Soon after pa.s.sing the remarkably sheltered port of Guantanamo, which was for nearly a century the most notorious piratical rendezvous in the West Indies, the famous castle of Santiago is seen. It is called Moro Castle, but it is older than the better-known Moro of Havana, by nearly a hundred years. This antique, yellow, Moorish-looking stronghold, which modern gunnery would destroy in ten minutes or less, is picturesque to the last degree, with its crumbling, honey-combed battlements, and queer little flanking towers. It is built upon the face of a lofty, dun-colored rock, upon whose precipitous side the fortification is terraced. Its position is just at the entrance of the narrow river leading to the city, six or eight miles away, so that in pa.s.sing up the channel one can speak from the ship"s deck to any one who might be standing on the outer battlement of the Moro.
The winding channel which leads from the sea to the harbor pa.s.ses through low hills and broad meadows covered with rank verdure, cocoanut groves, and fishing hamlets. Thrifty palms and intensely green bananas line the way, with here and there upon the pleasant banks a charming country-house in the midst of a garden fragrant with flowers. So close is the sh.o.r.e all the while that one seems to be navigating upon the land, gliding among trees and over greensward rather than upon blue water. Steaming slowly up the Santiago River, we presently pa.s.s a sharp angle of the hills, leading into a broad sheltered bay, upon whose banks stands the rambling old city of Santiago de Cuba, built on a hillside like Tangier, in Africa, and it is almost as Oriental as the capital of Morocco. The first and most conspicuous objects to meet the eye are the twin towers of the ancient cathedral, which have withstood so many earthquakes.
This city, once the capital of the island of Cuba, was founded by Velasquez, and is now gray with age and decay. The many-colored, one-story houses are ranged in narrow streets, which cross each other at right angles with considerable regularity, though the roadways are in an almost impa.s.sable condition. They were once paved with cobblestones, but are now dirty and neglected, a stream of offensive water flowing through their centres, in which little naked children, blacks and whites, are at play. No wonder that such numbers die here annually of yellow fever. The surprise is that it does not prevail all the year round.
Santiago dates back to the year 1514, making it the oldest city in the New World, next to San Domingo. From here Cortez sailed in 1518 to invade Mexico. Here has been the seat of modern rebellion against the arbitrary and bitterly oppressive rule of the home government of Spain.
The city contains over forty thousand inhabitants, and is situated six hundred miles southeast of Havana; after Matanzas, it comes next in commercial importance, its exports reaching the annual aggregate of eight millions of dollars. After climbing and descending these narrow, dirty streets of Santiago, and watching the local characteristics for a few hours, one is glad to go on board ship again, and leave it all behind.
To reach Cienfuegos, our next destination, we take water conveyance, the common roads in this district being, if possible, a degree worse than elsewhere on the island. It is necessary to double Cape Cruz and make a coasting voyage along the southern sh.o.r.e of the island, for a distance of four hundred miles. This is really delightful sailing in any but the hurricane months; that is, between the middle of August and the middle of October.
Cienfuegos has some twenty-five thousand inhabitants, a large percentage of whom speak English, nine-tenths of its commerce being with this country. It was in this immediate neighborhood, as Columbus tells us, on the occasion of his second voyage from Spain, that he saw with astonishment the mysterious king who spoke to his people only by signs, and that group of men who wore long white tunics like the monks of mercy, while the rest of the people were entirely naked. The town is low and level, occupying a broad plain. The streets are wide and clean, while the harbor is an excellent and s.p.a.cious one. It is pitiful to behold such an array of beggars, and it is strange, too, in so small a city. Here the maimed, the halt, and the blind meet us at every turn.
Sat.u.r.day is the harvest day for beggars in Cuban cities, on which occasion they go about by scores from door to door, carrying a large canvas bag. Each well-to-do family and shop is supplied on this day with a quant.i.ty of small rolls of bread, one of which is almost invariably given to any beggar who calls, and thus the mendicant"s bag presently becomes full of rolls. These, mixed with a few vegetables, bits of fish, and sometimes meat and bones, are boiled into a soup which at least keeps soul and body together in the poor creatures until another Sat.u.r.day comes round.
Cienfuegos is in the centre of a great sugar-producing district.
Sugar-cane is cultivated much like Indian corn, which it also resembles in appearance. It is first planted in rows and weeded until it gets high enough to shade its roots, after which it is left pretty much to itself until it reaches maturity. This refers to the first laying out of a plantation, which will afterwards continue to throw up fresh stalks from the roots, with a little help from the hoe, for several years. When ripe the cane is of a light golden yellow, streaked here and there with red.
The top is dark green, with long narrow leaves depending,--very much like those of corn,--from the centre of which shoots upward a silvery stem fifteen or eighteen inches in height, and from the tip grows a white-fringed plume. The effect of a large field at maturity lying under a torrid sun, and gently yielding to the breeze, is very fine.
Though the modern machinery for crushing, grinding, and extracting the sugar from the cane as lately adopted on the Cuban plantations is expensive, still the result obtained is so much superior to that of the old methods, that small planters are being driven from the market. The low price of sugar and the great compet.i.tion in its production renders economy in the manufacture quite necessary, especially now that slave labor is abolished.
The delightful climate is exemplified by the abundance and variety of fruits and flowers. Let us visit a private garden in the environs of the city. Here the mango with its peach-like foliage is found, bending to the ground with the weight of its ripening fruit; the alligator-pear is wonderfully beautiful in its blossom, suggesting in form and color the pa.s.sion-flower; the soft, delicate foliage of the tamarind is like our sensitive plant; the banana-trees are in full bearing, the deep green fruit (it is ripened and turns yellow off the tree), being in cl.u.s.ters of nearly a hundred, tipped at the same time by a single, pendent, glutinous bud nearly as large as a pineapple. Here we see also the star-apple-tree, remarkable for its uniform and graceful shape, full of green fruit, with here and there a ripening specimen. The zapota, in its rusty coat, hangs in tempting abundance. From low, broad-spreading trees hangs the grape fruit, as large as a baby"s head and yellow as gold; while the orange and lemon trees, bearing blossoms, and green and ripening fruit all together, serve to charm the eye and to fill the garden with rich fragrance.
Let us examine one of these products in detail, selecting the banana as being the most familiar to us at the north. It seems that the female banana-tree (for we must remember that there are s.e.xes in the vegetable as well as in the animal kingdom), bears more fruit than the male, but not so large. The average cl.u.s.ters of the former comprise about one hundred, but the latter rarely bears over sixty or seventy distinct specimens of this finger-shaped fruit. The stem grows to about ten feet in height; from the centre of its broad leaves, which gather palm-like at the top, there springs forth a large purple bud ten inches long, shaped like a huge acorn, though more pointed. This cone-like bud hangs suspended from a strong stem, upon which a leaf unfolds, displaying a cl.u.s.ter of young fruit. As soon as these are large enough to support the heat of the sun and the chill of the night dews, the sheltering leaf drops off, and another unfolds, exposing its little brood of fruit; and so the process goes on until six or eight rings of young bananas are started, which gradually develop to full size. The banana is a plant which dies down to the ground after fruiting, but it annually sprouts again from the same roots.
We will continue our journey towards Havana by way of Matanzas, crossing the island so as to penetrate at once into a section of luxuriant tropical nature, where we see the cactus in great variety, flowering trees, and ever-graceful palms, with occasional trees of the ceba family grown to vast size. Vegetation here, unlike human beings, seems never to grow old, never to falter in productiveness; crop succeeds crop, harvest follows harvest; it is an endless cycle of abundance. Miles upon miles of the bright, golden sugar-cane lie in all directions; among the plantations here and there is seen the little cl.u.s.ter of low buildings const.i.tuting the laborers" quarters, and near by is the tall, white chimney of the sugar-mill, emitting its thick volume of smoke, like the funnel of a steamship. A little on one side stands the planter"s house, low and white, surrounded by shade-trees and flower-plats. Scores of dusky Africans give life to the scene, and the overseer, on his little Cuban pony, dashes. .h.i.ther and thither to keep all hands advantageously at work. One large gang is busy cutting the ripe cane with sword-like knives; some are loading the stalks upon ox-carts; some are driving loads to the mill; and some are feeding the cane between the great steel crushers, beneath which pours forth a continuous jelly-like stream which is conducted by iron pipes to the boilers. Men, women, and children are spreading the refuse to dry in the sun, after which it will be used as fuel beneath the boilers. Coopers are heading up hogsheads full of the manufactured article, and other laborers are rolling up empty ones to be filled. Formerly the overseers were never seen without the long-lashed whip, but slavery no longer exists as an inst.i.tution. The negroes are free, though they work for very small wages.
Occasionally in the trip across the island we pa.s.s through a crude but picturesque hamlet, having the mouldering stamp of antiquity, with low straggling houses built of rude frames, covered at side and roof with palm-bark and leaves. Chimneys, there are none,--none even in the cities,--charcoal being alone used, and all cooking is done in the open air. About the doors of the long, irregular posada, or inn, a dozen saddle-horses are seen tied to a bar erected for the purpose, while their owners are smoking and drinking inside; but there are no wheeled vehicles to be seen. The roads are only pa.s.sable for men on foot or horseback. The people, the cabins, and the horses all are stained with the red dust of the soil, recalling our Western Indians in their war paint. This pigment, or colored dirt, penetrates and adheres to everything, fills the railroad cars, and decorates the pa.s.sengers with a dingy brick color. It is difficult to realize that these comparatively indifferent places through which we glide so swiftly are of any importance, and the permanent home of any one. When the cars stop at the small way-stations, they are instantly boarded by lottery-ticket sellers, boys with tempting fruit, green cocoanuts, ripe oranges, and bananas, all surprisingly cheap. Here, too, is the guava-seller, with neatly sealed tin cans of this favorite preserve. Indeed, it seems to rain guava jelly in Cuba. At a shanty beside the road where we stop at noon, a large mulatto woman retails coffee and island rum, while a score of native whites lounge about with slouched hats, hands in pockets, and puffing cigarettes,--pictures of idleness and indifference.
Stray dogs hang about the car-wheels and track to pick up the crumbs which pa.s.sengers throw away from their lunch-baskets. Just over the wild pineapple hedge close at hand, half a dozen naked negro children hover round the door of a low cabin; the mother, fat and shining in her one garment, gazes with arms akimbo at the scene of which she forms a typical part. The engineer imbibes a penny drink of thin Cataline wine and hastens back to his post. The station bell rings, the steam whistle is sounded, and we are quickly on our way again, to repeat the picture six or eight leagues farther on.
As we approach Matanzas, the scene undergoes a radical change.
Comfortable habitations are multiplied, good roads appear winding gracefully about the country, and groves and gardens come into view with small dairy farms. Superb specimens of the royal palm begin to multiply themselves, always suggestive of the Corinthian column. Scattered about the scene a few handsome cattle are observed cropping the rank verdure.
There is no greensward in the tropics, gra.s.s is not cultivated, and hay is never made. Such fodder as is fed to domestic animals is cut green and brought into the city from day to day.
Notwithstanding the ceaseless novelty of the scene, one becomes a little fatigued by the long, hot ride; but as we draw nearer to Matanzas, the refreshing air from the Gulf suddenly comes to our relief, full of a bracing tonic which renders all things tolerable. The sight of the broad harbor, under such circ.u.mstances, lying with its flickering, shimmering surface under the afternoon sun, is very beautiful to behold.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The island of Cuba was discovered by Columbus, in October of the year 1492; the continent of America was not discovered until six years later,--that is, in 1498. Columbus and his followers found the land inhabited by a peculiar race; hospitable, inoffensive, timid, fond of the dance, yet naturally indolent. They had some definite idea of G.o.d and heaven, and were governed by patriarchs whose age gave them precedence. They spoke the dialect of the Lucagos or Bahamas, from which islands it was thought they originated, but it would seem more reasonable to suppose that both the people of the Bahamas and of the West Indian islands originally came from the mainland; that is, either from north or south of the Isthmus of Panama.
The natives were at once subjected by the new-comers, who reduced them to a condition of slavery, and proving to be hard taskmasters, the poor overworked creatures died by hundreds, until they had nearly disappeared. They were of tawny complexion, and beardless, resembling in many respects our native Indians. As Columbus described them in his first letter sent to his royal patrons in Spain, they were "loving, tractable, and peaceable; though entirely naked, their manners were decorous and praiseworthy." The wonderful fertility of the soil, its range of n.o.ble mountains, its widespread and well-watered plains, with its extended coast-line and excellent harbors, all challenged the admiration of the discoverers, so that Columbus recorded in his journal these words: "It is the most beautiful island that the eyes of man ever beheld, full of excellent ports and deep rivers."
The Spaniards were surprised to see the natives using rude pipes, in which they smoked a certain dried leaf with apparent gratification.
Tobacco was native to the soil, and in the use of this now well-nigh universal narcotic, these simple savages indulged in an original luxury, or habit, which the Spanish invaders were not slow in acquiring.
The flowers were strongly individualized. The frangipanni, tall, and almost leafless, with thick, flesh-like shoots, and decked with a small, white blossom, was fragrant and abundant. Here, also, was the wild pa.s.sion-flower, in which the Spaniards thought they beheld the emblem of our Saviour"s pa.s.sion. The golden-hued peta was found beside the myriad-flowering oleander and the night-blooming cereus, while the luxuriant undergrowth was braided with the cactus and the aloe. They were also delighted by tropical fruits in confusing variety, of which they knew not even the names.
This was four hundred years ago, and to-day the same flowers and the same luscious fruits grow upon the soil in similar abundance. Nature in this land of endless summer puts forth strange eagerness, ever running to fruits, flowers, and fragrance, as if they were outlets for her exuberant fancy.
Diego Velasquez, the first governor of the island under Spanish rule, appears to have been an energetic magistrate, and to have ruled affairs with intelligence. He did not live, however, in a period when justice erred on the side of mercy, and his harsh and cruel treatment of the natives will always remain a blot upon his memory. Emigration was fostered by the home government, and cities were established in the several divisions of the island; but the new province was mainly considered in the light of a military station by the Spanish government in its operations against Mexico. Thus Cuba became the headquarters of the Spanish power in the west, forming the point of departure for those military expeditions which, though small in number, were yet so formidable in the energy of the leaders, and in the arms, discipline, courage, fanaticism, and avarice of their followers, that they were fully adequate to carry out the vast scheme of conquest for which they were designed.
The Spaniards who invaded Mexico encountered a people who had attained a far higher degree of civilization than their red brethren of the outlying Caribbean Islands, or those of the northeastern portion of the continent, now forming the United States. Vast pyramids, imposing sculptures, curious arms, fanciful garments, various kinds of manufactures, filled the invaders with surprise. There was much which was curious and strange in their religion, while the capital of the Mexican empire presented a fascinating spectacle to the eyes of Cortez and his followers. The rocky amphitheatre in the midst of which it was built still remains, but the great lake which was its grandest feature, traversed by causeways and covered with floating gardens, is gone. The Aztec dynasty was doomed. In vain did the inhabitants of the conquered city, roused to madness by the cruelty and extortion of the victors, expel them from their midst. Cortez refused to flee further than the sh.o.r.e; the light of his burning vessels rekindled the desperate valor of his followers, and Mexico fell, as a few years after did Peru beneath the sword of Pizarro, thus completing the scheme of conquest, and giving Spain a colonial empire more splendid than that of any power in Christendom.
In the meantime, under numerous and often-changed captains-general, the island of Cuba increased in population by free emigration from Spain, and by the constant cruel importation of slaves from Africa. It may be said to have been governed by a military despotism from the outset to the present time, and nothing short of such an arbitrary rule could have maintained the connection between the island and so exacting a mother country, situated more than three thousand miles across the ocean.
The form of the island is quite irregular, resembling the blade of a Turkish cimeter slightly curved back, or that of a long, narrow crescent. It stretches away in this shape from east to west, throwing its western end into a curve, and thus forming a partial barrier to the outlet of the Gulf of Mexico, as if at some ancient period it had been a part of the American continent, severed on its north side from the Florida Peninsula by the wearing of the Gulf Stream, and from Yucatan on its southwestern point by a current setting into the Gulf. Two channels are thus formed by which the Mexican Gulf is entered.
One neither departs from nor approaches the Cuban sh.o.r.e without crossing that remarkable ocean-river to which we have so often referred in these pages,--the Gulf Stream,--with banks and bottom of cold water, while its body and surface are warm. Its color in the region of the Gulf is indigo-blue, so distinct that the eye can follow its line of demarkation where it joins the common water of the sea. Its surface temperature on the coast of the United States is from 75 to 80. Its current, of a speed of four to five miles per hour, expends immense power in its course, and forms a body of water in the lat.i.tude of the Carolina coast fully two hundred miles wide. Its temperature diminishes very gradually, while it moves thousands of leagues, until one branch loses itself in Arctic regions, and the other breaks on the coast of Europe.
The sea-bottom, especially near the continents, resembles the neighboring land, and consists of hills, mountains, and valleys, like the earth upon which we live. A practical ill.u.s.tration of this fact is found in the soundings taken by the officers of our Coast Survey in the Caribbean Sea, where a valley was found giving a water-depth of three thousand fathoms, twenty-five miles south of Cuba. The Cayman Islands, in that neighborhood, are the summits of mountains bordering this deep valley at the bottom of the sea, which has been found, by a series of soundings, to extend over seven hundred miles from between Cuba and Jamaica nearly to the Bay of Honduras, with an average breadth of eighty miles. Thus the island of Grand Cayman, scarcely twenty feet above sea-level, is said to be a mountain-top twenty thousand five hundred and sixty feet above the bottom of the submarine valley beside which it rises,--an alt.i.tude exceeding that of any mountain on the North American continent. A little more than five miles, or say twenty-seven thousand feet, is the greatest depth yet sounded at sea.
Cuba is the most westerly of the West Indian Islands, and compared with the others has nearly twice as much superficial extent of territory, being about as large as England proper, without the princ.i.p.ality of Wales. Its greatest length from east to west is very nearly eight hundred miles, its narrowest part is over twenty miles, and its average width fifty. The circ.u.mference is two thousand miles, and it contains over forty thousand square miles.
The nearest port of the island to this continent is Matanzas, lying due-south from Cape Sable, Florida, a distance of a hundred and thirty miles. Havana is situated some sixty miles west of Matanzas, and it is here that the island divides the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico, whose coast-line measures six thousand miles, finding the outlet for its commerce along the sh.o.r.e of Cuba, almost within range of the guns in Moro Castle. Lying thus at our very door, as it were, this island stands like a sentinel guarding the approaches to the Gulf of Mexico, whose waters wash the sh.o.r.es of five of the United States, and by virtue of the same position barring the entrance of the great river, the Mississippi, which drains half the continent of North America. So, also, Cuba keeps watch and ward over our communication with California by way of the Isthmus of Panama. It is not surprising, therefore, when we realize the commanding position of the island, that so much interest attaches to its ultimate destiny.
Matanzas is situated in one of the most fertile portions of the island, the city covering the picturesque hills by which the bay is surrounded.
The fortifications are of a meagre character and could not withstand a well-directed attack for half an hour. The custom house is the most prominent building which strikes the eye on approaching the city by water. Though built of stone, it is only one story in height, and was erected at the commencement of the present century. The city is connected with Havana by railway, of which there are nearly a thousand miles in operation in the island.
Club life prevails at Matanzas, as usual at the expense of domestic or family ties; the same may be said of Havana, and both cities in this respect are like London. It is forbidden to discuss politics in these Cuban clubs, the hours being occupied mostly in playing cards, dominoes, chess, and checkers, for money. Gambling is as natural and national in Cuba as in China. Many Chinese are seen about the streets and stores of Matanzas, variously employed, and usually in a most forlorn and impoverished condition,--poor creatures who have survived their "apprenticeship" and are now free. They were brought here under the disguise of the Coolie system, as it is called, but which was only slavery in another form. These Chinese are peaceful, do not drink spirituous liquors, work hard, never meddle with politics, and live on one-half they can earn, so as to save enough to pay their pa.s.sage home to their beloved land. Few succeed; eight-tenths of those imported into the island have been not only cheated out of the promised wages, but worked to death!
The famous afternoon drive and promenade of Matanzas was formerly the San Carlos Paseo. It has fine possibilities, and is lined and beautifully ornamented with thrifty Indian laurels. It overlooks the s.p.a.cious harbor and outer bay, but is now entirely neglected and abandoned; even the roadway is green with vegetation, and gullied with deep hollows. It is the coolest place in the city at the evening hour, but the people have become so poor that there are hardly a dozen private vehicles in the city. Matanzas, like all the cities of Cuba, is under the shadow of depressed business, evidence of which meets one on every hand.
Havana is a thoroughly representative city, and is the centre of the talent, wealth, and population of the island. Moro Castle, with its Dahlgren guns peeping out through the yellow stones, and its tall lighthouse, stands guard over the narrow entrance of the harbor. The battery of La Punta, on the opposite sh.o.r.e, answers to the Moro. There are also the long range of cannon and barracks on the city side, and the ma.s.sive fortress of the Cabanas crowning the hill behind the Moro. All these are decorated with the yellow flag of Spain,--the banner of gold and blood. These numerous and powerful fortifications show how important the home government regards this island, and yet modern gunnery renders these defences comparatively useless.
The city presents a large extent of public buildings, cathedrals, antique and venerable churches. It has been declared in its prosperity to be the richest city, for its number of square miles, in Christendom, but this cannot be truthfully said of it now. There is nothing grand in its appearance as we enter the harbor, though Baron Humboldt p.r.o.nounced it the gayest and most picturesque sight in America. Its architecture is not remarkable, its enormous prison overshadowing all other public buildings. This structure is designed to contain five thousand prisoners at one time. The hills which make up the distant background are not sufficiently high to add much to the general effect. The few palm-trees which catch the eye here and there give an Oriental aspect to the scene, quite in harmony with the atmospheric tone of intense sunshine.
Havana contains numerous inst.i.tutions of learning, but not of a high character. It has a medical and a law school, but education is at a low ebb. There is a Royal Seminary for girls, but it is scarcely more than a name. The means of obtaining a good education can hardly be said to exist, and most of the youth of both s.e.xes belonging to the wealthier cla.s.s are sent to this country for school purposes. The city was originally surrounded by a wall, though the population has long since extended its dwellings and business structures far into what was once the suburbs. A portion of the old wall is still extant, crumbling and decayed, but it has mostly disappeared. The narrow streets of the old town are paved or macadamized, and cross each other at right angles; but in their dimensions they recall those of Toledo in Spain, whose Moorish architecture is also followed here.
The Paseo is the favorite afternoon drive of the citizens, where the ladies in open carriages and the gentlemen on horseback pa.s.s and repa.s.s each other, gayly saluting, the ladies with a coquettish flourish of the fan, and the gentlemen with a peculiar wave of the hand. The Alameda, a promenade and garden combined,--every Spanish city has a spot so designated,--skirts the sh.o.r.e of the harbor on the city side, near the south end of Oficios Street, and is a favorite resort for promenaders, where a refreshing coolness is breathed from off the sea. This Alameda might be a continuation of the Neapolitan Chiaja (the afternoon resort of Naples). With characteristics quite different, still these sh.o.r.es remind us of the Mediterranean, Sorrento, Amalfi, and Capri, recalling the shadows which daily creep up the heights of San Elmo, and disappear with the setting sun behind the orange-groves.
The cathedral of Havana, on Empedrado Street, is a structure of much interest, its rude pillared front of defaced and moss-grown stone plainly telling of the wear of time. The two lofty towers are hung with many bells which daily call to morning and evening prayers, as they have done for a hundred years and more. The church is not elaborately ornamented, but strikes one as being unusually plain. It contains a few oil paintings of moderate merit; but most important of all is the tomb where the ashes of Columbus so long reposed. All that is visible of this tomb, which is on the right of the altar, is a marble tablet six feet square, upon which, in high relief, is a bust of the great discoverer.
As we view the scene, Military Ma.s.s begins. The congregation is very small, consisting almost exclusively of women, who seem to do penance for both s.e.xes in Cuba. The military band, which leads the column of infantry, marches, playing an operatic air, while turning one side for the soldiery to pa.s.s on towards the altar. The time-keeping steps of the men upon the marble floor mingle with drum, fife, and organ. Over all, one catches now and then the subdued voice of the priest, reciting his prescribed part at the altar, where he kneels and reads alternately. The boys in white gowns busily swing incense vessels; the tall, flaring candles cast long shadows athwart the high altar; the files of soldiers kneel and rise at the tap of the drum; seen through an atmosphere clouded by the fumes of burning incense, all this combines to make up a picture which is sure to forcibly impress itself upon the memory.
It seems unreasonable that, when the generous, fruitful soil of Cuba is capable of producing two or three crops of vegetation annually, the agricultural interests of the island should be so poorly developed.
Thousands of acres of virgin soil have never been broken. Cuba is capable of supporting a population of almost any density; certainly five or six millions of people might find goodly homes here, and yet the largest estimate of the present number of inhabitants gives only a million and a half. When we tread the fertile soil and behold the cl.u.s.tering fruits in such abundance,--the citron, the star-apple, the perfumed pineapple, the luscious banana, and others,--not forgetting the various n.o.ble woods which caused Columbus to exclaim with pleasure, we are forcibly struck with the thought of how much nature, and how little man, has done for this "Eden of the Gulf." We long to see it peopled by those who can appreciate the gifts of Providence,--men willing to do their part in grateful recognition of the possibilities so liberally bestowed by Heaven.
As we go on shipboard to sail for our American home, some reflections naturally occur to us. To visit Cuba is not merely to pa.s.s over a few degrees of lat.i.tude; it is to take a step from the nineteenth century back into the dark ages. In a climate of tropical luxuriance and endless summer, we are in a land of starless political darkness. Lying under the lee of a Republic, where every man is a sovereign, is a realm where the lives, liberties, and fortunes of all are held at the will of a single individual, who acknowledges no responsibility save to a nominal ruler more than three thousand miles away.
Healthful in climate, varied in productions, and most fortunately situated for commerce, there must yet be a grand future in store for Cuba. Washed by the Gulf Stream on half her border, she has the Mississippi pouring out its riches on one side, and the Amazon on the other. In such close proximity to the United States, and with so obvious a common interest, her place seems naturally to be within our own constellation of stars.
But as regards the final destiny of Cuba, that question will be settled by certain economic laws which are as sure in their operation as are those of gravitation. No matter what our individual wishes may be in this matter, such feelings are as nothing when arraigned against natural laws. The commerce of the island is a stronger factor in the problem than is mere politics; it is the active agent of civilization all over the world. It is not cannon, but ships; not gunpowder, but peaceful freights which settle the great questions of mercantile communities. As the United States take over ninety per cent of her entire exports, towards this country Cuba naturally looks for fellowship and protection.
The world"s centre of commercial gravity is changing very fast by reason of the rapid development of the United States, and all lands surrounding the Union must conform, sooner or later, to the prevailing lines of motion.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Sh.e.l.l.]