CHAPTER XIX.
CUBA.
When day dawned we had rounded Caybo San Antonio, and were running along the northern shore of Cuba.
I was up early, by eight bells—or a little after four A.M.—for I had the morning watch; and with deep interest I surveyed the coast of that beautiful island, which lay about ten miles distant,—the first and now the last portion of that vast empire beyond the seas which Columbus bequeathed to Castile and Leon.
"Dat is mi country, senor," said Antonio, who was at the wheel; and this remark, with the repulsive aspect of the Spaniard and his mysterious character, served to dissipate my momentary enthusiasm.
"That is Caybo Bueno Vista,—and the breakers on the weather-bow," he continued, "mark the Collorados, a long reef of rocks. The blue sharks are as thick there as the stars in the sky."
We were now in the Gulf of Florida.
The sky was cloudless and blue; and now it seemed as if the welkin above and the almost waveless sea below were endeavoring to outvie each other in calmness, in beauty, and in the glory of their azure depths. The wind was off the land and rather a-head; but the sails were trimmed to perfection, and we ran through the Gulf on a taut bowline.
I have so much more to narrate than my limited space permits me to give in full detail, that I must compress into one chapter all that relates to my visit to Matanzas.
Our run through the Gulf was delightful; and on the 29th of January, just as a rosy tint was stealing over all the sea and the rocky shore of Cuba, after the sun had set beyond the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, we saw Havana light, bearing south by west, and distant about fourteen miles. So we passed in the night the wealthy capital of Cuba, so famed in the annals of our victories—La Habana, or the harbor—of which, from our being so far to seaward, we could see nothing but the great revolving light, which burns so brightly on the high rock of the Morro, or Castello de los Santos Reyes; and before dawn we descried the light of Santa Cruz on our weather-bow.
Weston drew my attention to it, adding "that is the beacon which so scared me when it shone through the stern windows of the empty polacca brig."