 141,000, the number of men of colour in
the towns, and 185,000 in the fields. Documentes sobre los Negros page
121.) This great accumulation of mulattos, free negros and slaves in
the towns is a characteristic feature in the island of Cuba.) The
developments that follow will show that these proportions are founded
on numerical statements which may be regarded as the limit-numbers of
the maximum.