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Its fertility is equal to that of Hispaniola; besides which, it affords many things proper for trading and commerce; such as hides of several beasts, particularly those that in Europe are called hides of Havanna. On all sides it is surrounded with many small islands, called the Cayos: these little islands the pirates use as ports of refuge.
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.
To this effect he gave them a negro to serve for a hangman, and orders, "that they should immediately hang every one of the pirates, excepting Lolonois, their captain, whom they should bring alive to the Havannah." This ship arrived at Cayos, of whose coming the pirates were advertised beforehand, and instead of flying, went to seek it in the river Estera, where she rode at anchor.
It is important to examine, in each of the cayos, on what this breccia reposes; whether it covers edifices of mollusca still living, or those secondary and tertiary rocks, which judging from the remains of coral they contain, seem to be the product of our days. The gypsum of the cayos opposite San Juan de los Remedios, on the northern coast of the island of Cuba, merits great attention.
This savage swinger of the cutlass thereupon concluded that he would not try to do any great thing for the present, but, having obtained some booty and men from the woe-begone town of de los Cayos, he sailed away, touching at several other small ports for the purpose of pillage, and finally anchoring at Tortuga. Villany on a Grand Scale
They had come to a decidedly inhospitable shore, and Ponce, after exploring the eastern and southern littoral, and discovering the Cayos group of small islands, turned back to San Juan, where he arrived in the beginning of October, "looking much older," says the chronicler, "than when he went in search of rejuvenation."
It would be well if this chain of cayos which surrounds the island of Cuba were examined by geologists with the view of determining what may be attributed to the animals which still work at the bottom of the sea, and what belongs to the real tertiary formations, the age of which may be traced back to the date of the coarse limestone abounding in remains of lithophite coral.
The cayos are composed of rocks, and not of sands, and their smallness renders it extremely improbable that the pluvial waters should unite in a permanent lake. Perhaps the fresh water of this chain of rocks comes from the neighbouring coast, from the mountains of Cuba, by the effect of hydrostatic pressure. Strabo lib. 16 page 754.
For the better understanding the voyage of Ponce, it must be observed that the Lucayo or Bahama Islands consist of three groups, the first, or Bahama cluster gives name to the passage, and in which the currents are most impetuous: The second is called De los Organos; and the third the Martyrs, which are next to the Cayos de las Tortugas, or Turtle Keys to the westwards; which last are not to be seen from any distance, being all low sands, and in consequence many ships have perished on them, and all along the Bahama channel, and on the islands of Tortugas.
Without positively assigning a determinate place in the table of formations to the limestone of Guines, which is that of the Castillo and La Punta, I have no doubt of the relative antiquity of that rock with respect to the calcareous agglomerate of the Cayos, situated south of Batabano, and east of the island of Pinos.
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