“Seventy-five percent. of the native population of the Island is found outside of the Spanish capital of Habana, which, being the seat of an unwelcome foreign despotism, is no more representative of Cuban life or character than is the English city of Hong Kong of the rural Chinese. While the Habanese have had the freest communication with the United States during the last three years of the revolution, Americans have had little opportunity to hear from the true white Cuban population. The Cubans are mostly found in the provinces and provincial cities, especially in Pinar del Rio and the eastern provinces of Santa Clara, Puerto Principe, and Santiago. Although of Spanish blood, the Cubans, through adaptation to environment, have become a different class from the people of the mother country, just as the American stock has differentiated from the English. Under the influence of their surroundings, they have developed into a gentle, industrious, and normally peaceable race, not to be judged by the combativeness which they have developed under a tyranny such as has never been imposed upon any other people. The better class of Camagueynos, as the natives are fond of calling themselves, are certainly the finest, the most valiant, and the most independent men of the Island, while the women have the highest type of beauty. It is their boast that no Cuban woman has ever become a prostitute, and crime is certainly almost unknown among them.
“While these people may not possess our local customs and habits, they have strong traits of civilised character, including honesty, family attachment, hospitality, politeness of address, and a respect for the golden rule. While numerically inferior to the annual migration of Poles, Jews, and Italians into the eastern United States, against which no official voice is raised, they are too far superior to these people to justify the abuse that has been heaped upon them by those who have allowed their judgment to be prejudiced by fears that they might by some means be absorbed into our future population.
“Notwithstanding the disadvantages under which the Cubans have laboured, they have contributed many members to the learned professions. To educate their sons and daughters in the institutions of the United States, England, and France has always been the highest ambition of the creoles of Cuba and Porto Rico. The influence of their educated men is felt in many countries, the most distinguished professor of civil engineering, two leading civil engineers of our navy, and the most eminent authority on yellow fever in our country belonging to this class. Thousands of these people, driven from their beloved Island, have settled in Paris, London, New York, Mexico, and the West Indies, where they hold honourable positions in society, and even the exiles of the lower classes, with their superior agricultural arts, have been eagerly welcomed in countries like Jamaica, Mexico, and Florida, which hope to share with Cuba the benefits of its tobacco culture.
“In addition to the white creole population, thirty-two per cent. are black or coloured—using the latter word in its correct signification, of a mixture of the black and white. This black population of Cuba has been as little understood in this country as has been the creole, especially by those who have alleged that in case Cuba should gain her freedom the Island would become a second Haiti. The black and coloured people of the Island as a class are more independent and manly in their bearing than their brethren of the United States, having possessed even before slavery was abolished on the Island the four rights of free marriage, of seeking a new master at their option, of purchasing their freedom by labour, and of acquiring property. While the negro shares with the creole the few local rights possessed by any of the inhabitants, their social privileges are greater than here, although a strong caste feeling exists. Miscegenation has also produced many mulattoes, but race mixture is no more common than in this country.
“The coloured people of Cuba belong to several distinct classes. The majority of them are descendants of slaves imported during the present century, but a large number, like the negroes of Colombia and the maroons of Jamaica, come from a stock which accompanied the earliest Spanish settlers, like Estevan, the negro, who, with the two white companions of Cabeza de Vaca, first crossed the United States from the Gulf of Mexico to California in 1528-36. The amalgamation of this class in the past century with the Spanish stock produced a superior class of free mulattoes of the Antonio Maceo type, unlike any people in this country with which they can be compared.
“The current expressions of fear concerning the future relations of this race in Cuba seem inexplicable. The slaves of the South were never subjected to a more abject servitude than have been the free-born whites of Cuba, for they at least were protected from arbitrary capital punishment, imprisonment, and deportation without form of trial, such as that to which all Cubans are still subjected, and the white race of this or any other country has furnished few more exalted examples of patriotism than the mulattoes Toussaint L’Ouverture or Antonio Maceo.
“The experiences of the past have shown that there is no possibility of Cuba becoming Africanised without constant renewal by immigration. The 520,000 coloured people, one-half of whom are mulattoes, represent the diminished survival of over 1,000,000 African slaves that have been imported. The Spaniards had the utmost difficulty in acclimatising and establishing this race upon the Island. While Jamaica and other West India islands are a most prolific negro-breeding ground, the race could not be made to thrive in Cuba.
“Those persons who undertake to say what the social conditions of Cuba would be under independence should look elsewhere than to Haiti for a comparison. Even were the population of Cuba black, as it is not, the island of Jamaica would afford a much better contrast. This island, only about one-tenth the size of Cuba, is composed of mountainous lands like the least fertile portion of Cuba; has a population wherein the blacks outnumber the whites forty-four to one; yet, under the beneficent influence of the English colonial system, its civilisation is one of which any land might be proud, possessing highways, sanitation, and other public improvements even superior to those of our own country, and such as have never been permitted by Spain in Cuba. Even though Cuba should become a second Haiti, which it could not, there is some satisfaction in knowing, in the light of historic events, that Haiti free, although still grovelling in the savagery which it inherited, is better off than it would have been had Napoleon succeeded in forcing its people back into slavery, as he endeavoured to do.
“Another fact which will stand against the Africanising of Cuba is that it is highly probable that nearly one-half of these five hundred thousand coloured people have been destroyed during the present insurrection. A large number of them had but recently been released from the bonds of slavery, and were naturally the poorer class of the Island, upon which the hardships have mostly fallen, being generally the field hands in the sugar districts of Habana, Matanzas, and Santa Clara, where the death-rate of the terrible Weyler reconcentramiento has been greatest. Three hundred thousand of the five hundred thousand blacks belonged to these provinces, and of this number fully one-half have been starved to death. The population of Cuba has undergone great modification since the collection of the statistics given. What changes the deplorable conflict has wrought can only be surmised. Beyond doubt, however, the population has at least been reduced to a million inhabitants by emigration of non-combatants, destruction in battle, official deportation of suspects and political prisoners, and by the reconcentration.
“The rural population of the four western provinces of Pinar del Rio, Habana, Matanzas, and Santa Clara has been totally obliterated. Estimates of this extermination are all more or less conjectural, but the Bishop of Habana is authority for the statement that more than four hundred thousand people have been buried in the consecrated cemetery.”
Mr. Charles M. Pepper, in one of his newspaper letters, speaking of the negroes in Cuba, cites instances of their industry and thrift, and says:
“These notes are perhaps not conclusive, yet they have established in my own mind that the negro in Cuba is not an idler or a clog on industrial progress. He will do his part in rebuilding the industries of the Island, and no capitalist need fear to engage in enterprises because of an indefinite fear regarding negro labour. In the country, for a time, the black labourers may be in the majority. That is one of the results of the reconcentration. The blacks stood it better than the whites, and relatively a larger number of them are left for the work in the fields. When the present conditions are improved the question will arise over the immigration of labour. No need for discussing it has yet arisen. The leading blacks are opposed to the wholesale negro immigration to Cuba, and the mass of their people apparently agree with them.
“On its political side the black population of Cuba has a definite status. Social equality does not exist, but social toleration prevails. There is no colour line. Visitors to the Island invariably remark this fact. In places in the interior I have seen the coloured serving-woman occupying a box at the theatre with the family, and no one seemed to be the worse for it. The custom is not general, yet the toleration of the white and black races is strong enough for an incident of this kind to pass without notice. I have heard Americans say it won’t do at all after the Island is Americanised. One ambitious young fellow from a Southern State said to me that he was going back because the coloured race occupied too prominent a place in Cuba. He did not speak with bitterness or intolerance. He had been brought up under different conditions and felt that he would not be in harmony with such surroundings. Those who feel as he does had better stay away.
“The part taken in the insurrection by the blacks has unquestionably strengthened their future influence. In order to depreciate the white Cubans the Spaniards were in the habit of giving all the credit for the warfare of the bush to the black insurgents. Some Americans have thereby been led into error. When the insurrection began the population of the Island was about two-thirds white and one-third black. That proportion was maintained among the insurgent troops. In some of the regiments more than one-half were black, but in others they did not amount to twenty per cent. In the beginning Maceo drew a large following in the eastern provinces, and this was almost entirely of blacks.
“When the insurrection spread over the entire Island the disproportion between the two races was removed. Many of the officers among the insurgents to-day are blacks. They have few officers of the higher rank, because most of these were killed. Of all the insurgent generals who are seen in Havana—and there is a legion of them—the one who attracts the most attention from Americans is General Ducasse. He is a mulatto, and was educated, I think, at the French military school of St. Cyr. A brother, more famous than he, was killed during the last year of the insurrection in Pinar del Rio Province. This General Ducasse is of polished manners and undeniable force of character. A few weeks ago I read an address of his to the black insurgents, in which he counselled them with moderation, and impressed on them the duty of preparing for their new responsibilities.
“These coloured Cubans have at no time been clamorous for recognition. They seem disposed to ask less than is due them. At least they are not forward in their demands. Back of all this is a consciousness of their own strength. In the States a jovial piece of advice used to be given the negroes—‘Don’t hit the white man, but if you do hit him, hit hard.’ Such advice would be unnecessary in Cuba. It is not probable that a temporary influx of Americans with inherited race prejudices will ever succeed in creating a colour line in political affairs. If that should happen the black Cuban would not need to be advised about hitting the white man hard. He would hit both hard and quick, and it would be a long time before Anglo-Saxon civilisation recovered from the blow and proved its superiority. Fortunately, this is never likely to happen. The black man will share the future of Cuba with the white man.
“The race has far more than its proportion of criminals. Some tendencies toward retrogression have to be watched. But in the midst of many discouraging circumstances the unprejudiced student must recognise the great advance that has been made. When Cuba has a system of common schools the advance will be greater. What is significant in the present is that the black man has been doing very well. He will continue to do well, and even better, if too many people do not stay up nights worrying other people with their fears of the future.”
UNDERLYING the prosperity and happiness of the people of any country is health, for without it there can be no strength, no energy, no success, even if all other conditions be favourable. This is true of every section of the world, and is notably true of Cuba, which with almost every advantage that nature could bestow has ever been feared for its malarious diseases, the fatal typhus, and the dreaded “yellow jack,” which acknowledges no master save the frost. For years the world has quarantined against Havana, and other cities have drawn away from this sister in the tropics as from one plague-stricken. Yet this condition is not of nature’s making, but of man’s, and by man shall it be changed into something better. Spain in herself was a tyrant contagion and everything she touched became diseased and rotten to its vitals. And this terrible condition was not only physical, but moral, for moral uncleanness is sure always to follow physical uncleanness. This truth constitutes a corollary out of which has grown the maxim, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.”
The first consideration, then, with the American authorities who have undertaken to clean Spain’s Augean Stables in Cuba is sanitation; and already the best thought and knowledge and experience we have are being brought to bear upon the stupendous task before us.
STREET VIEW, SANTIAGO DE CUBA. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY J. F. COONLEY, NASSAU, N. P.
STREET VIEW, SANTIAGO DE CUBA.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY J. F. COONLEY, NASSAU, N. P.
As has been stated, Cuba is not naturally unhealthful for a hot, wet country; and among the mountains in its interior and in many places along the coasts, removed from the filthiness of aggregated population, the average mortality is not higher than it is in lands of better repute for healthfulness, and the general health is quite as good. As might be expected, there is not that strength and robustness of physique characterising the people of the higher latitudes, nor is the climate conducive to the pink-and-white health of northerners; but though the people are less rugged of constitution and frame and lungs, and lack the outward signs of northern health, they are by no means constant subjects for physicians’ care and they are anything but chronic candidates for the cemetery. Even in the nasty cities they are not all so, for there are many who are able to have their own houses well located, and to adopt modern methods of sanitation for their own private use. But the public health is not considered of importance, and there is not a city in Cuba which is not wofully lacking in good water, good drainage, and good health. One or two towns, which in America would have a contagion flag run up over them, are so much cleaner than the average that in every description of them by any writer appears the statement that they are said to be the cleanest towns in Cuba. It may be said in this connection that the towns are not large.
Beginning with Havana, the capital of the country and the largest city in it, the stories of its great filthiness can scarcely be believed by those who have seen the place upon the surface and moved about in beautiful parks, in brilliant cafés, on the lovely drives, and elsewhere, among pleasure-loving people, all clothed in their clean white suits and smoking their dainty cigarettes. Yet Havana is viler than words can express; and the vileness has slopped over until her harbour is a veritable cesspool, whose waters are deadly, and whose bottom is so covered with filth that ships will not drop their anchors in it, because it is necessary to clean and disinfect them before they can be taken on board. Havana has been in Spain’s possession for four hundred years, and that harbour is a typical result of Spain’s good government. In the city itself the poor people are huddled in ill-built houses—there are only about eighteen thousand houses in the entire place—more densely than in any city of the world, on narrow streets without sewerage, upon the surface of which garbage and all kinds of refuse are thrown. No attention is paid to ventilation. The houses are built so low that the floors rest upon the soft, damp—in many places swampy—ground; the material is a porous conglomerate which absorbs moisture as a sponge does. Sinks are totally inadequate or absent. Water is not sufficiently supplied, and there is scarcely any effort by the authorities to exercise that care and provision for the public well-being which is characteristic of every properly governed city in the world. As an indication of what might be expected from such a condition of affairs the following table, prepared for American officials by the Havana Department of Sanitation showing the number of deaths for the first eleven months of 1898, is cited:
| January | 1,081 |
| February | 1,518 |
| March | 1,500 |
| April | 1,411 |
| May | 1,298 |
| June | 1,129 |
| July | 1,381 |
| August | 1,975 |
| September | 2,390 |
| October | 2,249 |
| November | 1,828 |
| Total | 17,760 |
And this out of a population of about 200,000, in which there were only a few, if any, reconcentrados to starve to death. During this period there were only 2,224 births, showing a net loss of 14,336, or about seven per cent. of the population; a condition of health which would produce a panic in a northern city as soon as the figures were known. Speaking of these figures, Captain Davis, who has been inspecting hospitals, prisons, and public buildings under General Greene, says:
“Vienna, with its million and a half of population, has been called the pest-hole of Europe, because of its death-rate of more than twenty-five to the thousand; yet Havana, with less than one-sixth of its population, has more deaths in one month than Vienna in twelve. The deaths this year in Havana will outnumber those in Chicago by probably five thousand, and will exceed the totals of Boston, St. Louis, Baltimore, and San Francisco combined.”
New York City at this rate would have a death-roll of 270,000 a year and London 450,000, and the deaths in the United States, which are now about 1,000,000 a year, would be about 7,000,000. Of course the figures for 1898 are greatly in excess of other years, owing to the war and the generally disturbed condition of affairs, but even in the healthiest years the death-rate was two or three times greater than the average of other cities.
The leading diseases are consumption, a common disease in hot, wet countries; diarrhœa, dysentery, cholera infantum, and fevers, worst of which is the yellow fever, which is present in Havana every month of the year, although much worse at certain times than at others. It is said that portions of Havana are permanently infected by yellow-fever germs, but Surgeon-General Sternberg, Dr. Wyman, Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine Hospital Service, and other authorities say that by proper sanitary regulations and careful quarantining, the city may be made free of the disease and kept so, as is the case in Jamaica, where the English have had control for years. The work of sanitation will be difficult and expensive, and years will be required to accomplish it, but it must be done before Havana’s future is assured. Sewers are few and far between, and those which exist are filled with refuse from the streets and are never cleaned, as the odours that rise from them constantly most disagreeably testify. They empty into the bay. Most of the drainage is surface, and as the city lies so low that a heavy wind across the waters of the bay will inundate many of the streets, it will be understood that the drainage is sluggish, and that what should be carried off by water is usually left to be rotted and dried by the sun—except in the rainy season, when it rots without drying. Much of the lower part of the city is built on swamp and “made-land,” and what this means for the health of those who live upon it needs no elucidation.
The following statement, made by José M. Yzquierdo, civil engineer, of Havana, under date of September 28, 1898, will throw some light upon street-sweeping contracts in Havana, show why the work cannot be properly done, and also indicate the part that the city authorities have always taken in the good cause:
“I now have the contract for cleaning the streets and have been connected with the city government a long time. The present system of cleaning the streets is a combination of old and new. When I took up the work about five years ago, I ascertained that the system was very deficient, so I went to New York and studied up the matter. To begin with, the pavements were very bad. The automatic street-sweepers cannot be used to advantage, though I have two sweeping-machines. At night time my people go out with the sweeping-machines and a sprinkler and clean the streets, and from there the dirt is taken to the railroad cars and from the station about nine miles from here, and there I do some business with it; that is, I make a kind of fertilizer. I employ 230 men. We have no furnace to burn up the garbage. I am now going to make a proposition to the city council to clean the cities for the same price and use crematories, doing it on the American plan. For cleaning the city I am to be paid $2350.50 weekly, but I do not get the money; they owe me $180,000. A year or two ago, by giving ten per cent. to the city mayors, etc., I collected $20,000 in one week. Immediately after I got the contract the aldermen called upon me and directed my attention to certain articles in it, so that I finally had to take these aldermen into partnership in order to collect the money.
WATERMAN IN THE COUNTRY.
WATERMAN IN THE COUNTRY.
“I have also had the slaughter-house privilege. I paid the city council $800,000 per year for the privilege of collecting the slaughter-house taxes, and one year I collected nearly $880,000, out of which, of course, I had to pay my men. This has fallen off a great deal. To slaughter cattle, you have to pay 4½ cents per kilo, $1 per head for the corral, $1.25 to kill and dress it, and then 50 cents to take it to the market. The present slaughter-house is a new one, and not very efficient at present, but it could be made into a good one. All the refuse from the slaughter-house now goes into the bay.”
What is true of Havana is true in lesser degree of the other cities and towns of the Island, the degree being governed chiefly by the difference in size; the larger the town, the nastier it is.
Cienfuegos, which, by the way, is the most promising town in the Island, in the commercial sense, is notoriously ill policed, and is a sprouting-ground for all manner of diseases. A report dated November 21, 1898, made by D. E. Dudley, Sanitary Inspector, U.S.M.H.S., notes the fact that its elevation above sea-level is only about eight feet and it is surrounded by a belt of lowlands from eight to ten miles wide. The streets are seventy feet wide, unclean, and out of repair, and in the wet season are fields of nasty mud. There are three sewers, one from the Hotel Union, and another from buildings in the same block, and the third and only public sewer is from the Civil Hospital. The first two of these sewers empty into the bay at the steamer wharf, about two feet above the water-line, and when the wind is in the right direction the gases and vile odours are blown back into the buildings, filling them with stenches. The Hotel Union, the Charity Hospital, and a few private dwellings have modern water-closets, but elsewhere over the city the houses have shallow privy sinks, which are emptied at night and the contents dumped against the cemetery walls. Around the cemetery is also the dumping-ground for garbage, dead animals, and all the refuse of the city, the disposal of which is not under any especial authority. This dumping-ground is a mile and a half from the Hotel Union. Dr. Dudley says:
“Here in this garbage reservation can be seen large numbers of buzzards, feasting on dead horses or dogs, or perched on the cemetery walls, waiting for fresh consignments. Extensive lagoons and lakes of fœcal matter taken from privy vaults lie spread upon the ground. A small section of this reservation faces the bay, and here the collector of the garbage has his living-quarters, in an old tumble-down hut.
“The only cemetery is situated a mile and a half from the heart of the city. It is surrounded by a wall twelve feet high, which furnishes vault room. The cemetery is very small and the section reserved for paupers is more than overcrowded. During my visit ten graves were being dug. By actual measurement I found these graves three feet in depth. Coffins are loaned by the municipalities to paupers, and the bodies alone are buried. In these pauper graves three bodies are buried, one over the other; and then, in less than one year’s time, they are reopened and made ready for new bodies. Portions of skeletons were thrown out of each of the ten graves I saw. In consideration of a dollar, a grave was opened for me, and I counted four skulls. In closing up the graves, these bones are packed around the new bodies. As a rule the topmost corpse is so near the surface that the earth has to be banked up a foot in order completely to cover it.
“Water.—This is one of the most serious problems which confront the municipal authorities of this city, and one of much concern to us, if American troops are to be quartered there. The supply is absolutely inadequate to the demands of the city. The hotels and a few residences have cement cisterns built in the ground and use rain-water; but the chief supply comes from a small (and said to be badly polluted) stream, the Jicotea River, a small branch of the Cannau. The water is pumped into two aqueducts; the principal one, which is called after the Jicotea River, holds four hundred thousand litres; a smaller one, the Bouffartique, holds three hundred thousand litres. Pipes from these two aqueducts run through a few of the streets, above ground, alongside the curbing. The gates are open only two hours daily. The hospitals use this water, after boiling. As a remedy for this condition, I am told, there was a project to bring water from a point twenty miles distant, from the falls of the Hanabanilla River, 1200 feet above the sea. Absolute freedom from pollution was claimed. It was abandoned on account of the war. The estimated cost for this work was $1,000,000. The Jicotea aqueduct is simply a large open cistern, built of rock and cement, attached to a brick building in which the Spanish quartermaster has his stores. There are about two hundred wells in the city, but infected, the privy sinks being within a few feet.
“Quarantine.—At a point nine miles from the city, on the western shore, I found, in my opinion, an ideal location for a quarantine station. The place, the Concha, owned by the Marquis de Apezteguia as a winter resort, can be purchased. The palace, built on a terrace near the water’s edge, was burned by the insurgent forces. A pier thirty to fifty feet can be built so that steamers can have eight fathoms of water. An island about one-half a mile distant could be used, and a hospital for infectious and contagious diseases built.
“In concluding this report I wish to call your attention to the probability of an extensive spread of smallpox in the interior. At a town eight hours’ ride from Habana to Colon, I saw beggars convalescent from smallpox.”
During the first ten months in 1898 the total number of deaths in Cienfuegos was 3626, out of a population which before the war was 21,500; adding soldiers and reconcentrados, it might be said to be 25,000, and at these figures a monthly death-rate of 362 is something fearful to contemplate. Estimating the deaths for a year at 4144, we have a rate of 166 per 1000. In the ten years ending December 31, 1889, reported by Dr. Luis Perna, over fifty per cent. of the deaths were from infectious and contagious diseases due almost entirely to bad or no sanitation. During the same year the births exceeded the deaths by 1982, a much better showing than in Havana, the difference there being 12,433 against the population in four years, and in Matanzas, 2397 lost in eight years.
Of the effect of proper sanitary regulations and personal attention on tuberculosis, Dr. Perna says:
“There can be no doubt that the ravages of tuberculosis could be materially arrested by compliance with the laws of hygiene. Infractions of civil law may or may not be punished, but infractions of the laws of hygiene are inevitably paid for sooner or later. In combating tuberculosis we must consider the air we breathe, the food we eat, the roof that covers us, and the clothes we wear. The disease should be recognised as contagious. Phthisical patients should be kept in well-ventilated apartments; sputa should be disinfected, and clothing and utensils used by such patients should be disinfected.”
Matanzas is situated on high ground, with the rivers San Juan and Yumuri running through it, and the natural facilities for drainage are excellent; but only two streets have sewers, and these drains have few or no connections with buildings. The water supply is of excellent quality, from springs seven miles away; but only two thousand of the five thousand houses take it, and the majority of the people prefer to buy water from street vendors, who are quite as likely to get it from fever-infected wells as elsewhere. There are public fountains, but those who need Cuban water most are too lazy to carry it home. Privies and sinks are more numerous than modern closets, and are handled as elsewhere, with the usual results. The streets are narrow (thirty feet wide), dirty, and unpaved; in the wet season they are vile. The houses are built of porous stone, which absorbs the dampness; the floors, laid on the ground, are overflowed by the rains, and their smell at all times is difficult to describe and dangerous to health. The deaths per year for 1895 were 1465, with a nominal population of 50,000, although it was cut to 35,000 by the insurrection; in 1896, 2399; in 1897, 6795; and in 1898, to September, 3901—which fearful figures may be accounted for by the fact that Matanzas was the centre for reconcentrados, and they died like sheep—eighty per cent. of them from starvation. The only disinfection that could reach this condition was applied to Spain by the United States, and there will never be any more epidemics of starvation in Cuba, or any more reconcentrados, for that matter. But even without her reconcentrado population, Matanzas is no health resort, and the cleansing hand must be applied to her early and rigorously.
MARIANAO WATER VENDOR
MARIANAO WATER VENDOR
Cardenas, a city of twenty thousand people, more or less, is set down in the midst of a swamp, rarely more than ten feet above sea-level, and oftener only three or four. Its narrow streets are lacking in pavements or sewers. Lying contiguous to the south-east side of the city are more than thirty thousand acres of swamp, a fecund breeding-ground for typhus-and yellow-fever germs. Twenty years ago a commission was appointed to inquire into the construction of a canal to drain this swamp into the Anton River, but at this present date no canal is in sight, and the fever germs go merrily on in their work of supplying the cemeteries with subjects. The water supply is good, but many of the people prefer to buy dangerous well-water from street vendors, because of its cheapness. At Cape Hicacos, near Cardenas, are extensive salt-pits, the chlorides of which are supposed to act as a disinfectant, and that immediate locality is said to be the most healthful along the coast.
Puerto Principe, a town of forty thousand inhabitants, the largest of the inland cities, is situated on high ground, well watered and well drained, and though antiquated and utterly lacking in modern conveniences or sanitary regulations, as they are known among northern people, is so much more healthful than other Cuban towns as to warrant a milder animadversion than in the case of others. Yellow fever is only known sporadically, if at all, and contagion and infection are so much less flourishing than in the coast towns that Puerto Principe seems positively healthful in comparison, albeit in an American community the condition of the city would warrant the impeachment of any board of health having control of its sanitation.
Santiago de Cuba, with a population of, say forty thousand, is next to Havana in importance among the cities of Cuba, and has been accumulating filth since 1514, when the first Spaniards settled there. Just what nearly four hundred years of Spanish sanitation means is better imagined than experienced. Moreover, its location is down among hills which shut off the breeze, and in summer the city becomes intolerably hot and dangerous to health. It is situated on a hillside, with a landlocked bay before it, removed from all sea or coast currents, and for 384 years the drainage of the town—not by sewers, for they do not exist—has gone into this bay, until its bottom and waters are vile beyond expression. In the city itself filth everywhere prevails—or did prevail until the United States authorities took charge, since which time Governor Wood and his assistants have done an amount of cleaning up that is as wholesome as it is difficult to accomplish. This work has been so vigorously prosecuted and the results so beneficial that a chapter has been devoted to the subject. It is said that in time man may become accustomed to any condition of life, and the dozen generations of Santiagoans seem to have got used to their town, for its ordinary death-rate was but 29.8 per 1000, with an increase to 33 to 35 when yellow fever or smallpox became more violent than usual. In 1895 the death-rate went up to 51.2 per 1000, and in 1896 to 82.77. Four thousand people died in that year, and this is the last record known. This large increase was due to the presence of unacclimated troops from Spain, and though it may explain the high death-rate, it scarcely can excuse a sanitary condition which is so fatal to Spanish soldiers, who have had experience with Spanish sanitary regulations in their own country until they ought to be almost used to it. In 1896 there were 372 deaths from yellow fever and 509 from smallpox. Santiago has one inventive sanitarian in the person of Dr. Garcia, who, five years ago, devised a “cold box” for the case of yellow-fever patients. As is known, the frost will kill the germs of yellow fever; and as natural frost is impossible in Cuba Dr. Garcia hit upon the idea of producing artificial cold. His device is simple enough. The main feature is a small house, say five feet by seven, and six feet high, which is practically a refrigerator, with double roof and walls for packing the ice. A window is put in for light, and the patient is laid in his bed in a temperature of about freezing. He has no attendants inside, except when needed, and he is watched through the window. This method usually kills or cures the patient in from twelve to thirty-six hours. At first the box was not successful, for condensation practically drowned the patient out; but that was remedied by draining the water off. There is a great difference of opinion in relation to the efficacy of this treatment; some physicians entirely disapproving it, while others as strongly recommend it.
What may be done for the proper sanitary regulation of Santiago is a serious problem, as, owing to the distance from the sea and the landlocked character of the bay, the sewage, which may be easily drained down the sloping streets of the town, is bound to remain near the shore. For the present, Major Barbour, Superintendent of the Santiago Street Department, disposes of the sewage by sprinkling it with petroleum and burning it.
Manzanillo, population nine thousand, with a large and beautiful military plaza, has filthy streets and no public improvements of any kind looking to the health or comfort of the people; and the people seem to like it. The streets are unpaved, and Manzanillo mud is an alliterative term which has become a household word for the nastiest mud on the Island. The town is twenty feet above the bay, with hills to the rear, and near it are great swamps filled with mosquitoes and malaria, which spread themselves abroad in every direction.
Guantanamo, population nine thousand, seven miles inland, one hundred and fifteen feet above the bay of the same name, is situated on the river Guaso, and might be easily and thoroughly drained; but no efforts have been made in that direction, and malaria and fevers prevail. With any kind of decent care, the city could be made as healthful as any in the same latitude.
Pinar del Rio, the capital of its province, with 5500 population, is situated 25 miles from the sea, 160 feet above it, and on a hill 70 feet high. It is in the midst of the famous Vuelta Abajo tobacco district, and it might be made a clean town; but its streets are narrow and filthy, its people are a mixture of French and African, and it is a reflection on the great American Republic, in that it was founded in 1776.
Batabano, the southern seaport of Havana, thirty miles away, in its narrow, dirty streets presents a condition of neglect and nastiness suggesting that it is also a receptacle for the surplus refuse of the capital.
Guanabacoa, a high and beautifully located city of twenty-five thousand people, just outside of Havana, several degrees cooler than the capital city, in the midst of pleasant breezes and cool groves, has narrow, filthy streets, no pavements, no public improvements, small houses with no modern conveniences, huddled together, and is a dozen times worse than if nature had not done so much for it.
Güines and Marianao are so much cleaner and sweeter than any other towns as to make one wonder why they are the exception instead of the rule.
Possibly it is hardly fair to call attention to or animadvert upon the sanitary regulations and conditions of Santa Clara, an inland city and capital of Santa Clara Province, seeing that in ten and a half months of 1897 there were over one hundred thousand deaths in the province, of which nearly one third occurred in Santa Clara district. These were chiefly reconcentrados, and show that there are some things Spanish even worse than Spanish sanitation. The town has a population of twenty thousand, is situated in a healthful locality, and while little has been done toward public health, there is no yellow fever.
As with the cities and towns above mentioned, with the two exceptions named, so of all Cuban aggregations of population. Everywhere there is ignorance, carelessness, filth, disease, and death, and only education, care, and time can remedy the evil. It may not, cannot be that Cuba will ever enjoy the robuster health of the north, but she can be clean, and to that end must every ability of knowledge, labour, and means be directed, not only by those who are in authority, but by those whose direct welfare is at stake.
Outside of the cities, conditions prevail which will be more difficult, if not in many cases impossible, to remedy. Much of the Island along the coasts is swampy; there malaria and fevers breed, and these sections, if not capable of drainage, must be deserted by man, and left to the alligators, toads, and lizards. Many of the swamps may be drained and the land converted into fields yielding rich harvests; these should be given the proper attention. In many places the tropical forests are of such dense and tangled growth that no sunlight ever penetrates them, and here, after nightfall, deadly miasmas arise, full of poison and disease. Vast areas of such forests are filled with valuable timber, and when these woods are cleared and converted into money, and the sunlight can get in and exercise its saving grace upon the land, a wonderful improvement will follow.
Back from the coasts, particularly in the eastern part of the Island, the land is high and well drained, with mountains in some portions rising from five thousand to eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. While the heat and humidity incidental to the latitude prevail all over the Island, they are much less in the uplands than along the coast, and the climate for half the year is very agreeable and the air has a brilliant clearness that has become famous. Over all these lands there should be in the future a population which should develop into a contradiction of the tradition that the people of the tropics live because they are too lazy to die.
THE political divisions of Cuba, known as provinces, are six in number, and are named as follows, beginning at the west: Pinar del Rio, Havana, Matanzas, Santa Clara, Puerto Principe, and Santiago de Cuba; the capital city of each bearing the same name as its province.
Of the provinces it may be said that Pinar del Rio, with an area of 8486 square miles, has a population of 225,891 (167,160 white and 58,731 black), and is the centre of the tobacco industry, the famous Vuelta Abajo district lying within its limits; sugar, coffee, rice, corn, cotton, and fruits are also raised. Havana, with an area of 8610 square miles, has a population of 451,928 (344,417 white and 107,511 black). It is the centre of manufacture, the capital province, and the most populous province of the Island. Matanzas, with an area of 14,967 square miles, has a population of 259,578 (143,169 white and 115,409 black), and is the centre of the sugar industry; corn, rice, honey, wax, and fruits are produced and the province contains a deposit of peat and copper. Santa Clara, with an area of 23,083 square miles, has a population of 354,122 (244,345 white and 109,777 black), and it is rich in sugar, fruits, and minerals, including gold deposits in the Arino River. Puerto Principe, with an area of 32,341 square miles, has a population of 67,789 (54,232 white and 13,557 black), and is a mountainous region, with the largest caves and the highest mountains; building and cabinet woods and guava jelly are its chief products. Santiago de Cuba, with an area of 35,119 square miles, the largest of the provinces, has a population of 272,379 (57,980 white and 114,399 black), and not only possesses all the agricultural products found in the other provinces, but also has deposits of gold, iron, copper, zinc, asphalt, manganese, mercury, marble and alabaster, rock crystal, and gems, and its commerce is most extensive.
SQUARE IN FRONT OF GOVERNOR’S PALACE AT SANTIAGO DE CUBA.
SQUARE IN FRONT OF GOVERNOR’S PALACE AT SANTIAGO DE
CUBA.
There are 115 cities and towns in the Island having an estimated population of 200 and upwards named as follows:
| Cities | Population | Cities | Population |
| Havana | 200,000 | Macurijes | 4,100 |
| Matanzas | 50,000 | Bayamo | 3,634 |
| Puerto Principe | 40,679 | San Luis | 3,556 |
| Santiago de Cuba | 40,000 | San Cristobal | 3,522 |
| Cienfuegos | 25,790 | Guira de Melena | 3,500 |
| Guanabacoa | 25,000 | Morón | 3,017 |
| Santa Clara | 24,635 | La Cruces | 3,000 |
| Cardenas | 20,505 | Alfonso XII | 3,000 |
| Trinidad | 18,000 | Arroyo Navanijo | 3,000 |
| Sancti Spiritu | 17,540 | Sabanillo del Encomendador | 2,991 |
| Sagua la Grande | 14,000 | Palmira | 2,987 |
| Regla | 10,486 | Guanajayabo | 2,879 |
| Manzanillo | 9,036 | Nueva Paz | 2,737 |
| Guantanamo | 9,000 | Alquizar | 2,700 |
| San Antonio de las Baños | 7,500 | San Felipe | 2,311 |
| San Juan de los Remedios | 7,230 | San Juan de las Yeras | 2,267 |
| San Fernando de Nuevitas | 6,991 | Jaruco | 2,200 |
| San Julian de los Guines | 6,828 | San Jose de las Lajas | 2,170 |
| Colón | 6,525 | La Esperanza | 2,147 |
| Bejucal | 6,239 | San Juan y Martinez | 2,100 |
| Jorellanos (Bemba) | 6,000 | Corral Nuevo | 2,092 |
| Santiago de las Vegas | 6,000 | Consolacion del Sur | 2,000 |
| Guanajay | 6,000 | Guines | 2,000 |
| Pinar del Rio | 5,500 | Santa Cruz | 2,000 |
| Holguin | 5,500 | Quemados de Guines | 2,000 |
| Caibarien | 5,500 | Quivican | 1,950 |
| Baracoa | 5,213 | Bahia Honda | 1,889 |
| Guira | 5,000 | Batabano | 1,864 |
| La Isabela | 5,000 | Bolondron | 1,758 |
| Artemisa | 5,000 | Santa Domingo | 1,750 |
| Santa Isabel de las Lajas | 4,924 | Mariel | 1,637 |
| Guana | 4,650 | Cuevitas | 1,629 |
| Gibara | 4,608 | Cervantes | 1,560 |
| Macagua | 4,100 | Ranchuelo | 1,533 |
| Cabañas | 1,509 | Managua | 896 |
| San Antonio de Cabezas | 1,500 | Ceiba del Agua | 892 |
| Zaza | 1,500 | Roque | 800 |
| Calaboya | 1,500 | Salud | 800 |
| Cartagena | 1,497 | Canasi | 700 |
| Calabazar | 1,481 | Caney | 700 |
| Palmillas | 1,471 | Jibacos | 696 |
| Aguacate | 1,427 | Cidra | 695 |
| San Diego del Valle | 1,403 | Vereda Nueva | 672 |
| Jiguani | 1,393 | Santa Maria del Rosario | 660 |
| Mantua | 1,380 | Rancho Velez | 656 |
| Cayajabos | 1,352 | Santa Ana | 601 |
| Marianao | 1,225 | San Jose de los Remos | 570 |
| San Antonio de Rio Blanco del Norte | 1,200 | Lagunillas | 520 |
| Candelaria | 1,200 | Guane | 510 |
| Ciego de Avila | 1,167 | San Matias de Rio Blanco | 400 |
| Catalina | 1,165 | Alto Songo | 400 |
| San Antonio de las Vegas | 1,136 | Limonar | 330 |
| Tapaste | 1,130 | Amaro | 320 |
| San Nicolas | 1,100 | San Miguel | 300 |
| Melena del Sur | 1,082 | Madruga | 300 |
| Santa Cruz del Sur | 1,000 | Cimarrones | 300 |
| Bainoa | 1,000 | Mangar | 209 |
| Sagua de Tanamo | 981 | La Boca | 200 |
| Vinales | 925 | Alonso Rojos | 200 |
In addition to these are 132 places with less than 200 population, including railroad stations, bathing and health resorts, and farm hamlets.
As will be observed by the student of municipal nomenclature, the Spanish were liberal to Cuba in christening the towns in the Island, however parsimonious the mother country was in respect of all other things; and many Cuban towns have more name than anything else. The oldest town is Baracoa, in the province of Santiago de Cuba. It was laid out in 1512. Its chief products are bananas, cocoa, and cocoa oil, and there are some remarkable caves near by, noted for beautiful stalactites and well preserved fossil human remains.
The largest city in the Island is Havana, the capital, to which a chapter is devoted elsewhere in this volume.
A MULE TRAIN, SANTIAGO DE CUBA. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY J. F. COONLEY, NASSAU, N. P.
A MULE TRAIN, SANTIAGO DE CUBA.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY J. F. COONLEY, NASSAU, N. P.
Matanzas, in size the second city of the Island, and the capital of the province of Matanzas, is, in some particulars, the most attractive city of Cuba, although but one-fourth the size of Havana. It lies seventy-four miles by rail to the east of Havana, on the fine bay of Matanzas, with beautiful hills at its back. The town is divided into three parts by the rivers San Juan and Yumuri, two streams which water the valley of Yumuri, situated behind the hills of Matanzas, and presenting the most exquisite scenery in Cuba. The climate and soil of the valley make Yumuri, to Cubans, synonymous with poesy and Paradise. Notwithstanding the commercial importance of Matanzas, the Spanish authorities have neglected the wharves and permitted its harbour to become so filled with sediment from the river that ships are compelled to load and unload by means of lighters in the roadstead. The city was founded in 1693, and has paved streets, usually thirty feet in width, with three-foot sidewalks; interesting stuccoed houses of two stories, coloured drab and ochre, with balconies; pleasant parks, with fountains and flowers; a pleasure promenade and drive—the Paseo; one of the best hotels in Cuba; several theatres, among them the Esteban; some notable churches, including the Hermitage, on Mount Montserrat, at whose shrine marvellous cures are said to be effected. The people are well content.
The leading industries are rum distilleries, sugar refineries, guava-jelly factories, machine and railroad-car shops. Shipments of sugar and molasses to the United States in 1891-95 were about $60,000,000. The city has gas-works and an electric-light plant, but no street-cars, and since 1872 it has had a fine water supply, though only about half the houses are connected with the water system, and many of the people still buy water of street vendors, without knowledge as to the source of supply or purity of the water. Sewers run through only two streets, though the location of the city is well adapted to secure excellent drainage. The suburbs, or rather divisions, of the city by the river are known as Versailles, on the north-east, and to the south-east, Pueblo Nuevo. Through the latter part of the city leads the road to the famous caves of Bellamar, three and a half miles, where many invalids resort for the health-giving qualities of the warm air of the caverns.
The most beautiful and striking feature of Matanzas is the cañon of the Yumuri, a great gorge of perpendicular walls green-clad with tropical vegetation through which the rivers of the Yumuri Valley flow down to the sea. This is a constant resort for the pleasure-loving Matanzans, and they thoroughly realise its beauty and value to the city. There are many interesting drives and excursions by river and rail from Matanzas. The waggon roads extending into the interior, as everywhere in Cuba, are in wretched condition; the railroad connections by several routes are fairly good, the roads being equipped with American-cars and engines. Its population of fifty thousand is nominal, having been reduced about one-third by the war.
The third city in the Island is Puerto Principe, capital of the province of Puerto Principe, and known to the natives as Camagüey, the original name of the town and province. It is forty-five miles from the south coast and thirty-five from the north, although it is forty-five miles from its seaport, Nuevitas, with which it is connected by its only railroad. It is located in the midst of what once was the grazing district,—though the cattle are now destroyed,—and being on a plain seven hundred feet above the sea it is a healthful place. Camagüey is a back-number town, so to speak, having narrow streets with narrow sidewalks, or none at all, old houses, old fashions, and fewer foreigners than any of the other Cuban towns. It is distinctively Cuban, and the new era of Cuba will no doubt work a long time on the good people of Camagüey before they set aside the old things and step out into the procession of progress, clothed in the uniforms of the modern “hustlers.” In this city of over forty thousand people there is not a hotel, and the inhabitants are noted for their hospitality.
Of great commercial significance is Cienfuegos, one of the south-coast cities, and in some respects one of the best towns on the Island. It is situated on the landlocked bay of Jagua, with one of the safest harbours in the world, and though built only since 1819, and restored after a hurricane in 1825, it has developed a spirit of energy and progress rare in Cuban cities. It has an extensive and growing commerce, with numerous wharves and piers for its shipping; a railroad 190 miles to Havana and one to Sagua la Grande on the north coast; electric lights and gas-works; 25,790 people; 3000 stone and wooden houses; the famous Terry theatre and one of the finest plazas in Cuba; a good location for drainage, but with stagnant water in the streets, and no sewers; much bad health, and one of the finest opportunities on earth to take advantage of the new order of things and convert its energy and youth into a power that will make Cienfuegos the Chicago of Cuba. There is one good hotel. The only serious strike that ever occurred in Cuba took place in Cienfuegos among the longshoremen, and resulted in the sending of all the recalcitrants by the authorities to the Isle of Pines as criminals. The bay of Jagua is noted for its beautiful clear blue water with a bottom of the whitest sand. The climate is more variable than that of Cuban coast cities as a rule, the mercury marking as high as ninety-three degrees in summer and going down into the fifties during the night in the rainy season.
The Cuban city held to be the most healthful, though sanitary regulations are practically unknown, is Trinidad, in the province of Santa Clara. It is also one of the oldest, having been founded by Diego Velasquez in 1514. It is three miles in the interior from its seaport, Casilda, though coastwise vessels of light draft can approach it by the river Guaurabo. The town has a picturesque location, on the slope of La Vija (“Lookout”), a hill rising nine hundred feet above the sea. The harbour of Casilda is three miles long by one and a half miles wide, and has only about eleven feet of water. From this bay Cortez sailed for Mexico. There are several fine public parks and drives, and socially Trinidad in the winter season is one of the gayest cities on the Island. It is lighted by gas, and though it has no sewers, its location is such that the rains keep it washed clean. The population is eighteen thousand. In good times Trinidad has shipped to the United States $903,700 worth of sugar, mahogany, coffee, and honey in one year, but times have been poor in recent years, and Trinidad is one of the towns which will feel the reviving effects of the new era of prosperity.
Santa Clara, the capital of the province of that name, has a population of twenty-five thousand, and is popularly known as Villa Clara. It was founded in 1689, and was once known for its great wealth and beautiful women; its glory in this latter regard still continues. It has one excellent hotel, kept in modern fashion, and a fine theatre. Its railway connections are excellent in all directions; indeed, it is the terminus of the Cuban system of railways. It is 248 miles by rail from Havana, and thirty miles from the north and forty from the south coast. Its location is high, and a fine grazing country surrounds it. Minerals also abound, and ten thousand tons of a fine asphaltum have been shipped in a year. Silver yielding as much as $200 per ton has been found, but the mines have not been worked. Evidences of natural gas are present near the town. Santa Clara has wide streets, and despite its healthful location, it is, by reason of poor or no sanitary regulations, an unhealthful place, though there is never any yellow fever.
YUMURI RIVER AND ENTRANCE TO THE VALLEY, MATANZAS.
YUMURI RIVER AND ENTRANCE TO THE VALLEY, MATANZAS.
The capital of the province of Santiago de Cuba is Santiago de Cuba, generally known as Cuba to the natives and Santiago to foreigners. Owing to its war record it is the best-known town in the Island. It is situated on the south coast, one hundred miles from the west end of Cuba, and its harbour is one of the safest and finest in the world, having an opening into the sea only one hundred and eighty yards in width, extending back six miles into a beautiful bay, three miles wide at its greatest width. Santiago has a population of forty thousand (estimated sixty thousand in 1895), and is the second oldest city in Cuba, the capital having been removed thither from Baracoa in 1514 by Velasquez. It is historically the most interesting city in Cuba, and it promises to be for the future second in importance to none in the Island, except Havana. It became a bishopric as early as 1527 and is now the metropolis of the Catholic Church in Cuba, the Archbishop of Santiago being the Primate. The celebrations of church festivals are conducted with ceremonies more elaborate than those anywhere else in the Island, and the cathedral, in the Hispano-American style, is the largest in Cuba, if not the handsomest. It is said that in a Santiago theatre Adelina Patti made her first public appearance, at the age of fourteen years; Velasquez is buried in this city, and so is Antomarchi, the physician of Napoleon, who died, as his emperor did, upon a foreign island. Cuba’s greatest poet, José Maria Heredia, was born here, as were Milanes, Dona Luisa Perez de Montes de Oca, Dona Gertrudis Gomez de Avellanda; and Placido, next to Heredia in merit, passed several years here.
Although well located for drainage, Santiago is one of the most unhealthful towns in Cuba, and its beautiful bay is little better than a cesspool. Yellow fever and smallpox have been the prevailing epidemics for years, but under the new order a new condition will arise. Santiago, with very poor business houses and offices, does a flourishing trade, wholesale, retail, and in shipping. The surrounding country has many people employed not only in agriculture, but in mining as well, for Santiago is the centre of the mining district. Its railway facilities are practically nil, being located two hundred miles east of the last railway leading anywhere. The city is Moorish in its aspect. It is sufficiently ancient to be without hotels, though there are several clubs where civilised beings may be entertained comfortably. The fortifications about the city are interesting: the Morro,—which is one hundred years older than that of Havana,—La Socapa, La Estrella, and Smith Key—all these have received much mention during the late war. The mining interests of Santiago will be considered under a separate chapter.
Cardenas may be said to be the newest town in Cuba, and is known as “the American city,” owing to the fact that many Americans are located here in business, or make it their headquarters, with business interests elsewhere in the Island. It was founded in 1828, is a thriving town, with wide streets, numerous wharves, a plaza with a bronze statue of Columbus, and is a purely commercial city. The harbour is shallow, and the piers running into it are from three hundred to one thousand feet in length. Although without sewers and located on swampy ground, Cardenas is not unhealthful as the term is understood in Cuba. There are fine water-works, but many of the people still prefer to buy water of street vendors. Gas and electricity light the town. Its chief business is in sugar, but, unlike other Cuban cities, it possesses numerous and varied manufactures, producing liquors, beers, metal-work, soap, cigars, fabrics, etc. It has connection by steamer and rail with the chief points of the Island. The population is 20,505, over 15,000 of which is white. Cardenas exported goods in 1894 to the amount of $10,008,565, of which $9,682,335 was in sugar shipped to the United States, as against $10,000,000 the previous year. Her imports in 1892 were $4,900,000, and in 1895 the United States sent 32,283 tons of coal to this port. Situated in one of the richest agricultural sections of Cuba, Cardenas is also not poor in mineral wealth, notably asphalt. Peculiar mines of asphalt are found in the waters of the bay. The mineral is broken loose by bars dropped from ten to twelve feet through the water upon it, and the pieces are scooped up with a net. The supply of the mineral is renewed from some unknown source as fast as it is taken away. One of these mines has furnished as much as 20,000 tons, and the supply is inexhaustible. Asphalt of the first grade is worth from $80 to $125 per ton.
Sagua la Grande, twenty-five miles from the mouth of the river of that name, is almost wholly a sugar town. It has a population of 14,000, and is the northern terminus of the Havana Railway system. Its seaport is La Isabela, with a poor harbour; and its exports in 1895 reached nearly $5,000,000—with a great falling off since, as it has suffered as much as any town in the Island from the insurrection. As an indication of this it may be said that immediately before the insurrection there were 23,500 cattle, 4500 horses, 4000 hogs, 700 sheep, and 450 mules in the Sagua district, practically all of which have been destroyed or stolen. Sagua has an ice plant whose product has sold at $3 per hundredweight. The railway from Sagua to Cienfuegos marks the boundary between the western and eastern districts of Cuba.
Caibarien is another nineteenth-century town, having been founded in 1822. Its houses are of brick, and its warehouses of recent styles of architecture. Its population is fifty-five hundred, and it is said to be not unhealthful, though its general level is not much more than ten feet above the sea, and the country is swampy. Its chief industry is sugar, although recently an active business in sponges has grown up, principally of local consumption, the annual value approaching half a million of dollars. The harbour is extensive, but shallow and poor. A railway extends to San Andres, twenty-eight and one-half miles in the interior. Some waggon roads, unusually good for Cuba, connect it with various sugar estates. The future possibilities of Caibarien are numerous and great.
Manzanillo is the best town on the south coast between Trinidad and Santiago, and was founded in 1784. It has a population of nine thousand, and is the seaport of several interior towns and a rich sugar district, and is also the gateway to the fertile valley of the Cauto River, the most important stream in the Island. It has a fine plaza, and numerous inferior houses on fairly good streets, wider than the usual Cuban street. There are no water-works, gas-works, electric lights, or street-cars. The town is one of the most unhealthful in the Island, and of Manzanillo mud the author has spoken in a previous chapter. The principal shipments are lumber, tobacco, sugar, honey, and wax. In 1892-93-94 four million feet of mahogany and two million one hundred thousand feet of cedar were exported.
Pinar del Rio, the capital of its province, should be particularly interesting to Americans, as it was founded in 1776. It is a brick and stone town of 5500 population and is neither clean nor attractive. It has very few foreigners and is in no sense a modern place. It is, however, of commercial importance, being the centre of the famous Vuelta Abajo tobacco district, which produces the finest tobacco in the world. Pinar del Rio is essentially a tobacco town. It is connected with Havana by a highroad (calzada) and also by railway. The town is lacking in most of the modern conveniences, and the spirit of the people is not quick to respond to new notions.
An alphabetical list of the lesser towns may serve a useful purpose to the reader whose geography of Cuba is as yet not complete.
Artemisa (Pinar del Rio) is a town of five thousand people, with a paved road to Guanajay, nine miles, and a railway to Havana, thirty-five miles. It is in a fine tobacco and sugar district, and is a low and unhealthful place, but beautifully shaded with palms.
PANORAMA FROM THE ROAD TO THE CAVES, MATANZAS.
PANORAMA FROM THE ROAD TO THE CAVES, MATANZAS.
Bahia Honda (Pinar del Rio), with about two thousand population, is one of the chief seaports of the mountain coast; and although it possesses none of the visible evidences of future promise, still it is one of the places which impress the visitor with belief in its future greatness. Its population is largely black, its wharves are miserable, its houses are poor; though over one hundred years old, it is not a port of entry—and still Bahia is promising. The harbour is one of the finest on the coast, the surrounding country is rich in tobacco and sugar soil, the climatic conditions are favourable, and the new times will be good times for Bahia.
Cabanas (Pinar del Rio), with a population of fifteen hundred, has a landlocked, shallow harbour, four miles by seven in extent, and its connections with the interior are bad. It came into prominence during the war, and was partly destroyed by General Maceo.
Consolacion del Sur (Pinar del Rio) is, after Bahia Honda, the chief commercial town of the province. It has a population of two thousand, and is in the centre of the Vuelta Abajo tobacco district, with eight hundred plantations tributary to it.
Guanajay (Pinar del Rio) has a population of six thousand, is the junction of several paved roads, and is considerably above the average interior town in progressive spirit. It is lacking, however, in modern conveniences and suffered by the war.
San Cristobal (Pinar del Rio), though one of the oldest towns in the Island, is very enterprising and its people are energetic and prosperous. It has a railway and good waggon roads, and its thirty-five hundred people have a good climate and good health. It is in the midst of the Vuelta Abajo tobacco district.
San Diego de los Banos (Pinar del Rio) is to be especially mentioned for its wonderful sulphur baths. In one enclosure there are four of these springs, having a temperature of ninety degrees, and they have effected cures in leprosy, other cutaneous diseases, and rheumatism which are passing belief. It has beautiful surroundings of hill and sea and its caves of Arcos de Carguanabo are famous.
Vinales (Pinar del Rio), a small town of 925 people, is the interior terminus of the railroad running to the north coast and the celebrated San Vincente mineral springs.
Batabano (Havana) is the southern seaport of the city of Havana, thirty-three miles to the north, and connected with it by rail and paved roads. The town, in two parts, La Plaza and Surgirdero, is meanly built, and has about nineteen hundred people. It has no harbour, but is the western terminus of the south-coast line of steamers. The waters about Batabano are notable for the beautiful submarine views they present to observers on steamers. Batabano is hot and unhealthful.
Bejucal (Havana), built in 1710, has a population of six thousand two hundred, an elevation of three hundred feet, and a situation in the midst of pleasing scenery. The town itself is unattractive to the eye, but its health is good, the people being noted for their long lives.
Cojimar (Havana), four miles from Havana, has a beautiful sand beach, the finest in Cuba, and in time will become a profitable seaside resort, though now unimproved. The British landed here in 1762.
Guanabacoa (Havana) is practically a suburb of Havana and has a population of twenty-five thousand. With every opportunity and possibility of being a clean, modern city, it is quite the reverse.
Güines (Havana), thirty miles from Havana over a fine waggon road, and forty-four by rail, has a population of about seven thousand, and one of the most desirable situations in the Island. It has bridges over the river Catalina, a good hotel, a fine railway station; about it lies a rich agricultural and grazing country, and the town is, in respect of health, thrift, and progress, a model town—for Cuba.
Jaruco (Havana), with a population of two thousand two hundred, claims recognition chiefly because it is clean. Naturally its health is better than that of most Cuban towns.
Madruga (Havana) is famed for its warm mineral springs. It is fifty-five miles from Havana by rail. Population three hundred.
Marianao (Havana), a suburb of Havana six miles away, has a population of twelve hundred, and is said to be the cleanest and prettiest town in Cuba. Its people are entirely of the better class.
Regla (Havana), a suburb of Havana, connected with the city by ferries, has the largest and finest sugar warehouses in the world and a bull-ring vying in popularity with those of Havana.
San Antonio de los Banos (Havana), with seven thousand five hundred people, twenty miles from Havana, is the most popular mineral-springs resort in the Island and its climate is famous for its health-giving qualities.
Colon (Matanzas), on the railway between Matanzas and Cardenas, in the heart of the sugar-producing district of this section, has six thousand five hundred people and is of much commercial importance. Like all the others, it needs public improvements.
Jovellanos (Matanzas), also known as Bemba, is a coloured town, the bulk of its population being negroes, and its only hotel is kept by a Chinaman.
Macagua (Matanzas) is noted for its extensive sugar estates. Some of the largest in Cuba are immediately around it. Population four thousand one hundred. It has a railway to Colon and Santa Clara.
Calaboya (Santa Clara) has a population of fifteen hundred and possesses, in the bridge over the Calaboya River, the longest railway bridge in Cuba. Otherwise it is not important.
La Cruces (Santa Clara) is a railway junction and was at one time actively engaged in shipping horses, cattle, and sugar. The people are active and energetic, and have been complimented with the name of the “Yankees of Cuba.”
La Isabela (Santa Clara), called also Concha and La Boca, is the seaport of Sagua la Grande, and has five thousand people. It is the shore terminus of the railway to Sagua and is of considerable commercial importance, with a cosmopolitan people.
Remedios (Santa Clara), with a population of seven thousand, is in a fine country and is one of the cities of the future, naturally and logically.
Sancti Spiritus (Santa Clara), also known as Santo Espiritu, founded in 1514, is one of the old towns of the Island. Despite its size (seventeen thousand), it is of no great commercial importance, and is a dirty town in a good location for cleanliness.
Santa Isabel (Santa Clara), with a population of five thousand, does a good business in sugar and cattle. Cienfuegos is its seaport and is connected with it by a railroad twenty-five miles long.