The harvest extends from July to December; the plant is in the full glory of its blossom in February. Coffee-raising is a very pleasant occupation, for the plantations are in the uplands where the climate is good, and the work is much easier than that required either in sugar- or tobacco-raising. Naturally the condition of labour is considerably above the average, and a much better class of workmen is employed. All things considered, it is fair to conclude that coffee culture will receive more attention than sugar, tobacco, or fruit from the small farmers who migrate to Cuba from the United States; and in future the industry will be restored to the high place it once occupied, now that the burden of Spanish taxation is removed, and every encouragement will be given to all who undertake its cultivation.

THOU

CHAPTER XXV

TRANSPORTATION

HOUGH it has as poor a system of railway and waggonroad transportation as could be imagined, Cuba is by nature fitted for the very best system possible. With a length of over seven hundred miles a main stem of railway from end to end of the Island would have control of every shipping point on both coasts, by the extension of short branches to such of the harbours on either side (at the farthest not more than fifty miles away) as seem capable of development. With such a system of railways, the tributary waggon roads could be built at comparatively small cost, because at no point would long stretches of highway be

necessary.

But no such transportation facilities have been developed in Cuba; and, although there are about one thousand miles of railway and some few waggon roads, they are totally inadequate, even if they were of the highest type. As a rule, they are wretchedly poor, and the Island has suffered more, industrially, from bad roads than from any other cause except Spanish domination. Under the new régime, the necessity of a railway from one end of the Island to the other is so urgent, and its value as an investment is so apparent, that capital stands waiting to complete it at the very earliest opportunity.

The waggon-road system of the Island, if there be any system, comprises a number of government roads, or "royal highways," which are royal chiefly in name. The best known is the Camino Central, or Central Road, extending

from Havana to Santiago de Cuba, a distance of about six hundred miles. Most of it is little better than a very bad specimen of " dirt road,'' and none of it is calzada, or paved road (turnpike), except in the immediate vicinity of the better class of towns through which it passes. It has branches to the north and south, usually worse than the parent road. It is the national turnpike of Cuba, navigable only by mules in the wet season. It is said these sagacious creatures know the road so well that in particularly bad places they get out and walk along the stone walls by the roadside. Of the paved roads, or calzadas, other than mere local roads, leading out of the towns a short distance into the country, one from Coloma to Pinar del Rio is fifteen miles in length; one, the Western Calzada, from Havana to San Cristobal, sixty miles; Havana to Bejucal, the Southern Calzada, fifteen miles; Batabano to the beach, two miles and a half; Havana to Güines, the South-eastern Calzada, thirty miles; Havana to Santa Maria del Rosario, fifteen miles; Luyano to Guanabacoa, twelve miles; Nuñez to La Canoa, twenty-six miles; San Cristobal to Pinar del Rio, the South-western Calzada, thirty miles; Pinar del Rio to Colon, fifteen miles. This list includes all the roads in the Island, except those local outlets before mentioned, of which, though some are really good roads, the most are in bad repair.

Of the country roads, known as "dirt roads" in our country, Cuba has specimens which, but for the patient mule, would not for weeks during the rainy season feel the weight of a passenger; and even the mule is barred at times. There is a legend to the effect that once upon a time a mule kicked over a Spanish saint, and, as a penance, he was sent to serve as a beast of travel on Cuban roads. Inasmuch as the mule was the only possible carrier for these roads, and as the worse the mud the greater would be his penance, it came to be deemed sacrilege by the pious Spaniards to improve the dirt roads of Cuba. Hence their condition. These roads are really not roads; they are nothing better