mt:

THE

ISLAND OF CUBA

ALEXANDER HUMBOLDT.

Sfaanalatrir from ti* ^panisl,

NOTES AND A PRELIMINARY ESSAY.

J. S. THRASHES

NEW YORK :
DERBY & JACKSON, 119 NASSAU STREET.

CINCINNATI : — H. W. DEBBT.

1856.

Entered According- to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
J . u . DERBY,
In the Clerk'a Office of the District Court of the U. S. for the Southern Distriot of New York.

W. »'. Tinson, Stereotype!-. " Puuney & fctcsssLL, Printers.

TO

i Mmhin nf t|? luunntn ^xm

THIS WORK IS RESPECTFULLY

DEDICATED,

IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDOMENT OF THEIR SYMPATHY AND PROTECTION

IN A TIME OF PERIL,

BY THEIK OBLIGED COLABORER,

J. S. THRASHER.

PREFACE.

* That portion of Baron Humboldt's " Personal Narrative " of his
travels with Mons. Bonpland in the equinoctial regions of America,
which relates to the Island of Cuba, has been published as a separate
work both in the French and Spanish languages ; but I believe no
complete version has ever been presented in English. The following
translation is from an excellent rendering of the original work into
Spanish, which modestly gives only the initials of the translator ;
D. J. B. de V. Y. M.
I have been stimulated to undertake this labor by the oft-repeated
request that I would state which is the best book on Cuba, and by
the fact that a long continued residence in the island, and a study
of its condition and resources, have convinced me that Baron
Humboldt's work is the best that has been written on the subject.
In order to bring the information in this volume as nearly as
possible down to the present time, I have added notes, which are
placed in brackets in the body of the text, or without signature at
the foot of the page, as seemed most conducive to a clear exposition
of the present condition of Cuba, j The notes of Baron Humboldt
have the signature H. affixed in the following pages. J. S. T.
New York, December, 1856.

CONTENTS,

PAOB
Preliminary Essay  13

CHAPTER I.
GENERAL VIEWS.
Political importance of the island of Cuba and port of Havana
— Their relations to contiguous countries — Increase of public
wealth and revenue — Description- of Bay and City of Havana —
Public buildings — Streets — Public walks and grounds — Ashes
of Columbus — Palms— Vicinity of Havana — Suburbs — Projected
moat — Defences of Havana — Population — Increase — Marriages,
births, and deaths — Hospitals — Health — Markets — Hospitality —
[Note. — Establishment of Navy yard at Havana — Don Augustin
de Arriola — List of ships built at Havana — Abandonment of the
Navy-yard]  '.  97

CHAPTER IL
PHYSICAL ASPECT.
Figure of the island but lately known — Area according to Lindeneau
and Ferrer — According to Bauza — AccoTding to " Cuadro Esta
distico" — Comparative area — Length and width — Importance of

VI CONTENTS.
Batabano — Comparative territorial power — Geological character
— Mountains — Face of the country— Elevation — Noted hills —
Eastern portion — Gold-washing — Formation of western and cen
tral portion — Giiiues — Soil — Hills of San Juan — Caverns— Modern
formation — Shore at Havana — Roaring banks explained — Relative
age of strata— Fresh water on the cays — Origin — Vicinity of
Havana — Guanabacoa — Serpentine — Petroleum — Botany of
Guanabacoa — Mineral springs — Reflections on geology — Earth
quakes — Fertile lands — Beauty of vegetation — Soils, how distin
guished — Rivers — Springs — Lands near Havana. [Note.— Imper
fect state of geological knowledge in Cuba — Known metal and
mineral productions — Coal analyzed — Celebrated mineral springs
— Analysis of tobacco lands in the Vuelta de Abajo]  124
CHAPTER HI.

General remarks — Mean temperature — Means of heat and cold —
Summer solstice — Peculiarities of winter — Compared with Macao
and Rio Janeiro — Fires not needed— Hail — General remarks
— Anomalies of vegetation — The pine of Cuba — Identity with that
of Mexico — Temperature in the interior and at Havana — Compari
son with Cumana — Ice — Snow never seen in Cuba — Sudden changes
at Havana — Internal heat of the earth — Oscillations of thermome
ter and barometer connected — Barometrical altitudes — Hurricanes
— [Note. — Hurricanes of 1844 and 1845 — Rain gauge and Hygro
meter — Atmospherical phenomena^Cloudy and fair days — Effect
of climate on vegetation]  150
CHAPTER IV.
GEOGRAPHY.
Banks and reefs round Cuba, — North coast — South coast — Territorial
divisicT ' — Ju^iMary — Ecclesiastical — Politico-military — Public

CONTENTS. Vii
Finances— Proposed new division— Present dividing line of bish
oprics—Number of parishes— Popular territorial divisions— First
governor — [Note, Maritime subdivision]  174
CHAPTER V.
POPULATION.
Its political importance — Former census — Population in 1825
— Compared with other Antilles — Relative proportions of races
in slave countries — Reflections — Why slaves have not dimin
ished since 1820 — Proportions of free, and slaves,, and of
sexes — Fears on cessation of slave trade — Why unfounded^
Distribution of population in 1811 — Free colored seek the towns
— Relative density — Census of 1775 — Of 1791 — Their contradic
tions — Corrections — Motion in Spanish Cortes for abolition of
slavery — Remonstrance from Cuba, — Census of 1817 — Is not com
plete — Mode of estimating increase — Relative increase of classes
— Several causes of increase — Rate — Excessive between 1791 and
1810 — Unequal distribution of classes — [Note. — Censuses of 1827,
1841, and 1846 — Reasons for distrusting that of 1846 — Supposed
decrease of slaves — Its improbability — Reasons therefor — Increase
of slaves — Annual rate of total increase — Present population] 183
CHAPTER VI.

Manumission frequent in Cuba — Its causes — Slaves allowed to hire
their time. — [Note — Usual wages — Number of working days —
Slaves may purchase their freedom by partial payments — Many
remain partially redeemed-;- Reason — Curious phase of negro
mind.] — Position of free negroes — Mild laws — Slaves previous to
the Eighteenth century — Religious scruples regarding females —
Population of Sugar plantations— Projects for increasing slaves

VH1 CONTENTS.
— Don Francisco de Arango — Desire to ameliorate their condition
— First importation — Entire importation to America in sixteenth
century— Slaves in Cuba in 1763^-Activity of trade at the close
of the eighteenth century — Treaty with England. — [Note— Total
number imported.] — Compared with Jamaica — Other English
colonies (Note) — Humane result in Cuba — Mortality of slaves —
Has diminished — Of newly imported negroes — Means to prevent
decrease — Abolition of slave-trade. — [Note — Not effective — Baron
Humboldt's sketch of slavery in Cuba — Decrease of slaves a fal
lacy — Increase only paralleled in United States— Their well-being
evident — Chinese imported — Injurious influence and evil
results]  211
CHAPTER VH.
RACES.
But two now in the Antilles — Indians have disappeared — Confusion
of early historians relative to their numbers — Character of
estimates by early voyagers — Why Cuba might not have been
as populous as represented — Cruelties of first settlers — Early
mode of computing population — Movement of colonization in
Cuba — Law of proportion of races — Havana — Cuatro Villas —
Puerto Principe — St. Jago de Cuba — Density of population
— Populous and uninhabited districts — Impossibility of the mili
tary defence of the island — Intellectual culture — Intelligence
of the Habaneros — Apparent distance from Europe diminished —
Declining influence of the old Spaniards — Admirable institutions in
Havana — The necessity of reform. . ,  232
CHAPTER VOL
SUGAR CULTURE.
Historical summary — Export of. sugar from Havana to 1824 —
From Cuba to 1852 — Estimates of actual product-r-Wealth of

CONTENTS. IX
Cuba compared with the Antilles — St. Domingo — Brazil — Effect
of political disasters on prices — Relative position of 'Cuba —
Classes of sugar— Numerical elements of sugar planting — Value
of land — Number of hands to a plantation, and their food — Machi
nery — Cost, product, and expense of a sugar plantation in 1825
— [Note— In 1855 — Compared — Causes of increased product.] —
Mean yield of land in sugar-cane, maple, and beet — Proportions of
crystallizable sugar — Different results in manipulations of cane-
juice — Where improvements must be sought — Yield of cane in
new and old lands— Compared with wheat — Yield in Bengal —
Disproportion of results in agriculture in Cuba and France — First
beet-root sugar in Havana — Fears entertained — Changes in sugar
culture — Increase — First cane planted in America — Several classes
— Supposition of sugar-makers — Otaheitan cane has not degenerated
— Want of fuel — Application of bagass — Wood and bagass com
pared — Experiments and inventions — Suggested by the author's
residence at salt-works — Error in Europe relative to the effect of
cessation of slave-trade — Number of slaves in sugar culture — In
towns — Capture of Havana by the English, and its good effects —
Causes of prosperity — Evils of government embarrass it. . . . 250
CHAPTER IX.
AGRICULTURE.
Increase of tithes, an evidence of prosperity— Table of agricultura
wealth— Hatos and Potreros (Note)—- Pecuniary relations of plant
ers and merchants — Rate of interest — Slave-trade— Coffee planting
—Product— Yield per hand compared with sugar— [Note.-
Decline of coffee planting— Causes.]— Tobacco planting— Formev
monopoly— Product— Decline— Factoria — Prices— Quantity . put
chased, and where sold — Expenses of Factoria — State of tobacav
planting, in 1820-5— [Note.— Obstacles to tobacco planting-
Future prospects— Present product— Prices— Error of Baron Hum
boldt— Probable causes of superiority of the tobacco from the

X CONTENTS.
Vuelta de Abajo.} — Other products in Cuba — Wheat — Wine —
Wax  278
CHAPTER X.
COMMERCE.
Causes of its importance — Wealth of Cuba — Relation of Havana to
Spanish-America — Present state of commerce — Official valuations
{Note) — Fallacies of tables of trade — Remarks thereon —
Balanza de Comercio — Imports and exports, 1816 and 1823 —
Character of imports — Of exports — Merchant ships and men-of-
war at Havana, — [Note. — Imports and exports. 1852 — Character
of imports, and proportion from United States — Exports — Propor
tion to the United States — Vessels entered and cleared — Propor
tion of commerce of Havana.] — Reflections on the character of
importations — Large amount of woven fabrics — Of provisions and
liquors-^State of society, and want of subsistence — Wines and
cereals a necessity — Surprising importation of meats and pulse —
Probable future deduced — Error of the deduction (Note) — Evil
colonial policy of Europe — Not adapted to Cuba — Probable
increase of population — Social theory — Law of public welfare
and of future of Cuba— [Note. — Error of social theory demon
strated by Jamaica — Transition of blacks from slavery to freedom
— Its sad results — Tendency of free negroes to abandon the fields
— Natural results — Sustains Baron Humboldt's law of public
welfare and of future of Cuba.] — Flour trade — Mexican competi
tion — State of public wealth in 1800— Its increase — Cuban defence
of free trade — Influence of commerce upon society — Progress not
to be measured by tons — Lives' of nations  294
CHAPTER XI.
INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS.
Projected canal from Havana to Batabano — Survey and levels —
Difficulty of making roads — Estimated cost and advantages of the

CONTENTS. XI
Canal — [Note.— Present state of roads — Itinerary of principal
roads — Cross-roads — Turnpikes — Introduction of railroads — Their
adaptability to Cuba — Government determines to build the first —
Its immense cost — Receipts and expenses — Sale and extension —
Present system of railroads — Existing railroads in Cuba — Their
cost — Receipts — Steam navigation — Coasting trade — Shipbuilding
—Telegraph]  315
CHAPTER XH.

Historical sketch — Its comparatively large amount — Causes of great
expenditure — Struggle with the Spanish republics — Mistaken
policy of Spain— Customs revenue of Havana, 1789 to 1822 —
Detail of revenue, 1824 — Increase — Internal taxes, 1735 to 1818
— Revenue and expenditure, 1822— Comments of the Intendent—
Subsidies from Mexico to Cuba — [NoTE:^-Sources of present
revenue examined — Maritime revenue and tariff — Internal taxes —
Direct revenue — State property — Declared revenue — Items of
government income to be added — Total revenue — Abuses in Cuba
Evil effects of the revenue system — Appropriations — Civil list —
Army — Navy — Crown income — Average product to Spain — Per
centage on official incomes— Revenue from 1826 to 1852 — Com
pared with revenue of Spanish government in Mexico-
Reflections]  328
CHAPTER XHI.
A TRIP TO TRINIDAD.
Change of plans— Preparations for departure— Remission of speci
mens to Europe — Long absence without letters — Joyful news-
Difficulties to be surmounted— Objections met— Charter of a
schooner— Financial arrangements— Departure— Grateful acknow-
1*

Xll CONTENTS.
ledgments — The Orleans princes — Road across the island — Cot
ton plant — Batabano — Supposed encroachments of the sea —
Gloom, of the marshes — Cocodrilos and Caymans — Their habits
and characteristics— Specimens — Comparison with those of South
America — Suggestions — Dampier's description of them — Embar-
cation — Discomfort on board — Gulf of Batabano — Isle of Pines
— Jardines and Jardinillos — Struggle of Columbus here — Beauti-
fui phenomenon — Temperatures of the sea — Clearness of the water
— Cause thereof — Incompetency of pilot — Anchor at night —
Multitude of shooting-stars — Absence of life in these regions —
Contrast with the time of Columbus — Arts of the Indian fisher
men — Similar arts among other uncivilized nationB — Visit to the
Cays — Their geognostic constitution — Does the sea grow shallow
here — Cay Bonito — Pelicans — Barbarity of the sailors — Vegeta
tion — Charm of these regions — Memories of Columbus and Cortes
Columbus and the natives — Fleets of pirogues from Yucatan —
Hopes of Columbus — His remarkable vision — His pathetic com
plaints — Hernan Cortes — Stranding of his ship — Gathering of his
fleet — Fall of Mexico — Strange vicissitudes — Cay Flamenco —
Fresh water on the Cays — Springs in the sea — Similar springs at
Cardenas — The Manatee — Dampier's description of it — Cay de
Piedras — The open sea — Its temperature — Marshy coast — Las
Casas grant of Indians — Bay of Jagua — Cienfuegos — Hills of San
Juan — A bold coast — Mexican wax found in Cuba — River San.
Juan — Remains of native inhabitants — Sea temperature — Arrival
at the river Guaurabo — Ludicrous conveyance to the city — ¦
Trinidad — Absence of snow — First settlement — Fine view — Astro
nomical observations — Hospitality — Dinner given by the governor
— Complaints of the inhabitants — Ports of Trinidad, Guaurabo —
Casilda — An agreeable evening — Cuban ladies — Departure from
Trinidad — Stately conveyance — Fire-flies — Interesting anecdote
— Conclusion  350

PRELIMINARY ESSAY.

An essay upon the Island of Cuba, without some
treatment of the political and social questions which
affect its present condition and future develop
ment, would justly be deemed an unsatisfactory
and incomplete work. "We do not presume to
bring to the subject anything like the clear precision,
and charm of thought and style, which the admirable
writer and traveller, Baron Humboldt, has thrown
round the production we have ventured to reproduce
in the translation which follows. But we have made
these questions the subject of study for several years,
under new aspects which have developed themselves
since Humboldt wrote, and venture to offer the result
of our observations and reflections, in the hope that
they may supply an existing want, and prove inter
esting and serviceable to the American reader.
The complete view of the. population and industrial
condition of Cuba, presented in the work of Baron
Humboldt, renders unnecessary any further remarks

14 humboldt's cuba.
upon that subject. "We shall, therefore, limit the
considerations we have to offer, to four heads, which
are : I. The Territorial ; H. The Political ; HI. The
Industrial ; and IV. The Social relations of Cuba, as
they exist at the present time. ^
I. The territorial relations of the Island of Cuba,
are of a more marked and permanent character than
those of any other country of limited extent in
America, and justify the Abbe Raynal's assertion
that it is " the boulevard of the New "World." The
peculiar formation of the eastern shore of this conti
nent, and the prevalence in the Caribbean Sea of the
trade winds, which blow with great uniformity from
the E.N.E., with a constant oceanic current running
in its general direction, from east to west, make the
narrow ocean passages, which skirt the shore of
Cuba, the natural outlets for the commerce of Vene
zuela, New Granada, the isthmus States of Panama,
Costa Pica, Honduras, San Salvador, and Nicaragua.
The rich and growing commerce with the coun
tries bordering upon the Pacific Ocean, crossing the
several routes of isthmus transit, is brought by these
natural influences, under the immediate supervision
and control of the fleets that ride in safety, in the
numerous large and well-protected harbors of Cuba.
The value of the territorial advantages thus conferred
by its geographical position, must increase in the

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 15
same ratio with the increase of trade across the
various isthmus routes, and every new enterprise in
those regions has a direct and practical itendency to
increase the moral power of whatever government
rules in Cuba. The construction of the Panama
railroad, at the cost of millions of dollars to the
industrial resources of the United States, although' of
great advantage, in a pecuniary sense, to all the
nations upon whose commerce it has conferred a
benefit, has brought an increase of national power
only to the Spanish government in Cuba, as it has
brought a great increase to the tides of national
wealth which must pass before its doors, and within
its easy grasp. The same result must attend every
increased facility of transit across the isthmus States,
and every movement which shall tend to augment
the products of labor within their borders, or their
intercourse with the great marts lying upon the
North Atlantic Ocean.
The physical geography of all the isthmus states
north of Panama, and of the republic of Mexico,
give to Cuba in this respect, a peculiar natural terri
torial relation to all those countries. Their eastern
shores are wanting, in those deep and capacious har
bors, so necessary not only for commerce, but for the
purposes of defence, while the situation of Cuba,
with her numerous ports, opposite, and almost imme-

16 htjmboldt's cuba.
diately contiguous to their coasts, points to her as
the natural depository for their productions, and the
scene of their commercial exchanges with the rest of
the world.
This natural relation is augmented by the physical
aspect of the countries in question. Traversed as
they are, through their whole extent, by chains of
mountains, the construction of long lines of internal
communication, whieh shall concentrate their trade
upon any point within their own territory, is of very
difficult and costly attainment, and Cuba thus be
comes the probable channel of their future inter
course with the nations north and east of them.
Though the value of this natural connection may
now seem small, their mineral wealth, and vast
tracts of fertile soil under a genial climate, indicate
a great increase of importance at no very distant
day, under the natural development of the progress
of America.
The Gulf of Mexico, with a shore line of nearly
six thousand miles, forms almost an exact circle, the
great ocean outlet to which is through the narrow
passage running along the northern shore of Cuba,
and within a few miles of her best and strongest har
bors. This formation of the land and sea, brings the
rich mineral tribute paid by Mexico to Europe, and
the bulky products of the region drained by the Mis-

PEELrMTNAEY ESSAY. 17
sissippi river and its tributaries, within the control
of the government of Cuba. It may close at will
- the only ocean outlet those countries possess, and
thus inflict great evils upon all their industrial inter
ests. The actual value of the commerce which that
vast region now sends through this narrow channel,
is almost beyond the power of enumeration, and the
ceaseless tide of emigration, which is pouring its
countless thousands upon the plains west of the Mis
sissippi, is adding steadily to its sum. However
great may be the facilities for passenger traffic, be
tween the Atlantic and the "Western States, the bulky
products of their industry, which constitute the basis
of their prosperity,, fnust seek the markets of the
world through the lines of internal water communi
cation and their ocean extensions. Thus every
waning year, increasing the industrial power of the
mighty West, adds a new value to the strength that
attends the geographical position of the island of
Cuba. The territorial relations of Cuba to the isthmus
States, and to those bordering upon the Gulf of
Mexico, for purposes of defence are also of an im
portant character. Through its peculiar location it
guards all the avenues of approach, to their shores,
making an attack upon them a movement of great
difficulty and danger, while at the same time it cuts '

18off all hope of a safe retreat in case of reverses to
the attacking enemy. The importance of Cuba in
this respect, in its relation to the United States, is
shown in the circumstances attending the English
expedition against Louisiana, during the last war
with England. The army and fleet of Sir Edward „
Packenham were concentrated at Jamaica, and in
their advance upon the United States, were com
pelled to sail for nearly seven hundred miles, almost
within sight from the shores of Cuba. "When forced
by the battle of New Orleans to retreat, the British
fleet, with the remains of the army on board, fled to
Havana for succor and relief, and could not proceed
to Jamaica until it had remained there some time
to refit. Had Cuba at that time borne as intimate
political as it does territorial relations, to the United
States, the British fleet not only would have found
no port of refuge there, but it could never have
safely approached our shores. A similar instance
occurred in the attack- by the French upon Vera
Cruz. The fleet of Prince de Joinville concentrated
at Havana before the attack, and returned there to
refit after it had captured San Juan de Ulua.
The territorial relations of Cuba to the other
islands of the Antilles, give it a marked prepon
derance. In area and population it exceeds, all the
other islands together, while in its abundance of safe

PRELIMINARY ESSAY 19
and capacious ports it equals them. Its geographi
cal position gives it also peculiar advantages in
Respect to them. With one extremity resting in
undisturbed proximity upon the Continent for sup
port, the other extends between, and in sight of St.
Domingo and Jamaica, which are the only other
islands of the Antilles possessing any territorial im
portance. Its natural resources and facility of inter
nal communication, give to these territorial relations
a power which can never be superseded by any com
bination of natural or acquired advantages in the
other islands of the American Archipelago.
Its territorial relations to the United States, con
stitute probably its greatest value in the estimation
of European Cabinets. The geographical formation
of our Atlantic and Gulf coasts places it midway
between them, enabling the power that holds Cuba,
to impede at will all maritime intercourse between
their ports. At the same time it is the key to the
sea gates of more than twenty thousand miles of
river navigation emptying into the Gulf of Mexico,
, the shutting of which would inflict serious injury
upon every interest connected with the great valley
of tUe Mississippi. The evil effects of such " an
untoward event, would be felt not only by the indus
trial pursuits of the great and increasing States in
that.region, but also bv the manufacturing and com-

20 humboldt's cuba.
mercial interests of the North and East, to which
their important markets would be closed by the
double operation of impeded intercourse, and the
diminished ability of the West to consume the pro
ducts and fabrics of the East, consequent upon their
inability to dispose of their own surplus productions.
The territorial relations of the island of Cuba to
the United States, have also a great importance in
another branch of their domestic economy. It con
stitutes more than one-half of a bar of foreign ter
ritory, llyirig directly over the most important lines
of transit between the Atlantic and Pacific States of
the Confederacy, across or through which must pass
the greater portion of the trade and intercourse be
tween those sections, and of the armament and means
for military defence of the Pacific States, if they
would avoid the uncertain delays and dangers' inci
dent to the route round Cape Horn. The traffic by
the isthmus routes, between the ports of New York
and San Francisco alone, is now of greater import
ance and value than our foreign trade with any one
nation, Great Britain not excepted. The value of
treasure and merchandise transported by these routes
exceeds annually one hundred millions of dollars, while
more than one hundred thousand passengers throng
them, giving employment to nearly one-half the
ocean steam tonnage registered in the United States.

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 21
This bar of foreign territory over-lying these im
portant lines of transit, extends from Cape Catoche,
in Yucatan, which is the eastern point of Mexico, to
the island of Porto Pico, a distance of fourteen hun
dred miles ; and, under the geographical necessities
of trade and travel, may be said, without any distor
tion of language, to lie immediately between the
Atlantic and the Pacific States'. Through this bar
of foreign territory there are but three passages
open to commerce, all of which are in possession, or
under the immediate control of, European powers.
The most western of these is the narrow passage be
tween Cape Catoche and the western end of Cuba,
forming the southern outlet to the Gulf of Mexico,
and which can be approached from the Atlantic
ports, only by first ^passing* through the channel be
tween the north coast of Cuba and the reefs of
Florida. This passage lies about one hundred and
fifty miles leeward from Havana.
The passage next eastward is the channel between
the eastern end of Cuba and the western extremity
of St. Domingo. It is about forty miles wide at the
narrowest part, having the harbors of St. Jago and
Guantanamo, in Cuba, on one side, Gonave and Port
au Prince, in Hayti, on the other, and Jamaica lying
directly across its southern outlet. These two are
those most frequented in our intercourse between the

22 humboldt's cuba.
Atlantic and the Pacific States. The other passage
is the narrow channel between the eastern end of St.
Domingo and the island of Porto Pico, and is
under the immediate control of the powers holding
those two islands, being commanded by the bay of
Samana, in St. Domingo, and the harbors in the
Spanish island of Porto Pico.
Of the territory comprised in this long extent of
country, Cuba, being one-half, and Porto Pico, one-
tenth, belong to Spain, the government of which can
barely be said to be an independent power; while
St. Domingo, comprising about one-third, is held by
the negro dynasty of Hayti and the mongrel govern
ment of Dominica, neither of which has a self-ruled
policy. Jamaica, in possession of Great Britain,
laps the contiguous extremities of the two greater
islands. Cuba alone, of the Antilles, possesses suffi
cient territorial power to keep these passages open
to our commerce, and to. guarantee their safety.
These territorial relations of that island, possessing as
they do an important bearing upon all the neighboring
countries, and conferring a moral power upon the gov
ernment that holds it, are the subject of solicitude to
the governments of Western Europe, and seem wor
thy of the watchful care of the statesmen of America.
H. The political relations of Cuba, strictly speak
ing, are those of the crown of Spain, to which it is

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 23
subject ; but the condition of the two countries is so
distinct; that it has given rise to natural political
necessities and relations, or affinities, on the part of
Cuba, which are separate from, and not unfrequently
opposed to those of the Spanish monarchy ; the one
being wholly a European power, while the other,
through her great productions and commerce, has
natural relations of a purely American character.
The essential political interests of the island are
antagonistic to those of the mother country. While
the Cortes and the crown have frequently declared
that Cuba does not form an integral part of the Span
ish monarchy, but must be governed by special laws
not applicable to Spain, and persist in ruling her
under the erroneous and unjust European colonial
system, the growing wealth and increasing intelli
gence of. the Cubans, lead them to aspire to some
share in the elimination of the political principles
under which their own affairs shall be administered.
A like antagonism exists in the economical rela
tions of the two countries. While the people of
Cuba are not averse to the raising of such revenue
as may be required for the proper wants of the
State, in the administration of which they may par-
tieiputepthey complain with, a feeling of national
paside, that; fiscal burdens of the most onerous kind
are laid upon them :for the expressed purpose of

24

advancing interests which are in every sense opposed
to their own. Thus Spain imposes taxes to' support
a large army and navy, the principal object of which
is to prevent any expression of the public will on the
part of the people of Cuba. Another class of impo
sitions have for their object the diversion of the
trade of Cuba to channels which shall increase the
profits of the agriculturalists, and mariners of Spain,
without regard to the interests of the people of the
island. Whenever any of these burdens become so
oppressive, or ruinous to the island, that the court
cannot avoid taking cognizance of the complaintg of .
the people, the necessity that it must be replaced by
some new tax, which shall immediately equal it in
product to the revenue, is made the immutable con
dition of relief. In a word, the increase of the reve
nue, and the advance of the industrial interests of
the people of Spain, are the guiding principles in
the political economy of the present government of
Cuba. The civil administration of Cuba is of the same'
antagonistic character. We are relieved from
extending our remarks. on this point, by the full
elucidation of the subject in the " Essay upon the
political state, &c, of the Island of Cuba," published
by General Jose de la Concha, in Spain, after his
return from the post of Captain-General of the

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 25
island. The propositions sustained by General Conr
cha are, that " The prosperity of Cuba is not due to
the so-called laws of the Indies ; nor does it prove
the social welfare of the island ; nor the excellence
of its government." The result of this evil political
system has been to create a feeling of dissatisfaction
among the people of Cuba, and a direful determina
tion on the part of the government, which is thus
expressed by General Caiiedo in his farewell address
to the people of Cuba, on resigning the command of
the island to General Pezuela, in December 1853.
" Pemain then impassive in the love which you
profess to our august queen, and to the mother coun
try ; remain obedient to the supreme government
and to the authority which represents it, and never
forget that the very existence and name of Cuba
depends upon its continuing to be a Spanish pos
session." The political relations of Cuba towards the other
continental nations of Europe, partake of the passive
antagonism inherent in the communities of America ;
but as this is entirely absorbed by its submission to
Spain, these relations exhibit only the character of
those of the Spanish crown.
With Great Britain a severe contest has been car
ried on for several years, during which the mother
country, up to a certain period, defended the interests
2

26

of her colony. The countervailing policy of France
in the Spanish peninsula, more than any other cir
cumstance, enabled Spain to resist the demands of
England ; but the advent of Louis Napoleon, and his
hearty union with the British cabinet in a policy,
which the Earl of Clarendon describes as affecting
the policy of those nations in both hemispheres,
changed the relative position of those governments
toward Spain. England claimed the right, under
treaty stipulations, to interfere in the domestic affairs
of Cuba, and as this claim and the attendant negotia
tions involve some of the most important questions
relative to $he future of Cuba, we give the following
extracts from the official correspondence on the sub
ject. They will best exhibit the relative positions
and aims of the two governments, and perhaps throw
some light upon a matter which is still involved in
the obscurity of diplomatic intercourse. The possible
stipulations of Spain with England on this subject?
have awakened the liveliest alarm in Cuba, and have
been the subject of much warm discussion in this
country. In 1841 England endeavored to establish by treaty
a British tribunal in Cuba, with power to decide the
status of the negroes making application to it. Lord
Aberdeen, in a dispatch of 31st December 1843, to
Mr. Bulwer, then British Minister in Spain, holds the

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 27
following language in relation to this attempt, and its
temparary abandonment.
"In 1841, the draft of a Convention was transmit
ted to Madrid, by which it was proposed to institute,
by the aid of British functionaries, an examination
into the titles by which the slave population of Cuba
is held in servitude. Encouraged by the novel
appearance of good faith on the part of the govern
ment of Cuba, as it was then administered, her
Majesty's government admitted the weight of certain
objections raised against that proposal by the gov
ernment at Madrid, and forbore for the time to
press it." *
The objections here alluded to, were the remon
strances from Cuba, which were couched in the
strongest language. On the first allusion to the sub
ject by the press in Spain, the Junta de Fomento
of Havana sent to the court a protest signed by Count
Villanueva (the intendant of the island), as president
of that body, which, after eloquently depicting the
results of that measure to Cuba, says : —
"It is not to be presumed that any white man will
be disposed to submit to so hard a fate. They will
all prefer to emigrate to foreign countries to earn
1 Report on the Slave Trade, laid before Parliament, 1853, pp.
69-70.

28 their livelihood and save the hves of their children,
if they do not previously adopt the course which a
state of desperation would prescribe." * * *
* * * "There has been but one feeling or opinion
since the arrival of the publications in question from
Madrid, which is, that the island would be irrecovera
bly lost by it to the mother country, and to its inhab
itants, who would prefer any extreme to the calamity
of sacrificing their fortunes, endangering their lives,
and remaining in a state of subordination to the
negroes." 1
This " Draft of a Convention " was sent to Cuba
by the Regency of Spain, for consultation, and-
produced the most urgent remonstrances from the
municipal authorities of Havana, the Junta de Fo
mento, and other public bodies, and from many
eminent citizens to whom it was submitted by the
local authorities. Their language was uniform and
bold, the Ayuntamiento of Havana declaring that
if the Convention were signed by Spain, it would be
productive of a bloody revolution in. Cuba. These
representations induced England to forbear for a
time. In 1850 and 1851, these demands were again
1 Correspondence on the Slave Trade, published by order of the
House of Commons, 1841, Class B, p. 285.

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 29
pressed by England with great energy and warmth,
and strenuously resisted by_^ Spain. On the 23d
March, 1851, Senor Bertran de Lis writes to Lord
Howden :
" But it seems impossible that the well-known
perspicuity of the Cabinet of London should have
overlooked in its tum the immense responsibility
imposed upon the queen's government by the pre
sent circumstances of the Spanish Antilles, and the
stringent duty, in which it is placed, of proceeding
with the greatest prudence and circumspection, in
all matters which may exercise either directly or
indirectly any influence upon the social and political
situation of those colonies.
" You are aware of the dangers by which these
colonies are menaced. You know that for the pre
vention of these dangers, for the consolidation of the
security and preservation of its transatlantic posses
sions, her majesty's government, hitherto, unfortu
nately, reduced to its own means, cannot as yet rely
upon the decided protection of its most important
allies." *
The moment was opportune for England, and she
did not hesitate to take advantage of it. General
Lopez was at that time preparing in this country his
1 Report on the Slave Trade, &c., 1853, p. 72.

30

second expedition to Cuba; and Spain feared the
possible loss of her colony. Iu the midst of these
anxieties Lord Palmerston writes to Lord Howden,
the British minister at Madrid :
[Extract.] Foreign Office, 10th July, 1851.
"The Spanish government will do well to consider
that if such a course of proceeding shall continue,
the people of this country, instead of looking with
displeasure at attempts which may be made to sever
Cuba from the Spanish monarchy, may be led to
view with satisfaction the accomplishment of an
event, which, in consequence of the conduct of the
Spanish colonial authorities, will have become the
only means of putting an end to the commission of
crimes which the Spanish crown solemnly bound it
self, many years ago, utterly and for ever to prevent
any Spanish subject from committing."1
LORD PALMERSTON TO LORD HOWDEN.
[Extract.] Fobeign Office, 7th August, 1851.
"Her majesty's government deem it due to the
frankness which ought to characterize the intercourse
of friendly governments, to let the Spanish govern
ment know, that if, as seems to be the case, the gov
ernment of Madrid is unable to cause its subordinate
1 Published dispatches.

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 31
officers in Cuba to carry into execution the treaty
engagements of the Spanish crown for the suppression
of the slave-trade, and to enforce the laws promulga
ted by the crown of Spain in execution of those
engagements, the British government must deem
itself obliged to take the matter into its own hands,
and to have recourse to such measures in relation to
it as may appear to her majesty's government best
calculated to accomplish the purpose in view." '
These threatenings were replied to by the Marquis
de Miraflores on the part of Spain, in a firm tone.
On the 19th of August, he wrote to Lord Howden : —
"If by any unfortunate combination of circum
stances, or perhaps in consequence of an inconsider
ate zeal, or from any motive whatsoever, an undue
interference on the part of the commanders of the new
naval forces in matters of maritime or internal jurisdic
tion of the island of Cuba, were to give rise to some
conflict with the authorities of that island ; if in this or
any way, a new element of disturbance were added to
the numerous ones, which, in spite of the government
of the United States, are fostered against that island
by American pirates, in combination with some dis
loyal natives of Cuba, her majesty's government
declares at once, that after repulsing with all the
1 Published dispatches.

32 Humboldt's cuba.
energy in its power any intrusion of that kind, it will
hold the cabinet of London responsible for the fatal
consequences which might therefrom ensue to Span
ish domination, under the critical circumstances
under which it is now placed in the West Indies.
And finally, that should the conflicts above alluded
to take place, the Spanish government would not
hesitate to appeal to the decision of the whole of
Europe, trusting that public opinion, even in the evei
loyal and enlightened English nation itself, would
justly appreciate whether the conduct of the British
government would have been such as the government
of the queen, my august sovereign, has a right to
expect from a power which calls itself the friend and
ally of Spain, and even consistent with what was
required by the interests of England itself." *
On the 11th of September, Lord Palmerston replied
to the Marquis of Miraflores, disclaiming all wish to
violate the rights of Spain, but at the same time
desiring to come to a plain understanding with the
government at Madrid, and to make that government
comprehend that " Great Britain will no longer con
sent to be baffled ;" and throwing upon the govern
ment of Spain any consequences that may arise.
During this correspondence, the Marquis de Miraflo-
1 Published dispatches.

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 33
res skillfully availed himself of an apparent contra
diction in the arguments and recomendations of
England, to which Lord Palmerston replies : —
" With reference to that passage in M. Miraflores'
note, in which he states that the Spanish government
cannot understand how her majesty's government
can seriously recommend a measure which would
prove very injurious to the natives of Cuba; when
they also recommend that the Spanish government
should conciliate the affections of those Cubans, I
have to instruct your lordship to observe to M. de
Miraflores that the slaves of Cuba form a large por
tion, and by no means an unimportant one, of the
population pf Cuba ; and that any steps taken to pro
vide for their emancipation would, therefore, as far
as the black population are concerned, be quite in
unison with the recommendation made by her
majesty's government ; that measures should be
adopted for contenting the people of Cuba, with a
view to secure the connexion between that island
and the Spanish crown ; and it must be evident that
if the negro population of Cuba were rendered free,
that fact would create a most powerful element of
resistance to any scheme for annexing Cuba to the
United States, where slavery still exists." '
* 1 Published dispatches. 2*

34 humboldt's cuba.
This correspondence, which was continued during
the succeeding year, did not attain the desired result,
and in December, 1852, Lord Palmerston,. in a dis
patch to Lord Howden,-thus forcibly depicts the rea
sons which animate the Spanish government to resist
the demands of England.
" First, in order to afford income to a number of
ill-paid public officers, or to appointed favorites, by
means of bribes given by slave-traders ; and
" Secondly, for the purpose of retaining a hold
upon the island ; because it is thought at Madrid,
that as long as there is in Cuba a large number of
negroes, the white population will cling to the
mother country for protection against the black
race. " But both these motives are founded in error, for
it can never be the interest of a government to de
moralize its own officers, and to accustom them to
violate the law ; and a mother country will have but
a feeble hold of a colony, if the strongest tie which
connects them, is the fear on the part of the planter
of an insurrection of the negroes.
" It is obvious that protection against such danger
might be found by other means, and in other quar
ters ; by the suppression of the slave trade, which
many Cuban proprietors desire ; or iy annexation

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 35
to some other State, for which scheme there are not
wanting partisans in Cuba."1
These extracts show the antagonistic positions held
by the governments of Spain and Great Britain to
the close of the year 1852, and afford a clear insight
into the aims of the latter, in regard to the
political and social relations of Cuba. In the begin
ning of 1853, these positions were unchanged, and
England continued to press her demands with una
bated vigor. This is evident from the following dis
patches : LORD JOHN RUSSELL TO LORD HOWDEN.
[Extract.] " Foreign Office, January 31, 1853.
"Your lordship may be assured, that however
friendly the councils of her majesty may be to
Spain, whatever may be the interest of this country
not to see Cuba in the hands of any other power
than Spain, yet, in the eyes of the people of this
country, the destruction of a trade which conveys
the natives of Africa to become slaves in Cuba, will
furnish a large compensation for such a transfer.
For such an exhibition of public feeling the govern
ment of Spain should be prepared."2
1 London Daily News, 31st December, 1852.
" Report on the Slave Trade, 1853— p. 195.

36 humboldt's cuba.
conde de alcoy to lokd howden.
[Extract.] " Madrid, February 9, 1853.
" Her majesty's government has seen with deep
regret the hint made by your lordship as to the effect
which the supposed increase of the slave-trade is
likely to produce on the opinion of England, with
regard to the manner of viewing the fact of the
island of Cuba being taken possession of by another
power ; and I assure your lordship that what on this
subject is particularly painful to her majesty's gov
ernment, and even more regretable than any consid
erations affecting the immediate interests of Spain,
is the melancholy reflection that the change of opin
ion in England, which your lordship anticipates,
would be a triumph for the partisans of force, and a
defeat for the upholders of right ; because from the
moment in which it should be declared that, for more
or less plausible reasons, although not connected
with the questions of right, it is lawful to look with
indifference at the spoliation of one nation by
another nation, the subversion of all principles, and
the oblivion of the law of nations, on which the
peace of the world is resting, would then be sanc
tioned. * * *
" At all events, the government, who knows the
loyalty, and the noble feelings of the Spanish nation,

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 37
is well aware that, should the case arrive for it to
defend her right, this nation will do her duty as she
has done on former occasions, without counting the
elements of resistance, and relying only on God and
the sanctity of her cause, and on her constancy and
valor."1 This position of Spain towards England, was soon
after changed for one of complete harmony with
regard to the social and political relations of Cuba,
and it is somewhat remarkable that the change in
the position of the Spanish government was so sud
den, and unexpected by England, that conflicting
dispatches were written on the same day to each
other, by the secretary for foreign affairs in Lon
don, and the British minister at Madrid. On the
16th of March, 1853, the Earl of Clarendon writes
to Lord Howden that the position of Spain " endan
gers the friendly relations between the two coun
tries ; '" and on the same day Lord Howden writes
to the Earl of Clarendon, that " the Spanish govern
ment has agreed to a settlement of a question which
has long been a matter of painful discussion and dis
pute."3 What the conditions of this settlement were,
can only be partially conjectured from subsequent
' Report on the Slave Trade, p. 196.
" Report on the Slave Trade, 1853— p. 196. * Do. p. 74.

38 HUMBOLDT'S CUBA.
events, and from the measures taken by Spain *in
Cuba. Lord John Pussell stated in Parliament, on
the 4th of May following, that they were satisfactory
to England.
Coincident with this arrangement between Eng
land and Spain, there are two remarkable statements
made by British statesmen. On the occasion of the
rejection by the United States, of the proposition
made by England and France, to enter into a tripar
tite treaty relative to Cuba, Lord John Pussell
directs the British minister at Washington to say to
the American secretary of state :
" Finally, while fully admitting the right of the
United States to reject the proposal made by Lord
Malmesbury, and Mons. de Turgot, Great Britain
must at once resume her entire liberty, and upon any
occasion that may call for it, be free to act either
singly or in conjunction with other powers, as to her
may seem fit."
Lord Clarendon, while secretary for foreign
affairs, subsequently made in Parliament this cele
brated announcement relative to the united policy
of England and France.
" I will further add that the union between the
two governments has not been confined to the Eas-

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 39
tern question. The happy accord and good under
standing between France and England, have been
extended beyond the Eastern policy to the policy
affecting all parts of the world, and I am heartily
rejoiced to say, that there is no portion of the two
hemispheres with regard to which the policy of the
two countries, however heretofore antagonistic, is not
now in entire harmony."
The foregoing extracts, with the subsequent mea
sures taken by Spain in Cuba, render it evident that
the political relations of the island to England, which
were for a long time the subject of warm discussion,
have experienced a radical change. The conduct of
the British naval commanders in the mid- American
waters last winter, sustain this view. As the effects
of this change, and the consequent measures taken
by the Spanish government in Cuba, relate more
particularly to the social relations of that island, we
shall consider them under that head.
The political relations of Cuba to the republics of
Spanish America, are of the most limited character.
Havana was for a long time the centre of the opera
tions by Spain against her revolted colonies, and
became the refuge of her. troops, when they were
driven from the continent. The few years that
have elapsed since the recognition of the independ-

40 humboldt's cuba.
ence of those countries by Spain, have not sufficed
to create any important political relations, between
them, to which their opposing systems of government
are also averse. Within a few years the queen-
dowager of Spain, Maria Cristina, has maintained a
private agent at Havana, who has been connected
with intrigues in Mexico, and other places, with the
supposed object of placing a Spanish prince on an
American throne. These movements, however, have
been of little importance. The community of lan
guage, customs, and religion between Cuba and the
republics of Spanish America, together with their
relative geographical positions, indicate a probable
political affinity whenever the axioms of public policy
which now rule in Cuba, shall have been changed.
The political relations of Cuba with the other
islands of the Antilles, have been very slight until
within a short time. For many years Spain did not
recognize the black empire of Hayti, and held little
intercourse with Dominica. Lately a treaty has
been made with Soulouque and a diplomatic agent,
sent to Hayti, to act in conjunction with those of
England and France. Existing circumstances ex
hibit a probable complication of these relations, at
no very distant day. The advancing age of Soulou
que, combined with the absence of a direct male
heir to his crown, and the intrigues for the succes-

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 41
sion, may soon create a state of affairs in Hayti in
which the powers of western Europe, ^lways so ready
to mingle in questions of territorial difficulty, or
of dynasty, may feel themselves called upon to inter
fere. Any infringement of the rights of a subject
of either crown may form a pretext, and a cover for
political designs, as we have seen in late occurrences
in the Dominican republic, where a pretended in
fraction of individual rights, enabled them to pre
vent the completion of a treaty between that republic
and the United States.
The political relations of Cuba with the United
States constitute, in a great measure, those of Spain
with this country. They have been marked with
many cases of irritated feeling, arising in most part
from the wrong application of general principles to
private cases, by ignorant and irresponsible officials.
All the exponents of Spanish public policy trace the
loss of her rich American possessions to the evil
example of the United States ; and from this they
deduce a necessity of resistance to every principle
or precept, that in any way assimilates to the Ameri
can theories; and this necessity, they think, can be
fully complied with, only by a constant opposition
to the interests of such American citizens as com
merce, or any other cause, may bring within the
sphere of their power. The Spanish press in Cuba

.42 also strives to impress upon the public mind the be
lief that a war of races exists, and that wherever the
American Saxon has prevailed, the Spaniards and
and their descendants have been despoiled and driven
out. Influenced in a great measure by these ideas, we
have seen repeated instances of abuse of power by
the subordinate officials in the island, exercised upon
American citizens and consuls ; and on some occa
sions by the superior ones, when such abuse was
supposed to produce an advantageous political effect
in Cuba. This disposition on the part of the Spanish
officers towards the United States and their citizens,
has been fostered by the marked difference exhibited
between the policy, of the European powers and that
of our own government, in regard to the rights of
their subjects and citizens abroad. Whenever a
subject of any of the prominent powers of Europe
complains to the respresentative of his government
of an infringement of his rights, his relation of the
facts of the case is assumed by the representative to
be the correct one, and immediate action is taken ;
and not unfrequently followed by an exhibition of
force to compel respect, or restitution. In all such
cases the representative receives the public sanction
and support of his own government, even if he has
acted inconsiderately ; reproof for over-zeal being a

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 43
subject of private administration. Unfortunately
for our own citizens abroad, our government, con
scious of its own respect for the rights of the foreigner
here, assumes that every other government is ani
mated by the same feeling, and has pursued a system
of international intercourse the reverse of that fol
lowed by European governments; — inquiiy being
substituted for bejief, and delay for action. Thus
the wrong is often consummated, and submitted to
by the citizen, because the seeking of redress is
more ruinous to him than submission, and the affair
is forgotten, — no administration being anxious to
assume and correct the omissions of former ones. If
any representative abroad embroils, himself with the
subordinates of a foreign power, in seeking redress
for our citizens, his communications to the cabinet
at Washington remain unanswered, and he is not
unfrequently abandoned to the degrading sense of
having urged an unsustained demand. For the sup
port of these assertions, we do not hesitate to appeal
to every one of our citizens, who has been in public
position abroad as a representative of the United
States. These circumstances have tended to complicate
our political relations with Cuba, for the nature of
the Spanish character has been so orientalized, by
the seven hundred years of Moorish dominion in

44 Humboldt's cuba.
Spain, that a Spaniard generally respects only those
whose power he fears ; and being released from all
fear of that of the United States, the conduct of the
subordinate Spanish officials towards our citizens and
representatives, is uniformly one of disrespect, cov
ered with a thin mask of great politeness. Thus has
arisen the long list of insults to consuls, and outrages
upon private citizens, presented by the history of our
relations with Cuba ; and which, through each suc
ceeding neglect, has so increased, that no adminis
tration has yet been found with sufficient nerve to
open the whole subject.
III. The industrial relations of Cuba are exhibited
in detail in the pages of the following work, and a
few general remarks are all that are required here."
The nature of her soil, climate, and labor, peculiarly
adapt her to the production of sugar, coffee, and
tobacco, and to the cultivation of these three staples
her industry has been mainly directed. Under these
circumstances, an untrammelled commerce with
other countries is as necessary to her social existence,
as it is for the advance of her publie wealth. The
meats and grains for the subsistence, as well as the
fabrics for the use of the inhabitants, must be ob
tained from other countries through the medium of
commercial exchanges. In conducting these, the
care and intelligence of individuals directly inter-

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 45
ested in the result of each private enterprise, are
better able to attain an advantageous result to each
adventure, than the wisest legislation can possibly
be ; and it is the aggregate of individual profits that
constitutes the public gain,~and the welfare of the
State. The commerce of Cuba, therefore, would be
most advantageously conducted, if left to the natural
promptings of individual profit and loss. A differ
ent economical theory, however, prevails with the
government of Cuba, and restrictive laws modify
her industrial action in a manner that produces a
large positive loss to her.
Her natural exchanges with Spain are the products
of her own labor, in return for the fruits of Andalu
sia, and the wines of Catalonia. The existing laws,
however, compel her to purchase in Spain all the
flour consumed in Cuba, at a cost fifty per cent.
greater than she could obtain it in nearer markets,
if free to seek them ; while the same obstacles force
her to import in Spanish ships, a large portion of the
products brought from other countries, at a much
greater cost for freight than if her merchants could
employ those who would perform the service at the
lowest rate. Thus, for a valuable portion of her
trade, she is forced to employ two sets of ships ; one
Jfl bring the linens and cottons from the looms of

46 humboldt's cuba.
Europe to her ports, and another, which comes empty
to her shores, to convey the return cargoes of sugar
and other productions. Without the existing system
of differential duties in favor of Spanish bottoms,
the vessels which now come to Cuba in ballast from
Europe, would supply all the wants of the trade,
and the costly employment of a large number of
Spanish vessels could be dispensed with.
The industrial relations of Cuba with the northern
nations of Europe, are principally confined to the
exchange of her products for their linen and cotton
fabrics, glass, and iron ware.
England loans her the capital to build her railways,
and the improvements made in the arts and sciences
in France, are eagerly studied, and readily adopted
by the people of Cuba, particularly in everything
relating to their own immediate pursuits.
The industrial relations of Cuba with the United
States have been of a more important character, and
have had more influence in her material progress,
than those with any other country. In the dawning
years of her prosperity, she found here the food and
lumber for the supply of her agricultural industry ;
the articles of use or luxury desired for the comfort
of her people ; and, in no small degree, the skill and
capital for the development of commerce, and the

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 47
mechanic arts in her ports. During many years her
trade with this country exceeded that with all other
nations. There are, probably, no two separate countries
whose industrial relations are so completely recipro
cal, as those of Cuba and the United States. Pro
ducing staples that enter into constant general use in
this country, the natural wants of her people afford
a market for the~ products of every section of the
Union. The forests, fisheries, manufactures, and
shipping of New England ; the farmers, dairymen,
miners, and handworkers of the middle States ; the
lumber-men, naval stores, and rice-growers of the
South ; and the meats and grains of the West, all
find an appropriate exchange in the markets of Cuba.
An adverse fiscal system, aided by our own unwise
retaliatory acts of 1832-3, have changed the course
of a large portion of this trade, and retarded its gen
eral increase.
The cotton and linen manufactures of Europe are
consumed in Cuba to the value of five millions of
dollars annually, a large portion of which might be
supplied by the better and cheaper products of
American looms. In the same manner we find that
unequal fiscal impositions change the natural current
of other branches of trade, and that flour, instead of
being purchased in the cheapest mart in the world,

48 humboldt's cuba.
is sought on the other side of the Atlantic ; that olive
oil of the most inferior quality is enabled to compete
largely with lard for domestic purposes ; and that of
forty millions pounds of meats imported, less than
three millions, or about seven per cent, only, is
imported from the United States: while butter and
pork, being subject to an equality of fiscal exactions,
are imported to the extent of more than ninety per
cent, from this country.
The proximity of Cuba to the United States, and
the constant and frequent intercourse between them,
have been productive of the happiest effect upon the
industry of the island. Her infant coastwise com
merce found, in our small vessels, a ready supply for
its needs; and her steam navigation received its first
impulse and subsequent growth from our own. The
erection of machinery, and the application of steam
power to labor in all parts of Cuba, have also been,
in no small degree, the result of this proximity; and
the influence of these, and many concurrent relations,
has been felt in every throb of her industrial system.
The industrial relations of Cuba with Spanish
America have been injuriously affected by political
causes which have nearly destroyed a once profitable
trade with the ports on the Gulf of Mexico, and the
Caribbean sea. The most important branch of com
merce with them is the trade in jerked beef brought

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 49
from Buenos Ayres. It is not a reciprocal trade, for
the countries of La Plata consume a very small
amount of Cuban products; but is the fruit of the
present fiscal system of the island, the greater duties
upon the meats of North America forcing the con
sumer to seek a supply from the inferior products of
the plains of South America.
The true relation of Cuba, or rather of its chief
port, Havana, to Spanish America, is indicated by
Baron Humboldt, in comparing it to the relation of
New York to the United States. This natural con
nection has been severed by the wars of independence
in Mexico, and. South America, and almost annihila
ted by the long continued obstinacy of Spain, in
refusing to acknowledge the independence of her
former colonies. Speaking of the early years of the
present century, Baron Humboldt says, " Havana pur
chases in foreign marts much larger quantities of
goods than are needed for her own consumption,
exchanging her colonial products for the fabrics of
Europe, and selling them again at Vera Cruz, Trux
illo, Laguaira, and Carthagena." The proximity and
frequent communication of Havana with the United
States and Europe, should have made her the medium
. not only for the interchanges of commerce with
Spanish America, but also for those of politics, science,
art, and literature

50 humboldt's CUBA.
When the former Spanish colonies were severed
from Havana, they were in a great measure deprived
of a necessary connection with the advancing civiliza
tion of Europe and America, the rays of which,
gathered as it were in a focus by the world-wide com
merce of that city, would have become assimilated,
and adapted there, to the spirit and needs of her sis
ter communities, reflecting thence upon them, to their
constantly increasing advantage and enlightenment.
The elements of that natural relation with Spanish
America, still exist in the admirable geographical
position of Havana, in the community of language
and religious faith, and in the reciprocal necessities
of the people. Here we may find the key to the true
theory of the regeneration of Spanish America; for
we cannot suppose that the extension of American
institutions, and of our theories of freedom, and self-
government over those countries, involve the annihi
lation of the Spanish race in America.
IV. The social condition and relations of Cuba
have been influenced and modified by her insular
position, and by her political connection with Spain.
To the first of these is, probably, to be traced the
cause that her population is composed in a great
measure of two unmixed races — -the European white
and the African black ; and to the second, the reason
that, notwithstanding a community of origin and

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 51
language, there is little social affinity between her
population and the Spanish American nations of the
continent. In contemplating the present social con
dition of Cuba, we should not forget the origin and
causes of the principles and laws upon which it is
based. The early settlers of Cuba and of South America
were fearless adventurers seeking for gold. The
native races of the Antilles soon melted away under
the hardships imposed upon them by their new task
masters, and these, cavaliers and hardy men-at-arms,
were unfitted to till the soil, or pursue the peaceful
avocations so necessary to the welfare of every com
munity. The disappearance of the indigenous races
gave rise to a great social necessity in the new set
tlements. " Send us at once," say the Spanish
officers in Cuba, in 1534, to the emperor, " send us
at once the seven thousand negroes, that they may
become inured to labor, before the Indians cease to
exist ; otherwise the inhabitants cannot sustain them
selves, nor the government detain any one here, for
with the new tidings from Peru/all desire to leave."
This social necessity gave birth to negro slavery
in America ; but the new institution made little pro
gress until the humanitarian arguments, which we
find again brought forward now for its destruction,
were brought to its aid. Las Casas, bishop of

52 humboldt's CUBA.
Chiapas, moved by the deepest compassion for the
native races, urged, upon the ground of humanity,
the substitution of African slaves for the natives in
the labor of the new communities. The hardships
of the poor Indian were dwelt upon with the same
fervor and zeal, the same heedless inconsistency,
that characterizes the appeals of the humanitarians
of the present day in behalf of the negro, and the
conscience of Europe gave an energetic impulse to
the new institution. Thus did a fallacious sentiment
of humanity give life to the new social system in
America, and work a change in the material con
dition of man throughout the world, widely different
from that anticipated for it by its early apostles.
The cultivation, in the New World, of the so-called
colonial staples, has produced effects far surpassing
those of all the gold discoveries in the world, from
those of Cibao to those of California and Australia.
Not only have the looms and the world-wide com
merce of Europe, drawn their richest springs of life
from the cultivation of cotton and sugar by the
slaves of America, but a revolution has been effected
by it, in the clothing and food of man everywhere,
that has wrought the happiest effects upon his social,
moral, and hygienic condition. The h'umbler classes
of the present age would deem it a hardship to be
confined to the bacon and beer breakfasts of the

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 53
sumptuous Queen Elizabeth, and millions now re
joice in the once highly-esteemed luxury of stockings.
It has become orthodox with modern humani
tarians to question the humanity of the theory of
Las Casas. Lf we could have an impartial view of
the condition of the great mass of negroes in Africa,
of their social and military slavery from the earliest
ages, subject to the sway of barbarous native chiefs,
it might be found that his argument in favor of the
change from a savage to a civilized master, was not so
inconclusive as is now supposed ; and that the step
itself was not so cruel as it has been, and still is
painted. But if we doubt the humanity of the social
theories of Las Casas, and the humanitarians of the
sixteenth century, what verdict may not posterity
accord to those of Wilberforce and the humanita
rians of the nineteenth century, when it contemplates
the results of their social experiments in St. Domingo,
Jamaica, and the other islands of the American
Archipelago. The two unmixed races exist in Cuba, under a
social organization in which the inferior is subject to
the superior race, to the manifest material and moral
advantage of both. The material condition of the
inferior or slave race, is not that degraded and suffer
ing state of deprivation, which the reasoners upon
the abstract question of slavery assume it to be. On

54 humboldt's CUBA.
the contrary, the relation of master and slave is one
of mutual dependence, and creates ties between
them which do not exist in countries where the two
races live in a state of civil equality. The feelings
of affection incident to an intimate and continued
intercourse from the cradle to the grave, are not
interfered with or broken by the existence of sepa
rate interests. Though the slave is bound to reside
with and labor for his master, this does not infer that
his whole time and strength is consumed in bringing
profit to his owner. It is true the general direction
of his labors lies with his master, yet the slave in
America is able to devote a much larger portion of
his time and strength, to his own individual comfort
and pleasure, than is the manufacturing or agricul
tural laborer, who is not a freeholder, in those com
munities where slavery does not exist. Not only are
his present wants supplied, in return for his labor,
but he has no future of age and poverty to provide
for, or to fear. His material condition is thus one
^ of comparative happines, (and all happiness is com
parative), and this is further improved by the insti
gations of interest with his master, and by that
friendly sentiment toyard all who are dependent
upon us, or upon whom we have conferred a favor,
which is innate to the human heart. The possession
of power, or control by the slaveholder, over the

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 55
labor of his slaves, does not make him a tyrant, but
rather does it give him a feeling of stronger affinity
with them, apart from that of interest, and creates in
his breast those friendly ties which every human
bosom experiences for its dependents.
The moral condition of the slave is also benefited
by his relation with his master. Every individual
ie brought into an intimate connection with a better
society, and example, than is afforded him by his
own class exclusively, and the faculty of imitation,
which is much stronger in the negro than that of
origination, stimulates him to imitate his superior,
rather than his equal. At the same time the exer
cise of the control of a superior intelligence over his
social intercourse, and moral deportment, are pro
ductive of a state of morals which will compare
most favorably with that of the lower classes under
a different social organization. A respect for the
laws, and for the rights of others is thereby incul
cated, and the religious sentiment is developed to a
degree never found in the free negro, and seldom in
the same relative class in other communities. Pau
perism never exists among slaves, and great crimes
are much more rare among, them than among the
lower classes in free States.
It is under this social organization, that, Cuba has
risen to that condition of material prosperity which

56

she exhibits to the world, and that is so clearly set
forth in the following work of Baron Humboldt.
This material prosperity indicates ar state of social
welfare, as does public decay argue a state of private
or individual suffering. Before we proceed to exam
ine the new measures which Spain proposes to intro
duce into the legislation of Cuba, let us contemplate
the condition of those communities, where, under
similar circumstances of climate and population, the
new social theories have been carried into practice.
Of the social condition of the negro community of
Hayti we have few means of judging, and these are
offered only by transient visitors. Its government
does not attempt to attain any social statistics, and
the evidences presented by the material aspects of
the country, lead to the most lamentable conjectures
as to the actual condition of the inhabitants. It is
generally admitted that they have relapsed far
toward a state of barbarism, and that the dark
practices of fetish worship, and heathenism, are
rapidly extinguishing there the light of the genial
precepts -of Christianity.
Jamaica affords us better means for contemplating
the results attending the experiment of the civil
equality of the black with the white race, where the
numbers of the former preponderate, and those, too,
of a character that does not admit of doubt. From

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 57
"A report of the Central Board of Health of
Jamaica," in 1852, printed by order of the Assem
bly of that island, we make the following extracts :
"Generally speaking, the towns and villages are
straggling, and cover a large space of ground in
proportion to the number of houses. The streets are
often crooked and irregular, * * * for the most part
narrow, unpaved, flat or even concave, and without
any provision for foot passengers ; too frequently they
become the receptacle for all sorts of filth and dirt."
—Page 98.
" Yards * * * which after a rain send forth
streams of the most horrible description; numbers
of dilapidated and falling houses, useless for all
habitable purposes, ruined walls and remnants of
fences, together with unenclosed sites of pulled-down
houses, covered with filth and bush, complete the
scene of every old Jamaica township, and the outskirts
of the new." — Page 99.
"In villages, and on small settlements, the huts or
dwellings of the laborers are composed chiefly of
mud walls, sometimes of wattles plastered with the
same. * * * In very few cases are they raised off
the ground, nor are they floored in any way. * * *
Ventilation, or the admission of fresh air, is almost
invariably neglected." — Page 100.
3*

58 humboldt's CUBA.
"These small, dark, unventilated houses are fre
quently over-crowded, especially at night; within
the small space of a few square feet, perhaps on the
bare ground, or may be on a mattress or mat, or in
some cases on a bed, with a whole family of eight or
nine persons of all ages, and of both sexes, huddled
together, with the door and so-called window closed;
all clad in the same clothes which they wore through
the day, with children sleeping on mattresses often
soaked and half rotted with urine and other secre
tions; should there accidentally be a hole or crevice,
this is immediately closed up by means of rags or
something of the kind. The rush of odors on
opening such a place must be experienced to be
understood." — Page 102.
"As regards water for domestic purposes, it is
very much to be feared that a large portion of our
poor population seldom think of that. Their persons
are never abluted save in crossing a river, or being
exposed to a heavy shower of rain." — Page 103.
"Among the lower classes, great errors occur in
relation to food, both as to quantity, quality, and the
period of taking their meals. * * * At night, how
ever, they take what they term their pot; this con
sists of a sort of soup, composed of salt beef or pork,
(if rancid or high, it is preferred), with vegetables of
all kinds, highly seasoned, or of salt fish or corned

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 59
fish, with plantains, yams, cocos, &c. ; of this they
partake most freely, literally fulfilling the meaning
of the expression, 'bellyful.' The meal over, they
fall asleep, and as might be expected, are most diffi
cult to arouse." — Page 106.
"In former times, the lower orders of the laboring
population were considered to be very abstemious.
There appears, however, to be a tendency to excess
among many of them, especially those located in
towns; their favorite drinks are those compounds
known as Anisettes, and liquors of a similar kind."
—Page 108.
"Among the lower classes the majority not com
pelled by circumstances to be field-laborers, are too
lazy to move ; they frequently squat down all day in
a sort of sullen apathy ; they eat, and drink, and sleep
like the brute that perisheth, but all the more active
impulses of their human nature appear to be as little
excited as if they were totally wanting." — Page 110.
" It is a well known fact that all the towns and
villages contain a large number of persons who
have no ostensible means of earning their livelihood ;
the way in which they subsist is an enigma to them
selves and others. Exposure to the night-air is
very prevalent among the lower classes; under
various excuses they meet in numbers, frequently in
the open air, or under temporary sheds, as at the

60

performance of wakes over the dead, and also at
their revels of john-canoeing, as it is termed, about
Christmas time ; on these or other occasions of the
kind, they give full scope to animal enjoyment; and
at the pitch of the excitement of the prevailing pas
sions their gestures and acts resemble more those of
demons than of human beings."' — -Page 111.
" Among the lower classes of the population there
is great reason to fear that little or no advance has
been made in the better maxims of social life. Pf a
moral feeling exists among them, it is (not ?) shown
by the calendars of our criminal courts, where the
women complain of rape, or attempt to commit
rape, and unhappily they occur incessantly." — Page
112. " Superstitious habits have always been, and will
always be, common in a community like this, com
posed of individuals of so many different races and
countries, many of whom openly profess heathenism.
The dark practices of Obeah and Myalism have at
times effected a vast amount of mischief in this
island."— Page 113.1
" All the efforts of their pastors to eradicate, by moral and re
ligious instructions, the belief in, and the dread of, this remnant of
African barbarism, have failed. The female natives of Haiti, are
adepts in the art."— Replies of Dr Chamberlaine. Appendix to
Report of Central Board of Health of Jamaica, &c.— Page 158.

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 61
" Examine the present sanitary condition of the
Island. ¦ * * * Observe well the fact that the
existing laws, meagre as they are, as relates to
sanitary matters, are daily broken, and put to open
defiance in our very towns and thoroughfares.
* * * Correct all this, and then will immigration
prove to us a benefit; then will it be a boon to
the liberty-crippled American black, a source of
temporal and eternal advantage to the African hea
then. Till this is done, any further attempt to induce
strangers to embark their fortunes here, can be but
to disregard the laws of God and man, and by ex
posing the deceived to destruction ; to bring down
greater judgments yet upon the authors of their ruin."
—Page 117.
The testimony of Capt. C. B. Hamilton of the
royal navy, in 1853, before a committee of the House
of Commons, in relation to the condition of that
island, is curt and to the point. We present the
following extract :
" Chairman. — You made use of a phrase some
time ago with respect to Jamaica having become a
desert. Will you explain to what extent you apply
that term ?
" Capt. Hamilton. — I mean that in going to plan
tation establishments that had evidently been once

62 humboldt's CUBA.
splendid buildings, where there had been a great out
lay of capital on a grand scale, you find the roofe
tumbling in, the places deserted, nobody in them,
grass growing in the rooms, and perhaps rats and
snakes in those very rooms, and a deserted, melan
choly appearance that certainly goes to one's heart
to view.
" Chairman. — Is that applicable only to one part,
or is it the general character ?
" Capt. Hamilton.-— It is the general character.
" Mr. Bright. — That is not the case in Jamaica,
but in those particular locations ?
" Capt. Hamilton. — No ; the general character of
Jamaica is, that it gives you the impression of a
place going to decay. Speaking of the population
of Jamaica, I do not refer to the capitalist planters
of old times, but of the present population of Jamaica,
and their locations and cultivations.
" Mr. Bright. — Do you think the term ' desert '
was quite applicable to the state of things there ?
" Capt. Hamilton. — I should say peculiarly ap
plicable, without any exaggeration."1
To this sad picture, we will add but one other ex
tract, the crowning testimony of, the present desolate
1 Report on the Slave Trade, printed by order of the House of
Commons, 1853 — page 13.

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 63
condition, and social degradation of the population
of Jamaica. It is from a speech delivered by the
Pev. Dr. King, of Glasgow, Scotland, at a large
meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, the very scene of his
eloquent and vivid description, where every one of
his hearers could have contradicted his statements,
had they not been in accordance with the facts.
They were not contradicted, but were reported by
David Turnbull Esq., one of the British champions
of the movement for negro emancipation, and
printed in London.
" Allusion has been made to the distressed condi
tion of Jamaica, and I am sure that its distress has
not been exaggerated. You inhabit a beautiful
island. Its climate is so good, that when its advan
tages for health shall be better known, I think your
colony must come to replace Madeira in British esti
mation, as a desirable retreat for consumptively dis
posed patients. Your soiK is confessed to be gener
ally excellent. The weeds of your public roads are
the ornamental plants of our green-houses and hot
houses. Your very wilds are orchards. The grand
eur of your mountains is qualified only by the soft
charms of their vegetation, and the bounty of nature
has transformed your rocky cliffs into hanging-gar
dens.

64 humboldt's CUBA.
" Your isle has a central position in the ocean,as if
to receive and to dispense the riches of the earth.
You speak one language, and the composition of this
meeting shows that a happy harmony subsists among
the sections of your community. Such facts as these
would lead us to expect prosperity. But instead of
prosperity we witness prostration.
" You have peace, fertility, health — all the usual
guarantees of national well-being — and yet your
leading families are disappearing ; your stately man
sions are falling into decay ; your lovely estates are
thrown up ; men's hearts are everywhere, failing
them for fear, as if war, or famine, or pestilence
desolated your borders. The existence of such dis
tress is matter of notoriety, but I think it has not
been sufficiently pressed upon public attention,
and especially on British attention, that religion
and education are largely sharing the general
calamity. " But it is too certain that these highest of all
interests are suffering. On the north side of the
island, and on the south side of the island, numer
ously attended meetings of missionaries, belonging
to different denominations, have been recently held,
to deliberate on matters of common interest to them,
and all the brethren assembling on these occasions
were agreed in the conviction that the secular and

preliminary essay. 65
spiritual instruction of the island are, for the most
part, in a low and declining condition.
" They were not less united in assigning the tem
poral distress of the colony as a principal cause of
their peculiar difficulties, and discouragements.
While churches and societies at home are diminish
ing the amount of their assistance to missionary in
stitutions here, the inhabitants are disabled, by their
sad reverses, from supporting their own ministers
and teachers, as they otherwise might ; and persons
who have still some means at their disposal, are
tempted to plead the badness of the times, as a suffi-
cient apology for restricting their exertions.
" The consequence is, that ministers are returning
home ; schoolmasters are returning home ; and the
places of those competent and devoted benefactors
are left vacant, or filled by others less qualified to
succeed them. To what is this lovely island retro
grading? Ye friends of humanity, who have done
so much, awake and bestir yourselves, lest all that
you have done be undone — lest your work be ruined,
and your reward lost ! From the scene of the facts,
amid a great assembly perfectly qualified to judge
the accuracy of my statements, I tell you that the
objects on which you have expended so much money,
so much labor, so much time, so much life, are in
jeopardy ; and ignorance, irreligion, superstition,

66 humboldt's CUBA.
intoxication, profligacy, are hovering, like- birds of
prey, over your schools and chapels, threatening
them with destruction."
Such was the contrast presented to the people of
Cuba, between the social condition of the inhabitants
of Jamaica and their own, when the new captain-
general, the Marquis de Pezuela, arrived at Havana,
prepared to carry out the measures which had been
pronounced satisfactory by the government of Great
Britain. Heedless of the disasters which the enforce
ment of its vicious and mistaken theories had pro
duced in its own colonies, that government had pros
ecuted its aims with undiminished energy, as we
have shown in our remarks on the political relations
of Cuba, and Spain had given a reluctant consent to
introduce into the legislation of her colony, measures
which had been abhorrent to her, and which endan
gered not only the connection of Cuba with the
crown, but also its social and political existence. A
slight effort was made to cover the true tendencies
of the new measures, by the manner of their intro
duction ; in the words of Lord Ashton to Seiior Fer-
1 " The Jamaica movement for enforcing the slave-trade treaties
&c. Prepared at the request of the Kingston Committee. Printed
for gratuitous distribution. Charles Gilpin, London, 1852."— Page
70, et seq.

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 67
rer, the Spanish minister, " it is by ' units ' and not
by ' cargoes,' that the process of liberation will take
place, so that the proceedings will be much less
alarming in their general aspect, or in their individ
ual amount."
Previous to the arrival of General Pezuela at Ha
vana, the discussion of the slavery question had been
sedulously prevented there, by the government cen
sorship of the press. He entered upon the govern
ment of the island on the 3d of December, 1853, and
on the 7th and 8th of the same month the " Diario
*
de la Marina," his special organ, contained elaborate
articles, in which the former pohcy of the govern
ment was condemned, and the necessity of " pro
gress was urged, and a change insisted upon,"
although the writer admitted that, " great social
phenomena are not suppressed without creating
greater embarrassments, or at least equal difficulties
with those we aspire to eradicate." The position
and new obligations of Spain are thus alluded to in
the articles in question :
" A member of the vast community of European
nations, and bound to it by a thousand ties of glory
and of interest, she could not remain unmoved by
the general torrent of thought and idea. With these
she has contracted obligations which her honor

68 HUMBOLDT'S CUBA.
and her true interest demand she shall comply
with." As these articles were known to emanate directly
from the palace, if not from the pen of General
Pezuela himself, their publication caused the great
est excitement among the black, and alarm among
the white inhabitants. In a few days they were
followed by others, in which the intentions of the
government were more openly avowed, and the
superiority of free labor to slave labor was asserted
and defended. The States of Kentucky and Ohio
were cited, where, it was stated, " a single glance at
the aspect of the streets of Louisville and Cincinnati,
reveals the different, and even opposing genius and
tendencies of their economical organization,"1 and
the duty of softening the " necessary transition " was
admitted. In the midst of this general excitement a novel
decree relating to the " emancipado ".negroes was
issued," which was soon followed by a new code of
laws, establishing a system of free labor,3 and this
was succeeded by another decree relative to the
1 Diario de la Marina, 18th December, 1853.
2 General Pezuela's official letter to Count Caiiongo, 20th Decem
ber 1853.
8 Ordenanza, 23d December, 1853.

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 69
" emancipados."1 The unnecessary ostentation, and
exciting language of all of these official documents,
greatly increased the alarm of the white inhabitants.
Coincident with these measures, the press announced
that what the government " had in view is to make
a transition from labor that is entirely compulsory,
to the organization of labor under a state of com
plete freedom ;"3 and the fact is officially acknowl
edged in General Pezuela's Circular* to the local
governors and lieutenant-governors of the island. A
6ecret consulting circular, which soon became public,
was also issued by the government, announcing its
intention to permit the introduction of a large num
ber of free negro apprentices from Africa.4
The excitement among the black population of
Cuba, but more particularly in the capital, caused by
these publications, and the accompanying measures
of the government, was intense. Numbers of
negroes promenaded the streets of the city, taking
the wall from the whites, for the avowed purpose of
exhibiting their sense of their expected new civil
rights; while others, more bold, sought the prome
nades and places of public resort, where they asser-
1 Ordenanza, 1st January, 1854.
2 Diario de la Marina, 26th December, 1853.
' Gobierno y Capitania General Circular, 23d December, 1853.
4 Marquis de Pezuela, Circular, 18th January, 1854

70

HUMBOLDT S CUBA.

ted their equality of social position, by saluting the
ladies, and paying them compliments in impudent
and audible commendations of their beauty. The
insolence of the slaves carried alarm into the bosom
of every family, and the public consequences were
in consonance with the predictions which the Count
de Villanueva, and the ayuntamiento of Havana had
so truthfully and boldly laid before General Espar-
tero, when regent of Spain, in 1841.
Men prepared for revolution as the only means of
self-preservation. Cubans and Spaniards united
cordially in this determination, and preparations
were made almost openly for the coming event.
Some intimation of the occurrences probably came
to the knowledge of General Pezuela, for a remon
strance against the new policy, signed by a large
number of the most prominent citizens of Havana,
was sent to Spain. At the same time he could not
be ignorant of the excitement in the public mind,
and he endeavored to allay it, by proclamation,1
continuing at the same time to carry out the pre
viously prepared measures. The decree of 3d May,
1854, directing the registry of the slaves, prepara
tory "to measures of a more transcendent nature,
the approval of which, by her majesty, the queen,"
was expected, was introduced by a public address,
1 Proclamation, 3d May, 1854.

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 71
denying the existence of any treaty with a foreign
nation, "the basis of which is the emancipation of
the slaves," and styling the rumors then agitating
the public mind, " a chattering and shameful war of
letters and lies." The same public address con
tained the remarkable announcement, that while the
government would fulfill its duty, "the inhabitants
of Cuba have another duty, not less sacred, to attend
to — complying with the laws; it is time for it to
make the life of the Creole negro more sweet than
that of the white, who, under another name, labors
to exhaustion in Europe."
This proclamation and decree only tended to
increase and confirm the public alarm, and it was
further augmented by a knowledge of the succeed
ing measures of the government. On the 22nd of
May, General Pezuela directed the Bishop of
Havana to suspend the law of the Church interdict
ing the marriage of whites with blacks, which was
accordingly done by a circular to the officiating
priests, dated 29th of that month.1 At the same
time a militia of free blacks and mulattoes was
directed to be organized2 throughout the island,
which was put upon an equal footing, with_regard to
privilege, with the regular army.
'Secretaria del Obispado de la Habana, Circular No. 50.
3 Ordenanza, 24th May, 1854.

72 humboldt's CUBA.
In conjunction with these measures, the white
inhabitants were disarmed, the officers of the gov
ernment collecting all the arms in possession of pri
vate citizens., The popular ferment which followed
these measures alarmed General Pezuela, and on the
30th May, he issued his celebrated retracting pro
clamation, announcing that the government would
not interfere with the social institutions of the coun
try, for "that unhappy race which comprehends
freedom to be vagrancy, * * * onee placed among
civilized men, protected by religion, and by the
great laws of our fathers, is, in its so-called slavery,
a -thousand times more happy than other classes in
Europe, which have freedom only in name." The
press, too, was silencad, and although General
Pezuela ceased from that time to initiate the new
policy, the public alarm did not subside. The home
government, fearing to lose its colony, at a time
when its allies were too much engrossed by the diffi
culties of the war in the East to assist it, removed
him, and confided to General Concha, for the second
time, the government of Cuba.
The critical circumstances of the colony at this
period, induced the court to grant more extraordinary
powers to the new captain-general, than had been
held by any of his predecessors. The heads of the
Treasury and Marine departments, which were for-

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 73
merly co-equal with, are now subject to the captain-
general ; and the authority of all the local organiza
tions has been greatly reduced, so that the governor
of Cuba now holds the most completely centralized
and irresponsible power in the New World.
General Concha's first care was to endeavor to
calm the pubhc mind, and to reassure it of the
safety of the existing social institutions. In this he
in a great measure succeeded ; but as none of the
measures instituted by General Pezuela have been
rescinded ; as the black and mulatto troops have not
been disarmed, but have been made a permanent
corps of the Spanish army;1 and as no arms have
been returned, or allowed to the white inhabitants,
a jealous feeling of insecurity pervades the minds of
all reflecting men in Cuba ; and the general impres
sion is, that the new policy has only been delayed
to be renewed at a more opportune moment. Before
contemplating the possible future of the social ques
tion in Cuba, we will present a few considerations
upon the composition of the two unmixed races.
The black population of Cuba is composed of the
negroes born in the island, and a large number
which have been imported from the Gold coast, the
country around the mouth of the Congo river, and
General Order, 7th August, 1855.
4

74

HUMBOLDT 8 CUBA.

from Mozambique. It is difficult to ascertain its
exact numbers, as is shown in the chapter on popu
lation in the following work, and there is great
diversity in the estimates of different statisticians.
Those who regard the smaller number as most relia
ble, besides committing the error of adopting the
statistics of sugar planting for general application to
the country, place great reliance upon the disparity
in number of the sexes, and from this they assume a
necessary decrease of numbers in the total popula
tion. In our reflections upon this disparity of the
sexes, we have observed two facts which we have
never seen presented in any argument upon the
question, and which we think have had an important
relation to the law of population in Cuba.
The disparity between the sexes has arisen from
the nature of the African slave-trade, which has
always brought a larger number of males than
females ; the proportions being, so far as our limited
means of information enable us to judge, somewhere
between 4 to 1 and 5 to 1. Yet, notwithstanding this
disparity of the sexes arriving in Cuba, the propor
tion of males to females among the negroes there, in
1825, is set down by the accurate Humboldt, as
1 to 1.7; and he recognizes the fact that- an improve
ment in this regard was going on. In fact, among the
negroes born in the island no disparity of the sexes

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 75
is found ; this must, therefore, be sought among the
imported slaves, and its effect upon their numbers
ascertained. The proportion of females imported by the slave
traders is, as we have stated somewhere, between
1 to 4 and 1 to 5. We believe we may safely assume
the ratio of 175 per 1,000 of all,' an equal number
being also boys between ten and fourteen years of
age. The females imported by the slave traders are,
for obvious reasons, very nearly, or quite all, women
of the productive age, who have never borne child
ren. This proportion of productive women is very
large, as will be seen by the statistics of this country.
Dr. Jarvis, in his letters to the Census Office, says,
" The females in Massachusetts, between twenty and
forty, in 1840, were 163 per 1,000 of all, and in
the United States 143 per 1,000.'" By the' census
of 1850 the proportion of white females between the
same ages was 148 per 1,000 of all ; and the propor
tion of those between twenty and thirty, which
would approximate more nearly to, though still be
far from, equalling the class of females imported
among the slaves" in Cuba, is only 81 per 1,000 of
all. It should also be remembered, in seeking for
the law of population in Cuba, that the female
1 Compendium of United States Census, p. 122, note.

76slaves imported there are under more favorable con
ditions for reproduction, than even those between
twenty and thirty, in the United States, from the fact
that, though they are of the productive age, a very
small portion of them have ever borne children.
These facts lead us to believe that the conclusions.
applicable, to population in other countries, should be
modified in Cuba ; and that in their effects may be
found, the explanations of the seeming contradictions
between the supposed necessary decrease of the slave
population, and the position and rapid advance of the
island in population and material prosperity. The
number of slaves in Cuba we estimate, as will be
seen in the chapter on population in the following
work, at about six hundred and sixty thousand.
Their character in general is that of a very docile
and obedient class, and the distinctions of their
several native tribes are kept up of their own accord.
To this number we have to add^ about two hundred
and ' twenty thousand free blacks and mulattoes ;
making a total of eight hundred and eighty thousand
Africans and their descendants.
The white, or European race, as we have termed
it, numbers nearly five hundred and sixty-five thou
sand. The official tables of 1846 give the following
as the numbers of the foreign born white population.
Natives of Spain, 27,264 (exclusive of the army, to

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 77
which no Cubans are admitted) ; Canary Islands,
19,759 ; other Antilles* 1,361 ; United States, 1,256 ;
other parts of America,. 2,334 ; France, 2,066 ; Great
Britain, 605 ; other countries, 842.
The Spaniards are very nearly all office-holders
and traders, it being seldom that they purchase land
or real estate. Wielding thus the power and ready
capital of the country, their political influence is
great, while their impress upon the social character
of the community is very limited. The natives of
the Canary Islands are largely engaged in the minor
branches of agriculture, and assimilate readily with
the native whites. Many of the French are plant
ers ; of the English, a large number are connected
with the mining interests. The great majority of
the American citizens in Cuba are machinists and
mechanics, in which class are also found large num
bers of French and British subjects. To this fact we
trace the great contrast observed in the state of the
mechanic arts in Cuba and in the mother country,
and the much greater advance of the former in the
adoption of mechanical appliances to labor. The
¦machinists, carpenters, coopers, masons, carriage-
makers, smiths, &c, of Cuba, being mostly Ameri
cans and French, or such as have learned the trades
in their shops, the manner of labor, tools, and style
of work in Cuba, resemble ours much more than

78 humboldt's CUBA.
they do those of Spain, or of Spanish America, and
have given to her civilization a resemblance to that
of the Anglo-American, not found elsewhere out of
the United States.
This resemblance has been increased by the prox
imity and frequency of intercourse between the two
countries, by an identity of L^cial institutions and
¦aspirations, and by the large number of Cuban youth
educated here. It is estimated that for many years
very nearly two thousand boys from Cuba have been
pursuing their studies in American schools. The
ideas and manner of thought with which they return
to the island, are more American than Spanish, and
these are continually extended by their influence and
their example.
Such is the social condition of Cuba, and the influ
ences which bear upon it. In conclusion, we will
present a few considerations upon its possible future.
We have seen that Spain has declared that when the
island ceases to be Spanish, it shall become African,
and that there is good reason to believe that in view
of the impossibility of holding it many years longer,
she has acceded to the solicitations of other European
powers, and consented to bring it under the rule of
the social theories now prevailing in all the other
European colonies in the Antilles. We have seen that*
the people of Cuba now stand alone in their resistance

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 79
to this social revolution and ruin. The advance of
the emancipation theories of Europe in the Antilles,
and the gradual extinction of tbe white race there, is
unmistakably indicated by the state of the British
West Indies. There we. see at a glance the true ten
dencies and results of the application of the social
theories of Europe to the communities of America.
The details of their history show the sufferings of the
whites, and the decline of pubhc prosperity and
social welfare; and indicate an ultimate state of bar
barism as the social condition of the West India
Islands. These truths are acknowledged by very
competent authority in Great Britain. One of the
leading London journals lately held the following
language on this subject.1
"We have of late, as occasion served, directed the
attention of our readers to the condition of the most
valuable of our West India possessions, and have
endeavored to trace to its true source, in a vicious
and mistaken policy, the ruin which not only
impends, but has actually fallen upon those islands,
once the boast and glory of the British Crown — now
the by-word of the commercial nations of the earth.
Jamaica, by nature the richest of these dependencies,
is reduced to a state of collapse, from which recovery
1 London Morning Herald, 8th September, 1865. 1,

80 humboldt's ouba.
seems to be hopeless. Efforts have been made to
stimulate once more her industry, to raise her, crushed
proprietary, and to give them once again opportunity
and hope. So far those efforts have not been success
ful. In the recent advices we can perceive no
symptoms of amendment ; on the contrary, the
downward tendency of affairs continues, as if for the
unhappy Jamaicans there is a "lower deep" yet
yawning, which "threatening, opens to devour," and
from whose frightful vortex there seems to be no hope
of escape." ******
"Although the ruin of Jamaica has been more-
rapid and irresistible than any of the other islands,
desolation rests upon the entire Archipelago, and
sooner or later will involve them all."
This present desolation of the British Antilles is
the dark future which the inhabitants of Cuba are
called upon to avert from themselves, and from
their children, and which has impelled them to de
clare to the Spanish government, that the attempt
to introduce there the social theories of European
philanthropy must produce a bloody revolution, for
no white man will be disposed to submit to so hard
a fate. This revolution may soon degenerate to a
war of races in Cuba, as Spain has declared her

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 81
reliance upon the blacks, and other European powers
have instigated and'sustained her in this declaration.
Such a war would arouse the sympathies of the
people of the United States in favor of the whites in
Cuba, to a pitch of popular excitement that has
never been witnessed, and no laws of neutrality or
considerations of policy, could prevent their imme
diate and direct interference and assistance. The
result would be the utter annihilation of the black
race in Cuba, which might lead to a war of exter
mination against them in all the larger Antilles.
Who can contemplate such a result without shud
dering ? What philanthropy can advocate a policy
which must attain such terrible results !
No public indications at present exist of a dispo
sition on the part of the powers of western Europe,
to abandon their attempts to extend over Cuba, the
theories which have ruined Jamaica and her sister
colonies. Bather do they urge Spain to establish
them as the surest means of preventing the advance
of the American confederacy in that direction.
Thus is the social ruin of a neighboring island, one
of the contingents in the conflict between the Amer.
ican and European policies, between republicanism
and monarchism ; and in the natural course of events
Cuba may yet become the Crimea, and Havana the
Sebastopol, of the New World. 4*

82

The European manner of mis-stating that complex
combination of questions of American international
and civil policy, generally known as the Cuban
Question, is thus adroitly and characteristically prac
tised, by one of the British reviews, most zealously
liberal, after the manner of European liberalism.
" If then the slave States do gain Cuba, they may
possibly gain a loss. If they conquer her they will
find her emancipated or desolated; if they purchase
her they will buy a colored population more in
subordinate than any they have now ; and even if
these dangers do not realize themselves, an economi
cal result, as Mr. Pobertson well explains,1 may
follow, by which the abolitionists may, after all, be
the real gainers. Were Cuba once peacefully pos
sessed by enterprising Americans, the cultivation
of her soil, and with it the demand for slaves,
would be greatly increased, while one great source
of supply, the African slave-trade, would be stopped.
At the same time the insular population would de
crease rather than increase, by reason of the disparity
of the sexes ; the sole resource, therefore, would be
the slave-breeding States of Virginia, North Carolina,
and Maryland ; and the inducement to them to sell
1 " A Pew Months in America, by James Robertson." London,
1855.

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 83
would probably be so great as to draw away their
stock, until they became free States — a far greater
gain to the North than Cuba would be to the South.
Meantime, however, the slave party still desires
annexation ; it disregards or despises its dangers, or
rather it loses sight of them in fear of what may
happen, if it does not annex. Here we have the
true meaning of the Lone Star Lodges and Ostend
Conferences. The Americans try to make the Cuban
whites imitate them in casting off their allegiance to
the mother country, because they fear that Spain
will imitate us in compelling emancipation." — West
minster Review, July, 1855. Eeprint, p. 97.
This is an adroit and characteristic mis-statement
of the Cuban question. Its opening assumption that
the northern and southern States of the American
Union are opposed to each other in their vital inter
ests, is the artful insinuation of the defenders of
European policy, in their opposition to American
theories, but it is an error of fact. However great
may be the sectional jealousies and irritation, at the
present time or in the past (for when have they
ceased to exist ?), the vital interests of the North and
the South are the same. The integrity of the terri
tory of the North, is the integrity of the territory of
the South, and when the question of the northeastern

84 humboldt's CUBA.
boundary threatened a hostile invasion of the State
of Maine, at a time when the waves of sectional
feeling ran fierce and high, the South was as ready
and as ardent in the determination to defend the
national honor, and the national domain, as any
other portion of the Union. So too, should any
attempt be made upon . the integrity of the territory
of the South, or of the Pacific States, through our
defenceless condition in the mid-American waters,
and the Pacific Ocean, no one doubts that the great
heart of the North would respond at once, and
with enthusiasm, to the call of our common
country. The same intimate sympathy between the North
and the South exists in their material interests. Do
the seasons prove unpropitious, and the crops of the
South fail ; the North feels the common loss in every
pulsation of her commercial and fabrile industry.
Do the grains and meats of the North and West,
cease to come forward with their accustomed plenty ;
or do the ships of the East lie idly at the wharves .;
the South experiences the consequent languor in
every nerve. The glorious memories of our land,
too, are linked in sympathetic union ; Lexington and
Bunker Hill, Saratoga and Monmouth, Yorktown
and Fort Moultrie, New Orleans and Plattsburg, are
names equally dear to the North and to the South ;

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 85
while the glorious achievements of our common
arms in Mexico, show only the most fraternal rivalry
to enhance the common glory. The confederacy is,
in fact, one mighty whole, and whoever will contem
plate it apart from the mists of local politics, will
not fail to be impressed with this truth.
The question of the accession of Cuba to the con
federacy is not a local question, but stands upon this
broad national ground. It is pertinent not only to
the South, but to the East, North, and West. Is it
a question of national defence ? Cuba guards all the
approaches south of Charleston to our eastern na
tional frontier. Is it a question of the safety of our
domestic intercourse ? Cuba guarantees the safety of
the routes of commerce between the Ocean and the
Gulf of Mexico, and between the Atlantic and Pa-
cific States. The commercial and industrial relations
of Cuba to the United States, are also as national as
is her geographical position. The lumbermen, the
fisheries, and the shipping of New England, have a
deep present interest in her welfare, while the wants
of her people offer a great natural outlet to the man
ufacturing industry of the same States, which is now
closed to them by artificial barriers.
The miners, machinists, farmers, merchants, and
manufacturers of the Middle States, carry on, even
now, vast exchanges with her productive industry.

86

The rice and lumber of the South find their greatest
and best foreign market in Cuba. The grain and
meats of the West, now in a great measure shut out
from Cuba by the restrictions of a jealous tariff,
would find in- her accession to the confederacy, a
market to the value of millions annually from the
store of their ever-increasing plenty. Is it a ques
tion of civil or of international policy ? The exten
sion of our theories of government to Cuba must
contribute to their, stability, strengthen the ties of
our civil policy, increase its moral power, and aug
ment our weight in the family of nations. The
accession of Cuba to the Union is not, therefore,
merely a Southern question, but it is a question of
national gain and of national power.
The assertion, that " if they conquer her they will
find her emancipated or desolated," is the reiteration
of the barbarous and savage threat of Spain — that
" Cuba shall ever remain Spanish or become African."
The heart that' can conceive, and the liberalism that
can reiterate, such a threat, are only worthy of the
highest reprobation. But it involves an error of
fact, in assuming that a disposition, exists on the part
of the United States to conquer Cuba. Such an idea
has never been broached in this country, nor do we
believe it has ever been entertained by any one.
The truth is, that American -sympathizers have been

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 87
willing to aid the people of Cuba in an effort to
conquer the Spanish power there.
European writers, in contemplating the accession
of new countries to the American confederation, stu
diously forget, or avoid the fact, that it is not some
powerful king, surrounded by courtiers and privi
leged classes of nobility, extending his sway over
new conquests and subjugated nations ; but it is the
extension of the right of self-government; by the
people, and their integrity in the great arena of
freedom, guaranteed by the jealous watchfulness of
the whole. Should the people of Cuba successfully
assert their rights, and seek admission to the Amer
ican confederacy, there would be no conquest bnt
that of right over might, and of freedom over oppres
sion. That " they may find her emancipated or deso
lated," that is to say, African, or a heap of moulder
ing ashes, is apparently a bold threat; but to our
view it is only the ebullition of fear and weakness.
We know that neither the liberalism nor the govern
ments of Europe have ever recognized the existence
of the people of Cuba as a body politic ; but this in
no wise affects its vitality, nor the influence which a
successful assertion of its rights may have upon itself;
or upon its relations to other powers. A people
numbering almost six hundred thousand free and

88 humboldt's CUBA.
intelligent whites ; inhabiting a country whose area
is very nearly equal to that of England proper ; the
productions of whose industry rule many of the
most important markets of the world; whose geo
graphical position is one of the most marked upon
the globe; and the ratio of whose industrial and
social progress is exceeded by only one among exist
ing nations, does not depend, for its beiDg, upon its
recognition in European reviews, or in cautiously-
written, and guardedly-worded, diplomatic notes.
The people of Cuba, by their labor, and the fertility
of her soil, have already stamped, the fact of their
existence in unmistakable characters upon the in
dustrial world, and in the struggle for their rights,
and for their very existence, which any attempt to
carry out the barbarous threat thus held forth by
Spaniards, and by Englishmen, would surely create,
the assertion of their rights would have a like effect
upon their political relations with other nations.
That if Spain relinquished her forcibly-maintained
sovereignty over Cuba, by sale or treaty, to the
United States, the confederacy would " buy a colored
population more insubordinate than any they now
have," is an assertion in regard to the future, which
we do not deem justified by the general principles
which regulate cause and effect.
In what manner the transfer of a sovereignty from

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 89
Spain to a free people, in which the Cubans would be
included, would produce such a complete and radical
chan^b in the disposition of her servile class, we are
not informed, anjl we cannot conceive. The relation
between master and slave is the same in Cuba and
in the United States ; and if the European writer
draws his conclusion from a supposed savage dispo
sition on the part of the native Africans, now in
Cuba, we think he judges them without a personal
knowledge of their character, that he forgets two
essential points ; that they were not warriors, but I
mere slaves in Africa, and have never known any :
other condition; and that they never have been
exposed, by community of language, and facility of
access, to the bloodthirsty teachings of European
philanthropy. The economical anticipations of Mr. Robertson
and the reviewer may, or may not be realized ; but
we can have no great confidence in the anticipations
of the political economy of the European philan
thropists, while we contemplate the disastrous results
which have attended the experiment of their social
theories in the British West Indies. On this point
we would suggest to them a consideration of the
wise observations of Baron Humboldt, addressed to
¦those who anticipated direful results from the cessa'
tion of the slave-trade :

90 humboldt's CUBA.
"The prognostications which some too lightly
make * * * do not seem to me sufficiently conclu
sive. They do not take into consideration ffle fact
* * * that the increase of the to£al population of
Cuba, when the importation of negroes from Africa
shall have ceased entirely, is based upon elements so
complicated, upon such various compensations of
effect upon the white, free colored, and slave popu
lation * * * that we should not anticipate such
mournful presages, but wait until positive statistical
data have been obtained."
That " the Americans try to make the Cuban whites
imitate them in casting off their allegiance to the
mother country, because they fear that Spain will
imitate us in compelling emancipation," is one of
those mis-statements characteristic of European
writers upon American questions. The desire of the
people of Cuba for liberation from European thral
dom, is purely and entirely of Cuban origin. It was
the natural desire of a people for that freedom which
they contemplated in the countries around them,
and existed long before they turned their hopes to
this country for assistance. The conspiracies that,
from 1822 to 1828, threatened the existence of the
Spanish power in Cuba, were the spontaneous growth
of pubhc feeling, as were those of 1835, under Gen.

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 91
Lorenzo, in St. Jago; and of Gen. Lopez, in 1848, in
Cienfuegos. The flight of Gen. Lopez and others to
the United States, upon the premature discovery of
their plans, first induced the patriots of Cuba to look
to the people of this country for assistance ; and the
fact that they have found sympathy and aid here, is
the natural result of a community of political aspira
tions and interests, and of the great American neces
sity of resistance to the open and covert assaults of.
European policy, upon our institutions and their
influence. We have alluded to this stereotyped European
statement, and. argument of the Cuban question,
because we consider it aimed, not at the simple
question whether Cuba shall remain Spanish or not,
but against the extension over new territories of
those principles of government, which are so suc
cessfully maintained here, and of our political theo
ries, which are viewed with so much dislike by the
advocates and defenders of European kingcraft. We
deem the question of the future social condition and
pohtical relations of Cuba, as not only of pressing
and vital importance to herself, but as intimately
connected with the peace and progress of our own
confederacy, and through that with the ultimate
success of the republican theory of government.
The idea that Cuba will some day belong to the

92

HUMBOLDT S CUBA.

United States, exists solely from a contemplation of
moral possibilities, and not from any admission of
the fact by the European mind ; and the statesmen
of Europe are laboring strenuously to prevent its
accomplishment. The policy of the British cabinet
on this point is strikingly exhibited in Lord Palmer-
ston's assertion, that "if the negro population of
Cuba were rendered free, that fact would create a
most powerful element of resistance to any scheme
for annexing Cuba to the United States." In this
he is undoubtedly right. Emancipation in Cuba
would blot that country, and its productions, now so
important in the commerce of all civilized nations,
from the list of wealth-producing communities. It
would call into existence, in immediate proximity to
our southern shores, a negro community, under the,
influence of the European idea and policy, which
would be dangerous to us as a neighbor, and worse
than dangerous to us as a part of this confederacy ;
or, perhaps, worse still, it might initiate a war of
races in Cuba, from a participation in which no
power or considerations could prevent our people,
and which might prove alike disastrous to the blacks
in the Antilles, and to our own domestic repose.
In this question England is arrayed in hostility
against us, for the questions of Emancipation and
Slavery are the Scylla and Charybdis of our con-

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 93
federacy, and if the class government that rules
Great Britain can make it a deadly hostility to us,
they are forced to do so by the very exigencies of
self-preservation. The statesmen of England know,
and so do those of America, that the race for life is
now being run by the broad and genial republican
theories of America, and the limited and partial
theories of that simulacro of freedom — European
constitutional monarchy. One or the other of these
systems must perish. If republicanism triumphs,
England must concede the five points to her people,
and seek her defence against the autocratic theories
of Europe, in a sincere friendship with America.
Pf constitutional monarchy triumphs, and this Union
is dismembered, the theory of a democratic repre
sentative government will have failed before the
world, and the effete theories of Europe will pass
safely through the crisis that now attends them, and
receive new vigor from the scattered elements that
now constitute our vitality and moral power.
It is because the aristocratic classes that govern
England are well aware of these truths, and see in
them the ultimate extinction of their class-system of
government, that Great Britain has never yet taken
the stand of true friendship to this country. When
impelled by interest, for a feeling of popular sym
pathy has never impelled her to it, they have

94 humboldt's CUBA.
acquiesced in a present seeming friendship. But
the retention of the frontier forts after the revolu
tion ; the intrigues in Europe against our early com
mercial treaties ; the orders in council ; the war of
1812 ; the treaty of Ghent, and the fishery question
at that time ; the northeastern boundary ; the Ore
gon question ; the efforts against our acquisition of
Texas; the intrigues in the war and treaty with
Mexico ; the South Carolina correspondence ; the
intrigues in Nicaragua and Dominica against us ;
the questions of free trade with Canada, and of the
rights of our fishermen, afford demonstrations as
clear as any in Euclid of the animus that moves them.
The Cuban question is the same disease in its
most aggravated and worst form. While Spain, un
der the instigation of England, and supported by,
that power and France, is giving life and energy to
her hatred and their hostility to us, in the policy she
has adopted in Cuba, the British cabinet may well
put on the mask of friendship, and assure us, as she
has already done on one occasion, that all will be
right with her fond ally Spain. And when the evil
is done, when the work of hate is consummated,
when Cuba has perished before the sirocco breath of
European philanthropy, and the seeds of dissension
and disunion are sown broadcast through the length
and breadth of this great confederacy, then .may

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 95
England's statesmen weep crocodile tears over our
misfortunes, and be sad, in mockery, at our fate.
The truth is, that England and France have not a
tithe of the fear of a war between this country and
Spain, that they have of the extension of our poli
tical theories over Cuba, and the triumph of the
American theory — -that States having different social
organizations, can exist and prosper in political
union; and of the consequent consolidation of Amer
ican power on this continent, and of its influence
throughout the world.

HUMBOLDT'S CUBA.

CHAPTER I
GENERAL VIEWS.
Political importance of the island of Cuba and port of Havana
— Their relations to contiguous countries — Increase of public
wealth and revenue — Description of Bay and City of Havana —
Public buildings— Streets — Public walks and grounds — Ashes
of Columbus — Palms — Vicinity of Havana — Suburbs — Projected
moat — Defences of Havana-— Population — Increase — Marriages,
births, and deaths — Hospitals — Health — Markets — Hospitality —
[Note. — Establishment of Navy yard at Havana — Don Augustin
de Arriola — List of ships built at Havana — Abandonment of the
Navy-yard.] The pohtical importance of the island of Cuba
does not arise solely from its great extent, though it
is one half larger than Haiti, nor from the admirable
fertility of its soil, nor from its great naval resources,'
nor from the nature of its population, three-fourths
of which are freemen ; but it derives a far greater
1 See Note at the end of the chapter.
5

98 humboldt's CUBA.
political influence through the advantages which
result from the geographical position of the city and
harbor of Havana.
That northern portion of the sea of the Antilles
known as the Gulf of Mexico, forms a circular bay
of more than two hundred and fifty leagues diameter,
as it were, a Mediterranean with two outlets, whose
coasts from Cape Florida to Cape Catoche, in
Yucatan, appertain exclusively, at the present time,
to the confederations of the Mexican States and of
North America. The island of Cuba, or more
properly speaking, that part of its shore between
Cape San Antonio and the city of Matanzas, situate
near the entrance of the old Bahama channel, closes
the Gulf of Mexico on the southeast, leaving to the
oceanic current we call the Gulf Stream, • no other
passages than a strait on the south, between Cape
San Antonio and Cape Catoche, and the Bahama
channel on the north, between Bahia Honda and
the reefs of Florida.
Near to the northern outlet, and immediately
where a multitude of highways thronging with the
commerce of the world cross each other, lies the
beautiful port of Havana, strongly defended by
nature, and still more strongly fortified by art.
Fleets sailing fr«rm this port, built in part of the
cedar and mahogany of Cuba, may defend the

-GENERAL VIEWS. 99
passages to the American Mediterranean and menace
the opposite coasts, as the fleets sailing from Cadiz
may hold the dominion of the ocean near the
Columns of Hercules. The Gulf of Mexico, and the
old and new Bahama channels unite under the
meridian of Havana. The opposing flow of their
currents, and the violent atmospherical agitations
natural there, particularly at the beginning of
winter, give a peculiar character to this spot on the
northern boundary of the equinoctial zone.
The island of Cuba is not only the largest of the
Antilles (being nearly equal to England proper
without the principality of Wales), but from its long
and narrow form, its great extent of coast makes it
at once contiguous with Haiti, Jamaica, Florida
(the southern State of the United States), and
Yucatan, the eastern State of Mexico. This circum
stance is worthy of the most mature consideration,
for these countries (Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, and the
southern portions of the United States, from Louisiana
to Virginia), distant but a few days' sail from each
other, contain nearly two millions eight hundred
thousand Africans. As St. Domingo, Florida, and
Mexico have been separated from Spain, Cuba does
not assimilate politically with the countries it
borders, although as they were for many ages subject
to the same laws, it has a similarity of religion,
language, and customs.

100 humboldt's CUBA.
Florida forms the most southern link of that great
chain of republics whose northern boundary touches
the upper waters of the river St. Lawrence, and
which extends from the region of palms to that of
the most rigorous winter. The inhabitants -of New
England believe that the progressive increase of the
blacks, the preponderance of the States they inhabit,
(the slave States,) and a preference for the culture of
the colonial staples, are public dangers. Therefore,
they do not wish to cross the Straits of Florida,' the
present boundary of the great American confederacy,
except for the purposes of a free commerce based
upon an equality of rights. It is true they fear any
event which may throw Cuba into the hands of a
more formidable European power than Spain, but
undoubtedly they desire no less strongly that the
ties which formerly bound Cuba to Louisiana, Pensa-
cola, and St. Augustine, shall remain for ever broken.
The vicinity of Florida has never been of much
importance to the trade of Havana, from the sterility
of her soil and her want of inhabitants and cultiva
tion. But this is not the case with respect to the
coasts of Mexico, which, extending in a semi-circle
from the more frequented ports of Tampico, Vera
Cruz, and Alvarado to Cape Catoche, almost join
through. the peninsular of Yucatan to the western
portion of Cuba. The illicit trade between Havana
and the port of Campeachy is not only very active,

GENERAL VIEWS. 10]
but is increasing, notwithstanding the efforts of the
new government of Mexico against it; for of the
many vessels engaged in the contraband traffic with
Havana, but a small number are engaged in the
traffic with the more distant coasts of Caraccas and
Colombia. The necessary supplies of salted meats
(jerked beef), for the slaves in Cuba, are procured
from Buenos Ayres and the plains of Merida more
easily, and with less danger in these unquiet times,
than from Cumana, New Barcelona, or Caraccas.
It is well known that Cuba and the Archipelago
of the Philippine Islands have for centuries drawn
from the treasury of Mexico the sums necessary for
their internal administration, and for the preserva
tion of their fortifications, their arsenals and their
navy yards. Havana has been the naval port of
Mexico, as I have stated in another work,1 and
received annually (until 1808) from its treasury more
than one million eight hundred thousand dollars.
1 "In the present state of affairs, (1803-4), the coast of Mexico is
a military dependence of Havana, which is the only neighboring
port that affords ' shelter to squadrons ; it is therefore the most
important point in the defence of the eastern shores of Mexico. For
this reason the government has expended enormous sums in its forti
fication since its capture by the English. The court of Madrid, fully
aware of its own interests, has established the principle that in
order to preserve Mexico, the dominion of the island of Cuba must
be maintained." — Humboldt. " Political Essay on New Spain."

102 HUMBOiDT's CUBA.
Even in Madrid, for a long time, Cuba and*the Phi-
lipine Islands were considered as dependencies of
Mexico, situat *d at distances widely apart, east and
west from the ports of Vera Cruz and Acapulco, but
united to the Mexican metropolis, which was then a
European colony, by all the ties of commerce, of
mutual assistance, and of ancient affection.
The increase of her own proper wealth has gradu
ally made this assistance from the Mexican treasury
unnecessary to Cuba. Of all the Spanish possessions
she has been the most prosperous, and the port of
Havana has risen, since the disasters of St. Domingo,
to the rank of a first-class mart in the commercial
world. A happy concurrence of political circum
stances, the moderation of the government officials,
and the conduct of the inhabitants, who are keen,
prudent, and careful of their own interests, have pre
served to Havana the continued enjoyment of a free
interchange with foreign nations. The revenue from
her customs has increased so greatly, that Cuba not
only covers her own expenditures, but during the
war between Spain and her continental colonies, has
contributed large sums to relieve the remnants of the
army from Venezuela, for the defence of the castle
of San Juan de Ulua, and to the costly and most
generally fruitless naval armaments that Spain has
fitted out.

». GENERAL VIEWS. 103
I have" been twice in Cuba, on one occasion three
months, and on the other a month and a halfj and
have had the good fortune to enjoy the confidence
of persons, who from their talents and . position,
either as proprietors, administrators, or merchants,
could give me reliable information regarding the ad
vance of public prosperity. This confidence flowed
from the favor with which I was honored by the
Spanish ministry, and I trust that I also merited it
for the moderation of my principles, my circumspect '
conduct, and for the pacific character of my occu
pation. For the last thirty years the Spanish gov
ernment has not obstructed the publication, even in
Havana, of the most interesting statistical tables
relative to the state of the commerce, colonial agri
culture, and revenue of Cuba. I obtained copies of
these documents during my stay there, and the rela
tions I have preserved with America since my return
to Europe, have afforded me the complement of the
data I had previously collected.
I visited in company with Bonpland only the vici- .
nity of Havana, the beautiful valley of Guines, and
the coast between Batabano and Trinidad. After
describing succinctly the physical aspect of the coun
try, and the singular modifications of a climate so
different from that of the other Antilles, I shall speak
of the general population of the island, its area cal-

104 humboldt's CUBA. ^
culated from the most exact delineation of its shores,
its staples of product and commerce, and the condi
tion of its public revenues.
The view of Havana from the entrance to the port
is one of the most picturesque and pleasing on the
northern equinoctial shores of America. This view,
so justly celebrated by travellers of all nations, does
not possess the luxury of vegetation that adorned
the banks of the Guayaquil, nor the wild majesty of
"the rocky coasts of Pio Janeiro, two ports in the
southern hemisphere ; but the beauty that in our cli
mate adorns the scenes of cultivated nature, unites
here with the majesty of the vegetable creation, and
with the organic vigor that characterizes the torrid
zone. The European who experiences this union of
pleasing impressions, forgets* the danger -that mena
ces him in the midst of the populous cities of the
Antilles, and strives to comprehend the different ele
ments of so vast a country, gazing upon the fortress
es crowning the rocks east of the port, the opening
arm of the sea surrounded with villages and farm
houses, the tall palms, and the city itself half hid
den by a forest of spars and sails of shipping.
The entrance to the harbor of Havana passes be
tween the Morro Castle {castillo de los Santos Reyes)
and the fort of San Salvador de la Punta ; its width
is from 360 to 450 yards which it preserves for three-

GENERAL VIEWS. 105
fifths of, a mile, when, leaving on the north the Cas
tle of San Carlos de la Cabana, and the village of
Casa Blanca, it opens into a large trefoil shaped bay,
the greatest width of which, from N. N. E. to S. S.
W. is two miles and a half. The three smaller bays
which open from it are called Guanabacoa, Guasaba-
coa, and Atares, the latter containing several springs
of fresh water.
The city of Havana, surrounded by walls, is built
upon a promontory, extending from the Navy-yard
on the south, to the Punta fort on the north. In the
harbor, beyond the remains of some vessels that have
been sunk and the little isle of Luz, there are only
eight or ten, or, perhaps, more correctly speaking,
five or six fathoms of water. The castles Atares
and San Carlos del Principe defend the city on the
western side inland, one of them being 1,400 and
the other 2,630 yards from the wall of the city. The
intermediate space comprises the suburbs of Horcon,
Jesus Maria, and Salud, which encroach yearly upon
the Campo Marte.
The principal edifices of Havana, the Cathedral,
the Government House, the residence of the Com
andante of Marine, the Navy- yard, the Post-office,
and the Poyal Tobacco factory, are less notable for
their beauty than for the solidity of their construc
tion. The streets are generally narrow, and many
5*

106

of them not paved. As the paving stone is brought
from Vera Cruz, and its transportation is costly, the
singular idea had been entertained, shortly before
my arrival, of supplying its place with great trunks
of trees, as is done, in Germany and Pussia, in the
construction of dikes across swampy places. This
project was speedily abandoned; but travellers who
arrived subsequently to the making of the experi
ment, were surprised to see beautiful trunks of
mahogany buried in the ruts of Havana.
During my residence in Spanish America few of
the cities presented a more disgusting appearance
than did Havana, from the want of a good police.
One walked through the mud to the knees, and the
many carriages, or volantes, which are the charac
teristic carriages of this city, and the drays laden
with boxes of sugar, their drivers rudely elbowing
the passer-by, made walking in the streets both vex
atious and humiliating.1 The offensive odor of the
salted meat, or tasajo, infected many of the houses,
and even some of the ill-ventilated streets. It is
said the police have remedied these evils, and that
1 These evils have since that time been in a very great measure
remedied, and Havana is now as well paved, and lighted with gas as
the best regulated city of America or Europe, while a better police
system has removed many of the inconveniences of walking in the
streets.

GENERAL VIEWS. 107
lately there has been a marked improvement in the
cleanliness of the streets. The houses are well ven
tilated, and the street de los Mercaderes presents a
beautiful view. There, as in many of our older cities
in Europe, the adoption of a bad plan when laying
out the city can only be slowly remedied.
There are two good promenades; one, the Ala
meda, inside the walls, between the theatre and the
hospice of Paula ; and the other outside the walls,
running from the Punta fort to the Muralla gate.
The first was ornamented with much taste by Peru-
ani, an Italian artist, in 1803 ; and the second,
known as the extra-mural paseo, is a delightfully
cool resort, and generally after sunset is filled with
carriages. Its construction was commenced by the
Marquis de la Torre, who, of all the governors sent
to Cuba, was the first to give an impulse to the im
provement of the police and the municipal regimen of
Havana. Don Luis de las Casas, whose memory is
also held in high esteem by the inhabitants of
Havana, and the Count de Santa Clara, have both
improved these grounds.1
The botanical garden, near Campo Morte, is wor-
1 A third beautiful paseo, with gardens, was added to these in
1836, by General Tacon ; and subsequent governors have improved
the old roads and opened several new ones around Havana ; so that
its vicinity now affords many delightful drives.

108 humboldt's CUBA.
thy of the attention of the government. Since my
return to Europe a marble statue of Carlos III. has
been erected in the extra-mural paseo. Its site had
been first- selected for a monument to Columbus,
whose ashes were brought to Havana on the cession
of the Spanish part of St. Domingo to the French.
The remains of Hernan Cortes having been carried
during the same year (1796) from one church in
Mexico to another, there occurred the coincidence
of a re-interment at the same time, near the close of
th-e eighteenth century, of the two greatest of the
men who were made illustrious by the discovery
and conquest of America.1
1 " The line-of-battle ship, San Lorenzo, arrived at Havana on the
15th January, 1796, bearing, in a rich coffin, the venerated ashes of
Columbus. Generals Las Casas and Araoz and bishops Trespalacios
and Pefialver received them on the shore, amid the entire garrison
formed for the occasion, and deposited them with solemn ceremo
nials in .their resting-place in the cathedral, in that humble niche
where they still repose." — Pezuela Ensayo Historico. de Cuba, page
354. " The bones of Cortes were secretly removed from the church
of San Francisco with the permission of his excellency the arch
bishop, on the 2d July, 1794, at eight o'clock in the evening, in the
carriage of the governor, the Marquis de Sierra Neva'da, and were
placed in a vault made for this purpose in the church of Jesus of
Nazareth. The bones were deposited in a wooden coffin inclosed in
one of lead, being the same in which they came from Castilleja de la
Cuesta, near Seville. This was placed in another of crystal, with its
crossbars and plates of silver, and the remains were shrouded in a

general views. 109
The royal palm, one of the most majestic of its
species, give a peculiar character to the country in
the neighborhood of Havana. It is the Oreodoxia
regia in my classification of American palms ; its tall
trunk, slightly swelling near the middle, is from
sixty to eighty feet high ; the upper portion being
of a fresh, shining green color, forms the union and
extension of its pedicles, contrasts with the rest of
the trunk, which is of a whitish-brown, and shrunken,
forming, as it were, two columns, one supporting the
other. The royal palm of Cuba has a beautiful pin-
natifid leaf, which shoots upward, and bends only
near, its point.
The description uf this palm reminds me of the
Vadgiai palm, that covers the rocks, and waves its
long leaves amid a cloud of spray, at the cataracts
of the Orinocco. Those groves of palms that gave
me such delight in the vicinity of Havana and Pegla
are waning year after year, and the low-grounds which
I beheld covered with the waving bamboo, are being
drained and cultivated. Civilization advances with
rapid pace, and I am told that even in those places
yet bare of cultivation, there exists but few remains
of their former wild abundance.
winding-sheet of cambric, embroidered with gold, with a fringe of
black lace four inches deep." — Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, vol.
HI. Appendix, p. 469.

110 HUMBOLDT'S CUBA.
From the Punta to San Lazaro, from the Cabana
to Pegla, and from thence to Atares, the land is
filled with habitations; those which surround the
bay being of light and elegant construction. The
plan of these houses is drawn, and they are ordered
from the United States, as one would order any piece
of furniture. When the yellow fever prevails at
Havana, the inhabitants retire to these country-
houses, and to the hills between Pegla and Guana
bacoa, where they breathe a purer air. Li the cool
nights, when the boats crossing the bay leave behind
them a long track of phosphorescent light, the in
habitants, who abandon the populous city, find in
these rustic abodes a peaceful and enchanting pri
vacy. Travellers who wish to judge truly of the
progress of agriculture, should examine the small
patches of maize and other alimentary plants, the
pine- apples in long files in the fields of the Cruz de
Piedra, and the vegetation of the bishop's garden,
which has lately been converted into a most delight
ful place.
The city of Havana proper is surrounded by walls,
and is about 1,900 yards long by 1060 yards wide ;
and yet there are piled in this narrow space 44,000
people, of which 26,000 are blacks and mulattos. A
nearly equal population is gathered in the two
suburbs, Jesus Maria and Salud; but the latter

GENERAL VD3WS. Ill
does not merit the beautiful name it bears (signify
ing Health) ; for, although the temperature of the
air is lower than in the city, the streets might have
been wider, and better laid -out.
The Spanish engineer corps has been for the last
thirty years making war upon the inhabitants- of the
saburbs, complaining to the government that the
houses are too near the fortifications, and that an
enemy might hold possession of them with impunity.
But no one has sufficient firmness to raze the
suburbs and eject the inhabitants, of which there
are 28,000 in that of Salud alone. This ward has
increased largely since the great fire of 1802, for
although sheds only were at first erected, these have
since been replaced by houses.
The inhabitants of the suburbs have laid many
plans before the court by which they might be
included within the line of the fortifications of the
city, and thus obtain a -confirmation of their titles to
the land which they have hitherto held only by
tacit consent.
Some propose that a wide moat shall be cut from
the Chaves bridge, near the shambles, to the San
Lazaro shore. The distance is about 2550 yards,
and the harbor now ' terminates at the bridge of
Chaves, between the navy-yard and the castle of
Atares, in a natural brook, the banks of which are

11$ HUMBOLDT'S CUBA.
covered with mangroves and reeds. The city would
then have on the west a triple line of fortifications ;
first, outward,, the works of Principe and Atares,
built upon hills; then the projected moat; and
lastly, the old wall, with its curtain, built by
Count Santa Clara, at a cost of seven hundred thou
sand dollars. «s
The defence of Havana, on the western side, is of
the greatest importance, for while the city proper
and the southern side of the bay is held, the Morro and
Cabana castles are impregnable. The first of these
requires a garrison of 800 men, and the second 2,000
men for their defence, provisions for which, and
reinforcements, should the garrison suffer heavy
losses, can be supplied from the city. Several able
French engineers have assured me that an enemy
should begin by taking the city, and then bombard
the Cabana, which is very strong, but whose
garrison, shut up in the casemates, could not long
resist the sickly climate. The English ' took the
Morro before they had possession of Havana, but at
that time, the Cabana, which commands the Morro,
and fort Number 4, had not been built. The castles
of Principe and Atares, and the battery of Santa
Clara, are the most important works on the southern
and western sides of the city.
Population of Havana, including the suburbs,

GENERAL VIEWS. 113
Salud, Jesus Maria, Horcon, Cerro, San Lazaro,
Jesus del Monte, and Pegla, in 1810.J
Males. Females. Total.
Whites,  .20,686 20,541 41,227
Free colored,  11,631 14,348 25,979-
Slaves  15,327 13,581 28,908
Total, 47,644 48,470 96,114
The land and naval forces, the monks and nuns,
and foreigners not domiciliated, (transient persons),
are not included in the census of 1810. The figures
of this census have been referred to erroneously in
works otherwise worthy of credit, as corresponding
to the year 1817. . The garrison of Havana is usually
six thousand men, and the number of foreigners
20,000, so that the population of Havana, with its
seven suburbs, doubtless at the present time (1825)
exceeds 130,000 souls. The following table shows
the increase of Havana and its suburbs between the
years 1791 and 1810 :
1 The same by the official census of 1846 : —
Mftlea. Females. Total.
Whites,  89,681 80,534 70,115
Free colored , ... . 18,281 18,021 81 ,268
Slaves  14,088 12,022 26,110
Total, 66,900 60,588 12T.483

114 humboldt's CUBA.

Proportions of
Whites. F. Colored. Slaves. Total. the three classes
1791 23,737 9,751 10,849 44,337 53—22—25
1810 41,227 25,979 28,908 96,114 43—27—30
Increase, 17.490 16,228 17,059 51,777
• Increase of Whites, 73 ]
F. Colored, 171 >'per cent.

Slaves, 165 j '
all classes, 117 J

We find that the population has more than doubled
in the twenty years from 1791 to 1810, in which time
the population of New York, the largest city of the
United States, has risen from 33,200 souls to 96,400,
and atthe present time (1825) reaches 140,000, being
consequently a little larger than Havana, and nearly
equal to Lyons.
We cannot doubt that the great accumulation of
unacclimated foreigners in a confined and populous
city- augments the mortality, and yet notwithstand
ing the effects of the yellow fever, in the compari
son of births and deaths, the results are much less
affected by it than are commonly supposed. When
the number of blacks imported is not large, and the
activity of trade does not bring together at one time
a large number of unacclimated sailors, the number
of births-very nearly equals the number of deaths.

GENERAL VIEWS. 115

We present here a statement of marriages, births,
and deaths in Havana for five years :

Marriages. Births. Deaths

1813

386

3,525

2,948

1814

390

3,470

3,622

• 1820

525

4,495

4,833

1821

397

4,326

4,466

1824

397

3,566

6,697

This table, which shows great fluctuations from
the unequal influx of foreigners, gives a mean pro
portion of births to the population as 1 to 33.5 ; and
of deaths as 1 to 33.2, estimating the total popula
tion of Havana and suburbs at 130,000 souls. Ac
cording to recent exact estimates of the population
of "France, the proportions there are as 1 to 33|, and
1 to 39| ; and for Paris from 1819 to 1823 as 1 to
28, andl to 31.6.
The principles upon which these calculations are
based, are so modified by circumstances in populous
Gities, and these are of a nature so complicated and
variable, we cannot judge of the number of inhabit
ants by that of births and deaths. In 1806, When
the population of the City of Mexico slightly ex
ceeded 150,000, the number of deaths and births
there was respectively 5,166 and 6,155, while in
Havana with 130,000 souls, the mean number ie
3,900 and 3,880.

116

There are two hospitals in Havana, the public hos- .
pital (San Felipe y Santiago), a charitable institution,
and the military hospital (San Ambrosio), in both of
which the number of patients is quite large.' The
following table shows their operations :

San Ambrosio.. 4,

•
San Felipe y Sai
1814. 1821.

itiago.

1814.

1821.

1824.

1824.

No. on 1st Jan'y.

226

307

264

153

251

127

Admitted during

the year,
4,352
4,829
4,160
1,484
2,596
2,196
Total,
4,578
5,136
4,424
1,637
2,847
2,323
Deaths,
164
225
194
283
743
533
Cured,
4,208
4,623
3,966
1,224
1,948
1,651
Remaining,
206
283
264
130
156
139
The mean of annual deaths in the public hospital
is more than 24 per cent., while in the military hos
pital it is barely 4 per cent. This great difference
must not be attributed to the method of treatment
employed by the friars 'of San Juan de Dios, who
control the first-named establishment, for though
doubtless more yellow fever patients are admitted to
the hospital of San Ambrosio, the greater part of the
patients received there have slight, and indeed insig
nificant disorders ; while the public hospital on the
contrary, admits the aged, the incurable, and blacks
who having but a few months to live, are placed
there by their owners to rid themselves of care.
GENERAL VIEWS. 117
As a general thing, it may be supposed that, with
the police improvements, the salubrity of Havana
has also improved ; but the effects of these changes
can only be really observed among the native popu
lation, for foreigners, who go there from Europe and
North America, must suffer from the general influ
ence of the climate, and they will continue to suffer
even though the streets were as carefully cleaned as
could be desired. The sea-shore has such an influ
ence, that even the natives of the island who reside
in the country, far from the coast, are subject to
attacks with the yellow fever when they visit
Havana. The markets of the city are well supplied. Pa
1819 a careful estimate was. made of the value
of the produce brought daily to Havana by two
thousand beasts of burden, and it was found that
the consumption of meats maize, yuca, vegeta
bles, rum, milk, eggs, forage, and segars, amounted
annually to $4,480,000.
We passed the months of December, January and
February, making observations in the vicinity of
Havana, and in the beautiful plain of Guines. We
found in the Cuesta family, which, with that of Santa
Maria, forms one of the largest commercial houses
in America, and in the house of Count O'Reilly, the
most noble and generous hospitality. We lodged at

118 humboldt's CUBA.
the residence of the, first-named, and placed our
instruments and our collections of specimens in the
palace of the Count, the broad flat roofs of which
were exceedingly convenient for our astronomical
observations. [Note. NAVY-YARD AT HAVANA.
The great advantages which the port of Havana
affords for repairing and building ships were apparent
at an early period. Its admirable position made it a
port of call for all the ships navigating those seas,
and it was the place of refit and final departure of
the galleons for Spain. But neither the government
nor private individuals availed themselves of its
abundant timber and naval resources, until about
the year 1626, when the king ordered several vessels
to be built there for the serviee of the windward
station, of which it was the head-quarters. After'
these were completed the government built no more
vessels there for a long time, although private enter
prise continued the business until the king prohibited
the cutting of timber except for the purpose of
building or repairing of houses in the city.
In 1713 Don Augustin de Arriola went to Madrid,
for the purpose of inducing the government to estab
lish a navy-yard at Havana, and proposed to build
there ten ships of the line, which should serve as

GENERAL VIEWS. 119
convoys for the galleons and fleets from Mexico.
He urged upon the court that ships built of the
hard woods of Cuba, would be much more durable
than those built of European timber, and that they
would also be preferable, for the reason that the
timber would not splinter in battle, and consequently
the ships were safer for the crews. His efforts were
for a long time unsuccessful, and it was not until
about 1723 the present navy-yard was established,
and ship-building permanently undertaken. For
nearly three-quarters of a century Havana was the
great nursery of the Spanish Armada, and from the
year 1724 until 1796, the following ships were built
there : —
1724 San Juan  ship of the line. 50 guns.
1725 SanLorenzo  " 50 "
1726 San Geronimo (a) El Retiro . . " 50 "
1726 San Antonio (a) El Triunfo  mail ship. 16 "
1727 N.S.de Guadalupe (a) El Fuerte, ship of the line. 60 "
1727 Santa Barbara (a) la Chata  corvette. 22 "'
1728 San Dionisio (a) El Constante, ship of the line. 54 "
1730 El Marte  .mail ship. 16 "
El Jupiter  " 16 "
Nuestra Sefiora del Carmen .... three-decker. 64 "
1731 Segundo Constante  " 60 "
1733 El Africa  " 60 "
1734 La Europa  " 60 "
1735 El Asia  1  " 62 "
LaEsperanaa  frigate. 60 "

120

HUMBOLDT S CUBA.

1735 El Triunfo  corvette. 24 guns.
1736 La America  three-decker. 62 "
1737 LaEstrella  corvette. 24 "
738 LaCasilla  three-decker. 60 "
El Dragon  " 60 "
1739 La Bizarra  frigate. 50 "
1740 El Invencible  ,  three-decker. 70 "
El Glorioso  " 70 "
1743 La Nueva Espana  " 70 "
El Nuevo Invencible  .  " 70 "
1745 El Nuevo Conquistador  " 64 * "
Santa Teresa de Jesus  " 64 "
1746 El Nuevo Africa  ..... " 70 "
El Vencedor  " 70 "
1747 La Flora  corvette. 24 "
ElTigre  three-decker. 70 "
1749 ElFenix  " 80 "
El Rago  " 80 "
1750 El Infante  « 70 "
La Galicia  three-decker. 70 "
La Princesa  " 70 "
1757 El Triunfo  .'  brig. 16 "
1758 Santa Barbara  corvette. 18 "
El Cazador  _  brig. 18 "
1759 El Astuto  three-decker. 60 "
1760 El Volante  mail-ship. 18 "
1761 El Fenix  corvette. 22 "
San Ysidro  ,(  schooner. 14 "
San Genaro  three-decker. 60 "
San Antonio  " . 60 "
San Jose  brig. 14 "
1765 San Carlos  three-decker. 80 "

GENERAL VIEWS. 121
1765 San Julian  *  schooner. 16 guns
San Fernando  .three-decker. • 80 "
1766 San Joaquin  schooner. 16 "
San Jago  three-decker. 60 "
San Lorenzo . .  schooner. 16 "
1767 San Antonio de Padua  " -16 «
Santa Clara  " 10 "
Santa Tsabol   " 10 "
San Luis  three-decker. 80 "
Santa Rosalia  schooner. 16 "
1768 San Francisco de Paula  mail-ship. 18 "
1769 San Francisco de Paula  three-decker. 70 "
La Santissima Trinidada  ship of the line. 112 "
San Jose  schooner. 12 "
1769 SanJosg  ship of the line. 70 "
1770 Nuestra Senora de Loreto  schooner. 12 "
Santa Lucia  ,  ".  corvette. 26 "
El Cayman  . . .xebec frigate. 30 "
1771 SanRafael  ship of the line. 70 "
San Pedro Alcantara  " 62 "
1772 San Juan Bantista.  brig. 12 "
San Francisco Xavier  >  " 12 "
Santa Elena  schooner.
San Carlos  mail-ship. 18 "
1773 San Miguel  ship of the line. 70 "
1775 San Roman  ship of the line. 60 "
San Julian  dredging lighter.
San Salvador de Orta  "
1776 Santa Agueda  frigate. 46 "
Santa Catalina Martir  .brig. 10 "
1777 Santa Cecilia  frigate. 46 "
1778 Santa Matilda  « 46 "
6

122 humboldt's CUBA.
1778 Santa Teresa  schooner.
Nuestra Senora de la O  frigate,
1780 Santa Clara..  "
El Bahama  ship of the line.
El Viento  schooner. 14
1781 La B  (illegible on record)  "
1782 Borja  mail-ship. 14
San Pedro  receiving-ship.
San Pablo 
1786 El Mejicano  ship of the line. 114
Conde de Regla  " 114
La Guadalupe , ,,  frigate. 40
1787 Real Carlos  ship of the line. 114
La Catalina  frigate. 44
1788 San Pedro Alcantara  ship of the line. 64
Nuestra Sefiora de la Merced  frigate. 40
1789 San Hermenegildo  ship of the line. 120
Atocha  ,  frigate. 40
San Geronimo  ship of the line. 64
1790 El Volador  .brig.
El Soberano  ship of the line.
Minerva  frigate.
Saeta  „  brig,
1791 Dredging ship . ... No 1.
«  »2.
4 Dredging lighters " 1, 2, 3, and 4.
El Infante Don Pelayo  ship of the line. 74
La Ceres  frigate. 40
1792 La Gloria  " 44
1793 El Principe de Asturias  ship of the line. 120
1794 San Antonio  brig. 18
1796 La Anfitrite  . .frigate. 44

12,

*uns

40

u

40

n

70

«

18

il

74

tt

44

U

18

ii

GENERAL VIEWS. 123
Forming a total of
Ships of the line  51 3642
Frigates  16 684
Corvettes  7 160
Mail-ships  7 116
Brigs  9 136
Schooners  14 164
Receiving ships  2
Dredging "  2
" lighters  6
114 4902
A few years since, the labors at the navy-yard of
Havana were resumed; a machine shop was esta
blished, and a steamer, a sloop of war, and several
smaller vessels were built; but they were again
suspended by a royal decree, and the fixed machinery
and ship-timber were taken to Cadiz. Yessels of the
station are now only repaired here. The reason
assigned for this is that ship-building in Cuba
deprives the labor of the mother country of employ
ment.]

124 humboldt's CUBA.

CHAPTER II.
PHYSICAL ASPECT.
Figure of the island but lately known — Area according to Lindeneau
and Ferrer — According to Bauza — According to " Cuadro Esta
distico" — Comparative area — Length and width — Importance of
Batabano — Comparative territorial power — Geological character
— Mountains — Face of the country— Elevation — Noted hills —
Eastern portion — Gold-washing — Formation of western and cen
tral portion — Giiiiies — Soil — Hills of San Juan — Caverns — Modern
formation — Shore at Havana. — Roaring banks explained — Relative
age of strata — Fresh water on the cays — Origin — Vicinity of
Havana — Guanabacoa — Serpentine — Petroleum — Botany of
Guanabacoa — Mineral springs — Reflections on geology — Earth
quakes — Fertile lands — Beauty of vegetation — Soils, how distin
guished — Rivers — Springs— Lands near Havana. [Note. — Imper
fect state of geological knowledge in Cuba — Known metal and
mineral productions — Coal analyzed — Celebrated mineral springs
— Analysis of tobacco lands in the Vuelta de Abajo.]
As the shores of the island of Cuba are covered
with cays and reefs through more than two-thirds
of their extent, and the navigable channels lie out
side of these obstructions, the true figm'e of the
island was for a long time unknown. Its width,

PHYSICAL ASPECT. 125
particularly between Havana and Batabano, has
been exaggerated, and it is only since the Hydro-
graphic bureau at Madrid, the best establishment of
its kind in Europe, has published the labors of Capt.
Jose del Eio and Lieut. Yentura Barcaiztegui, that
its area has been calculated with any degree of
accuracy. The figure of the Isle of Pines, and of
the southern coast between the port of Casilda and
Cape Cruz (inside of the Doce leguas cays), has been
laid down very differently in our several maps.
Lindeneau, in view of the publications of the Bureau
previous to 1807, had stated the area of Cuba, without
the neighboring small islands, to be 2,255 square
geographical leagues (fifteen to a degree), and 2,318
with the islands that surround it, which is equivalent
to 4,102 square maritime leagues of twenty to the
degree. Senor Ferrer, with somewhat different data,
does not make it exceed 3,848 square maritime
leagues. In order to give in this work the most exact results
possible in the present state of astronomical observa
tions there, I have induced Seiior Bauza, who honors
me with his friendship, and whose name has be
come celebrated through his great and valuable
labors, to calculate the area in accordance with the
new map of the island on four sheets, which he will
soon complete. This learned geographer has acced-

126 humboldt's CUBA.
ed to my request, and found (in June, 1825), the
superficial area of Cuba, without the Isle of Pines,
to be 3,520 square maritime leagues, and 3,618 with
that island.1
By this calculation, which has been twice made,
it appears that the Island of Cuba is one-seventh
smaller than has been hitherto supposed ; that it is
one-third larger than St. Domingo, and only one-
eighth smaller than England exclusive of Wales. If
the entire archipelago of the Antilles possesses an
area equal to one-half that of Spain, Cuba alone
nearly equals in superficial extent all the other Greater
and Lesser Antilles together. Its greatest length
from Cape San Antonio to Cape Maysi (on a line
running from W. S. W. to E. E". E., and then from
W. 1ST.W. to E. S. E. , through the island,) is 227 leagues.
Its greatest width, from Maternillo point to the mouth
of the river Magdalena, near Tarquino peak (from
1 The official " Cuadro Estadistico " of 1846 states the area as
follows : Cuba  34,233 square mi ea.
iBleofPmes  810 " "
Small islands adjacent  970 " "
86,018 square miles.
Which exceeds Sefior Bauza's calculation for Cuba by 2,553 square
miles, anU is five times greater than Massachusetts, and more than
one-half the area of all the New England states.

PHYSICAL ASPECT. 127
!N. to S.), is 37 leagues. The mean width of the
island between Havana and Puerto Principe, being
about four-fifths of its length, is 15 leagues.
In the most cultivated part, between Havana and
Batabano, the island is only 8| leagues across. This
proximity of the northern and southern shores at
this point makes the port of Batabano of great im
portance both for commerce and for military defence.
Among the great islands of the globe, that of Java,
from its shape and area (4,170 square leagues), most
resembles Cuba. The coast-line of Cuba extends
520 leagues, of which 280 correspond to the southern
shore between. Cape San Antonio and Cape Maysi.1
That the territorial power of Cuba, as comparing
with the rest of the Antilles, may be better seen, we
present the following table : —

Extent in sq.
leagues.

Population.

Pop. to s
league.

Cuba according to Bauza.,

3J615

715,000

197

Haiti

Lindeneau,

2,450

820,000

334

Jamaica,

460

402,000

874

Puerto Rico,

322

225,000

691

Great Antilles,

6,847
2,147,000
313
Lesser Antilles,
940
696,000
740
Whole Archipelago,
7,787
2,843.000
365
1 The " Cuadro Estadistico " of 1846 states the shore-line at
573 leagues, of which 301 correspond to the south, and 272 to the
north ooast.
128 humboldt's CUBA.
More than four-fifths of the land of Cuba is low
and its surface covered with secondary and tertiary
formations, through which granitic-gneis, syenite,
and euphotide rocks have protruded.
At present we have no very exact idea of the
geognostic character of the country, nor of the rela
tive age or nature of its soils. We only know that
the highest group of mountains is in the extreme
southeastern portion of the island, between Cape
Cruz, Cape Maysi and Holguin. The ridge known
as the Sierra del Cobre, situate northwest of the
city of St. Jago de Cuba, is said to be more than
7,600 feet high.1 According to this supposition, the
hills of this ridge are higher than the Blue Moun
tains of Jamaica, and the peaks of Banquillo, and
Banaste of St. Domingo. The Sierra de Targwmo,
fifty miles west of the city of St. Jago, belongs to the
same group with the Sierra del Cobre.
A chain of hills runs through the island from
E.S.E. to N.IST.W., approaching the southern coast
1 The Sierra del Cobre is supposed by some travellers to be visible
from the shore of Jamaica, but most probably it is from the north
ern slope of the Blue Mountains. In the first case, its height would
exceed ten thousand feet, supposing a refraction of one-twelfth
Certain it is, that the mountains of Jamaica are visible from the
summit of the hills of Tarquino. — Patriota Americana, Vol. ii.
p. 282.— H.

PHYSICAL ASPECT. 129
between Puerto Principe and Trinidad ; while more
to the west, toward Alvarez and Matanzas, the
sierras nf Gavilan, Camarioca, and Madruga ap
proach the northern shore. While travelling from
the mouth of the river Guaurabo to Trinidad, I saw
the hills of San Juan, which form peaks more than
1,900 feet high, whose slopes incline with great regu
larity to the south. This calcareous group is seen very
clearly from Cay de Piedras. The coasts of Jagua
and Batabano are very low, and I believe'there is no
hill exceeding 1,275 feet in height, except the Pan of
Guajaibon, west of the meridian of Matanzas.
The face of the interior of the island is gently
undulating, like that of England, and is not more
than 280 to 380 feet above the level of the sea.1
The objects seen at the greatest distance, and best
known to navigators, are the "Pan of Matanzas,"'
which is a truncated cone like a small monument in
shape; the "Arcos de Canasi," which are seen
between Puerto Escondido and Jaruco, like small
segments of a circle ; the " Table land of Mariel,"
1 The village of TJbajay, about fifteen miles distant from Havana,
S. 25° W., is 242 feet above the sea. The summit line of Bejucal, at
the Taverna del Rey, is 305.7 feet.— H.
» 1,255 feet high. At sea I have fouud the " Arcos de Canasi " to
be 732 feet high.— H. 6*

130 HUMBOLDT;S CUBA.
the "Maiden's Paps," and the "Pan de Guajaibon."1
This level of the limestone formation of Cuba,
declining toward the northwest, indicates the sub
marine union of these rocks with the similar low
lands of the Bahama Islands, Florida, and Yuca
tan. As observation has been limited to Havana and
its immediate neighborhood, we should not be sur
prised at the profound ignorance displayed in
relation to the geognosy of the Sierra del Cobre.
Don Francisco Ramirez, a traveller, who had been a
pupil of Proust, and was well versed in the chemical
and mineralogical sciences, informed me that the
western part of the island is granitic, and that he
had found there gneiss and primitive slate. From
these granitic formations have probably arisen the
alluvial sands mixed with gold which were worked
with so much zeal during the early years of the
conquest, to the great misfortune of the natives, and
vestiges of them are still found in the rivers of
Holguin and Escambray; these alluvial sands are
found generally in the vicinity of Yilla Clara, Santi
Espiritu, Puerto Principe, Bayamo, and the Bay of
1 2484 feet high. Further west, on the northern coast, we have the
" Sierra de los Organos,'' and " Sierra de Rosario," and on the southern
coast, the " Sierra de Rio Puerco." — H.

PHYSICAL ASPECT. 131
Nipe.1 Perhaps the abundance of copper spoken of
by the conquistadores of the sixteenth centuiy, at
which time the Spaniards observed the natural
productions of America better than they did in
subsequent ages, is due to the formations of horn
blende slate, and slate de transition, mixed with
diorite and euphotide rocks analogous to those I
found in the hills at Guanabacoa.
The central and western parts of the island contain
two formations of compact limestone ; one with
sandy clay, and the other with gypsum. The first
of these presents (I will not say from its relative
age, or its superposition, which I do not know, but
from its composition and appearance) some similarity
with the formation of the Jura. It is white or of a
light yellow ochre color, brittle, sometimes conchoidal
1 This supposition of ancient riches is not unlikely, and if we
wonder at the small product of the gold washings in our days in
Cuba and St. Domingo, at the same places where, in former times,
considerable sums were found, we should remember that in Brazil,
the yield of the gold washings has fallen from 6,600 kilogrammes
to less than 595, between the years 1760 and 1820. The lumps of
gold, several pounds in weight, which have been found in our dayB,
in Florida and the two Car'olinas, demonstrate the primitive richness
of the entire valley of the Antilles, between the island of Cuba and
the Appalachian chain ; but it is natural that the yield, of the gold
washings should diminish with much greater rapidity than that of the
working of subterraneous veins. — H.

132 humboldt's CUBA.
and sometimes smooth, and lies in very thin layers
with nodules of pyrogeneous silex, often hollow
(Eio Canimar, two leagues east of Matanzas), and
petrifications of pecten, cardites, terrebratules, and
madrepores, which are not so much dispersed
through the mass as gathered in banks. I found no
layers of petrified oolites, but there were porous and
almost hollow strata, between the potrero of Count
de Mopox and the port of > Batabano, similar to the
spongy strata presented by the Jurassic limestone at
Franconia, near Dondorf, Pegnitz, and Tumbach-
Yellow cavernous strata, with holes, from three to
four inches diameter, alternate with others, entirely
compact and less abundant in petrifactions.1
The chain of hills which bounds the valley of
Guines upon the north, uniting with the hills of
Camoa and the " Tetas de Managua," appertain to the
second variety, which is of a reddish white color,
and almost lithographic, hke the Jurassic limestone at
Papenheim. The compact and the cavernous strata
contain brown, ochreous veins of iron, and perhaps
the red soil so esteemed by the coffee planters, arises
from the decomposition of some of these superficial
'As the western portion of the island has no deep fissures, this
alternation is observed, while travelling from Havana to Batabano ;
the deeper strata crop out with an inclination of 30° to 40° N.E. as
one advances. — H.

PHYSICAL ASPECT. 133
layers of oxidized iron, mixed with silica and clay
or with a red sandy marl lying upon the limestone.1
All this formation I shall call Guines limestone, to
distinguish it from another much more modem for
mation in the hills of San Juan, near Trinidad ; whose
peaks remind me of the limestone mountains of
Caripe, in the vicinity of Cumand. It contains also
great caverns near Matanzas and Jaruco. I have not
learned that any fossil bones have been found in
them. This frequency of caverns, in which the
rains accumulate and the brooks disappear, some
times causes great disasters.3 I believe the gypsum
of Cuba is not found in the tertiary, but in the
secondary formations. It is worked in many places
east of Matanzas, at San Antonio de los Banos,
where it contains sulphur, and in the cays off San
Juan de los Pemedios.
We should not confound with this Guines (Jurassic)
limestone, sometimes porous and sometimes compact,
another formation, so modern, that we may believe
it still grows in our own time. I speak of the conglo
merate limestone which I have observed in the cays
or small islands lining the coast between Batabano
and the Bay of Jagua, south of the Zapata swamp,
1 Sand and iron-sand. — H.
1 As in the case of the ruin of the old tobacco mills of the royal
monopoly. — H.

134
principally on Cay Bonito, Cay Flamenco, and Cay
de Piedras. By the soundings, we know that these
are rocks rising precipitously twenty or thirty
fathoms from the bottom. Some are level with the
sea. and others rise from one and a half to two feet
above the surface. Sharp fragments of white coral
and shells (cellularia), two or three cubic inches in
size and cemented with grains of quartz-sand, are1
there found. All the inequalities of these rocks are
covered with made earth, in which, with a lens, we
can distinguish nothing but detritus of shells and
coral. This tertiary formation corresponds, without
a doubt, to that of the coasts of Cumana, Carthagena,
and the Gran Terre de la Guadalupe, of which I
have spoken in my geognostic view of South America.
Messieurs Ohamisso and Guaimard have lately
thrown much light upon the formation of the coral
islands of the southern seas. While we see at
Havana, at the foot of the Punta fort, upon the
shore of cavernous rocks,1 covered with verdant

1 The surface of these shores, blackened and worn by the waves,
presents conical ramifications such as are found in lava currents.
The change of color caused by the waters is the effect of manganese,
the presence of which is known from the detritus. As the sea enters
the fissures of the rock and a cavern at the base of the Morro Castle,
it compresses the air and forces 'it out with an extraordinary noise,
which explains the phenomenon of the roaring banks so well known

PHYSICAL ASPECT. 135
uboes and living polipfers, large masses of madrepore,
and other lithophite corals, enclosed in the texture
• of the rock, there is reason to admit that all this
limestone rock of which the island of Cuba is in
great part composed, is the effect of an uninterrupt
ed operation of nature through the action of organic
productive forces and partial destruction, and which
continues in our time in the bosom of the ocean.
But this appearance of recent formation soon disap
pears, when we leave the shore, or when we remem
ber the series of coral rocks which the formations of
different epochs enclose, the muschelkalk, the lime
stone of the Jura, and the calcaire grossier of Paris.
The same coral rocks of the Punta castle are found
in the highest mountains in the interior of the coun
try, accompanied by petrifactions of bivalve shells,
very different from those which at present exist on
the shores of the Antilles. Without wishing to
assign with certainty to the limestone formation of
Guines a determinate place in the scale of forma
tions, I entertain no doubt as to the relative antiquity
of this rock with the conglomerate limestone of the
cays, situate south of Batabano, and east of the Isle
of Pines. The globe has experienced great revolu
tions between the epochs of these two formations,
to navigators between Jamaica and San Juan de Nicaragua, and
near the Island of St. Andrew. — H.

136 humboldt's CUBA.
one of which contains the great caverns of Matanzas
and the other is daily augmented by the accumula
tion of fragments of coral and quartz sand. The
latter of these formations seems to rest on the south
part of Cuba, sometimes on the Guines (Jurassic)
limestone, as in the Jardinillos, and at others (toward
Cape Cruz) immediately upon the primitive rock.
In the Lesser Antilles the coral has covered the
volcanic products.
Many of the cays of Cuba contain fresh water, and
I have found excellent water in the centre of Cay de
Piedras. When we remember how extremely small
these islands are, we can hardly believe that those
ponds of fresh water are rain water that has not
evaporated. Perhaps they arise from a submarine
communication between the limestone formation of
the shore, and that which has served as a base for
the collection of the lithophites : so that the fresh
water of Cuba rises by hydrostatic pressure through
the coral rock of the cays, as is the case in the bay
of Jagua, where fountains spring forth in the salt
water, and are the resort of the Manati.
East of Havana the secondary formations are
traversed by Syenite and Euphotide rocks, grouped
in a singular manner. The southern side of the bay,
as well as the northern (the hills of the Morro and
Cabana), are of Jurassic limestone ; but on the east-

PHYSICAL ASPECT. 137
ern side of the two arms — Guanabacoa and Guasa-
bacoa, the entire formation is de transition. Pass
ing southward, we find syenite near Marimelena,
composed in a large degree of hornblende, and in part
decomposed with a little quartz, and a reddish white
feldspar, which is sometimes crystallized. This beau
tiful syenite, whose masses incline to the northwest,
alternates twice with serpentine, and the intercalated
strata of this stone is seventeen or eighteen feet thick.
¦ Further south toward Pegla and Guanabacoa,
there is no syenite, and the entire surface is covered
with serpentine, in hills from 200 to 250 feet high,
running from east to west. This rock is much
fissured, its exterior being of a bluish brown color,
covered with detritus of manganese, and the interior
of leek or asparagus green traversed by small veins
of asbestos. It contains neither granite nor horn
blende, but metallized diallage is disseminated through
the mass. The serpentine breaks sometimes in leaves,
sometimes in scales, and this was the first instance
of my finding metallized diallage within the tropics.
Many of the pieces of serpentine have magnetic
poles, and others have a texture so homogeneous,
and so firm a polish, that from a distance they may
be mistaken for pitchstone, (pechstein). It is desi
rable that these beautiful masses should be used in
the arts as is done in many places in Germany.

138 humboldt's CUBA.
Approaching Guanabacoa, the serpentine is found
traversed by ve.ins twelve or fourteen inches thick,
filled with fibrous quartz, amethyst, and rich mam-
milated stalactiform chalcedony; perhaps chryso-
prase will some day be found with them. Among
these veins some copperish pyrites appear, which
are said to be- mixed with an- argentiferous grey
copper ore. I found no vestiges of this grey copper
ore, and it is probably metallized diallage, which,
for ages have given the hills of Guanabacoa the
reputation of containing much gold and silver.
Petroleum exudes in some places through the
fissures in the serpentine.1 Springs are frequent
]Are there in the bay of Havana other petroleum springs than
those of Guanabacoa, or should we suppose that the liquid betun,
used by Sebastian Ocampo, in 1508, when he careened his vessels
here, have become dry ? It was this that attracted the attention of
Ocampo to the port of Havana, when he gave it the name of
" Puerto de Carenas." It is said that abundant petroleum springs
have been found in the eastern part of the island, between Holguin
and Mayari, and on the shores of St. Jago de Cuba. A small island,
Signapa, has recently been found, near Point Hicacos, which
presents to the eye solid, terreous petroleum only ; this mass recalls
to the mind the asphaltum of Valorbe, in the limestone of the Jura.
Does the serpentine formation of the Guanabacoa recur in the Ruby
hill, near Bahia Honda? The hills of Regla and Guanabacoa
present to the botanist, at the feet of royal palms, Xatrofa
panduraefolia ; X. integerrima Jacq ; X. fragrans ; Petiveria
alliacia ; Pisonia loranthoides ; Lantana involucrata ; Russelia

PHYSICAL ASPECT. 139
there, the water of which contains a httle sulphured
ed hydrogen and deposits oxide of iron. The baths
of Bareto are very agreeable, but their temperature
is very nearly that of the atmosphere. The geognos-
tic constitution of that group of serpentine is worthy
of particular attention from its isolation, its veins,
its connection with the syenite, and its elevation
through formations filled with petrified shells.
A feldspar, with base of soda (compact feldspar),
forms, with diallage, -the euphotide and serpentine
rocks ; with hypersthene it forms hypersthenite ; with
hornblende, diorite ; with augite, dolerite and basalt ;
and with granite, eclogite. . These five rocks dis
persed throughout the globe, charged with oxidized
iron and mixed with sphene, have in all probability
a similar origin. In the euphotides two formations
are easily distinguishable ; one wanting hornblende,
even when it alternates with hornblende rocks (Joria
in Piedmont, Kegla in Cuba), and abounding in pure
serpentine, metallized diallage, and sometimes jasper
(Tuscany, Saxony); and the other heavily charged
sarmentosa ; Ehretia havanensis ; Cordia globosa ; Convolvulus
pinnatifidus ; C. ealycinus ; Bignonia lepidota ; Lagascea mollis
Car. ; Malpighia cubensis ; Triopteris lucida ; Zanthoxylum ; Pte-
rota ; Myrtus tuberculata ; Mariscus havanensis ; Andropogon ave-
naceus Schrad. ; Olyra latifolia ; Chloris cruciata ; and a large
bumber of Banisteria, whose gilded flowers adorn the scene. — See
our Morula Cubm insula, in the Nov. Genera Spec.— -H.

140 humboldt's CUBA.
with hornblende often giving way to diorite, without
jasper, in layers, and sometimes containing rich
veins of copper (Silesia, Mussinet in Piedmont, Pyre
nees, Parapara in Yehezuela, Copper mountains of
Western America). This last-named formation of
the euphotides is that which, from its mixture with
diorite, blends with hypersthenite, in which, in Scot
land and Norway, strata of true serpentine is some
times found. No volcanic rocks of a more recent
epoch, as, for example, trachytes, solerite, and basalt,
have been discovered in the island of Cuba ; and I
am not aware if there are any in the other Great
Antilles, whose geognostic constitution differs essen
tially from that of the series of limestone and volcanic
islands, that extends from the island of Trinidad to
the Yirgin Isles.
Earthquakes are much less disastrous in Cuba
than in Puerto Pico and Haiti, and are experienced
most in the eastern part between Cape Maysi, St.
Jago de Cuba, and Puerto Principe. Perhaps there
extends toward those regions some lateral action
from the great fissure which is believed to extend
across the granitic tongue of land between Port au
Prince and Cape Tiburon (in St.-Domingo), in which
entire mountains were sunk in 1770.1 The cavern-

1 Dupuget, in the •' Diario de Minas," vol. I. p. 58, and Leopold de
Buch, Phy. Beschr der Canar. Inseln., 1825, p. 403.— H.

PHYSICAL ASPECT. 141
ous texture of the limestone formations which I have
just described, the great inclination of its strata, the
small width of the island, the frequent absence of
trees in the plains, and the proximity of the moun
tains, where they form an elevated chain near the
southern coast, may be considered as the principal
causes of the want of rivers, and of the absence of
moisture which are experienced, particularly in the
western part of Cuba. In this respect Haiti, Jamaica,
and many other of the Lesser Antilles which have
volcanic peaks covered with woods, are much more
gifted by nature.
The lands most celebrated for their fertility are
those of the districts of Jagua, Trinidad, and Mariel.
The valley of Guines owes its reputation' in this
respect entirely to its artificial irrigation .by means
of canals. Notwithstanding the absence of deep
rivers and the unequal fertility of the soil, the island
of Cuba presents on every hand a most varied and
agreeable country from its undulating character, its •
ever-springing verdure, and the variety of its vegeta
ble formations. Two kinds of trees with large flexible
and shining leaves, five species of palms' (the Royal
palm, or Oreodoxia regia, the Coco comun, the Coco
crispa, the Coripha miraguama, and the C. mari
tima), and small bushes, ever laden with flowers,
adorn the hills and vales. The Cecropia peltata

142

marks the humid places, and we might believe that
the entire island was originally a forest of palms
and wild lime, and orange trees. These last, which
have a small fruit, are probably anterior to the
arrival of the Europeans,1 who carried there the
agrumi of the gardens, which rarely exceed ten or
fifteen feet in height.
The lime and the orange do not usually grow
together, and when the new settlers clear the land
they distinguish the quality of the soil according as
it bears one or other of these social plants ; and the
soil that bears the orange is preferred to that which
produces the small lime. In a country where the
operations of the sugar plantations have not been so
well perfected that they need no other fuel than the
bagass, this progressive destruction of the small
clumps of wood is a real calamity. The arid nature
of the soil is increased in proportion as it is stripped
of the trees which serve to shield it from the hot rays
of the sun, and whose leaves radiating their caloric
1 The well-informed inhabitants state, with pride, that the culti
vated orange brought from Asia preserves its size and all the pro
perties of its fruit when it becomes wild. (This also is the opinion
of Sefior Gallesio.— " Traite du Citrus," p. 32). The Brazilians do
not doubt that the small bitter orange, which bears the name of
naranjo do terra, and is found wild far from the habitations, is of
American origin. — Caldcleugh's Travels in South America, vol. I.
p. 25.— H.

PHYSICAL ASPECT. 143
against an ever clear sky, cause a precipitation of the
watery vapor from the cooled air.
Among the few rivers worthy of notice, we may cite
that of Guines, the waters of which it was intended, in
1798, to turn into the canal for hght draught naviga
tion, that was to have crossed the island under the
meridian of Batabano ; the Almendares or Chorrera,
whose waters are carried to Havana by the zanja de
Antonelli; the Cauto, north of the city of Bayamo;
the Maximo, which rises east of Puerto Principe ;
tlfe Sagua la Grande, near Yilla Clara ; the Palmas,
which empties into the sea opposite to Cay Galindo ;
the smaller rivers of Jaruco and Santa Cruz, between
Guanabo and Matanzas, which are navigable for some
miles from their mouths, and facilitate the embarca-
tion of sugar; the San Antonio, which, hke many
others, disappears in the caverns of the limestone
rock ; the Guaurabo, west of the port of Trinidad ;
and the Galafre, in the fertile Filipinas district,
emptying into the Bay of Cortes.
The southern side of the island is most abundant in
springs, where, from Jagua to Point Sabina, a dis
tance of forjy-six leagues, the country is a continuous
swamp. The abundance of water that filtrates
through the fissures of the stratified rock is so great,
that from the hydrostatic pressure, springs are found
in- the sea at some distance from the coast.

144

The lands in the district of Havana are not the
most fertile, and the few sugar plantations that were
near the capital have been turned into grazing farms,
and fields of corn and forage, the demand for the
city making them very profitable. Agriculturists in
Cuba recognize two classes of land which are often
found intermixed like the squares of a chess-board ;
the black or brown soil, which is argillaceous, and
highly charged with sooty exhalations, and the red
land, which is a strong soil and mixed with oxide of
iron. Although the black land is generally preferred
for the cultivation of the sugar cane, because it pre
serves its moisture better, and the red land for the
coffee tree, yet many sugar plantations have been
made in the red lands.
[Note. The geology of Cuba is still very imper
fectly known, no systematic examination of its sur
face having been made, and the board appointed to
compile the "Cuadro Estadistico" of 1846 stated,
that in regard to this portion of their labors they
could do little more than reproduce the remarks
accompanying the " Cuadro " of 1827. Besides the
observations of Baron Humboldt, Don Francisco
Eamirez, and Don Pamon de la Sagra have been
the principal scientific writers on this subject; the
former having travelled through a portion of the east- .

PHYSICAL ASPECT. 145
ern department, early in the present century, and
the latter having resided several years previous to
1833, at Havana, where he was director of the
Botanic Garden. From these sources we obtain the
following information in relation to its mineral
resources. Cold. — During the earlier years of settlement gold
washings and mines were worked by native Indians,
and Pedro Martir de Angleria, one of the most learn
ed of the early historians of America, states that
Cuba was more rich in gold than St. Dommgo. The
knowledge of the mines has been lost, though one is
said to exist near Trinidad ; but small quantities of
gold are still washed out from the sands of the rivers
Damuji and Caonao, emptying into the bay of Jagua,
the Sagua la Grande and Agabama, near the Escam-
bray hills, the Saramaguacan, running into the bay
of Nuevitas, and brooks in the vicinity of Holguin,
Bayamo and Nipe. It is said to have been found
formerly near San Juan de los Pemedios.
Silmer has been found in combination with copper
near Yilla Clara, yielding seven and a half ounces to
the hundred pounds of ore.
Quicksil/oer is said to have been extracted in
former times from the arid savannas of the Copey
hacienda, near San Juan de los Pemedios.
Copper abounds through a great part of the island,
7

146

and more than one hundred mines have been enter
ed, in accordance with the law, at the Treasury de
partment, though but few of them are worked at
present. The ores of those near St. Jago de Cuba
have yielded at one time seventy-five per cent, of
copper. Iron has been found in several places, among
which are NueVa Filipina, Bahia Honda, Jaruco,
Villa Clara, Santi Espiritu, Holguin, St. Jago de
Cuba, and Baracoa. An analysis of a vein near St.
Jago de Cuba yielded twenty-six per cent, of .metal.
Plumbago is found in combination with iron, near
St. Jago de Cuba.
Copperas is also found in the same vicinity.
Antimony, with Lead, is said to exist near Hol
guin. Talc and Amianthus exist in the vicinity of Trini
dad, Holguin, and Santi Espiritu.
Ochre is found at Manzanillo, St. Jago de Cuba,
Santa Maria del Posario, and Guanabacoa.
Chrome. — Deposits of this pigment have been
worked near Holguin.
Chalk exists at Manzanillo, and near Moron.
Grindstone and Whetstone, in great varieties, are
found at Nueva Filipina, and in many places in the
eastern part of the island.
Coal has been often sought, but hitherto without

PHYSICAL ASPECT. 147
success. Yeins of solidified asphaltum (betun) exist in
many places. Several analyses have been made of
this substance ; that of Guanabacoa, near Havana,
giving — Volatile matter  63
Carbon  35
Ashes and residuum  2
100
It burns with great flame and smoke, but cakes
very much, and leaves a hght, bulky coke. Its spe
cific gravity is 1.14. Specimens from the veins near
Guanabo were analyzed by Seiior Sagra, in 1828,
giving— Volatile matter   28
Carbon  60
Ashes and residuum  12
100
Specific gravity, 1.18.
Marble is found in great abundance in many
places. Loadstone exists also in large quantities.
Moulding sand, of fiqe quality, abounds in Nueva
Filipina. Mineral springs are found in many parts of the
island, some of which have great renown among the
inhabitants for their sanative properties. The most
celebrated are the following :

148 r humboldt's CUBA.
San Diego, forty leagues S.W. from Havana. The
water of the two springs, Tigre and Templado, comes
from the earth with a temperature of 95° Far. Their
analysis by Senor Esteves gave to one pound of
water, 0.46 grains sulphureted hydrogen, 10.5 sul
phate of lime, 1. hydrochlorate of magnesia, and
1. carbonate of magnesia.
Madruga, fifteen leagues S.E. from Havana. The
water is of lower temperature than that of San Diego,
but similar in its qualities.
Guanabacoa, one league"from Havana. There are
several springs here : ihat of Tarraco being similar
to the waters of Madruga ; Bano de la Condesa, of
like qualities, but more highly charged with sul
phureted hydrogen; the water of the Amber well
(de succimo), so called from its amber taste and odor,
is esteemed as a stomachic tonic ; the baths of Bar-
reto, Espanol, Cassanova, &c, are highly recom
mended. No analysis has been made of these waters,
but they are all more or less charged with magnesia,
nitre, and oxide^of iron.
Mayajigua, nineteen leagues from San Juan de los
Remedios. The water of this spring has a very great
local reputation. It presents the phenomenon of
being about fifteen degrees warmer in the morning
and evening than at other hours.
Guadalupe, sixteen leagues from Santi Espiritu;

PHYSICAL ASPECT. * 149
not analyzed, but similar to the waters of Guana
bacoa. Camuji/ro, two and a half leagues from Puerto
Principe. The water is highly charged with iron,
and being very tonic, is highly esteemed.
The waters of several streams in Cuba are reputed
to possess mineral qualities, and to produce medi-.
cinal effects upon bathers.
We close this imperfect view of the geology and
mineral resources of Cuba with the following analysis
of some of the celebrated Tobacco lands, as given by
Don Ramon de la Sagra;
San Diego de los Baiios, two localities : —
Organic matter  18.40 23.20
Silica.....  70.80 68.20
Lime   0.40 4.60
Alumina  0.40 vestiges.
Oxide of iron  10.00 4.00
100.00 100.00
Yuelta de Abajo, two localities :
Organic matter  9.60 4.60
Silica  86.40 90.80
Lime  0.00 vestiges.
Alumina . . . .'  0.68 3.40
Oxide of iron  1.92 1.20
Loss  1-40 0.00
100.00 100.00

150*

CHAPTER HI.
CLIMATE.
General remarks — Mean temperature — Means of heat and cold-
Summer solstice — Peculiarities of winter — Compared with Macao
and Rio Janeiro-^-Fires not needed — Hail — General remarks
— Anomalies of vegetation— The pine of Cuba — Identity with that
of Mexico — Temperature in the interior and at Havana — Compari
son with Cumana — Ice — Snow never seen in Cuba — Sudden changes
at Havana — Internal heat of the earth— Oscillations of thermome
ter and barometer connected — Barometrical altitudes — Hurricanes.
— [Note. — Hurricanes of 1844 and 1845 — Rain gauge and Hygro
meter — Atmospherical phenomena — Cloudy and fair days — Effect
of climate on vegetation.]
The climate of Havana is that which corresponds
to the extreme limit of the torrid zone ; it is a tropical
climate, in which the unequal distribution of heat
through the various seasons of the year presages the
transition to the climates of the temperate zone.
Calcutta (N. lat. 22° 34'), Canton (N. lat. 23° 8'),
Macao (N. lat. 22° 12'), Havana (N. kt. 23° 9'), and
Rio Janeiro (S. lat. 22° 54'), are places whose
location at the level of the ocean and near the
tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, being equi-dis-

climate. ¦ 151
tant from the equator, makes them of the greatest
importance in the study of meteorology. This science
can advance only by the determination of certain
numerical elements, which are the indispensable
basis of the laws we wish to discover. As the
appearance of vegetation on the confines of the
torrid zone and under the equator is the same, we
are accustomed vaguely to confound the climates of
the zones comprised between the 0° and 10°, and 15°
and 23° of latitude. The region of the palm, the
banana, and the arborescent grasses, extends far
beyond the tropics, but we should err in applying
the result of our observations on the limit of the
torrid zone, to the phenomena we may observe
in the plains under the equator.
It is important to establish first, in order to correct
these errors, the means of temperature for the year
and the months, as also the oscillations of the
thermometer at different stations under the parallel
of Havana ; and by an exact comparison with other
places equally distant from the equator, Rio Janeiro
and Macao, for example, to" demonstrate that the
great decline of temperature which has been observed
in Cuba, is owing to the descent and irruption of the
masses of cold air which flow from the temperate
zones toward the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
The mean temperature of Havana, as shown bv

152

HUMBOLDT 8 CUBA.

excellent observations made through four years, is
25°.7 centigrade (78°.25 Fahrenheit), being only 2°
C. (3°.6 F.) lower than that of the regions of
America under the equator. The proximity of the
sea increases the mean temperature of the coasts, but
in the interior of the island, where the northern
winds penetrate with equal force, and where the
land has the slight elevation of 250 feet, the mean
temperature does not exceed 23° C. (73°.4 F.), which
is not greater than that of Cairo and all Lower Egypt.
The difference between the mean temperature of
the hottest month and that of the coldest is 12° C.
(21°.6 F.) in Havana, and 8° C. (14°.4 F.) in the
interior, while at Cumana, it is barely 3° C. (5°.4
F.) July and August, which are the hottest
months attain in Cuba a mean temperature of 28°. 8
C. (83°.8 F.), and perhaps even 29°.5 C. (85°. 1 F.)}
as under the equator.
The coldest months are December and January;
their mean temperature is 17° C. (62°.6 F.) in the
interior of the island, and 21° C. (69°.8 F.), in
Havana, that is, from 5° C. to 8° C. (9° F.), (14°.4
F.) less than during the same months under the
equator, but yet 3° C. (5°.4 F.) higher than that of the
hottest month in Paris.
As regards the extremes touched by the centigrade
thermometer in the shade, the same fact is observed

CLIMATE. 153
near the limits of the torrid zone that characterizes
the regions nearer the equator (between 0° and 10°
of north and south latitude) ; a thermometer which
had been observed in Paris at 38°.4 (101° F.), does
not rise at Cumana above 33° (91°.4 F.) ; at Yera
Cruz it has touched 32° (89°.6 F.), but once in
thirteen years. At Havana, during three years,
(1810-1812), Seiior Ferrer found it to oscillate only
between 16° and 30° (61° and 86° F.). Seiior
Robredo, in his manuscript notes, which I have in
my possession, cites as a notable event that the
temperature in 1801 rose to 34°.4 (94° F.), while in
Paris, according to the interesting investigations of
Mons. Arago, the extremes of temperature between
36°.7 and 38° (97°.9 and 100°.4 F.) have been
reached four times in ten years, (1793-1803.)
The great proximity of the days on which the sun
passes the zenith of those places situate near the
limit of the torrid zone, makes the heat at times
very intense upon the coast of Cuba, and in all those
places comprised between the parallels of 20° and
23£°, not so much as regards entire months as for a
term of a few* days. In ordinary years the thermo
meter never rises in August above 28° or 30° C.
(82°.4 or 86° F.), and I have known the inhabi
tants complain of excessive heat when it rose to 31°
C. (87°.8 F.) 7*

154 humboldt's CUBA.
It seldom happens in winter that the temperature
falls to 10° or 12° C. (50° to 53°.6 F.), but when the
north wind prevails for several weeks, bringing the
cold air of Canada, ice is sometimes formed at night,
in the interior of the island, and in the plain near
Havana. From the observations of Messrs. Wells
and Wilson, we may suppose that this effect is
produced by the radiation of caloric when the
thermometer stands at 5° C. (41° F.), and even 9° C.
(48°. 2 F.) above zero. This formation of a thick ice
' very near the level of the sea, is more worthy the
attention of naturalists from the fact, that at
Caraccas (10° 31' N. lat.), at an elevation of 300
feet, the temperature of the atmosphere has never
fallen below 11° O. (41°.8 F.) ; and that yet nearer
to the equator we have to ascend 8,900 feet to see ice
form. We also observe that between Havana and
St. Domingo, and between Batabano and Jamaica,
there is a difference of only 4° or 5° of latitude, and
yet, in St. Domingo, Jamaica, Martinique, and
Guadalupe, the minimum temperature in the plains
is from 18°.5 to 20°.5 O. (65°.3 to 68°.9 F.)
It will be interesting to compare the climate of Ha
vana with that of Macao and Rio de Janeiro, one simi
larly situated near the northern extreme of the torrid
zone, but on the eastern shore of Asia, and the other
near the southern limit of the torrid zone, on the

climate. 155
eastern shore of America. The means of temperature
at Rio Janeiro are deduced from three thousand five
hundred observations made by .Senor Benito Sanchez
Dorta ; those of Macao from twelve hundred observa
tions which the Abbe Richenet has kindly sent me.

Menu. Havana, Macao, Rio Janeiro,
N. lat. 28° 9'. N. lat. 22* 12'. . S. lat. 22° 54'.
For the year, 78°26 F. 73°.94F. 74°.30 F.
" " hottest month, 83°.84 F. 83°12 F. 80°.96 F.
" " coldest " 69°.98F. 61°88 F. 68° F.

The climate of Havana, notwithstanding the
frequent prevalence of. north and northwest winds,
is warmer than either that of Macao or Rio
Janeiro. The first named of these places is some
what cold, because of the west winds which prevail
along the eastern shores of the great continent. The
proximity of very broad stretches of land, covered
with mountains and high plains, makes the distribu
tion of heat through the months of the year, more
unequal at Macao and Canton, than in an island •
bordered by sea-shores upon the west, and on the
north by the heated waters of the Gulf Stream. Thus
it is that at Canton and Macao the winters are much
more severe than at Havana.
The mean temperatures of December, January,
February, and March, at Canton, in 1801, were be-

156

tween 15° and 17°.3 (59° and 62° F.); at Macao,
between 16°.6 and 20° (61°.9 and 68° F.) ; while at
Havana they were generally between 21° and 24°.3
(69°.8 and 75°.7) ; yet the latitude of Macao is one
degree south of that of Havana, and the latter city
and Canton are on the same parallel, with a differ
ence of one mile, a little more or less. But although
the isothermal lines, or lines of equal heat, are
convex toward the pole in the system of climates
of Eastern Asia, as also in the system of cldmates of-
Eastern America, the cold on the same geographical
parallel is greater in Asia.1 The Abbe* Richenet,
who used the excellent mttmvnmm and mi/nim/wm
thermometer of Six, has observed it to fall even to
3°.3 and 5° (38° and 41° F.), in the nine years, from
1806 to 1814.
At Canton, the thermometer sometimes falls to
0° C. (32° F.), and from the radiation of caloric, ice
is formed on the roofs of the houses. Although
this excessive cold .never last more than one day,
the English merchants residing at Canton light fires
1 The difference of climate is so great on the eastern and western
shores of -the old continent, that in Canton, lat. 23°.8', the mean
annual temperature is 22°.9 (63°.2 F.), while at Santa Cruz de
Teneriffe, lat. 28°. 28', it is 23°8 (74°8 F., according to Buch and
Escolar. Canton, situate upon an eastern coast, enjoys a conti
nental climate. Teneriffe is an island near the western coast of
Africa. — H.

CLIMATE. 157
during the months of November, December, and
January, while at Havana fires are never needed.
Hail of large size frequently falls in the Asiatic coun
tries round Canton and in Macao, while at Havana
fifteen years will pass without a single fall of hail.
In all three of these places the thermometer will some
times stand for hours between.O0 and -4° C. (32° and
39°.7F.); yet notwithstanding (which seems to me
more strange), it has never been known to snow; and
although the temperature falls so low, the banana
and the palm grow as well in the neighborhoods of
Canton, Macao, and Havana, as in the plains imme
diately under the equator.
In the present state of the world it is an advantage
to the study of meteorology, that we can gather so
many numerical elements of the climates of coun
tries situate almost immediately under the tropics.
The five great cities of the commercial world — Can
ton, Macao, Calcutta, Havana, and Rio Janeiro, are
found in this position. ' Besides these, we have in the
Northern hemisphere, Muscat, Syene, New Santan
der, Durango, and the Northern Sandwich Islands ;
in the Southern hemisphere — Bourbon, Isle of France,
and the port of Cobija, between Copiapo and Arica,
.places much frequented . by Europeans, and which
present to the naturalist "the same advantages of
position as Rio Janeiro and Havana.

158 i
Climatology advances slowly, because we gather
by chance the results obtained at points of the globe
where the civilization of man is just beginning its
development. These points form small groups, sepa
rated from each other by immense spaces of lands
unknown to the meteorologist. In order to attain a
knowledge of the laws of nature regulating the dis
tribution of heat in the world, we must give to
observation a direction in conformity with the needs
of a nascent science, and ascertain its most impor
tant numerical data. New Santander, upon the
eastern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, probably has a
mean temperature lower than that of the Island of
Cuba, for the atmosphere there must participate,
during the cold of winter, in the effects of the great
continent extending towards the northwest.
On the other hand, if we leave the system of cli
mates of Western America, if we pass the lake^ or,
more strictly speaking, the submerged valley of the
Atlantic, and fix our attention upon the coasts of
Africa, we find that in the cis-Atlantic system of
climates upon the western borders of the old conti
nent, the isothermal lines are again raised, being
convex towards the pole. The tropic of Cancer
passes between Cape Bojador and Cape Blanco,
near the river Ouro, upSh the inhospitable confines
of the desert of Sahara, and the mean temperature

CLIMATE. 159
of those countries is necessarily hotter than that of
Havana, for the double reason of their position upon
a western coast, and the proximity of the desert,
which reflects the heat, and scatters particles of sand
in the atmosphere.
We have already seen that the great decimations
of temperature in the island of Cuba are of so short
duration, that neither the banana, the sugar-cane,
nor the other productions of the torrid zone, suffer
the slightest detriment. Every one is aware how
readily plants, that have great organic vigor, sustain
momentary cold, and that the orange-trees in the
vicinity of Genoa resist snow-storms and a degree
of cold not lower than 6° or 7° C. below zero (21°.2
or 19°.4F. above zero).
As the vegetation of Cuba presents an identity of
character with that of regions near the equator, it is
very extraordinary to find there, even in the plains,
a vegetation of the colder climates, identical with
that of the mountains of Southern Mexico. In other
works, I have called the attention of botanists to
this extraordinary phenomenon in the geography of
plants. The pine (pinus occidentalis), is not found
in the Lesser Antilles, and according to Mr. Robert
Brown, not even in Jamaica (between 17f 2 and 18°
of latitude), notwithstanding the elevation of the
Blue Mountains in that island. Further north only

160 humboldt's CUBA.
do we begin to find it, in the mountains of St.
Domingo, and throughout the island of Cuba, which
extend from 20° to 23° of latitude. There, it attains
a height of sixty or seventy feet, and what is still
more strange, the pine and the mahogany grow side
by side in the plains of the Isle of Pines. The pine
is also found in the southeastern part of Cuba, on
the sides of the Cobre Mountains, where the soil is
arid and sandy.
The interior plain of Mexico is covered with this
same class of coniferas, if we may rely upon the
comparison made by Bonpland and myself, with the
specimens we brought from Acaguisotla, the snow
mountain of Toluca, and the Cofre of Perote, for
these do not seem to differ specifically from the
pvnus occidentalis of the Antilles,, as described by
Schwartz. But these pines, which we find at the
level of the sea in Cuba, between the 20° and 22° of
latitude, and only upon its southern side, do not
descend lower than 3,200 feet above that level upon
the Mexican continent, between the parallels of 17£°
and 19£°. I have even observed that on the road
from Perote to Jalapa, on the eastern mountains of
Mexico, opposite to Cuba, the limit of the pines is
5,950 feet, while on the western mountains, between
Chilpancingo and Acapulco, near Cuasiniquilapa,
two degrees further south, it descends to 3,900 feet,

CLIMATE. 161
and at some points, perhaps, even to the line of
2,860 feet.
These anomalies of position are very rare under
the torrid zone, and depend probably less on the
temperature than on the soil. In the system of the
migration of plants, we should suppose that the
pinus occidentaUs of Cuba had come from Yucatan,
before the opening of the channel between Cape
Catoche and Cape San Antonio, and not, by any
means, from the United States, although the conifer
ous plants abound there, for the species of whose
geography we are treating has not yet been found in
Florida. The following table exhibits the results of observa
tions of temperature, made at TTbajay, in Cuba.

January,

1796.
65° F.

1797.
64° F.

1798.
68° F

1799.
61° F.

February,

72

66

69

63 „

March,

71

64

68}

64

April,

74

68

70

68

May,

78*

77

73,

76

June,

80

81

83

85

July,

82i

80

85

87

August,

83

84

82

84

September,

81

81J

80

86

October,

78

75i

79i

73

November,

75

70

71

61

December, •

. 63

67*

60

59

Mean,

75°.2

73°.2

740.2

71°.4

162

The village of ITbajay, as I have before said, lies
about five maritime leagues from Havana, in a plain
242 feet above the level of the sea. The partial
mean temperature of December, 1795, was 18°.6 C.
(65°.84 F.) ; that of January and February, 1800,
had varied from 13°.8 C. (56°.84 F.) to 18°.9 0.
(66°.12 F.) by Nairne's thermometer.
MEAN OF OBSEKVATIONS AT HAVANA.

1800.

1810-12.

January,

—

70OF.

February,

—

720

March,

70° F

790

April,

720.9

780.6

May,

77°.9

820.2

June,

86°

820.7

July,

860.5

820.9

August,

82°.9

83°.4

September,

79°

820.6

October,

790.9

790.5

November,

720.

750.6

December,

740.8

70°

Mean, 780.3 78°.3

Comparison betweeen the mean temperature in the
interior and on the shore of Cuba and at Cumand, in
South America. See following table.

CLIMATE.

m

December to February . .

Ubajay, int.
of Cuba.
.. 640.4 F.

Havana coast. 71°.2

Cumand
N. lat 10* 27'
80O.4

March to May 

. .71°.2

790.2

83°.7

..810.8

83Q.3

82O.0

September to November

,.74°.8 730.2

78°.6
780.3

820.6

810.7
830.5
70O.0 830.4
790.2
Hottest '• 
84°.4
At Rome, N. lat. 4lo 53'— Mean temp  59o F.
" " Hottest month  77O.0
" " Coldest "  , 42o.3
During the last fifteen days of the jear 1800, I
observed the centigrade thermometer almost con
stantly between 10° and 15° (50° and 59° F). • At
the hacienda Rio Blanco (in Cuba), it fell in January
to 7°.5 C. (45°.5 F.) In the country near Havana,
on a hill 318 feet above the level of the sea, water
has frozen, the ice being several lines in thickness.
Seiior Robredo informed me of this fact, which
again occurred in December, 1812, after a preva
lence of very strong northerly winds for nearly a
month. As it snows in the flat countries of Europe, when
the thermometer is several degrees above zero,
(32° F.), it is surprising that in no part of this island,
nor even in the hills of San Juan, nor in the high
mountains of Trinidad, has it ever been known to
164 humboldt's CUBA.
show ; and frost is known only on the crests of these
hills and of the Copper Mountains. We must suppose
that other conditions than the rapid fall of tempera
ture in the upper regions of the air are needed for it
to hail and snow.
I have stated elsewhere that it haB never been
known to hail at Cumand, and very rarely in
Havana, happening only once in fifteen years, during
violent electrical explosions and S.S.W. winds. At
Kingston, Jamaica, the fall of the thermometer at
sunrise to 20°.5 (69° F.), is cited as an extraordinary
phenomenon. In that island we must ascend the
Blue Mountains to the height of 7,325 feet, to see
it fall to 8°.3 (47° F.) in the month of August. At
Cumana, 10° N. lat,, I have not known the ther
mometer to to fall to 20°.8 (69°.4F.).
Changes of temperature occur very suddenly in
Havana. In April, 1804, the variation of the ther
mometer in the shade, within the space of three
hours, was from 32°.2 to 23°.4C. (89° to 74°.1F.),
that is, 9° C. (16°.2 F.), which is very considerable
in the torrid zone, and twice as great as the varia
tion found on the coast of Colombia, further south.
The inhabitants of Havana (N. lat. 23° 8') complain
of cold when the temperature falls" rapidly to 21° C.
(69°.8 F.), and in Cumana' (N. lat. 10° 28'), when it
falls to 23° C. (73°.4 F.) In April, 1804, water sub-

CLIMATE. 165
jected to rapid evaporation of heat, and which was
deemed very cool, stood at 24°.4 0. (75°.9 F.), while
the mean temperature of the air was 29°. 3 C.
(84°.7F.) A collection of many careful observations of the
internal heat of the earth on the confines of the tor
rid zone, would be interesting. In the caverns of
the limestone formation, near San Antonio de Beita
(Cuba), and in the springs of the Chorrera river, I
have found it to be between 22° and 23° C. (71°.6
and 73°.4F.), and Seiior Ferrer observed it at
24°.4 C. (75°.9 F.) in a well one hundred feet deep.
These observations, which perhaps have not been
made under advantageous circumstances, show a
temperature of the earth much lower than that of
the air, which is seen to be 25°.7 C. (78°.3 F.) at
Havana, and 23° C. (73°.4 F.) in the interior of the
island, at an elevation of 255 feet. These results do
not conform with observations made at other places
in the temperate and glacial zones. Do the very
deep currents which carry the water of the poles
towards the regions of the equator, diminish the in
ternal temperature of the earth in islands of narrow
f
breadth ? We have treated this delicate question in
relating our experience in the caverns of Guacharo,
near Caripe. It is stated that in the wells of Kings
ton, Jamaica, and the low lands of Guadalupe, the

166 humboldt's CUBA.
thermometer has been observed at 27°.7, 28°.6, and
27°.2 C. (81°9, 83°.5, and 81° F.), consequently at a
temperature equal to that of the air at these places.
The great changes of temperature to which coun
tries on the borders of the torrid zone are subject,
have a connection with certain oscillations of the
barometer, which are not observed in the regions
near the equator. At Havana, as well as at Yera
Cruz, the regular variations of atmospheric pressure
experienced at determinate hours of the day, are
interrupted when strong northerly winds prevail.
I have observed that the barometer in Cuba gene
rally stands, when the sea-breeze is blowing, at 0.765,
and that it fell to 0.756, and even lower, when the
south wind blew.
It has been stated in another place, that the mean
barometrical altitudes of the months when the baro
meter is highest (December and January), vary in
respect to the months when the barometer is lowest
(August and September), from 7 to 8 millimetres,
that is to say, almost as much as at Paris, and five
or six times more than at the equator, and 10° north
and south latitude.
Mean altitude.— December  0.76656 or 22.1 Cent, of T.
" January  0.76809 " 21.2 "
" July  0.76453 " 28.5 "
"' August  0.76123 " 28.8

CLIMATE.

167

During the three years 1810-1812, when Senor
Ferrer took the mean altitudes, the extreme varia
tion on those days when the mercury rose or fell
most in the barometer, did not exceed thirty milli
metres. In order to exhibit the accidental oscilla
tions of each month, I present here the table of
Observations in 1801, in the hundredth parts of an
English inch, according to the manuscript notes of
Don Antonio Robredo.

Maximum. ]
Januarys 30.35

Minimum. 29.96

Mean. Mean.
temperature.
30.24 14.5 R.

February,

30.38

30.01

30.2C

15.6

March,

30.41

30.20

30.32

15.5

April,

30.39

30.32

30.35

17.2

May,

30.44

30.38

30.39

19.4

June,

30.36

30.33

30.34

22.2

July,

29.38

29.52

30.22

22.4

August,

30.26

30.12

30.16

22.8

September,

29.18

29.82

30.12

21.0

October,

30.16

30.04

30.08

18.6

November,

30.18

30.09

30.12

16.5

December,

30.26

30.02

30.08

12.1.

Hurricanes are less frequent in Cuba than in St.
Domingo, Jamaica, and the Lesser Antilles situate
east and south of Cape Cruz; for we should not
confound the violent north winds with the hurricanes,
which most generally blow from the S.S.Bj or the

168
S.S.W. At the time 1 visited the island of Cuba, nc
hurricane had occurred since the month of August,
1774, for the _gale of the 2d November, 1796, was
too light to be so called.
The season when these violent and terrible move
ments of the atmosphere occur in Cuba, during
which a furious wind prevails, varying to every
point of the compass, and frequently accQmpanied
by lightning and hail, is during the last of August,
the month of September, and particularly that of
October. In St. Domingo and the Caribbean Isles,
those most feared by seamen occur during July,
August, September, and the first fifteen days of
October. Hurricanes are most frequent there in the
month of August, so that this phenomenon manifests
itself later as we proceed toward the west.
Yiolent southeast winds also prevail at Havana,
during the month of March. No one in the Antilles
acknowledges that the hurricanes have their regular
periods. Seventeen occurred from 1770 to 1795,
while from 1788 to 1804, none were experienced in
Martinique. In the year 1642, three occurred.
It is worthy of notice that at the two extremities
of the long cordillera of the Antilles (the S.E. and
N.W.), hurricanes are least frequent. The islands
of Tobago and Trinidad, happily, never experience
them, and in Cuba, these violent ruptures of the

CLIMATE. 169
atmospheric equilibrium rarely occur. When they
do happen, the destruction they cause is greater at
sea than on the land, and more upon the southern
and southeastern coast, than upon the northern and
northwestern. In 1527, the famous expedition of
Panfiio de Narvaez was partly destroyed by one in
the harbor of Trinidad de Cuba.
[Note. — Since the visit of Baron Humboldt to Cuba,
in the beginning of the present century, only two
hurricanes have been experienced there. The first
of these occurred on the 4th and 5th of October,
1844. It began about ten o'clock on the evening of
the 4th, and continued with great violence until
daylight, when the point of greatest descent of the
barometer, 28.27, was observed. From that time,
it subsided, and the torrents of rain began to cease,
but the wind continued to blow with great violence
until 10 A.M. This storm passed over all the zone
of country comprised between Bahia Honda and
Sierra Morena- on the north, and Galafre and Cien
fuegos on the south side of Cuba. One hundred and
fifty-eight vessels were wrecked in the harbors and
on the coasts, and one hundred and one lives were
lost. The crops suffered severely, and 2,546 houses
were destroyed. The second hurricane occurred in
the following year, and was more destructive than
8

170

HUMBOLDT S CUBA.

the preceding one. It began about midnight of the
10th October, and increased in violence, with tor
rents of rain and spray, until 10 30 A.M. of the
11th, when the barometer had fallen to 27.06, the
lowest point it has ever been known to touch in
Cuba. Its ravages extended over nearly the same
extent of country with that of 1844, but its greatest
violence was confined to a circle of about forty miles
radius round Havana. Two hundred and twenty-
six vessels were lost, 1,872 houses were blown down;
5,051 partially destroyed, and 114 persons perished.
During both of these hurricanes, the wind veered to
every point of the compass, and the salt spray was
carried fifteen or twenty miles inland, blackening
vegetation as though fire had passed over it. —
(Arboleya, Manual de la Isla de Cuba.)
To the foregoing admirable view of the climate of
Cuba, by Baron Humboldt, we can only add the fol
lowing tables and remarks from Don Ramon de la
Sagra's " Historia Fisica, Politica y Natural de la
Isla de Cuba." The indications of the rain-gauge
are in English inches, and the hygrometer is express
ed by Deluc's scale.

CLIMATE.

171

KALN FALLEN AT HAVANA, AND MONTHLY MEAN OF
HTGBOMETEK.

1811.
January . . 0.00
February 0.00
March .... 1.70
April  3.60
May  2.05
June  11.26
July  8.33
August . . . 2.89
September 7.27
October .. 0.90
November 1.40
December 1.45
Totals . . 40.85

1812. 7.14 1.983.15
2.40
2.63
0.00
2.75 2.571.61
5.410.75 0.36

1818.
0.20
0.54 0.48
0.00
5.55
5.35
6.31
4.35
4.37 8.92
1.30
2.38

1814. 1.70
3.082.90
5.90 3.67
6.50
8.42
1.75
5.40 0.73
0.62
0.90

1815.
3.672.17 0.25
0.15 3.10
6.59
2.35 1.61
5.17 8.71
4.93
1.44

Mean. 3.171.94
1.70
2.41 3.40
5.94
5.63 2.66
4.75 4.93 1.80
1.43

Hygrom. 15.12 56.08
53.71
52.0451.84
55.42
56.3454.4454.6055.4056.10
54.95

31.35 39.75 41.57 40.14 39.76 54.67

" Notwithstanding the frequency of rain during
the hot season, that is during the months of July
August, and September, these months do not pre
sent the greatest number of cloudy days. The rains
of summer, although copious, are of short duration,
and those days on which showers do not fall, are in
general perfectly cloudless. It may almost be said
that during these months no clouds are to be seen in.
the atmosphere, except while the shower is falling,
while in the other months cloudy days sometimeB
occur without rain. Days during which the heavena

172 humboldt's CUBA.
are completely clouded are extremely rare in Cuba :
we give from our diary the mean of our observations
for each month :

Cloudy d$ys.

Clear and par
tially cloudy days.

5

26

February ....

8

20

7

24

5
25
May..,.
8
23
6
24
July 
6
25
August 
6
25
7
23
October 
7
24
November 
8
22
7
24
Total
80
285
" These tables will give some idea of the beauty
of the sky in these regions, and of its effect upon the
life and luxuriant growth of vegetation. A high
temperature, moderated by great evaporation, which
pours through the atmosphere a continuous torrent of
watery vapors, presents the most favorable conditions
for the development of an admirable vegetation;
which again contributes, on its part, to maintain the
humidity of the atmosphere — soul of its exuberant life.
Thus it is that through all seasons of the year the
CLIMATE. 173
fields and forests of Cuba preserve their verdure ; but
it is principally at the beginning of summer, during
the rainy season, that all nature there seems to be
transformed to flowers."

174

HUMBOLDT S CUBA.

CHAPTER IV.
GEOGRAPHY.
Banks and reefs round Cuba — North coast — South coast — Territorial
divisions — Judiciary — Ecclesiastical — Politico-military — Public
Finances — Proposed new division — Present dividing line of bish
oprics — Number of parishes— Popular territorial divisions — First
governor — [Note, Maritime subdivision.]
I might have cited, among the causes of the low
temperature in Cuba, during the winter months, the
numerous shoals that surround the island, on which
the temperature of the sea is greatly diminished,
partly by the polar currents which seek the abysses
of the tropical ocean, and partly by the mixing of
the surface and the deep waters on the steep sides of
the- banks ; but this cause of fall in the temperature
is partly compensated by that river of warm water
(the Gulf Stream), which bathes the whole extent of
the northwestern shore of Cuba, and whose rapid
flow is often delayed there by the northern and
northwestern winds.
The chain of shoals that surrounds this island, and

GEOGRAPHY. 175
which appears like a shading in our maps, is fortu
nately broken in many places ; and these interrup
tions afford to commerce a free access to the shore.
The parts of the island which are least dangerous,
and mostffree from reefs, sandbanks, and rocks, are
the southeastern side, between Cape Cruz, and Cape
Maysi (72 maritime leagues), and the northwestern,
between Matanzas and Cabanas (28 leagues). On
the southeastern side, the proximity of high moun
tains makes the shore buld ; there we find the har
bors of St. Jago de Cuba, Guantanamo, Baitiquiri,
and, doubling Cape Maysi, Baracoa. This last-named
port was the first one settled by Europeans.
The north side of the island, from Cape Mulas,
N.N.W. of Baracoa, to the port of Nuevitas, is
equally free from banks and reefs. East of Cape
Mulas, ships find excellent anchorage in the bays of
Tanamo, Cab'onico, and Nipe, and, west of that
cape, in the bays of Sama, Naranjo, Padre, and
Nuevas Grandes. The uninterrupted series of cays
lining the old Bahama Channel, and extending from
Nuevitas to Point Hicacos, a distance of ninety-four
leagues, commences near the bay of Nuevas Grandes,
almost under the same meridian with the beginning
of the Buena Esperanza Banks, on the south side,
which are prolonged to the Isle of Pines.
The narrowest part of the old Bahama Channel is

176 humboldt's CUBA.
between Cape Cruz and Cay Romano, where it is
barely five or six leagues wide. The shoalest part
of the Great Bahama Banks is also in this vicinity.
The islands and parts of this bank not covered by
water (Long Island, Eleuthera, &c), are very exten
sive ; and, should the level of the ocean fall twenty
or thirty- feet, an island larger than Haiti would
appear here upon its surface. The chain of cays
and reefs that lines the shore of Cuba is so broken
that it affords small but clear channels to the
harbors of Guanaja, Moron, and Remedios.
Passing through the old Bahama Channel, or,
more properly speaking, through San Nicholas'
Channel, between Cruz del Padre and the cays of
Cay Sal-bank, many of which have springs of fresh
water, we again find a safe coast from Point Hicacos
to Cabanas bay, with the harbors of Matanzas, Puerto
Escondido, Havana, and Mariel. Further west,
beyond the harbor of Bahia Honda, the possession
of which might well tempt any maritime power at
war with Spain, the chain of shoals and reefs (Santa
Isabel and Colorados)* again commences, and con
tinues, without interruption, to Cape San Antonio.
On the south side, the shore from this cape to
Point Piedras and the Bay of Cortes is very bold,
and gives no soundings ; but between Point Piedras
and Cape Cruz, nearly all of the coast is covered

GEOGRAPHY. 177
with shoals, of which the Isle of Pines is but a
part, not covered by water. The western portion is
known as the Jardines and Jardinillos — the eastern
as Cay Breton, Cays de Doce Leguas, and the bank
of Buena Esperanza. The navigation of all thi3
extent of southern coast is dangerous, except from
the Bay of Cochinos to the mouth of the river
Guaurabo. The resistance offered by the elevated land of the
Isle of Pines to the ocean currents, may be said to
favor at once the • accumulation of sand and the
labors of the coral insect, which thrives in still and
shallow water. In. this extent' of one hundred and
forty-five leagues of coast, but one-seventh of it,
lying between Cay de Piedras and Cay Blanco, a
little west of the harbor of Casilda, presents a clear
shore with harbors ; these are the roadstead of Bata
bano, and the bays of Jagua and Casilda. East
from the latter port, toward the mouth of the river
Cauto and Cape Cruz (inside of Cay de Doce
Leguas), the -shore, which is full of springs, is very
shallow and inaccessible, and almost entirely unin
habited. In Cuba, as formerly in all the Spanish posses
sions of America, we find those subdivisions of the
country which have so puzzled modern geographers ;
these are the Ecclesiastical, the Politico-Military, the
8*

178 humboldt's CUBA.
Public Finances, and the Judiciary. We shall not
speak of the latter, as the island has but one Audi
encia, which was established at Puerto Principe, in
1797, its jurisdiction extending from Baracoa to
Cape San Antonio.1
The ecclesiastical division of two bishoprics dates
from 1788, when Pope Pius YI., created the first
bishop of Havana; The island of Cuba, together
with Louisiana and Florida, was formerly a part of
the archbishopric of St. Domingo, and from the
time of its discovery constituted but one bishopric,
which was founded at Baracoa, in 1518, by Pope
Leo X. This bishopric was translated to St. Jago
de Cuba, in 1522, but the first bishop, Friar Juan de
TJbite, did not reach his diocess until 1528. In the
beginning of the present century (1804), the bishop
of St. Jago was created archbishop.
In the Politico-Military government, the island is
divided into two departments, both subordinate to
the captain-general. That of Havana comprises,
besides the capital, the districts of Nueva Filipinas,
Cuatro Yillas (Trinidad, Santi Espiritu, Yilla Clara,
and San Juan de los Remedios), and Puerto Prin-
1 Another Audiencia was established at Havana, in 1839, and the
island divided into two judiciary districts. The Avdiencia of
Puerto Principe was subsequently abolished, and its jurisdiction
united with that of Havana.

GEOGRAPHY. 179
cipe. The captain-general, who is also governor
of the department of Havana, appoints a lieute
nant-governor for each of the several districts. The
jurisdiction of the captain-general extends also as
Corregidor to eight municipalities, being the cities
of Matanzas, Jaruco, San Felipe y Santiago, and
Santa Maria del Rosario, and the towns of Guana
bacoa, Santiago de las Yegas, Guines, and San Anto
nio de los Banos.
The department of Cuba comprises the district of
that name, and those of Baracoa, Holguin, and
Bayamo. The boundaries of these two departments
are not the same with those of the ecclesiastical
divisions ; as, for instance, the district of Puerto
Principe, with seven parishes, was subject, in 1814,
to the governor of Havana, and to the bishop of
St. Jago de Cuba. In the census of 1817-20, Puerto
Principe is united, with Bayamo and Baracoa, to the
department .of Cuba.1
We have only to consider the third subdivision,

1 In 1827, the Politico-Military constitution was re-organized, and
the island was divided into three departments — Western, Central,
and Eastern — with some alterations in the districts, required by the
increase of population. This subdivision continued until 1850,
when the old form of two departments was re-established — the dis
trict of Puerto Principe being placed under the jurisdiction of the
governor of the Eastern department.

180

HUMBOLDT S CUBA.

which appertains entirely to the administration of
the revenue. By a royal decree of 23 March 1812,
three intendencies or provinces were created, viz.:
Havana, Puerto Principe, and St. Jago de Cuba,
which extend, from east to west, about 90, 70, and
65 leagues, respectively. The intendant of Havana
retains the title and prerogatives of sub-delegate-
superintendent-general of the royal treasury of
Cuba. Under this subdivision, the intendancy of
St. Jago de Cuba comprises that district, and those
of Baracoa, Holguin, Bayamo, Gibara, Manzanillo,
Jiguani, "Cobre, and Las Tunas. That of Puerto
Principe comprises the district of that name, and
those of Nuevitas, Jagua, Santi Espiritu, San Juan
de los Remedios, Yilla Clara, and Trinidad. The
intendancy of Havana comprises all that part of the
island lying west of the district of Cuatro Yillas.
The intendant resides at Havana.
When the island shall become more advanced in
population and agriculture, it would seem to be more
convenient and more in conformity with the historic
recollections of the times of the conquest, that it
should be divided into five departments ; that of the
Vuelta Abajo, extending from Cape San Antonio to
the beautiful town of Guanajay and Mariel; Havana,
from Mariel to Alvarez ; Cuatro Villas, from Alva
rez; to Moron ; Puerto Principe, from Moron to the

GEOGRAPHY. 181
river Cauto ; and Cuba, from the Cauto to Cape
Maysi. The dividing line of the two bishoprics runs from
the mouth of Santa Maria Creekj on the south coast,
to Point Judas, opposite Cay Romano, on the north.
During the short time that the rule of the Spanish
constitution extended to Cuba, the ecclesiastical
division also served for that of the representative
districts of Havana and St. Jago.
The diocess of Havana contains forty parishes,
and that of St. Jago twenty-two, which, having been
established at a time when the island contained only
cattle or grazing farms, are very large, and ill-
adapted to the wants of the present population.1
The most common and popular territorial divi
sions, with the people of Havana, are the Vuelta de
Arriba and the Vuelta de Abajo, lying east and west
of the meridian of Havana. The first captain-
general of the island was Don Pedro Yaldez,
appointed in 1601. Sixteen governors had preceded
him, the first of whom was the famous Poblador and
Conquistador, Diego Velasques, a native of Cuellar,
in Spain, who was appointed by Diego Colon, at
that time admiral and governor of St. Domingo.
1 Under the present ecclesiastical arrangement, the diocess of
Havana contains one hundred and sixteen, and that of St. Jago
forty-one parishes.

182 humboldt's CUBA.
[Note. — There is now another territorial subdivi
sion in Cuba, known as the Marine department.
The island is divided into five districts, which are
Havana, Trinidad, San Juan de los Remedios, Nue
vitas, and St. Jago de Cuba. The head-quarters of
the Spanish naval power in America is established
at Havana.]

POPULATION. 183

CHAPTER Y.

POPULATION.

Its political importance — Former census — Population in 1825
— Compared with other Antilles — Relative proportions of races
in slave countries — Reflections — Why slaves ¦ have not dimin
ished since 1820 — Proportions of free, and slaves, and of
sexes — Fears on cessation of slave trade — Why unfounded —
Distribution of population in 1811° — Free colored seek the towns
— Relative density — Census of 1775 — Of 1791 — Their contradic
tions^ — Corrections — Motion in Spanish Cortes for abolition of
slavery — Remonstrance from Cuba — Census of 1817 — Is not com
plete— rMode of estimating increase — Relative increase of classes
— Several causes of increase — Rate — Excessive between 1791 and
1810 — Unequal distribution of classes — [Note. — Census of 1827,
1841, and 1846 — Reasons for distrusting that of 1846 — Supposed.
decrease of slaves — Its improbability — Reasons therefor — Increase
of slaves — Annual rate of total increase — Present population.]
In the preceding chapters, we have examined the
area, geological constitution, and climate of a coun
try opening a vast field to civilized man. That we
may duly appreciate the influence which the richest
of the Antilles, under the stimulus of great natural
elements of power, may some day exercise in the
political balance of insular America, let us compare

184 humboldt's CUBA.
her present population with, that she can maintain
upon her 3,600 square leagues of country, the
greater part of which is very' fertile under the
abundant tropical rains, and is still unconscious of
the presence of man.
Three successive, but very inexact enumerations
have stated the population as follows : —
In 1775, 170,862.
1791, 272,140.
1817, 630,980.
According to this last census, there were, in the
island, 290,021 whites, 115,651 free colored and
225,268 slaves. These results agree very well with
the interesting papers on this subject, laid before the
Spanish Cortes in 1811, by the Ayuntamiento of
Havana, in which the approximate population was
stated to be 600,000 souls, viz. ¦:— 274,000 whites,
' 114,000 free colored, and 212,000 slaves.
If we take into consideration the several omis
sions that occurred in the census of 1817, the number
of slaves imported (there were entered, at the
Havana custom-house, during the three years,
1818-19, and 20, more than 41,000), and the ratio
of increase of the white and free colored population,
in the eastern part of the island, as shown in the two
census of 1810 and 1817, we shall find the probable
population of Cuba, at the close of 1825, to be —

POPULATION. . 185
Whites, 325,000
Free colored, 130,000
Slaves, 260,000

Total, 715,000 1
Consequently, the population of Cuba at the
present time (1825), is very nearly equal to that of
all the English Antilles, and almost double that
of Jamaica. The relative proportion of the inhabi
tants; according to race and state of civil liberty,
presents the most extraordinary contrasts in those
countries where slavery has taken great root. The
following statement shows these proportions, and
gives rise to deep and grave reflections.
COMPARATIVE POPULATION OP THE ANTILLES AND THE
UNITED STATES.

Cuba,

715,000 325,000 130,000 260,000 46 : 18 :

86

Jamaica,

402,000 25,000 35,0o0 342,000 6:9:

85

EnglishAntilles,

776,500 71,350 78,350 626,800 9 : 10 :

81

All the
Antilles,

2,843,000 482,600 1,212,900 1,147,900 17 : 43 :

40

U. States,

10,525.000 8,575,000 285,000 1,665,000 81 : 3 :

15

1 The official census of 1827 states the population in that y|ar as

follows : —

Whites, 811,031
j?ree colored, 106,494
Slaves, 286,942
Total, 704,487

186 humboldt's CUBA.
We perceive by this table, that the free population
in Cuba is .64 of the whole population ; in the Eng
lish Antilles it is barely .19. In all the Antilles' the
colored population (blacks and mulattoes, free and
slave), forms a total of 2,360,000, or .83 of the entire
population. If the legislation of the Antilles, and the condition
of the colored population, does 'not soon experience
some salutary change, and if discussion without
action is continued, the political preponderance will
will pass into the hands of that class which holds the
power of labor, the will to throw off the yoke, and
valor to undergo great . privations. This bloody
catastrophe will occur as the necessary consequence
of circumstances, and without the free negroes of
Haiti taking any part whatever, they continuing
always the isolated policy they have adopted. Who
shall dare to predict the influence which an African
Confederation of the Free States of the Antilles,
lying between Colombia, North America and Gua
temala, might have in the politics of the New
World? The fear that such an event might be realized, un-
dou%tedly operates more powerfully upon the minds
of men, than do the principles of humanity and
justice ; but in all the islands the whites believe
themselves • to be the strongest ; for simultaneous

POPULATION. 187
action on the part of the negroes, seems to them im
possible, and every change, or concession made to a
population subject to servitude, is deemed to be
cowardice.- But it is not yet too late, for the hor
rible catastrophe of St. Domingo happened because
of the inefficiency of the government. Such are the
illusions which prevail with the great mass of the
colonists of the Antilles, and form an obstacle to im
provement in the state of the negroes in Georgia
and the Carolinas. The island of Cuba may free
herself better than the other islands from the com
mon shipwreck, for she has 455,000 freemen, while
the slaves number only 260,000 ; and she may pre
pare gradually for the abolition of slavery, availing
.herself for this purpose, of humane and prudent
measures. Do not let us forget that since Haiti be
came emancipated, there are already in the Antilles
more free negroes and mulattoes than slaves. The
whites, and more particularly the free blacks, who
may easily make common cause with the slaves,
increase rapidly in Cuba.
The slave population of Cuba would have dimin
ished with great rapidity since 1820, had it not been
for the fraudulent continuance of the slave-trade with
Africa. If this infamous traffic should cease entirely,
through the advance of civilization, and the energetic
will of the new States of Free America, the servile

188 humboldt's CUBA.
population would diminish largely for some time,
because of the existing disproportion between the
sexes, and because many would continue to attain
their liberty. This decrease would not cease until
the relative proportion of births and deaths should
compensate even for the slaves freed.1
The whites and free colored comprise nearly two-
thirds of the entire population of the island ; and by
their increase we already perceive, in part at least,
.the relative decrease of the slave population. The
The proportion of women to men among this class,
exclusive of the mulatto slaves, is as 1 to 4 on the
sugar estates ; in the whole island it is as 1 to 1.7 ;
in the cities and haciendas, where the negro slaves
are servants, or hire their time from their masters, it
is as 1 to 1.4, and even (in Havana for example) as
1 to 1.2.
The prognostications which some too lightly make,
of a decrease in the entire population of the island
upon the actual cessation of the African slave-trade,
(not its legal cessation which occurred in 1820) ; of
the impossibility of continuing the cultivation of
sugar on a large scale ; of the approach of a time when
the agricultural interest of Cuba will become reduced
to the planting of coffee and tobacco, and the breed-
1 See note at the end of this chapter.

POPULATION- 189
ing of cattle, are founded upon arguments which do
not seem to me sufficiently conclusive.
They do not take into consideration the fact, that
but one-sixth of the total number of slaves are on
the sugar plantations, many of which are not suf
ficiently stocked with hands, and consequently
debilitate their slaves by frequent night-labor, while
the problem of the pro rata increase of the total
population of Cuba, when the importation of negroes
from Africa shall have ceased entirely, is based upon
elements so complicated, upon such various com
pensations of effect upon the white, free-colored,
and slave rural population on' the. sugar, coffee, and
tobacco plantations ; the slaves on the grazing farms,
and those who are servants, laborers, and mechanics,
in the cities, that we should not anticipate such
mournful presages, but wait until positive statistical
data have been obtained.
The spirit in which the censuses have been taken,
even the oldest, that of 1775, for example, marking
the distinctions of age, sex, race, and state of civil
liberty, is worthy of the highest praise. The means
of execution only, have been wanting, for the
government has recognized how important; it is for
the tranquillity of the inhabitants to know minutely
the occupation of the negroes, their numerical dis
tribution in the sugar estates, farms, and cities. To

190 humboldt's CUBA.
remedy the evil, to prevent public calamities, and to
console the unfortunate beings who belong to an ill-
treated race, and who are feared more than is
acknowledged, it is necessary to probe the sore ; for
there exists in social, as well as organic bodies,
reparative forces, which, when well directed, may
triumph over the most inveterate evils.
In 1811, when the Ayuntamiento and the Conkw-
lado estimated the total population of the island at
600,000, of which 326,000 were colored, free and
slave ; the distribution of this mass of negroes,
between the towns and the rural districts, showed
the following results, comparing each partial num
ber with the whole number of blacks, considered as
a unit :
Western department. Free. Slave. Total.
In towns,  11 11J 22£
In rural districts,  1$- 34 351
Eastern department.
In towns, :  11 9i 20i
In rural districts,  11 10J 2H
34J- 65J 100
It appears, from this table, which may be subject
to correction by subsequent investigations, that, in
1811, nearly three-fifths of the blacks resided in the
district of Havana, between Cape San Antonio and
Alvarez ; that, in that part of the island, there were

POPULATION. 191
as many free negroes as slaves, but that the total
colored population of the towns, compared, with that
of the country, was as 2 to 3,. On the other hand,
in the eastern portion of the island, from Alvarez to
St. Jago de Cuba, the number of blacks living in
the towns was nearly equal to that in the country.1
We shall see, further on, that between the years
1811 and ^1825, Cuba received, through licit and
. illicit channels, 185,000 African negroes, of whieh
nearly 116,000 were entered at the custom-house of
Havana, between 1811 and , 1820. This recently
imported mass has undoubtedly been distributed
more in the country than in the towns, and will
have affected the estimated proportions which well-
r
1 This disposition of the free blacks to abandon the rural districts,
and gather in the towns, is very striking, and worthy of careful
study by social economists. -The form of the latest census returns
in Cuba, does not enable us to institute the exact comparison here
made by Baron Humboldt ; but that of 1846 shows that the city of
Havana and suburbs, contained the following proportions of the
total population of the Western department :
White. Free Col'd. Slavea.
Havana  29 51 11
Rest of department,  71 49 89
It would be interesting to know if the same tendency to abandon
the rural districts exists among the free negroes of St. Domingo and
Jamaica, and, if so, what effect it has upon their social and moral
condition.

192 humboldt's CUBA.
informed persons had ascertained in 1811, as existing
between the eastern and western parts of the island,
and the country and. towns. The slaves have
increased largely in the eastern districts, but the
fearful certainty that, notwithstanding the importa
tion of 185,000 new negroes, the mass of free colored
and slaves, mulattoes and blacks, had increased only
64,000, or one-fifth, between 1811 and 1825, exhibits
clearly that the changes experienced by the relations
of partial distribution, are reduced to much narrower
limits than might have been supposed.
Supposing the population, as already stated, to be
715,000 (which I believe to be within the minimum
number), the ratio of population in Cuba, in 1825,
is 197 individuals to the square league, and, conse
quently, nearly twice less than that of St. Domingo,
and four times smaller than that of Jamaica. J£
Cuba were as well cultivated as the latter island, or,
more properly speaking, if the density of population
were the same, it would contain 3515 x 874 or
3,159,000 inhabitants;1 that Is to say, more than are
1 Supposing the population of Haiti to be 820,000, it is 334 persons
to the square league, and if we estimate it at 936,000, it is 382.
Native writers suppose the island of Cuba to be capable of maintain
ing seven and two-sevenths millions of inhabitants. (See Remon
strance of the Cuban Deputies, against the tariff of 1821, p. 9.)

POPULATION. 193
now contained in the Pepublic of Colombia, or in all
the archipelago of the Antilles. Yet Jamaica has
1,914,000 acres of waste land.
The most remote official census and statistics that
I could obtain, during my residence in Havana, are
those of 1774 and 1775, compiled by order of the
Marquis de la Torre, and that of 1791, by order of
Don Luis de las Casas.1 Everyone is aware that
both these were made with great negligence, and a
large part of the population was omitted. The cen
sus of 1775, which is known as that of the Abbe"
Paynal, gives the following figures :
Even under this hypothesis, the ratio of population would not be
equal to that of Ireland. — H.
1 This governor was the founder of the Patriotic Society, the
Board of Agriculture and Trade, the Chamber of Commerce, the
Orphan Asylum, the Chair of Mathematics, and several primary
schools. He intended to ameliorate the barbarous forms of criminal
law, and created the noble office of advocate for the poor. The
improvement and ornament of the city of Havana, the bnilding of
the highway to Guanajay, the construction of docks, the protection
afforded to writers for the press, that they might give vigor to pub
lic spirit, all date from his time. Don Luis de las Casas y Aragorri,
captain-general of Cuba (1790-1796), was born in the village of
Sopuerta, in Biscay ; he fought with great distinction in Portugal, at
Pensacola, in the Crimea, before Algiers, at Mahoa, and at Gibral
tar. He died in July, 1800, at Puerto Santa Maria, at the age of 55
years. See the compendiums of his life by friar Juan Gonzalez, and
by Don Tomas Komay.— H. 9

194 humboldt's CUBA.

Males.

Femalei.

Whites,

54,555

40,864

Free colored,

15,980

14,635

Slaves,

28,774

15,562

Total,

99,309

71,061

In all, 170,370, of which the district of Havana
alone contained 75,607. I cannot answer for the
correctness of this table, for I have not seen the
official documents.
The census of 1791 gave 272,141 inhabitants^ of
which 137,800 were in the district of Havana, as fol
lows : 44,337 in the capital, 27,715 in the other towns
and villages of the district, and 65,748 in the country
Partidos. These figures have been compared with the
registers. A moment's reflection will demonstrate the
contradictory nature of these results. The mass of
137,800 inhabitants in the district of Havana, are stated
as follows ; whites, 73,000, free colored, 27,600, slaves,
37,200 ; so that the whites would bear a proportion
to the slaves of 2 to 1, instead of that of 100 to 83,
which has long since been found to be the relative
proportions, both in the city arid in the country.
In 1804 I discussed the census of Don Luis de las
Casas, with persons who possessed great knowledge
of the locality. Examining the proportions of the
numbers omitted in the partial comparisons, it
seemed to us that the population of the island, in

POPULATION. 195
1791, could not have been less than 362,700 souls.
This has been augmented, during the years between
1791 and 1804, by the number of African negroes
imported, which, according to the custom-house
returns for that period, amounted to 60,393 ; by the
immigration from Europe and St. Domingo (5,000) ;
and by the excess of births and deaths, which, in
truth, is indeed small in a country where one-fourth
or one-fifth of the entire population is condemned to
live in celibacy. The result of these three causes of
increase, was estimated at 60,000, estimating an
annual loss of seven per cent, on the newly
imported negroes ; this gives approximately, for the
year 1804, a minimum of 432,080 inhabitants.1
1 1 estimated this number for the year 1804, to comprise, whites,
234,000, free-colored, 90,000, slaves, 180,000. (The census of 1817
has given, whites, 290,000, free colored, 115,000, and slaves, 225,000).
I estimated the slave population, graduating the production of
sugar at from 80 to 100 arrobes for each negro on the sugar
plantations, and 82 slaves as the mean population of each planta
tion. There were, then, 250 of these. In the seven parishes
Guanajay, Managua, Batabano, Guines, Cano, Bejucal, and Guana
bacoa, there were found, by an exact census, 15,130 slaves on 183
sugar plantations.->-(MSS. Documents, p. 134. Representation of the
Consulado of Havana, 10th July, 1799.) It is difficult to ascertain
correctly, the ratio of the production of sugar to the number of
negroes employed on the estates, for there are some where barely
300 negroes produces 30,000 arrobes, while on others, 800 negroes
produce only 27,000 arrobes yearly. The number of whites can be

196 humboldt's CUBA.
The census of 1817 gives a population of 572,303,
and this should be considered only as a minimum,
corresponding with the results obtained by me, in
1804, and which have since been cited in many sta
tistical works. The returns of the custom-houses
alone show that more than 78,500 negroes were
imported between 1804 and 1816.
The most valuable documents which we possess
up to the present time (1825), relative to the
population of the island, were published on the
occasion of a celebrated motion made in the Spanish
Cortes, on the 26th March 1811, by Senores Alcocer
and Arguelles, against the African slave-trade in
estimated by the rolls of the militia, of which, in 1804, there were
2,680 disciplined, and 27,000 rural, notwithstanding the great
facilities for avoiding the service, and the innumerable exemptions
granted to lawyers, physicians, apothecaries, notaries, clergy and
church servants, schoolmasters, overseers, traders, and all who are
styled noble. See Reflections of an Habanero upon the Indepen
dence of the Island, 1823, p. 17. The number of men capable of
bearing arms, between the ages of 15 and 60, was estimated, in 1817,
as follows : 1st free class ; whites, 71,047, mulattoes, 17,862, blacks,
17,246, total, 106,155 ; 2d slaves, 85,899, in all, '192,054. Taking as
a basis, the estimate of the military enrolment of the population of
France, (Peuchat stat. p. 243 and 247), we find that the number of
192,054 corresponds to a population somewhat less than six hundred
thousand. The quota of the three classes, whites, free colored^ and
slaves, are as 37 : 18 : 45 ; while the relative proportions of the
population are very nearly 46 : 18 : 36. — H.

POPULATION. 197
general and the perpetual continuance of slavery in
the colonies. These valuable documents are accom
panied and sustained by the remonstrance* which
Don Francisco de Arango (one of the wisest of
statesmen, and profoundly versed in everything
relating to his country), made to the Cortes, in the
the name of the Ayuntamiento, the Consulado, and
the Patriotic Society of Havana. It is there stated
that "there is no other general census than that
which was taken (in 1791), during the wise adminis
tration of Don Luis de las Casas, and that since that
time, some partial ones only have been taken in one
or other of the most populous districts."
From this we learn, that the tables published in
1811, are founded on incomplete data, and on
approximate estimates of the increase from 1791 to
that time. In the following table the division of the
island into four districts, has been adopted, as fol
lows : — 1st. The jurisdiction of Havana, or west
ern part, between Cape San Antonio and Alvarez.
2d. The jurisdiction of Cuatro Villas, with its eight
'Representation of 16th August, 1811, which was made by the
Alferez Mayor pf Havana, under direction of the Ayuntamientp,
Consulado, and Patriotic Society of that city, and laid before the
Cortes by these corporations. This representation, or remonstranoe,
is contained in the Documents relative to the slave-trade, 1814, p.
1-86.— H.

198 humboldt's CUBA.
districts. 3d. The jurisdiction of Puerto Principe,
with seven districts. 4th. The jurisdiction of St.
Jago de Cuba, with fifteen districts. The last three
comprise the eastern part of the island.

Free
Whites. colored. Slaves. Total.
Western Part :,'
Havana and Suburbs . ; . . 43,000 27,000 28,000 98,000
Country  118,000 15,000 119,000 252,000
161,000 42,000 147,000 350,000
Eastern Part :
St. Jago de Cuba  40,000 38,000 32,000 110,000
Puerto Principe  38,000 14,000 18,000 70,000
Cuatro Villas  35,000 20,000 15,000 70,000
113,000 72,000 65,000 250,000
Totals  274,000 114,000 212,000 600,000

The peaceful relations of the several castes with
each other, will always be a political problem of the
greatest importance, -until such time as a wise legis
lation shall succeed in calming their inveterate
hatred, by conceding an equality of civil rights to'
the oppressed classes. In 1811, the number of
whites in the island of Cuba exceeded that of the
slaves by 62,000, and was only one-fifth less than the
aggregate of free colored and slaves. The whites in
the English and French Antilles are nine per cent.,
while in Cuba they are forty-five per cent, of the

POPULATION. 199
total population. The free colored amount to nine
teen per cent., which is double their proportion in
Jamaica or Martinique. As the census of 1817,
modified by the Provincial Deputation, only exhibits
115,700 free colored, and 225,000 slaves, the com
parison proves — 1st, that the free colored have been
estimated incorrectly both in 1811 and 1817; and
2d, that the mortality of the negroes is so great that,
notwithstanding the importation of more than 67,700
negroes from Africa, according to the custom-house
returns, there were in 1817 only 13,300 more slaves
than in 1811.
The decrees of the Cortes of 3d March, and 26th
July, 1813, and the necessity of ascertaining the
population, for the establishment of the electoral
juntas of the province, the partido, and the parish,
obliged the government to take a new census in
1817, whieh is as follow :
Census of 1817, exclusive of transient persons and
negroes imported during the year.
Districts, Whites.
Western Department :
Havana  135,177
Matanzas   10,617
Trinidad (with Santi Espiritu,
Remedios, and Villa Clara) 51,864 16,411 14,497

Free colored.

Slaves.

40,419

112,122

1,676

9,594

200 humboldt's CUBA.
Districts. Whites. Free colored. Slaves.
Eastern Department :
Cuba (with Bayamo, Holguin,
and Baracoa)  33,733 50,230 46,500
Puerto Principe  25,989 6,955 16,579
Total  257,380 115,691 199,292
In all  572,363.
Though it may seem strange that the approximate
estimate presented to the Cortes in 1811, shows a
total population 28,000 greater than the actual cen
sus of 1817, this contradiction is only apparent.
This census is doubtless less imperfect than that of
1791, yet it does not comprise all the population,
because of the fear everywhere inspired in the peo
ple, by an operation which is always supposed by
them to be not only direful, .but the precursor of
new taxation. On the other hand, the Provincial
Deputation thought proper to make two modifications
in the census of 1817, when sending it to Madrid :
1st, adding 32,641 whites (transient traders and
crews of vessels), whose business call them to Cuba ;
and 2d, adding 25,967 African negroes imported
during the year 1817. Ey these additions the Pro
vincial Deputation obtained a total population of
630,980, of which 290,021 were whites, 115,691 free
colored, and 225,261 slaves.1
1 So far as my opinion goes, I believe that in 1825 there were

POPULATION. 201
We shallnot be surprised at the partial contradic
tions, found in the tables of population in America,
when we take into consideration all the difficulties
that have been encountered in the centres of Euro
pean civilization, England and France, whenever the
great operation of a general census is attempted.
No one is ignorant, for example, of the fact, that the
population of Paris, in 1820, was 714,000, and from
the number of deaths, and supposed proportion of
births to the total population, it is believed to have
been 520,000, at the beginning of the eighteenth
century ; yet,, during the administration of Mon.
Neckar, the ascertained population was one-sixth
less than this number. It is known, that, from 1801
to 1821, the population of England and Wales
increased 3,104,683, yet the registers of births and
deaths show an increase of only 2,173,416 ; and it is
impossible to attribute the difference of 931,267 to
immigration from Ireland. These examples do not
prove that we should distrust the calculations of
nearly 325,000 whites, and one the best informed gentlemen of
Havana, who was well acquainted with the country, estimated them,
in 1823, at 340,000. (See On Independence of Cuba, p. 17.) In
some parts of the island statistical tables have been formed with
great care ; in San Juan de los Remedios, and Filipinas, for exam
ple, particularly those made by Don Joaquin Vigil y Quinones and
Don Jose' Aguilar, in 1819.— H. 9*

202 humboldt's cuba.
political economy ; what they do prove is, that we
should not employ numerical elements, without
having first examined them, and ascertained the
extent of their errors. One is tempted to compare
the different degrees of probability presented by
statistical tables in the Ottoman Empire, in Spanish
and Portuguese America, in France or Prussia, by
geographical positions based on the eclipses of the
moon, on its distance from the sun, or on occultations
of the stars.
In order to adapt a census made twenty years
since, to any other given time, we must ascertain the
rate of increase ; but this can be ascertained only
from the enumerations of 1791, 1810, and 1817,
taken in the eastern part of the island, which is the
least populous portion. When comparisons rest
upon too small masses, existing under the influence
of particular circumstances (as in seaports or in the
sugar planting districts), they cannot give the nume
rical results proper to be used as a basis for the
entire country.
It is generally supposed that the whites increase
more rapidly in the villages and haciendas than in
the towns ; that the free colored, who prefer a
make-shift residence in the towns to the labors
of agriculture, multiply with greater rapidity than
all the other classes; and that the slaves, among

POPULATION. 203
whom, unfortunately, there are only one-third of the
females required by the number of males,1 decrease
more than eight per cent., annually.
We have already seen2 that in Havana and sub
urbs, the whites increased 73 per cent., and the free
colored 171 per cent, in twenty years. Through
nearly all the eastern part of the island, the same
classes have nearly doubled in the same time. We
will here mention that the free colored multiply, in
part, through the transition from one class to the
other, and the slaves increase through the activity
of the slave-trade. At the present time, the whites
receive but little increase through immigration from
Europe, the Canary Islands, the Antilles, or the Con
tinent; this class multiplies within itself, for patents
of white blood are seldom granted by the tribunals to
persons of light yellow color.
According to the census of 1775, the district of
Havana, comprising six cities (the capital, Trinidad,
San Felipe y Santiago, Santa Maria del Rosario,
Jaruco, and Matanzas), six towns (Q-uanabacoa, Santi
Espiritu, Yilla Clara, San Antonio, San Juan de los
Pemedios, and Santiago), and thirty villages and
hamlets, contained a population of 171,626 ; and in
1 This applies only to those slaves employed on the sugar planta
tions. 4 Chapter I., p. 114.

204 humboldt's cuba.
1806, with greater exactitude, 277,364. (Patriota
Americano, vol. ii., p. 300.) Consequently, the
increase, in thirty-one years, had been only sixty-
one per cent. ; but if we could compare the latter
half of this term, it would show. a much more rapid
increase. In fact, the census of 1817 gives a popu
lation of 392,377, which shows an increase of forty-
one per cent., in eleven years, for the same extent
of country, then called the Province of Havana,
comprising the districts of the capital, Matanzas,
and Trinidad, or Cuatro Villas.
We must remember, while comparing the results
of the censuses of 1791 and 1810 of the capital and
of the eastern province, that we obtain an excessive
rate of increase, for there were many more omissions
in the first than in the second census. Ey comparing
those most recently taken in the eastern province, in
1810 and 1817, I believe we approach nearer the
truth. These are as follows :
Whites. Free Ool'd. Slaves. Total.
1810  35,513 32,884 38,834 107,231
1817  33,733 50,230 46,500 130,463
Increase in six years 23,232, or more than twenty-
one per cent. ; and there is probably an error in the
second statement of the number of whites, in the
last census. The proportion of whites and free
colored is very great in the district of Cuatro Villas,

POPULATION.

205

where, in the six partidos of San Juan de los Peme
dios, San Augustin, San Anastasio de Cupey, San
Felipe, Santa Fe, and Sagua la Chica, there were, in
1819, in an area of 24,651 caballerias, a total popula
tion of 13,722, of which 9,572 were whites, 2,000
free colored, and 2,140 slaves; while, on the con
trary, in the ten partidos of the Filipinas district, in
the same year, in a population of 13,026, there were
5,871 whites, 3,521 free colored, and 3,634 slaves.
The proportion of free colored to white was as 1 to 1.7.
PSIote. — Since the publication of the foregoing
admirable analysis by Earon Humboldt, of the pop
ulation of Cuba, censuses have been taken in the
years 1827, 1841, and 1846, which are as follows :

CENSUS

OF 1827.

Whites.
Free Colored.
Slaves.
Total.
Department.
Male.
Female.
Male.
Female.
Male.
Female.
Western,.
. 89,526
75,582
21,235
24,829
126,388
72,027
408,537
Centra!,. .
. .53,447
44,776
13,296
10,950
28,898
13,680
164,497
Eastern, .
. 25,680
22,090
17,431
51,962
18,753
54,532
29,504
17,995
108,652
131,458
Total,..
. 168,653
142,398
188,290
704,486
CENSUS
OF 1841.
Western,.
185,079
108,944
82,726
88,737
207,954
113^820
631,760
Central,..
. 60,085
58,838
15,525
16,054
84,939
15,217
195,608
Eastern, . .
. 82,080
227,144
28,365
191,147
27,45275,708
27,844
88,357
281,250
26,708
155,245
180,256
Total,...
77,185
1,007,624
206 humboldt's cuba.

CENSUS OF 1846.

Whites.
Free Colored.
SlPes.
Total.
Department.
Male. Fomale.
Male. Female.
Male. Female,
WeBtern,.
. 133,968 110,141
28,964 82,730
140,181 87,682
538,616
Central,..
. 62,262 52,692
17,041 17,074
82,425 14,560
196,054
Eastern, .
. 84,753 81,951
. 230,988 194,784
26,646 26,771
72,651 76,575
28,455 20,506
201,011 122,748
169,082
Total...
898,752
The slightest examination leads to the belief that
there is some error in the figures of the census of
1846 ; and we are inclined to doubt its results, for
the following reasons :
1st. During the period between 1841 and 1846, no
great cause, as epidemic, or emigration on a large
scale, existed to check the hitherto steady increase
of the slave population, and cause a decrease of
112,736 in its numbers, being nearly twenty six
per cent, of the returns of 1841 ; which apparent
decrease, and the annihilation of former rate of
increase (3.7 per cent., yearly), amount together to
a loss of 47 per cent., in six years.
2d. During this period, the material prosperity of
the country experienced no decrease, except the loss
of part of one crop, consequent upon the hurricane
of 1845.
3d. During the period from 1842 to 1846, the
church returns of christenings and interments were
as follows :
POPULATION. 207
Whites. Colored. Total.
Christenings,.. 87,047 74,302 161,349
Interments,... 51,456 57,762 109,218

Increase, . . . 35,591 16,540 52,131
4th. And because, that, in addition to the reasons
adduced by Baron Humboldt, for less returns by the
people than their actual numbers, that the taking of
a census "is always supposed by them to be not
only direful, but the precursor of new taxation ;" a
capitation tax upon house servants was imposed in
1844, and a very general fear existed that it would
be extended to other classes.
When the writer first went to Cuba, in 1834, he
was strongly impressed with the popular supposition
there, that the slave population diminished fully
eight per cent, annually, by death, and that this loss
was only partially compensated (about three per
cent.), by the importation of negroes from Africa,
which, at that time was not supposed to reach
twelve thousand a year. At this period, the mean
annual export of sugar was 550,000 boxes, and of
coffee, 330,000 bags (the two great staples), and the
mean annual value of imports was $17,000,000, and
of exports, $14,000,000, according to the official
valuations. During the seventeen years of our
residence there, the annual export of sugar steadily
increased until it exceeded 1,500,000 boxes ; that of

208
coffee fell to 125,000 bags, and the value of imports
and exports reached $29,750,000 and $27,450,000 res
pectively. Admitting as correct the supposed annual loss
of five per cent, to the slave or laboring popu
lation, the producing class must have diminished
eighty-five per cent, from 1835 to 1852, a supposi
tion directly at variance with the results exhibited
by the commerce .of the island. So far as our
limited individual observation extended, we arrived
at the conclusion that this supposition of loss arose
from the fact that the greater part of capital and
scientific knowledge in Cuba is absorbed in the
sugar culture, and that the estimates regarding
population were based, in a great measure, on data
derived from this class and branch of labor. Its
great preponderance in the foreign commerce of the
island, overshadowed its true relation to the general
economy of the country. We believe that the slave
population of Cuba does not decrease in the towns,
nor on the coffee estates, tobacco plantations, grazing
farms, and numerous minor branches of agriculture,
but that on the contrary, it increases in all these,
and more than compensates for the loss on the sugar
plantations. The supposed former rate of loss has
been greatly diminished during the last twenty
years, by the improvements in the system of con-

POPULATION. 209
ducting the sugar plantations, and a greater equaliza
tion of sexes upon them. In no other way can we
account for the rapid increase in the material pros-
perity of Cuba, an increase that is only surpassed by
that of our own United States.
In estimating, therefore, the present population of
Cuba, we shall adopt the rate of increase exhibited
by the two censuses of 1827 and 1841. The first may
be considered the minimum of population at that
time, it being less than the well-reasoned estimate
of Baron Humboldt for the year 1825 : and although
the second was perhaps taken with greater care, we
know of no reason why it should not be" held also as
the minimum expression of the population. It was,
at tie time of publication, charged by well-infornfed
writers, with understating numbers.
The annual rate per cent, of increase in the several
classes of population, as indicated by the various
censuses, is somewhat fluctuating, and is as follows :
White. Free colored. Slaves. •
1774 to 1792,.... 2.7 4.2 5
1792 " 1817,.... 3.1 4.4 *5.4
1817 " 1827,.... 2.1 0.68 4.4
1827 " 1841,.... 2.5 3.1 3.7
The latter rate of increase would give to Cuba, at
the close of the year 1855,

210

Whites  564,693, being 39 per cent.
Free colored,. 219,170, " 15 " "
Slaves,  662,599, " 46 " "

Total,.... 1,446,462

This does not seem excessive, when we take into
consideration her vast consumption of foreign pro
ducts, and the great value of the staples she pours
into the lap of commerce.]

SLAVERY. 211

CHAPTER VI.
SLAVERY.
Manumission frequent in Cuba — Its causes — Slaves allowed to hire
their time. [Note— Usual wages — Number of working days —
Slaves may purchase their freedom by partial payments — Many
remain partially redeemed — Reason — Curious phase of negro
mind.] Position of free negroes — Mild laws — Slaves previous to
the Eighteenth century — Religious scruples regarding females —
Population of Sugar plantations — Projects for increasing slaves
— Don Francisco de Arango — Desire to ameliorate their condition
— First importation — Entire importation to America in sixteenth
century — Slaves in Cuba in 1763 — Activity of trade at the close
of the eighteenth century — Treaty with England. [Note — Total
number imported.] Compared with Jamaica — Other English
colonies (note) — Humane result in Cuba — Mortality of slaves-
Has diminished — Of newly imported negroes — Means to prevent
decrease — Abolition of slave-trade. [Note — Not effective — Baron
Humboldt's sketch of slavery in Cuba — Decrease of slaves a fal
lacy — Increase only paralleled in United States — Their well-being
evident — Chinese imported — Injurious influence and evil results.
Ls^no part of the world, where slavery exists, is
manumission so frequent as in the island of Cuba ;
for Spanish legislation, directly the reverse of French
and English, favors in an extraordinary degree the

212

attainment of freedom, placing no obstacle in its
way, nor making it in any manner onerous. The
right which every slave has of seeking a new mas
ter, or purchasing his liberty, if he can pay the
amount of his cost ; the religious sentiment that in
duces many persons, in good circumstances to con
cede by will freedom to a certain number of negroes ;
the custom of retaining a number of both sexes for
domestic service, and the affections that necessarily
arise from this familiar intercourse with the whites ;
and the facilities allowed to slave- workmen to labor
for their own account, by paying a certain stipulated
sum to their masters, are the principal causes why
so many blacks acquire their freedom in the towns.1
1 The customary rate of hire is ten cents on each $100 of
the value of the slave for every working-day. There are about
two hundred and ninety working-days in the year, Sundays and
church holidays being considered days of rest. In addition to the
above-mentioned facilities for attaining freedom, the slave has the
privilege of paying his master small sums of money on account, and
thus becoming a coowner of himself. Thus, if his value be $600,
by paying his master $25 he becomes the owner of one twenty-
fourth of himself; when he has paid $50, he owns one-twelfth, and
so on ; and in hiring his time, he pays to his master rent only on the
sum remaining due. The law obliges the master to accept these
partial payments ; and should the owner over-value the slave at the
time of commencing them, the negro can appeal to the syndic, who
is annually appointed to protect the slaves. A slave who has par
tially manumitted himself is styled coartado. Many redeem them-

SLAVERY. 213
The position of the free negroes in Cuba is much
better than it is elsewhere, even among those nations
which have for ages flattered themselves as being
most advanced in civilization. We find there no
such barbarous laws as. have' been invoked, even in
our own days, by which free negroes are prohibited
from receiving donations from the whites, and can be
deprived of their liberty, and sold for the benefit of
the State, should they be convicted of affording an
asylum to escaped slaves.1
Until the closing years of the eighteenth century,
the number of slaves on the sugar-plantations in Cuba
was extremely small, and what most surprises us is,
that a prejudice founded on " religious scruples," op
posed the introduction there of females (they costing
in Havana one- third less than males), thus forcing
selves excepting the sum of $50 or $100 ; and on this pay a rent to
the master for the rest of their lives, no matter how much wealth
they may acquire. A careful study of individual reasons, among
the blacks in Cuba, for adopting this course, might perhaps develop
some unobserved peculiarities of the negro mind. It may sometimes
arise from ties of affection, sometimes from interests, and it may be
found to result, in some cases, from an intuitive desire, or an idiosyn
crasy on the part of the negro to have some immediate and tangible
superioi;, to whose opinioii he can look with respect, and from whom
he can claim protection in calamity.
1 Decision of the Supreme Council of Martinique of 4th July,
1720.—" Decree of 1st March, 1766, § 7.— H.

214 humboldt's CUBA.
the slaves to celibacy, under the pretext that vicious
habits were thus avoided. The Jesuits and the
Bethlemite friars, being superior to this sad prejudice, *
were the only planters that allowed them on their
plantations. Although the census of 1775, which is
undoubtedly very imperfect, gave 15,562 female and
29,336 male slaves, we must bear in mind that this
census embraced the whole island, while the sugar
plantations, even at the present time (1825), do not
contain more than one-fourth of the entire slave
population.1 From the year 1795, the Consulado of Havana
1 The " Cuadro Estadistico " of 1846 presents some partial in
formation on this point, which is interesting. It states the number
of sugar plantations in the several departments of the island and
their population, as follows : — Plantations. Population. Average.
Western ,  785 96,462 181
Central  404 28,763 59
Eastern  803 10,586 85
1443 130,816
. These numbers are undoubtedly under-stated ; but estimating an
average of ten per cent, as the white population of the sugar plan
tations, we have a slave population of 116,735, being nearly 18 per
cent., engaged in the culture of sugar. It is to be regretted that the
" Cuadro " does not state the relative numbers of males and females;
but well-informed persons think the sugar plantations have now one-
third females.

SLAVERY. 215
have seriously entertained projects, for increasing the
slave population, independent of the fluctuations of
the slave-trade. Don Francisco de Arango, whose
labors have always been pure and judicious, pro
posed the imposition of a tax upon those plantations
which did not contain one-third females among their
slaves. He also proposed the imposition of a duty
of six dollars upon each male negro imported from
Africa. Although these measures were not adopted,
for the colonial juntas always refused to adopt coer
cive measures, yet, from that time, there has arisen a
desire to increase the number of marriages, and to
take better care of the children of the slaves ; and a
royal order (22 April, 1804) recommends this policy
to "the sense of right, and the humanity of the
colonists." The census of 1817 gave, according to Poinsett,
60,322 female, and 106,521 male slaves. In 1771,
the proportion of female to male slaves was 1 to 1.9 ;
so that, in forty years, it had altered very slightly, it
being, in 1817, 1 to 1.7. The small amount of this
change must be attributed to the large number of
African negroes imported subsequently to 1791, and
to the fact that the importation of females has been
large, only during the years between 1817 and 1820 :
the slaves retained as servants in the cities are only
a small fraction of the total number. In the district
of Batabano, which contained in 1818 a population

216 humboldt's CUBA.

#£ "#

of 2,078, with 13 sugar, and 7 coffee estates, there
were 2,226 male, and 257 female slaves ; proportion,
8 to 1. In San Juan de los Pemedios, containing, in
1817, a population of 13,700, with 17 sugar, and 73
coffee estates, there were 1,200 male and 660 female
slaves; proportion, 19 to l.1 In the district of Feli-
pinas, having in 1819 a population of 13,026, there
were 2,494 male, and 997 female slaves ; proportion,
2.4 to 1. In all the island, the males are to the
females as 1.7 to 1 ; on the sugar estates alone, they
are barely 4 to 1.
The first introduction of negroes (in the eastern
part of the island), occurred in 1521. At that time,
the Spaniards were much less desirous than the Por
tuguese of possessing slaves ; for, in 1539, twelve
thousand negroes were sold in the city of Lisbon.
The trade in slaves was not free in the sixteenth cen
tury, licenses for it being granted by the govern
ment ; and, in 1586, Gaspar Peralta purchased the
monopoly for the whole of Spanish America. In
1595, it was sold to Gomez Paynal ; and again, in
1615, to Antonio Rodriguez de El vas.
The entire American importation then did not
exceed 3,500, yearly ; and the people of Cuba, occu
pied exclusively in raising cattle, received very few.
During the war of the succession, the French traders
1 Thus in the original.

SLAVERY. 217
visited Havana, exchanging slaves for tobacco. The
possession of the island by the English stimulated
somewhat the importation of negroes ; yet, in 1763,
although the capture of Havana, and the presence
of foreigners, created new wants, the number of
slaves did not exceed 25,000 in that district, and
32,000 in the whole island.
The number of Africans imported from 1521 to
1763, was probably 60,000, whose descendants exist
among the free mulattoes, the greater part of which
inhabit the eastern part of the island. From 1763 to
1790, when the trade in negroes was thrown open,
Havana received 24,875 (by the Tobacco Company
4,957 from 1763 to 1766 ; by the contract with the
Marquis de Casa Enfile, 14,132, from 1773 to 1779 ;
by the contract with Baker and Dawson, 5,786, from
1786 to 1789). If we estimate the importation of
slaves in the eastern part of the island, during these
twenty-seven years (1763 to 1790), at 6,000, we have
a total importation of 90,875 from the time of the
discovery of Cuba, or more properly speaking, from
1521 to 1790.
The activity of the slave-trade in the fifteen years
following 1790, was so great, that more slaves were
bought and sold in that time, than in the two and- a
half centuries that preceded its being thrown open.
This activity was redoubled when England stipulated
10

218 humboldt's CUBA.
with Spain, that ihe trade should be suppressed
north of the equator from the 22d November, 1817,
and totally abolished on the 30th May 1820. The
King of Spain accepted from England (a fact which
posterity- will hardly believe), the sum of four hun
dred thousand pounds sterling, in compensation for
the damages and loss which might arise from the
cessation of this barbarous traffic.
The following statement exhibits the number of
African negroes imported in Havana alone, according
to the custom-house returns.

1790.

...2,534

1806..

..4,395

1791.

... 8,498

1807..

..2,565

1792.

...8,528

1808 .

..1,607

1793.

...3,777

1809 . .

..1,162

1794.

. . .4,164

1810..

..6.672

1795.

...5,832

1811..

..6,349

1796.

...5,711

1812..

..6,081

1797.

...4,552

1813. .

..4,770

1798.

...2,001

1814. .

..4,321

1799

...4,919

1815..

..9,111

1800..

...4,145

1816..

.17,737

1801.

...1,659

18171.

. 25,841

1802.

. .13,832

1818..

.19,902

1803.

...9,671

1819..

.17,194

1804.

..8,923

1820..

..4,122

1805.

...4,999



Total, in 31 years, . .

. .225,574

1 Other MS. notes in my possession state the number for 1817, at
23.560 slaves.— H,

SLAVERY. • 219
The mean annual number during this interval is
7,470, and 11,542 for the last ten years. This should
be increased at least one-fourth, partly, because of
the illicit importations, and omissions in the. returns,
and partly for the licit importations at Trinidad
and St. Jago ; so that we have for the whole island,
From 1521 to 1763  60,000
" 1764 " 1790  33,409
In Havana alone, From 1791 to 1805  91.211
" 1806 " 1820..... 131,829

316,449

Increase by the- illicit trade and
by the importations in the eastern
part of the island, from 1791 to 1820,  56,000

372,449
[Note. — In order to present in one continuous
view the number of negroes carried to Cuba up to
the latest returns accessible to us, we continue here
the calculation by Baron Humboldt. From the
reports of the British commissioners at Havana, we
learn the following particulars, in relation to the
trade subsequently to its suppression in 1820, by the
treaty with England.
In 1821, twenty-six vessels arrived, bringing 6,415
slaves ; and Mr. Jameson, one of the commissioners,
states that to this amount one-half should be added
for importations not ascertained by the commis-

220

HUMBOLDT'S CUBA,

sioners, and that he estimates the slaves imported
during that year at 10,000.
The yearly reports of the commissioners give the
following figures, up to 1828 :

1822  10 vessels arrived — estimated,

1823 

 4

1824.
1825 

17
.... 14

1826 

. .. 11

18271828 

.... 28

3,000 1,200
5,100
4,200
"3,000"3,500'7,000

27,000
Add Mr. Jameson's estimate of one-half,  13,500
Making a total of  40,500
A report of the British consul at Havana, to the
foreign office in London, gives the following state
ment of slaves imported into Cuba from 1829 to
1838 ; to which, he estimates, one-fifth should be
added for non-ascertained importations :

1829  8,600
1830  9,800
1831  10,400
1832  8,200
1833  9,000

1834  11,400
1835  14,800
1836  14,200
1837  15,200

Total,  101,600
Add one-fifth,  20,320
121,920
* These numbers are given by the commissioners, in their reports ;
for the other years, the number of vessels arriving only is stated.

SLAVERY. 221
The importations from 1838 to 1853, according to
the returns laid before the British House of Com
mons, were as follows :
1838  10,495 1846  419
1839  10,995 1847  1,450
1840  10,104 1848  1,500
1841  8,893 1849  8,700
1842  3,630 1850  3,500
1843  8,000 1851  5,000
1844  10,000 1852  7,924
1845  1,300 30 June, '53  7,329

99,239

We may, therefore, estimate the total number of
negroes imported into Cuba from the coast of Africa,
as follows :
To 1820 according to Baron Humboldt,  372,449
1821 " " Mr. JamesoD  10,000
1822 to 1828  40,500
1829 to 1837  121,920
1838 to 30 June, 1853  99,239
644,108] '
'While these pages were going through the press, we received
from the British Foreign Office, through the kind attention of Hon.
John Appleton, secretary to the legation of the United States at
London, a copy of a parliamentary return to the British House of
Commons, ordered to be printed on the 11th of April 1845; accord
ing to which, the importations of slaves in Spanish territory in

222 humboldt's cuba.
We have seen that Jamaica has received from
Africa,1 during these three centuries, 850,000 ne
groes ; and, according to a more exact statement,
nearly 677,000 in the one hundred and eight years,
from 1700 to 1808, and yet that island contains now
but 380,000 blacks and mulattoes, free and slave.
The island of Cuba presents a more humane result,
America (Cuba and Porto Rico, the number for the latter being very
small), from 1821 to 1843 inclusive, amounted to  75,653
If to this number we add importations to 1820,
according to Baron Humboldt,  372,449
1844 to June 30, 1853, as above,  47,122
We have a total of  495,224
This number is largely exceeded by the estimate we have given
above. The several parliamentary returns before us do not agree
with each other, nor with the reports of the British commissioners at
Havana. With the exception of those for the term from 1832 to
1837, our figures have been obtained from the annual reports of the
Havana commissioners to the British government, and represent the
maximum of slave importations in Cuba. Through the same polite
attentions, we learn that the number of slaves illegally imported
into Cuba, during the years 1853 and 1854, has been 12,500, and
10,230, respectively.
1 All the English colonies in the Antilles, which at the present
time contain only about 700,000 blacks and mulattoes, free and
slave, have received, in one hundred and six years, from 1680 to
1786, as is shown by the custom-house returns, 2,130,000 negroes
from the coast of Africa. — H.

SLAVERY. 223
for it contains 130,000 free colored, while Jamaica
has only 35,000, with a population of one-half
greater. Cuba has received from Africa,
Previous to 1791  93,500
From 1791 to 1825, at least .... 320,000

413,500

In 1825, in consequence of the small number of
females brought by the traders, there existed in the
island only, Negroes, free and slave  320,000
Mulattoes  70,000

390,000

A similar calculation was sent to the Cortes of
Spain, on the 20 July 1811, based upon numerical
elements differing slightly from these, in which -it
was endeavored to prove that the island of Cuba had
received up to 1810, less than 229,000 African
negroes,1 which are represented, in 1811, by a slave
1 According to a note published by the Consnlado of Havana
(Papal Periodico, 1801, p. 12), it is estimated that the average cost
of the 15,647 African negroes, imported from 1797 to 1800, was
$375, each.. At this rate, the 307,000 imported from 1790 to
1823, will have cost the inhabitants of the island the sum of
$115,125,000.— H.

224 humboldt's cuba.
and free population of blacks and mulattoes, amount
ing to 326,000 ; being an excess of 97,000 over the
number imported.1 When it is remembered that the
whites have contributed to the existence of 70,000
mulattoes,2 leaving aside the natural increase that
has resulted from so many thousand negroes pro
gressively imported, one exclaims, "What other
nation, or human society, can give so favorable an
1 My calculation closes with 1825, and the number of negroes
imported since the conquest amounts to 413,500. The calculation
sent to the Cortes closes with 1810, and gives 229,000. (Documen
tos, p. 119.) Difference, 184,500 ; but, according to the returns of
the Havana custom-house alone, the number of African negroes
brought to that port from 1811 to 1820, has been 109,000, and to
this we must add, 1st, according to the principles admitted by the
consulado, one-fourth or 27,000, for the licit importations at other
ports of the island ; and, 2d, the amount of illicit traffic, from 1811
to 1825.— H.
s The work undertaken by the consulado, in 1811, relative to the
probable distribution of 326,000 blacks, free and slave, contains
some very interesting matter, which great' local knowledge alone
could have supplied to that body. A. Cities. Western part. — In
Havana, 27,000 free colored, and 28,000 slaves ; seven towns, with
Ayuntamiento, 18,000 ; from which we have, in the jurisdiction of
Havana, 36,000 free colored, and 37,000 slaves. Eastern • part,
86,000 free colored, and 32,000 slaves. Total, in the cities, 72,000
free colored, and 69,000 slaves, or 141,000. B. Country. — Jurisdic
tion of Havana, 6,000 free colored, and 110,000 slaves. Eastern
part, 36^000 free colored, and 33,000 slaves. Total, in the country,
185,000. — Documentos sobre los negros, p. 121. — H.

SLAVERY. 225
account of the results of this unfortunate trade /"
I respect the sentiments that have dictated these
lines, and will again repeat, that if we compare.
Cuba with Jamaica, the results appear in favor of
the Spanish legislation, and the customs of the inha
bitants of Cuba. These comparisons demonstrate a
state of affairs in the latter island infinitely more
favorable to the physical preservation and manumis
sion of the negroes ; but what a sorrowful spectacle
is presented by Christian and civilized nations dis
puting which of the two, in three centuries, has
destroyed the least number of Africans, by reducing
them to slavery !
I will not praise the treatment of the negroes in
the southern portion of the United States,1 but
certain it is, that different degrees exist in the
sufferings of the human species. The slave who has
a cabin and a family, is not so unhappy as he who is
folded as if he were one of a flock of sheep. The
greater the number of slaves established with their
'See "Negro slavery in the United States of America and
Jamaica," 1823, p. 31, as to the comparative state of misery
between the slaves of the Antilles, and those of the United States.
In 1823 Jamaica had 170,466 males, and 171,916 females; the
United States, in 1820, had 788,020 males, and 750,100 females. It
is not, therefore, the disproportion between the sexes that causes the
absence of natural increase in the Antilles. — H.
10*

226 humboldt's cuba.
families, in cabins which they deem their own, the
more rapid is their multiplication. The slaves in the
United States were as follows : —
1770 ... . 480,000 1810. ...1,191,364
1791... 676,696 1820. . . .L54L568
1800.... 894,444
The annual increase1 for the last ten years, has
been (without counting the manumission of 100,000),
26,000, which is doubling in 27 years. I will say,
therefore, with Mr. Cropper,2 that if the slaves in
Jamaica and Cuba had multiplied in the same
proportion,3 these two islands would have had, one
'The increase of the slaves from 1790 to 1810 (514,668), arises as
follows : — 1st. The natural increase in the families ; 2d. The
importation of 30,000 negroes, between 1804 and 1808, which was,
unhappily, permitted by the Legislature of South Carolina ; 3d. The
acquisition of Louisiana, where there were 30,000 negroes. The
increase from the last two causes has been only $¦ of the total
increase, and has been compensated by the manumission of more
than 100,000 negroes, who. in 1810, ceased to appear in* the slave
returns. The slaves multiply somewhat less rapidly (the exact
proportion being 0.02611 to 0.02915), than the total population of
the United States ; but their multiplication is more rapid than that
of the whites, wherever they form a considerable portion of the
population, as in the southern states. (Morse's Mod. Geogr. 1822,
p. 608.)— H.
2 Letter addressed to the Liverpool Society, 1823, p. 18. — H.
'The number of 480,000, in the year 1770, is not based upon an
actual census, it being only an approximate estimate. Albert

SLAVERY. ' 227
in 1795, and the other in 1800, very nearly their
present population, without any necessity of loading
400,000 negroes with chains, in Africa, and dragging
them to Port Poyal or Havana.
The mortality of the negroes varies greatly in
Cuba, according to the kind of labor, the humanity
of the masters or overseers, and the number of
women employed in taking care of the sick. I have

Gallatin thinks that the United States, which, at the close of 1823,
had a population of 1,665,000 slaves, and 250,000 free colored, being
a total of 1,915,000 blacks and mulattoes, never received from the
coast of Africa over 300,000 negroes, that is to say, 1,183,000 less
than those received from 1680 to 1786. by the English Antilles, the
black and mulatto population of which, now barely exceeds one-third
part of that of the United States. — H.
Mr. Carey, of Pennsylvania, in his work on the slave-trade, says,
"the trade in negro' slaves to the American colonies was too small
to attract attention." After a close argument from the ratio of
increase since the first census, Mr. C. is enabled to recur back, and
compute the population at earlier periods, separating the native
born from importations. Setting out with the fact that the slaves
(blacks), numbered 55,850 in 1714, he finds that there were brought,
of these, From Africa,  80,000
Importation from 1715 to 1750  90,000
" " 1751 " 1760  35,000
" " 1761 " 1770  74,000
" " 1771 " 1790  84,000
" " 1790 •' 1808  70,000
Total number imported,  888,000
Oompend. of Census of U. States, 1850, p. '83, note.

228 humboldt's cuba.
heard discussed with the greatest coolness, the
question whether it was better for the proprietor not
to overwork his slaves, and consequently have to
replace them with less frequency, or whether he
should get all he could out of them in a few years,
and thus have to purchase newly imported Africans
more frequently. But these are the reasonings of
avarice when one man holds another in servitude.
It would be unjust to deny that the mortality of
the blacks has diminished greatly in Cuba, within
the last fifteen years. Many proprietors have
studied how they might best improve the rules of
their plantations. The mean mortality of the newly
imported negroes is still from ten to twelve per
cent.,1 and from observations made on several well
conducted sugar plantations, it may fall to even six
or eight per cent. This loss among the newly
imported negroes varies much according to the time
of their arrival ; the most favorable season for them
is from October until January, those being the most
healthy months, and most abundant in provisions on
'We are assured that in Martinique, where there are 78,000
slaves, the mean mortality is 6,000, while the births are barely 1,290,
yearly. Before the cessation of the slave-trade, Jamaica lost
annually, 7,000, or 2£ per cent. ; since that time, the diminution of
the population is scarcely perceptible.— Review of the Registry Laws
by the Com. of the Afrin Inst. 1820, p. 43.— H.

SLAVERY* 229

the plantations. In the hot months, the mortality
during the sale is sometimes four per cent., as was
the case in 1802.
An increase in the number of female slaves, so
useful in the care of their husbands and their sick
companions ; ' their relief from labor during preg
nancy ; greater attention to their children ; the estab
lishment of the slaves by families in separate cabins ;
an abundance of food ; an increase in the number of
days of rest ; and the introduction of a system of
moderate labor for their own account, are the most
powerful and the only means to prevent the diminu
tion in-numbers of the blacks. Some persons who
are well informed as to the old system on the plan
tations, beheve that in the present state of things,
the number of slaves would diminish five per cent.
annually if the contraband traffic should entirely
cease. This diminution is nearly equal to that of
the English Lesser Antilles, except Santa Lucia and
Granada. These last, forewarned by the discussions
in Parliament, took measures to increase the import
ation of females. The abolition of the African slave-
trade in Cuba has been more prompt and more,
unexpected [Note. — The illustrious author's anticipations in
regard to the cessation of the African slave-trade in

230 humboldt's cuba.
Cuba, have not been realized ; it being matter of
public notoriety that it is still carried on there on a
large scale, with the connivance of the government,
and in flagrant opposition to the known wishes of
the great majority of the Cubans. His sketch of
slavery, as it exists in that island, is worthy the
careful attention of men of every opinion regarding
the institution itself. We have spoken elsewhere *
of what we deem the fallacy of the decrease of the
slaves in Cuba by death ; but a conclusive argu
ment on this point is presented in the fact that while,
by a liberal computation, there have been imported
into Cuba 644,108 Africans, there are now in that
island 662,599 slaves, and' 219,170 free blacks,
making a total of 881,769 Africans and their de
scendants, while in all the English Antilles an
importation of 2,130,000 negroes was represented
by 700,000 in 1825.— (See note to p. 192, chap. V.)
This result has only been paralleled in the Southern
States of our own confederacy, for even in the free
negro islands of the American Mediterranean, we
are led, by the best information we can obtain, to
suppose that the black population, as well as the
white, experiences a constant decrease. If it be
true that population can increase only under a con-
1 See note'at the close of Chapter V.

SLAVERY. 231
dition of physical wellrbeing, and that a decrease
denotes a condition of physical suffering, the situa
tion of the negro in Cuba must be vastly superior
to that of his own race in the free islands. That
his moral condition exhibits the same result we be
lieve will be admitted by every impartial traveller
in the two countries.
Another element has been introduced in the popu
lation of Cuba, by the importation of several thou
sands of Chinese, who are contracted to labor on the
sugar estates for a period of years, at prices far
below the usual value of labor in the island. The
class of persons contracted with is usually the
lowest of the low in the crowded sea-ports of China.
ISTo females are brought, and they are thus forced to
'amalgamate with the slave population, to whom they
bring neither honest principles nor good morals. Ko
one who for a moment contemplates the inevitable
consequences of this resort of English philanthropy
to remedy its social errors, can doubt its results;
the amalgamation of unequal and dissonant races of
men in their most degraded condition, can only be
productive of the greatest moral and social evils to
the community upon which it is forced.]

232

HUMBOLDT S CUBA.

CHAPTEE VH.
RACES.
But two now in the Antilles — Indians have disappeared — ConiKon
of early historians relative to their numbers — Character of
estimates by early voyagers — Why Cuba might not have been
as populous as represented — Cruelties of first settlers — Early
mode of computing population — Movement of colonization in
Cuba — Law of proportion of races — Havana — Cuatro Villas —
Puerto Principe — St. Jago de Cuba— Density of population
— Populous and uninhabited districts — Impossibility of the mili
tary defence of the island — Intellectual culture— Intelligence
of the Habaneros — Apparent distance from Europe diminished —
Declining influence of the old Spaniards — Admirable institutions in
Havana — The necessity of reform.
As the primitive population of the Antilles has
entirely disappeared (the Caribbean sambos, a mix
ture of natives and blacks, having been removed
from the island of San Yicente to Patan, in 1796)
we must consider their present population (2,850,000),
as being entirely of European and African blood.
The pure blacks form nearly two-thirds of it, the
whites one-sixth, and the mixed races one-seventh.
In the Spanish colonies on the continent, we find

RACKS. 233
the descendants of the Indians who have disappeared
among the mestizos and zambos (crossings of Indians
with whites and blacks), but this consoling fact does
not present itself in contemplating the Antilles.
Such was the state of society there, at the beginning
of the sixteenth century, that the colonists did not
mix with the natives, as do the English in Canada,
except in rare instances.
The Indians of Cuba have disappeared like the
Guanches of the Canary Islands, although in Guana
bacoa, and in Teneriffe, within forty years, we have
seen some fallacious pretences renewed, by which
many famihes drew small pensions from the govern
ment, under the pretext that Indian, or Guanche
blood circulated in their veins. No means now
exist to arrive at a knowledge of the population of
Cuba, or Haiti, in the time of Columbus ; but how
can we admit what some, in other respects judicious
historians, state, that when the island pf Cuba was
conquered in 1511, it contained a million inhabi
tants, of whom 14,000 only remained in 1517 ? The
statistical information which .we find in the writings
of the bishop of Chi&pa (Las Casas), is filled with
contradictions, and if it be true that the good Domi
nican friar, Luis Bertram (who was persecuted by
the grantees, as the Methodists in our days are by
some English planters), predicted, on his return to

234 humboldt's cuba.
Spain, that " the 200.000 Indians now in the island
of Cuba, will perish, victims to the cruelty of the
Europeans,"' we must conclude that between the
years 1555 and 1567, the indigenous race was far
from being exterminated. Yet, according to Gomara
(such is the confusion of the historians of that time),
there was not one Indian in Cuba after 1553.
That we may form some idea of the vague char
acter of the estimates made by the early Spanish
voyagers, at a time when no knowledge existed of
the "population of a single province in Spain, we
need only recur to the fact that the number of
inhabitants which Captain Cook and other naviga
tors estimated for Tahiti and the Sandwich Islands,
varies from one to five, and that, too, at a period
when statistics afforded exact means of comparison.
It is easily perceived that Cuba, surrounded with
banks abounding in fish, and having an extremely
fertile soil, might have maintained many millions of
those Indians, who were so abstemious that they did
not taste of flesh, and cultivated only corn, ynca,
and other alimentary roots. But had the population
been so great, would it not have evinced a more
advanced civilization than is revealed in the narra
tive of Columbas? Were the inhabitants of Cuba
less civilized than those of the Lucayo Islands ?
However active we may suppose the destructive

RACES.

235

causes to have been, the cruelty of the conquerors.
the brutality of the governors, the too severe labors
of the gold washings, the ravages of the small pox,
and the frequency of suicide, we can hardly con
ceive how, in thirty, or forty years. I will not say a
million, but even three or four hundred thousand
Indians could become entirely extinct. The war
with the cacique Hatuey was of short duration,
and confined entirely to the eastern part of the
island. Few complaints were made against the
administration of the first two Spanish governors,
Diego Yelasquez and Pedro de Barba. The oppres
sion of the natives began in the year 1539, with the
arrival of the cruel Hernando de Soto.1 Supposing
Gomara to be correct in stating that there were no
Indians fifteen years later, when Diego de Majarie-
gos was governor (1554-1564), we must suppose
that those who escaped to Florida in their pirogues,
1 The researches of Don Juan Bautista de Munoz, in the archives
of Seville, have shown that cruelty to the Indians began very soon
after the conquest. The revolting atrocities committed by Vasco
PorcaHa, in 1521, are cited by Sagra, and as early as 1534, the
Cuban officials, in their letters to the emperor, asked for "7,000
negroes, that they might become inured to labor before the Indians
ceased to exist." The mania of suicide to escape the labor imposed
upon them, was common among the Indians long before the time of
Hernando de Soto. — (See Sagra, Historia Fisica, Politica y Natural
large Svo. Apend. pp. 8-26.)

236 humboldt's cuba.
believing, as tradition tells us, that they were return
ing to the land of their ancestors, must have com
prised a very considerable remnant of the population.
The mortality observed among the negro slaves in the
Antilles, in our days, may throw some hght on these
contradictory statements.
Cuba must have seemed very populous to Colum
bus and Yelasquez, if it was as well populated as
when the English landed in 1762. Early voyagers
are easily deceived by appearances, because they
estimate the population from the numbers of people
that the apparition of European vessels brings down
to the shore. But we know that the island o'f Cuba,
with the same towns and villages that it now pos
sesses, did not contain over 200,000 inhabitants, in
1762 ; and even in a country where the people are
treated like slaves, exposed to brutal masters, to
excessive labor, ill-fed, and subject to the ravages of _
the small pox, forty-two years are not sufficient that
the land should retain only the memory of their mis
fortunes. In many of the Lesser Antilles, which are
held by the English, population diminishes at the
rate of five or six per cent., annually ; and in Cuba,
more than eight per cent. ; but the entire destruction,
in forty-two years, of two hundred thousand, sup
poses an annual loss of twenty-six per cent., which is
incredible, although we suppose the mortality of the

RACES. 237
Indians to have been much greater than that of
negro slaves, purchased at high prices.1
In studying the history of Cuba, we perceive that
the movement of colonization has been from east to
west, and that there, as in all the Spanish colonies,
the regions first settled are those which are now least
populous. The first settlement of the whites occur
red in 1511, when the Poblador y Conquistador
Yelasquez, under orders from Don Diego Columbus,
landed at Puerto de las Palmas, near Cape Maysi,
then called Alpha and Omega, and subjugated the
Cacique Hatuey, who had fled from Haiti to the
eastern part of Cuba, where he became the chief of
a confederation of several smaller native princes.
In 1512 the city of Baracoa was founded, and soon
afterwards St. Jago de Cuba (1514), Bayamo, Trini
dad, Santi Espiritu, and Havana. The latter city
was founded in 1515, on the southern coast of the
island, in the partido of Guines, and four years later,
was transferred to the Puerto de Carenas, the posi
tion of which, near the entrance of the two Bahama
channels (the old and the new), seemed much more
favorable for commerce than the coast southeast of
Batabano.

1 Thus in the Spanish version, and in the original French. It is
manifestly an arithmetical error.

238 humboldt's cuba. *
Since the sixteenth century, the progress of the
country has had a powerful influence on the relations
of the several classes of population to each other,
which vary in the grazing districts, and in those
where the country has been long since cleared ; in
the seaports and in the country towns ; in the dis
tricts where the colonial staples are planted, and in
those which produce corn, vegetables and forage.-
I. The district of Havana experiences a decrease
in the relative white population of the capital, and
its vicinity, but not in the interior towns, nor in the
ontire Vuelta de Abajo, where the tobacco plant is
cultivated by free labor. In 1791, the census of
Don Luis de las Casas gave to the district of Havana
137,800 souls, in which the proportion of whites,
free colored, and slaves were as 53 : 20 : 27. More
recently, in 1811, when the importations of slaves
were very large, these proportions were estimated as
46 : 12 : 42.
In the districts containing the large plantations of
sugar and coffee, which are the districts of great
agricultural labor, the whites form barely one-third
of the population, and the proportions of class
(taking this expression in the sense of the proportion
of each to the total population), oscillates, for the
whites, between 30 and 36; for the free colored,
between 3 and 6 ; and for the slaves, between 58 and

RACES.

239

67 ; while in the districts of the Vuelta de Abajo,
where tobacco is grown, it is found to be as 62 :
24 : 14 ; and in the grazing districts even, as 66 :
20 : 14. From these calculations, it would seem
that where slavery exists, the proportion of free
persons diminishes as population and refinement
advance. [Note.— -The relative proportions of class in the
several districts here cited by Baron Humboldt, are
stated as follows, in the censuses of 1841 and 1846 :
1841. 1846.
Western department,.. 39 : 10 : 51 46 : 12 : 42
Sugar district,  39 : 6 ; 55 34 : 5 : 61
Tobacco district,  57 : 12 : 31 54 : 16 : 30
Grazing do  59 : 15 : 26 57 : 18 : 25
By this table, we perceive that the law of pro
portion exhibits nearly the same relative numbers
stated by Baron Humboldt, and that the relative
proportions have slightly changed, with the increased
wealth of the island. We have elsewhere stated our
want of confidence in the returns of 1846, and the
above table indicates where they may err in their
stated decrease of the slave population. While this
has not decreased in the sugar, tobacco, or grazing
districts, the returns for the whole department show

240 humboldt's cuba.
a diminution in the total number of slaves. The
capitation tax laid on house servants, in 1844,
affords a partial reason for these diminished returns.]

H. The progress of population is more exactly
known in the central and eastern portions of the
island, than in the western department. That of the
Cuatro Yillas district has resulted from another
class of industry. In Santi Espiritu, where the
grazing haciendas increase, and in San Juan de los
Pemedios, where an active contraband trade is car
ried on with the Bahama Islands, the proportion of
whites has increased between the years 1791 and
1811 ; while in the eminently fertile district of Trini
dad, where the sugar culture has increased in an
extraordinary degree, it has diminished.
[Note. — The law of population here expressed,
still obtains in these districts. In 1841 the relative
proportions of white, free colored, and slaves, were —
Santi Espiritu  65 : 15 : 20
Remedios  63 : 20 : 17
Trinidad  37 : 22 : 41.]
III. In the district of Puerto Principe the entire
population has been nearly doubled in twenty years,
and the white has increased eighty-nine per cent., as
in the best portion of the United States. Yet the

RACES. 241
vicinity of Puerto Principe is nothing more than
vast plains, where half wild cattle are pastured. The
proprietors, says a modern traveller, are only assidu
ous to put in their chests the money brought by
the overseers from their cattle-farms, from whence
they bring it forth only for the purposes of play, or
to carry on law-suits which have been handed down
from generation to generation.
[Note.— -Amid the general prosperity of Cuba, this
district now presents the anomaly of a constantly
decreasing population, the returns of the last three
censuses being as follows : —
Whites. Free colored. Slaves.
1827  39,375 6,911 ........ 15,704
1841... .30,104 7,599  13.383
1846  23,006 7,403  10,827
We have never been able to obtain a satisfactory
explanation of this fact ; perhaps it may arise from
the loW ratio of profit from the grazing farms, when
compared with other branches of labor, and the
want of roads and means of communication in the
district, which have combined to cause the popula
tion to remove to more favored localities. The
recent completion of a railroad from the city of
Principe to the port of Nuevitas, and a newly-
awakened spirit of enterprise among the landed
11

242 humboldt's cuba.
proprietors, will, it is hoped, change this state of
things.] IY. In the district of St. Jago de Cuba, considered
as a whole, the proportions of the different classes
have experienced little alteration during the last
twenty years. The partido of Bayamo is notable
for the large number of free colored (44 per cent.),
which increases yearly, as also in Holguin and
Baracoa. In the vicinity of St. Jago the coffee
plantations prosper and show a very considerable
increase in the slaves.
[Note. — The law of population in this department
has experienced little change since the time of Baron
Humboldt's researches, with the exception of the
district of Holguin. This district, situate on the
north side of Cuba, possesses a very large stretch of
the best agricultural lands, while its fine harbors, and
clear coast, make it easily accessible to commerce.
It has entered upon a career of agricultural labor,
that holds out the most golden promise of reward ;
and the law of its population begins to assimilate to
that of the Western department, which it^may rival
in agricultural prosperity.]
In the official documents published at Havana, an
attempt has been made to compare the density of

/

RACES. 243
the population with that of the least populous
portions of France and Spain. As the true area
of the island was not then ascertained, these cal
culations have been inexact. We have already
seen that the whole island has nearly two hundred
inhabitants to the square league (in 1825) ; this is
one-fourth less than Cuenca, the least populous pro
vince of Spain, and four times less than the higher
Alpes, the least populous department of France.1
1 Estimating the present population of Cuba by the pro ratd of
increase shown by the censuses of 1827 and 1841, the number and
density of inhabitants at the close of 1855 is approximately as
follows :—
Department. Population.
Western  966,000
Central  280,000
Eastern  250,000
Total  1,446,000 84,288 42
Making the present density about 378 inhabitants to the square
league. The density of the Western department approximates very
nearly to that of Massachusetts ; that of the Central department to
Georgia ; and that of the Eastern to Tennessee, as exhibited by
the census of 1850. The number of inhabitants to the square mile
in the principal countries of Europe, is as follows : —
Belgium  888 Prussia,  151
» England  822 Austria  142
Holland,  259 Denmark  102
France  178 Portugal  95
Switzerland,  160 Spain,  T8

Area, Square Miles.

Density.

8,017

120

14,898

16

11,258

22

244 humboldt's cuba.
The population of Cuba is so unequally distributed,
that we may consider five-sixths of the island as
uninhabited. There are several parishes (Consola-
cion, Macuriges, Hanabana), in which there are
barely fifteen inhabitants, to the square league;
while, on the, other hand, in the triangle between
Bahia Honda, Batabano, and Matanzas (or, more
correctly stated, between the Pan of Guajaibon,
Batabano, and Guamacaro), there are 300,000 inha
bitants in 410 square leagues, or in one-ninth of the
total area of the island ; this is three-sevenths of its
population, and six-sevenths of its agricultural and
commercial wealth. Yet this triangle contains only
732 inhabitants to the square league, its extent
being somewhat less than that of two of the medium
departments of France, and its density of population
one-half smaller. We should remember, that even
in this small triangle between Guajaibon, Batabano,
and Guamacaro, the southern portion is entirely
uninhabited. The least populous parishes, containing only graz
ing farms, are those of Santa Cruz de los Pinos,
Guanacape, Cacaragicaras, Pinal del Pio, Guane,
and Baja, in the Vuelta de Abajo, and Macuriges,
Hanabana, Guamacaro, and Alvarez, in the Vuelta
de Arriba.1 The hatos (large cattle farms), with
1 These districts of the Vuelta de Art iba have now become the

RACES. 245.
1,600 or 1,800 caballerias of uncultivated land, are
gradually disappearing ; and, if the new settlements
at Guantanamo and Nuevitas have not experienced
the rapid growth which had been anticipated,
others, as for instance that of Guanajay, have been
very prosperous. (Expediente de Don Francisco de
Arango, 1798, MSS.) In the preceding pages, I have
stated with what facihty the population of Cuba may
increase in future years. Being myself a native of
the cold North, that partakes in a small degree of
Nature's bounty, I remember that the mark of
Bradenburg, which is in a great degree sandy,
maintains, thanks to an administration favorable to
agriculture and industry, a population twice greater
than that of Cuba, on an area three times smaller
than hers.
The unequal distribution of the population, the
want of inhabitants on a great part of the coasts,
together with the great extent of these, make the
military defence of the island an impossibility ; for,
neither the contraband trade, nor the debarcation of
an enemy can be prevented. Havana is, undoubt
edly, a strongly fortified place, its works rivalling
great seat of the sugar culture, and are both populous and prosper
ous. They are intimately connected with Havana, and with the
ports of Matanzas and Cardenas, by a well-devised system of rail
way.

246 humboldt's ouba.
those of the most important cities of Europe ; the
small towers add forts of Cojima, Jaruco, Matanzas,
Mariel, Bahia Honda,. Batabano, Jagua, and Trini
dad, may offer a longer or shorter resistance, but
nearly two-thirds of the island has no defence what
ever; for however active the service of gun-boats
may be, it could never be of much importance.
Intellectual cultivation, limited entirely to the
whites, is distributed with the same inequality as the
population. The intercourse of the best society of
Havana resembles, in its polite forms and urbanity,
that of Cadiz and the richest commercial cities of
Europe ; but as we leave the capital, and its neigh
boring plantations inhabited by wealthy planters, we
notice the contrast presented by a state of partial
and local civilization, with the simple habits and
customs that obtain in the small towns and isolated
haciendas. The Habaneros have been the first among the
rich Spanish colonists to travel in Spain, France,
and Italy. Nowhere are the politics of Europe,
and the springs which sustain or overturn a minis
try, better understood than in Havana. This know
ledge of passing events, and a foresight of the future,
have been of great advantage to the- inhabitants of
Cuba, in freeing them from the difficulties which
delay the advance of colonial prosperity. In the

RACES. 247
interval of time elapsed - from the peace of the Ver
sailles to the revolution of St. Domingo, Havana has
seemed ten times nearer to Spain than Mexico, Car
accas, or New Granada. During my residence in
the colonies, fifteen years later, this apparent inequa
lity had already become greatly diminished. At the
present time, when the independence of the conti
nental colonies, the importation of the products of
foreign industry, and the outflow of the coinage of
the new States, have increased the intercourse
between Europe and America ; when distance is so
much diminished by improvements in navigation,
and the inhabitants of Mexico, Colombia, and Gua
temala, rival each other in visiting Europe, the
-greater part of the old colonies of Spain, at least
those washed by the Atlantic, seem also to be much
nearer to our continent.
Such are the changes produced in a few years,
and which are extending in an extraordinary degree,
by the diffusion of knowledge, and by an activity
which had been long repressed, that the contrasts of
manners and civilization, which I had observed in
the beginning of the present century, in Caraccas,
Bogota, Quito, Lima, Mexico, and Habana, have
become less apparent. The influence of the original
Basques, Catalans, Gallegos, and Audalusians is
daily becoming less ; and at this time At would be,

248 humboldt's cuba.
perhaps, unjust to draw the distinctions of national
refinement in the six capitals I have just named, as
I had intended doing in another place.
The island of Cuba has no great and sumptuous
establishments, whose foundation dates from a time
long anterior to those of Mexico ; but Havana pos
sesses institutions which the patriotism of the inhab
itants, stimulated by a praiseworthy rivalry with the
other centres of American civilization, may enlarge
and perfect, when political affairs and public confi
dence in the preservation of domestic repose shall
permit it.1
The Patriotic Society of Havana (founded in 1793),
those of Santi Espiritu, Trinidad, and Puerto Principe,
which are branches of that at Havana f the University,
with its professorships of Theology, Jurisprudence,
Medicine,3 and Mathematics, founded in 1728, in the
1 This was written at a time when the Congress of American nations
at Panama, and the conspiracy of the "Soles de Bolivar "in Cuba,
inspired serious doubts of the stability of the Spanish power there.
2 These societies were suppressed a few years since, and their func
tions merged in the Junta de Fomento.
3 In 1825, there were, in Havana alone, more than 500 licensed
physicians, 333 surgeons, latinos y romancistas (surgeons and bar
bers), and 100 apothecaries. At the same time, there were, in the
wholo island, 312 lawyers (of which, 198 were in Havana), and 94
notaries. The number of lawyers has greatly increased since 1814,
when there were only 98 in Havana, and 130 in all the island. — H.

RACES. . 249
Dominican monastery ;' the chair of Political Econ
omy, established in 1818, of Agricultural Botany,
the School of Descriptive Anatomy and Museum,
due to the enlightened zeal of Don Alejandro
Pamirez, the public Library, the Free School of
Drawing and Painting, the Nautical Academy, the
Lancasterian schools, and the Botanical Garden, are
noble institutions, partly new and partly old, some
of which are susceptible and worthy of improvement,
and others need a complete reform to bring them into
harmony with the wants of society and the spirit of
the age.
1 The clergy of Cuba is neither numerous nor rich, excepting the
bishop of Havana, and the archbishop of Cuba; the first has
$110,000, and the latter $40,000 annual income.* The pre
bendaries have $3,000 a year. The number of ecclesiastics does
not exceed 1,100, as appears by the official census which I pos
sess. — H.
* This has been greatly diminished by the expropriation of the church properly.

11*

250 humboldt's cuba.

CHAPTER YHI.
SUGAR CULTURE.
Historical summary — Export of sugar from Havana to 1824: —
Prom Cuba to 1852 — Estimates of actual product — Wealth of
Cuba compared with the Antilles — St. Domingo — -Brazil — Effect
of political disasters on prices — Relative position of Cuba —
Classes of sugar — Numerical elements of sugar planting — Value
of land — Number of hands to a plantation, and their food — Machi
nery — Cost, product, and expense of a sugar plantation in 1825.
[Note — In 1855 — Compared — Causes of increased- product.] —
Mean yield of land in sugar-cane, maple, and beet — Proportions of
crystallizable sugar — Different results in manipulations of canfe-
juice — Where improvements must be sought — Yield of cane in
new and old lands — Compared with wheat — Yield in Bengal —
Disproportion of results in agriculture in Cuba and France-^-First
beet-root sugar in Havana — Fears entertained — Changes in sugar
culture — Increase — First cane planted in America — Several classes
— Supposition of sugar-makers — Otaheitan cane has not degenerated
— Wan t of fuel — Application of bagass — Wood and bagass com
pared — Experiments and inventions — Suggested by the author's
residence at salt-works — Error in Europe relative to the effect of
cessation of slave-trade — Number of slaves in sugar culture — In
towns — Capture of Havana by the English, and its good effects-
Causes of prosperity — Evils of government embarrass it.
Wheh the Spaniards first settled in the islands,
and on the continent of America, they began, as in

SUGAR CULTURE. 251
Em-ope, to cultivate the principal articles necessary
for the sustenance of man. This system of agricul
tural life among the people, is the most natural, and
is that whieh inspires society with the greatest con
fidence, and it has been preserved in Mexico, Peru,
and the temperate and cold regions of Cundina-
marca, where the power of the whites has extended
over a vast expanse of country. Several alimentary
plants, as the plantain, yuca, maize, the cereals of
Europe, and the potato, have been, at different
elevations above the level of the sea, the basis of
continental agriculture within the tropics. Indigo,
cotton, coffee, and the sugar-cane, are found only in
scattered groups in those countries.
The same was the case in Cuba, and the other
islands of the Antilles, for two and a half centuries.
The same plants which had served to maintain the
half-savage Indian, were cultivated 'there, and the
vast plains of the larger islands were filled with
numerous herds of cattle. In 1520 Pedro de Atienza
planted the first sugar-cane in St. Domingo, and rude
cylinder presses, moved by water-power, are still
constructed there. Cuba participated very slightly
in this new industry, and it is most singular that the
historians of the conquest, at as late a period as
1553, do not speak of any other export of sugar to
Spain and Peru, than that of Mexico. Havana, far

252 humboldt's cuba.
from contributing to commerce what we now style
colonial staples, exported only hides and skins, until
the eighteenth century.
The cultivation of tobacco and the care of bees,
the first hives of which were carried from Florida,
succeeded the raising of cattle. Wax and tobacco
were soon more important articles of commerce than
hides, and were in their turn, superseded by sugar
and coffee. The cultivation of these articles did not
diminish that of the former ones, and in these differ
ent phases of agricultural industry, notwithstanding
the efforts we have seen to make the coffee culture
predominate, the sugar plantations have thus far
yielded the greatest returns. The export, through
Heit and illicit channels, of coffee, tobacco, sugar,
and wax, has risen to fourteen millions annually,
estimated at the present value of those staples.
The export of sugar from Havana alone during
the last sixty-four years, according to the custom
house returns, is as follows : — ¦
From 1760 to 1763, average at most  13,000 Boxes.
" 1770 " 1780  50,000 "
1786, . . . 63,274 Boxes. 1791, . . . 85,014 "
1787,.... 61,245 " 1792,..., 72,854 "
1788,.... 69,221 '• 1793,. ..87,970 "
1789,.... 69,125 " 1794,. .. .103,629 "
1790,.- .. 77,896 " 1795,  70,437 "

SUGAR CULTURE.

253

1796,. . . 120,374 Boxes. 1804, .... 193,955 Boxes.
1797,  118,066 " 1805,..,. 174,544
1798,.... 134,872 " 1806, ...156,510
1799,.... 165,602 " ' 1807,.... 181,272
1800, ...142,097 " 1808,.... 125,875
1801,.... 159,841 " 1809,.... 238,842
1802, .... 204,404 " 1810, .... 186,672
1803, .... 158,073 "
From 1811 to 1814 average yearly  206,487
1815  214,111 " 1820  215,593
1816,.... 200,487 " 1821,. .. .236,669
1817,.... 217,076 " 1822,.... 261,795
1818,  207,378 " 1823  300,211
1819, ... . 192,743 " 1824, .... 245.329
This table, which is the most complete that has been
published up to the present time, is based upon a
great number of manuscript official documents,-
which have been communicated to me ; on the
Aurora, and Papel Periodico of Havana ; the Patrif
ota Americano ; the Guias de forasteros of Cuba j
the Sucinta Noticia de la situacion presente de la,
Habana, 1800, MSS.; Reclamacion contra la ley de
Aranceles, 1821 ) and the Redactor General of Gua
temala, July 1825, p. 25.
1 According to the official returns, the export of sugar from Cuba,
since 1824, has been as follows :
1825  488,776 Boxes.
1826 to 1830  2,088,793 "
1881 " 1885  2,436,492 ¦'

254 humboldt's cuba.
In order to arrive at the exact export of sugar
from Cuba, we must add to the exports from Havana ;
1st. That of the other open ports, particularly Matan
zas, St. Jago de Cuba, Trinidad, Baracoa, and Mariel ;
and 2d. The amount of contraband commerce.
During my stay in the island, the" export of Trinidad
was estimated at 25,000 boxes. In examining the
custom-house returns of Matanzas, we must avoid
the repetition of amounts, and carefully distinguish
between the sugar exported directly to Europe^ and
that shipped to Havana. In 1819, the real trans-
Atlantic export from Matanzas did not exceed one-
thirteenth of that from Havana, and in 1823 I found
it to be one-tenth. According to these data, we
may add to the 235,000 boxes, which is the mean
term of export from Havana alone for the last eight
years (in 1825), at least 70,000 boxes shipped from
other ports ; so that (estimating the frauds in the
custom-house at one-fourth), the total export of the
island is more than 380,000 boxes of sugar yearly.
Well-informed persons estimated the consumption
1836 to 1840  8,171,428 Boxes.
1841 " 1845  4,024,405 "
1846 " 1850  4,840,768 "
1851  1,539,994 "
1852  1,409,012 "
No official returns of the commerce of the island, since 1852, have
been published.

SUGAR CULTURE. 255
of Havana, in 1794, at 18,600 boxes, and 45,600
that of all the island. In view of the fact that
the population of the island at that time was
about 362,000, of which, at most, only 230,000
were free, and that it is now 715,000, of which
455,000 are free, we must estimate a total consump
tion in 1825, of 88,000 boxes. But supposing it to be
60,000 boxes, we have a total product of at least
440,000 boxes from the sugar plantations.
That we may more exactly comprehend the
agricultural wealth of Cuba, let us compare the pro
duction of that island in moderately productive years,
with that of the other Antilles.1
SLAVE POPULATION AND EXPORT OF SUGAR LN 1823.
Slaves. Export.
Cuba,  260,000 1,520,000 cwt.
Jamaica,'.  342,382 1,417,488
Barbadoes, Granada, and St. Vincent, . . 128,000 794,567
Trinidad,  23,500 18.9,891
All the English Antilles,  626,800 3,005,366
French Antilles,  178,000 794,760
Dutch, Danish, and Swedish Antilles, . . . 61,300 354,386
1 We have here reduced Baron Humboldt's extended remarks to
the tabular form, for greater conciseness. The export of sugar from
Cuba, in 1851, had increased to six millions hundred weight, while
that of all the English West Indies had fallen to about 2,750,000
hundred weight.

256 humboldt's cuba.
The present export from St. Domingo is very
insignificant. In 1788 it amounted to 80,360,000
kilogrammes, and in 1799 it was still estimated to
reach twenty millions kilogrammes. If it had been
maintained as in the time of its greatest prosperity,
it would augment the export of sugar of all the
Antilles 28 per cent, and that of all America 18 per
cent. Brazil, Guiana, and Cuba together, with their
2,526,000 slaves, supply (in 1825) nearly 230,000,000
kilogrammes ; that is to say, exclusive of contraband,
three times more sugar than St. Domingo, at the time
of its greatest prosperity. The great increase of pro
duct in Brazil, Demarara, and Cuba, has replaced the
loss of Haiti, and made the destruction of the sugar
industry of that island less sensible.
The production of Brazil, which contains 1,960,000
slaves, and where the sugar-cane is cultivated from
the district of Eio Grande to the parallel of Puerto
Aiegre (30° 2' S. lat.), is much greater than is gene
rally supposed. In 1816 it was, according to very
exact data, 200,000 boxes, of 650 kilogrammes each,
or 130,000,000 kilogrammes (about 650,000 cwt.).
The production of sugar in this country has dimin
ished greatly since 1816, in consequence of domestic
disturbances, and in years of great drought has
barely reached 140,000 boxes. Those who are con
versant with this branch of American commerce,

SUGAR CULTURE. 257
believe that when tranquillity has been reestablished,
the mean annual export of sugar will reach 192,000
boxes.1 Equinoctial America and Louisiana yield annually
(in 1825), to the commerce of Europe and America,
as appears by a minute comparison of all the partial
statistics, 460,000,000 kilogrammes of sugar, as fol
lows : — Antilles,  1,147,500 slaves, 287, or 62 per cent.
Brazil,  2,060,000 " 125, " 27 " "
Guiana,  206,000 " 40," 9 " "
Great Britain alone, with a population of 14,400,000,
consumes more than one-third part of the 460,000,000
kilogrammes supplied by those countries of the new
continent, where the slave-trade has gathered 3,314,000
unfortunate slaves.
The cultivation of the sugar cane is now so widely
extended in different parts of the world, that any
physical or political causes which might suspend, or
destroy industrial labor in one of the great Antilles,
would not affect the price of sugar, nor exercise that
influence in the general trade of Europe and America
they would have exercised when the great cultiva
tion was concentrated in a smaller space. Spanish
1 The product of sugar in Brazil, in 1851, amounted to 117,000 tons
of 2,000 lbs. each. — Hunt's Merchant's Magazine.

258 humboldt's cuba.
writers have often compared the island of Cuba, from
the wealth of its productions, with the mines of Guana
juato in Mexico. And in truth, Guanajuato, at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, supplied one-
fourth part of all the silver from Mexico, and one-sixth
of that from all America. Cuba exports at this time
(1825), through licit channels, one-fourth of the
sugar from all the Antilles, and one-eighth of all the
sugar that goes from equinoctial America to Europe
and the United States.
In Cuba there are four qualities of sugar, accord
ing to its purity or degree of purging. Of each loaf,
or cone with the base uppermost, the upper part
gives white sugar, the middle gives brown, and the
lower, or point of the cone gives cucurucho ; these
three grades of Cuba sugar are purged, and but a
small portion is manufactured as raw, or moscabado
sugar. As the purging forms are of different size,
the loaf varies in weight ; it is usually about twenty-
five pounds after being purged. The sugar masters
desire that each loaf should give f of white, f of
brown, and £ of cucurucho sugar.
During my residence in the plain of Guines, I
endeavored to gather some exact data relative to
the numerical elements of sugar-cane planting. A
large sugar plantation producing from 2,000 to 2,500
boxes, generally has fifty caballerias of land (about

SUGAR CULTURE. 259
1,600 ameres), one-half of which is planted in cane,
and the other is appointed for alimentary plants and
pastures, which latter are called potreros. The value
of the land naturally varies according to its quality,
and vicinity to the ports of Havana, Matanzas, or
Mariel. In a radius of twenty-five leagues around
Havana, the value of each caballeria may be estima
ted at two or three thousand dollars.1
That a plantation may produce 2,000 boxes of
sugar, it must have three hundred negroes.2 An
adult male slave, who is acclimated, is worth 450 or
500 dollars, and an unacclimated, newly imported
African, 370 to 400 dollars. A negro costs from 45
to 50 dollars a year in food, clothing, and medicine,

1 The land m'easure known as a caballeria, is a square, having 18
corlels, each cordel being 24 varas, or 432 varas of a side ; conse-
qusntly, a caballeria has 186,624 square varas, equivalent to 32 1-10
English acres. — H.
' There are very few plantations in Cuba that make 2,500 boxes ;
OEly those of Eio Blanco, of the Marquis de Arcos, of Don Eafael
O'Farril, and Dona Felicia Jauregui, attain this quantity. Those
which produce 2,000 boxes, annually, are considered first class sugar
plantations. — H.
There has been a great change in this respect, since Baron Hum
boldt wrote, and a large number of the plantations in the Western
department yield from 4,000 to 5,000 btfxes, annually. A first class
sugar plantation in Cuba now yields from 7,500 to 10,000 boxes,
annually. >

260 HUMBOLDT S CUBA.
¦
consequently, including the interest on capital, and
throwing off the holidays, the cost of labor is a little
more than twenty-five cents a day. The slaves are
supplied with jerked beef from Buenos Ayres and
Caraccas, and salt fish, when meat is dear ; • with
vegetables, such as plantains, pumpkins, swefet pota
toes, potatoes, and corn. In the year 1804, \ jerked
beef was worth 5 to 6 cents a pound in Guines, and
in 1825, its cost is from 7 to 8 cents.
On a sugar plantation such as we are describing,
producing 2,000 or 2,500 boxes of sugar, there are
required, 1st, three cylinder mills, worked by oxen
or water-power; 2d, eighteen kettles, according to
the old Spanish method, which, having a very slow
fire, burns much wood ; and according to the
French method, introduced in 1801, by Bailli, ffom
St. Domingo, under the auspices of Don Nicolas
Calvo, three clarifiers, three large kettles, and tyo
boiling trains (each having three boilers), in ill,
twelve pieces. It is generally said that seventy-fiVe
pounds of purged sugar yields one keg (seven gal
lons) of molasses ; and that this, with the refuse
sugar, covers the expenses of the plantation ; but
this can be true only where large quantities of rum
are made. Two thousand boxes of sugar give 15,000
kegs of molasses, which will make 500 pipes pf rum,
worth $25 each.

SUGAR CULTURE. 261
If we form a table of product and expenditure
from these data, we find —
2,000 Boxes Sugar (white and brown), at $24,  $48,000
500 Pipes of Rum, at $25,  12,500
$60,500
The yearly expenses of the plantation are esti
mated at  $30,000
The capital invested consists of
50 caballerias of land, at $2,500,  $125,000
300 negroes, at $450,  135,000
Buildings, mills, &c.,  80,000
Cattle, and general inventory,  130,000
$470,000
From this estimate, we find that if a plantation
capable of producing 2,000 boxes is established, the
capitalist would receive 6+ per cent, interest, accord
ing to the old Spanish method, and the present
prices of sugar. This return is not exorbitant for
an establishment that is not purely agricultural, and
whose expenditures are always the same, even though
tie return should fall off one-third. We need not
be surprised, therefore, that the cultivation of rice
should be preferred in Cuba to that of sugar, when
the price of the latter is so low as 4 or 5 cents a
pound.

262 humboldt's cuba.
The profit of a plantation, established some time
since, consists in, 1st, the fact that, twenty years
since, the cost of making a plantation was much less
than now; for, a caballeria of good land cost then
only $1,200 or $1,600, instead of $2,000 or $2,500,
as now ; and an adult negro $300, instead of $450 to
$500 ; and, 2d, the variable returns — the prices of
sugar having been at times very low, and at others
very high. The prices of sugar have varied so
much, during a period of ten years, that the return
on the capital invested has varied from five to fifteen
per cent.
pSToTE. — That the reader may compare the state
of the sugar industry, at the present time, with the
foregoing clear statement of its numerical, elements,
we insert here the estimates presented in an able
and lucid work on the political and economical con
dition of Cuba, printed during the present year,
1855, for private circulation. It is from the pen of
a gentleman distinguished alike for his literary
attainments, his ability as a sugar planter and econ
omist, and his disinterested zeal for the welfare of
his native land. He says :
" We select a plantation producing 4,000 boxes,
which is neither one of the colossal ones recently
made, nor one of those deemed small.

SUGAR CULTURE. 263
300 negroes of both sexes and various ages
at $600,  $180,000
34 caballerias of land, in cane, at $2,500, . . 85,000
6 caballerias of land, at $2,000,  12,000
Steam engine and cane mills,  16,000
Buildings  35,500
Boiling trains, &c.,  15,000
$343,500
Less — First value of land, which remains on
ground rent, $600 a caballeria,  24,000
$319,500
4,000 boxes of sugar, average, $16,  $64,000
Product of molasses sold,  6,000
$70,000
The yearly expenses of the plantation are esti
mated, inclusive of an annual purchase of
cattle at  $36,110
Repairs and replacing material,  14,600
$50,710
leaving a profit of $19,290, being a return of 6£ per
cent, on the capital invested."
The number of hands on the plantation is the
same in both estimates, and there is one-fifth less
land in the modern than in the old plantation, while
the product of sugar is exactly double. This great
difference of yield arises, in part, from the following
circumstances, and in part, perhaps, from improve-

264 humboldt's cuba.
ments in the mode of culture, and of expressing the
juice from the cane. The able writer I have just
quoted estimates that the improved division of labor,
the use of steam-power, the introduction of mechani
cal appliances, as railway from the boiling-house to
the purging-house, pumps for several purposes, and
water pipes, improved furnaces and clarifiers, cane
carriers, bagass-carts, &c, and the greater facilities
of transition to market, make an actual saving of
seventy-nine hands to the plantation.
This largely increases the number of hands that
can be applied to field labor, and consequently
increases the breadth of land in cane, while the use
of steam-power, and a small increase in the capacity
of the boiling trains, suffices for the purpose of
manufacture. Such is the magical influence of the
improved mechanical appliances of our day, upon
the product of man's labor. Great improvements
have also been effected in the chemical processes of
sugar-making ; but their effect is, perhaps, expe
rienced more in the improved quality, than in the
greater quantity of sugar produced. The sugar.
planters of Cuba, as a class, are exceedingly intelli
gent, and quick to adopt improvements in their
system of labor.]
From calculations which I made, when in Cuba, I

*¦.' SUGAR CULTURE. 265
have estimated that a hectar of cane gives a mean
of twelve cubic metres of juice, from which are
extracted, by the method at present in use, at most,
ten or twelve per cent, of raw sugar. Considering,
therefore, the juice as a liquid charged with salts, it
contains, according to the fertility of the soil, from
twelve to sixteen per cent, of crystallizable sugar.
The sugar maple, in good~lands in the United States,
yields 450 grammes of sugar to eighteen kilogram
mes of sap, .being two and a half per cent. The
same quantity of sugar is yielded by the' beet root,
comparing this quantity with the entire weight of
root. Twenty thousand kilogrammes of beets, grown
in good land, yield five hundred kilogrammes of
raw sugar.
As the sugar cane loses one-half its weight, when
the juice is expressed, it gives — comparing, not the
product of juices, but the root of the common beet
with the sugar cane — six times more raw sugar, to
an equal weight of vegetable matter, than the beet
root. The juice of the cane varies in its constituent
parts, according to the nature of the soil, the quan
tity of rain, the distribution of heat in the different
seasons, and the earlier or later disposition of the
plant to flower. It is not alone in the greater or less
quantity of sugar held in solution, as some sugar-
makers suppose ; the difference consists rather in the
12

266 humboldt's cuba.
proportions of crystallizable and uncrystallizable
sugar, albumen, gum, green fecula, and malic acid.
The quantity of crystallizable sugar may be the
same, and yet, according to the operations used, the
quantity of sugar extracted from an equal weight
of juice, will vary considerably; this arises from the
different connection between the other peculiar prin
ciples of crystallizable sugar. This sugar, on combin
ing with some of the other principles, forms a syrup
which does not possess the quality of crystallization,
and remains in the refuse. A too great degree of
heat seems to hasten and increase the loss. These
considerations explain the reason why the sugar-
makers sometimes, at certain seasons of the year,
consider themselves bewitched, because, with the
same applications, they cannot make the same quan
tity of sugar. They also explain why the same juice,
under modified operations — for instance, the degrees
of heat, and the rapidity of boiling — yields more or
less sugar.
It has been said, and I again repeat it, that we
must not look for great improvements in the manu
facture of sugar, from the construction or manner
of setting the boilers and furnaces only, but from
improvements in the chemical operations, a more
intimate knowledge of the effect of lime, of alkaline
substances, of animal carbon, and, lastly, in an exact

SUGAR CULTURE. 267
determination of the maximum heat to which the
juice should be exposed in the successive boilers.
The ingenious analysis of sugar, starch, gum, and the
ligneous principles, made by Messrs. Gay Lussac and
Thenard, the labors carried on in Europe with grape
and beet-root sugar, and the investigations of
Dutrone, Proust, Clarke, Higgins, Daniell, Howard,
Braconnot, and Derosne, have facilitated and pre
pared the attainment of these degrees of perfection ;
but nothing has been done in the Antilles.
. The amalgamation of metals, on a large scale, in
Mexico, cannot, certainly, be improved without a
previous examination, during a long stay at Guana
juato, or Peal del Monte, of the nature of the
metals placed in contact with the mercury, the
muriate of soda, lime, &c. ; in the same manner, to
improve the technical manipulations on the sugar
plantations, we must begin on several of those in
Cuba, with an analysis by a chemist acquainted
with the present state of vegetable chemistry, of
small portions of juice taken from the several kinds
of cane, in different soils, and at various seasons of
the year. Without this preliminary labor, under
taken by some person from one of the most celebra
ted laboratories, and possessing a complete knowledge
of the operations of sugar-making from beet-root, we
may obtain some partial improvement, but the

268 humboldt's cuba.
manufacture of sugar will always continue to be
what it now is, that is to say, the result of experi
ments more or less satisfactory, but which are made
in the dark.
In the lands that can be irrigated, and those
where tuberous roots have been grown before
planting the cane, a caballeria of fertile land,
instead of yielding 1,500 arrobes of sugar, will
yield 3,000 or 4,000 arrobes, which is equal to 2,660
or 3,540 kilogrammes of white and brown sugar to
the hectar. Taking it at 1,500 arrobes, and estimating
it at the price in Havana, of $24 a box, we find that
a hectar of land will produce in value, $15 40 in
sugar, and $5 76 in wheat, supposing an eight-fold
yield, and a price of $3 60 per 100 kilogrammes. I
have stated elsewhere, that in comparing these two
branches of agriculture, we must bear in mind that
sugar-planting requires a very large capital ; at
present, for example, in order to produce 2,000
boxes in a single establishment, $400,000 are
required. In the irrigated lands of Bengal, an acre yields,
according to Brockford and Poxburgh, 2,300 kilo
grammes of raw sugar, which is equal to 5,700 kilo
grammes to the hectar. This fertility being common
to a large breadth of land in India, we need not be
surprised at the low price of sugar there. The yield

SUGAR CULTURE. 269.
of a hectar is double what it is in the Antilles, and
the daily wages of an East Indian is one-third that
of a negro slave in Cuba.
Supposing, as we should when we speak of the
production of all Cuba, that in lands of mean fer
tility a caballeria yields 1,500 arrobes of purged
sugar, we find that nineteen and three-fourths
square leagues (about one-ninth the area of one of
the medium departments of France), suffice to pro
duce the 430,000 boxes of sugar which Cuba yields
for domestic use and exportation. It seems surpris
ing that less than twenty square leagues of land can
give an annual product, whose value (estimating a
box of sugar in Havana at $24), exceeds $10,400,000.
In order to supply the 56 or 60 millions kilogrammes
of raw sugar, consumed by the thirty millions of
people in France, there would be required, within
the tropics, nine and five-sixths square leagues of
land cultivated in sugar-cane ; in the temperate
zone, thirty-seven and a half leagues of land in beet
root are necessary. A hectar ' of good land in
France, planted in beet-root, produces from ten
thousand to twenty thousand kilogrammes. The
average yield is twenty thousand kilogrammes, which
give 2£ per cent., or 500 kilogrammes of raw sugar.
One hundred kilogrammes of raw sugar yield fifty
kilogrammes of refined (30 of brown sugar and 20

270 humboldt's cuba.
of loaf) ; consequently, a hectar, in beet root, yields
250 kilogrammes of refined sugar.
Shortly before my arrival at Havana, some sam
ples of beet root sugar were carried there from
Germany, and this article was said " to menace the
existence of the sugar-growing isles of America."
The sugar-planters saw, not without some alarm,
that it was a substance exactly like cane sugar ; but
they consoled themselves with the hope that the cost
of the labor, and the difficulty of separating the
crystallizable sugar from so large a mass of vegetable
pulp, would make the operation expensive and pro
fitless. Since that time chemistry has triumphed
ever these obstacles ; for, in 1812, there were in
France two hundred manufactories of sugar from
the beet root, working with variable results, and
producing a million kilogrammes of sugar, annually.
But the inhabitants of the Antilles, well aware of
what transpires in Europe, entertain now no fears of
the beet root, grape, or chestnut sugar, nor of the
coffee of Naples, or the indigo of the south of
France. The greatest changes which have been produced
in the culture of the sugar cane, and the laboratories
of the plantations, took place between the years
1796 and 1800. First, mules were substituted for
oxen, as motive-power for the sugar mills ; then

SUGAR CULTURE. 271
water-power was introduced in Guines, it having
been used even by the first settlers in St. Domingo ;
and, finally, experiments with steam-power were
made at Ceibabo, by Count Jaruco y Mopox. There
are now twenty-five of these steam-engines on differ
ent estates in Cuba.1 The cultivation of the Otahei-
tan cane is also becoming very general. Clarifiers,
and better arranged reverberating furnaces, have
been introduced. We must also confess, in honor of
the wealthy planters, that on a great number of
plantations, the greatest care is taken of the sick
slaves, of the children, and to increase the number
of women.
In 1775 the island contained 473 sugar planta
tions, and in 1817 there were more than 780. None
of the former produced even a fourth part of the
sugar that is now produced by a second-class planta
tion; it is not, therefore, Ihe number of plantations
alone that will give us a true idea of the progress of
this branch of agricultural industry. The district of
Havana contained, in 1763, 70 sugar plantations ; in
1796, 305 ; in 1806, 480 ; and in 1817, 625.s
1 The census of 1846 states the number of sugar plantations with
steam-power at 286j since when the number has very largely
increased. 2 The number in 1846 was 735. In 1850, the total number of
sugar plantations in Cuba exceeded 1750.

272 The first plant of cane in virgin soil, carefully
planted, will continue to yield for twenty or twenty-
three years, but, after that, it is necessaiy to replant
every three years. On the hacienda Matamoros,
there was, in 1804, a cane-field, which had been
planted forty-five years. The most fertile sugar
lands now under cultivation (1825) are those in the
vicinity of Mariel and Guanajay. The variety of
the sugar cane, known as Otaheitan cane, which is
distinguishable at some distance by its deep green,
yields, on the same lands, one-fourth more juice, and
a larger and more woody fibre, and is consequently
richer in combustible" matter than any other variety.
The sugar-makers on the plantations, who have all
the presumption of a little learning, pretend that the
juice of the Otaheitan cane is worked more easily,
and that it yields more crystallizable sugar, and less
cane-juice potash than that of the other varieties.
This south sea cane, after six or seven years' cultiva
tion, certainly has a thinner rind, but the knots
remain much further apart than in the Creole cane.
Fortunately the fears that were at first entertained,
that the Otaheitan cane would degenerate into the
ordinary sugar cane, have not been realized. In
Cuba it is planted during the rainy months of July
and October, and the crop is brought in from Febru
ary to May.

SUGAR CULTURE. 273
As the forests of Cuba have disappeared, through
excessive clearing of the land, the sugar plantations
have begun to experience the want of fuel. In
former times, a small portion of bagass (the crushed -
cane), had been used to enliven the boiling fires,
under the old kettles, but it is only since the immi
grants from St. Domingo introduced the reverberating
furnace that the attempt to abandon wood, and burn
only bagass has been made. In the old form of
furnaces and kettles, a load of wood, of 160 cubic
feet, is consumed to make five arrobes of sugar, so
that for one hundred kilogrammes of raw sugar, 278
cubic feet of lemon and orange wood are required.
With the reverberating furnace of St. Domingo, one
load of bagass containing 495 cubic feet, made 640
pounds of raw sugar, which is equal to 158 cubic
feet of bagass to 100 kilogrammes of sugar.
During my residence in Guines, and particularly
at Pio Blanco, while at the house of the Count
Jaruco y Mopox, I made experiments with several
new constructions for the purpose of diminishing
the amount of fuel, by surrounding the fire with
substances that were bad conductors of heat, attain
ing, at the same time, greater protection to the
negroes while feeding the fire. A long stay at the
salt works in Europe, and the art of practical salt-
making which I had learned in my youth, gave me
12*

274 humboldt's CUBA.
the idea of those inventions, which have since been
extended with some usefulness. Wooden covers
placed on the clariflers hastened the evaporation,
and induced me to believe that a system of covers,
and movable ladles, suspended with counter- weights,
might be usefully extended to the other kettles.
This idea is worthy of examination, but we must
graduate with care the quantity of syrup, the crys
tallizable sugar obtained, and that which is lost, the
fuel, time, and pecuniary expense of the experiments.
An error has generally prevailed in Europe, which
has had no small influence in the study of the effects
a cessation of the African slave trade might produce,
in supposing that in the so-called sugar colonies of
the Antilles the greater part of the slaves are
employed on the sugar estates. There is no doubt
that the cultivation of the sugar cane is one of the
most powerful stimulants of the slave-trade, but a
very plain calculation proves, that the mass of slaves
in the Antilles is three times greater than the num
ber employed on the sugar plantations. Ten years
since I stated, that if the 200,000 boxes of sugar,
which Cuba exported in 1812, were made on the
larger plantations, 30,000 slaves would suffice for
that branch of industry.
It is estimated in Cuba that for the production of
1,000 boxes of clayed sugar, 150 negroes, on an

SUGAR CULTURE. 275
average, are needed; consequently 440,000 boxes
would require only 66,000 slaves. If to these were
added 36,000, which are required in Cuba, in the
cultivation of coffee and tobacco, we find that of
the 260,000 slaves now there, barely 100,000 suffice
for the three great staples of colonial industry, upon
which is based its active commerce. On the other
hand, the tobacco is cultivated almost entirely by
whites and free blacks. I have said elsewhere, and
I base my statement on the very respectable
authority of the Consulado of Havana, that one-
third part (32 per cent.) of the slaves live in the
cities and large towns, and, therefore, take no part
in the rural labors. If therefore,, we take into con
sideration: 1st, the large number of children not
yet able to work, scattered over the plantations;
and, 2d, the necessity of employing a much larger
number of negroes on the small and distant planta
tions, in order to produce an equal amount of sugar
to that produced on the great plantations, we shall
find that of 187,000 slaves in the rural districts, at
least one-fourth part, or 46,000, produce neither
sugar, coffee, nor tobacco.
I have stated that before the year 1762, Cuba
contributed no more to commerce than is now done
by the provinces of Veragua, Panama, and Darien,
which, of the Spanish-American provinces, are the

276 humboldt's cuba.
least productive in agricultural products. An
event which was apparently a misfortune, the
capture of Havana by the English, awakened the
public mind. The city was evacuated by them on
the 6th July, 1763, and from that time we trace the
first efforts of a new-born industry.1
The construction of new fortifications on a gigan
tic scale, 2 placed large sums of money in immediate
circulation, and the slave-trade, which was subse
quently thrown open,3 increased the number of
hands on the sugar plantations. The freedom of
commerce with all the ports of Spain, and occasion
ally with the neutral powers ; the wise administra-
1 The city of Havana surrendered to the British forces, under
Count Albemarle and Admiral Sir George Pocock, on the 12th
August, 1762, after a siege of two months and six days. The
amount of booty divided equally between the army and navy was
£736,185 3s. The English forces also occupied Matanzas and
Mariel, but the greater portion of the island never recognized their
government. It was returned to Spain by the treaty of Paris, and
formally given up on the 6th July, 1763, the English having
remained in possession ten months and twenty-four days. During
this time new life was given to agriculture in Cuba by England's
commercial activity, and by the desire of opening a new mart for
her African slave-traders. (See Pezuela's Ensayo Historico de la
Islade Cuba).
* It is stated that in the construction of the Cabanas fortress
alone, fourteen millions of dollars were expended. — H.
* By royal decree, of 28th February, 1789.— H.

SUGAR CULTURE. 277
tion of Don Luis de las Casas ; the founding of the
Consulado and the Patriotic Society ; ' the destruc
tion of the French colony of St. Domingo, and the
consequent increase in the value of sugar ; the
improvements in machinery and furnaces, due, in
great part, to the refugees from Haiti; the more
intimate intercourse between the planters and the
merchants of Havana ; the great amounts of capital
invested in the sugar and coffee plantations; are
causes which have successively influenced the pros
perity of Cuba. This has continued to advance,
notwithstanding the evils of conflicting branches of
government, which embarrass the march of pro
gress.2 1 Since suppressed.
1 The complicated state of the administration of justice and of
jurisdiction is such, that in the " Memoria aeerca de la situacion
presente de la Tsla de Cuba," p. 40, twenty-five different civil and
ecclesiastical tribunals are enumerated. These subdivisions of the
administration of justice well explain what we have already stated
regarding the great and increasing number of lawyers. — H.

278 humboldt's CUBA.

CHAPTEK IX.
AGRICULTURE.
Increase of tithes an evidence of prosperity — Table of agricultural
wealth — Hatos and Potreros (note) — Pecuniary relations of plant
ers and merchants — Rate of interest — Slave-trade — Coffee planting
— Product — Yield per hand compared with sugar — [Note. —
Decline of coffee planting — Causes.] — Tobacco planting — Former
monopoly — Product — Decline — Factoria — Prices — Quantity pur
chased, and where sold — Expenses of Factoria — State of to"bacco
planting in 1820-5 — [Note. — Obstacles to tobacco planting —
Future prospects — Present product — Prices — Error of Baron Hum
boldt — Probable causes of superiority of the tobaeco from the
Vuelta de Abajo.'] — Other products in Cuba — Wheat — Wine —
Wax. The increase of tithes being everywhere one of
the most certain evidences of the increase of public
wealth, I present here a statement of their product
for fifteen years. The tithes and minor ecclesiastical
revenues of the diocess of Havana, were farmed for
terms of four years, as follows :
1789 to 1792  $ 792,386
1793 " 1796  1,044,005
1797 " 1800  1,595,340
1801 " 1804  1,864,464

agriculture. 279
We see here that the tithes in the last term
amounted to the mean annual sum of $466,000,
although sugar pays only one-twentieth, or half
tithes.1 1 In 1792, coffee, indigo, and cotton were declared exempt from
tithes, for ten years ; and, in 1804, this exemption was made perpe
tual, and was extended to sugar plantations then in existence. In
1817, the tithes on sugar were reduced to two and a half per cent.
These changes in the law, and the great changes that have occurred
sinoe the beginning of the present century in the objects of agricul
tural labor, have naturally produced a fluctuation in the product of
this tax, as many lands that paid tithes, while held as cattle farms,
&c, when planted in cane, ceased to contribute, and the product of
the impost has been, in a great measure, maintained and increased
by the advance of the minor branches of agriculture. It is still
farmed out, and is payable in money or kind, being compounded.
ThiB tax is most onerous upon the small farmers, upon whom the
tithe collectors are very exacting, because of their inability to main
tain an expensive litigation, while the large proprietors can always
compound on more favorable terms. Sagra states the tithes for the
bishopric of Havana, from 1805 to 1828, as follows :
1805 to 1808  -$1,545,059 1817 to 1820  $1,606,672
1809 " 1812  1,501,212 1821 " 1824  1,449,409
1818 " 1816  1,600,841 1825 " 1828  1,250,805
The tithes of the archbishopric of Cuba also show a diminution.
The same writer states them as follows :
1819 to 1822  $79,010
1828 " 1826  40,487
1827 "1830  89,595
The revenue from this tax has recovered, and even surpassed its
former yield, being now about $500,000, annually.

280 humboldt's cuba.
The agricultural wealth of the department of
Havana, in 1817 was :
Sugar plantations,  625 Tobacco plantations, 1,601
Coffee plantations,  779 Churches,  224
Potreros,  1,197 Houses,  42,268
'Haciendas,  930
[Note. — That of the three departments is stated
as follows, in the census of 1846 :

Sugar Coffee
Plantations. Plantations.
Western  785 1,012
Central,  404 78
Eastern,  808 580
Total  1,442 1,670

To these, we may add the following number of
farms, called Sitios de labor : In the Western, 12,286 ;
Central, 6,678 ; Eastern, 6,328.]
The extraordinary expenditures required by the
large sugar plantations, and the frequent domestic
1 The Hatos or Haciendas de Cria, and the Potreros, are cattle
farms. The first are often two or three leagues in diameter, without
fences, where half-wild cattle are pastured. Two or three horsemen
only are necessary on them, who traverse the country looking after
the cows, and collecting and marking the calves. The Potreros are
smaller cattle farms, fenced, and frequently having some land
planted in maize, yuca, and plantain. Cattle are there fattened, and
sheep, swine, and goats reared.-— H.

Potroroa.

Haciendas.

Plantations.

Churches,

Houses.

1,543

193

8,990

229

56,104

4,805

5T6

967

65

81,079

2,838

4T0

4,145

36

25,779

8,691

1,239

' 9,102

830

112,962

agriculture. 281
misfortunes caused by play, luxury, and other evils,
place the landed proprietors in a state of absolute
dependence upon the merchants. The most frequent
loans are those made to the planters, upon condition
of repayment from his crop of sugar, or coffee, at
prices two rials per arrobe of the first, and tWo dol
lars per quintal of the last, less than the current
rates in market. Thus a crop of one thousand boxes
of sugar is sold in anticipation, at a loss of $4,000.
The demand for money for business transactions, and
the scarcity of coin, is so great that the government
at times is forced to borrow at ten per cent., and
individuals at even twelve and sixteen per cent.
interest. The great profits made in the African
slave-trade, sometimes amounting on a single voy
age in Cuba to 100 or 125 per cent., have contri
buted to increase the rate of interest; for many
parties hire money at 18 or 20 per cent., for the
purpose of following this infamous trade. The*
traffic is not only barbarous in itself, but it is also
unreasonable, as it does not attain the object it pro
poses; for like a stream of water brought from a
long distance, more than one-half of it, even in the
colonies themselves, is turned aside from the cultiva
tion of the lands for which it was destined.
Coffee. — The cultivation of coffee, like the
improvements in sugar making, dates from the

282

arrival of the immigrants from St. Domingo, or,
more particularly, from the years 1796 and 1798.
On a coffee plantation having 35,000 trees, a hectar
of land yields, 890 kilogrammes of coffee. In the
district of Havana there were, in 1800, 60 coffee
plantations, and 779 in 1817. As the coffee tree
does not yield abundantly before the fourth year,
the export of coffee from the port of Havana, in
1804, was only 50,000 arrobes ; since then it has
increased. It was in
1809  320,000 1819  642,716-
1815  918,263 1820  686,046
1816  370,229 1822  501,429
1817  709,351 1823  895,924
1818  779,618 1824  661,674
These figures show a great variation, which arises
from frauds in the custom-house, as well as from
more or less abundant crops ; for the results of the
years 1815, 1816, and 1823, which might be sup
posed the least exact, have been lately compared
with the custom-house returns. We may estimate
the total export from Cuba (in 1825) as follows :
From Havana, average from 1814 to 1824  694,000 arrobes.
Matanzas, Trinidad, St. Jago, &c  220,000 "
Frauds in the custom-house  304,000 "
Total  1,218,000 "

agriculture. 283
Ey this calculation it appears that the export of
coffee from Cuba is greater than that from Java,
which was estimated by Mr. Crawford, in 1820, at
190,000 piculs, or llf kilogrammes ; and than that
from Jamaica, which, in 1823, did not exceed,
according to the custom-house returns, 169,734 cwt.,
or 8,662.478 kilogrammes.
While the price of sugar in Havana is always
quoted by the arrob e, of 25 pounds, that of coffee is
quoted by the quintal of 100 pounds. The latter
has varied from $3 to $30, and in 1808, it fell even
below the former price. During the years 1815-19
it sold from $13 to $17 the quintal, and now rules
at $12. It is probable that the cultivation of coffee
in Cuba does not employ over 28,000 slaves, the
annual average product of which is 305,000 quintals,
worth, at present prices, $3,660,000. At the same
time, 66,000 negroes produce 440,000 boxes of sugar,
which, at the price of $24 a box, are worth
$10,560,000. By this estimate we see that each
slave produces, annually, in value, $130 in coffee,
and $160 in sugar. It is almost needless to observe,
that these sums vary with the alterations in price of
the two articles named, the variations of which are
sometimes in opposite directions, and that in these
calculations, which may give some idea of intertro
pical agriculture, I embrace the domestic consump-

284

HUMBOLDT'S CUBA.

tion, and the licit and contraband .export, under the
same point of view.
[Note. — The product of coffee in Cuba has stea
dily declined for some years past, under the compe
tition with the greater profits from sugar culture,
and the less cost of coffee produced by the cheaper
slave labor of Brazil, where, for a series of years
before the total cessation of the African slave-trade,
in 1851-2, slaves were sold at an average price of
$300 to $350. It reached its highest point about
1835, as will be seen by the following tables of
exports, compiled from the custom-house returns :
1825 to 1830 Qqs. 2,149,581 Average, 429,716

1830 " 1835

2,494,479

ii

499,000

1835 " 1840 <

' 2,347,058

li

469,412

1840 " 1845 '

' 1,666,247

ii

333,249

1845 " 1850 '

' 960,306

it

192,061

1851  '

' . 143,780

1852  '

1 193,837

About seventy per cent, of the export in 1852 was
from the Eastern department, where the competition
of the sugar culture for the employment of slave
labor, has not been experienced to the same extent
as in the western part of the island.]
Tobacco. — The tobacco of Cuba is celebrated in
agriculture. 285
all parts of Europe where smoking prevails ; it was
introduced there, in imitation of the natives of
Haiti, toward the close of the sixteenth, and begin
ning of the seventeenth century. At one time it
was generally believed, that if the cultivation of
tobacco was relieved from all the trammels of an
odious monopoly, it would be to Havana the source
of a great commerce. The beneficent intentions
evinced by the government six years since, in
abolishing the monopoly of tobacco culture and
sale, have not yet' produced to this branch of agri
culture the benefits which might have been expected.
The cultivators are poor, the rent of land has
increased in an extraordinary degree, and the
preference entertained for coffee planting (in 1825),
impedes the increase of the tobacco culture.
The oldest data we possess, relative to the quan
tity of tobacco supplied by Cuba to the factories of
the metropolis, are of the year 1748. According to
Raynal, who is a much more exact writer than is
generally believed, the yearly average, from 1748 to
1753, was 75,000 arrobes. From 1789 to 1794 the
yearly product of the island amounted to 250,000
arrobes ; but from that time to 1803, the high price
of lands, the preference given to coffee and sugar
planting, the vexations arising from the government
monopoly of purchase, and the impediments laid

286 humboldt's cuba.
upon foreign commerce, have progressively dimin
ished the amount of product to less than one-half
that quantity. But it is believed that from 1822 to
1825, the amount of tobacco grown in, Cuba has
risen to 300,000 or 400,000 arrobes.
The domestic consumption of the island is 200,000
arrobes, or more. Up to the year 1791, the " Com
mercial Company of Havana " delivered the tobacco
of Cuba to the royal factories in Spain, under con
tracts which were renewed from time to time with
the government. The establishment of a govern
ment " Factoria de tabacos" in Havana, succeeded
that company, and retained the monopoly of the
trade to itself. The tobacco was classified as supe
rior, medium, and inferior, and was received from
the -growers at fixed prices ; in 1804, these were six,
five, and two and:a-half dollars per arrobe ($24, $20,
and $10 per quintal), respectively. By comparing the
different prices with the quantity of each class of
tobacco produced, we find that the " Factoria " paid
an average price of $16 per quintal for the leaf
tobacco. With the expense of manufacture, the
segars cost the government seventy-five cents per
pound ;' snuff, fine grain and good color, 42f cents,

1 The weight of the segars being about ten pounds to the thousand
their cost would be $7 50 per thousand.

agriculture. 287
and common soft, or Seville, 18f cents a pound, in
Havana. In good years, when the crop (the product of
advances made by the " Factoria " to poor cultiva
tors), amounted to 350,000 arrobes of leaf, 128,000
arrobes were manufactured for Spain, 80,000 for
Havana, 9,200. for Peru, 6,000 for Buenos Ayres,
2,240 for Mexico, and 1,100 for Caraccas and Cam-
peachy.1 In order to make up the amount of 315,000
arrobes (for the crop loses ten per cent, of its
weight, in loss and damage in the transportation and
manufacture), we must suppose that 80,000 arrobes
were consumed in the interior of the island, that is,
in the country, where the royal monopoly did not
extend. The maintenance of 120 slaves, and the expenses
of manufacture, did not exceed $12,000 yearly ; but
the salaries of the officers of the "Factoria" amounted
to $541,000. The value of the 128,000 arrobes of
tobacco sent to Spain, in the abundant years, either
in segars,- leaf, or snuff, at the customary prices
there, exceeded the sum of five millions of dollars.
1 Situacion actual de la Real Factoria de tabacos de la Habana,
en Abril, 1804. — (Official MSS.). In Seville there were sometimes
in store ten or twelve million pounds of tobacco, and the revenue
from the tobacco monopoly, in Spain, amounted, in good years, to
six millions of dollars. — H.

288 humboldt's coba.
It is surprising to see in the returns of exports^frqm
Havana (documents published by the Consulado),
that the exports for 1816 were only 3,400 arrobes ;
for the year 1823, only 13,900 arrobes of leaf tobacco,
and 71,000 pounds of segars, the value of which was
estimated by the custom-house at $281,000 ; and in
1825, only 70,302 pounds of segars, and 167,100
pounds of leaf tobacco and strips; but we must
remember that no branch of the contraband trade is
more active than that in segars. The tobacco of the
Vuelta de Abajo is most celebrated, but large quan
tities are exported which are produced in the eastern
par t of the island . Although many travellers state that
the total export of segars in late years, has reached
200,000 boxes (valued at two millions of dollars), I
very much doubt it. If the crops were so abundant as
this would indicate, why should Cuba receive segars'
from the United States for the use of the common
people ?
[Note. — The cultivation of tobacco has been one
of the most uncertain branches of industry in Cuba.
Trammelled for a long time by odious restrictions
and exactions, it was confined almost entirely to the
poorer classes of the population, who were enabled
to raise a scanty and- uncertain crop, through the
advances of capital made them by the " Factoria."

AGRICULTURE. 289'
After the suppression of this monopoly, it has had to
contend with the more popular and profitable pur
suits of coffee and sugar planting, which have suc
cessively competed with it for the employment of the'
skill, capital, and labor of the island. Its increase, how
ever, has been rapid and prosperous, as will be seen by
the, table of exports below, and with the increasing
capital and wealth of Cuba, it is receiving a greater
proportion of the labor of the country than has hereto
fore been bestowed upon it. When a still larger share
of the skill and capital now absorbed in the cane-fields,
shall be turned to the tobacco vegas, we hiay look
for more regular and certain Crops, and a correspond
ing ratio of prosperity. There is also room for great
improvement in the classification and method of
packing the tobacco.
Export of leaf tobacco and segars from Cuba :
Tobacco. Segars.
1825 to 1830  Qqs. 128,644 M. 245,097
183*0 " 1835  " 124,704 " 471,993
1835 " 1840  " 244,259 " 790,285
1840 " 1845  " 306,090 " 941,467
1845 " 1850.  " 364,183 " 896,008
1851  " 94,366 " 270,313
1852  " 97.374 " 180,610
These figures serve to show the progress of this
branch of agriculture, but not its actual state; for
13

290the contraband trade in tobacco and segars in Cuba
is very grea.t indeed.
During the last twenty years, the prices of segars
at Havana have very nearly doubled, and those for
leaf tobacco , have largely increased. We think
Baron Humboldt was misinformed relative to the
importation of segars in Cuba, from the United-
States, for the use of the common people. Some
small parcels of manufactured chewing tobacco are
imported for sale, and formerly Kentucky tobacco
could always be purchased in bond for the African
slave-trade ; but in our long residence in Cuba, we
have never known segars to be imported there from
the United States. The Vuelta de Abajo owes its
fine and universally esteemed quality of tobacco,
probably, as much to the physical formation of the
country, as to any peculiar quahty of its soil. Along
the northern border of the district, where the best
tobacco is grown, lies the high Sierra de los Organos,
gathering, in rains upon its northern slopes, the
moisture borne landward by the constantly prevail
ing trade winds; and this, with the effect of the
surrounding heated waters of the Caribbean sea, and
the Gulf of Mexico, give to the region south of this
ridge a character of climate peculiarly its own.]
After speaking of sugar, coffee, and tobacco, the

AGRICULTURE. 291
three productsof greatest importance, I will not treat
of the cotton, indigo, nor wheat of Cuba. These
three branches of colonial industry yield very little,
and the proximity of the United States and Guate
mala, makes their increase hardly possible. The
State of San Salvador exports, at this time, 12,000
bales, or 1,800,000 pounds of indigo, valued at two'
millions of dollars.
Wheat grows well, to the surprise of travellers
who have visited Mexico, in the district of Cuatro
Villas, at a slight elevation above the level of the
sea; but its cultivation is, in general, very limited.
The. flour is good, but its production offers few
attractions to the colonial agriculturalist ; for the
fields of the United States, that Crimea of the New
World, yield too abundant crops to permit the
native cereals to sustain themselves by a system of
prohibitive duties, in an island contiguous to the
mouths of the Mississippi and Delaware. The same
difficulties attend the cultivation of flax, hemp, and
the vine.
Even the people of Cuba are not aware, perhaps,
that in the first years of the conquest by the Span
iards, wine was made from the juice of wild grapes,
in their island. This vine, peculiar to America, has
given rise to the very general error that the true
Vitis Vinif&ra is common to both continents. The

292 humboldt's ouba.
wild grapes, which gave a slightly acid wine, in
Cuba, were probably gathered from the Vitis tUm-
folia, which Mr. Wildernow has described in our
herbariums. In no part of the northern hemisphere,
up to this time, has the vine been cultivated for the
purpose of making wine, south of the latitude of
28° 40' which is that of the island of Ferro, one of
the Canaries, and 29° 2', the latitude of Abushcer,
in Persia.
Wax is not produced by indigenous bees (Meli-
pones of Mon. Latreille), but by bees introduced
from Europe by way of Florida". This trade was
not of much importance previous to 1772. The
entire export of the island, from 1774 to 1779, one
year with another, did not exceed 2,700 arrobes;
and, in 1803, it was estimated (including the contra
band) at 42,700 arrobes, of which 25,000 went to
Vera Cruz. The churches in Mexico consume largely
of Cuban wax ; the price varies from $16 to $20 per
arrobe. The number of arrobes exported .from
Havana alone, by the custom-house, returns, has
been as follows :
1815  23,398 1820  16,939
1816  22,365 1822  14,450
1817  20,076 18.23  15,692
1818  24,156 1824  16,058
1819  19,373 1825  16,505

agriculture. 293
["Note. — From all the island —
1840 to 1845  187,035 1851  57,453
1845 " 1850  290,000 1852  58,591]
Trinidad, and the small port of Baracoa, have also
a considerable trade in wax, which is gathered in
the uncleared portions of the country. The vicinity
of the sugar plantations destroys many bees, for they
become drunken with the refuse of the sugar kettles
and the molasses, of which they are very fond. In
general, the production of wax declines as the lands
are brought under cultivation.

294 humboldt's cuba.

CHAPTEE X.
COMMERCE.
Causes of its importance — Wealth of Cuba — Relation of Havana to
Spanish-America — Present state of commerce — Official valuations
(Note) — Fallacies of tables of trade — Remarks thereon —
Balanza de Comercio — Imports and exports, 1816 and 1823 —
Character of imports — Of exports — Merchant ships and men-of-
war at Havana — [Note. — Imports and exports, 1852 — Character
of imports, and proportion from United States — Exports — Propor
tion to the United States — Vessels entered and cleared — Propor
tion of commerce of Havana.] — Reflections on the character of
importations — Large amount of woven fabrics — Of provisions and
liquors — State of society, and want of subsistence — Mines and
cereals a necessity — Surprising importation of meats and pulse —
Probable future deduced — Error of the deduction (Note) — Evil
colonial policy of Europe — Not adapted to Cuba — Probable
increase of population — Social theory — Law of public welfare
and of future of Cuba — [Note. — Error of social theory demon
strated by Jamaica — Transition of blacks from slavery to freedom
— Its sad results — Tendency of free negroes to abandon the fields
— Natural results — Sustains Baron Humboldt's law of publie
welfare and of future of Cuba.] — Flour trade — Mexican competi
tion — State of public wealth in 1800 — Its increase — Cuban defence
of free trade — Influence of commerce upon society — Progress not
to be measured by tons — Lives of nations.
It has been already stated, in the beginning of
this work, that the importance of the commerce of

COMMERCE. 295
Cuba does not arise solely from the wealth of its
products, nor from its demand for the wares and
fabrics of Europe ; but that this importance is based,
in part, upon the admirable situation of the port of
Havana, at the entrance of the Mexican Gulf, and
immediately where the great routes of the commer
cial nations of both worlds cross each other. The
AbbeEaynal has said, at a time when its agricul
ture contributed, in sugar and coffee, barely two
millions to the commerce of the world, " The island
of Cuba alone may be worth a kingdom to Spain."
These memorable words have been, in some
degree, prophetic, and since she has lost Mexico,
Peru, and so many other States that have attained
their Independence, they should be seriously pon
dered by the statesmen who may guide the pohtical
interests of Spain. The island of Cuba, to whieh
the court of Madrid has long since conceded great
freedom of trade, exports, through licit and illicit
channels, its own productions of sugar, coffee,
tobacco, wax, and hides, to the amount of fourteen
millions of dollars at the present time (1825). This
is only one-third less than that of Mexico at the
time of her greatest mining prosperity. It may be
said, that Havana and Vera Cruz are to the rest of •
America, what ISTew York is to the United States.
The tonnage of the thousand or twelve hundred
merchant ships that annually arrive at the port of

296 humboldt's ouba. •
Havana, amounts (exclusive of the smaller craft
engaged in the coasting trade) to 150,000 or 170,000
tons. We also see, even in a time of peace, from
120 to 150 vessels of war touching annually at that
port. "From 1815 to 1819 the value of the products
registered at the custom-house of Havana alone
(sugar, rum, molasses, coffee, wax, and -hides),
amounted to $11,245,000, one year with another.
In 1823, the value of her exports, returned at less
than two-thirds of' their actual prices (and exclusive
of $1,179,000 in coin), has exceeded the sum of
$12,500,000. It is more than probable that the
imports of the whole island, heit and contraband,
estimated at the actual value of the goods and the
slaves, amount, at the present time, to fifteen or six
teen millions of dollars, of which barely three or
four millions are re-exported.1 Havana purchases
1 The official returns of the value of exports and imports in Cuba,
in 1851 and 1852, are as follows :
Imports. Exports. Exporta in- Bond.
1851  8584,042,749 183,064,888 $1,718,085
1852  80,828,711 28,602,912 1,148,975
In these returns the rates of valuation for exports are, for sugar
3£ cents per pound ; molasses $6J a hhd, (about 5 cents a gallon) ;
rum 16 cents a gallon ; coffee 4 cents a pound ; segars $4 a thou
sand ; leaf tobacco 6 and 12£ cents a pound ; copper ore $2 50 per
quintal.

commerce. 297
in foreign marts much larger quantities of goods
than are needed for her own consumption, exchang
ing her colonial products for the fabrics of Europe,
and selling them again at Vera Cruz, Truxillo,
Laguaira, and Carthagena.
I have examined in another work, fifteen years
since, the basis upon which are founded the tables
published " under the fallacious title of Balanzas de
Comercio;" and I stated then how little confidence
can be reposed in these pretended accounts between
nations making mutual exchanges, the advantages of
which it is believed can only be appreciated, under
a false principle of political economy, by the amount
of balances paid in coin. The following statistics
will exhibit two years from the Balanzas and Esta
dos de Comercio, arranged by order of the govern
ment. I have altered none of the figures, for they
present (and this is a great advantage in treating of
quantities which are difficult to estimate) the mini
mum amounts.
The values stated in these tables, are neither the
actual values of the articles at the place of produc
tion, nor those of the markets of sale; but they
are fictitious valuations, official values, as they are
termed in the custom-house system of Great Britain,
that is to say (and I shall never tire of repeating it),
one-third less than the current prices. In order to
13*

298 humboldt's cuba.
ascertain, with the tables of the trade of Havana as
given by the Spanish custom-houses, the commerce
of the whole island, we should require tables of the
returns of imports and exports from all the other
ports, and add to the sum total the amount of fraudu
lent trade, which varies with different places, and
to know the nature of goods and the changes in their
prices from year to year. Such estimates can only
be made by the local authorities; and the matter
that has been published by these, in the struggle
with the Spanish Cortes which they have main
tained with so much ability, proves that they do
not deem themselves sufficiently prepared for a labor
which embraces so many objects at the same time.
The Junta de Gobierno and the, Real Consulado
publish annually, under the title of Balanza de Com
ercio, tables of the custom-house returns of exports
and imports through the port of Havana alone ;' in
which a distinction is drawn between the imports in
Spanish and foreign vessels, the exports for Spain, for __
Spanish ports in America, and for ports not under
the dominion of the Spanish crown. The weight or
measure of the merchandise, its official value, and
the royal and municipal duties are also expressed ;
1 Although I possess a large number of these, I only publish in
this work the figures which are absolutely necessary to guide us to
general results: — H.

COMMERCE.

299

but the official estimates of the prices of goods, as
we have before stated, are much below their market
value.1

IMPORTS. 1816.
In Spanish vessels —
Fabrics and merchandise, . . . $1,032,135
African slaves,  2,659,950
Gold and silver,  2,288,358
5,980,443
In foreign vessels,  7,239,543
Total,  $13,219,968
EXPORTS.
In Spanish vessels —
For Spain,  $2,419,424
Spanish ports in America, . . 2,104,890
Coast of Africa,  643,852
5,267,966
Foreign vessels,  3,195,169
Total,  $8,363,138

1823.
No slaves
reported.
$ 3,562,227
10,136,538
$13,968,735

$3,550,312 8,778,857
$12,329,169

1 For example, each negro is valued at $150, and each barrel of
flour at $10. After expressing the total amounts of fallacious
balanzas de comercio, I have indicated the sums of gold and silver
which have passed through Cuba. In order to give an approximate
idea of the domestic consumption of the island, and its requirements
of European manufactures, I have stated the quantity of the same
articles imported and re-exported. — H.

300 humboldt's CUBA.
The custom-house returns of gold and silver
exported in 1816, amount to $480,840, and in 1823,
to $1,179,034 imported, and $1,404,584 exported.
Among the imports and exports, we find the follow
ing articles : 1816. 1823.
Imported. Re-exported. Imported. Re-exported.
Flour (bbls.),  71,807 10,965 74,119 
Wines and liquors from Europe, $ 468,067 111,466 1,119,437 49,286
Salt meats and provisions,.... 1,096,791 227,274  
Manufactured clothing,  127,661 4,825 218,226 
Linen goods,  3,226,869 1,529,610 2,071,088 29,526
Woolen "  108,224   
Cotton "    1,021,807 69,049
Furniture, glass ware, &e  267,812 29,000 464,328 8,046
Paper,  61,846 20,496 158,837 22,288
Ironware,  880,868 99,581 288,697 63,149
Hides and skins,..,  135,103   
Lumber and wooden ware,  285,217  858,765 28,458
Kice(lbs.),    7,746,025 -^—
Lard(kegs),    89,948 
Jerked beef (lbs.),    10,786,600 

•The products of the island exported were as
folilows. 1816. 1823.
Sugar,  Boxes, 200,481 300,211
Coffee,  Arrobes, 370,229 895,925
Wax,  " 22,365 15,962
Molasses,  Hhds.  30,145
Leaf tobacco,  Arrobes,  13,879
 Pounds,  71,108

commerce. 301
i
The most exact data I have been able to obtain,
relative to the arrivals and departures of vessels at
the port of Havana, are the following :
Arrivals, 1799  883 1802....  845
1800  784 1803  1,020
1801  1,015
Average from 1815 to 1819,  1,192
Merchant vessels. Men-of-war.
Arrived. Sailed. Arrived.
1820  1,305 1,230 —
1821  1,268 1,168 95
1822  1,182 1,118 141
1823  1,168 1,144 149
1824  1,086 1,088 129
[Note'. — In order that the reader may see, at a
glance, the progress and present state of the com
merce of Cuba, we insert here the results exhibited
in the Balanza de Comercio of 1852.
IMPORTS.
In 947 Spanish vessels,  $20,325,751
2,665 Foreign "  9,454,491
3,612 $29,780,242
EXPORTS.
In 819 Spanish vessels  $ 7,018,018
" 2,455 Foreign "  20,435,919
3,274 27,45.3,937
Imports in bond  $1,048,469
Exports " "  1,148,975

102

The importations for domestic consumption are
lassed as follows: — Total. From U. States.
Cotton Goods  $2,661,568 $144,552
Linen "  2,431,564 75,580
Woolen "  359,060 15,663
Silk "  598,747 64,193
Manufactures of Leather  635,374 38,663
Meats  1,909,394 161,950
Fish  668,425 152,171
Wines and Liquors  2,563,303 64,433
Flour  4,084,286 91,714
Rice....  1,046,604 811,462
Grain and Pulse  320,212 115,991
Spices and Fruits  397,439 22,469
Other Provisions  ... 1,400,005 287,900
Lard and Butter  948,144 902,635
Lumber  .-  2,042,187 1,864,997
Metals and Iron ware  2,476,106 201,469
Soap  581,068 64,624
Other Manufactures  3,936,274 958,200
Live "Stock  40,206 9,157
Material for Eailroads and Sugar Mills. . 680,276 269,223
Specie  989,424 532,468

$29,780,242 $6,849,514

EXPORTS.

Total. To U. States.
Sugar  $20,153,002 $8,940,050
Molasses  1,603,929 978,687
Eum  229,437 11,580

Carry forward $21,986,368 $9,930,317

COMMERCE. 303
Totals To U. States.
Brought forward $21,986,368 $9,930,317
Coffee  739,369 138,901
Segars  764,414 353,945
Leaf Tobacco.... 1,001,166 274,316
Copper Ore  945,532 39,080
Other Products.. 2,017,088 1,339,850

$27,453,937 $12,076,409"
The United States supplied 23 per cent, of the
imports, and received 47 per cent, of the exports.
The exportation of the principal staples is thus
stated : —

Sugar  Boxes
Molasses  Hhds.
Eum  Pipes
Ooffee  Arrobes
Segars  M.
Leaf Tobacco  Qqls.
Copper Ore  "

can, and of the 3,274 cleared, 1,644 were American.
Tonnage entered 622,016 tons.
Of the imports 74 per cent., and of the exports
44 per cent, were through the port of Havana.]
When we compare in these tables the great value
of the importations with the small value of the

Total. To U. States.

1,409,012

638,578 or 44 ]

per cent.

262,593

156,590 " 61

a

11,359

579 " 6

K

739,369

138,901 " 19

u

180,610

84,887 " 46

U

97,374

27,711 " 27

t.

381,470

15,632 " 4

«

entered.

. 1,886. were

Ameri-

304 humboldt's cuba.
goods re-exported, \we are surprised to find how
great is the domestic consumption of a country,
containing only 325,000 white, and 130,000 free
colored population. Estimating the several articles
at their current prices, we find a consumption of
two and a half or three millions of dollars in linen
goods, one million in cotton goods, four hundred
thousand in silks, and two hundred and twenty
thousand in woolen goods. The demand of Cuba,
through the port of Havana alone, for the woven
fabrics of Europe, has exceeded four, or four and a
half millions of dollars yearly, for the last few years.
To these imports at Havana, through licit channels,
we must add for furniture, glass ware, &c, &c.
$500,000; iron and steel, $380,000; lumber,
$400,000 ; and castile soap, $300,000.
The importations of provisions and liquors at
Havana, seem to me, worthy the attention of those
who wish to ascertain the true social state of those
communities called the sugar coldnies. Such is the
composition of society in those communities, inha
biting the most fertile soil that Nature has offered to
the use of man; such the direction of agricultural
labor and industry in the Antilles, that in the bene
ficent climate of the tropics the people would fail to
obtain subsistence, if it were not for the freedom and
activity of their foreign commerce.

COMMERCE. 305
I will not refer to the wines imported at Havana,
which amounted (according to the custom-house
returns, be it remembered) to 40,000 barrels in 1803,
and in 1823 to 15,000 pipes, valued at $1,200,000 ;
nor to the 6,000 barrels of brandies, ,<fcc, from
Spain and Holland ; nor to the 113,000 barrels of
flour. These wines, these liquors, and this flour, to
the value of $3,300,000, are consumed only by the
better classes of the people. The cereals of the
United States have become a real and true necessity,
under a zone where for a long time, maize, yuca,
and the plantain were preferred to any other kind of
food. Amid the always-increasing .enlightenment
of Havana, we may not lament the development of
a luxury that is purely European. But alongside of
the flour, wines, and liquors of Europe we find, in
1816, a million, and in 1823, three and a half mil
lions of dollars in salted meats, rice, and dried pulse.
During the last named year, the importation of rice
(in Havana alone, and by the custom-house returns,
exclusive of contraband), has been 8,075,000 pounds
(in 1852, in all the island, 20,940,925 pounds), that
of salted and dried meats, the tasajo (jerked beef),
so necessary for the support of the slaves, 11,625,000
pounds (in all the island, in 1852, 41,750,450 pounds).
This absence of the means of subsistence character
izes that part of the tropical regions where the unwise

306 humboldt's CUBA.
activity of the European has inverted the order of
nature. It will diminish as the inhabitants become
better aware of their true interests, and disheartened
at the low prices of colonial products, and they will
then vary the staples of their production, and give
an impulse to all the branches of rural economy.1
The principles of the limited and mean policy
which guides- the rulers of small islands (workshops,
in fact, dependent upon Europe, and inhabited by
men who abandon the country- as soon as they
become sufficiently wealthy), can. never harmonize
with a country nearly as large in extent as England,
filled with populous cities, and whose inhabitants,
descending from father to son for centuries, far from
deeming themselves strangers upon American soil,
hold for it the same affection that every one
entertains for his native land.
1 The study and development of the true principles of Political
Economy, during the last quarter of a century, have demonstrated
the reverse of this theory of material interests. It is now generally
admitted that the labor and capital of a country are most wisely
employed in the production of those staples for which its climate
and soil are best adapted. In this manner, through the interchanges
of a free trade, the wants of the community are supplied with the
least expenditure of labor, and a larger portion of its produced
wealth is left in the form of capital, to be re-applied to production. It
is this combination of agriculture and commerce that has been the
source of the great material prosperity of Cuba.

COMMERCE.

307

The population of the island of Cuba, which per
haps, may increase within fifty years to a million,
.may open to itself, through its own wants, an
immense field to native industry.
Though the slave-trade should cease, and the
slaves pass slowly to the condition of freemen, and
society attain the power of self-government, without
being exposed to the violent fluctuations of. civil
commotion, it would continue upon the path
marked out by nature for every numerous and intel
ligent community. The cultivation of sugar and
coffee would not, therefore, be abandoned, but like
that of cochineal in Mexico, of indigo in Guatemala,
and of cocoa in Yenezuela, it would cease to be the
principal basis of national existence. An intelligent
and free agricultural people would succeed a slave
population that is without foresight or industry.
The capital which the commerce of Havana has
poured into the hands of the agriculturists during
the last fifteen years, is already beginning to change
the face of the country, and to this efficient power,
whose action is always increasing, there would
necessarily be added another — the development of
human knowledge, which is inseparable from the
progress of industry and of national wealth. - On
the union of these two great springs of action' depends
the future fate of the metropolis of the Antilles. _

308 humboldt's cuba.
[Note. — The error of the social theory here stated
has been demonstrated by the sad experience of
Jamaica. The change in the condition of the blacks
in that island was made ,in accordance with the
requisites here laid down, as far as it was possible to
accord with them. The transition of the slaves to
the condition of freemen was gradual, and the amal
gamated community attained the right of self-govern
ment without the violent fluctuations of civil com
motion ; yet it has been found that an intelligent and
free agricultural people did not succeed the slave
population ; that the numbers and influence of the
intelligent white population have steadily and
rapidly decreased, and threaten to become wholly
extinct ; that the freed negroes are relapsing from
the semi-intelligent state they had attained under the
rule of the whites, and are retrograding toward bar
barism ; that the supply of agricultural labor, and
consequently, the product of agriculture, has largely
diminished; that commerce has dwindled away;
and that the social condition of the blacks has sunk
to an unhappy prevalence of sloth, misery, and
want. Co-existent with this decline in the material
welfare of the inhabitants of Jamaica, a decline in
their moral condition has been experienced. Religion
has waned ; churches have been closed ; schools

COMMERCE. 309
have fallen into decay ; the ministers of the gospel
have fled the country ; the rite of marriage is falling
into disuse ; the social position of woman has been
degraded; and vice and crime have become, in a
measure, natural to the state of society among the
mass of negroes. The statistics of population in
Cuba, which we have already examined, demonstrate
the same tendency of the free bracks there to
abandon the labors of agriculture, and to congregate
in the towns. The cultivation of the fields being
thus diminished, commerce, which is the handmaiden
of agriculture, must decline also, and with this dimi
nution ceases the accession of capital, which commerce
brings to the agriculturist.
In these sad faots, we recognize the truth of the
social law laid down by Baron Humboldt : that " the
development of human knowledge is inseparable
from the progress of industry and of national
wealth ;" and we must also admit his deduction,
that the future fate of Cuba depends upon the main
tenance of her industry, and the increase of her
national wealth, which shall continue to extend the
magic influence of capital over her fields, and stim
ulate the development of knowledge among the
people.] The custom-house returns of flour imported at

310 humboldt's CUBA.
Havana alone, in 1823, was 113,506 barrels, which,
at the average price of $16 50, inclusive of the
duties, amounts to $1,864,500. The first direct im
portation of flour from tlie United States is due to
the wise administration of Don Luis de las Casas.
Before his time, it could only be imported^ after
having been carried to a port in Europe. Mr. Kob-
inson (Mem. on the Mexican Revolution, vol. 2, p.
330) estimates the importation of flour into Cuba,
through licit and illicit channels, at 120,000 barrels.
He adds, which seems to me less certain, " that the
island of Cuba, in consequence of the evil distribu
tion of slave labor there, could barely sustain a
blockade of five months." In 1822, there were
imported from" the United States 144,980 barrels,
valued in Havana, inclusive of the duties, at
$2,391,000. [In 1852, the total importation of flour into Cuba
was 327,950 barrels, of which but 7,610 were from
the United States ; total value, at the mean selling
price of $16 50, $5,411,175.]
Notwithstanding that the flour of the United
States is burdened with an impost of seven dollars
a barrel, yet that of Spain — Santander, for instance

COMMERCE. 311
— cannot compete with it.1 A competition was
begun by Mexico, under the most favorable circum
stances ; for, during my residence at . Vera Cruz,
Mexican flour was already exported from there to
the value of three hundred thousand dollars; and
this had increased, in 1809, to 70,000 barrels, as is
shown by the statement of Mr. Pitkins. The politi
cal disturbances of Mexico have entirely destroyed
this trade in cereals, between two countries both
situate under the tomd zone, but at different eleva
tions above the level of the sea, which exerts a
powerful influence upon climate and production.
As a complement to these statements regarding
the foreign trade of Cuba^ let us listen to the author
of an essay we have repeatedly cited, who sets forth
the true situation of the island. " Havana begins
already to experience the effects of an accumulation
of wealth, for provisions have doubled in price,
within a few years, and the wages of labor are so
increased, that a newly imported African, without
having learned any trade, earns by the labor of his
hands from 50 to 62£ cents a day; and a negro
mechanic, however rough his work, earns from 62£ to
1 The duty on flour imported from the United States is now nearly
eleven dollars a barrel, and is an efficient protection to that of
Santander.

312 humboldt's CUBA.
75 cents a day. The patrician families remain in the
country, and those who become rich do not return to
Europe. There are families which are very wealthy :
Don Mateo Pedroso, who died a short time since,
left in land alone more than two millions of dollars.
The trade which is transacted yearly in that market
amounts to more than twenty millions." — De la
situacion presente de Cuba. — MSS.
Such was the state of public wealth at the close
of the year 1800. Since then, twenty-five years of
constantly increasing prosperity have elapsed, and
the population has nearly doubled. Previous to
1800, the returns of the export of sugar did not
reach 170,000 boxes ; now (1825) it always exceeds
200,000 boxes, and has attained 250,000, and even
300,000. [In 1852, it exceeded 1,400,000 boxes.] A
new branch of industry has been created in the coffee
culture, the export' of which shows a value of three
and a half millions of dollars. Industry, directed
by better knowledge, has attained better results, and
the system of imposts that bore heavily upon it, and
weighed' down foreign trade, was changed in the
year 1791, and has been subsequently improved by
successive alterations.
Whenever the mother country, ignoring her true
interests, has wished to take a retrograde step, a
thousand clamors, each louder than the other, have

COMMERCE. 313
come up, not only from the people of Havana, but
frequently also from Spanish executive officers, in
defence of the freedom of trade in America. Through
the enlightened zeal and patriotic views of the inten
dant, Don Claudio Martinez Pinillos, another step
has been recently taken, favoring the employment
of capital, in conceding to Havana a warehousing
.system or trade in bond, under the most favorable
auspices. In Havana, as everywhere, where commerce and
its consequent wealth experience a rapid increase,
the evil influence it exercises over ancient customs
is complained of. This is not the place to compare
the former state of Cuba, covered with pasture
before its capture by the English, and its present
state, when it has become the metropolis of the
Antilles ; neither will we weigh the frankness and
simplicity of the customs of a nascent society, with
those which appertain to a more advanced civiliza
tion. A love of wealth springs from the spirit of
commerce, and as a necessary consequence, the
mass contemns whatever cannot be obtained with
money ; but it is the good fortune of human affairs,
that whatever is most worthy of being desired, most
noble and most free in man, we owe only to the
inspirations of the soul, and to the improvement of
our intellectual faculties. 14

314 humboldt's CUBA.
If the pursuit of wealth should pervade to an
absolute degree all classes of society, it would infal
libly produce the evil that is deplored by those who
contemplate with sorrow what they style the prepon
derance of the industrial system. But the increase
of commerce — multiplying the friendly ties between
nations, opening an immense sphere to the opera
tions of the mind, pouring capital into the lap of
agriculture, and creating new wants through the
refinements of luxury — presents in itself the remedy
for the danger which they believe to exist. In this
extreme complication of cause and effect, time is
needed to establish the equilibrium between the dif
ferent classes of society. "We cannot say, at any
given period, that civilization, the progress of know
ledge, and the development of the public mind,
may be measured by tons, by the value of exports,
or by the state of the industrial arts. Nations, like
individuals, should not be judged by a single period
of their lives, for they must run the entire course of
their destiny, passing through the whole scale of a
civilization adequate to their physical condition, and
consonant with their national character.

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS. 315

CHAPTER XI.
INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS.
Projected canal from Havana to Batabano — Survey and levels-
Difficulty of making roads — Estimated cost and advantages of the
Canal — [Note. — Present state of roads — Itinerary of principal
roads — Cross-roads — Turnpikes — Introduction of railroads — Their
adaptability to Cuba — Government determines to build the first —
Its immense cost — Receipts and expenses — Sale and extension —
Present system of railroads — Existing railroads in Cuba — Their
cost — Receipts — Steam navigation — Coasting trade — Shipbuilding
— Telegraph.]
The laborious and costly means of internal com
munication in Cuba, increase the cost of her
products in her ports, notwithstanding the short
distance between the northern and southern shore.
A projected canal, which shall combine the advan
tages of uniting Havana with Batabano, and dimin
ish, at the same time, the expense of transportation
to the native products, is worthy of special mention
here. The idea of the Guines canal was conceived
more than half a century since, for the single pur
pose of supplying the Navy-yard of Havana with

316 humboldt's CUBA.
ship timber at a moderate price. In 1796 Count
Jaruco y Mopox, an estimable and enterprising gen
tleman, who possessed great influence at court
through his intimacy with the Prince of the Peace,
undertook the revival of this project, and in 1798
the survey was made by two engineers of great
merit,1 Don Francisco and Don Eelix Lemaur, who
found that the length of the canal would be nineteen
leagues, of five thousand varas each ; that the high
est point was at the Taverna del Rey, and that
nineteen locks on the northern slope, and twenty-one
on the southern, would be required. In a direct
line there are only eight and one-third maritime
leagues, from Havana to Batabano. The canal of
Guines, even as a canal for the smaller navigation,
would be of great utility in the transportation of
agricultural products by steam vessels, for it would
pass through the most highly cultivated lands.
In no part of the'world do the roads become more
impassable during the rainy season, than in that part
of the island, where the soil is a decomposing lime
stone ill adapted to the making of wheel-roads. »
The transportation of sugar from Guines to Havana,
1 This survey gave the following elevations in Burgos feet ;
Cerro, near the bridge of the Zanja, 106.2 ; Taverna del Rey,
329.3 ; -town of Rincon, 295.3 ; lagoon of Zaldivar, when filled up,
237.3 ; Quivican, 166.1 ; Village of Batabano, 21.3.— H.

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS. 317
a distance of twelve leagues, costs now one dollar a
quintal. Besides the advantages thai would accrue
to the internal communications, the canal would give
great importance to the roadstead of Batabano,
which could be available to small vessels laden with
jerked beef from Venezuela, which would thus
avoid doubling Cape San Antonio. In the stormy
season, and in time of war, when privateers are
cruising between Cape Catoche, the Tortugas, and
Mariel, it would be advantageous to shorten the
voyage from the Spanish main to Cuba, by arriving,
not at Havana, but at some port on the south side of
island. In 1796 the probable cost of the Guines canal was
estimated at a million, or one million two hundred
thousand dollars; we may suppose it would now
cost a million and a half of dollars. The products
that might pass annually through the canal have
been estimated at 75,000 boxes of sugar, 25,000
arrobes of coffee, and 8,000 hhds. of molasses and
rum- Iu the first project, that of 1796, it was
intended to connect the canal with the Guines
brook, running it from the Holanda sugar estate
towards Quivican, three leagues south of Bejucal
and Santa Rosa. This idea has now been aban
doned, as the Guines brook loses its water toward
the east, in the irrigation of the savannas of Guana-

318

mon. Instead of leading the canal east of the
Cerro village, and south of the castle of Atares to
the bay itself, the intention was to avail of the bed
of the Chorrera or Almendares river, from Calaba-
zal to Husillo, and thence to follow the royal zanja ;
thus bringing the vessels into the suburbs and city of
Havana, and at the same time, supplying the foun
tains with water, of which they are now deprived
during three moDths of the year. I have had the
pleasure of visiting, in company with Messieurs
Lemaur, the country through which this line of navi
gation should pass. The utility of the project is
undeniable, if, in a time of great drought, a suffi
cient supply of water can be brought to the divid
ing point.
[Note. — The projected canal was never con
structed, but the facilities for internal communica
tion in Cuba have largely increased since the time
of Baron Humboldt's writing, and a short sketch of
their present condition will not be inappropriate in
a view of the actual condition of the island. The
old system of highways, which is still in use, is a
series of roads upon which very little labor has
been expended, and during the rainy season travel
ling on them is exceedingly laborious. The princi
pal road running east from Havana, is the great

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS. 319
highway through the island, and the mail is still
carried over it on horseback. Its principal points
are, to Matanzas, 21 leagues ; thence to Villa Clara,
57 1. ; to Santi Espiritu, 23 1, ; to Puerto Principe,
50 1. ; to Las Tunas, 31 1. ; to Bayamo, 14 1. ; .to St.
Jago de Cuba, 34 1. ; to Santa Catalina, 25 1. ; to
Baracoa, 44 1. ; total, 299 leagues. Two roads run
west from Havana (the Central and the South Shore
roads), to Pinar del Rio, 45 1. ; and thence to Guane,
15 1.; and to Mantua, 6 leagues. Total, 66 leagues.
Another road runs west from Havana, along the
northern shore, to Mariel, 14 Jeagues; thence to
Cabanas, 5 1. ; to Bahia Honda, 6 1.; and thence to
Mantua. The southern road runs from Havana to
Guines, 12 leagues ; thence to Cienfuegos, 57 1. ; and
to Trinidad, 21 1. ; total, 90 leagues.
There are also, a common road along the northern
side, highways across the island in several places,
as from Matanzas io Cienfuegos ; from Sagua to
Cienfuegos, through Villa Clara ; Remedios to Trini
dad, through Villa Clara; Moron to Santi Espiritu
and Saza; Nuevitas, through Puerto Principe, to
Santa Cruz; Gibara to Holguin, Bayamo, and
Manzanillo : and others between the larger towns.
Besides these principal roads, there are numerous
cross country roads, and innumerable paths, used by
the country people. Of all these roads, we may

320 humboldt's cuba.
observe generally, that in the "Western department
they are fair, in the Central poor, and in the
Eastern impracticable for wheel-carriages. The
common roads are little more than open portions of
country, left for public transit, and being without
grading or repair of any kind upon them, partake of
the qualities of the land where they may be located.
In places hilly, stony, and dangerous, in others, they
have a deep alluvial soil, intransitable except in the
dry season. Travelling is, therefore, a matter of no
little trouble and delay, and the consequent small
number of travellers enables Cuba to dispense with
those, in other countries, necessary institutions,
hotels and taverns ; and their absence has given rise
to that generous country hospitality so often noted by
tourists in Cuba.
Ma,ny years since, a turnpike system was devised,
to extend over the most populous portions of the
island, but the great labor and expense of construct
ing roads sufficiently stable to resist the heavy rains
of the tropics, made the progress of these very slow.
A few short ones have been constructed in the
vicinity of Havana,' and are still being extended.
The principal turnpike runs west from Havana 12
leagues to Guanajay. The southern turnpike extends
to Santiago de las Vegas 5 leagues ; the southeastern
is finished for a distance of 1\ leagues, and the

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS. „ 321
eastern, 5 leagues from Havana. They are con
structed by the Junta de Fomento, with funds
appropriated mostly by the government from the
general revenue!
To Don Eduardo Fesser, a private gentleman of
Havana, belongs the honor of having first drawn
public attention in Cuba to the railroads for internal
communication. With unwearied exertion he pro
cured and presented, in a well-digested form, the
fullest and most satisfactory information on the sub
ject, and succeeded in establishing a joint stock
company for the purpose of carrying his plans into
execution. Experience has fully demonstrated the
great adaptability of this system of internal commu
nication to the wants of Cuba. The difficulty and
great expense of building and keeping in repair
good common roads, under the intertropical torrent
rains, and the facilities afforded by the face of the
country for building railroads without deep cuts,
tunnels, or heavy grades, makes their cost compara
tively small, while the practicability of constructing
short stretches inland, ffom the harbors, and their
becoming immediately profitable, has been favorable
to their extension. The wealth and production of
the "Western department are now in a great measure
concentrated upon Havana by a well-devised system
of railroads. 14*

322 humboldt's ouba.
At the eleventh hour, the Spanish authorities
determined to reserve to themselves the honor of
building the first railroad, and M. Fesser and his
company were set aside. A loan of two and-a-half
millions of dollars was obtained in England, the
Junta de Fomento contributed $40,000 annually
from its funds, the government loaned emancipados
and convicts as laborers, and the road from Havana
to Guines was built. It was commenced in 1835,
and opened to Bejucal, 17 miles, in November
1837, and finally to Guines, 44f miles, in December
1839. The building of this road is an instructive example
of the manner in which public works are carried on
by the Spanish authorities in Cuba. Don Pio Pita
Pizarro, who was finance minister in Spain in 1839.
states in his work on the treasury and national. debt
of that country, published in Madrid in 1840, that
the total cost of the Guines road was $3,909,625 75,
being $87,366 per mile, for a single track, and
including the cost of equipment, stations, &c, about.
$95,000 a mile. The government retained the road
for three years, during which its receipts were as
follows : — Passengers, Freight. Total.
1839  $171,791 $136,484 $308,275
1840  172,611 173,509 346,120
1841.... . 168,167 181,963 350,140

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS. 323
The expenditures have not been published, but
Senor Pizarro, in the work above referred to, states
that it required an annual outlay of $441,561 to
meet the expenses of the road. The government
accordingly determined to sell it, and in 1842 trans
ferred it to a private company that assumed the
loan, and engaged to extend the lines. This they
have since done to Union, 33^ miles further, where
it meets the Matanzas road, and have also con
structed branches to Guanajay, 21 miles, and Bata
bano, 10 miles.
This road, which is the great trunk of the railway
system in Cuba, runs from Havana in a south direc
tion to San Felipe, 26 miles, where it bends to the
east through Guines to Union. At Rincon, 14 miles
from Havana, the Guanajay branch commences
running westward to San Antonio, where it turns
toward the north, and at Guanajay it is only six
miles from Mariel, on the northern shore of the
island.. The Matanzas road has a general south
course to Union, where it turns to the east, extend
ing through Navajas to Isabel, 25 miles further.
The Cardenas road runs south to Bemba, 18 miles,
where it bends to the southwest, extending to Nava
jas, 11 miles — connecting there with the Matanzas
road. It has a branch from Bemba, running south-
cast to Agiiica, 33£ miles, which it is contemplated

324 humboldt's cuba.
to extend eastward, through the centre of the island,
to Villa Clara. The Cienfuegos road runs north
ward to Cruces, 18 miles, and is being extended to
Villa Clara, 18 miles further, where it will connect
with the Cardenas road, and through it with the
Havana system. The "Coliseo road runs eastward
from Matanzas to within a few leagues of Cardenas.
The Jucaro road runs southeast from Cardenas into
what is now the richest sugar district of Cuba.
Several other roads are in contemplation, in order to
extend the connections of this system both east and
west. The following are the existing roads in Cuba, with
their length in English miles :
Havana, with two branches,  108J
Regla to Guanabacoa,  2J
Matanzas,  47
Coliseo,  ;  24
Cardenas, with one branch,  624
Jucaro, with one branch,  34
Cienfuegos,  .'  18
Remedios,  6
Trinidad to Casilda,  3
Puerto Principe to Nuevitas,  46
Cobre to St. Jago,  .'  9
Total  3601
We have stated the cost of the road built by the

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS. 325

i

government, but that is no criterion for the cost of
railroads in Cuba — those built by private enterprise
having been equally well constructed, at a much less
expense. The road from Cardenas to Navajas cost
something less than $28,000 per mile, and the Jucaro
road about $20,000 per mile, exclusive of running
equipment.1 The receipts of the principal of these roads,
according to the latest data in our possession, is as
follows :

1850. 1851.

Road.

Length.

Passengers. Freight.

Passengers.

Freight.

Havana, . .

108J

$293,300 $377,209

$336,076

$454,961

Matanzas,

47

75,876 228,266

87,239

288,782

Coliseo, . .

24

16,691 105,659

13,333

128,526

Cardenas,

62J

32,070 158,374

61,695

258,378

Jucaro, . .

34

14,088 291,641

9,103

261,544

Remedios,

6 (opened April, 1851), .. .

16,905

22,877

Several lines of steamers are established, con-
1 For much of this information regarding the railroads of Cuba,
we are indebted to a lucid manuscript report drawn up several
years since, by C. D. Tolme, Esq., formerly British consul, and still
a resident at Havana, whose varied and accurate information rela
tive to Cuba is probably unsurpassed by that of any foreigner there.
We have also to acknowledge our obligations to the modest but
valuable work of Don Jose' G. de Arboleya, entitled " Manual de la
Ysla de Cuba."

326 humboldt's cuba.
necting all the principal ports with Havana, and an
active trade is carried on by them. The lines on the
south coast connect with the Havana railroad, at
Batabano. In summer from six to eight, and in
winter from ten to twelve steamers, are kept con
stantly running.
Neither the " Balanzas de Comercio " nor the
"Cuadro Estadistico" give us any information in
relation to the coastwise trade by sea, although it is
very large, the entries at the Havana custom-house
in 1851, of vessels employed in this trade having
amounted to 3,493. The returns of the marine
department show that 433 vessels of twenty tons
burden and upwards, and 1,289 under twenty tons,
are matriculated, three-fourths of which are sup
posed to be engaged in the domestic coasting trade.
This is by no means improbable, as the number of
vessels employed in this trade is very great, the
general movement of freight upon the railroads
being to the nearest seaport, whence it is conveyed
by sea to Havana. The larger class are generally
schooners, constructed on the finest models, and
many of them are built in Cuba from the admirable
timber furnished by her forests — mahogany being
often used in the frame, and cedar in planking
them. Within a short time steam propellers have

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS. 327
*
been advantageously introduced in this trade, for
which they seem eminently adapted. The electric
telegraph has lately be,en introduced, but being en
tirely in the hands of the government it is of little
service to the public.

32S humboldt's ouba.

CHAPTER XH.
REVENUE.
Historical sketch — Its comparatively large amount — Causes of great
expenditure — Struggle with the Spanish republics — Mistaken
policy of Spain— Customs revenue of Havana, 1789 to 1822 —
Detail of revenue, 1824 — Increase — Internal taxes, 1735 to 1818
— Revenue and expenditure, 1822 — Comments of the Intendent—
Subsidies from Mexico to Cuba. — [Note.— Sources of present
revenue examined — Maritime revenue and tariff — Internal taxes —
Direct revenue — State property — Declared revenue — Items of
government income to be added — Total revenue — Abuses in Cuba
Evil effects of the revenue system — Appropriations — Civil list —
Army — Navy — Crown income — Average product to Spain — Per
centage on official incomes— Revenue from 1826 to 1852 — Com
pared with revenue of Spanish government in Mexico —
Reflections.] The increase of agricultural prosperity in the
island of Cuba, and the accumulation of wealth
flowing from the value of its importations, has aug
mented the public revenue during late years to four
and a half, and perhaps even five millions of dol
lars. The custom-house of Havana, which before
the year 1794 yielded less than $600,000, and from

REVENUE. 329
1797 to 1800 an average of $1,900,000, brings to
the public treasury, since the declaration of the
freedom of commerce, a net sum of. more than
$3,100,000. As the colonial government gives the
greatest publicity to everything concerning the col
lection of revenue in Cuba, -we learn by the reports
of the treasury department for the city and district
of Havana, that from 1820 to 1825, the public
revenue in the subordinate departments of this
treasury, has oscillated between $3,200,000 and
$3,400,000. If to this sum we add $800,000, which
the treasury has received from other branches of
revenue, as lottery, tithes, &c, and also the income
from the custom-houses of Trinidad, Matanzas, Bara
coa, and St. Jago de Cuba, which amounted to more
than $600,000 previous to the year 1819, we are
convinced that the estimated revenue of five millions
of dollars for the whole island is not exaggerated.
A few simple comparisons will prove .^o_w large is
i
this product relatively to the actual' state of the
colony. # ~T .*
The island of Cuba has not over one forty-second
part of the population of France, and as about one-
half of its inhabitants live in a state of extreme
poverty, they consume but litfle. Its revenues
equal those of Colombia, and exceed the product of
all the custom-houses of the United States prior to

330 humboldt's cuba.
the year 1795, when that Confederation had 4,500,00C
inhabitants ;' yet Cuba contains only 715,000. The
customs tariff is the principal source of revenue in
this beautiful colony ; it produces more than three-
fifths of the total income, and suffices to cover with
ease, all the necessities of internal administration,
and military defence.
Though the disbursements of the treasury of
Havana have, during the last few years, exceeded
$4,000,000, this excessive expenditure has been
caused by the tenacious struggle which the metro
polis has endeavored to sustain with the emancipated
colonies. Two millions of dollars have been dis
bursed in the pay of troops and sailors, that have
retreated from the American continent to Spain by
way of Havana. All the while that Spain, ignoring
her true interests, shall delay the recognition of the
independence of the new republics, the island of
Cuba, menaced by Colombia and the Mexican Con
federation, must maintain a military equipment in
self-defence, that will absorb the,,. colonial revenues.
The navy alone stationed at Havana costs more than
,000, and the land forces require annually nearly

1 The custom-houses of the United States, which, from 1801 to
1808 yielded sixteen millions annually, in 1816 gave only $7,282,000.
— Morse's Modern Geography, p. 638. — H.

REVENUE. 331
a million and a half of dollars. Such a state of
things cannot long endure, if Spain does not alle
viate the burdens that weigh upon the colony.
From 1789 to 1797 the product of the custom
house at Havana never attained, one year with
another, more than $700,000. The revenues con
tributed to the royal treasury were,
1789  $479,302 1793  $635^98
1790...... 642,720 1794  642,320
1791  520,202 1795  643,583
1792..'.... 849,904 1796  784,689
From 1797 to 1800 the crown and municipal
duties collected at Havana amounted to $7,634,126,
being an average of $1,908,000 :
1797  $1,257,017 1801  $2,170,970
1798  1,822,348 1802  2,400,932
1799  2,305,080 1803  1,637,465
1800  2,249,680
The custom-house at Havana yielded in :
1808  $1,178,974 1811  $1,469,137 .«.,
1809  1,913,605 1814  1,855,117
1810  1,292,619
The decrease of revenue in 180? was attributed to
the American embargo, but in 1809 the court per
mitted the free entrance of foreign neutral vessels!

332 humboldt's cuba.
From 1815 to 1819 the crown duties collected at
Havana amounted to $11,575,460 ; the municipal
duties to $6,709,347, being a total of $18,284,807,
and a yearly average of $3,657,000, of which the
municipal duties composed fifty-six per cent. Dur
ing the three succeeding years the income of the
general treasury at Havana amounted to :
1820  $3,631,279 1822  $3,378,228
1821  3,277,639
Tn 1823, the crown and municipal duties on
imports have yielded $2,734,563. The returns of
the " Administraeion General " of Havana for 1824,
have been as follows :
I.— Import duties,  ..-. $1,818,896
II.— Export duties,  326,816
HI. — Coastwise duties, and other branches
(salt, deposit, &c),  188,415
TV. — Internal imposts —
Tax on slaves,  $ 73,109
Tax on sales of land,  215,092
Sub-administrations,  154,840
Shops,  19,714
Other branches,  10,931
 473,686
V.— Auxiliary branches,  136,923
VI.— Consulado, wharfage, &c.,  80,564
Total in 1824,  $3,025,300

REVENUE. 333
In the year 1825, the revenue of the city and dis
trict of Havana has amounted to $3,350,300.
These partial data demonstrate that from 1789 to
1824, the public revenue has increased seven fold.
This fact is made more evident if we examine the
returns of the ten subordinate treasuries of the inte
rior — Matanzas, Villa Clara, Remedios, Trinidad,
Santi Espiritu, Puerto Principe, Holguin, Bayamo,
St. Jago de Cuba, and Baracoa. Seiior Barrutia has
published an interesting statement of these returns,
embracing a period of eighty-three years, from 1735
to 1818. The revenue of these treasuries has pro
gressively increased from $900 to $600,000.
1735  $896 1738  $1,794
1736  860 1739  4,747
1737  902
Mean, for the five years,  1,840
1775  $123,246 1778  $158,624
1776   114,366 1779  146,007
1777  128,303 Mean,.  133.31,3
1814  $317,699 1817  $524,442
1815  398,696 1818  618,036
1816  511,510 Mean,  474,072
The total amount for the eighty-three years is
$13,098,000, of which St. Jago de Cuba contributed
$4,390,000, Puerto Principe $2,224,000, and Matan
zas $1 450,788.

334 humboldt's cuba.
By the returns of the general treasury, the public
revenue of the district of Havana alone, in 1822,
amounted to $4,311,862; of which $3,127,918 was
from customs, $601,898 from items of direct income,
as lottery, tithes, &c, and $581,978 drafts upon the
fund of the Consulado and deposits.
The expenditures during the same year were, for
Cuba, $2,732,738, and for appropriations to maintain
the struggle with the continental colonies, $1,362,062.
In the first class we find $1,355,798 for the land
forces charged with the defence of Havana, and
contiguous towns, and $648,908 for the navy sta
tioned at Havana. In the second class of expendi
tures, foreign to the local administration, we find
$1,115,672 paid to 4,234 officers and soldiers, who,
after having evacuated Mexico, Colombia, and other
points of the the continent formerly under Spanish
dominion, have passed through Havana on their
return to Spain ; and $164,000 expended in the
defence of the castle of San Juan de Ulua.
Don Claudio Martinez de Pinillos, intendant of
the island of Cuba, in his notes accompanying the
report of the general treasury for 1822, makes the
following observations : " If to the extraordinary
expenditure of $1,362,022 for matters relating to the
general interests of the Spanish monarchy, we add,
on one hand, the greater part of the $648,908 appro-

REVENUE. 335
priatedrto the royal navy, the service of which is not
limited to the defence of Havana, and, on the other
hand, the expenses arising from the visits of the
mail ships, and other vessels of war, we shall find
that $2,010,930 (which is nearly one-half the public
revenue) has been expended for purposes which
have no direct connection with the internal adminis
tration of the island." How much will be gained
by the welfare and enlightenment of that country,
if the day should arrive, when, enjoying internal
tranquillity, more than a million and a half of dollars
may be yearly employed in works of public utility.
In documents which I obtained from the archives
of the vice-royalty of Mexico, I have found that the
pecuniary assistance sent from the treasury of that
country annually to Havana, amounted, at the
beginning of the present century, to the following
sums :
For the squadron, navy-yards, and wants of
the royal navy, by cedula of 16 Jan., 1790, $700,000
For the maritime establishments on the
Mosquito coast,  40,000
For the army of Havana,  290,000
For the same at St. Jago de Cuba,  146,000
For fortifications,..  150,000
For the purchase of tobacco and segars for
the royal factory at Sevilla,  500,000
$1,826,000

336 humboldt's cuba.
To this sum, which is now borne by the treasury
at Havana, we may add $577,000 which Mexico
paid to the treasury of Louisiana, $151,000 to that
of Florida, and $377,000 to the island of Puerto
Rico. [Note. — Before proceeding to examine the present
state of the revenue in Cuba, a succinct view of the
sources from which it is derived, may not be inap
propriate here. For greater clearness, we shall class
them under four heads : — I. Maritime revenue, being
that collected by customs, imposts upon exports,
imports, and shipping; H. Internal taxes, compris
ing fixed and stated imposts; IH. Direct revenue,
being that collected not by imposts, under variable
conditions ; IV. State property, being income from
property belonging to the crown.
I. Maritime Revenue. — The tariff on imports is
arranged with a fixed per centage upon a stated
valuation of nearly all the articles of commerce.
Inspectors examine and class the importations, for
the collection of the proper duties, and where the
tariff does not state the valuation, they appraise the
article. The principle adopted for valuation by the
tariff, seems to . be that of attaining as nearly as
possible the market value of the articles in Havana,

REVENUE. 337
exclusive only of the duties thereon; and as a
general rule, the per centage is arranged upon the
following scale, although there are some few
exceptions. Cotton and woolen goods and articles
of food, 35^ per fient. ; linen and silk goods, and
articles of use, 29-J per cent. These are the rates for
foreign products imported in foreign bottoms.
When of Spanish product or manufacture, imported
from Spain, the same goods pay only 9^ per cent.
duty, and there is also a differential duty on goods
of foreign product or manufacture, of 10 per cent.
on the first, and 8 per cent, on the second class, in
favor of importations in Spanish bottoms. A few
articles pay fixed duties, such as flour, which from
Spain pays $2, and from foreign ports $10 75 a
barrel. The tariff upon exports is in most instances a fixed
arbitrary impost, having no relation to the value of
the goods; for instance, sugar pays 87^. cents a box,
coffee 20 cents a quintal, segars 75 cents a thousand,
&c. The tonnage duties are levied at the rate of
62£ cents a ton for Spanish, and $1 50 per ton for
foreign vessels, according to Spanish measurement.
There are several other small tonnage imposts, as
health, dredging, &c, and fees and dues for visits,
clearance, lights, &c. Under the warehouse or
bonded system, goods entered and cleared in bond
15

338

pay l£ per cent, entry, the same for clearance, and
l£ per cent, storage yearly, after the first year.
Materials for railroads, machinery for sugar estates,
books and instruments for scientific institutions, and
a small number of other articles are free of duty.
H. Internal Taxes. — The principal items of this
class of revenue are the following : —
Alcabala, a tax of six per cent, on the value of
real estate and slaves sold or transferred. There is
also an additional tax of six per cent, on the amount
of the alcabala, which is imposed^ under certain
circumstances. The annual yield of this impost
varies between $600,000 and $700,000.
Meats consumed. — A tax of $3 50 per head on all
beef cattle, Z1\ cents for each sheep or goat, and
3l£ cents for each arrobe of swine killed for
consumption, and 12| cents per arrobe on all meat
killed for drying or curing purposes. The annual
yield of this tax varies from $500,000 to $600,000.
Tithes. — Ten per cent, on the product of the
haciendas, potreros, and all small cattle breeding or
labor farms. Two-and-a-half per cent, on the
product of 3ugar, coffee, and tobacco plantations.
The annual yield of this tax to the government varies
from $400,000 to $500,000.
Stamps. — An impost raised by the obligatory use

revenue. 339
of stamped paper in all official intercourse (except
diplomatic), tribunals, public instruments, bills of
exchange, promissory notes, &c. The paper for
common uses, is divided into six classes, the price
for eaeh sheet being for the first, $8 ; second, $6 ;
third, $1 50 ; fourth, 50 cents ; fifth (for official
intercourse), and sixth (for the declared pauper), 5
cents each. This tax produces from $250,000 to
$300,000. The stamps for bills of exchange and
notes, are graduated at 18| cents for $250 and
under ; 37^ cents for $625 and under ; 75 cents for
$1,250 and under, and 75 cents for each additional
$1,250. The annual product from this tax is between
$35,000 and $45,000, in addition to the above stated
product from other stamps.
Judicial Fees. — The judges of the Real Audien
cia, and the Alcaldes Mayores having a fixed salary,
the fees accruing to them are paid into the royal
treasury, and yield to it from $50,000 to $55,000
yearly. Tax on Costs. — A tax of four per cent, on all
assessed costs of judicial proceedings, yields annu
ally from $50,000 to $70,000.
Shops and Stores. — A fixed impost of $30 each, in
Havana, and $25 in other parts of the island, yield
ing from $125,0.00 to $150,000 annually.
Mortgages. — A tax of one-half of one per cent, on

340 humboldt's CUBA.
the value of all property sold is collected through
the registrar of mortgages; yielding from $40,000 to
$50,000, per annum.
There are several minor imposts, as tax on cock
pits, yielding from $20,000 to $30,000-^on .house
servants, water tax at Havana, novenos reales, auction
tax, &c.
HI. Dlreot Revenue. — Includes items of direct
income to the treasury, which are not taxes, among
which the principal are :
Lottery. — Carried on by the government, which
reserves twenty -five per cent, of the gross amount of
each scheme. It is drawn every three weeks, and
yields annually from $650,000 to $670,000.
Post-Office. — Yields a net annual revenue of about
$100,000. Fees of the Captain- General. — These fees are by
law to be paid into the treasury ; but in the returns
for the year 1853 (the latest we possess), the amount
is not stated. Well-informed persons suppose it to
amount to $100,000, and some place it as high as
two or three times this sum.
Fines, Confiscations, dec. — Are payable directly
into the treasury, but they cannot be estimated.
TV". State Property. — The property of the State

REVENUE. 341
in Cuba yields an income naturally variable. It
arises principally from the following sources :
Church Property. — The administration of the ex
propriated church property, and occasional partial
sales, produces a regular income. In 1850, it
amounted to about $200,000.
Rentals. — Rents of State lands, and property
yields from $40,000 to $50,000 annually.
Land Sales. — The sales of public lands in 1850,
produced $37,000.
Church Revenues, expropriated by the State, yield
in the same year $87,000.
There are some minor branches of income which
brings up the annual yield of this class to about
$400,000. The declared revenue of the Spanish government
in Cuba, in 1852, the latest of which we have been
able to obtain complete returns, was as follows :
I. Maritime revenue,  $8,870,000
H Internal taxes, .....'.  2,750,000
IH. Direct revenue,  980,000
IV. State property  ."  400,000
$13,000,000 .
But in order to arrive at a knowledge of the
approximate amount of government exactions in

342 humboldt's Cuba.
Cuba, we should add to the foregoing the following
items, which are properly state burdens, and consti
tute revenue.
Tax on slaves imported — for which $51 each is
collected by officials— yearly average, 10,000, . $510,000
Municipal revenues of the several ayuntamien
tos, and municipalities in the island,  600,000
Income of the non-salaried administrative officers
of the government — two Governors (of Matan
zas and St. Jago), $25,000 each,  $ 50,000
29 Lieut. Governors, at $5,000,  145,000
299 Captains de Partido at $1,000, . . . 299,000
Subordinate officers  326,000
 820,000
Income of non-salaried judiciary officers :
42 Alcaldes ordinarios, at $5,000,  $210,000
100 Assessors (crown law officers), at
$5,000,  500,000
450 Subordinate officers of courts, at
$800,  360,000
 1,070,000
Income of non-salaried., officials,  $ 3,000,000
Revenue before stated, /  13,000,000
Total revenue  $16,000,000
This estimate does not pretend to include all the
exactions to which the people of Cuba are subjected
by the officials of the present government, but only
the pay of those administrative and judiciary offi-

REVENUE. 343
cers, who, under proper systems of government, are
paid fixed salaries by the State, in order to pre
vent as far as possible, an abuse of the power they
must necessarily wield in the community. To show
the character and extent of this abuse, we copy the
following extract from Gen. Concha's work on Cuba,
published in Madrid, in 1853 :
"The absence of fixed salaries makes official situ
ations uncertain in the extreme, under which the
probabihties of their proving lucrative can only be
estimated by antecedents. What, then, must any
one think, calculate, or hope for, who, soliciting or
accepting an appointment, sees that after a few
years an incumbent returns to Spain with a fortune,
not such as he might have made by means of the
strictest economy, while holding one of the best paid
places at home, but one comparable only to those
made by fortunate speculators. * * * * For
many reasons, it is unfortunately too notorious that
an officer of a special tribunal was able to save
or make from his office, in the short space of
four months, more than Forty Thousand Dol
lars !" *
The appropriation of the revenue of Cuba, as
1 " Memoria sobre el Estado politico de Cuba, por Gen. Jose de la
Concha," p. 331.

344 humboldt's cuba.
nearly as it can be made up from the returns of the
¦Havana treasury, is as follows :

crvm list.
Pay and expenses of executive officers, $ 250,000
Perquisites of same,  •.  1,330,000
Pay and expenses of judiciary,  110,000
Perquisites of same,  1,070,000
Municipal expenditures,  600,000 "
Junta de Fomento, public works, . . . .. 350,000
Church service,  200,000
Government police,  $75,000
Civil do  90,000
 165,000
Civil pensions, . ,  $130,000
Church, do  120,000
Heirs of Columbus, do.,  16,000
 166,000
Public charities,  33,000
Public schools,  12,000
Prisons,  65,000
Pay and expenses of treasury,  740,000
Balances to other treasuries  510,000
Difference between the gross amount
of revenue, as returned in the " Ba-
lanzas de Comercio," and net reve

nue declared,  ^. 2,079,000

?

-$7,680,000

REVENUE. 345
ARMY LIST.
Pay roll of
19 Reg., 4 comp. Infantry,  $1,700,000
2 Regiments, Cavalry,  210,000
1 Reg., 5 comp. Artillery,  380,000
General officers,  53,000
Engineer corps,  86,000
 $2,429,000
Clothing, equipment, and arms,  90,000
Cattle and equipment,  230,000
Material for artillery corps,  155,000
Ditto " engineer do.,  - 125,000
Transportation,  150,000
Other expenditures for the army,  100,000
Hospitals,  300,000
Military pensions,  155,000
Pay roll of Militia Infantry,  $12,000
do. do. Cavalry, .  53,000
 65,000
$3,799,000
NAVY LIST.
Pay roll, and expenses of ships, dockyards, &o., $1,750,000

REVENUE TO THE CROWN.
Drafts of the general treasury at Madrid,  $2,450,000
Annual remittance to Maria Christina,  166,000
Interest on drafts from Spain,  22,000
Spanish ministers and consuls in America, ...... 117,000
Annual remittance of segars for the court,  16,000
$2,771,000
15*

346* humboldt's ouba.
recapitulation.
Civil List  ,  $7,680,000
Army List,  3,799,000
Navy List,  1,750,000
Revenue to the Crown,  2,771,000
$16,000,000
The net income to the crown of Spain from the
island of Cuba, it will be seen, is about two and
three quarters millions. The published returns show
that from- 1836 to 1850 it averaged about two mil
lions eight hundred thousand dollars. While this
revenue flows into the coffers of the State, the
administration proper has another source of revenue
in Cuba, in the percentage upon the product of their
offices which many officers in that island pay to the
officers in power in the mother country, that they
may retain their places.
Baron Humboldt has given, in the preceding pages,
a succinct view of the declared revenue of Cuba to
1825, to which we can add the following, compiled
from the works of Don Ramon de la Sagra, the
" Cuadro Estadistico," and several " Balanzas," in
our possession :
1826 to 1830  $42,808,182
1831 " 1835  43,373,087
1836 " 1840  50,650,982
Carry forward .... $136,832,251

REVENUE. 347
Brought forward.. . $136,832,251
1841 " 1845  54,465,970
1846 " 1850 (approximate)  57,500,000
18511   12,462,834
1852  12,873,086
Total  $274,134,141
A comparison of the foregoing views of the reve
nue of the Spanish government in Cuba, with its
revenue in the vice-royalty of Mexico in 1809,, the
year in which the revolution began, may not be unin
teresting. General Zavala, in his " Ensayo Historico
de la Revolucion de Mexico," states the revenues of
the vice-royalty in detail, which reduced to a tabu
lar form, exhibit the following figures :
REVENUE.
Mexico. Cuba.
I. Mining revenue, $3,837,954 I. Maritime revenue, $8,870,000
H. Internal taxes, 5,793,064 H. Internal taxes, 2,750,000
HI. Direct revenue, 1,487,116 HI. Direct revenue, 980,000
IV. Tobacco monopoly,3,927,822 IV. State property, 400,000

$15,045,956 $13,000,000
1 In estimating the revenue for 1851 and 1852, 'we have added to
the maritime revenue, as given by the " Balanzas " for those years,
an estimated revenue of four millions from other sources.

348 humboldt's cuba.
expenditures.
Mexico. Cuba.
I. Civil list, not stated I. Civil list, 
H. Army and Navy, $3,800,000 H. Army and Navy, $5,549,000
HI. Judiciary & Church, 250,000 HL Judiciary & Church, 310,000
IV. Pensions, 200,000 IV. Pensions, 321,000
V. Hospitals, 400,800 V. Hospitals, 300,000
VI. Treasury expenses, 596,260 VI. Treasury expenses, 740,000
VH. Interest, 1,496,000 VH. Interest, 22,000

$6,743,060 $7,242,000
These data show that the financial condition of the
government of Cuba at the present time, and that of
the Spanish government in Mexico at the time of its
greatest prosperity, are very similar ; but we should
remember that the population of the two countries at
the relative periods of time is widely dissimilar, that
of Cuba being a million and a half, and that of
Mexico seven millions.
The system under which this enormous sum of six
teen millions of dollars is extracted from less than a
million and a half of people, exercises, apart from its
large amount, a very pernicious influence upon the
public welfare. The imposts upon food, and articles
of common use, by the tariff on imports, and the tax
on meats killed in the country, throw more than
sixty per cent, of the declared revenue directly upon

REVENUE. . 349
the labor of the country, while the system of non-
paid officials and officers of justice, tends to throw
the burden of their support upon the poor, it being
notorious that the wealthy can obtain favor by perso
nal influence. Thus, nearly the whole burden of the
State is thrown upon the common people, which
tends to accumulate wealth in the hands of the few,
making the rich richer, and the poor poorer, to the
manifest disadvantage of the common weal.
With such a buoyant prosperity, what might we
not hope from Cuba, if the millions which are now
drawn from the fountains of her wealth to support a
foreign and corrupt government, and a large non-
producing armed force, were allowed to flow in their
natural cliannels, to the reward of labor, the increase
of individual wealth, and the advance of the pubhc
welfare.]

350 humboldt's CUBA.

CHAPTER XIH.
A TBD? to trintdad.
Change of plans — Preparations for departure — Remission of speci
mens to Europe — Long absence without letters — Joyful news —
Difficulties to be surmounted — Objections met — Charter of a
schooner — Financial arrangements — Departure — Grateful acknow
ledgments — The Orleans princes — Road across the island — Cot
ton plant — Batabano — Supposed encroachments of the sea —
Gloom of the marshes — Cocodrilos and Caymans — Their habits
and characteristics— Specimens — Comparison with those of South
America — Suggestions — Dampier's description of them — Embar-
cation — Discomfort on board — Gulf of Batabano — Isle of Pines
— Jardines and Jardinillos — Struggle of Columbus here-^Beauti-
ful phenomenon — Temperatures of the sea — Clearness of the water
— Cause thereof — Incompetency of pilot — Anchor at night-
Multitude of shooting-stars — Absence of life in these regions —
Contrast with the time of Columbus — Arts of the Indian fisher
men — Similar arts among other uncivilized nations — Visit to the
Cays — Their geognostic constitution — Does the sea grow shallow
here — Cay Bonito — PelicanB — Barbarity of the sailors — Vegeta
tion — Charm of these regions — Memories of Columbus and Cortes
Columbus and the natives — Fleets of pirogues from Yucatan —
Hopes of Columbus — His remarkable vision — His pathetic com
plaints— Hernan Cortes — Stranding of his ship — Gathering of his
fleet— Fall of Mexico — Strange vicissitudes — Cay Flamenco —

A TRIP TO TRINIDAD. 351
Fresh water on the Cays — Springs in the sea — Similar springs at
Cardenas — The Manatee — Dampier's description of it^Jay de
Piedras — The open sea — Its temperature — Marshy coast — Las
Casas grant of Indians — Bay of Jagua — Cienfuegos — Hills of San
Juan — A bold coast — Mexican wax found in Cuba — River San
Juan — Remains of native inhabitants — Sea temperature — Arrival
at the river Guaurabo — Ludicrous conveyance to the city —
Trinidad — Absence of snow — First settlement — Fine view — Astro
nomical observations — Hospitality — Dinner given by the governor
— Complaints- of the inhabitants — Ports of Trinidad, Guaurabo —
Casilda — An agreeable evening — Cuban ladies — Departure from
Trinidad — Stately conveyance — Fire-flies — Interesting anecdote
— Conclusion.
Toward the close of April,1 1801, Monsieur
Bonpland and myself, having completed the series of
observations we had proposed making on the extreme
northern limit of the torrid zone, were about to
d^gart for Vera Cruz with the squadron of Admiral
Aiistizabal; but the false intelligence contained in
the pubhc gazettes, relative to the expedition of
Captain Baudin, induced us to abandon the project
we had entertained, of crossing Mexico on our way
to the Philippine Islands. Many papers, and parti
cularly those of the United States, announced that
1 Thus, in the original, but it is undoubtedly a slip of the pen,
and should read February instead of "April." Baron Humboldt
arrived at Havana, on his first visit to Cuba, on the 19th December,
1800, and sailed from Trinidad on the 16th March, 1801.

352 humboldt's cuba.
two French corvettes, the Geographe and the Natu
raliste, had sailed for Cape Horn, and Would run
along the coasts of Chili and Peru, from whence
they were to proceed to New Holland.
This news excited me greatly, for it again filled'
my imagination with the projects I had formed dur
ing my stay in Paris, when I had not ceased for a
moment to urge the ministry of the Directory to
hasten the departure of Captain Baudin. While on
the point of leaving Spain, I had promised to join
the expedition wherever I might be able to reach it.
When one desires a thing that may produce unto
ward results, he easily persuades himself that a sense
of obhgation is the only motive that influences his
determination. Monsieur Bonpland, always enters,
prising and confident in our good fortune, determined
at once to divide our collection of plants into three
parts. In order not to expose all that we had collected,
with so much labor, on the banks of the Orinoco,
Atabapo, and Rio Negro, to the chances of a long
sea voyage, we sent one part to Germany by way
of England, another to France by way of Cadiz ;
and left the third at- Havana. We afterwards had
reason to congratulate ourselves on the adoption of
this course, which prudence counselled. Each part
contained, with slight difference, the same species

A TRIP TO TRINIDAD. 353
and classes, and no precaution was omitted to secure
the remission of the cases to Sir Joseph Banks, oi to
the directors of the Museum of Natural History at
Paris, in case they should fall into the hands of
English or French cruisers.
Fortunately, the manuscripts which I had at first
intended to send with the- portion sent to Cadiz,
were not placed in charge of our friend and fellow-
traveller, friar Juan Gonzalez. This estimable
young man, of whom I have often had occasion
to speak, had accompanied us to Havana, on his
way to Spain, and sailed from Cuba shortly after
our departure ; but the vessel in which he embarked
was lost with all her passengers and freight, in a
tempest on the coast of Africa. By this shipwreck
we lost one of the duplicates of our Collection of
plants ; and also, which was a greater misfortune for
the cause of science, all the insects that Bonpland
had gathered, under a thousand difficulties, during
our voyage to the Orinoco and Rio Negro.
By an extraordinary fatality we remained two
years in the Spanish colonies without receiving a
single letter from Europe, and those which reached
us in the three subsequent years, gave no informa
tion in regard to the collections we had sent. One
will readily conceive how anxious I was to learn the
fate of a diary which contained all our astronomical

354 humboldt's cuba.
observations, and barometrical readings of altitudes,
and which I had so patiently copied out in full. It
was only after having traversed New Granada,
Mexico, and Peru, and when I was on the point of
leaving the New World, that in the public library
at Philadelphia, I accidentally ran my eye over the
table of contents of a scientific review, and there
saw these words, "Arrival of the Manuscripts of
M. Humboldt, at the residence of his brother, in
Paris, by way of Spain." With difficulty I sup
pressed the expression of my joy, and it seemed to
me that no table of contents had ever before been so
well arranged.
While M. Bonpland labored night and day,
dividing and arranging our collections, I had the
ungracious task of meeting a thousand obstacles that
presented themselves to our sudden and unforeseen
departure. There was no vessel in the harbor of
Havana that would convey us to Porto Bello or
Carthagena, and the persons whom I consulted took
a pleasure in exaggerating the inconveniences that
attended the crossing of the isthmus, and the delays
incident to a voyage southward, from Panama to
Guayaquil, and thence to Lima Or Valparaiso.
They censured me, and perhaps with reason, for
not continuing to explore the vast and rich countries
of Spanish America, which had been closed for

A TRD? TO TRINrDAD. 355
half a century to foreign travellers. The .vicissitudes
of a voyage round the world, touching only at a few
islands, or the arid coasts of, a continent, did not
seem to them preferable to studying the geological
constitution of New Spain, which alone contributed
five-eighths of the mass of silver taken yearly from
all the mines of the known world. To these argu
ments, I opposed the wish to determine on a large
scale, the inflexion of the curves of equal inclination
of the decrease of the magnetic force from the pole
toward the equator, and the iemperature of the
ocean as it varies with the latitude, the direction of
the currents, and the proximity of banks and shoals.
In proportion as obstacles rose to my plans, I
hastened the more to put them in execution, and not
being able to find a passage in a neutral vessel, I
chartered a Catalan schooner lying in the roadstead
of Batabano, to take me to Porto Bello or Cartha-
gena, as the winds might permit. The extended
relations of the prosperous commerce of Havana
afforded me the means for making my pecuniary
arrangements for several years. General Gonzalo
de O'Farril, distinguished alike for his talents and
his high character, then resided in my own country,
as minister from the court of Spain. I was enabled
to exchange my income in Prussia for a part of his
in the island of Cuba, and the family of Don

356 HUMBOLDT S CUBA.
Ygnacio O'Farril y Herrera, his brother, kindly
did all they could to forward my projects at the time
of my unexpected departure from Havana.
On the -sixth of March, we learned that the
schooner I had chartered was ready for sea. The
road to Batabano led us again through Guines, to
the sugar plantation of Rio Blanco, the residence of
Count de Jaruco y Mopox, which was adorned with
all the luxuries that good taste and a large fortune
can command. That hospitality which generally
wanes as civilization advances, is still practised in
Cuba with. the same profusion as in the most distant
countries of Spanish America. We naturalists and
simple travellers accord with pleasure to the inhabi
tants of Havana, the same grateful acknowledg
ments that have been given to them by those
illustrious .strangers,1 who, everywhere that I have
followed their route, have left in the New World
the remembrance of their noble simplicity, their
ardor for learning and their love for the publie
weal. From Rio Blanco to Batabano, the road passes
through an uncultivated country, a portion of which
1 The young princes of the House of Orleans (the Duke d'Orleans,
the Duke de Montpensier, and the Count de Beaujolois), who visited
the IJaited States and Havana, descending the Ohio and Mississippi
rivers, and remained a year in the island of Cuba. — H.

A TRIP TO TRINIDAD. 357
contains many springs. In the open spaces the
indigo and cotton plants grow wild for want of culti
vation. As the capsule of the Gossipium opens at
that season of the year when the northern storms are
most frequent, the fibre which surrounds the seed is
torn from side to side, and the cotton, which in other
respects is of the best quahty, suffers greatly when
the period of the storms coincides with its ripening.
Further south we found a new species of the palm,
with fan-like leaves (corifa mcwitima), having a free
filament in the interstices between the leaves. This
corifa abounds through a portion of the southern
eoast, and takes the place of the majestic royal palm,
and the coco crispa of the northern shore. Porous
limestone, (of the Jurassic formation) appeared from
time to time in the plain.
Batabano was at this time a poor hamlet, where a
church had been built a few years before. Half a
league beyond it- the swamp begins, which extends
to the entrance of the Bay of Jagua, a distance of
seventy leagues from west to east. It is supposed at
Batabano that the sea continues its encroachments
upon the land, and that the oceanic irruption has
been observed particularly at the time of the great
upheaving at the close of the eighteenth century,
when the tobacco mills near Havana were destroyed,
and the course of the river Chorrera was changed.

358 humboldt's cuba.
Nothing can be more gloomy than the view of the
marshes around Batabano, for not a tree breaks the
monotony of the scene, and the decaying trunks of
a few palms only rise, like broken masts, in the
midst of great thickets of running vines and purple
flag flowers.
As we remained only one night at Batabano;-!
regretted that I could not obtain exact information
relative to the two species of cocodrilos that infest
the swamp. The inhabitants call one the cayman,
and the other the cocodriio, which name is generally
applied to both. We were assured that the latter is
the most agile, and the tallest when on its feet ; that
its snout runs to a much sharper point than that of
the cayman, with which it never associates. It is
very fearless, and is even said to leap on board of
vessels when it can find a support for its tail. The
great daring of this animal was noticed during the
early expeditions of Diego Velasquez. At the river
Cauto, and along the marsny coast of Jagua, it will
wander a league from the sea-shore to devour the
hogs in the fields. Some attain a length of fifteen
feet, and the most savage of them will, it is said,
chase a man on horseback like the wolves of Europe
— while those that are known as caymanes at Bata
bano, are so timid that the people do not fear to
bathe in waters where they dwell in droves.

A TRD? TO TRINTDAD. 359
These habits, and the name of cocodrilo, which is
¦s
given in Cuba to the most dangerous of the carnivo
rous sauriaus, seem to me to indicate a different spe
cies from the great animals of the Orinoco and Mag
dalena rivers, and St. Domingo. The colonists in all
other parts of Spanish America, deceived by the
exaggerated tales of the ferocity of the Egyptian cro
codile, affirm that there are no true crocodiles except
in the Nile ; while zoologists have found in America
the cayman, with obtuse snout and no scales on his
legs, and the cocodrilo, with pointed snout and with
scales on his legs. At the same time we find on the
old continent, the common crocodile, and those of
the Ganges, with rounded snout.
The crocodilus acutus of St. Domingo, which I can
not now undertake to class specifically, and the coco
drilo of the great Orinoco and Magdalena rivers,
have, in the words of Cuvier, so admirable a resem
blance to the crocodile of the Nile, that it has been
necessary to examine minutely every part, in order
to show that the law of Buffon, relative to the distri
bution of species in the tropical regions of the two
continents, was not defective.
As on my second visit to Havana, in 1804, 1 could
not revisit the marshes of Batabano, I procured at
a great expense specimens of the two species,
which the inhabitants call cayman and cocodrilo. '

360 humboldt's ouba.
Two of the latter reached Havana alive, the oldest
being about four feet three inches long. Their cap
ture had been very difficult, and they were brought
to the city muzzled, tied upon the back of a jack-
mule. They were strong and ferocious, and in order
to observe their habits and movements, we put them
in a large room, where, from the top of a high table,
we could see them attacked by dogs.
Having been for six months on the Orinoco,
Apure, and Magdalena rivers, in the midst of coco-
drilos, we observed with renewed pleasure, before
our return to Europe, these singular animals, that
pass with an astonishing rapidity from a state of
complete immobility to the most impetuous motion.
Those which were sent to us from Batabano as coco-
drilos, had the snout as pointed as those of the
Orinoco and Magdalena (Crocodihis acutus, Cuv.) ;
their color was somewhat darker, being a blackish-
green on the back, and white on the belly, with yel
low spots on the sides. I counted thirty-eight teeth
in the upper, and thirty in the lower jaw, as in the
true crocodile. Of the upper teeth, the ninth and
tenth, and of the lower, the first and fourth, were
the largest. The description which Bonpland and
myself made on the spot at Costa Firma, expressly
states that the fourth lower tooth projects freely over
• the upper jaw; the posterior extremities were flat-

A TRXP TO TRINIDAD. 361
tened. These cocodrilos of Batabano, seemed to us,
specifically the same with the crocodilus acutus}
although it is true that what we were told of its
habits, does not accord with what we ourselves had
observed on the Orinoco ; but the carnivorous
saurian s of like species, and in the same river, are
mild and timid, or ferocious and fearless, according
to the nature of the locality.
The animal called cayman at Batabano, died on
the way to Havana, and those in charge had not the
foresight to bring the body to us, so that we were
not able to compare the two species. Are there,
perhaps, on the south side of Cuba true caymans,
with the rounded snout, and the fourth under tooth
entering the upper jaw ; and another species (alli
gators), like those of Florida? In view of the
assertions of the colonists relative to the more
pointed head of the cocodrilo of Batabano, this is
almost certain. If this is the case, the people of the
island have made, by a happy instinct, a distinction
between the cocodrilo and the cayman, with all the
exactitude now used by zoologists in separating
families that belong to the same genera, and bear
the same name.
I do not doubt that the sharp-snouted cocodrilo,
and the alligator or flat-nosed cayman do not live
together, but in distinct bands, on the marshy shores
16

362 humboldt's cuba.
between the bay of Jagua, Batabano, and the isle of
Pines. It was at the latter that Dampier, so worthy
of. eulogy as a physiological observer and intrepid
sailor, perceived clearly the great difference between
the cayman and the American cocodrilo. His state
ments on this point, in his voyage to the bay of
Campeachy, might have excited the curiosity of the
learned a century since, if zoologists would not so
often reject, with disdain, the observations of navi
gators, and other travellers, who do not possess
scientific attainments, relative to animals. Dampier,
after having noticed many of the characteristics,
though not all with equal exactitude, that distinguish
the cocodrilo from the cayman, insists upon the
geographical distribution of these . enormous saifc
rians. "In the bay of Campeachy," he says, "I have
seen only caymans or alligators; in the island of
Gran Cayman there are cocodrilos, and no alliga
tors ; in the isle of Pines, and in the numerous
creeks of the coast of Cuba, there are cocodrilos
and caymans together." To these precious observa
tions of Dampier I will add, that the true cocodrilo
(C. acutus) is also found in the Leeward Islands,
which are near to Costa Firma, as, for example,
Trinidad, Margarita, and probably also in Cura?oa,
notwithstanding the scarcity of fresh water. It is

A TRD? TO TRTNrDAD. 363
also found further south (but I have never found
with them any of the species of alligators that
abound on the coast of Guiana), in the Never!,
Magdalena, Apure, and the Orinoco, to the conflu
ence -of the Casiquiaro with the Rio Negro (lat.
2° 2^, which is more than four hundred leagues
from Batabano. It would be important to deter
mine the limits of the several species of carnivorous
saurians, on the eastern shore of Guatemala and
Mexico, between the Mississippi river and Chagres.
Before sunrise, on the ninth of March, we were
under way, somewhat intimidated by the extremely
small size of our schooner, on board of which we
could lie down only upon deck. The well-like cabin
received air and light from above, and barely
afforded room for our instruments; in it the ther
mometer stood constantly at 32° or 33° c. (90° or
92° F.). Fortunately, these inconveniences lasted
only twenty days, and the navigation of the
Orinoco in canoes, and a passage at sea on board of
an American vessel laden with beef which had
been dried in the sun, had taught us not to be too
delicate. The Gulf of Batabano, surrounded by low and
marshy coasts, seems like a vast desert. The fisher
birds, which generally are found at their posts before
the land birds, and the lazy zamurros are awake,

364 hum-oldt's cuba.
are only occasionally seen. The water of the'sea has
a dark green color, as in some of the lakes of Switzer
land, while the sky, from the great purity of the
atmosphere, had from the first appearance of the
sun, that clear blue so much admired by landscape
painters in the south of Italy ; and through the pure
air the most distant objects stood forth to the view
with an extraordinary brilliancy.
Our schooner was the only vessel in the gulf, for
none enter the roadstead of Batabano but smugglers,
or, as they are called, with greater courtesy, " the tra
ders." I have mentioned before, when speaking of the
project of a canal through Guines, how important Ba
tabano might become to the trade between Cuba and
Venezuela. In its present state there are barely nine
feet of water, as no attempt has been made to deepen
it. The port is at the bottom of a bay formed by
Punta Gorda on the east, and Punta de Salinas on the
west ; but the bay itself is only the concave side of
a great gulf, which is fourteen leagues deep from
north to south, closed by an innumerable number of
cays and banks for a distance of fifty leagues, from
the bay of Cortez to Cay de Piedras.
Within this labyrinth there rises one large island
only, the area of which is four times greater than
Martinique, and whose arid hills are crowned with
majestic pines. This is the Isle of Pines, named the

A TRD? TO TRINIDAD. 365
" Evangelist" by Columbus, and the island of Santa
Maria by other navigators of the sixteenth century.
It is celebrated for the excellent mahogany which it
produces. We sailed east-southeast through the Don Cristo
bal channel, to make the rocky shores of Cay de
Piedras, and clear the archipelago which the Spanish
pilots, from the earhest times of the conquest, have
called the Jardines and Jardinillos. The true Jar
dines de la Reina (the Queen's gardens), nearer to
Cape Cruz, are divided from the archipelago which
I am about to describe, by thirty-five leagues of open
sea. Columbus gave them this name in 1494, when,
during his second voyage, he was fifty-eight days
struggling with the winds and currents between the
Isle of Pines and the eastern cape of Cuba. He
described these islands as being " green, filled with
trees, and very beautiful."
And in truth a portion of these misnamed gardens
is very beautiful, for the voyager varies the scene
momently, and the verdure of some of the islets
borrows a new splendor from the contrast with others
that present to the eye only white and arid sands.
The surface of these, heated by the rays of the sun,
seems to undulate as though it were water, and by
the contact with the strata of air of unequal tempera-

366 humboldt's cuba.
ture, produces from ten in the morning until four in
the afternoon, all the varied phenomena of the
mirage. In those desert solitudes it is the sun that
animates the landscape, giving motion to the objects
that glitter under his rays ; the dusty plain, the trunks
of trees, and the rocks jutting out into the sea.
From the time of his rising these inert masses seem
suspended in the air, and the sandy beaches present
the deceitful spectacle of a watery plain gently agi
tated by the wind. A shred of cloud suffices to
throw down alike, the trunks of trees and the sus,-
pended rocks, to still the undulating surface of the
plain, and to dissipate *those charms which the Ara
bian, Persian, and Indian poets, have celebrated in
song as " the sweet illusions of the desert soli
tude." We doubled Cape Matahambre very slowly. As
the chronometer of Louis Berthoud had kept time
well in Havana, I improved the opportunity to deter
mine, on that and the following days, the positions
of the Don Cristobal, Flamenco, Diego Perez, and
Piedras cays. I also found occupation in examining
the influence of the varying depth upon the temper
ature of the surface water. Sheltered by so many
islets the surface is always calm, as if it were a lake
of fresh water ; the strata of different depths do not

A TRIP TO TRINIDAD. 367
mingle with each other, and yet the slightest change
in the soundings influence the thermometer.1
I was surprised to find that east of the small cay
Don Cristobal, the deep soundings are not marked
by the milky color of the water, as is the case on
Shark Shoals south of Jamaica, and in many other
places where I have observed with the thermometer.
The bottom of the Gulf of Batabano is a sand of
decomposed coral, bearing sea-wreck that barely
reaches to the surface. The water is greenish, as we
have already noted, and the absence of the milky
color arises, without doubt, from the perfect calm that
reigns in these places; for wherever the water is
agitated to a certain depth, a very fine sand, or the
particles of limestone held suspended in the water,
make it turgid and give it the milky tinge. Yet
there are shoals which are not distinguished either
by the color or the lower temperature of the sea, and
1 1 observed the following readings by Reaumer's thermometer :

Sea.

Air.

Depth.

19°.7

22°.8

10 feet.

Eight miles N. of Punta Gorda.

18-.8

2S°.0

7t"

Between Las Gordas and Don Cristobal Cays.

19°.7

22".2

10 "

Near Cay Flamenco.

20°.7

22°.0

SO "

Deep soundings between Cay Flamenco and
Cay de Piedras.

19°.6

24°.2

9 «

Eastern margin of same, very near Cay de
Piedras.

18°.2

24°.8

8 "

A little further east.

21°.5

28°.0

—

No bottom south of Jagua. H.

368

I believe these phenomena result from the nature of
a hard and rocky bottom, without sand or coral,
from the form and inclination of the foundations, the
velocity of the currents, and the absence of a com
municating motion in the lower strata of water.
The low temperature generally indicated by the
thermometer, on the surface of deep water, arises
from the sinking of the heated particles caused by
their diffusive movement and nocturnal cooling, and
by the mingling of the deep strata which rise along
the sides of the banks, as upon an inclined plain, to
unite with the surface waters.
Notwithstanding the small size of our craft, and
the much praised skill of our pilot, we grounded
very often ; but as the bottom was soft, we incurred
no danger. Yet at sunset it was thought best to
anchor near the outlet of the Don Cristobal channel.
The sky was admirably clear during the first part of
the night, and we saw a multitude of shooting stars
landward of us, all passing in the same direction,
counter to the east wind which then prevailed in the
lower portions of the atmosphere. The solitude of
these regions differs widely now from their appear
ance in the time of Columbus, when they were
inhabited, and frequented hy large numbers of
fishermen. The natives of Cuba then availed them
selves of a small sucker-fish to catch the large sea-

A TRD? TO TRLNTDAD. 369
turtle, tying a long cord to the tail of the reves, a
name which the Spaniards gave to this small member
of the Echeneis genera.
This fisher-fish fastens itself to the shell of the tur
tle, which abound in the narrow and winding chan
nels of the Jardinillos, by a flat disc surrounded
with suckers, which it bears upon its head.
Columbus says, "the reves will suffer itself to be
torn to pieces rather than be forced to lose any body
of whieh it has taken hold." Thus, with the same
cord, the -Indians drew forth the fisher-fish and the
turtle. When Gomara and Pedro Martir de Angli-
era, the learned secretary of Charles V., related to
Europe this fact which they had learned from the
lips of the companions of Columbus, it was believed
to be only a traveller's tale.
We now know by the evidence of Captain Rogers,
of Dampier, and Commerson, that this same artifice,
which was used in the Jardinillos, is practised by
the inhabitants of the eastern coast of Africa near
Cape Natal, in Mozambique and in Madagascar. In
Egypt, in St. Domingo, and in the lakes of Mexico,
men were accustomed to cover their heads with
large perforated gourds, and lying with their bodies
in the water, caught the water fowl by their feet as
they swam upon its surface. The Chinese have
availed themselves from the most remote antiquity,
16*

370

of birds of the pelican family, for the purpose of
fishing on the shores, placing rings around their
necks to prevent their swallowing the prize and thus
fishing only for themselves. In the lower grades of
civilization, all the sagacity of man is displayed in
the artifices of the chase and fishery. Nations that
probably have never communicated with each other,
present the most palpable analogies in the means they
adopt to subdue the animal creation.
Three days passed before we could emerge from
the labyrinth of the Jardines and Jardinillos. We
were every night at anchor, and during the day
visited those islets or cays, where we could most
easily land. As we advanced toward the east, the
sea become less smooth, and we began to recognize
the shallows by the milky color of the water. Upon
the margin of a kind of whirlpool which exists
between Cay Flamenco and Cay de Piedras, we
found that the temperature of the sea at the surface,
suddenly increased from 23°.5 to 25°.8 C. (74°.3 to
78°.4 F.)
The geognostic constitution of the small islands
that surround the Isle of Pines was the more inte
resting to me, from the fact that I was slow to beheve
the accounts of the coral structures of Polynesia,
that were said to rise from the profound depths of
the ocean to the surface of the water ; for it seemed to

A TRIP TO TRINIDAD. 371
me more probable that those enormous masses were
founded upon some primitive or volcanic rock, to
which they were attached at a small depth. The
limestone formation of Guines, partly compact and
lithographic, and partly spongy, continued to Batar
bano. It is very similar to the limestone formation
of the Jura, and if we may judge simply by the
external appearance, the Cayman islands are com
posed of the same rock. If the mountains of the
Isle of Pines which present, according to the early
historians of the conquest, the pine and palm toge
ther, are visible at a distance of twenty leagues, their
height must be more than 3,200 feet ; and I have been
assured that they are composed also of a limestone
similar to that of Guines. r
From these facts, I expected to find the same rock
(Jurassic) in the Jardinillos ; but I have only found,
on examining the cays, which rise usually five or six
inches above the surface of the water, a fragmentary
rock in which regular lumps of coral are cemented,
together with a quartz sand. Sometimes the frag
ments had a volume of one or two cubic feet, and
the grains of sand have so completely disappeared,
that one might believe that the lithophite polypus
had remained there in numerous layers. The mass
of this group of cays appeared to me to be a true
agglomerate limestone, quite analogous to the ter-

372 humboldt's cuba.
tiary limestone of the peninsula of Araya, near
Cuman£, but of a more recent formation. The
inequalities of these coral rocks, are filled with the
detritus of shells and madrepore. All that rises
above the surface of the sea is composed of broken
lumps cemented by carbonate of lime, in which
grains of quartz sands are held. I do not know if,
under this fragmentary coral rock, structures of
living polypus are to be found, at a great depth, and
whether they adhere to the Jurassic formation.
Mariners believe that the sea gradually diminishes
in depth in this vicinity, perhaps because they per
ceive the cays to grow and rise up, either from the
sandbanks which the beating of the waves forms, or
by successive agglutinations. Besides, it might not
be impossible, that the widening of the Bahama
channel, through which the waters of the Gulf
Stream emerge, should cause in the lapse of time,
a slight lowering of the level of the sea on the south
side of Cuba, and particularly of the Gulf of Mexico,
the centre of the great whirlpool of that pelagian
river which washes the shores of the United States,
and casts the fruits of tropical plants on the coasts
of Norway.
The form of the coasts, the direction, force, and
duration of certain currents, and certain winds, and
the variations they experience from the changeable

a trd? to trtnedad. 373
nature of the forces affecting them, are causes the
concurrence of which for a long time within narrow
and shallow limits might alter the equilibrium of
the sea." When the shores are so low that the level
of the country for a league inland, varies only a few
inches, these risings and fallings of the sea excite the
imaginations of the inhabitants.
Cay Bonito (Beautiful Cay), which was the first I
visited, is worthy of its name from the force of its
vegetation. Everything indicates that it has been a
long time above the surface of the ocean, for the
interior of the cay is hardly lower than its margin.
From a layer of sand and broken shells, covering
the fragmentary coral rock to the depth of five or
six inches, a forest of mangroves rises, which when
seen from a distance, seem from their height and
foliage to be laurel trees. The avicennia nitida,
batis, small euphorbia, and several grassy plants,
serve to fix the movable sand with their roots. But
what particularly characterizes the flora of these

] I do not pretend to explain, by these same causes, the phenomena
which we see on the coast of Sweden, where the sea has the. appear
ance of an unequal fall at several points, amounting to from three
to five feet in the century. A supposed analogy has occurred to the
inhabitants of Dutch Guiana. — Bolingbroke, Voyage to Demarara,
p. 148.— H.

374 humboldt's cuba.
coral islands1 is the beautiful silver-leaved tourne-
fortia gnaphalioides of Jacquin, which I first found
there. It is not a solitary plant, and forms a tree
four or five feet in height, its flowers having an
agreeable odor. It also adorns Cay Flamenco, Cay
de Piedras, and perhaps the greater part of the low
islands of the Jardinillos.
While we were engaged in botanizing our sailors
sought for sea crabs, and irritated with ill success,
they soothed their anger by climbing the mangrove
trees, and committing terrible havoc among the
young alcatraces, which were snugly ensconced in
pairs in the nests. Throughout Spanish America,
this name is applied to the blackish, swan-sized peli
can of Buffon. The aleatraz, with that indolence
and stupid confidence which characterizes the larger
sea birds, forms its nest by twining together a few
1 We gathered : Cenchrus myosuroides, Euphorbia buxifolia, Batis
maritima, Iresine obtusifolia, Tournefortia gnaphalioides, Diomedea
glabrata, Cakile cubensis, Dolichos miniatus, Parthenium hystero-
phorus, etc. This latter plant, which we found in the valley of
Caraccas, and on the temperate plains of Mexico, between elevations
of three thousand and six thousand feet, grows in all the fields of
Cuba. The inhabitants use it for aromatic baths, and to destroy
fleas, which so abound within the tropics. In Cumana many species
of Casia are used, for their odor, against these trouK
insects. — H,

A TRIP TO TRINIDAD. 375
twigs only, and we often found four or five of these
in one tree. The young birds defended themselves
valiantly with their bills, which were already six or
seven inches long, while the old ones flew above our
heads uttering hoarse and mournful cries ; but the
streams of blood continued to trickle down the trees,
for the sailors were armed with clubs and cutlasses.
Though we expostulated with them against this
cruelty and useless tormenting, they would not
desist ; these men, accustomed to long obedience in
the solitude of the sea, take a singular pleasure in
exercising a cruel dominion over the animal crea
tion whenever an opportunity presents itself. The
ground was covered with wounded birds, struggling
with death, so that this retired spot, which before
our arrival was the abode of peace, seemed now to
exclaim, Man has entered here.
The sky was covered with a reddish vapor, which
began to dissipate in the southwest, and we enter
tained the disappointed hope of seeing the Isle of
Pines. These regions possess a charm that is want
ing in the greater part of the New World, for they
recall to the mind memories which cluster round the
greatest names of the Spanish monarchy : Columbus
and Hernan Cortes. It was on the southern coast
of the island of Cuba, between the Bay of Jagua and
the Isle of Pines, that Columbus, during his second

376 humboldt's ouba.
voyage, beheld with admiration " that mysterious
king who communicated with his subjects by signs
only, and that group of men wearing long white
gowns, like begging friars, while all the rest of the
people were naked."
On his fourth voyage he met at the Jardinillos,
the pirogues of the Mexican Indians, laden with
the rich products and merchandise of Yucatan.
Deceived by his ardent imagination, he seemed to
hear from the lips of these navigators, " that they
had come from a land where men rode upon horses,
and wore crowns of gold upon their heads."
" Already Cathay, the empire of the Gran Khan, and
the mouths of the Ganges," seemed to be near to
him, and he hoped soon to avail himself of the two
Arabian interpreters, which he had taken on board
at Cadiz when departing for America.1
1 Compare Lettera rarisissima di Christoforo Colombo di 7 di
Julio, 1503, p. 2, with Herrera, Dec. 1, pp. 125-131. Nothing can
be more tender or more pathetic, than the sorrowful tone that per
vades this letter of Columbus, written at Jamaica, to the Catholic
monarchs Ferdinand and Isabel. I particularly recommend to all
who wish to study the character of that extraordinary man, his nar
rative of the nocturnal vision, when, in the midst of the tempest, u
celestial voice soothed and cheered him with these words : " God
made thy name to resound marvellously throughout the earth. The
Indies, which is the richest portion of the eaMh, He has given thee
for thine ; thou hast divided it as thou wo'uldst, and He gave thee

A TRIP TO TRINIDAD. 377
Other memories that hover round the isle of
Pines, belong to the conquest of Mexico. When
Hernan Cortes was collecting his great expedition,
his ship, the Capitana, grounded on one of the reefs
of the Jardinillos, while sailing from the port of
Trinidad for Cape San Antonio. For five days she
was supposed to be lost, when the brave Pedro
de Alvarado sent (in November, 1518) from the
port of Carenas * (Havana) three vessels to his assis-
power so to do. To the boundaries of the ocean, that were closed
with a mighty chain, He gave thee the key," etc. These lines, so
full of sublime sentiment and poetry, have reached us only by an
ancient Italian translation, for the Spanish original, cited in the
" Nautical Biblioteca " of Don Antonio Leon, has not yet been
found. We may add other expressions, full of candor, from the lips
of him who discovered the New World. "Tour highness may
believe me," he said, " the globe of the world is not, by very much,
so large as the vulgar suppose." On the same occasion, he says,
" Seven years did I remain at your court, and during all that time I
was told that my scheme was madness itself. Now, when I have
opened the way, even tailors and shoemakers ask for grants to go
and discover new lands. Persecuted and forgotten as I am, I never
think upon Espanola and Paria, but, my eyes fill with tears. Twenty
years have I been in the service of your highness, and all my. locks
have whitened, my body has become weak, and now I cannot weep j
weep for this, heaven, and weep for me, earth ; weep for me who
ever has charity, truth, justice." — Lett. rar. pp. 13, 19, 34, 37. — H.
The reader will find this letter, in Spanish, in Navarrete's "Cole-
cion de Viages," <fcc, vel. 1, page 299 et sequiter.
1 At that time there were two settlements, one at the port of

378

HUMBOLDT S CUBA.

tance. Subsequently, in February, 1519, Cortes
gathered his fleet near Cape San Antonio, probably
at the place which still bears the name of Bay of
Cortes, west of Batabano, and opposite the Isle- of
Pines. From that place, where he could more
easily free himself from the trammels which the
governor, Velasquez, was preparing to throw around
him, he sailed, almost clandestinely, for the shores
Of Mexico. Strange vicissitudes of human affairs !
A handful of men, landing from the extreme west
of Cuba upon the coast of Yucatan, tore down the
empire of Montezuma ; and in our time, three centu
ries later, this same Yucatan, which is part of the con
federation of independent Mexican States, has almost
menaced a conquest of the western shores of Cuba.1
Carenas, in the ancient Indian province of Habana (Herrera, Dec'
1, pp. 276-277), and another, the greatest, at the city of San Cristo
bal de Cuba. In 1519 the two settlements were united, and the port
of Carenas took the name of San Cristobal de la Habana. " Cortes,"
says Herrera (Dec. 11, pp. 80 and 95), " went to the village of San
Cristobal, which, at that time, was on the south coast, and afterwards
went to Havana." — H.
1 Humboldt, probably, alludes here to the secret society of " The
Blaok Eagle," which had its principal centre in Mexico, but
extended its ramifications throughout Cuba, its object, being to
achieve the independence of that island. It was discovered and
suppressed about the time of his writing, 1825, when its plans had
very, nearly reached maturity, and many eminent Cubans were
forced to flee their country.

A TRD? TO TRINIDAD. 379
On the 11th of March, we visited Cay Flamenco.
I found its latitude to be 21° 59' 39". The centre of
the island is low, rising only fourteen inches above
the level of the sea. The water on it is brackish,
while that on the other cays is perfectly fresh. The
mariners of Cuba, as well as the inhabitants of the
lagoons of Venice, and some modern physiologists,
attribute this absence of salt to the action of the
sand as the water filters through it. But how is this
action exerted, where its supposed existence is not
justified by any chemical analogy ? Besides, these
cays are composed of rocks, and not of sand ; and
their small extent presents an objection to the sup
position that it is rain water which has gathered and
remains standing. Perhaps the fresh water on the
cays flows from the adjacent coast, or even from the
mountains of Cuba, by the effect of hydrostatic
pressure. This would prove that the strata of Juras
sic limestone extends under the sea, and that the
coral rock is superposed on the limestone.1
The belief that-every spring of fresh" or salt water
1 The ancients were acquainted with these eruptions of fresh water
in the sea, near Bayas, Syracuse, and Arado (Phoenicia). The coral
islands that surround Eadak, particularly the very low island of
Otdia, also contain fresh water. A careful examination of these
phenomena at the level of the sea, cannot be too strongly recom
mended to travellers. — H. .

380 humboldt's cuba.
is a local phenomenon, is an error that is too widely
disseminated, for currents of water circulate in the
interior of the earth for long distances, between
strata of peculiar density or nature, as do the rivers
that we&r the surface of the globe. Don Francisco
Lemaur, the learned engineer, who subsequently dis
played such energy and valor in the defence of the
castle of San Juan de Ulua, informed me that in the
bay of Jagua, half a degree east of the Jardinillos,
springs of fresh water are found boiling up in the
midst of the sea, two and a half leagues from the
shore.1 The water rushes from these springs with
sufficient force to cause a dashing of the waves,
making the vicinity dangerous for small canoes.
Vessels that do not wish to go into the harbor of
Jagua, sometimes fill their casks at these sea foun
tains, and the water is more or less cold according as
they take it near to, or far from the bottom. The
Manatees (sea calves), guided by their instinct, have
discovered this region of fresh water, and the fisher
men, who are very fond of the flesh of -these cetaceos
1 Similar springs of fresh water occur in the bay of Cardenas, on
the north coast of Cuba, springing forth with such strength that
fresh water can be dipped up with a bucket, in the midst of the sea
water. We have been told that in some parts of that town, running
water is found under the earth, on sinking wells a short dis
tance.

A TRD? TO TRINIDAD. 381
herbworos, find them there in abundance, and kill
them in the open sea.1
About half a mile from Cay Flamenco, we sailed
near two rocks level with the sea, against which the
1 The following is Dampier's clear description of this animal,
which is still found in some places on the south side of Cuba : "This
creature is about the bigness of a horse, and ten or twelve feet long.
The mouth of it is much like the mouth of a cow, having great,
thick lips. The eyes are no bigger than a small pea ; the ears are
only two small holes in the side of the head. The neck is short and
thick, bigger than the head. The biggest part of this creature is at
the shoulders, where it hath two large fins on each side of its belly.
Under each of these fins the female hath a small dug to suckle its
young. From the shoulders, towards its tail, it retains its bigness
for about a foot, then groweth smaller and smallerjio the very tail,
which is flat, and about fourteen inches broad, and twenty inches
long, and the middle four or five inches thick, but about the edges
it is not above two inches thick. From the head to the tail it is
round and smooth, without any fin but those two before mentioned.
I have heard that some weigh twelve hundred pounds, but I never
saw any so large. The Manatee delights to live in brackish water,
and they are commonly in creeks and rivers near the sea. * * *
They live on grass seven or eight inches long, which grows in the
sea in many places. They never come on shore, nor into shallow
water where they cannot swim. Their flesh is white, both the fat
and the lean, and extraordinary sweet, wholesome meat. The skin
of the bull, or of the back of the cow, is very thick, and of it they
make horsewhips. While the thongs are green, they twist them, and
hang them to dry, which, in a week's time, become as hard as
wood." — Voy as Round the World, vol. 1, p. 33.

382
waves dash loudly. They were the Piedras de Diego
Perez. The temperature of the sea, at the Burface,
fell there to 22°.6 C. (72°.7 F.), the depth of water
being only six and a half feet. In the afternoon, we
reached Cay de Piedras, which is formed by two
rocks with breakers between, running N.N.E. and
W.S.W. As these two rocks are some distance
apart (forming the eastern side of the Jardinillos),
many vessels are lost upon them. The cay has
hardly any trees upon it, for those who are ship
wrecked there, have cut them down in their need
to make signal fires. The shore is very steep toward
the sea, but near the middle there is a small channel
with still water.
We found inclosed in the rock a lump of madre
pore, more than three cubic feet in size; and we
entertained no doubt that the limestone formation,
which from a distance appears much like the Juras
sic limestone, was a fragmentary rock. It is desira
ble that geognostic travellers should some day
examine the entire chain of cays that surround the
island of Cuba, in order to determine what is due to
the insects that still labor in the depths of the sea,
and what belongs to the true tertiary formations,
whose epoch approaches very nearly with that of the
coarse limestone which abounds among the remains
of the coral lithophites. That which generally rises

A TRD? TO TRINIDAD. 383
above the sea is usually nothing more than a speciesi
of marble, or a collection of fragments of madrepore,
cemented by carbonate of lime, with broken shells
and sand. It is important to examine, in each cay,
upon what this class of rock rests ; if it rises from
works of' still living mollusca, or from those second
ary and tertiary rocks, which, from the , appearance
and preservation of the coral remains they contain,
might be supposed to be modern productions. The
gypsum of the cays off San Juan de los Remedios,
on the northern coast of Cuba, is worthy of great
attention; for its epoch surely ascends beyond the
era of history, and no geognostic observer will deem
it to be the product of the mollusca of our seas.
It was from Cay de Piedras that we first saw,
toward the east-northeast, the high mountains that
rise back of the bay of Jagua. We again passed
the night at anchor, and on the following morning,
the 12th of March, running out between the north
point of Cay de Piedras and the coast of Cuba^ we
entered upon the clear and open sea. Its deep blue
color, and increased temperature, proved to us the
much greater depth of the water. The thermometer,
which, in soundings of six and a half, and eight feet
of water, we had often found at 22°.6 C. (72°.7 F.),
now rose to 26°.2 C. (79° F.), while during these
observations it stood in the air at from 25° to 27° C.
(77° to 80°.6 F.). Availing ourselves of the varia-

384 humboldt's cuba.
tions of the land and sea breezes, we kept to the
eastward as far as the port of Trinidad, in order to
take advantage during our voyage to Carthagena,
of the constant northeast winds which then pre
vailed. Passing the marshy coast of Camareos, where
Bartolome de las Casas, so celebrated for his
humanity and noble valor, obtained in 1514, from
his friend Velasquez the governor, a good assign
ment of Indians,1 we arrived off the bay of Jagua.
This harbor is one of the most excellent, and at the
same time least frequented in the island. "There
may not be another like it in the world," said the
old chronicler, Antonio de Herrera ; and the surveys
and plans for its defence, made by Seiior Lemaur,
under commission from the Count de Jaruco, have
demonstrated that the haven of Jagua is worthy of
the celebrity it has obtained from the times of the
conquest. A hamlet and a small castle is all that is
yet found there, but they serve to prevent the Eng
lish from careening their ships in the harbor, as they
did, without concern, during the war with Spain."

1 He renounced it in the same year during a short stay in Jamaica,
from conscientious scruples. — H.
' The flourishing town of Cienfuegos now stands upon the borders
of this fine harbor, which is the scene' of an active commerce at the
present time, and the germ of rich promise for the future.

A TRIP TO TRINIDAD. 385
East of Jagua the hills of San Juan approach the
coast, and present a very majestic appearance, not
bo much from their height, which does not exceed
1,900 feet,1 as from their steep declivities and gene
ral form. I was told that the shore, as far as the
mouth of the Guaurabo river, is so bold and steep
that a ship may He alongside it at any point. In the
evening, when the temperature of the sea fell to
23° C. (73°.4 F.), and the breeze came from the land,
we perceived that delightful fragrance of flowers and
honey, so characteristic of the shores of Cuba.3
We sailed along the coast, at a distance of two or
three miles, and just before sunset, on the 13th of
March, we found ourselves off the mouth of the
river San Juan, so much feared by mariners because
' Estimated distance three marine leagues. Angle of altitude,
not corrected for the curve of the earth and refraction, 1° 47' 10".
Height, 1745 feet.— H.
2 I have already observed that the wax of Cuba, which is an
important article in its commerce, is due to the bees of Europe (of
the genus Apis, Latr.) . Columbus expressly says, that in his time
the natives of Cuba did not gather wax. The great cake of this
substance, which he found in the island on his first voyage, and
which was presented to King Ferdinand, in the celebrated audience
at Barcelona, was found afterwards, to have been brought by Mexican
pirogues from Yucatan. It is curious to observe that the wax of
the Melipones was the first Mexican production that fell into the
hands of the Spaniands, in the month of November, 1492. — H.
17

386 humboldt's cuba.
of the innumerable mosquitoes and sand-flies that
fill the air.
The mouth of the river looks like the break of a
deep ravine, in which large vessels might enter,
were it not for a shoal that closes the channel. This
port is much frequented by smugglers from
Jamaica, and even by pirates from New Providence.
The hills which rise back of it have a height of
about 1,450 feet. I passed a great portion of the
night upon deck. What lonely shores are these,
where not even^he light of a fisherman's hut is to
be seen! From Batabano to Trinidad, a distance
of fifty leagues, there is not a single village, and
only two or three farms where swine and cattle are
reared ; yet in the time of Columbus, that land was
inhabited along its whole extent of shore. When
wells are dug here, and when torrents of water,
during the heavy rains, wash the surface of the
earth, stone hatchets and a few copper utensils1 are
found, the only remains of the ancient inhabitants of
the place.
1 Doubtless, from the copper of Cuba, for the abundance of this
metal, in a native state, must have stimulated the Indians of Cuba
and Hayti to smelt it. Columbus states, " that in Hayti, masses of ¦
native copper of one hundred and fifty pounds weight were found,
and that the pirogues of Yucatan, which he met on the south coast
of Cuba, carried among other Mexican merchandise, crucibles for
smelting copper."— Herrera, Dec. 1, pp. 86 & 131.— H

A TRD? TO TRrNLDAD. 387
At sunrise, I persuaded our captain to sound, and
at sixty fathoms we did not reach bottom. The
temperature of the surface, water was much warmer
than we had found it elsewhere, being 26°. 8 O, (80°
F.), exceeding by 4°. 2 C. our observations near the
breakers of Diego Perez. Half a mile from the
shore, the water was only 25°.5 C, (78° F.), and
although we had no opportunity to sound, I do not
doubt that the depth was less. On the 14th of
March, we entered the river' Guaurabo, one of the
ports of Trinidad, to land the Batabano pilot who
had run us on .the mud so often while crossing the
banks of the Jardinillos. We also hoped to find
there a mail packet, under -whose convoy we might
sail to Carthagena. I landed in the afternoon, and
set on the beach Bordas' dip-needle, and an artificial
horizon, in order to observe the passage of several
stars across the meridian ; but we had hardly begun
our preparations, when some Catalan shop-keepers,
who had been dining on board a foreign vessel
which had lately arrived, invited us with many
demonstrations of pleasure to accompany them to
the city. These honest people made us mount, two
on each horse, and as the heat was excessive we did
not hesitate to accept their frank and simple offer.
Trinidad is four miles from the mouth of the
Guaurabo in a northeast direction, and the road

388

runs through a plain apparently formed by long
standing water. It is covered with a beautiful
vegetation, to which the Miraguama, a species of
palm with shining leaves, which we there saw for
the first time, gives a peculiar character. This
fertile land, although of the red soil, only waits the
hand of man to clear and cultivate it, when it will
yield abundant crops. Toward the west there is a
picturesque view of the hills of San Juan, which
form a limestone chain very steep on its southern
side, and some 1,800 or 2,000 feet high, their naked
and arid summits now rounded and now forming high
and steep peaks.1
Though the temperature falls very low here
during the season of the northers it never snows,
but frost and hail only are sometimes seen in these
mountains, and in those of St. Jago. I have spoken
elsewhere of the difficulty of explaining this absence.
On leaving the woods a curtain of hills is seen, the
southern slope of which is covered with houses.
This is the city of Trinidad, founded by Diego
Velasquez in 1514, stimulated thereto by the rich
gold mines said to have been discovered in the little

1 Wherever the rock is seen, I have found a compact whitish-brown
limestone, in part porous, and in part with smooth fracture, like the
Jurassic, formation. — H.

A TRD? TO TRINIDAD. 389
valley of the Arimao river.1 All the streets of
Trinidad are very steep, and the inhabitants there
complain, as they also do in the greater part of
Spanish America, of the bad selection "made by the
conquerors of sites for the towns they founded..2
The church of Nuestra Senora de la Popa, a celebra
ted place for pic-nics, stands on the northern side of
the town.
Its site appeared to me to be about seven hundred
feet above the level of the sea, and commands, as do
also the greater part of the streets in the town, a
magnificent view of the ocean, the two ports,
Casilda and Guaurabo, a forest of palms, and the high
group of the hills of San Juan. As I had forgotten
to bring the barometer and other instruments to the
city, I endeavored on the following morning ,to
ascertain the height of the hill on which the church
stands, by taking alternate altitudes of the sun above
1 This river empties into the bay of Jagua, on its eastern side. — H.
2 May not the city begun by Velasquez, have, perhaps, been
founded in the plain, nearer to the ports of Casilda and Guaurabo?
Many of the inhabitants suppose that the fear of the French,
Portuguese, and English pirates (flibustiers), induced the selection
of an inland site upon the sides of the hills, from whence, as from a
high tower, the approach of the enemy might be discovered ; but it
seems to me that these fears could not have existed before the time
of Hernando de Soto (1538). The city of Havana was first sacked
by the French corsairs, in 1539. — H.

390 humboldt's cuba.
the horizon of the sea, and above an artificial hori
zon. I had practised this method at the castle of
Murviedro, the ruins of Saguntum, and' Cape Blanco
near La Guaira : but the sea horizon was clouded,
and broken in several places by dark streaks, which
indicated the existence of small currents of air, or a
series of extraordinary refractions.1
We were entertained in Trinidad at the house of
Seiior Muiioz, the collector of customs, with a charm
ing hospitality. I continued my observations during
the greater part of the night under rather unfavor
able circumstances, and found the latitude near the
cathedral to be 21° 48' 20". My chronometrical longi
tude was 82° 21' 7". I learned on my second visit
to Havana, on my return from Mexico, that this longi
tude was very nearly the same with that observed by
Captain Jose del Rio, who long resided there, and
also that that officer placed the latitude- of the city
in 21° 42' 40". I have discussed this disagreement
in another work, and it will suffice to note here that
Mon. Puysegur found the latitude to be 21° 47' 15",
1 In the opinion of the great naturalist, Wollaston, whom I had the,
pleasure of consulting relative to this curious phenomenon, these black
streaks consist, probably, of that portion of the atmosphere nearest
to the surface of the ocean when the wind begins to ruffle it. In
this case, the true horizon, which was more distant, would be made
invisible to the eye by the opposition of color. — H.

A TRIP TO TRINIDAD. 391
and that observations of four stars in the Great Bear,
made by Gamboa, gave to Mon. Oltmanns while
ascertaining the declination according to Piazzi's
catalogue, a latitude of 21° 46' 25."
The lieutenant governor of Trinidad, whose juris
diction then comprised Villa Clara, Santi Espiritu,
and Puerto Principe, was a nephew of the celebrated
astronomer, Don Antonio Ulloa. .He gave us a great
dinner at which we- met several of the French
refugees from St. JJomingo, who had brought hither
only their industry and their intellectual acquire
ments. The export of sugar from Trinidad, accord
ing to the returns made up at Havana, did not then
exceed four thousand boxes. The inhabitants com
plained of the impediments which the general
government, in its unjust preference for Havana,
placed in the way of the agricultural and commer
cial development of the Central and Eastern districts
of the island ; as also of the great accumulation of
wealth, population, and authority at the capital,
while the rest of the country was almost a wilder
ness. Many minor centres, distributed at regular
distances through- the island, were preferred to the
prevailing system, which had resulted in attracting
to a single point, wealth, corruption of manners, and
the yellow fever. Similar exaggerated accusations,
and complaints of provincial cities against the capi-

392

tal, occur in all countries.- It cannot be doubted
that in political organizations, as in physical, the
general welfare depends upon the uniform distribu
tion of the partial life ; but we must distinguish
between the preeminence which flows from the
natural course of things, and that which results from
the policy and acts of the government.
Discussions have often arisen at Trinidad, as to
which of the two ports is the best; and perhaps it
would be better if the municipal council should
endeavor to improve either one of them with the
small amount of means at its command. The dis
tance of the city from Casilda, and from the mouth
of the Guaurabo, is very nearly the same, but the
cost of transportation of goods is greatest to the
former.1 The mouth of the Guaurabo, defended by
a newly erected battery, has a safe anchorage, but it
is not so well sheltered as that of Casilda.
Vessels of light draught can ascend the river to
within a mile of the city. The mail packets to Costa
Firme generally prefer the Guaurabo, as they can
enter it safely without a pilot.
The port of Casilda is more enclosed by the land,
but cannot be entered without a local pilot, because

1 A railroad now runs from the city to Casilda, whiol has been
much improved.

A TRIP TO TRINIDAD. 393
of the Mulas and Mulatto reefs. The great wharf
which was built of wood, and was formerly very
useful to commerce, was injured while landing some
large pieces of artillery, and is now entirely de
stroyed; doubtless it would be better to rebuild it
of stone, as proposed by Don Luis de Bassecourt, or
to deepen the bar of the Guaurabo by dredging.
The great fault of the port of Casilda, is the want of
fresh water, which shipping must procure on the
other side of its western point, exposing them to
capture by privateers in time of war. We were
assured that the population of Trinidad, and the
plantations around it within a radius of one league,
amounted to nineteen thousand souls. The cultiva
tion of sugar and coffee has increased greatly, but
the cereals of Europe are grown only further north
toward Villa Clara.
We passed the evening very agreeably at the
residence of Don Antonio Padron, one of the most
wealthy inhabitants, where we met nearly all the
principal residents of Trinidad. We again were
surprised, as we had been at the capital, with the
mirthfulness and quick intelligence of the Cuban
ladies. These are happy, natural gifts, which the
refinement of European civilization may make more
attractive, but which are extremely pleasing in their
primitive simplicity. 17*

394 humboldt's ouba.
On the evening of the 15th of March, we left
Trinidad, and our departure was widely different
from our arrival, on horseback with the Catalan
shopkeepers. The municipal council sent us to the
mouth of the Guaurabo in a coach lined with ancient
red damask ; and to increase the embarrassment we
felt, an ecclesiastic, who was also the poet of the
place, dressed throughout in velvet notwithstanding
the great heat, celebrated in a sonnet our voyage to
the Orinoco. On the way to the harbor we were sin
gularly surprised with a spectacle which a residence
of more than two years in the tropics should have
made familiar to us.
Nowhere else have I seen such an innumerable
quantity of fireflies1 (cocuyos), for trees, branches,
and leaves glowed with them in their brilfiant and
moving light, the intensity of which varies with the
will of the insect that produces it ; it seemed to me
as though the starry vault of heaven had fallen
upon the plain. In the habitations of the poorer
classes in the county, a dozen of these insects placed
in a perforated gourd, suffice for a light during the
night. By shaking the gourd quickly, the insect is
roused, and lights up the luminous discs which are
placed on each side of its head. The inhabitants
1 Elater noctilucus. — H.

A TRD? TO TRINIDAD. 395
employ a truthful and simple expression, in saying
that a gourd filled with cocuyos is an ever-lighted
torch; and in fact it is only extinguished by the
death of the insects which are easily kept alive
with a little sugar cane. A lady in Trinidad told
us that during a long and painful passage from
Costa Firme, she had availed herself of these phos
phorescent insects whenever she wished to give the
breast to her child at night. The captain of the
ship would not permit any other hght on board at
night, for fear of the privateers.
As the breeze continued to freshen, and haul
steadily to the northeast, we laid our course so as to
clear the Cayman islands, but the current swept us
toward them. Steering south quarter east, we soon
lost sight of the palm-covered shore, of the hills
that rise over Trinidad, and finally of the high
mountains of Cuba. There is something impressive
in the contemplation of a land which one is leaving,
as it sinks, steadily and slowly beneath the horizon
of the sea. This impression was increased to us, in
its interest and grave import, at this time, when St*
Domingo, then the centre of great- political agita
tion, threatened to involve the surrounding islands in
one of those bloody struggles which demonstrate to
man the ferocity of his nature. Happily these
fears and menaces were not realized^ for the tempest

396 humboldt's cuba.
lulled in the land that gave it birth, and a free black
population, instead of disturbing the repose of the
neighboring islands, has made some progress towards
a suavity of manners, and the establishment of good
civil institutions.1
Haiti is surrounded by Cuba, Porto Rico, and
Jamaica, with a population of 370,000 white and
885,000 blacks, while she contains 900,000 blacks
and mulattoes, who have freed themselves by their
own will, and the good fortune of their arms. These
negroes, engaged much more in the cultivation of
alimenticious plants than of colonial staples, increase
with a rapidity that is exceeded only by the popu
lation of the United States. Will the tranquillity
which the Spanish and English islands have enjoyed,
during the twenty-six years that have passed since
1 How sad to contemplate, in the present debased condition of the
Haitian blacks, the failure of these noble and humane hopes. Yet
the erroneous social theories upon which they are based, have been
extended by the governments of Europe over many of the islands
of the Antilles, and Cuba, and Porto Rico alone remain, unab-
• sorbed in the black abyss of barbarism, whose waves have rolled
ovjsr the other West Indian isles, extinguishing the lights of
their civilization, and the hopes of their humanity. We may here
read the instructive lesson, that the principles- upon which a social
organism is tiased, cannot be violently changed without destroying
its vital principle, and. bringing desolation and death to the tempo
ral and spiritual interests of its members.

A TRD? TO TRINIDAD. 397
the first revolutiqn in Haiti, continue to inspire the
whites with that fatal security, which disdainfully
resists any improvement in the state of the servile
class ? On every side of that Mediterranean of the
Antilles, on the west and on the south, in Mexico, in
Guatemala, and in Colombia, the new legislators are
laboring with zeal to extinguish slavery ; and it may
be hoped that the union of these imperious circum
stances will assist the beneficent intentions of the
several European governments, who wish to improve
continually the condition of the slaves ; for the fear
of danger will force those concessions which the
eternal principles of justice and humanity demand.

THE END.

J. O. DERBY'S
RECENT PUBLICATIONS

THE WIDOW BEDOTT PAPERS: Containing, also, the Experiences of Aunt
Maguire. Edited by Alice B. Neal. With eight humorous illustrations by
Dallas and Orr. 12mo  $1 25
MARRIED, NOT MATED. A Novel. By Alice Caeet  1 25
WINNIE AND I. A Novel. 12mo  1 00
ISORA'S CHILD. A Novel. 12mo:  . 1 25
GAMP FIRES OF THE RED MEN. By J. R. Oeton, M.D. 12mo. Illustrated, . 1 25
PEN PICTURES OF THE BIBLE. By Charles Beecher. First Series : David
and his Throne. Uniform with " Sunny Side,"  50
COUNTRY MAEGINS, AND SUMMER RAMBLES. By Hammond and Mansfield, 1 00
SIMM'S LIFE OF GENERAL MARION. 12mo. Illustrated  1 25
LIVES OF THE SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
Illustrated. 12mo.,  1 25
LATARD'S POPULAR DISCOVERIES AT NINEVEH. 12mo. Illustrations, . 1 00
HOWE'S EMINENT MECHANICS. 12mo. Illustrated,  1 25
STEPHENS' INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN EGYPT AND THE HOLY LAND. A
new edition. 8vo. Illustrated  2 00
The Same, 2 vols., 12mo., , . . . • .  2 00
HANNAH MORE'S COMPLETE WORKS. 2 vols  8 00
PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. A fine edition, with fifty elegant engravings. 12mo., . 75
MISS SEDGWICK'S WORKS. 8 vols., viz.:
REDWOOD. 12mo.,  . 1 25
CLARENCE. "  1 25
A NEW ENGLAND TALK. 12mo.r  1 25
40

J. C. DERBY'S RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

MRS. TUTHILL'S SUCCESS IN LIFE. A vols., 12mo., viz. :
THE MECHANIC  68
THE MERCHANT  63
THE LAWYER,  68
THE ARTIST,  68
LANE'S BRIGADE IN MEXICO,  T5
BARNARD'S SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE. Svo  2 00
THE MYSTIC CIRCLE ; ok, Hand-Book of Masohet  1 50
TAYLOR'S HISTORY OF OHIO. 12mo.,  1 50
ECLECTIC PRACTICE OF MEDICINE. By. Drs. Newton and Powell. 8vo., . 4 50
THE YOUNG WIFE. By Wm. A. Aloott, M.D.,  1 00
THE YOUNG HUSBAND. By Wm. A. Alcott, M.D.,  1 00
THE YOUNG MOTHER. By Wm. A. Aloott, M.D.,  1 00
THE YOUNG HOUSEKEEPER. By Wm. A. Alcott, M.D  1 00
THE HOUSE I LIVE IN. By Wm. A. Alcott, M.D.,  68
INDIAN NARRATIVES. 12mo   75
WEBSTER FAMILY CYCLOPEDIA. 7000 Receipts, 100 Engravings, . . . S 00
ILLUSTRATED LIFE OF FRANKLIN. 8vo.,  2 00
DON QUIXOTE. A new edition, cloth, 12mo  1 25
GIL BLA3. A new edition, 12mo  . 1 25
THE HEART OF MABEL WARE. A Novel. 12mo., . . . 1 00

-*?-

ROORBACH'S BOOKSELLERS' TRADE LIST,
Containing a Complete Catalogue of American Publications from 1820 to
1852. Price $5, net. Every Bookseller in the land should possess it.
Not only is the name of each book given, but the Publisher and the Price.
Well studied, it will make a complete Bookseller of the uninitiated.

J. C. DERBY'S PUBLICATIONS.

LIST OE POPULAR BOOKS
FOR AGENTS.

FLORA'S INTERPRETER. Edited by Sarah J. Hale. 12mo., . . . . $1 26
GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. By D. P. Thomson. 12mo  1 00
THB RANGERS. By the Author of " Green Mountain Boys." 12mo., . . . 1 00
MAY MARTIN. By the same. 12mo.,  1 00
COMBE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 12mo.,  75
MECHANIC'S OWN BOOK. 12mo.,  1 00
ETHAN ALLEN ; oe, The Gbeen Mountain Heroes. 12mo., . . . . 1 25
UPS AND DOWNS ; or, Silver Lake Sketches. By Cousin Cioelt. 12mo., . 1 25
LEWIE ; or, The Bended Twio. By Same,  1 00
ALONE. By the Author of " Hidden Path." 12mo.,  1 25
WESTERN SCENES AND ADVENTURES. 12mo.,  '. 1 25
SALT WATER BUBBLES ; or, Life on the Wave. 12mo., . . . . 1 25
HALL'S LEGENDS OF THE WEST. 12mo.,  1 25
THE WIDE WIDE WORLD. By Elizabeth Wetherell. 2 vols  1 50
aCBECHY. By the author of " Wide Wide World." 2 vols  1 75
MR. RUTHERFORD'S CHILDREN. 16mo., By the Same,  75
HUMANITY IN THE CITY. By Rev. E. H. Chapdj. 12mo  1 00
MRS. SIGOURNEY'S SELECT POEMS. 12mOi,  1 25
MRS. SIGOURNEY'S SAYINGS FOR THE LITTLE ONIS. 16mo  75
D'AUBIGNE'S HISTORY OF PROTESTANTS. 12mo.,  1 25
FERN LEAVES. By- Fanny Fern. First Series,  1 25
Do. do. do. do. Second Series,  1 25
HOME SCENES AND HOME SOUNDS. By Mrs. Stephens,  1 00
LITTLE CROSS BEARERS. By Miss Chesebeo', .'  50
THE WORKS OF FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS. 8vo.,  1 25
FAMILY QUARTO BIBLE. Plain sheep,  2 00
Do. do. do. A. P. G. marble edges  8 SO
Do. do. do. A. P. O. gilt edges,  8 00

J. 0. DERBY'S RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

TWO NEW BOOKS BY PETER PARLEY!

THE BALLOON TRAVELS OF ROBERT
MERRY
AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS OVER VARIOUS COUNTRIES OF EUROPE.
Edited by Peter Parley.
With 8 Original Designs. Beautiful Vtmo. $1 00.

THE
VOYAGES, TRAVELS, AND ADVENTURES
OF GILBERT GO-AHEAD, IN FOREIGN PARTS.
Edited by Peter Parley.
With 8 Original Designs. Beautiful 12mo. $1 00.
ALSO, NEARLY READY,
GREEN MOUNTAIN GIRLS,
A TALE OF VERMONT.
One neat 12mo. Price $1 00.

THE LOST HUNTER,
A TALE OF EARLY TIMES.
12»w., $1 25.

THE CREOLE ORPHANS,
A TALE OF LOUISIANA.
12m»., $1-25.

TWO STANDARD HISTORIES FOR EVERY LIBRARY.
GILLIES' HISTORY OF GREECE,
ITS COLONIES AND CONQUESTS, TO THE DIVISION OETHE MACEDONIAN EMPWE.
Including the History of Literature, Philosophy, and the Fine Arts.
Complete in one volume. Illustrated, &vo. $1 75.

FERGUSON'S HISTORY OF ROME.
THE HISTORY OF THE PROGRESS AND TERMINATION OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC.
With a Notice of the Author, by Lord Jeffrey.
Uniform vMh Gillies' History of Greece. $1 75.

J. c. derby's publications.

THE AMERICAN GIFT BOOK;
A PERPETUAL SOUTENIR.
With Six elegant Steel Engravings, viz. : " The Marriage of "Washington,"
" Goddess of Liberty," " Portrait of Washington," " Portrait of Daniel
Webster," "Spirit of ?76," "Portrait of Martha Washington." To
gether with " Washington's Farewell Address," " Constitution of the
United States," and the " Declaration of Independence." Price $1 ;
cloth, full gilt, $1 50.
" The getting-up of this nice volume was a happy thought. It awakens and invigorates
the noblest patriotic sentiments, and, withal, fortifies patriotism by Bible religion. The
volume opens with ' Washington's Farewell Address,' among the richest legacies ever
bestowed by a patriot upon his country; and then follows, in prose and poetry, the hap
piest and most soul-stirring appeals to the reason and hearts of Americans, warning them
of the danger of foreign influence adverse to their free institutions, and exciting to sleep-
.ess vigilance in tneir perpetuation. The book gives a clear 'exhibition of what the
Know-Nothings ' are ; shows the necessity for such an association; and excites an
earnest hope that they may.be preserved and prospered as the lifeiguard of civil and
religious liberty." — Christian Advoeate and J&wrnal.
" This is a sterling annual, full of living truth which must be commended by every
editor who is not a Jesuit at heart, and find a response in the soul of every lover of
American soil and institutions. Every page in it is of sterling value, and should be com
mitted to memory, and handed down from father to child. The matter in such a book is
Its own best adornment. Washington and the worthies following after him here speak in
the living present, and poets of the Boil set to glowing measure the glories of our Protest
ant birthright."— Albany Spectator.
" We venture to say that so far as the contents are concerned, this gift-book will not
be excelled by any which will be issued this season. Besides these, there are nearly one
hundred American articles of a truly American character, many of them written by the
brightest stars in the splendid galaxy of American Authors." — GJvrUtian Freeman.
" We doubt if in any similar compass of modern literature so many fine thoughts, both
in poetry and prose, can be found crowded together. The Webster Hulsemann letter
is among the contributions, and some of the best poetry of our patriotic writers." — £f. Y,

" We earnestly commend this book,, and because it la a good one — good for the times.
for the people, and for the American cause. It cannot fail to become a favorite. Let the
Wide- Awake be found before every American face and eye." — Boston Bee.
" The articles are all patriotic eflusions, calculated to arouse the true American feeling.
The K. N.'s will greet with delight the work, and peruse Its pagea with avidity and
interest." — WUHamsburgh Times,
" We predict an immense sale for the volume, which is so thoroughly American In
subject and sentiment, and a product of American talent and genius that will be prized by
all true Americana."— Boston, fyanscript. 23

J. C. DERBY'S PUBLICATIONS.

A BOOK OF BABE BEAUTY AND GBEAT INTEREST.

FOURTH EDITION NOW READY.
MRS. OAKES SMITH'S NEW ROMANCE.
BERTHA AND LILY;
OR, THE PARSONAGE OP BEECH GLEN.
1 elegant 12mo. vol. Price $1.
Tte following orief extracts are but the key-notes of lengthy reviews. No recent
book has received more marked attention from the press :
" It compels the reader to linger over its pages." — N. Y. Tribune.
" Sparkling thoughts and humane and benevolent feelings." — Albany Argus.
" More powerfully written than any recent work of fiction." — N. Y. Bay Book.
" Another story of exquisite beauty — graceful and fascinating." — Phila. News.
" Altogether it is a remarkable book." — N. Y. Clvristian Enquirer.
" No romance more deserves a wide-spread popularity." — Providence Post.
" Striking truths boldly represented." — B/wral New Yorker.
"Springing from a heart overflowing with love and sympathy." — Pittsburg Visitor,
"Strange scenes, powerful dialogue, and exquisite imagery," — Transcript.
" We know of one woman who says it is a brave book." — Boston Commonwealth,
" Elegant with, mountain and valley flowers and water lilies."— N. Y. Dispatch,
" Womanly genius under its happiest and purest inspirations.'* — Albany AUas.
" A ' romance,* but full of life. It has power ; it has truth." — Boston Bee.
" Sure to captivate the reader." — N. Y. Atlas.
"The ladies will find it a graceful and fascinating production." — Phila. City Mom,
" Just what might be expected from a brilliant woman." — Albany Express.
" A female delicacy of taste and perception." — Ladies' Repository.
11 A moral perspective of rare beauty and significance." — Harpers'' Magazine.
" So intensely interesting, we read it at one sitting." — Cleveland Farmer.
"A * prose poem,' replete with melody and imagery." — Boston Chronicle.
'* Well vindicated her reputation as a woman of genius." — N. Y. Herald.
" True to nature and every day life."— Albany Spectator,
" Cannot fail to Inspire the reader with noble purposes." — Christian Freeman.
" Will be eagerly sought for and read." — Water Cure Journal.
" The style is glowing and impassioned." — Rochester American.
" Its pages leave a very attractive impression." — Salem Gazette.
" Will prove a valuable accession to the home circle." — Ladies' Enterprise.
*• Will be read, and find many enthusiastic readers." — Bangor Mercury.
"A beautiful creation."— Boston Transcript.
" Comes before the reader with freshness, earnestness and power." — Eclectic
** The book before us is bravely written." — Providence Una.
M The very best fiction we have read for years." — Glen's Fall Republican.
H Characters in it worthy of lasting fame."' — Hartford Republican.
" All her works bear the impress of genius." — Olive Brandi.
" It is a beautiful story."— Sandusky Democrat. 9

J. C. DERBY'S PUBLICATIONS.

THE WHITE DOVE, AND OTHER BALLADS
FOR CHILDREN.
BY MRS. E. W. TOWNSEND,
OF PHILADELPHIA.
16mo., Illustrated. Price, 50 cents ; full gilt sides and edges, 75 cents.
"Dean Swift, or Sterne, or Doctor Johnson, or somebody else, when in doubt about the
quality of any new -literary effort, used to read it to the housekeeper. If she understood
and liked it, rio doubt it was true to nature. Adopting this plan, we called up a little boy
and girl to try this book upon. The boy flung himself into a chair and put his leg over
the arm, as if he expected to be bored. The small damsel took to the rug as fora nap.
We tried the Snow Storm about Bruno and his children, with success highly flattering
to the authoress. The small damsel" sat up, pushed baGk her curls and opened her eyes
very wide. The boy looked away off out of the window^ and swung his cowhide boots
about as if he didn't care. But the tears, not few nor small, glistened in the eyes of both,
We think the book will do." — Vermont Statesman.
" Good rhymes for children are rare indeed, and this will make this elegant little volume
a welcome addition to the juvenile library. The lady holds a graceful and familiar pen,
and the children will know her poems only to love and remember them. Many a boy and
girl will be happier for its cheerful pictures, pretty thoughts and good sentiments. A book
like this is worth a hundred copies of ' Mother Goose ' or any of her. family. Those who
would form a taste for good reading in the young, should place such books as this in their
hands." — Worcester Palladium.
" The sweetest and happiest productions in that class of writing that we have met with
for a long time. The conceits are full of the finest and most delicate fancy, and the
versification is music itself. The narratives are so simple and natural that childhood will
comprehend and enjoy them, while the delicately-drawn pictures of life and nature possess
a charm that may well beguile the hours of age."— XT. S. Magazine.
" Here's a nice book for nice little people ; full of poetry, pictures and beautiful stories,
printed in large type, on fine white paper, and bound to be read. Children who love good
books will be largely indebted to those who publish such excellent ones as The White
Dove." — Gospel Banner.
41 The writer has succeeded in clothing the purest sentiments in natural and touching
verse. Love of nature, and sympathy with the young, have been admirably blended in
the composition of the volume."— N. Y. Tribune.
" We have looked through them carefully. They are well written— are moral, sensible,
and noble in their ideas — and they contain nothing to offend any parent's creed, for their
religiousness is that of every true human heart." — Boston Post.
" Here is a beautiful little volume that will make many a young heart sing for joy, when
old Santa Claus leaves a copy of it in the stocking in the chimney corner, next
Christmas." — Maine Farmer.
" A charmiftg collection' of poems for children — simple, natural, and graphic ; such m
the heart of a child dotes upon."— N. Y. Independent. 25

J. 0. DERBY'S PUBLICATIONS.

NEW ENGLAND BOYS;
OB,
THE THREE APPRENTICES.
BY A. L. STINSON.
1 elegant 12mo. volume, Illustrated. Price %\ 25.
** Some of the scenes painted are enough to make ossified hearts quiver. There are
tempters and temptations ; and almost every variety of character is introduced and made
to play its part, and the description is of the most thrilling nature imaginable. John
Hard is a true representative of the Yankee character ; the parson's anecdote ofcf the Hay
family, of South Carolina, the wealthy, dissipated young men who were burned in the
barn because they were too much intoxicated to escape, will do more wherever read to
prevent rum-drinking than the ' Maine Law.' It is seldom that we find in a novel so
many notable characters, and so many good points made as this." — Hmgham, Gazette.
" We take pleasure in recommending this work to young men. It points in a most
powerful manner the road to vice, and warns, most emphatically, those who are in it of
the fate they may expect if they do not change their tactics. The author very justly
remarks that in the idle and the vicious t the six degrees of crime'' — wine, women,
gambling, theft, murder, and the gallows — are all attained. The evils of intemperance
are most powerfully depicted, and the dangers to which that class of young men who are
known as good-natured jovial fellows are exposed, fully portrayed. Th! author has
also shown the dangers of relying on circumstantial proof in the conviction of crime.
His book should be read by all young men who really desire to escape the way that leads
to ignominy and death. "*—N. Y. Times.
" A temperance book, and is well adapted to impress the lessons of this great reform
upon every thoughtful mind. It is written with much graphic force, its moral is excellent
and obvious, and its descriptions of character life-like. We hope it will'obtain a wide
circulation, for its influence must be good." — Albany Prohibitionist.
" A lively, funny, graphic story, which would reflect no discredit upon Dickens. What
with the fun in the book and the good moral lesson which it conveys, it must have a good
sale."— Hartford Courant.
" Full of fun and adventure, inculcating a wholesome moral, full of stirring incidents,
by turns humorous or pathetic, and altogether just the book to attract the attention and
suggest thought." — N Y. Atlas.
" As a matter of pure philanthropy, we cannot but hope that ' Easy Nat ' will be able to
reach ' Uncle Tom's Cabin,1 in pubjic favor." — Boston CiUeen.
" A highly entertaining work this, and full of the spice, romance and reality of life.
The style is attractive, the moral excellent." — Boston Bee.
" This is one of the books that will sell. It is readable, racy, and written with a good
moral purpose."— United States Journal.
"The story _ls one of great interest, truthful and life-like; the desire to render vice
odious, and to show how it can be avoided; being apparent in every page."— Phil. News.
r * •
"Will make most persons the better and wiser to read.,"— N. Y. Dispatch. 17

J. C. DERBY S PUBLICATIONS.

THE ENCHANTED BEAUTY
AND OTHER TALES, ESSAYS, AND SKETCHES.
BY* DR. WILLIAM ELDER.
12mo. Price $1.
" Dr. Elder, the author of these extemporaneous sketches, is what Goethe would style a
many-sided man. He is a doctor of medicine, a, doctor of law — besides being an eloquent
orator, a ready writer, and one of the best story-tellers that ever beguiled one or more
friends during a leisure hour." — Saturday Evening Post.
11 He gives you his best thoughts sparkling and pure, as a spring throws up its diamonds
to flash in the sunlight an instant, and then glide away under the bending grass and
flowers, which cluster round and cover up the source of their brightened colors. He
is a singular mixture of the sailor and the diver. One moment he is skimming over
the surface of events like the merest trifler, or a sea-gull on the waves ; and in an instant,
perhaps before he finishes the sentence, he is down into the hidden mysteries of nature,
and has dragged up something which looks wondrously like a useless pebble, but forthwith
he applies the keen edge of analysis, and lo I you have a pearl, which you stop to look at
again and again, and put away in the casket of memory for future ornament or use." —
Saturday Visitor.
" All who have ever heard Dr. Elder speak, and there are many here to whom the
memory of his eloquence is a pleasant one, cannot fail to recognize the man in this book.
He used to talk like a book, and the book talks like him. As a speaker he enjoyed a rare
reputation in his speaking days ; and although ia these sketches we miss the aid of his
expressive face, which gave so much zest to his elocution, it is impossible not to recognize
the same brilliant fancy, beauty of illustration and wealth of language, which gave tiieir
author so much character in his younger days." — Pittsburg Gazette. fc
" A large circle ofrreaders will be attracted to this volume by the name of its author.
He holds a prominent rank among the advocates of popular, or rather unpopular, reforms.
Most of the progressive movements of the day have found in him an enthusiastic
champion. He has labored largely and spoken well for freedom, temperance, and social
justice. The ring of his sympathetic voice still echoes in the ears of multitudes who have
listened to his earnest pleadings. The cause of humanity is indebted to his active fancy
and fluent rhetoric."—^ Y. Tribune.
"We doubt if a more entertaining volume has ever issued from the press. There is
something in it for each reader — every taste is appealed to— from grave to gay, lively to
severe. What we chiefly like in Dr. Elder, is his conscientious sincerity— the simplicity
and purity of his style — a perpetual flow of felicitous language — a straight-forward
manliness and dignity and earnestness — a habit of telling the truth, because of his love
of truth — a sovereign contempt for indirection of all kinds — a genialty,' always hearty,
because nalural,"— Philadelphia City Item.
" Dr. Elder is one of the wittiest, jolliest, and the most genial of philanthropists, who
never permits his prejudices, if he has any, to interfere with his humor, and always looks
on the bright side of things while exhibiting their da^k sides. He is racy in his style,
reliable in his facts, ingenious in his humor, and liberal in his principles." — N. Y. Sunday
07

J. C. DERBY'S PUBLICATIONS.

GREECE AND THE GOLDEN HORN
A RECORD «P ORIENTAL TRAVELS IN GREECE AND TURKEY.
BY THE LATE STEPHEN%OLIB \ D. D., LL. D. *
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY REV. J. MCCLINTOCK, D.D.
1 elegant 12mo. vol., with 4 Illustrations and a Map of Constantinople.
Price $1.
" Peculiar interest attaches to this volume, not only on account of its subject, which is
at the present juncture one of the most important that engages public attention, but also
on account of its being a posthumous work of a very great and good man, whose decease
is still deeply lamented by a large branch of the Church. The Rev. Dr. Olin made
provision in his will that, " in case he left no children, the copyright of his ' Travels in the
East ' should be given to the Wesleyan University at Middletown ; and moreover, that on
the death of Mrs. Olin, and in default of children to inherit, the whole of his property
should fall to the University. His wife and son'1 survive him, but the present volume is
dedicated, in the spirit of his last will, to the object he so dearly cherished. The whole
profits of the book Will accrue to the Wesleyan University, to whose trustees the copyright
has been assigned." This statement is derived from Dr. McClintock ; but we add that
the attractions of the book are sufficient to merit and secure the attention of the public,
without any adventitious interest. Dr. Olin's fine powers of description were stimulated
to their highest exertion by his tour through classic and Oriental regions, and all that he
observed is depicted to the'mind of the reader in truthful colors. The introduction has
been prepared by Dr. McClintock with great ability, and with that thorough mastery of
his theme which usually characterizes his writings." — N. Y. Commercial Advertiser.
" Whoever has read Dr. Olin's volumes, containing an account of 'his travels in the
East, will need no other inducement to place this additional one in his library. The
countries it describes are not less interesting in their history, than the monuments of the
arts and sciences which they retain even in their ruins, and Dr. Olin possessed in great
excellence that graphic power which presents things in their realities to an attentive
^reader. Withal, we know what he writes is always true. He was too conscientious to
indulge his imagination, vivid as in was, at the expense of truth. We maysafely rely,
both upon his statements, and his descriptions, in which regard travellers are proverbially
pvone to exaggeration, if not to fanciful creations of their own... The deep concern in
the public mind which recent occurrences in the East have enkindled,- cannot fail to create
a general desire to read this volume, which we assure our friends- will abundantly repay
the perusal." — Christian Advocate and Journal.
" Thanfcfuhyj but mournfully, will it be received and read. Thousands who remember
the peerless mind and- majestic form of the author, will. recognize in these pages the
tracings of his masterly hand. ****** it has been highly gratifying to us to
read this last and unexpected work from the gifted and sainted Olin. He has * fallen
asleep,' but his memory will be devoutly cherished by the thousands that knew him.
Apart from recollections of this kind, the volume is worthy of attention, and we .predict
that few who begin to read it will wish to stop till they have read it through."— Northern
Christian Advocate 19

ifflt

I