Industrial Cuba Part 10

[Ill.u.s.tration: PANORAMA FROM THE ROAD TO THE CAVES, MATANZAS.]

Bahia Honda (Pinar del Rio), with about two thousand population, is one of the chief seaports of the mountain coast; and although it possesses none of the visible evidences of future promise, still it is one of the places which impress the visitor with belief in its future greatness.

Its population is largely black, its wharves are miserable, its houses are poor; though over one hundred years old, it is not a port of entry--and still Bahia is promising. The harbour is one of the finest on the coast, the surrounding country is rich in tobacco and sugar soil, the climatic conditions are favourable, and the new times will be good times for Bahia.

Cabanas (Pinar del Rio), with a population of fifteen hundred, has a landlocked, shallow harbour, four miles by seven in extent, and its connections with the interior are bad. It came into prominence during the war, and was partly destroyed by General Maceo.

Consolacion del Sur (Pinar del Rio) is, after Bahia Honda, the chief commercial town of the province. It has a population of two thousand, and is in the centre of the Vuelta Abajo tobacco district, with eight hundred plantations tributary to it.

Guanajay (Pinar del Rio) has a population of six thousand, is the junction of several paved roads, and is considerably above the average interior town in progressive spirit. It is lacking, however, in modern conveniences and suffered by the war.

San Cristobal (Pinar del Rio), though one of the oldest towns in the Island, is very enterprising and its people are energetic and prosperous. It has a railway and good waggon roads, and its thirty-five hundred people have a good climate and good health. It is in the midst of the Vuelta Abajo tobacco district.

San Diego de los Banos (Pinar del Rio) is to be especially mentioned for its wonderful sulphur baths. In one enclosure there are four of these springs, having a temperature of ninety degrees, and they have effected cures in leprosy, other cutaneous diseases, and rheumatism which are pa.s.sing belief. It has beautiful surroundings of hill and sea and its caves of Arcos de Carguanabo are famous.

Vinales (Pinar del Rio), a small town of 925 people, is the interior terminus of the railroad running to the north coast and the celebrated San Vincente mineral springs.

Batabano (Havana) is the southern seaport of the city of Havana, thirty-three miles to the north, and connected with it by rail and paved roads. The town, in two parts, La Plaza and Surgirdero, is meanly built, and has about nineteen hundred people. It has no harbour, but is the western terminus of the south-coast line of steamers. The waters about Batabano are notable for the beautiful submarine views they present to observers on steamers. Batabano is hot and unhealthful.

Bejucal (Havana), built in 1710, has a population of six thousand two hundred, an elevation of three hundred feet, and a situation in the midst of pleasing scenery. The town itself is unattractive to the eye, but its health is good, the people being noted for their long lives.

Cojimar (Havana), four miles from Havana, has a beautiful sand beach, the finest in Cuba, and in time will become a profitable seaside resort, though now unimproved. The British landed here in 1762.

Guanabacoa (Havana) is practically a suburb of Havana and has a population of twenty-five thousand. With every opportunity and possibility of being a clean, modern city, it is quite the reverse.

Guines (Havana), thirty miles from Havana over a fine waggon road, and forty-four by rail, has a population of about seven thousand, and one of the most desirable situations in the Island. It has bridges over the river Catalina, a good hotel, a fine railway station; about it lies a rich agricultural and grazing country, and the town is, in respect of health, thrift, and progress, a model town--for Cuba.

Jaruco (Havana), with a population of two thousand two hundred, claims recognition chiefly because it is clean. Naturally its health is better than that of most Cuban towns.

Madruga (Havana) is famed for its warm mineral springs. It is fifty-five miles from Havana by rail. Population three hundred.

Marianao (Havana), a suburb of Havana six miles away, has a population of twelve hundred, and is said to be the cleanest and prettiest town in Cuba. Its people are entirely of the better cla.s.s.

Regla (Havana), a suburb of Havana, connected with the city by ferries, has the largest and finest sugar warehouses in the world and a bull-ring vying in popularity with those of Havana.

San Antonio de los Banos (Havana), with seven thousand five hundred people, twenty miles from Havana, is the most popular mineral-springs resort in the Island and its climate is famous for its health-giving qualities.

Colon (Matanzas), on the railway between Matanzas and Cardenas, in the heart of the sugar-producing district of this section, has six thousand five hundred people and is of much commercial importance. Like all the others, it needs public improvements.

Jovellanos (Matanzas), also known as Bemba, is a coloured town, the bulk of its population being negroes, and its only hotel is kept by a Chinaman.

Macagua (Matanzas) is noted for its extensive sugar estates. Some of the largest in Cuba are immediately around it. Population four thousand one hundred. It has a railway to Colon and Santa Clara.

Calaboya (Santa Clara) has a population of fifteen hundred and possesses, in the bridge over the Calaboya River, the longest railway bridge in Cuba. Otherwise it is not important.

La Cruces (Santa Clara) is a railway junction and was at one time actively engaged in s.h.i.+pping horses, cattle, and sugar. The people are active and energetic, and have been complimented with the name of the "Yankees of Cuba."

La Isabela (Santa Clara), called also Concha and La Boca, is the seaport of Sagua la Grande, and has five thousand people. It is the sh.o.r.e terminus of the railway to Sagua and is of considerable commercial importance, with a cosmopolitan people.

Remedios (Santa Clara), with a population of seven thousand, is in a fine country and is one of the cities of the future, naturally and logically.

Sancti Spiritus (Santa Clara), also known as Santo Espiritu, founded in 1514, is one of the old towns of the Island. Despite its size (seventeen thousand), it is of no great commercial importance, and is a dirty town in a good location for cleanliness.

Santa Isabel (Santa Clara), with a population of five thousand, does a good business in sugar and cattle. Cienfuegos is its seaport and is connected with it by a railroad twenty-five miles long.

Tunas de Zaza (Santa Clara), with fifteen hundred population, is in such a poor country agriculturally and aquatically, that the railway has a monopoly in carrying vegetables and water supply to the people. The town is hot and healthful. It has s.h.i.+pped as much as half a million dollars'

worth of sugar, mahogany, cedar, honey, beeswax, etc., to the United States in one year.

Nuevitas (Puerto Principe), population seven thousand, is a town of promise and no public improvements. Water, in the dry season, commands nearly as high a price as whiskey. It is the seaport of Puerto Principe, Cuba's largest inland town, and is connected with it by forty-five miles of railroad. It has a fine harbour and a good location for drainage. It was at or near Nuevitas that Columbus first saw Cuba. Its annual exports to the United States have, in a good year, exceeded one million dollars.

Banes (Santiago de Cuba) is noted for its fruit business, as many as 4,651,000 bunches of bananas having been exported since 1890. Thirty-two thousand pineapples were s.h.i.+pped in 1894, but the insurrection ruined the business in 1896.

Baracoa (Santiago de Cuba) is the most eastern port of importance on the north coast. It is the oldest town in Cuba and formerly was the capital.

It was founded in 1512 by Velasquez, whose house is still shown to the traveller. Baracoa is far behind the times, but it has all the potentialities for future greatness. The country along the coast is not healthful, but the interior is not only fine scenically but also excellent as to its health standard. There are no good roads and no railways of any kind. Baracoa imports about nineteen thousand pints of beer per annum from the United States, and Milwaukee sells at twenty-five cents a bottle. Copper, cocoanuts and oil, bananas, and cocoa const.i.tute the exports. General Maceo and his followers inaugurated the last Cuban revolution in Baracoa, on the 20th of February, 1895, and within a year had marched through the Island to Mantua in the west of Pinar del Rio.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PLAZA, CIENFUEGOS.]

Bayamo (Santiago de Cuba), with a population of about 4000 and an age of about 350 years, is a Spanish relic city, being very like the earlier cities of the mother country. It has eleven churches. It has none of the modern conveniences and no railways, and its waggon roads are impa.s.sable in the wet season. Bayamo never had a boom. It was the cradle of the Ten Years' War.

Cobre (Santiago de Cuba), founded in 1558, is famous for its copper mines. It has a magnificent sanctuary, in which is the little statue known as the _Virgin of Charity_, which is claimed to have effected miraculous cures of all kinds.

Gibara (Santiago de Cuba), also spelled with a "J," is the seaport for Holguin, with which it is connected by a railroad seventeen miles long and by a very bad waggon road. It has a population of about five thousand. It is greatly in need of improvement.

Guantanamo (Santiago de Cuba) has a population of nine thousand, and is the centre of the coffee district. Other agricultural products and minerals abound. It was founded in 1843, and still is not a modern town in the matter of conveniences. It is unhealthful because it has no sanitary provisions. It has a fine harbour and is of much commercial importance. It came into prominence during the late war.

Holguin (Santiago de Cuba), with a high and healthful location and fifty-five hundred people, ought to be a much better town than it is, and will improve under the new order. It is fifteen miles from the north coast, and is in the centre of the hardwood industry. It was of great military importance during the late war.

Jiguani (Santiago de Cuba), with a picturesque mountainous location, and an old castle in the vicinity, will be attractive to tourists and artists.

Of the 570 islands, or keys, on the north coast of Cuba and the 730 on the south, the Isle of Pines is the only one of sufficient size to be of importance; its area being 1214 square miles to 1350 square miles for all the other 1299 Islands. The Isle of Pines belongs to the judicial district of Bejucal (Havana), and was first called "Evangelist Island"

by Columbus, who discovered it in 1494. It has a population of 2000, of which 1800 is about equally divided between its two chief towns, Nueva Gerona and Santa Fe. The people are rather superior to those of the Island of Cuba, and the climate is drier and better than that of the main Island. Besides the pines which flourish on the island, there is a great quant.i.ty of mahogany, cedar, and other hardwoods. There are deposits of fine marble, as well as of silver, mercury, and iron, yet to be developed. Turtle fis.h.i.+ng and pineapple raising flourish to some extent. The Isle of Pines is really two islands, separated by a tide-covered swamp, over which there is a causeway. The south portion is rough and barren, while the northern part is fertile and pleasing to the eye. The towns are poor. Its mineral waters are much recommended for affections of the stomach.

A few of the other islands, or keys, are inhabited in a small way, and the largest of them, Cayo Romano, has an area of 140 square miles, with three hills rising from its flat plain.

CHAPTER X

HAVANA

"Oh Queen of many-coloured garb And red-tiled crown!--in glory The poets who Have sung of you Have set your name and story.

"No fairer Queen, they sing, than you, The fairest of the daughters Of Southern seas Who take their ease Beside the sunlit waters.

"And I, as they, would sing thy praise As is to be expected; But ere I sing, Oh Queenly Thing, Won't you be disinfected?"

W. J. LAMPTON.