OH! REST THOU, IMAGE OF THE GREAT COLON, THOUSAND CENTURIES REMAIN, GUARDED IN THE URN, AND IN THE REMEMBRANCE OF OUR NATION.

In this neighborhood, to the east of the Plaza de Armas, on which the Palace fronts, is a structure known as El Templete. It has the appearance of the portico of an unfinished building, but it is a finished memorial, erected in 1828. The tradition is that on this spot there stood, in 1519, an old ceiba tree under which the newly arrived settlers celebrated their first mass. The yellow Palace, for many years the official headquarters and the residence of successive Governors-General, stands opposite, and speaks for itself. In this building, somewhat devoid of architectural merit, much of Cuba's history, for the last three-quarters of a century, has been written. The best time to see all this and much more that is to be seen, is the early morning, before the wheels begin to go around. The lights and shadows are then the best, and the streets are quieter and less crowded. The different points of interest are easily located by the various guide books obtainable, and the distances are not great. A cup of cafe con leche should precede the excursion. If one feels lazy, as one is quite apt to feel in the tropics and the sub-tropics, fairly comfortable open carriages are at all times available. With them, of course, a greater area can be covered and more places seen, though perhaps seen less satisfactorily. There is much to be seen in the early morning that is best seen in those hours, and much that is not seen later in the day. In all cities there is an early morning life and Havana is no exception. I confess to only a limited personal knowledge of it, but I have seen enough of it, and heard enough about it, to know that the waking-up of cities, including Havana, is an interesting process. I have, at least, had enough personal experience to be sure that the early morning air is delicious, the best of the day. I am not speaking of the unholy hours preceding daybreak, but of six to eight o'clock, which for those of us who are inclined to long evenings is also the best time to be in bed. The early morning church bells are a disturbance to which visitors do not readily adjust their morning naps. Mr. Samuel Hazard, who visited Cuba about the year 1870, and wrote quite entertainingly about it, left the following description of his experience in Havana:

"Hardly has the day begun to break when the newly arrived traveller is startled from his delightful morning doze by the alarming sound of bells ringing from every part of the town. Without any particular concert of action, and with very different sounds, they ring out on the still morning air, as though for a general conflagration, and the unfortunate traveller rushes frantically from his bed to inquire if there is any hope of safety from the flames which he imagines, from the noise made, must threaten the whole town. Imagine, O reader! in thy native town, every square with its church, every church with its tower, or maybe two or three of them, and in each particular tower a half-dozen large bells, no two of which sound alike; place the bell-ropes in the hands of some frantic man who pulls away, first with one hand and then the other, and you will get a very faint idea of your first awakening in Havana. Without apparent rhyme or reason, ding, dong, ding they go, every bell-ringer at each different church striving to see how much noise he can make, under the plea of bringing the faithful to their prayers at the early morning mass."



The only conceivable advantage of these early bells is the fact that they turn out many a traveller at the hour when Havana is really at its best. Yet, as I read the descriptive tales left by those who wrote forty, fifty, and sixty years ago, I am struck by the fact, that, after all, the old Havana has changed but little. There are trolley lines, electric lights, and a few other so-called modern improvements, but there is still much of the old custom, the old atmosphere. The old wall, with its soldier-guarded gates, is gone, and there are a few modern buildings, but only a few, for which fact I always feel thankful, but the old city is much what it was when Mr. Ballou, and Mr. Dana, and Mr. Kimball, and numerous others wrote about it soon after 1850, and when Mr. Hazard wrote about it in 1870. The automobile is there now in large numbers, in place of the old volante, and there are asphalted streets in place of cobble-stones. The band plays in the evening in the Parque Central or at the Glorieta, instead of in the Plaza de Armas, but the band plays. The restaurants are still a prominent feature in Havana life, as they were then. The ladies wear hats instead of mantillas, but they buy hats on Calle Obispo just as and where their mothers and grandmothers bought mantillas. Bull-fighting is gone, presumably forever, but crowds flock to the baseball grounds. The midday suspension of business continues, generally, and the afternoon parade, on foot and in carriages, remains one of the important functions of the day. There are many who know Havana, and love it, who pray diligently that it may be many years before the city is Americanized as, for instance, New Orleans has been.

Most of the life of the city, as it is seen by most visitors, is outside the old city, and probably few know that any distinction is made, yet the line is drawn with fair clearness. There is a different appearance in both streets and buildings. While there are shops on San Rafael and Galiano and elsewhere, the principal shopping district is in the old city, with Calle Obispo as its centre. They have tried officially, to change the name of the street, but the old familiar name sticks and seems likely to stick for a long time yet. Far be it from a mere man to attempt analysis or description of such a place. He might tell another mere man where to buy a hat, a pair of shoes, or eyeglasses, or a necktie, or where to find a lawyer, but the finer points of shopping, there or elsewhere, are not properly for any masculine description. The ladies may be trusted to learn for themselves, and very quickly, all that they need or want to know about that phase of Havana's commerce. I am leaving much to the guide books that can afford space for all necessary information about churches, statues, and other objects of interest for visitors. Havana's retail merchants have their own way of trading, much as they do in many foreign countries, and in not a few stores in our own country. Prices are usually a question of the customer's ability to match the commercial shrewdness of the dealer. Much of the trade of visitors is now confined to the purchase of such articles as may be immediately needed and to a few souvenirs. One of the charms of the place is the cheap transportation. If you are tired, or in a hurry, there is always a coach near at hand that will take you where you wish to go, for a peseta, or a quarter, if within certain officially prescribed bounds. If you desire to go beyond those bounds, make a bargain with your driver or be prepared for trouble. Down in the old city are to be found several restaurants that are well worth visiting, for those who want good food. I shall not advertise the particular places, but they are well known. As the early morning is the best time to see the old city, the forenoon is the best time for shopping. Such an expedition may well be followed by the almuerzo, the midday breakfast or lunch, whichever one sees fit to call it, at one of these restaurants. After that, it is well to enjoy a midday siesta, in preparation for the afternoon function on the Prado and the Malecon.



V

THE NEW HAVANA

The new Havana, the city outside the old wall, is about as old as Chicago but not nearly as tall. There is no reason why it should be. Here are wide streets and broad avenues, and real sidewalks, some of them about as wide as the entire street in the old city. About 1830, the region beyond the wall was held largely by Spaniards to whom grants of land had been made for one reason or another. These tracts were plantations, pastures, or unimproved lands, according to the fancy of the proprietor who usually lived in the city and enjoyed himself after the manner of his kind. Here and there, a straggling village of palm-leaf huts sprang up. The roads were rough tracks. To Governor-General Tacon seems due much of the credit for the improvement beyond the walls. During his somewhat iron-handed rule several notable buildings were erected, some of them by his authority. The most notable feature of the district is the renowned Prado, a broad boulevard with a park between two drive-ways, running from the water-front, at the entrance to the harbor, southward for about a mile. A few years ago, rows of trees shaded the central parkway, but they were almost entirely wrecked by the hurricanes in 1906 and 1910.

A half mile or so from its northern end, the Prado runs along the west side of the Parque Central, the most notable of the numerous little squares of walks and trees and flowers. A block or two further on is a little park with an excellent statue, known as La India. Opposite that is another really beautiful park, from the western side of which runs a broad street that leads to the Paseo de Carlos Tercero, formerly the Paseo de Tacon, one of the monuments left to his own memory by one of Cuba's most noted Spanish rulers. The Paseo runs westward to El Castillo del Principe, originally a fortress but now a penitentiary. The Prado stops just beyond the companion parks, La India and Colon. These originally formed the Campo de Marte, laid out by General Tacon and, in his time, used as a military parade ground. In a way, the Parque Central is the centre of the city. It is almost that, geographically, and perhaps quite that, socially. In its immediate vicinity are some of the leading hotels and the principal theatres. One of the latter, facing the park on its western side, across the Prado, is now known as the Nacional. Formerly it was the Tacon, a monument to that notable man. There is quite a story about that structure. It is somewhat too long for inclusion here, but it seems worth telling. The following is an abridgment of the tale as it is told in Mr. Ballou's History of Cuba, published in 1854. Tacon was the Governor of the island from 1834 to 1838. At that time, a certain man named Marti was eminent in the smuggling and piracy business, an industry in which many others were engaged. But Marti seems to have stood at the top of his profession, a man of skill and daring and evidently well supplied with brains. Tacon's efforts to capture him, or to break up his business, were entirely unsuccessful, and a large reward was offered for his body, alive or dead. Mr. Ballou tells the story in somewhat dramatic manner:

"It was a dark, cloudy night in Havana, a few months after the announcement of the reward, when two sentinels were pacing backward and forward before the main entrance to the Governor's palace. A little before midnight, a man was watching them from behind a statue in the park, and after observing that the sentinels paced their brief walk so as to meet each other, and then turned their backs as they separated, leaving a brief moment in the interval when the eyes of both were turned away from the entrance, seemed to calculate upon passing them unobserved. It was an exceedingly delicate manoeuvre, and required great care and dexterity to effect it; but, at last, it was adroitly done, and the stranger sprang lightly through the entrance, secreting himself behind one of the pillars of the inner court. The sentinels paced on undisturbed. The figure which had thus stealthily effected an entrance, now sought the broad stairs that led to the Governor's suite, with a confidence that evinced a perfect knowledge of the place. A second guard-post was to be passed at the head of the stairs; but, assuming an air of authority, the stranger offered a cold military salute and passed forward, as though there was not the most distant question of his right to do so; and thus avoiding all suspicion in the guard's mind, he boldly entered the Governor's reception room unchallenged, and closed the door behind him."

In his office, alone, the stranger found Tacon, who was naturally surprised at the appearance of an unannounced caller. He demanded to know who the visitor was, but a direct answer was evaded. After referring to the matter of the reward offered for the discovery of Marti, and the pledge of immunity to the discoverer, the caller demanded and obtained a verbal endorsement of the promise of immunity, under the Governor's word of honor, whatever might be the circumstances of his revelation. He then announced himself as the much-sought pirate and smuggler, Marti. Tacon was somewhat astounded, but he kept his word. Marti was held overnight, but "on the following day," the Ballou account proceeds, "one of the men-of-war that lay idly beneath the guns of Morro Castle suddenly became the scene of the utmost activity, and, before noon, had weighed her anchor, and was standing out into the gulf stream. Marti the smuggler was on board as her pilot; and faithfully did he guide the ship on the discharge of his treacherous business, revealing every haunt of the rovers, exposing their most valuable depots; and many a smuggling craft was taken and destroyed. The amount of money and property thus secured was very great." The contemptible job of betraying his former companions and followers being successfully accomplished, Marti returned with the ships, and claimed his reward from Tacon. The General, according to his word of honor, gave Marti a full and unconditional pardon for all his past offences, and an order on the treasury for the amount of the reward offered. The latter was declined but, in lieu of the sum, Marti asked for and obtained a monopoly of the right to sell fish in Havana. He offered to build, at his own expense, a public market of stone, that should, after a specified term of years, revert to the government, "with all right and the title to the fishery." This struck Tacon as a good business proposition; he saved to his treasury the important sum of the reward and, after a time, the city would own a valuable fish-market. He agreed to the plan. Marti thereupon went into the fish business, made huge profits, and became, so the story goes, the richest man in the island. After a time, being burdened with wealth, he looked about for means of increasing his income. So he asked for and obtained a monopoly of the theatre business in Havana, promising to build one of the largest and finest theatres in the world. The result of the enterprise was the present Nacional theatre, for many years regarded as second only to the Grand theatre in Milan. But it was named the Tacon. Its special attraction was internal; its exterior was far from imposing. It has recently been considerably glorified. Having thus halted for the story of the theatre, we may return to the Prado on which it fronts. Here, Havana society used to gather every afternoon to drive, walk, and talk. The afternoon paseo was and still is the great event of the day, the great social function of the city. At the time of my first visit, in 1899, there was no Malecon drive along the shore to the westward. That enterprise was begun during the First Intervention, and continued by succeeding administrations. In the earlier days, the route for driving was down the east side of the Prado, between the Parque Central and the Carcel, and up the west side, around and around, up and down, with bows and smiles to acquaintances met or passed, and, probably, gossip about the strangers. Many horsemen appeared in the procession, and the central promenade was thronged with those who walked, either because they preferred to or because they could not afford to ride around and around. In the Parque Central were other walkers, chatting groups, and lookers-on. Some days the band played. Then the Prado was extended to the water-front; the glorieta was erected; and that became another centre for chatterers and watchers. The building of the Malecon extended the range of the driveway. This afternoon function is an old established institution and a good one. It may not compare favorably with the drive in some of our parks in this country, but it is the best substitute possible in Havana. Indulgence in ices, cooling drinks, chocolate, or other refections, during this daily ceremony, is fairly common but by no means a general practice. The afternoon tea habit has not yet seized upon Havana. The ices are almost invariably excellent. Some of them are prepared from native fruit flavors that are quite unknown here. The guanabana ice is particularly to be recommended. All such matters are quite individual, but a decoction called chocolate Espanol is also to be recommended. It is served hot, too thick to drink, and is to be taken with a spoon, to the accompaniment of cake. It is highly nourishing as well as palatable. There is a wide variety of "soft drinks," made with oranges, limes, or other fruits, and the orchata, made from almonds, and the products of American soda fountains, but there is little use of the high-ball or the cocktail except by Americans.



The Cubans are an exceedingly temperate people. Wine is used by all classes, and aguadiente, the native rum, is consumed in considerable quantity, but the Cuban rarely drinks to excess. I recall an experience during the earlier years. I was asked to write a series of articles on the use of intoxicants in the island, for a temperance publication in this country. My first article so offended the publishers that they declined to print it, and cancelled the order for the rest of the series. It was perhaps somewhat improper, but in that article I summed up the situation by stating that "the temperance question in Cuba is only a question of how soon we succeed in converting them into a nation of drunkards." Beer is used, both imported and of local manufacture. Gin, brandy, and anisette, cordials and liqueurs are all used to some but moderate extent, but intoxication is quite rare. One fluid extract I particularly recommend, that is the milk of the cocoanut, the green nut. Much, however, depends upon the cocoanut. Properly ripened, the "milk" is delicious, cooling and wholesome, more so perhaps on a country journey than in the city. The nut not fully ripened gives the milk, or what is locally called the "water," an unpleasant, woody taste. I have experimented with it in different parts of the world, in the Philippines, Ceylon, and elsewhere, and have found it wholesome and refreshing in all places.

The houses in the new Havana are, on the whole, vastly more cheerful than are the dwellings in the old city. They are of the same general architectural type, but because of the wider streets, more air and sunshine gets into them. Some of the best and most costly are along the Prado. A Cuban house interior generally impresses an American as lacking in home-like quality. Some of the best are richly adorned, but there is a certain bareness and an absence of color. As is usual with customs unlike our own, and which we are therefore prone to regard as inferior to ours, there are excellent reasons for Cuban interior decoration, or rather the lack of it. A little experience, or even a little reflection, shows clearly the impossibility of anything resembling American house decoration in such a climate as that of Cuba. Our warm colors, hangings, upholstered furniture, rugs, and much else that we regard as essential in northern latitudes, would be utterly unendurable in Cuba. There, the marble or tiled floors, the cool tones of wall and ceiling, and the furniture of wood and cane, are not only altogether fitting but as well altogether necessary. Our glass windows would only serve to increase heat and shut out air. As some barrier is necessary to keep passers, even Americans, from intrusive entrance by the windows whose bottoms are at floor level, the system of iron bars or elaborate grille work is adopted. Few Americans see much, if anything, of Cuban home life except as they see it through these barriers as they pass. It is not the custom of the country to invite promiscuous or casual acquaintances to call. It is even less the custom there than it is with us. A book about Cuba, published a few years ago, gives a somewhat extended account of what is called "home life," but it is the home life of workmen and people who do laundry work to eke out a meagre living. It is not even the life of fairly paid artisans, or of people of modest but comfortable income. It is no more a proper description of the domestic life of the island than would be a presentation of the life in the palaces of the wealthy. Such attempts at description are almost invariably a mistake, conveying, whether from purpose or from indifference to truth, a false impression. Domestic economy and household management vary in Cuba as they vary in the United States, in France, England, Japan, or Mexico. The selection of an individual home, or of several, as a basis for description, in Cuba or anywhere else, can only result in a picture badly out of drawing and quite misleading.

There are Cuban homes, as there are American homes, that are slatternly and badly managed, and there are Cuban homes that are as spick and span and as orderly in their administration as any home in this country. Their customs, as are ours, are the result of environment and tradition. To some of us, a rectangle of six or eight rocking-chairs, placed in the centre of a room, in which family and visitors sit and rock while they talk, may seem curious, but it is a custom that we may not criticize either with fairness or common decency. The same may be said of the not uncommon custom of using a part of the street floor of the house as a stable. It is an old custom, brought from Spain. But I have wandered from description to incident. I have no intention to attempt a description of Cuban home life, beyond saying that I have been a guest in costly homes in the city and in the little palm-leaf "shacks" of peasants, and have invariably found in both, and in the homes of intermediate classes, only cordial hospitality and gracious courtesy. Those who have found anything different have carried it with them in their own attitude toward their hosts. Many of us, probably most of us, in the United States, make a sort of fetich of the privacy of what we call our home life. We are encased in walls of wood or masonry, with blinds, curtains, or shades at our windows. It might be supposed that we wanted to hide, that there was something of which to be ashamed. It might at least be so interpreted by one unfamiliar with our ways. It is only, like the open domestic life in Cuba, a custom, a habit of long standing. Certainly, much of the domestic life of Cuba is open. The mistress of the house chides a servant, rebukes or comforts a child, sits with her embroidery, chaffers with an itinerant merchant or with the clerk from a store, all in plain sight and hearing of the passer-by. What everyone does, no one notices. The customs of any country are curious only to those from other countries where customs are different. Our ways of life are quite as curious to others as are their ways to us. We are quite blind to that fact chiefly because of an absurd conviction of the immense superiority of our ways. We do not stop to consider reasons for differences. A cup of coffee on an American breakfast table usually consists of about four parts coffee and one part milk or cream. Most Cubans usually reverse these percentages. There is a good reason for it. In our climate, we do not need the large open doors and windows, the high ceilings, and the full and free ventilation that make life endurable in tropical and sub-tropical countries. Their system here would be as impossible as would be our system there. Houses in Cuba like those of an American city or town would make life a miserable burden. The publicity, or semi-publicity, of Cuban home life is a necessary result of conditions. It is, naturally, more in evidence in the city proper, where the houses, abutting immediately on the street, as do most of our city houses, are built, as ours are, in solid rows. We avoid a good deal of publicity by piling our homes on top of each other, and by elevators and stair-climbing.

The location of a residence in Havana gives no special idea of the wealth or the social standing of those who occupy it. Not a few well-to-do people still live in the old city, where the streets are narrow and where business is trying to crowd out everything except itself. The home in that quarter may be in a block in which a number of buildings are residences, or it may stand with a warehouse on one side and a workshop on the other. A few people, of unquestionable social position still live in buildings in which the street floor is a store or an office. There is nothing curious about this. In many American cities, old families have clung to old homes, and not a few new families have, from one reason or another, occupied similar quarters. Such a residence may not conform to modern social ideas and standards, but there are Americans in this country, as well as Cubans and Spaniards in Havana, who can afford to ignore those standards. The same is true of many who live in the newer city, outside the old walls. There as here, business encroaches on many streets formerly strictly residential. This holds in the newer part of the city as well as in the old part. A number of streets there are, for a part of their length, quite given over to business. Even the Prado itself is the victim of commercial invasion. What was once one of the finest residences in the city, the old Aldama place fronting on the Campo de Marte, is now a cigar factory. A little beyond it is the Tacon market, occupying an entire block. Stores and shops surround it. The old avenue leading to the once fashionable Cerro, and to the only less fashionable Jesus del Monte, is now a business street. Another business street leads out of the Parque Central, alongside the former Tacon theatre. The broad Calzada de Galiano, once a fashionable residence street, is now largely commercial. While less picturesque than some parts of the old city within the walls, the most attractive part of Havana is undoubtedly the section of El Vedado, the westward extension along the shore. Here are broad streets, trees, gardens, and many beautiful and costly dwellings. This is really the modern Havana. A part of it is only a little above sea-level, and behind that strip is a hill. A few years ago, only a small number of houses were on the hillside or the hilltop. Now, it is well built over with modern houses. The architectural type is generally retained, and it is rather a pity that there should be even what variation there is. El Vedado is the region of the wealthy and the well-to-do, with a large percentage of foreigners. It has its social ways, very much as other places have, in this country, in France, Hong Kong, or Honolulu. They are not quite our ways, but they are a result of conditions, just as ours are.

On the hill, a little back of El Vedado, are two "points of interest" for visitors; the old fortress, el Castillo del Principe, and the cemetery. In the latter are some notable monuments. One is known as the Firemen's Monument. For many years, Havana has had, supplementary to its municipal organization, a volunteer firemen's corps. In various ways the latter resembles a number of military organizations in the United States. It is at once a somewhat exclusive social club and a practical force. Membership is a social distinction. If you are in Havana and see men in admirably tailored, uniforms and fire helmets, rushing in a particular direction in cabs, carriages or automobiles, you may know that they are members of the Bomberos del Comercio on their way to a conflagration. Most excellent real work they have done again and again in time of fire and flood. On parade, they look exceedingly dapper with their helmets, uniforms, boots and equipment, somewhat too dandified even to suggest any smoke other than that of cigars or cigarettes. But they are the "real thing in smoke-eaters" when they get to work. They have a long list of heroic deeds on their records. The monument in Colon Cemetery commemorates one of those deeds. In an extensive and dangerous fire, in May, 1890, thirty of these men lost their lives. A few years later, this beautiful and costly shaft was erected, by private subscription, as a tribute to their valor and devotion. Another shaft, perhaps no less notable, commemorates a deplorable and unpardonable event. A number of medical students, mere boys, in the University of Havana, were charged with defacing the tomb of a Spanish officer who had been killed by a Cuban in a political quarrel. At its worst, it was a boyish prank, demanding rebuke or even some mild punishment. Later evidence indicates that while there was a demonstration there was no defacement of the vault. Forty-two students were arrested as participants, tried by court-martial, and sentenced to be shot. Eight of them were shot at La Punta, at the foot of the Prado near the sea-front, and the remainder sentenced to imprisonment for life. All of these, I believe, were afterward released. The Students' Monument expresses the feeling of the Cubans in the matter, a noble memorial. There are numerous other shafts and memorials that are notable and interesting. A number of Cuba's leaders, Maximo Gomez, Calixto Garcia, and others, are buried in this cemetery.



Further on, to the southeast, are other sections of the new Havana, the districts of Cerro and Jesus del Monte. El Vedado has largely supplanted these neighborhoods as the "court end" of the city. Many of the fine old residences of forty or fifty years ago still remain, but most of them are now closely surrounded by the more modest homes of a less aristocratic group. A few gardens remain to suggest what they were in the earlier days. Still further out, in the west-and-south quarter-circle, are little towns, villages, and hamlets, typically Cuban, with here and there the more imposing estate of planter or proprietor. But, far the greater number of visitors, perhaps with greater reason, find more of charm and interest in the city itself than in the suburbs or the surrounding country. The enjoyment of unfamiliar places is altogether personal. There are many who really see nothing; they come away from a brief visit with only a confusion of vague recollections of sights and sounds, of brief inspection of buildings about which they knew nothing, of the big, yellow Palace, of this church and that, of the Morro and the harbor, of sunny days, and of late afternoons along the Prado and the Malecon. To me, Havana is losing its greatest charm through an excess of Americanization, slowly but steadily taking from the place much of the individuality that made it most attractive. It will be a long time before that is entirely lost, but five-story office buildings, automobiles in the afternoon parade, steaks or ham and eggs at an eight or nine o'clock breakfast, and all kinds of indescribable hats in place of dainty and graceful mantillas, seem to me a detraction, like bay-windows and porticos added to an old colonial mansion.



VI

AROUND THE ISLAND

A hundred years ago, the Cubans travelled from place to place about the island, just as our ancestors did in this country, by water and over rough trails few of which could, with any approach to correctness, be described as roads. It was not until about a hundred years ago that we, in this country, began to build anything even remotely resembling a modern highway. Our towns and cities were on the seaboard or on the banks of rivers navigable for vessels of size sufficient for their purposes. Commodities carried to or brought from places not so located were dragged in stoutly built wagons over routes the best of which was worse than the worst to be found anywhere today. Because real road-making in Cuba is quite a modern institution, an enterprise to which, in their phrase, the Spanish Government did not "dedicate" itself, the Cuban wagons and carts of today are chiefly those of the older time. They are heavy, cumbrous affairs with large wheels, a diameter necessitated by the deep ruts through which a passage was made. A smaller wheel would soon have been "hub-deep" and hopelessly stuck. So, too, with the carriages of the nabobs. The poorer people, when they travelled at all, went on foot or on horseback, as our ancestors did. The nabobs had their volantes, still occasionally, but with increasing rarity, seen in some parts of the island. Forty years ago, such vehicles, only a little changed from the original type, were common enough in Havana itself. About that time, or a few years earlier, the four-wheeler began to supplant them for city use.

There is a technical difference between the original type of volante and its successor which, though still called a volante was properly called a quitrin. The only real difference was that the top of the quitrin was collapsible, and could be lowered when desirable, while the top of the volante was not. I have ridden in these affairs, I cannot say comfortably, over roads that would have been quite impossible for any other wheeled vehicle. At the back, and somewhat behind the body were two wheels, six feet in diameter. From, the axle, two shafts projected for a distance, if memory serves me, of some twelve or fifteen feet. A little forward of the axle, the body, not unlike the old-fashioned American chaise, was suspended on stout leather straps serving as springs. Away off in front, at the end of the shafts, was a horse on which the driver rode in a heavy and clumsy saddle. For long-distance travel, or for particularly rough roads, a second horse was added, alongside the shaft horse, and sometimes a third animal. The motion was pleasant enough over the occasional smooth places, but the usual motion was much like that of a cork in a whirlpool, or of a small boat in a choppy sea. Little attention was paid to rocks or ruts; it was almost impossible to capsize the thing. One wheel might be two feet or more higher than the other, whereupon the rider on the upper side would be piled on top of the rider or riders on the lower side, but there was always a fair distribution of this favor. The rocks and ruts were not always on the same side of the road. The safety from overturn was in the long shafts which allowed free play. In the older days, say sixty or seventy years ago, the volante or the quitrin was an outward and visible sign of a well-lined pocket-book. It indicated the possessor as a man of wealth, probably a rich planter who needed such a vehicle to carry him and his family from their mansion in the city to their perhaps quite as costly home on the plantation. The calisero, or driver, was dressed in a costume truly gorgeous, the horses were of the best, and the vehicle itself may have cost two thousand dollars or more. The operation of such a contrivance, extending, from the rear of the wheels to the horse's nose, for twenty feet or more, in the narrow streets of the old city, was a scientific problem, particularly in turning corners.

Cuba was early in the field with a railway. In 1830, the United States had only thirty-two miles of line, the beginning of its present enormous system. Cuba's first railway was opened to traffic in November, 1837. It was a forty-five mile line connecting Havana with the town of Guines, southeast of the city. While official permission was, of course, necessary before the work could be undertaken, it was in fact a Cuban enterprise, due to the activity of the Junta de Fomento, or Society for Improvement. It was built with capital obtained in London, the construction being in charge of Mr. Alfred Cruger, an American engineer. Ten years later there were nearly three hundred miles of line. At the beginning of the American occupation, in 1899, there were about nine-hundred and fifty miles. There are now more than 2,000 miles of public service line in operation, and in addition there are many hundreds of miles of private lines on the sugar estates. Several cities have trolley lines. For some years after the American occupation, as before that experience, there was only a water-and-rail connection, or an all-water route, between the eastern and western sections of the island. The usual route from Havana to Santiago was by rail to Batabano or to Cienfuegos, and thence by steamer. The alternative was an all-water route, consuming several days, by steamer along the north coast, with halts at different ports, and around the eastern end of the island to the destination. It is now an all-rail run of twenty-four hours. The project for a "spinal railway" from one end of the island to the other had been under consideration for many years. The configuration lent itself excellently to such a system, and not at all well to any other. A railway map of such a system shows a line, generally, through the middle of the island along its length, with numerous branch lines running north and south to the various cities and ports on the coast. The plan, broadly, is being carried out. A combination of existing lines afforded a route to the city of Santa Clara. From these eastward, the Cuba Company, commonly known as the Van Home road, completed a through line in 1902. In its beginning, it was a highly ambitious scheme, involving the building of many towns along the way, the erection of many sugar mills, and the creation of a commercial city, at Nipe Bay, that would leave Havana in the back-number class. All that called for a sum of money not then and not now available. But the "spinal railroad" was built, and from it a number of radiating lines have been built, to Sancti Spiritus, Manzanillo, Nipe Bay, and to Guantanamo. About the only places on the island, really worth seeing, with the exception of Trinidad and Baracoa, can now be reached by a fairly comfortable railway journey.



In most of the larger cities of the island, a half dozen or so of them, the traveller is made fairly comfortable and is almost invariably well fed. But any question of physical comfort in hotels, more particularly in country hotels, raises a question of standards. As Touchstone remarked, when in the forest of Arden, "Travellers must be content." Those who are not ready to make themselves so, no matter what the surroundings, should stay at home, which, Touchstone also remarked, "is a better place." If the standard is the ostentatious structure of the larger cities of this country, with its elaborate menu and its systematized service, there will doubtless be cause for complaint. So will there be if the standard is the quiet, cleanly inn of many towns in this country and in parts of Europe. The larger towns and villages of the island have a posada in which food and lodging may be obtained; the smaller places may or may not have "a place to stay." Cuba is not a land in which commercial travellers swarm everywhere, demanding comfort and willing to pay a reasonable price for it. However, few travellers and fewer tourists have any inclination to depart from known and beaten paths, or any reason for doing so. Nor does a fairly thorough inspection of the island necessitate any halting in out-of-the-way places where there is not even an imitation of an inn. All that one needs to see, and all that most care to see, can be seen in little tours, for a day, from the larger cities. Yet if one wants to wander a little in the by-paths, it is easy enough to do so.

What one sees or does in Cuba will depend mainly upon the purpose of the visit, and upon the violence of the individual mania for seeing as many places as possible. If the object is merely an excursion or an escape from the rigors of a northern winter, there is no occasion for wandering out of sight of the capital city. There is more to see and more to do in Havana than there is in all the rest of the island. Nor is there much to be seen elsewhere that cannot be seen in the immediate vicinity of that city. This, of course, does not cover the matter of scenery. There are no mountains, no forest jungles in that neighborhood, but forests in Cuba are not particularly interesting, and even the mountains of Oriente are no more beautiful or majestic than are our own summits, our own White Hills of New Hampshire, the Adirondacks, the Blue Ridge, the Alleghenies, the Rockies, and the Sierras. The charm of Cuba, and it is extremely charming, is not its special "points of interest." It is rather a general impression, a combination of soft and genial climate with varying lights and shades and colors. Even after much experience there, I am not yet quite ready either to admit or to deny that the island, taken as a whole, is either beautiful or picturesque, and yet there is much of both. Attention is rarely challenged by the sublime or the majestic, but is often arrested by some play of light and shade. Cuban villages, with few exceptions, are unattractive, although there is not infrequently some particular building, usually a church, that calls for a second look or a careful examination. Most of these little communities consist of a row of low and ungraceful structures bordering the highway. They are usually extended by building on at the ends. If the town street gets undesirably long, a second street or a third will be made, on one or both sides of the main street, and thus the town acquires breadth as well as length. The houses are built immediately upon the roadside, and sidewalks are quite unusual. Nor, until the place becomes a large town or a small city, is there, in most cases, any attempt at decoration by means of shade trees. A tree may be left if there happened to be one when the village was born, but rarely do the inhabitants turn their streets into tree-shaded avenues. There would be an excellent opportunity for the activities of Village Improvement Societies in Cuba, if it were not for the fact that such tree-planting would involve pushing all the houses ten or fifteen feet back from the roadside.

I have never studied the system of town building in the island, yet it is presumable that there was some such system. In the larger places, there is usually a central park around which are arranged the church, the public buildings, and the stores. Whether these were so constructed from an original plan, or whether they are an evolution, along a general plan, from the long, single street, I do not know. I am inclined to believe that the former was the case, and that it followed the location of a church. The custom is, of course, of Spanish origin, and is common throughout the greater part of Latin America. It finds a fair parallel in our own country custom, by no means infrequent, of an open "green" or common in front of the village church and the town hall. Tree-setting along the Cuban highways, more particularly in the neighborhood of the cities, is not at all unusual, and some of these shaded roads are exceedingly charming. Some are entirely over-arched by laurel trees and the gorgeous flamboyan, making long tunnels of shade "through whose broken roof the sky looks in." Evidently the Spanish authorities were too much interested in making money and enjoying themselves in the cities to care very much for what happened to the Cubans in the villages, as long as they paid the money that filled the official pocket and paid for the official entertainment, and the Cubans were too busy getting that money to have much time for village improvement. The Spaniards, following their home custom, might decorate a military highway to some extent, but the rough trail over which the peasant carried his little crop did not concern them. That was quite the business of the peasant who had neither the time nor money to do anything about it.

The question of good roads in Cuba is very much what it is in this country. Cuba needs more good roads than its people can afford to build; so does the United States. At the time of the American occupation, in 1899, there were only 160 miles of improved highway in the entire island. Of this, 85 miles were in Havana Province, and 75 miles in Pinar del Rio. The remainder of the island had none. Some work was done during the First Intervention and more was done under the Palma government. At the time of the Second Intervention, there were about 380 miles. That is, the United States and the Cuban Republic built, in six years, nearly 40 per cent, more highway than the Spanish authorities built in four hundred years. During the Palma regime, plans were drawn for an extensive road system, to be carried out as rapidly as the financial resources permitted. Not unlike similar proceedings in this country, in river and harbor work and public buildings, politics came into the matter and, like our own under similar circumstances, each Congressman insisted that some of such work as could immediately be undertaken, some of the money that could be immediately spent, should benefit his particular district. The result was that what was done by the Cubans was somewhat scattered, short stretches built here and there, new bridges built when there might or might not be a usable road to them. The Cuban plan involved, for its completion, a period of years and a large appropriation. It called for comparatively small yearly appropriations for many roads, for more than four hundred different projects. Then came the Second Intervention, in 1906, with what has seemed to many of us an utterly unwise and unwarranted expenditure for the completion of certain selected projects included in the Cuban plan. It may be granted that the roads were needed, some of them very much needed, but there are thousands of miles of unconstructed but much needed roads in the United States. Yet, in this country, Federal, State, county, and town treasuries are not drained to their last dollar, and their credit strained, to build those roads. From the drain on its financial resources, the island will recover, but the misfortune appears in the setting of a standard for Federal expenditure, in its total for all purposes amounting to about $40,000,000 a year, far beyond the reasonable or proper bearing power of the island. But the work was done, the money spent, and the Cubans were committed to more work and to further expenditure. I find no data showing with exactness the mileage completed by the Magoon government, which came to an end in January, 1909, but a Cuban official report made at the end of 1910 shows that the combined activities of the respective administrations, Spanish, American, and Cuban, had given the island, at that time, practically a thousand miles of improved highway, distributed throughout the island.

To see the real Cuba, one must get into the country. Havana is the principal city, and for many it is the most interesting place on the island, but it is no more Cuba than Paris is France or than New York is the United States. The real Cuba is rural; the real Cuban is a countryman, a man of the soil. If he is rich, he desires to measure his possessions in caballerias of 33-1/3 acres; if poor, in hectareas of 2-1/2 acres. I do not recall any Cuban cartoon representing the Cuban people that was not a picture of the peasant, the guajiro. Cuba, as a political organism, is shown as a quite charming senorita, but el pueblo Cubano, the Cuban people, are shown as the man of the fields. With the present equipment of railroads, trolley lines, automobile busses, and highways, little excursions are easily made in a day. The railways, trolleys, and automobile busses are unsatisfactory means of locomotion for sight-seeing. The passenger is rushed past the very sights that would be of the greatest interest. To most of us, a private hired automobile is open to the very serious objection of its expensiveness, an item that may sometimes be reduced by division. It has been my good fortune in more recent years to be whirled around in cars belonging to friends but my favorite trip in earlier days is, I presume, still open to those who may care to make it. I have recommended it to many, and have taken a number with me over the route.

It is an easy one-day excursion of about sixty miles, by rail to Guanajay, by carriage to Marianao, and return to Havana by rail. Morning trains run to Guanajay, through a region generally attractive and certainly interesting to the novice, by way of Rincon and San Antonio de los Banos, a somewhat roundabout route, but giving a very good idea of the country, its plantations, villages, and peasant homes. At Guanajay, an early lunch, or a late breakfast, may be obtained at the hotel, before or after an inspection of the town itself, a typical place with its little central park, its old church, and typical residences. Inquiry regarding the transportation to Marianao by carriage should not be too direct. It should be treated as a mere possibility depending upon a reasonable charge. I have sometimes spent a very pleasant hour in intermittent bargaining with the competitors for the job, although knowing very well what I would pay and what they would finally accept. Amiably conducted, as such discussions should be in Cuba, the chaffering becomes a matter of mutual entertainment. A bargain concluded, a start may be made about noon for a drive over a good road, through a series of typical villages, to Marianao, in time for a late afternoon train to Havana, reaching there in ample time for dinner. Along the road from Guanajay to Marianao, Maceo swept with ruthless hand in 1896, destroying Spanish property. Here the Spaniards, no less ruthless, destroyed the property of Cubans. It is now a region of peaceful industry, and little or nothing remains to indicate its condition when I first saw it. The little villages along the way were in ruins, the fields were uncultivated, and there were no cattle. At intervals there stood the walls of what had been beautiful country estates. Only one of many was left standing. At intervals, also, stood the Spanish blockhouses. All along that route, in 1906, were the insurrectos of the unfortunate experience of that year. In the village of Caimito, a short distance from Guanajay, along that road, I visited Pino Guerra at his then headquarters when he and his forces so menaced Havana that Secretary Taft, in his capacity of Peace Commissioner, ordered their withdrawal to a greater distance. The trip by rail and road, exhibits most of Cuba's special characteristics. There are fields of sugar cane and fields of tobacco, country villages and peasant homes, fruits and vegetables, ceiba trees, royal palms, cocoanut palms, and mango trees. There is no other trip, as easily made, where so much can be seen. But there are other excursions in the vicinity, for many reasons best made by carriage or by private hired automobile. Within fifteen miles or so of the city, are places like Calvario, Bejucal, and Managua, all reached by good highways through interesting and typical country, and all well illustrating the real life of the real Cubans. It was in the vicinity of those places that Maximo Gomez operated in 1895 and 1896, terrorizing Havana by menacing it from the south and the east while Maceo threatened it from the west. Another short and pleasant trip can be made around the head of the harbor to Guanabacoa, and thence to Cojimar. Another interesting and easily reached point is Guines, a good example of places of its size and class.

Of Cuba's larger cities, there are a score that would demand attention in a guide-book. Just as there is a certain similarity in most American cities, in that they are collections of business and residence buildings of generally similar architecture, so is there a certain sameness in most of Cuba's cities. To see two or three of them is to get a general idea of all, although each has its particular features, some particular building, or some special charm of surroundings. The most difficult of access are Baracoa, the oldest city of the island, and Trinidad, founded only a few years later. Glancing at some of these places, in their order from west to east, the first is Pinar del Rio, a comparatively modern city, dating really from the second half of the 18th Century. It owes its past and its present importance to its location as a centre of the tobacco region of the Vuelta Abajo. From comfortable headquarters here, excursions can be made, by rail or road, through what is perhaps the most attractive, and not the least interesting section of the island. To the north are the Organ Mountains and the picturesque town of Vinales, one of the most charming spots, in point of scenery, in Cuba. To the west, by rail, is Guane, the oldest settlement in western Cuba, and all around are beautiful hills and cultivated valleys. Eastward from Havana, the first city of importance is Matanzas. Here is much to interest and much to charm, the city itself, its harbor, its two rivers, the famous valley of the Yumuri, and the caves of Bellamar. The city, founded in 1693, lies along the shore of the bay and rises to the higher ground of the hills behind it. It lies about sixty miles from Havana, and is easily reached by rail or by automobile. The next city in order, also on the north coast, is Cardenas, a modern place, settled in 1828, and owing its importance to its convenience as a shipping port for the numerous sugar estates in its vicinity, an importance now somewhat modified by the facilities for rail shipment to other harbors. Seventy-five miles or so further eastward is Sagua la Grande, another point of former convenience as a shipping point for sugar. The city itself is located on a river, or estuary, some ten or twelve miles from its mouth. Forty miles or so further on are Remedies and Caibarien, a few miles apart, the latter on the coast and the former a few miles inland. Caibarien, like Cardenas and Sagua, is chiefly notable as a sugar port, while Remedios is the centre of one of the great tobacco districts, producing a leaf of good quality but generally inferior to the Partidos of Havana Province, and quite inferior to the famous Vuelta Abajo. Southward of this region, and about midway the width of the island, somewhat more than two hundred miles eastward of Havana, is the city of Santa Clara, better known in the island as Villa Clara. The city dates its existence from 1689. It lies surrounded by rolling hills and expansive valleys, but in the absence of extensive plantations in its immediate environs, one is led to wonder just why so pleasant a place should be there, and why it should have reached its present proportions. For the tourist who wants to "see it all," it is an excellent and most comfortable central headquarters.



From Villa Clara it is only a short run to Cienfuegos, the "city of a hundred fires," a modern place, only about a hundred years old. There is every probability that Columbus entered the harbor in 1494, and perhaps no less probability that Ocampo entered in 1508, on his voyage around the island. The harbor extends inland for several miles, with an irregular shore line, behind which rises a border line of hills. The city itself is some four or five miles from the entrance to the harbor. It came into existence, and still exists, chiefly by reason of the sugar business. It is an important outlet for that industry, and many estates are in its near vicinity. The old city of Trinidad is reached, by boat, from Cienfuegos, or rather its port city, Casilda, is so reached. Presumably, it was the port city that Velasquez founded in 1514, a location a few miles inland being chosen later, as being less exposed to attacks by the pirates and freebooters who infested the Caribbean Sea for many years. It is said that Cortes landed here and recruited his forces on his way to Mexico, in 1518. The city itself stands on the lower slopes of the hills that form its highly effective background. Its streets are narrow and tortuous. Like most of the cities of the island, and most of the cities of the world, it has its humble homes of the poor, and its mansions of the rich. Immediately behind it stands a hill with an elevation of about nine hundred feet above sea-level. Its name indicates the reason for its application, La Vigia, the "lookout," or the "watch-tower." From its summit, we may assume that the people of earlier times scanned the horizon for any sign of approaching pirates by whom they might be attacked. It serves a more satisfactory purpose nowadays in that it affords one of the loveliest panoramic views to be found anywhere in Cuba. Not far away, and accessible from the city, is the Pico de Potrerillo, about 3,000 feet elevation, the highest point in Central Cuba. Northeast of Trinidad, and reached by rail from Villa Clara, is Sancti Spiritus, Trinidad's rival in antiquity, both having been founded, by Velasquez, in the same year. Here also are narrow, crooked streets in a city of no mean attractions, although it lacks the picturesque charm of its rival in age. It is an inland city, about twenty-five miles from the coast, but even that did not protect it from attack by the pirates. It was several times the victim of their depredations.



VII

AROUND THE ISLAND: Continued

The next city, eastward, is Camaguey, in many ways doubtless the best worth a visit, next to Havana, of any city on the island. It is a place of interesting history and, for me personally, a place of somewhat mixed recollections. The history may wait until I have told my story. I think it must have been on my third visit to the island, early in 1902. On my arrival in Havana, I met my friend Charles M. Pepper, a fellow laborer in the newspaper field. He at once informed me that he and I were to start the next morning for a three or four weeks' journey around the island. It was news to me, and the fact that my baggage, excepting the suitcase that I carried, had failed to come on the boat that brought me, led me to demur. My objections were overruled on the ground that we could carry little baggage anyway, and all that was needed could be bought before starting, or along the way. The next morning saw us on the early train for Matanzas. We spent a week or ten days in that city, in Cardenas, Sagua, Santa Clara, and Cienfuegos, renewing former acquaintance and noting the changes effected by the restoration from the war period. That was before the completion of the Cuba Railway. To get to Camaguey, then known as Puerto Principe, we took the steamer at Cienfuegos and journeyed along the coast to Jucaro. There, because of shallow water, we were dropped into a shore boat some four or five miles from the coast, and there our troubles began. Fortunately, it was early morning. We got something to eat and some coffee, which is almost invariably good in Cuba, but when we meet nowadays we have a laugh over that breakfast at Jucaro. I don't know, and really don't care, what the place is now. After some hours of waiting, we secured passage in an antiquated little car attached to a freight train carrying supplies and structural material to Ciego de Avila, for use by the railway then being built in both directions, eastward and westward from that point. The line that there crosses the island from north to south was built in the time of the Ten Years' War (1868-1878) as a barrier against the revolutionists operating in eastern Cuba. It was restored for use in the revolution of 1895, but its blockhouses at every kilometre, and its barbed wire tangles, were entirely ineffective against Gomez and Maceo and other leaders, all of whom crossed it at their own sweet will, although not without an occasional vicious little contest. We reached Ciego de Avila soon after noon, and had to wait there over night for a further advance. The place is now a thriving little city, but it was then a somewhat sprawling village with a building that was called a hotel. But we got food and drink and beds, all that is really necessary for experienced campaigners. For the next two days, Old Man Trouble made himself our personal companion and did not lose sight of us for a single minute.

Through personal acquaintance with the railway officials, we obtained permission to travel over the line, on any and all trains, as far as it was then built, some forty miles or so toward Camaguey. Through them, also, we arranged for saddle horses to meet us at railhead for the remainder of the journey. There were no trains except construction trains carrying rails, ties, lumber, and other materials. We boarded the first one out in the morning. We had our choice of riding on any of those commodities that we might select. There was not even a caboose. We chose a car of lumber as the most promising. For four or five hours we crawled through that country, roasting and broiling on that pile of planks, but the ties and the rails were even hotter. The only way we could keep a place cool enough to sit on was by sitting on it. I once occupied a stateroom next to the steamer's funnel. I have seen, day after day, the pitch bubble between the planks of a steamer's deck in the Indian Ocean. I have been in other places that I thought plenty hot enough, but never have I been so thoroughly cooked as were my companion and I perched on the lumber pile. On top of that, or rather on top of us, there poured a constant rain of cinders from the locomotive puffing away a few cars ahead of us. The road-bed was rough, and at times we had to hang on for our very lives. We can laugh about it now, but, at the time, it was no joke. At last we reached the end of the line, somewhere in a hot Cuban forest, but there were no horses. We watched the operation of railway building, and took turns in anathematizing, in every language of which we had any knowledge, the abandoned ruffian who failed to appear with those horses. Before night, we were almost ready to wish that he had died on the way. At last he came. Our baggage was loaded on a pack-horse; we mounted and rode gallantly on our way. We had about thirty miles to cover by that or some other means of locomotion. Before we had gone a mile, we developed a clear understanding of the reasons for the sale of those horses by the Government of the United States, but why the United States Army ever bought them for cavalry mounts we could not even imagine. There was no road. Most of the way we followed the partly constructed road-bed for the new railway, making frequent detours, through field or jungle, to get around gaps or places of impossible roughness. Before we had covered two miles, we began to wish that the man who sent those horses, a Spaniard, by the way, might be doomed to ride them through all eternity under the saddles with which they were equipped. We were sorry enough for the poor brutes, but sorrier still for ourselves. For several days, I limped in misery from a long row of savage blisters raised on my leg by rawhide knots with which my saddle had been repaired. An hour after starting, we were overtaken by a heavy thunder-shower. At nightfall, after having covered about fifteen wretched miles, we reached a construction camp where an American nobleman, disguised as a section-boss, gave us food and lodging in the little palm-leaf shack that served as his temporary home. It was barely big enough for one, but he made it do for three.



Early in the morning, we resumed our journey, plodding along as best we could over a half-graded "right-of-way." A couple of hours brought us to a larger construction camp where we halted for such relief as we could secure. We then were some twelve or fourteen miles from our destination. We discussed the wisdom of making the rest of the way on foot, as preferable to that particular kind of saddle-work, leaving our baggage to come along with the horses when it might. But fortune smiled, or it may have been just a grimace. Word came that a team, two horses and a wagon, would go to the city that afternoon, and there would be room for us. We told our pilot, the man with the horses, just what we thought of him and all his miserable ancestors, gave him a couple of pesos, and rejoiced over our prospects of better fortune. But it proved to be only an escape from the fire into the frying-pan. I have driven over many miles of South African veldt, straight "across lots," in all comfort, but while the general topography of Camaguey puts it somewhat into the veldt class, its immediate surface did not in the least remind me of the South African plateau. The trip was little short of wonderful for its bumpiness. We got to Camaguey sore and bruised but, as far as we could discover, physically intact, and, having arrived, may now return to its history and description. May no "gentle reader" who scans these pages repeat our experience in getting there. It is supposed that here, or immediately here-about, was the place of "fifty houses and a thousand people" encountered by the messengers of Columbus, when he sent them inland to deliver official letters of introduction to the gorgeous ruler of the country in which he thought he was. Different writers tell different stories about the settlement of the place, but there is no doubt that it was among the earliest to be settled. Columbus gave to a harbor in that vicinity, in all probability the Bay of Nuevitas, the name Puerto del Principe, or Port of the Prince. He called the islands of the neighborhood the Gardens of the King. On that bay, about 1514, Diego Velasquez founded a city, probably the present Nuevitas, which he is said to have called Santa Maria. Somewhere from two to ten years later, an inland settlement was made. This developed into the city that was afterward given the name of Santa Maria del Puerto del Principe, now very properly changed to the old Indian name of Camaguey.

If the idea of an inland location was, as it is said to have been, protection against pirates and buccaneers, it was not altogether a success. The distinguished pirate, Mr. Henry Morgan, raided the place very effectively in 1668, securing much loot. In his book, published in 1871, Mr. Hazard says: "Puerto Principe (the present Camaguey) is, probably, the oldest, quaintest town on the island,—in fact, it may be said to be a finished town, as the world has gone on so fast that the place seems a million years old, and from its style of dress, a visitor might think he was put back almost to the days of Columbus." There have been changes since that time, but the old charm is still there, the narrow and crooked streets, forming almost a labyrinth, the old buildings, and much else that I earnestly hope may never be changed. There is now an up-to-date hotel, connected with the railway company, but if I were to go there again and the old hotel was habitable, I know I should go where I first stayed, and where we occupied a huge barrack-like room charged on our bill as "habitaciones preferentes," the state chamber. It had a dirty tiled floor, and was the home of many fleas, but there was something about it that I liked. I do not mean to say that all of Camaguey, "the city of the plain," is lovely, or picturesque or even interesting. No more is all of Paris, or Budapest, or Amsterdam, or Washington. They are only so in some of their component parts, but it is those parts that remain in the memory. The country around the city is a vast plain, for many years, and still, a grazing country, a land of horses and cattle. The charm is in the city itself. If I could see only one place outside of Havana, I would see Camaguey. A little less than fifty miles to the north is Nuevitas, reached by one of the first railways built in Cuba, now if ever little more than the port city for its larger neighbor. Columbus became somewhat ecstatic over the region. Perhaps it was then more charming, or the season more favorable, than when I saw it. I do not recall any feeling of special enthusiasm about its scenic charms. Perhaps I should have discovered them had I stayed longer. Perhaps I should have been more impressed had it not been for the impressions of Camaguey. I saw Nuevitas only briefly on my way eastward on that memorable excursion by construction train and saddle. The only route then available was by boat along the north shore, and it was there that we caught the steamer for Santiago.

That sail along the coast would have afforded greater pleasure had it lacked the noisy presence of an itinerant opera company whose members persisted, day and night, in exercising their lungs to the accompaniment of an alleged piano in the cabin. I have a far more pleasant recollection, or rather a memory because it stays with me, of music in those waters. The transport on which I went to Porto Rico, in the summer of 1898, carried, among other troops, a battery of light artillery. It had an unusually good bugler, and his sounding of "taps" on those soft, starlit nights remains with me as one of the sweetest sounds I have ever heard. The shrieks, squalls, and roars of those opera people were in a wholly different class. About seventy-five miles east of Nuevitas is Gibara, merely a shipping port for the inland city of Holguin. The former is only one of a number of such places found along the coast. Most of them are attractive in point of surrounding scenery, but little or not at all attractive in themselves, being mere groups of uninteresting structures of the conventional type. Holguin is perhaps two hundred years old, quite pleasantly situated, but affording no special points of interest for the tourist. The city is now easily reached by a branch of the Cuba Railway. It is worth the visit of those who "want to see it all." Beyond Gibara is Nipe Bay, not improbably the first Cuban harbor entered by Columbus. Nipe Bay and its near neighbor, Banes Bay, are the centres of what is now the greatest industrial activity of any part of the island. Here, recent American investment is measured in scores of millions of dollars. Here, in the immediate neighborhood, are some of the largest sugar plantations and mills on the island, the Boston and the Preston. A little to the west of Gibara are two others, Chaparra and Delicias. Hitherto, the western half of the island has been, the great producing district, but present indications point to a not distant time when the eastern district will rival and, it may be, outstrip the section of older development. The foundation is already laid for an extensive enterprise. Nature has afforded one of the finest land-locked harbors in the world at Nipe, and another, though smaller, a few miles away, at Banes. The region now has railroad connection with practically all parts of the island. Around those bays are sugar lands, tobacco lands, fruit lands, and a few miles inland are the vast iron ore beds that, as they are developed, will afford employment for an army of workmen. Nipe Bay is the natural commercial outlet for a vast area of richly productive soil. At present, the region affords nothing of special interest except its industrial activities, its miles and miles of sugar cane, its huge mills, and the villages built to house its thousands of workmen.

Seventy-five miles or so eastward of Nipe, lies one of the most charming and interesting spots on the island. This is old Baracoa, the oldest settlement on the island, now to be reached only by water or by the roughest of journeys over mountain trails. The town itself does not amount to much, but the bay is a gem, a little, circular basin, forest-shaded to its border, its waters clear as crystal. Behind it rise the forest-clad hills, step on step, culminating in el Yunque, "the anvil," with an elevation of about eighteen hundred feet. Baracoa is supposed to be the place about which Columbus wrote one of his most glowing and extravagant eulogies. Whether it is really worth the time and the discomfort of a special trip to see it, is perhaps somewhat doubtful. It is a place of scenery and sentiment, and little else. There is an old fort on a hilltop, not particularly picturesque, and an old church in which is a cross quite doubtfully reported as having been furnished by Columbus. Sometime, years hence, there will be easier communication, and the fertile hillsides and still more fertile valleys will supply various produces for consumption in the United States. About twenty-five miles east of Baracoa is the end of the island, Cape Maisi. Swinging around that, the coasting steamers turn due west along the shore to Santiago, passing the harbor of Guantanamo, with its United States naval station. That place is reached by rail from Santiago, a highly picturesque route through the Guantanamo valley. Besides the naval station, the place is a shipping port, affording nothing of special interest to the traveller who has seen other and more easily accessible cities of its type. It always seems to me that Santiago, or more properly Santiago de Cuba, would be more engaging if we could forget the more recent history of this city, known to most Cubans as Cuba (pronounced Cooba). No doubt, it is a much better place in which to live than it was twenty years ago, and much of its old charm remains. Its setting cannot be changed. It is itself a hillside town, surrounded by hills, with real mountains on its horizon. The old cathedral, a dominant structure, has been quite a little patched up in recent years, and shows the patches. The houses, big and little, are still painted in nearly all the shades of the spectrum. But there is a seeming change, doubtless psychological rather than physical. One sees, in imagination, Cervera's squadron "bottled up" in the beautiful harbor, while Sampson's ships lie outside waiting for it to come out. It is difficult to forget San Juan Hill and El Caney, a few miles behind the city, and remember only its older stories. A good deal of history has been made here in the last four hundred years. Its pages show such names as Velasquez, Grijalva, Hernan Cortes, and Narvaez, and centuries later, Cespedes, Marti, and Palma. Here was enacted the grim tragedy of the Virginius, and here was the conflict that terminated Spain's once vast dominion in the western world. My own impression is that most of its history has already been written, that it will have no important future. As a port of shipment, I think it must yield to the new port, Nipe Bay, on the north coast. It is merely a bit of commercial logic, the question of a sixty-mile rail-haul as compared with a voyage around the end of the island. Santiago will not be wiped from the map, but I doubt its long continuance as the leading commercial centre of eastern Cuba. It is also a fairly safe prediction that the same laws of commercial logic will some day operate to drain northward the products of the fertile valley of the Cauto, and the region behind old Manzanillo and around the still older Bayamo.



Except the places earlier mentioned, Jucaro, Trinidad and Cienfuegos, there are no southern ports to the west until Batabano is reached, immediately south of, and only a few miles from, the city of Havana. It is a shallow harbor, of no commercial importance. It serves mainly as the centre of a sponge-fishing industry, and as a point of departure for the Isle of Pines, and for ports on the south coast. The Isle of Pines is of interest for a number of reasons, among which are its history, its mineral springs, its delightful climate, and an American colony that has made much trouble in Washington. Columbus landed there in 1494, and gave it the name La Evangelista. It lies about sixty miles off the coast, almost due south from Havana. Between the island and the mainland lies a labyrinth of islets and keys, many of them verdure-clad. Its area is officially given as 1,180 square miles. There seems no doubt that, at some earlier time, it formed a part of the main island, with which it compares in geologic structure and configuration. It is now, in effect, two islands connected by a marsh; the northern part being broken and hilly, and the southern part low, flat, and sandy, probably a comparatively recently reclaimed coralline plain. The island has been, at various times, the headquarters of bands of pirates, a military hospital, a penal institution, and a source of political trouble. It is now a Cuban island the larger part of which is owned by Americans. It is a part of the province of Havana, and will probably so remain as long as Cuba is Cuba. My personal investigations of the disputed question of the political ownership of the island began early in 1899. I then reached a conclusion from which I have not since seen any reason to depart. The island was then, had always been, and is now, as much a part of Cuba as Long Island and Key West have been and are parts of the United States.

Just who it was that first raised the question of ownership, none of us who investigated the matter at the time of its particular acuteness, was able to determine satisfactorily, although some of us had a well-defined suspicion. The man is now dead, and I shall not give his name. Article I, of the Treaty of Paris, of December 10, 1898, presumably disposes of the Cuban area; Article II refers to Porto Rico; and Article III refers to the Philippines. The issue regarding the Isle of Pines was raised under Article II, presumably referring only to Porto Rico. A slight but possibly important difference appears in the Spanish and the English versions. The English text reads that "Spain cedes ... the island of Porto Rico and other islands now under Spanish sovereignty" etc. The Spanish text, literally translated runs: "Spain cedes ... the island of Porto Rico and the others that are now under its sovereignty." The obvious reference of the article is to Mona, Viequez, and Culebra, all small islands in Porto Rican waters. But the question was raised and was vigorously discussed. An official map was issued showing the island as American territory. Americans jumped in, bought up large tracts, and started a lively real estate boom. They advertised it widely as American territory, and many put their little collections of dollars into it. The claim of Spanish cession was afterward denied in the very document that served to keep the issue alive for a number of years. Article VI of the Platt Amendment, which the Cubans accepted with marked reluctance, declared that the island was omitted from the boundaries of Cuba, and that the title and ownership should be left to future adjustment by treaty. But no alternative appears between cession and no cession. Had the island become definitely American territory by cession, its alienation, by such a step, would not have been possible. When we left Cuba, in 1902, the official instructions from Washington were that the Isle of Pines would remain under a de facto American government. President Palma, accepting the transfer, expressed his understanding that it would "continue de facto under the jurisdiction of the Republic of Cuba." In some way, the departing American authority failed to leave any agent or representative of the de facto government of the United States, and the Cubans included the island in their new administration, very properly. When the treaty proposed by the Platt Amendment came before the United States Senate, it hung fire, and finally found lodgment in one of the many pigeon-holes generously provided for the use of that august body. There it may probably be found today, a record and nothing more. Why? For the very simple reason that some of the resident claimants for American ownership sent up a consignment of cigars made on the island from tobacco grown on the island, and refused to pay duty on them. The ground of refusal was that they were a domestic product, sent from one port in the United States to another port in the same country, and therefore not dutiable. The case of Pearcy vs Stranahan, the former representing the shippers, and the latter being the Collector of the Port of New York, came before the Supreme Court of the United States, and that final authority decided and declared that the Isle of Pines was Cuban territory and a part of Cuba. The question is settled, and the Isle of Pines can become territory of the United States only by purchase, conquest, or some other form of territorial transfer.

While the American settlers in the Isle of Pines, and the several real-estate companies who seek purchasers for their holdings, own a large part of the territory, they still constitute a minority of the population. Many of the settlers, probably most of them, are industrious and persistent in their various productive activities. Their specialty is citrus fruits, but their products are not limited to that line. More than a few have tried their little experiment in pioneering, and have returned to their home land more or less disgusted with their experience. Those who have remained, and have worked faithfully and intelligently, have probably done a little better than they would have done at home. The great wealth for which all, doubtless, earnestly hoped, and in which many, doubtless, really believed, has not come. This settlement is only one of many speculative exploitations in Cuba. Some of these have been fairly honest, but many of them have been little better than rank swindles. Many have been entirely abandoned, the buyers losing the hard-earned dollars they had invested. Others, better located, have been developed, by patience, persistence, and thrift, into fairly prosperous colonies. I do not know how many victims have been caught by unscrupulous and ignorant promoters in the last fifteen years, principally in the United States and in Canada, but they are certainly many, so many that the speculative industry has declined in recent years. Many of the settlers who have remained have learned the game, have discovered that prosperity in Cuba is purchased by hard work just as it is elsewhere. In different parts of the island, east, west, and centre, there are now thrifty and contented colonists who have fought their battle, and have learned the rules that nature has formulated as the condition of success in such countries. Whether these people have really done any better than they would have done had they stayed at home and followed the rules there laid down, is perhaps another question. At all events, there are hundreds of very comfortable and happy American homes in Cuba, even in the Isle of Pines, where they persist in growling because it is Cuba and not the United States.

In a review of a country including forty-four thousand square miles of territory, condensed into two chapters, it is quite impossible to include all that is worth telling. Moreover, there is much in the island of which no adequate description can be given. There is much that must be seen if it if to be fairly understood and appreciated.



VIII

THE UNITED STATES AND CUBA

IN his message to Congress, on December 5, 1898, President McKinley declared that "the new Cuba yet to arise from the ashes of the past must needs be bound to us by ties of singular intimacy and strength if its enduring welfare is to be assured."

Probably to many of the people of the United States, the story of our relations with Cuba had its beginning with the Spanish-American war. That is quite like a notion that the history of an apple begins with its separation from the tree on which it grew. The general history of the island is reviewed in other chapters in this volume. The story of our active relations with Cuba and its affairs runs back for more than a hundred years, at least to the days of President Thomas Jefferson who, in 1808, wrote thus to Albert Gallatin: "I shall sincerely lament Cuba's falling into any other hands but those of its present owners." Several other references to the island appear at about that time. Two great movements were then going on. Europe was in the throes of the Napoleonic disturbance, and for more than twenty-five years both France and England schemed, sometimes openly and sometimes secretly, for the possession of Cuba. The other movement was the revolution in Spain's colonies in the Western Hemisphere, a movement that cost Spain all of its possessions in that area, with the exception of Cuba and Porto Rico. The influence of the revolutionary activities naturally extended to Cuba, but it was not until after 1820 that matters became dangerously critical. From that time until the present, the question of Cuba's political fate, and the question of our relations with the island, form an interesting and highly important chapter in the history of the United States as well as in the history of Cuba.

In his book on the war with Spain, Henry Cabot Lodge makes a statement that may seem curious to some and amazing to others. It is, however, the opinion of a competent and thoroughly trained student of history. He writes thus:

"The expulsion of Spain from the Antilles is merely the last and final step of the inexorable movement in which the United States has been engaged for nearly a century. By influence and by example, or more directly, by arms and by the pressure of ever-advancing settlements, the United States drove Spain from all her continental possessions in the Western Hemisphere, until nothing was left to the successors of Charles and Philip but Cuba and Porto Rico. How did it happen that this great movement stopped when it came to the ocean's edge? The movement against Spain was at once national and organic, while the pause on the sea-coast was artificial and in contravention of the laws of political evolution in the Americas. The conditions in Cuba and Porto Rico did not differ from those which had gone down in ruin wherever the flag of Spain waved on the mainland. The Cubans desired freedom, and Bolivar would fain have gone to their aid. Mexico and Colombia, in 1825, planned to invade the island, and at that time invasion was sure to be successful. What power stayed the oncoming tide which had swept over a continent? Not Cuban loyalty, for the expression 'Faithful Cuba' was a lie from the beginning. The power which prevented the liberation of Cuba was the United States, and more than seventy years later this republic has had to fight a war because at the appointed time she set herself against her own teachings, and brought to a halt the movement she had herself started to free the New World from the oppression of the Old. The United States held back Mexico and Colombia and Bolivar, used her influence at home and abroad to that end, and, in the opinion of contemporary mankind, succeeded, according to her desires, in keeping Cuba under the dominion of Spain."

For a number of years, Cuba's destiny was a subject of the gravest concern in Washington. Four solutions presented themselves; first, the acquisition of Cuba by the United States; second, its retention by Spain; third, its transfer to some power other than Spain; fourth, its political independence. That the issue was decided by the United States is shown by all the history of the time. While other factors had their influence in the determination, it is entirely clear that the issue turned on the question of slavery. In his book on Cuba and International Relations, Mr. Callahan summarizes his review of the official proceedings by saying that "the South did not want to see Cuba independent without slavery, while the North did not want to annex it with slavery." In his work on the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Mr. Henry Wilson declares that "thus clearly and unequivocally did this Republic step forth the champion of slavery, and boldly insist that these islands should remain under the hateful despotism of Spain, rather than gain their independence by means that should inure to the detriment of its cherished system. Indeed, it (the United States) would fight to fasten more securely the double bondage on Cuba and the slave."

From this point of view, unquestionably correct, it is altogether evident that the United States assumed responsibility for Cuba's welfare, not by the intervention of 1898, but by its acts more than seventy years earlier. The diplomatic records of those years are filled with communications regarding the island, and it was again and again the subject of legislation or proposed legislation. President after President dealt with it in messages to Congress. The acquisition of the island, by purchase or otherwise, was again and again discussed. Popular interest was again and again excited; the Spanish colonial policy was denounced; and the burdens and sufferings of the Cubans were depicted in many harrowing tales. For the policy that led to the imposition of a restraining hand on proposals to free Cuba, in those early days, the people of the United States today must blush. The independence movement in the States of Spanish-America may be said to have had its definite beginning in 1806, when Francisco Miranda, a Venezuelan, sailed from New York with three ships manned by American filibusters, although the first land battle was fought in Bolivia, in 1809, and the last was fought in the same country, in 1825. But the great wave swept from the northern border of Mexico to the southernmost point of Spanish possession. When these States declared their independence, they wrote into their Constitutions that all men should be free, that human slavery should be abolished forever from their soil. The attitude of the United States in the matter of Cuba was determined by the objection to the existence of an anti-slavery State so near our border. The experience of Haiti and Santo Domingo was, of course, clearly in mind, but the objection went deeper than that. Those who are interested may read with profit the debates in the Congress of the United States, in 1826, on the subject of the despatch of delegates to the so-called Panama Congress-of that year. On the whole, it is not pleasant reading from any present point of view.

Our cherished Monroe Doctrine was one of the fruits of this period, and in the enunciation of that policy the affairs of Cuba were a prominent if not the dominant force. The language of this doctrine is said to have been written by Secretary Adams, but it is embodied in the message of President Monroe, in December, 1823, and so bears his name. In April, of that year, Secretary Adams sent a long communication to Mr. Nelson, then the American Minister to Spain. For their bearing on the Cuban question, and for the presentation of a view that runs through many years of American policy, extracts from that letter may be included here.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, April 28, 1823.

"In the war between France and Spain, now commencing, other interests, peculiarly ours, will, in all probability, be deeply involved. Whatever may be the issue of this war, as between these two European powers, it may be taken for granted that the dominion of Spain upon the American continent, north and south, is irrecoverably gone. But the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico still remain nominally, and so far really, dependent upon her, that she possesses the power of transferring her own dominion over them, together with the possession of them, to others. These islands, from their local position are natural appendages to the North American continent, and one of them, Cuba, almost in sight of our shores, from a multitude of considerations, has become an object of transcendant importance to the commercial and political interests of our Union. Its commanding position, with reference to the Gulf of Mexico and the West India seas; the character of its population; its situation midway between our southern coast and the island of St. Domingo; its safe and capacious harbor of the Havana, fronting a long line of our shores destitute of the same advantage; the nature of its productions and of its wants, furnishing the supplies and needing the returns of a commerce immensely profitable and mutually beneficial,—give it an importance in the sum of our national interests with which that of no other foreign territory can be compared, and little inferior to that which binds the different members of this Union together. Such, indeed, are the interests of that island and of this country, the geographical, commercial, moral, and political relations, that, in looking forward to the probable course of events, for the short period of half a century, it is scarcely possible to resist the conviction that the annexation of Cuba to our federal republic will be indispensable to the continuance and integrity of the Union itself."

The communication proceeds to relate the knowledge of the Department that both Great Britain and France were desirous of securing possession and control of the island, and to disclaim, on the part of the United States, all disposition to obtain possession of either Cuba or Porto Rico. The complications of the situation became increasingly serious, more particularly with regard to Cuba, and on December 2, of that year (1823), President Monroe issued his message carrying the "doctrine," which may be given thus:

"In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparations for our defense. With the movements in this hemisphere we are of necessity more immediately connected. We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers (of Europe) to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments that have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have recognized, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States."

From this time onward, Cuba appears as an almost continuous object of special interest to both the people and the officials of the United States. Notwithstanding this disclaimer of President Monroe's message, the idea of the acquisition of the island, by the United States, soon arose. It persisted through all the years down to the time of the Teller amendment, in 1898, and there are many who even now regard annexation as inevitable at some future time, more or less distant. The plan appears as a suggestion in a communication, under date of November 30, 1825, from Alexander H. Everett, then Minister to Madrid, to President Adams. It crops up repeatedly in various quarters in later years. It would be a difficult and tedious undertaking to chase through all the diplomatic records of seventy years the references to Cuba and its affairs.

From that period until the present time, the affairs of the island have been a matter of constant interest and frequent anxiety in Washington. Fear of British acquisition of the island appears to have subsided about 1860, but there were in the island two groups, both relatively small, one of them working for independence, and the other for annexation to the United States. The great majority, however, desired some fair measure of self-government, and relief from economic and financial burdens, under the Spanish flag. The purchase of the island by the United States was proposed by President Polk, in 1848; by President Pierce, in 1854; and by President Buchanan, in his time. Crises appeared from time to time. Among them was the incident of the Black Warrior, in 1854. Mr. Rhodes thus describes the affair, in his History of the United States:

"The Black Warrior was an American merchant steamer, plying between Mobile and New York, stopping at Havana for passengers and mail. She had made thirty-six such voyages, almost always having a cargo for the American port, and never being permitted to bring freight into Havana. The custom of her agent was to clear her 'in ballast' the day before her arrival. The practice, while contrary to the regulations of Cuban ports, had always been winked at by the authorities. It was well understood that the Black Warrior generally had a cargo aboard, but a detailed manifest of her load had never been required. She had always been permitted to sail unmolested until, when bound from Mobile to New York, she was stopped on the 28th of February, 1854, by order of the royal exchequer, for having violated the regulations of the port. The agent, finding that the cause of this proceeding was the failure to manifest the cargo 'in transit,' offered to amend the manifest, which under the rules he had a right to do; but this the collector, on a flimsy pretext, refused to permit. The agent was at the same time informed that the cargo was confiscated and the captain fined, in pursuance of the custom-house regulations. The cargo was cotton, valued at one hundred thousand dollars; and the captain was fined six thousand dollars. The United States consul applied to the captain-general for redress, but no satisfaction was obtained. A gang of men with lighters were sent to the ship under the charge of the commandante, who ordered the captain of the Black Warrior to discharge her cargo. This he refused to do. The commandante then had the hatches opened, and his men began to take out the bales of cotton. The captain hauled down his flag and abandoned the vessel to the Spanish authorities."

The news of the incident created great excitement in Washington. President Pierce sent a message to Congress, stating that demand had been made on Spain for indemnity, and suggesting provisional legislation that would enable him, if negotiations failed, "to insure the observance of our just rights, to obtain redress for injuries received, and to vindicate the honor of our flag."