Ger Lib. F THE HISTORY OF CUBA. 1992, OLLOWING up the discovery which was to immortalize his name, and the date October 12, 1492, Columbus cruised westward among the West Indian isles, and on October 28th entered the mouth of a river in the "great land" of which he had heard many times before reaching it. This land, indescribably beautiful and fertile, the natives called CUBA. Mistaken as the great discoverer was in fondly believing he had here touched the shores of the great gold-bearing continent he was seeking, the "Gem of the Antilles" is far the most important island of the West Indies-almost incomparably so if Hayti be left out of the account. A climate so delightful as to seem a perpetual summer, a soil inexhaustibly rich, tropical luxuriance of growth in field and forest, varied loveliness of natural scenery, no less than twenty-seven good harborsthese combine to make Cuba one of nature's most favored regions; while its commanding position at the entrance of the Gulf of Mexico might well stimulate the acquisitive ambition of nations. "It is so near to us," said President Cleveland's message of December, 1896, as to be hardly separated from our own territory." The Strait of Florida can be crossed by steamer in five hours. GENERAL DESCRIPTION. Dimensions.-Cuba is about 760 miles in length; in width it varies from 127 miles on a line passing some fifty miles west of Santiago, to not exceeding 28 miles from Havana 3 southward. Íts area is about 41,655 square miles, exclusive of the Isle of Pines and other small islands, the former containing 1,200, the latter aggregating 970 square miles. Thus, in dimensions, Cuba closely approximates the state of New York. Compared with Long Island, it is twentyeight times larger. Mountains and Rivers.-Cuba is traversed lengthwise by a mountainous range, which is highest in the eastern part, where also it is broken up into spurs, or transverse ridges. The most elevated summit is 7,670 feet above sealevel, but the average height of the mountains does not exceed 2,200 feet. The rivers are necessarily short, flowing some north, some south, from the central watershed. Forests and Swamps.-Scarcely more than one third of the land has yet been brought under cultivation. One half the island is covered with primeval forests. The low lands of the coast are inundated in the wet season, or at least turned into impassable swamps of black and wonderfully tenacious mud. Add to this feature the immense reaches of trackless forest, filled everywhere with an almost impenetrable growth of underbrush, not to mention that the dry plains are largely a jungle (manigua) of very high bushes and thick grasses, and one may begin to form some idea of the difficulties inseparable from a campaign in this land of tropical suns and lurking fevers. Strategic Conditions of the War.-The two conditions above described largely account for the surprising paucity of results accomplished for so long a period in the war of 1895-1897 by the vastly preponderant armies of Spain. The insurgent forces, being so inferior numerically, were obliged to remain amid the favoring shelter of the mountains and other inaccessible timbered regions. The necessity of cutting paths through the dense undergrowth of the forests and among the jungled manigua of the dry plains accounts for the omnipresence of the machete in the Cubans' warfare. This famous weapon is primarily not a weapon at all, but GENERAL DESCRIPTION. an implement designed for hewing a passage through the limitless woody expanses above mentioned. Surprising strength and skill are acquired in wielding this favorite and usually horn-handled blade of from twenty-four to thirty inches in length, perfectly straight, as heavy as a cleaver, with an edge always kept like a razor. It somewhat resembles an American farmer's corn-scythe, only it is made for heavier work, and the cutting is done with the outer edge instead of the inner one. As David before Goliath chose thë simple sling, the use of which infinite practice, for entirely different purposes, had given him perfect command, so, in the painful lack of rifles and cartridges, the Cuban belligerent fell back on his trusted machete; and the execution he proved himself capable of doing with it in a sudden rush upon the enemy, or rather, the ferocious climax of a handto-hand conflict, is astonishing. Climate. The climate of the low coast lands is tropical; that of the more elevated interior resembles the warmer portions of the temperate zone. As regards temperature, it is remarkably equable, making Havana a sanatorium of world-wide celebrity for sufferers from bronchial and pulmonary troubles. The mean annual temperature there is 77 to 80 degrees. Eighty-two degrees is the average for July and August, and 72 for December and January, the total range of the thermometer during the year being only 30 degrees, or from 58 to 88. The average annual rainfall at Havana is 40.5 inches, of which 27.8 inches is during the wet season (middle of April to middle of October). Fireplaces are unknown in Cuba's capital, and almost so are glazed windows, which are replaced by double sets of shutters or curtains. Yellow fever seldom becomes epidemic in the elevated interior, notwithstanding its prevalence during the summer in Havana and other seaports, whose wretched sanitation constantly invites the attacks of this dreaded Scourge } RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES. Products. -Cuban sugars and tobaccos are famous the world over. I give them separate sections, and another one to coffee. Next in export value come oranges and the various native woods, including a superior quality of mahogany. The cigar-boxes so familiarly known throughout the United States and Europe are made from a tree of the same natural order as mahogany, the Cedrela odorata of Linnæus, but popularly known as cedar, a wood which is also much used for the inside of drawers, wardrobes, etc. The several different species of palms found in Cuba are luxuriant specimens of tropical trees. The Royal palm, rising to the height of one hundred feet or more, is strikingly beautiful and majestic. The cocoanut-palm grows wild, a glorious tree, immensely rich in leaves and fruit. In some seasons oranges have been so abundant that on the great estates, as a traveler declares, they "lay all about on the bright red earth, little naked negroes kicking aside and satiated pigs disdainfully neglecting great luscious fruit which the North would have piled with great pride upon salvers of silver and porcelain." The banana “bunches” are always cut from the parent stem while green. The official value of the total exports for one year shortly before the last insurrection was upward of $83,000,000, consisting almost wholly of agricultural products and fruits. Sugar. The ingenios, or sugar-plantations, with large buildings and mills for sugar-refining, and in connection therewith the distillation of rum, are, and always have been, the most important industrial establishments of the island. Though his former lordliness and feudal magnificence have of late years undergone more or less modification, the great sugar-planter is still a prince of agriculture. He has one great advantage over all his foreign competitors, and that is the fertility of his soil seems practically exhaustless. In Jamaica one to two hogsheads of sugar to the acre has come RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES. to be considered a good yield, while in Cuba three hogsheads continue to be the average. Not all the bounty-stimulated and cheaper production of beet-sugar in Europe has been able to displace Cuban sugars in foreign markets, though competition from this source has largely reduced the profits in raising them. The introduction of modern machinery requiring large capital has more than counteracted that natural tendency to subdivide great holdings. of land which is usually observed when a system of slave labor gives place to a free one, and has aided in crowding the smaller planters to the wall. In Cuba the grinding season lasts twice as long as it does in Louisiana. Throughout the sugar-raising districts the towering furnace-chimneys of the mills are everywhere the most conspicuous objects. The sugar is put up in jute bags (the government tax on which trebles their cost to the planter), averaging something over three hundred pounds gach, and in this shape is sent to Havana or other port. Under conditions of peace the sugar production approximates one million tons per annum. Well-informed Americans consider this only one fifth the amount which, with a good government and proper enterprise, the island is capable of yielding. The average value of sugar exported amounts to $50,000,000, and of molasses $9,000,000, of which eighty per cent goes to the United States. Tobacco.-Tobacco is indigenous to Cuba. As a source of income it ranks next after sugar. Yet the tobacco industry has always been an uncertain one, owing to the restrictions and exactions imposed by the government, which has controlled it as a monopoly, in the interests of the crown and the Spanish officials. An immense contraband trade in cigars is known to exist. The salaries of the officers of the government Factoria de Tobacco in Havana have been quoted as high as $541,000 for a single year. The tobacco crop of Cuba is estimated at about $10,000,000 annually. The tobacco raisers largely favor the revolution. |