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Vessels that are not going to Xagua sometimes take in water from these ocean springs and the water is fresher and colder in proportion to the depth whence it is drawn. The manatees, guided by instinct, have discovered this region of fresh waters; and the fishermen who like the flesh of these herbivorous animals,* find them in abundance in the open sea.
The Havannah is well defended, and its works rival those of the most important fortified towns of Europe; the Torreones, and the fortifications of Cogimar, Jaruco, Matanzas, Mariel, Bahia Honda, Batabano, Xagua and Trinidad might resist for a considerable time the assaults of an enemy; but on the other hand two-thirds of the island are almost without defence, and could scarcely be protected by the best gun-boats.
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.
The surveys and plans of defence made by M. Le Maur, at the time of the commission of Count Jaruco, prove that the anchorage of Xagua merits the celebrity it acquired even in the first years of the conquest. The coast, I was told, is so steep that a frigate may approach the mouth of the Rio Guaurabo. Columbus says expressly that in his time the inhabitants of Cuba did not collect wax.
The learned engineer, Don Francisco Le Maur, informed me that in the bay of Xagua, half a degree east of the Jardinillos, there issue in the middle of the sea, springs of fresh water, two leagues and a half from the coast. These springs gush up with such force that they cause an agitation of the water often dangerous for small canoes.
Xagua and Batabano are low coasts; and I believe that, in general, west of the meridian of Matanzas, there is no hill more than 200 toises high, with the exception of the Pan de Guaixabon. The land in the interior of the island is gently undulated, as in England; and it rises only from 45 to 50 toises above the level of the sea.
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.
It was on the southern coast of the island of Cuba, between the bay of Xagua and the island of Pinos, that the great Spanish Admiral, in his second voyage, saw, with astonishment, "that mysterious king who spoke to his subjects only by signs, and that group of men who wore long white tunics, like the monks of La Merced, whilst the rest of the people were naked."
Lopez says that the Jardines del Rey extend from the Laguna de Cortez to Bahia de Xagua; but it is historically certain that the governor Diego Velasquez gave his name to the western part of the chain of rocks of the Old Channel, between Cayo Frances and Le Monillo, on the northern coast of the island of Cuba.
Its age is doubtless more remote than historic times, and no geologist will believe that it is the work of the mollusca of our seas. From the Cayo de Piedras we could faintly discern in the direction of east-north-east the lofty mountains that rise beyond the bay of Xagua.
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