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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.
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.
A project of canalization which unites the double advantage of connecting the Havannah and Batabano by a navigable line, and diminishing the high price of the transport of native produce, merits here a special mention.
This it was impossible to effect at the first, because we had not ships enough; and therefore, as always in such cases, a brisk neutral trade, starting from Jamaica and from Mexico, as well as from Europe and the North American Continent, was directed upon the harbors just outside the limits of the blockade, towards Sagua la Grande and adjacent waters in the north, and to Batabano and other ports in the south.
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.
We must not confound with this limestone of Guines, sometimes porous, sometimes compact, another formation so recent that it seems to augment in our days. I allude to the calcareous agglomerates, which I saw in the islands of Cayos that border the coast between the Batabano and the bay of Xagua, principally south of the Cienega de Zapata, Cayo Buenito, Cayo Flamenco and Cayo de Piedras.
Its breadth, especially between the Havannah and the port of Batabano, has been exaggerated; and it is only since the Deposito hidrografico of Madrid published the observations of captain Don Jose del Rio, and lieutenant Don Ventura de Barcaiztegui, that the area of the island of Cuba could be calculated with any accuracy.
Among them would be the sponge fisheries of the coast in the neighborhood of Batabano, and the numerous mineral springs, some of them really having, and others supposed to have, remarkable curative qualities.
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.
The mountains that command the port scarcely rise to 230 toises. I passed a great part of the night on deck. The coast was dreary and desolate. Not a light announced a fisherman's hut. There is no village between Batabano and Trinidad, a distance of fifty leagues; scarcely are there more than two or three corrales or farm yards, containing hogs or cows.
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