ent.

The whole of this day I spent in strolling over the different
walks and points of view from whence the town and surrounding
country may be seen to most advantage; and I certainly must
pronounce it to be by far the most magnificent colonial capital
which I have visited. The streets are in general wide, clean,
and airy; the houses, except in the suburbs, are composed
entirely of stone, and being occasionally intermingled with
convents, churches, and other public buildings, produce a very
striking and handsome effect. Though surrounded by a rampart,
Havannah has little of the confined and straitened appearance by
which fortified towns are generally disfigured. The works being
of great extent, have left within their circumference abundant
room for the display of elegance and neatness in its
construction, an advantage which has not been neglected; whilst
from their situation they command as glorious a prospect as can
well be imagined.

When you ascend a bastion which overhangs the harbour, the city,
with all its towers and spires, lies immediately and distinctly
beneath your gaze. Beyond it, again, you perceive a winding of
the bay, which washes three sides of the promontory where the
city stands; numerous fields of sugar-cane and Indian corn
succeed, intersected by groves of orange and other fruit trees,
which extend for some miles in a sort of inclined plane, and are
at length bounded by lofty and rugged mountains. On your left,
again, is the creek or entrance to the bay, separating you from
the Moro, a line of castles remarkable for their strength and
extent. Behind sweep the waters of the Gulf of Mexico; and on
the right is another view much resembling that which lies before
you, only that it is more narrowed; the high ground bearing in
this direction closer upon the city. On the whole I do not
remember to have been more forcibly struck by any scenery than
that which I beheld from this bastion; so well were town and
country, castles and convents, land and water, hill and valley
combined.

Having spent some hours in wandering through the city, I
endeavoured to make my way into the forts, and to examine the
state of the works. But in both of these attempts I was
interrupted. Without an order from the Governor, I was informed,
that none, even of the natives, are permitted to enter the Moro,
and all applications on the part of foreigners are uniformly
refused. There was a degree of jealousy in this, as