Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Years 1799-1804, Vol.3 — 19 - Chapter 3.29, Part 3

Among the few rivers worthy of attention, the Rio Guines may be noticed, the Rio Armendaris or Chorrera, of which the waters are led to the Havannah by the Sanja de Antoneli; the Rio Canto on the north of the town of Bayamo; the Rio Maximo which rises on the east of Puerto Principe; the Rio Sagua Grande near Villa Clara; the Rio de las Palmas which issues opposite Cayo Galiado; the small rivers of Jaruco and Santa Cruz between Guanabo and Matanzas, navigable at the distance of some miles from their mouths and favourable for the shipment of sugar-casks; the Rio San Antonio which, like many others, is engulfed in the caverns of limestone rocks; the Rio Guaurabo west of the port of Trinidad; and the Rio Galafre in the fertile district of Filipinas, which throws itself into the Laguna de Cortez.

The most abundant springs rise on the southern coast where, from Xagua to Punta de Sabina, over a length of forty-six leagues, the soil is extremely marshy.

So great is the abundance of the waters which filter by the clefts of the stratified rock that, from the effect of an hydrostatic pressure, fresh water springs far from the coast, and amidst salt water.

The jurisdiction of the Havannah is not the most fertile part of the island; and the few sugar-plantations that existed in the vicinity of the capital are now converted into farms for cattle (potreros) and fields of maize and forage, of which the profits are considerable.

The agriculturists of the island of Cuba distinguish two kinds of earth, often mixed together like the squares of a draught-board, black earth (negra o prieta), clayey and full of moisture, and red earth (bermeja), more silicious and containing oxide of iron.

The tierra negra is generally preferred (on account of its best preserving humidity) for the cultivation of the sugarcane, and the tierra bermeja for coffee; but many sugar plantations are established on the red soil.

The climate of the Havannah is in accordance with the extreme limits of the torrid zone: it is a tropical climate, in which a more unequal distribution of heat at different parts of the year denotes the passage to the climates of the temperate zone.

Calcutta (latitude 22 degrees 34 minutes north), Canton (latitude 23 degrees 8 minutes north), Macao (latitude 22 degrees 12 minutes north), the Havannah (latitude 23 degrees 9 minutes north) and Rio Janeiro (latitude 22 degrees 54 minutes south) are places which, from their position at the level of the ocean near the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, consequently at an equal distance from the equator, afford great facilities for the study of meteorology.

This study can only advance by the determination of certain numerical elements which are the indispensable basis of the laws we seek to discover.

The aspect of vegetation being identical near the limits of the torrid zone and at the equator, we are accustomed to confound vaguely the climates of two zones comprised between 0 and 10 degrees, and between 15 and 23 degrees of latitude.

The region of palm-trees, bananas and arborescent gramina extends far beyond the two tropics: but it would be dangerous to apply what has been observed at the extremity of the tropical zone to what may take place in the plains near the equator.

In order to rectify those errors it is important that the mean temperature of the year and months be well known, as also the thermometric oscillations in different seasons at the parallel of the Havannah; and to prove by an exact comparison with other points alike distant from the equator, for instance, with Rio Janeiro and Macao, that the lowering of temperature observed in the island of Cuba is owing to the irruption and the stream of layers of cold air, borne from the temperate zones towards the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

The mean temperature of the Havannah, according to four years of good observations, is 25. 7 degrees (20. 6 degrees R. ), only 2 degrees centigrade above that of the regions of America nearest the equator.

The proximity of the sea raises the mean temperature of the year on the coast; but in the interior of the island, when the north winds penetrate with the same force, and where the soil rises to the height of forty toises, the mean temperature attains only 23 degrees (18. 4 degrees R. ) and does not exceed that of Cairo and Lower Egypt.

The difference between the mean temperature of the hottest and coldest months rises to 12 degrees in the interior of the island; at the Havannah and on the coast, to 8 degrees; at Cumana, to scarcely 3 degrees.

The hottest months, July and August, attain 28. 8 degrees, at the island of Cuba, perhaps 29. 5 degrees of mean temperature, as at the equator.

The coldest months are December and January; their mean temperature in the interior of the island, is 17 degrees; at the Havannah, 21 degrees, that is, 5 to 8 degrees below the same months at the equator, yet still 3 degrees above the hottest month at Paris.

It will be interesting to compare the climate of the Havannah with that of Macao and Rio Janeiro; two places, one of which is near the limit of the northern torrid zone, on the eastern coast of Asia; and the other on the eastern coast of America, towards the extremity of the southern torrid zone.

The climate of the Havannah, notwithstanding the frequency of the north and north-west winds, is hotter than that of Macao and Rio Janeiro.

The former partakes of the cold which, owing to the frequency of the west winds, is felt in winter along all the eastern coast of a great continent.

The proximity of spaces of land covered with mountains and table-lands renders the distribution of heat in different months of the year more unequal at Macao and Canton than in an island bounded on the west and north by the hot waters of the Gulf-stream.

The winters are therefore much colder at Canton and Macao than at the Havannah: yet the latitude of Macao is 1 degree more southerly than that of the Havannah; and the latter town and Canton are, within nearly a minute, on the same parallel.

The thermometer at Canton has sometimes almost reached the point zero; and by the effect of reflection, ice has been found on the terraces of houses.

Although this great cold never lasts more than one day, the English merchants residing at Canton like to make chimney-fires in their apartments from November to January; while at the Havannah, the artificial warmth even of a brazero is not required.

Hail is frequent and the hail-stones are extremely large in the Asiatic climate of Canton and Macao, while it is scarcely seen once in fifteen years at the Havannah.

In these three places the thermometer sometimes keeps up for several hours between 0 and 4 degrees (centigrade); and yet (a circumstance which appears to be very remarkable) snow has never been seen to fall; and notwithstanding the great lowering of the temperature, the bananas and the palm-trees are as beautiful around Canton, Macao and the Havannah as in the plains nearest the equator.

In the island of Cuba the lowering of the temperature lasts only during intervals of such short duration that in general neither the banana, the sugar-cane nor other productions of the torrid zone suffer much.

We know how well plants of vigorous organization resist temporary cold, and that the orange trees of Genoa survive the fall of snow and endure cold which does not more than exceed 6 or 7 degrees below freezing-point.

As the vegetation of the island of Cuba bears the character of the vegetation of the regions near the equator, we are surprised to find even in the plains a vegetable form of the temperate climates and mountains of the equatorial part of Mexico.

I

have often directed the attention of botanists to this extraordinary phenomenon in the geography of plants.

The pine (Pinus occidentalis) is not found in the Lesser Antilles; not even in Jamaica (between 17 3/4 and 18 1/2 degrees of latitude).

It is only seen further north, in the mountains of San Domingo, and in all that part of the island of Cuba situated between 20 and 23 degrees of latitude.

It attains a height of from sixty to seventy feet; and it is remarkable that the cahoba* (mahogany (* Swieteinia Mahogani, Linn.

)) and the pine vegetate at the island of Pinos in the same plains.

We also find pines in the south-eastern part of the island of Cuba, on the declivity of the Copper Mountains where the soil is barren and sandy.

The interior table-land of Mexico is covered with the same species of coniferous plants; at least the specimens brought by M. Bonpland and myself from Acaguisotla, Nevado de Toluca and Cofre de Perote do not appear to differ specifically from the Pinus occidentalis of the West India Islands described by Schwartz.

Now those pines which we see at sea level in the island of Cuba, in 20 and 22 degrees of latitude, and which belong only to the southern part of that island, do not descend on the Mexican continent between the parallels of 17 1/2 and 19 1/2 degrees, below the elevation of 500 toises.

I even observed that, on the road from Perote to Xalapa in the eastern mountains opposite to the island of Cuba, the limit of the pines is 935 toises; while in the western mountains, between Chilpanzingo and Acapulco, near Quasiniquilapa, two degrees further south, it is 580 toises and perhaps on some points 450. These anomalies of stations are very rare in the torrid zone and are probably less connected with the temperature than with the nature of the soil.

In the system of the migration of plants we must suppose that the Pinus occidentalis of Cuba came from Yucatan before the opening of the channel between Cape Catoche and Cape San Antonio, and not from the United States, so rich in coniferous plants; for in Florida the species of which we have here traced the botanical geography has not been discovered.

About the end of April, M. Bonpland and myself, having completed the observations we proposed to make at the northern extremity of the torrid zone, were on the point of proceeding to Vera Cruz with the squadron of Admiral Ariztizabal; but being misled by false intelligence respecting the expedition of Captain Baudin, we were induced to relinquish the project of passing through Mexico on our way to the Philippine Islands.

The public journals announced that two French sloops, the Geographe and Naturaliste, had sailed for Cape Horn; that they were to proceed along the coasts of Chili and Peru, and thence to New Holland.

This intelligence revived in my mind all the projects I had formed during my stay in Paris, when I solicited the Directory to hasten the departure of Captain Baudin.

On leaving Spain, I had promised to rejoin the expedition wherever I could reach it.

M.

Bonpland and I resolved instantly to divide our herbals into three portions, to avoid exposing to the risks of a long voyage the objects we had obtained with so much difficulty on the banks of the Orinoco, the Atabapo and the Rio Negro.

We sent one collection by way of England to Germany, another by way of Cadiz to France, and a third remained at the Havannah.

We had reason to congratulate ourselves on this foresight: each collection contained nearly the same species, and no precautions were neglected to have the cases, if taken by English or French vessels, remitted to Sir Joseph Banks or to the professors of natural history at the Museum at Paris.

It happened fortunately that the manuscripts which I at first intended to send with the collection to Cadiz were not intrusted to our much esteemed friend and fellow traveller, Fray Juan Gonzales, of the order of the Observance of St. Francis, who had followed us to the Havannah with the view of returning to Spain.

He left the island of Cuba soon after us, but the vessel in which he sailed foundered on the coast of Africa, and the cargo and crew were all lost.

By this event we lost some of the duplicates of our herbals, and what was more important, all the insects which M. Bonpland had with great difficulty collected during our voyage to the Orinoco and the Rio Negro.

By a singular fatality, we remained two years in the Spanish colonies without receiving a single letter from Europe; and those which arrived in the three following years made no mention of what we had transmitted.

The reader may imagine my uneasiness for the fate of a journal which contained astronomical observations and barometrical measurements, of which I had not made any copy.

After having visited New Grenada, Peru and Mexico, and just when I was preparing to leave the New Continent, I happened, at a public library of Philadelphia, to cast my eyes on a scientific Publication, in which I found these words: "Arrival of M. de Humboldt's manuscripts at his brother's house in Paris, by way of Spain!"

I could scarcely suppress an exclamation of joy.

While M. Bonpland laboured day and night to divide and put our collections in order, a thousand obstacles arose to impede our departure.

There was no vessel in the port of the Havannah that would convey us to Porto Bello or Carthagena.

The persons I consulted seemed to take pleasure in exaggerating the difficulties of the passage of the isthmus, and the dangerous voyage from Panama to Guyaquil, and from Guyaquil to Lima and Valparaiso.

Not being able to find a passage in any neutral vessel, I freighted a Catalonian sloop, lying at Batabano, which was to be at my disposal to take me either to Porto Bello or Carthagena, according as the gales of Saint Martha might permit.

* (* The gales of Saint Martha blow with great violence at that season below latitude 12 degrees.

) The prosperous state of commerce at the Havannah and the multiplied connections of that city with the ports of the Pacific would facilitate for me the means of procuring funds for several years.

General Don Gonzalo O'Farrill resided at that time in my native country as minister of the court of Spain.

I could exchange my revenues in Prussia for a part of his at the island of Cuba; and the family of Don Ygnacio O'Farrill y Herera, brother of the general, concurred kindly in all that could favour my new projects.

On the 6th of March the vessel I had freighted was ready to receive us.

The road to Batabano led us once more by Guines to the plantation of Rio Blanco, the property of Count Jaruco y Mopox.

The road from Rio Blanco to Batabano runs across an uncultivated country, half covered with forests; in the open spots the indigo plant and the cotton-tree grow wild.

As the capsule of the Gossypium opens at the season when the northern storms are most frequent, the down that envelops the seed is swept from one side to the other; and the gathering of the cotton, which is of a very fine quality, suffers greatly.

Several of our friends, among whom was Senor de Mendoza, captain of the port of Valparaiso, and brother to the celebrated astronomer who resided so long in London, accompanied us to Potrero de Mopox.

In herborizing further southward, we found a new palm-tree with fan-leaves (Corypha maritima), having a free thread between the interstices of the folioles.

This Corypha covers a part of the southern coast and takes the place of the majestic palma real and the Cocos crispa of the northern coast.

Porous limestone (of the Jura formation) appeared from time to time in the plain.

Batabano was then a poor village and its church had been completed only a few years previously.

The Sienega begins at the distance of half a league from the village; it is a tract of marshy soil, extending from the Laguna de Cortez as far as the mouth of the Rio Xagua, on a length of sixty leagues from west to east.

At Batabano it is believed that in those regions the sea continues to gain upon the land, and that the oceanic irruption was particularly remarkable at the period of the great upheaving which took place at the end of the eighteenth century, when the tobacco mills disappeared, and the Rio Chorrera changed its course.

Nothing can be more gloomy than the aspect of these marshes around Batabano.

Not a shrub breaks the monotony of the prospect: a few stunted trunks of palm-trees rise like broken masts, amidst great tufts of Junceae and Irides.

As we stayed only one night at Batabano, I regretted much that I was unable to obtain precise information relative to the two species of crocodiles which infest the Sienega.

The inhabitants give to one of these animals the name of cayman, to the other that of crocodile; or, as they say commonly in Spain, of cocodrilo.

They assured us that the latter has most agility, and measures most in height: his snout is more pointed than that of the cayman, and they are never found together.

The crocodile is very courageous and is said to climb into boats when he can find a support for his tail.

He frequently wanders to the distance of a league from the Rio Cauto and the marshy coast of Xagua to devour the pigs on the islands.

This animal is sometimes fifteen feet long, and will, it is said, pursue a man on horseback, like the wolves in Europe; while the animals exclusively called caymans at Batabano are so timid that people bathe without apprehension in places where they live in bands.

These peculiarities, and the name of cocodrilo, given at the island of Cuba, to the most dangerous of the carnivorous reptiles, appear to me to indicate a different species from the great animals of the Orinoco, Rio Magdalena and Saint Domingo.

In other parts of the Spanish American continent the settlers, deceived by the exaggerated accounts of the ferocity of crocodiles in Egypt, allege that the real crocodile is only found in the Nile.

Zoologists have, however, ascertained that there are in America caymans or alligators with obtuse snouts, and legs not indented, and crocodiles with pointed snouts and indented legs; and in the old continent, both crocodiles and gaviales.

The Crocodilus acutus of San Domingo, in which I cannot hitherto specifically distinguish the crocodiles of the great rivers of the Orinoco and the Magdalena, has, according to Cuvier, so great a resemblance to the crocodile of the Nile,* that it required a minute examination to prove that the rule laid down by Buffon relative to the distribution of species between the tropical regions of the two continents was correct.

(* This striking analogy was ascertained by M. Geoffroy de Saint Hilaire in 1803 when General Rochambeau sent a crocodile from San Domingo to the Museum of Natural History at Paris.

M.

Bonpland and myself had made drawings and detailed descriptions in 1801 and 1802 of the same species which inhabit the great rivers of South America, during our passage on the Apure, the Orinoco and the Magdalena.

We committed the mistake so common to travellers, of not sending them at once to Europe, together with some young specimens.

) On my second visit to the Havannah, in 1804, I could not return to the Sienega of Batabano; and therefore I had the two species, called caymans and crocodiles by the inhabitants, brought to me, at a great expense.

Two crocodiles arrived alive; the oldest was four feet three inches long; they had been caught with great difficulty and were conveyed, muzzled and bound, on a mule, for they were exceedingly vigorous and fierce.

In order to observe their habits and movements,* we placed them in a great hall, where, by climbing on a very high piece of furniture, we could see them attack great dogs.

(* M.

Descourtils, who knows the habits of the crocodile better than any other author who has written on that reptile, saw, like Dampier and myself, the Crocodilus acutus often touch his tail with his mouth.

) Having seen much of crocodiles during six months, on the Orinoco, the Rio Apure and the Magdalena, we were glad to have another opportunity of observing their habits before our return to Europe.

The animals sent to us from Batabano had the snout nearly as sharp as the crocodiles of the Orinoco and the Magdalena (Crocodilus acutus, Cuv.

);

their colour was dark-green on the back, and white below the belly, with yellow spots on the flanks.

I counted, as in all the real crocodiles, thirty-eight teeth in the upper jaw, and thirty in the lower; in the former, the tenth and ninth; and in the latter, the first and fourth, were the largest.

In the description made by M. Bonpland and myself on the spot, we have expressly marked that the lower fourth tooth rises over the upper jaw.

The posterior extremities were palmated.

These crocodiles of Batabano appeared to us to be specifically identical with the Crocodilus acutus.

It is true that the accounts we heard of their habits did not quite agree with what we had ourselves observed on the Orinoco; but carnivorous reptiles of the same species are milder and more timid, or fiercer and more courageous, in the same river, according to the nature of the localities.

The animal called the cayman, at Batabano, died on the way, and was not brought to us, so that we could make no comparison of the two species.

* (* The four bags filled with musk (bolzas del almizcle) are, in the crocodile of Batabano, exactly in the same position as in that of the Rio Magdalena, beneath the lower jaw and near the anus.

I was much surprised at not perceiving the smell of musk at the Havannah, three days after the death of the animal, in a temperature of 30 degrees, while at Mompox, on the banks of the Magdalena, living crocodiles infected our apartment.

I have since found that Dampier also remarked an absence of smell in the crocodile of Cuba where the caymans spread a very strong smell of musk.

) I have no doubt that the crocodile with a sharp snout, and the alligator or cayman with a snout like a pike,* (* Crocodilus acutus of San Domingo.

Alligator lucius of Florida and the Mississippi.

) inhabit together, but in distinct bands, the marshy coast between Xagua, the Surgidero of Batabano, and the island of Pinos.

In that island Dampier was struck with the great difference between the caymans and the American crocodiles.

After having described, though not always with perfect correctness, several of the characteristics which distinguish crocodiles from caymans, he traces the geographical distribution of those enormous saurians.

"In the bay of Campeachy," he says, "I saw only caymans or alligators; at the island of Great Cayman, there are crocodiles and no alligators; at the island of Pinos, and in the innumerable creeks of the coast of Cuba, there are both crocodiles and caymans."

* (* Dampier's Voyages and Descriptions, 1599. ) To these valuable observations of Dampier I may add that the real crocodile (Crocodilus acutus) is found in the West India Islands nearest the mainland, for instance, at the island of Trinidad; at Marguerita; and also, probably, at Curacao, notwithstanding the want of fresh water.

It is observed, further south, in the Neveri, the Rio Magdalena, the Apure and the Orinoco, as far as the confluence of the Cassiquiare with the Rio Negro (latitude 2 degrees 2 minutes), consequently more than four hundred leagues from Batabano.

It would be interesting to verify on the eastern coast of Mexico and Guatimala, between the Mississippi and the Rio Chagres (in the isthmus of Panama), the limit of the different species of carnivorous reptiles.