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These fellows might, on the high seas, be easily mistaken for pirates; here they are understood to belong to some one of the many snaky schooners lying here, hailing from Havannah and the various ports along the Mexican Gulf, and whose calling may be honest enough, but which certainly look as though the necessity of stowing a cargo had been quite overlooked in their building.
By means chiefly of her navy, she had gained the whole of the provinces of Canada, the islands of Saint John and Cape Breton, the navigation of the river Mississippi, and that part of Louisiana which lies on the east of that river, the town of New Orleans excepted, permission to cut logwood and to build houses in the Bay of Honduras, and the province of Florida though she had to restore the Havannah and its dependencies to Spain, as well as Martinico, Guadaloupe, Marie Galante, and Saint Lucia to France while she was to retain the Grenadas and Grenadines, with the neutral islands of Dominica, Saint Vincent, and Tobago.
The mean breadth of the island, on four-fifths of its length, between the Havannah and Puerto Principe, is 15 leagues. In the best cultivated part, between the Havannah and Batabano, the isthmus is only eight sea leagues. Cuba has a circumference of coast of 520 leagues, of which 280 belong to the south shore, between Cape San Antonio and Punta Maysi.
He took the hint, requested an ounce of the best Scotch and Havannah mixed, and while she weighed it, asked her how long she had lived there. 'Twenty-six years, sir, she answered heartily, 'Old Style. For the New, I don't hold with it nor them that meddle with things above them. I am sure it brought me no profit, she continued, rubbing her nose.
She was of Spanish blood by the father's side, and had come down from the Havannah. She was very portly; very proud and dignified in her carriage, and demanded as much attention from her lodgers as a lady would who had received us as her guests, so that, to gain and retain admittance into her hostelry, it was necessary not only to pay a large bill, but compliments to an equal amount.
Domingo, and Porto Rico are called the Great Antilles, all the others the less Antilles. "Cuba is the largest and most important: it commands the windward passage, as well as the entrance into the gulfs of Mexico and Florida, and is for that reason sometimes called the Key of the West Indies. It is more than 700 miles in length, and its medium breadth 70 miles. Havannah is the capital.
I took my last hasty whiff of my cigar, and unwillingly threw away more than half of a really good Havannah; for I perceived that in the interieur, for which I had booked myself, there was one female already seated: and women and cigars are such great luxuries in their respective ways, that they are not to be indulged in at one and the same time the world would be too happy, and happiness, we are told, is not for us here below.
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.
We employed the months of December, January and February in making observations in the vicinity of the Havannah and the fine plains of Guines. We lived with the former and deposited our collections and instruments in the spacious hotel of Count O'Reilly, where the terraces favoured our astronomical observations.
Stones being brought from Vera Cruz, and very difficult of transport, the idea was conceived a short time before my voyage of joining great trunks of trees together, as is done in Germany and Russia, when dykes are constructed across marshy places. This project was soon abandoned and travellers newly arrived beheld with surprise fine trunks of mahogany sunk in the mud of the Havannah.
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