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“...secure harbour.
The harbour was once gained by two bocas or mouths,
the Boca Grande (the Big Mouth), quite near the town,
and the Boca Chica (the Narrow Mouth), many miles
farther south ; but after an attack by Admiral Vernon
in 1740 the Spaniards closed the Boca Grande by sinking
old ships in the fairway. Round these sand has collected,
thus effectively blocking the entrance. Now, therefore,
only the Boca Chica is available for navigation. As we
enter the harbour by this narrow strait, scarcely a pistol
shot across, we pass Fort San José on the right, and on
the left the once formidable but now derelict Fort San
Fernando on Tierra Bomba Island. After negotiating
the entrance, the steamer makes her way for some six or
seven miles along a tortuous passage past the mangrove-
covered shores of Tierra Bomba, and is warped alongside
a wharf on the historic Drake’s Spit. It was along this
neck of land that Sir Francis Drake and his troops
marched when they attacked Cartagena in 1585. At
that time it...”
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