37 15. November 1845

night a very good wind enabled our Neptune to lay back a significant stretch to its voyage. This showed the foreign regions with their long mountain ranges and very high mountains on the island of Santo Domingo, which we could clearly see at sun-up. Also several ships were visible to the right and to the left of our sight, so that now we had no cause to complain about being completely alone in the great wilderness of water; also, a countless number of flying fish and several individual birds of different species inhabited the nature around us and contributed to making the fearful spirit cheerful again and encouraged by the joyful hope to soon be able to set foot on the solid ground of Mother Earth. In the afternoon, we began to move more and more distant from the outermost corner of Santo Domingo, from which the coast continues on in a southerly direction and gradually begins to disappear from our circle of view. On the other hand, in exchange for that, a new land began to unfold to our view in a northwesterly direction. It is the land of the widely extended island of Cuba which we seem to be passing nearer to than to Santo Domingo. The wind was weak early today from 4 o’clock until 10 o’clock in the morning; therefore, during this time our voyage continued forward very slowly, and not until around noon did the Neptune move swifter, so that we believe we will still come near Cuba today, which we now still can see only at a considerable distance as a dark cloud before us. Not until 5 o'clock in the evening did we come so near to the same that in the light of the sun we could perceive the green color of the vegetation. We came to her eastern tip, which is very mountainous and becomes level in the direction of the north. We sailed by her entire length along the southern coast, of which we could see nothing more than the high, steep mountains, which spread out before our eyes along the sea to our right as far as we could see, whose peaks appeared to be so encompassed by fog and clouds that they afforded the eye an imposing sight. At night we saw a small fire between the tops of the mountains, which probably beamed across to us from the hut of an inhabitant