The narrow entrance about 400 yards in width and 1,200 in length, opens into the irregular harbor, which has three chief coves or indentations, termed “ensenadas.”  The extreme length of the harbor from its sea entrance to the limit of the most distant ensenada is 3 miles, and its extreme breadth 1-1/2 miles; but within the entrance the average length is only about 1, and the average breadth about two-thirds of a mile.  However, because of the irregularly projecting points of land which form the ensenadas, there is no locality in the harbor where a vessel can possibly anchor farther than 500 yards from the shore.  Its greatest depth is about 40 feet, but the anchorage ground for vessels drawing 18 feet of water is very contracted, not exceeding one-half the size of the harbor.  The rise and fall of the tide does not exceed 2 feet.

The Cuban city next in celebrity to Havana is Matanzas, and it is one likely to become a favorite of Americans, as the country in the vicinity is distinguished by beauty as well as remarkable for fertility.  Matanzas was first regularly settled in 1693.  It is in the province of Matanzas, 54 miles west of Havana, by the most direct of the two railroads which unite these two cities, and is situated on the western inland extremity of the bay of Matanzas, a harbor of the first class.  Matanzas is divided into three districts, viz, the central district of Matanzas, which, about half a mile in width across the center of population, lies between the two little rivers, San Juan to the south, and the Yumuri to the north; the Pueblo Nuevo district, south of the San Juan, and around the inland extremity of the harbor; and the district of Versalles, north of the Yumuri, nearest to the open sea, as also to the anchorage ground, and, sanitarily, the best situated district in the city.  About two-thirds of the population are in the district of Matanzas, and the Pueblo Nuevo district has about double the population of Versalles.  Pueblo Nuevo stands on ground originally a swamp, and is low, flat, and only 3 or 4 feet above the sea.  The Matanzas district has many houses on equally low ground, on the harbor front, and on the banks of the two rivers which inclose this district; but from the front and between these rivers the ground ascends, so that its houses are from 2 to even 100 feet above the sea; however, the center of population, the public square, is only about 20 feet above sea level.  Versalles is on a bluff of the harbor, and its houses are situated, for the most part, from 15 to 40 feet above the sea.  The district of Matanzas has ill constructed and useless sewers in only two streets, and no houses connected therewith.  So much of this district and of Versalles as is built on the hill slope is naturally well drained, but the Pueblo Nuevo district, and those parts of Matanzas built in immediate proximity to the banks of the river, are very ill drained.