Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Aspect Of The Havannah, At The Entrance Of The Port, Is One Of The
Gayest And Most Picturesque On The Shore Of Equinoctial America North
Of The Equator.
This spot is celebrated by travellers of all nations.
It boasts not the luxuriant vegetation that adorns the banks
Of the
river Guayaquil nor the wild majesty of the rocky coast of Rio de
Janeiro; but the grace which in those climates embellishes the scenes
of cultivated nature is at the Havannah mingled with the majesty of
vegetable forms and the organic vigour that characterizes the torrid
zone. On entering the port of the Havannah you pass between the
fortress of the Morro (Castillo de los Santos Reyes) and the fort of
San Salvador de la Punta: the opening being only from one hundred and
seventy to two hundred toises wide. Having passed this narrow
entrance, leaving on the north the fine castle of San Carlos de la
Cabana and the Casa Blanca, we reach a basin in the form of a trefoil
of which the great axis, stretching from south-south-west to
north-north-east, is two miles and one-fifth long. This basin
communicates with three creeks, those of Regla, Guanavacoa and Atares;
in this last there are some springs of fresh water. The town of the
Havannah, surrounded by walls, forms a promontory bounded on the south
by the arsenal and on the north by the fort of La Punta. After passing
beyond some wrecks of vessels sunk in the shoals of La Luz, we no
longer find eight or ten, but five or six fathoms of water.
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