ous location, and an old castle in the vicinity, will be attractive to tourists and artists. Of the 570 islands, or keys, on the north coast of Cuba and the 730 on the south, the Isle of Pines is the only one of sufficient size to be of importance; its area being 1214 square miles to 1350 square miles for all the other 1299 Islands. The Isle of Pines belongs to the judicial district of Bejucal (Havana), and was first called "Evangelist Island" by Columbus, who discovered it in 1494. It has a population of 2000, of which 1800 is about equally divided between its two chief towns, Nueva Gerona and Santa Fe. The people are rather superior to those of the Island of Cuba, and the climate is drier and better than that of the main Island. Besides the pines which flourish on the island, there is a great quantity of mahogany, cedar, and other hardwoods. There are deposits of fine marble, as well as of silver, mercury, and iron, yet to be developed. Turtle fishing and pineapple raising flourish to some extent. The Isle of Pines is really two islands, separated by a tide-covered swamp, over which there is a causeway. The south portion is rough and barren, while the northern part is fertile and pleasing to the eye. The towns are poor. Its mineral waters are much recommended for affections of the stomach. A few of the other islands, or keys, are inhabited in a small way, and the largest of them, Cayo Romano, has an area of 140 square miles, with three hills rising from its flat plain. CHAPTER X HAVANA "Oh Queen of many-coloured garb And red-tiled crown !-in glory The poets who Have sung of you Have set your name and story. "No fairer Queen, they sing, than you, Of Southern seas Who take their ease Beside the sunlit waters. "And I, as they, would sing thy praise As is to be expected; But ere I sing, Oh Queenly Thing, Won't you be disinfected?" W. J. LAMPTON. W WHATEVER may be said of Havana, the capital city of the Island of Cuba, however sonorously its highsounding name, San Cristobal de la Habana, may be rolled forth, what titles of Queen of the Antilles, Key of the New World, or other titular effervescence may be thrown about it by the sentimental Spaniard, or the vivid-minded visitor, the plain, prosaic fact remains that Havana for centuries has smelt bad, and man's other four senses are utterly routed from any field of enjoyment when his nose goes on the warpath. Unfortunately Havana has, for this reason, never been the city of delight that Nature intended it should be for at least one third of every year of its existence. In the great majority of instances bad smells arise from a condition of sanitary neglect which means bad health; and Havana has been, to all intents and purposes, a plague spot for centuries. Yellow fever is always present, malarial diseases of all kinds are prevalent, smallpox rings the changes at every opportunity, and every ill that tropic flesh is heir to has found a home and government encouragement in Havana. This chapter on Cuba's capital city is thus introduced because, before anything else is done looking to the reorganisation and the regeneration of the city and the Island, thorough measures for the health of the people must be formulated and put into immediate and active operation. With the new order must come thousands of new people; and if these newcomers, accustomed, as the poorest of them are, to better sanitary regulations and conditions than have existed in Havana and Cuba, are permitted to enter the Island and inhale its deadly stenches, Cuba will become an international cemetery and it will receive a backset worse than the worst Spain ever did for it. Whatever Havana is now commercially, the time was when it ranked eighth among the commercial cities of the globe, and the wealth of its people was of the fabulous kind which characterised everything in the New World. The city was founded about 1519, and it received its name, San Cristobal de la Habana, from a small town of that name established by Velasquez near Batabano, on the south coast. This was practically the first settlement, but the second town absorbed the settlers of the less important place. So large was the hope of a great future for the new town that Diego Velasquez, the first Governor of the Island, called it Llave del Nuevo Mundo, the "Key of the New World." Later, Las Casas obtained a grant of civic rights for it, and it became the permanent capital. It was burned by the buccaneers in 1528 and was rebuilt by De Soto, who discovered the Mississippi, and he surrounded the city by well constructed fortifications. It was captured and sacked by the pirate Jacob Sores in 1556, but was refortified, and in 1573-1589 Philip II. built the castles, Morro and Los Tres Reyes, which still exist. In 1628 an attack of the Dutch fleet was repulsed, and in 1762 it was taken by the British. It was restored to the Spanish July 18, 1763, who held it until December 31, 1898, when it passed into the hands of the United States as trustee for the people of Cuba. The approach to Havana from the sea is most pleasing to the eye, the narrow entrance to the harbour (one thousand feet wide) being flanked on either side by castellated forts, the best known of which are Morro Castle and Cabañas, whose names are familiar to all Americans since the SpanishAmerican war. The harbour is three miles in length by one and one half miles in width, is naturally very fine and of ample capacity for the business of the port; but the Spanish authorities have, for four hundred years and more, permitted it to be filled with the filth of the city and the sediment from various small streams which empty into it, until now a large part of it is useless for navigable purposes, and it is a constant source of ill-health to both native and visitor. The natural depth of the harbour is forty feet, but it has filled up to such an extent that an available depth of only about eighteen to twenty feet is possible. The tide on the Cuban coast rises and falls only about two feet. The water-front of the bay, comparatively of small extent, is lined with docks and piers, some of them built of iron, and of the first class. Still, the bulk of the shipping business is done by lighters, and the harbour is alive with small boats. Two lines of ferry-boats connect Havana with Regla, across the harbour, where the principal coal docks are situated. The harbour sea-wall, which is backed by a wide street lined with parks and fine buildings, gives to the city a most attractive appearance from the water. Havana has a fluctuating population, variously estimated at from two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand souls; at present it is probably not greater than the former number. The people represent the best there is in Cuba, in point of wealth, education, and progress, and they are largely Spaniards, either Spanish- or Cuban-born. The city is by far the largest and richest in the Island, and has always been to Cuba what Paris is to France. The city is especially noticeable in that its houses, built of the absorbent, porous stone of the Island, are painted in yellows and pinks and greens and blues and whites, with a prevailing red in the tiled roofs. Of the seventeen or eighteen thousand houses of the city, three-fourths are of one story and only about two dozen have four stories. The people live very closely together; the rich and the poor, the good and the bad, are strangely huddled, all of them more or less regardless of the simplest laws of sanitation. It is not so great a wonder that the health of the city is so bad, as that any health exists. Rents are high, with the result that as many poor persons as possible live in one house, and the moral health suffers no less than the physical. If any animals are owned—as, for example, horses-they find quarters on the ground floor. Except in the best houses (and some fine specimens of elegant homes exist in the city), modern conveniences are unknown. Iron bars take the place of glass in the windows and doors, and windows are always open in dry weather. The domestic life of the Havanese is an open book to all who wish to look upon it as they pass, for the houses open directly upon the street, and the lower story is on the streetlevel. Most of the floors are laid directly on the ground, and it would seem as if the people did all in their power to maintain a low degree of health. All the good houses have marble floors. Churches are numerous all over the city, the Cathedral in which the remains of Columbus are said to have reposed being the chief in point of interest.' The women of Havana constitute a large portion of the congregations; the men give little attention to church attendance. 1 It is not certain that the remains of Columbus were in this Cathedral at the time of the supposed removal that lately took place; there are strong reasons to believe that his body is still at San Domingo. |