^ w^ CUBA X THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO {Frontispiece) Photograph by American Photo Company MoRRo, Castle of the Three Kings c u li A BY IRENE A. WRIGHT THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Neiv York igi2 LONDON: MACMILLAN & GO. LIMITED ^b^ COPYEIGHT, 1910, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1910. NarfajoolJ ^xzm J. S. Cashing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. MY MOTHER CONSTANT, PATIENT, TIRELESS COMPANION IN ALL MY WORK 5f;!J3/0 FOKEWORD This book contains impressions of Cuba gathered dur- ing ten years' interrupted residence on this island, the last four of which have been spent largely in traveling hither and yon through its provinces, on work entailed first by connections with local newspapers, next by an appointment as special agent of the Cuban department of agriculture, and, finally, by the business of editing a monthly magazine which describes the island princi- pally from agricultural and industrial points of view. What is given of the history of the country, not as yet scientifically compiled, has been obtained in desultory reading, especially of earliest chronicles. The whole is set forth as the personal opinion of the author only. After one has resided in Cuba through ten years, he ceases to hold any dogmas or doctrines con- cerning this country, which has, very justly, it seems to me, been called the land of topsy-turvey. Here logic and rational sequence are not the rule. Life runs, not like reality, but after the style of librettos of stage plays. From largest to smallest, contradiction exists in all the details of our daily life. Here there are woods which sink and stones which float. Here the executive par- dons persons not yet convicted of any crime, and the congress legislates against incorrigible suicides. Business firms send creditors no bills, but signed receipts instead, to dun them. Here black is not necessarily black, but viii FOBEWOBB may carry a legal document to prove its color white; white is not surely white, but may only " pass " for such. Under these, and a thousand other circumstances of which they are typical, one learns to hesitate to call a spade either a qualified shovel or an agricultural implement, but compromises by stating, if one must commit oneself, that at a given time and at a given place it looked to one something like an azadon, THE AUTHOR. Havana, Cuba, June 1, 1910. CONTENTS OHAPTEE PAGE I. Havana — The City Itself 1 II. The Tourist's Havana 25 III. Days in Havana . .52 "^ IV. Abroz con Fruoles 83 V. Home Life 98 ^ VI. Foreigners in Cuba 134 VIT. "Cuba Libre" — A Farce 164 VIIL Wanted: A Market I ...... 194 IX. West by Water 207 X. The Land 221 XL West by Kaii 238 XIL West by Road .250 XIII. Tobacco in Western Cuba 268 XIV. The Isle of Pines 279 XV. The North Coast 337 XVL Santiago de Cuba ....... 352 XVIL Our Lady of Cobre 373 XVIIL The South Coast .383 XIX. Santa Clara 389 XX. Camaguey 396 XXI. Colonies of Oriente 411 XXIL The IsTipe Bay District 464 Index 505 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Map of Cuba xiv Morro, Castle of the Three Kings .... Frontispiece FACEfG PAGB Early Morning at Havana Harbor Mouth 1 A Cuban Kitchen 5 Charcoal Burners 5 Ball Players on the Court 7 The Presidential Palace, Havana 10 The ** Green Room " of the Presidential Palace .... 10 The Templete, Havana 12 Havana City Mounted Police 16 The Prado, Havana 16 Central Park, the Heart of Havana 21 In Havana's Modem Suburbs — Jesus del Monte ... 21 La India — Looking North along Upper Prado .... 21 A Typical Havana Street 23 Cuban Pack Train 26 A Country Milk Peddler 26 Entrance to Cubanas Fortress 28 Cubanas Salutes 28 Tower of La Fuerza, showing EflBgy, La Habana ... 33 La Fuerza, the Oldest Habitable and Inhabited Building in the Western Hemisphere 33 La Chorrera 37 Remnant of Havana's Old City Walls, showing Part of the Prado — Malecon Drive in Havana 37 Monument to Student Martyrs 44 Glories of a Funeral in Cuba 48 The Cathedral. Havana 53 Panorama of Mariel 56 Street Peddler selling Tin and Other Kitchen Ware ... 60 The Bread Man who delivers *• Flukes " from Door to Door . 60 xi Xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Street Vendor, Havana 60 Corridor of a Cuban Home of the Best Class . . . .113 Portico of a Vuelta Abajo Planter's Home, Pinar del Rio . . 113 A Country Family in Gala Array 128 Window Courtship, Havana .128 A"Compara" — Maskers in Carnival Time .... 148 Piero Gueria, Revolutionary Leader of the " Little War " . . 176 The Plaza at Pinar del Rio City . . . . . . .234 Raja Yoga Academy, Pinar del Rio . . • . . . . 240 Hotel Ricardo, Pinar del Rio 240 A Typical Country Road in Cuba 254 The Peace Keeper in Pinar del Rio 257 Quarry beyond Luis Lazo 261 Quarrying Native Stones for Road Dressing, in Pinar del Rio . 261 Approaching the Summit, Pinar del Rio . . . . . 263 On the Bayamo Manzanillo Highway 266 On the Line of the Bayamo Manzanillo Highway . . . 266 An Old Road in Northwestern Pinar del Rio .... 266 Valley of Vinales 268 Shade-grown Tobacco Fields at San Jnan y Martinez, Vuelta Abajo 272 A Tobacco Warehouse, Havana 272 Casas River 288 A Typical View in the Isle of Pines 293 An American Residence in the Isle of Pines . . . . 300 Colombo Bay 300 Pines of the Isle 332 A Young Isle Grove 332 Sibouey, near Santiago de Cuba — Monument to Shafter's Com- mand, erected on Site of Americans' Landing in 1808 . . 353 San Juan Hill 353 Cespedes Park, Santiago 357 Santiago de Cuba, from Tivoli Hill 359 A Street in Santiago de Cuba 362 The Old Church at El Caney — Riddled by Shot and Shell . 364 The Cemetery at Santiago de Cuba 368 A Back Street in Santiago de Cuba 368 View from Boniato Summit towards Santiago . . . . 371 , LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii FACING PAGE Loading a Cart in the Field 382 Cutting and Stripping Cane 382 At Sagua la Grande «... 394 In the Patio at Hotel Camaguey 408 Bayamo Manzanillo Highway 446 Hand-shaped Timbers of Valuable Hardwoods used for Bridge- building in Cuba 446 Primitive Coffc'ee Mill 448 The First Incline out of Piedra Gorda . . . . . . 498 CHAPTER I HAVANA — THE CITY ITSELF Llave del Nuevo Mundo y Balarte de las Indias Occidentales I WISH that I might see Havana again in the light in which she appeared to me on the early winter morning of our first arrival here. We were on our steamer^s deck before daybreak, as the wise traveler will be, if he would obtain at the very commencement of his acquaint- ance an impression of Havana not likely to be entirely obliterated by later familiarity with the city, no matter what contempt this may breed. Ahead, over black waters, we beheld a strong and single light. It flashed encouragement to advance. We knew that it was Morrows. Presently, especially on the left hand, we distinguished above the waters the intenser black of shore. Later still we saw that the land was divided from the sea by an intermittent froth of white breakers. They made, however, no sound to disturb the absolute silence through which we cut. Then, gradually, details of a picture detached themselves from a gray background, becoming by instants more luminous. We made out the outlines of Morro. We saw minor lights, those of the barracks on the sloping shore to left of it, and those, more numerous, of the city itself, across the channel, at the right. Faint color crept into the sky ; it deepened to brilliant red, against 2 .% H/::,:; ;.j; :arz^^ which the lighthouse tower of the Castle was a black silhouette, bearing aloft a golden disk, that faded and went out. The sun had risen, and before us lay a city such in aspect as I had not supposed ever existed off the back curtain of a stage set for light opera. It lay along a shore that seemed to curve in a bow of gracious welcome. Its houses glistened with opalescent tints. We passed through the channel, close under Morro (seated like a gray and weary veteran upon black rocks the sea has undermined), and beside Cabanas, with w^alls (long, low, irregular, upon a hill) painted rose color in the morning light. Over all lay the most dehcate, shifting, blue-gray mist, which made what our eyes be- held seem the more unreal. I felt that we had arrived in an enchanted land ; whatever disillusionment I have suffered since has not uprooted, nor ever can, the love for Havana born in me that morning, at first sight. Three times in utter disgust I have bidden her '^fare- well forever.^' Each time, before I^d lost her well astern, I realized that I should return. Arrived in the North, the bustle of busier streets than hers annoyed me ; brick and brownstone houses oppressed me with their gloom. I missed her sky from above me, — all others look faded in comparison, for none were ever so blinding at noonday, so gaudy at sunset, so deep, so tender, so marvelously blue at night. The very airs that blow through her avenues penetrate the marrow with her charm, and the palm trees of her suburbs, with feathery tops that rustle in the wind, have haunted my dreams when I have sought to return to the land where I was born, until longing for the light, the color, the warmth of Havana, was a pain not longer to be endured. Three times have I come back, like a tippler to his drink, be- cause I love her and I cannot keep away. HAVANA — THE CITY ITSELF 3 Havana was the last of seven cities founded in Cuba by the Adelantado Don Diego Velazquez, conqueror and first governor of the country. It was estabhshed first on July 25, 1515, near the mouth of the Guines or Mayabeque River, on the south shore of Cuba, almost directly across the island from the city's present site. That date is St. Christopher's day, and to honor him, and also, undoubtedly, Columbus, the place was called St. Christopher of Havana, Havana being the Indian name for approximately that part of Cuba which has since become the Province of Habana. Oddly enough, the spelling (with v) which is usual in English seems to have been the original, the present Spanish version (with 6) being, I judge, a corruption occasioned by local mispronunciation of v and its consequent con- fusion with 6. The 25th of July is not, however, cele- brated as the city's natal day. The Catholic calendar ascribes that date to two saints, — to St. Christopher and to the great St. James, patron of Spain, and also of Cuba. To avoid conflict with festivities in honor of Santiago, His Holiness, long ago, gave Havana special permission to make merry in St. Christopher's name on November 16, because of her beginning, four centuries ago, in the vicinity of the present south coast port of Batabano. It is, on first consideration, incredible to those who know Cuba that reasoning men should have selected that location for a town. Batabano is considered the best port in its neighborhood, but not a particularly good one. The harbor is shallow, not fully protected, and the coast is unattractive, low, and hot. Explanation lies in the fact that at the time Havana was founded all explorations made and making were to the south of Cuba, along the north shore of the South American 4 CUBA mainland, where the Spanish were struggUng fiercely for a foothold on the Pearl Coast, and on the Isthmus, at Darien. What traffic there was in these as yet un- frequented seas coasted the south shore of Cuba from Santo Domingo, center of Spanish colonization, to Uraba, first, and finally to Peru and to Mexico.^ Of the continent of North America, on the other hand, nothing was known save that an Englishman and a Frenchman had found land in distant latitudes. Spain and her subjects were interested to forestall solely the King of Portugal, with whom only they expected to share the New World, and his exploring expeditions sailed south. Havana's situation on the south shore of the island was, however, insufferable, despite its commercial ad- vantages. The people were plagued with mosquitoes ; newborn babies died, books tell, of the bites of those pestiferous insects. The settlement moved, therefore, across the island, to a location near the mouth of the Almen dares River, which comes into the sea at the far edge of the present suburb of Vedado. Here, unfortu- nately, it was exposed to the attacks of pirates, who were a reality upon the Spanish Main in those days. In 1519, on this account, it moved again, to a site easier of defense, this time settling down to stay in its present place on the west shore of the bay that was originally called Carenas, by Sebastian de Campo, who discovered it in 1508, when, on the first voyage of cir- cumnavigation made about Cuba, he entered to careen his ships. The name he gave it has been forgotten in 1 Cortes put into Havana on his way to Tenochtitlan when Havana was still on the south coast of Cuba ; he did not, as Prescott, for instance, sujiposes, sail clear around the west end of the island to the present port. Photogravh l)y American Photo company A Cuban Kitchen Photograph by American Photo Company Charcoal Burners A pile of wood ready for the conflagration HAVANA — THE CITY ITSELF 5 its present title of Havana Harbor. Entrance is by way of a very narrow channel which seemed easy to close against unwelcome visitors. The bay then swept in between Punta and La Fuerza much further than it does now, so that the nascent city huddled really upon a peninsula projecting into the harbor. To the landward it was protected, I gather from reading, by a thick growth of manigua (almost impenetrable bush) through which its citizens took good pains to make no trails for marauders' guidance ; despite this precaution it was visited more than once by buccaneers who an- chored in San Lazaro Inlet, an insignificant arm of sea, now well within the city limits and destined soon to disappear, leaving only a curve in the modern sea- wall drive to indicate its former whereabouts. I can, rightly or wrongly, imagine a fat caravel an- chored where the house I live in stands (on made land) in the downtown district to-day, and leaning upon the low protecting wall along our front azotea (fiat roof), as upon that caraveFs gunwale, I can overlook with my mind's eye a very different scene from that the physical eye beholds. No tall buildings, packed together in city blocks, obstruct imagination's view ; they have scattered and shrunk ! Morro is gone from its headland behind me, — Cabafias is gone from its hill ! There, to the left, just past the angled wall of Fuerza, the fort where the governor lives, upstairs, I see the top of a tall ceiha tree. Opposite it, across the Plaza de Armas, is, not the Palace (modern and ordinary residence of captains- general, American governors, and Cuban presidents), but the old adobe parish church, thatched with palm leaves. Beyond it and above it, on Calle Real (Mu- ralla or Ricla Street), on Redes (now Inquisidor), on 6 CUBA Sumidero (O'Reilly), on Basurero (Teniente Rey), the houses of the earliest Havana, built of cedar and roofed with thatch, stand in rows. Elsewhere, they observe no order. They are fenced about, front, sides, and back, with double walls of prickly cactus. There are fruit trees in these enclosures. The furniture within the houses consists of benches, and chairs of cedar and mahogany, without backs, the bottoms being of can- vas or hide, of which materials, too, are the beds (ham- mocks) of the poorer citizens. Richer residents ship black and red precious woods which abound here to Castile, whence the logs return converted into handsome 'imperial couches. '^ Cooking utensils are usually of iron, although the native Indians make earthen pots which they prefer in preparation of their dishes. The people eat stews of fresh or salt meats, flavored with peppers, and corn and cazabi bread, which hunger makes palatable. Tableware is of Sevillan crockery, with platters of wood. There are pretty cups of a wood called guayacaUy deemed to possess prodigious medicinal qualities because of the material from which they are fashioned In every parlor is a sacred picture, before which lights are burned at nightfall when the customary prayers are said. For illumination the poor use tallow candles; the rich, brass lamps from Seville fed with olive oil. After dark no one ventures out unless compelled to do so, and then he goes with a goodly company, armed, carrying lanterns. Wild dogs and runaway negro slaves enter the town, with darkness, to fight each other through its garbage for food ! My friend, Hernando de Paula, servant of the gov- ernor, D. Juan Maldonado, leans with me over the rail, pointing out details of interest. ''You won't find here,'' he warns me, ''those birds with gold and silver HAVANA — THE CITY ITSELF 7 beaks and enameled plumage of which they told us before we left Castile, nor do I see any prospects of rich mines. But this land is lovely ; its fields are green as spring the year around. There is good and abundant water. Herds multiply marvelously. If sugar and tobacco projects prosper, traffic will increase until this city becomes the richest and most important . . .^' A trolley car thundering up Chacon Street shatters my re very. T open my eyes to fact, not fancy, and behold his prophecy come true. The caramel-colored walls of the Supreme Court building are between me and the Plaza, but I know that La Fuerza is dwarfed beside the Senate building (and only the commanding general of the Rural Guard resides upstairs). The Templete is back, with its stone monument where the historic ceiba tree used to stand. The Palace has shouldered the parish church into ancient history. From all this, the wholesale and office district of the modern capital, arises a very tumult of congested traffic, increased and increasing, because, indeed, Amigo Hernando, projects in sugar and tobacco have prospered mightily ! ^ Now from the bay shore (from the Maestranza Build- ing on the north to the Arsenal on the south) many narrow streets (the same Hernando knew and still others parallel to them) lead west by a little south to those open and parked places, between Monserrate and Zulueta, where stood formerly the city walls. 1 In the foregoing description of ancient Havana I have taken liberties with an account which appears in Maria de la Torre's hand- book entitled "What We Were and What We Are." The article from which I have lifted purports to be notes (Mss., fifth copy, dated 1598) made by Hernando de Paula, servant of the governor, Juan Maldonado, continued by Alonso Inigo de Cordoba. The Mss. once belonged to Diego de Oquendo, and was printed with some modernization of the language by Jose Joaquin Garcia in 1846. 8 CUBA Originally all the neighborhood west and south of these walls, now covered solidly with the houses of newer parts of the city itself, was wild country, overgrown, as I have said, with ''bush'' through which, at first, there were not even any trails. Vedadoj the name of Havana's handsomest modern suburb, means ''Forbidden"; there was a time when it was prohibited to pass through the tangled woods there lest in so doing paths be made by which pirates anchored offshore might feel encour- aged to approach the city and attack. Gradually, however, farms were cultivated all about the town. Then the suburbs of Jesus del Monte and Cerro, for instance, were not parts of Havana, but separate vil- lages to which roads that have since become Jesus del Monte and Cerro avenues (Calzadas) lead out. The farms changed, as the city grew, into suburban villas and chalets of the rich upon which humbler homes ventured, in time, to crowd uncomfortably. Now the grounds of Count Villanueva, for instance, prized as a rural estate, are a city park and the site of a cen- trally located railway station; elsewhere electric cars pass along paved streets which have developed from lanes and sylvan byways. "The old city,'' as they call that part of it east of the line of the walls, between their relics and the bay, is in area but a small part of the greater Havana. It has become the business district of the modern city, yet not exclusively so. Streets here are exceed- ingly narrow, as the law required when they were laid out that they should be, for it was supposed that they would be cooler if the houses on one side shaded the fagades of those on the other. It did not occur to those who planned them, however, to lay Havana's avenues with any intelligent reference to prevailing HAVANA — THE CITY ITSELF 9 winds. These stree^swere first paved with cobble- stones ; it is only within thelast ten years that cement, wooden blocks, and, in sticky patches, a little asphalt, have replaced the round rocks on a few of the principal thoroughfares. Houses stand close along these streets, without the intervention of sidewalks worthy the name, except on a few modernized avenues, notably Obispo and O'Reilly. In the beginning no sidewalks were planned. Persons of importance rode : mere pedestrians merited no consideration. All that pro- tected the houses from traffic passing in the streets, then, was a curb intended to keep wheels from scraping on the buildings ; these curbs have, wherever possible, been converted into sidewalks. In many places, however, they render only their original service. When the pavement, a foot or two wide at its best, on side avenues, dwindles to an inch or two instead, a person walking takes to the street, precisely as it was intended he should do, and continues on his way as best he can, quite at the mercy of his betters, passing with right-of- way in hired ''coaches'' and private vehicles of all sorts whose drivers hiss and halloo at him to step lively, unmindful how the wheels slipping into puddles be- tween cobbles may spatter him with water and mud, unless, foreseeing the catastrophe, he dodge uninvited into an open door and so escape the flying mire. These houses are generally two stories in height ; in^ some this is equivalent to three, for there is a low-ceiled ^' between floors," intended originally, I think, for the accommodation of menials. The National Bank build^ ing scrapes the sky with five stories. There are one- story buildings beside it with sloping roofs of curled red tile. These houses are built of stone, or as durable peculiar old brick, or a composition known as mam- 10 CUBA posteria; the outside of all alike, however, is smoothly- plastered and gayly colored : white, cream, buff, pink, blue, yellow, green, lavender, indigo, in single tones and in startling combinations which astonish the eye and, combined with a tangled sky line, constitute no small proportion of Havana's attraction for a stranger here. The street fronts of the buildings are all quite plain. There are large rectangular windows, barred, and immense and sometimes ornate doorways, through which, if they stand open, one sees patios (courtyards) beyond. Erected for residences, some buildings even in the heart of ^Hhe old city'' have remained so; business has, however, invaded most of them here, so that in the handsome palace of the Count of San Fernando an American company stores farm wagons. On another corner of Cathedral Square a senator of the republic lives above a corner cafe where omnibus drivers spend their small leisure between trips. Residences of for- eign diplomats stand side by side with steam laundries. The laughter of children at play on the roof of the ad- joining house enlivens the quiet of the American con- sul's private office. There are tenements on the tops of warehouses. Factories, schools, government de- partments, and convents may be neighbors in the same square. The most notorious street in town is within a block or so of the most fashionable church and of the American Legation, opposite it. In short, ^Hhe old city" is a grab bag, — its contents unsorted. West of the Prado, the wider streets there, and the suburbs beyond them, are now more the residential districts than any below the line of the former walls, where business predominates, yet does not wholly control. 'Havana grew westward from her water front, and j'liDioijnipii ha A III, rlcan Photo Company The Presidential Palace, Havana PhoinQT'ivh by American Photo Company "The Green Room" of the Presidential Palace HAVANA — THE CITY ITSELF close to it, naturally, are the oldest and the most inter- esting parts of town.! The very center of the original settlement was the Plaza de Armas, the little park above Caballeria, the oldest wharf. Recent cyclones have stripped its trees ; they used to cast a grateful shade, but now the sun beats through their lopped, bare branches so that at noon their shadows hardly wrap their boles around. There are foliage plants, and some flowers in little beds, I believe, but, to tell the truth, when I must cross the Plaza de Armas I lay me a clear course from one corner to the other, shut my eyes and ^'go it blind,'' for I cannot endure the glare from its paths, which penetrates the eyes like a white-hot knife. Walking so, — or swimming, rather, buoyed along on heat waves that surge through here at noonday like high tide in the Bay of Fundy, — I have often made myself oblivious to the discomfort of the moment by reconstructing scenes and events which have transpired here. I am fond of abolishing the Palace, that smug yellow square which faces upon the Plaza from its west side. It has been the Mecca ever since it came into existence, in 1834, and through all regimes, of the pest of the country, — office seekers in hordes (politicians, ^^ pa- triots,'' false friends and flattering favorites, with now and then an honest man temporizing in bad company) . Its marble steps are bent to the tread of their per- sistent feet. I fancy its walls have sheltered from the too curious stare of outsiders more than one sore heart, not wholly hidden behind its red and blue plush curtains, nor, even further, safe within the privacy of its ''green room." This building shook as the Maine blew up, and when he learned the details of that explo- sion they say the governor-general in his office upstairs 12 CUBA smote his desk with his clenched fist, crying : ^^This is the saddest day Spain ever saw!'' Here his succes- sors, American mihtary governors, ruled with a high hand, and once, so gossip goes, the wife of an American minister did a pas seul on the stair landing, which may or may not have helped to determine her husband's following transfer to a lesser post. From here Presi- dent Palma, betrayed and broken, departed, leaving his country in the hands of William Howard Taft. I am fond, I say, of abolishing the whole edifice and all its sordid history. I prefer to fancy the old parish church that preceded it, as it was, say, on a festival day in 1667, when Dona Maria de Cepero, the gover- nor's daughter and exalted patroness of the occasion, was killed by a ball from an arquebus saluting in the course of the festivities. She was buried under the floor where she fell, for it was long before the time when the good Bishop Estrada protested against the use of the churches as charnel vaults. When the old church was demolished, a relative of the lady preserved the stone commemorative of her accidental death ; he set it in the wall of the nearest building convenient, and there, on Obispo near the corner of Oficios, the curious may find it yet, for neither time nor repeated coats of whitewash have quite obliterated it or its simple Latin inscription. Across the Plaza from the Palace is the Templete, that odd, chapel-like building marking the site where, when Havana moved in 1519, the first town council was held and the first mass sung. The Templete was erected in 1828 and contains only three oil paintings, the work of the artist Escobar. In one he has depicted the installation of the first municipal council in Cuba, at Santiago de Cuba, Don Diego Velazquez presiding. HAVANA — THE CITY ITSELF 13 In the second he portrays the celebration of the first mass in Havana, on this spot, and this is the scene I prefer to imagine I witness, as, before a temporary- altar erected in the shade of a robust ceiba tree, the priest officiates. About him gathers in attendance the little company of earliest settlers here. Standing behind them, Indians watch curiously the mysterious ceremony. The third picture represents the inaugura- tion of the Templete itself ; among the figures on the canvas are excellent likenesses of Governor Vives, his chief officers, and many a prominent resident and fair belle of the artistes personal acquaintance. These are the ladies and the beaux who used to foregather in the Plaza ^4n the days of Spain'' when the military band played ^^retreat/' The bellas came, then, in volantas (two-wheeled Cuban carriages) and quaint chaises ; they were gowned in stiff silks, they wore mantillas, and they coquetted with perfumed fans. They had high combs and flowers in their sleek black hair, and to them, pressing close against their conveyances, as these paused in the park, while music sounded and the full moon shone as it shines only in a southern sky like this, exquisite gentle- men in very tight trousers and remarkable tall hats paid extravagant court, as was expected of them. Or, again, late in the afternoons, when the privileges of evening were not permitted to these gallants, they congregated before ^^Mr. Tavern's coffee house," which was, I think, where the Ambos Mundos is to-day, and perforce contented themselves to watch the fair from a distance as they drove by on 'Hhe little prome- nade" (so the phrase goes) along the then fashionable route which lay through what are now wholesale streets, noisy by day and redolent at every hour of raw sugar, 14 CUBA hides, onions in bulk, and baled tobacco ! I imagine, too, it was some one of the inexperienced ladies on Esco- bar^s third canvas who, when an enterprising cafe along the line of the preferred drive served by way of refreshment the first ice manufactured in Havana, clapped her kerchief to her mouth and shrieked that she was burned. The driver of her volanta whipped up the caparisoned mules which drew it and departed down street, over the cobbles, with a fearful clatter, while other adventurous patrons of the salon, tasting the novelty, threw down the glasses in which it was served, and joined in the hubbub with shouts of alarm ! - JThe Templete is open but once a year, — on the night of November 15th and on November 16th, celebrated, as I have explained, by special permission as the anniversary of the city^s founding, — on which dates all Havana, much with the air of going to church, walks down to the little edifice, made gay with gas lamps and electric lights, to gaze dutifully year after year upon the three paintings which are all it shelters. Each and every street south of the Plaza de Armas is interesting, in itself as it is now, and for details of its previous history. Here, at Oficios 94, lived the bishop of the diocese, D. Pedro Agustin Morel de Santa Cruz, who used to take his daily promenade up Obispo, and thereby gave that avenue its name (Bishop's Street) ; it has since been rechristened Pi y Margall, for a Cuban patriot, but nobody heeds the change. On the corner of Mercaderes and Obrapia (Pious Act Street) is the house (its handsome high entrance with coat of arms above it, its stairways, its corridors, its quiet patio retaining in decay the aristocratic bearing of better days), income from which the owner, D. Martin Calvo HAVANA — THE CITY ITSELF 15 de Arrieta, willed, in 1679, to be divided into dowries for five orphan girls yearly ; the city is executor and in this capacity still launches five brides per annum so dowered by Don Martin. Lamparilla is ''Little Lamp Street ^' (in commemoration of a light a devotee of All Souls' kept burning on the corner of this and Habana in years when there was no public illumination) . Here, too, on the corner of Mercaderes and Amargura, is ''The Corner of the Green Cross/' The cross is there, and it is green ; no painter, furbishing up the house it marks, would venture to give it any other color, though why it should be green nobody knows. It was one of the stations when, before religious processions were prohibited in the streets, good Catholics used to travel the Via Crucis along Amargura (Bitterness) Street from Cristo Plaza at its head to San Francisco Convent at the other end. In the house walls along the way one can distinguish yet where other stations were. Damas is Ladies' Street because of the number of pretty women who at one time made its balconies attractive. Inquisidor was so called because a Com- missary of the Inquisition once resided in a house fac- ing upon it which now the Spanish legation owns and occupies. Refugio (Refuge) got its name because once General Rocafort was caught in a storm and found refuge in the house of a widow named Mendez, who lived there. Here and in other districts throughout town not only the streets had names, — Empedrado, because it was the first paved (between the Cathedral and San Juan de Dios Square) ; Tejadillo (Little Tile) because a house upon it was the first to have a tiled roof ; Blanco (Target) because the artillery school practised there when it was well outside the walled city, — but many corners and crossings had their own 16 CUBA particular titles. The corner of Havana and Empe- drado was called ''The Corner of the Little Lamp/^ because in a tobacco shop there shone steadily the only street light in the district. The corner of Compostela and Jesus Maria was ''Snake Corner ^^ because of the picture of a serpent painted on a house wall there. Sol and Aguacate was "Sun Corner'' for a similar rea- son, and the fagade decoration there probably named the whole of Sol (Sun) Street. The block on Amargura between Compostela and Villegas was known as the "Square of Pious Women'' because two very religious ladies lived near, and because, too, of the particular "station of the cross" located on Amargura at this point. Other streets are named for famous men, — O'Reilly, for instance, for General Alejandro O'Reilly (a Spaniard despite the cognomen), who entered the city by way of that avenue when Havana was delivered from the English in 1763 ; the Count of Albemarle, the British commander who had lorded it over Havana since he and Admiral Pocock captured it the year be- fore, retired down Obispo Street as the Spanish marched in, up O'Reilly. Tacon, Chacon, Carlos III, and very many others are, obviously, named for personages who have figured in local history. The streets (like the whole city and all the island, for that matter) are disappointingly barren of legends, ghosts, or recollec- tions of any sort, except, now and then, of squalid crimes, these, usually, of very recent date. They de- pend for their interest upon details of their archi- tecture (handsome and heavy doors, intricate window grilles, color, unexpected balconies), and, especially, upon the passing show of their daily life. From the Plaza de Armas two principal avenues — Obispo and O'Reilly — lead west, connecting with the Photograph by American Photo Company Havana City Mounted Police / /, / >,, iph by American Photo Company The Prado, Havana .- V. r c ^* ••'"'* HAVANA — THE CITY ITSELF 17 newer parts of town. Above the monumental pile of the National Bank building Obispo is our principal retail shopping street ; below the Bank the tran- quillity of business done by wholesale has settled no- ticeably within even the last five years. Remembering that originally the shops which line Obispo stood along Mercaderes (as that name, meaning Merchants, indi- cates) overflowing then into Oficios (Trades) as now they overflow into O'Reilly, it seems plain to me that their journeying is only half accomplished ; their course is laid for the Prado, destined to cease to be our Fifth Avenue, only to become our Broadway as Broad- way is between the Flatiron and Times Square. Then we shall recognize Obispo as Wall Street, Central Park as our Madison Square, San Rafael as Twenty-Third Street, and Galiano as Sixth Avenue. At the head of Obispo Street, joining.it, in fact, with Central Park, is Monserrate Plaza, alias Albear Square. It contains a statue of the Spanish engineer, Albear, who built the Vento works that supply all this city and its suburbs with an abundance of pure sweet water. He was born in Havana in 1811, was educated as a civil engineer in Madrid, and served with distinction in the Spanish army. He died in 1889, and Havana, as the inscription reads, erected this tribute to her 'illus- trious son.'' Originally Havana got her water from an open ditch, the course of which Zanja (Ditch) Street follows. It crossed the walled city and entered the sea via Chorro (Stream) Street, a blind alley now, off Cathedral Plaza. Vento is some nine miles from Havana. There a multitude of springs well up through clean pebbly creek bottom; they are the outlet of a buried river which finds the surface here. Albear built a reservoir about these springs ; it is the admira- 18 CUBA tion of beholders who gaze into its shallows and see no source of supply. They note, however, a slight stirring of the surface, which maintains its level, although from one corner of this square inclosure a great volume of water pours into pipes which conduct it underground to another reservoir, at Palatino, whence it is distributed through the city and even across the bay. That the supply seems limited, toward noon, in tall buildings and in houses built on high land, is due, I am told, not to any scarcity of water, but to inadequate pumps and to pipes that are too small for the service required of them. This water is very hard ; it coats receptacles, especially those in which it is boiled. It is, however, exceptionally pure. Albear, as he stands with feeble fountains striv- ing and failing to play at his feet, bows his head in modesty, I think, at the thanks a truly grateful city bestows upon him for his great work. They say that Albear made it a requirement that all who use Vento water must give of it to drink to any person who asks. I have not been able to satisfy myself as to whether this is so, but certain it is that any cafe or similar estab- lishment will give a glass of water at request, and usu- ally, if one prefers it ''cold'' as contrasted with ''natu- ral,'' they will drop in a bit of ice as good measure. Across Havana, following roughly the general direc- tion the old walls had, but just beyond their site, reach- ing from Monte Street almost due north, including Central Park and the Prado, to Malecon and the sea, is a series of parks and promenades which constitute this capital's chief recreation ground. This series begins with Colon Park, which, in itself, comprises two parks. The smallest of these is La India Park. It is diminutive, consisting merely of a plot of ground about a statue of an Indian girl of really HAVANA — THE CITY ITSELF 19 Grecian loveliness, symbolical of Havana. This statue was presented to the city by the Count of Villanueva, after whom the railway station, facing it from Dra- gones Street, was named. The count at one time owned all the land in this vicinity ; it constituted his country place. La India (the Indian girl) attained an in- creased interest for me the day a tourist explained to me, in all seriousness, that^she is a likeness of Christo- pher Columbus' wife ! When I added that I supposed the necklace she wears is the same Queen Isabel pawned to equip the Discoverer's fleet, the statue acquired an increased interest for him ! Opposite La India is Campo Marte (The Field of Mars), to me the handsomest park in Havana, especially when, as used to be customary in carnival times before the government ''went broke,'' it was illuminated with gas lamps that shone, softly brilliant, through shades colored red, white, and blue. Campo Marte was so named by Governor-General Tacon, who fenced it in as a drill ground for troops. From Colon Park (La India and Campo Marte con- sidered together) Upper Prado leads to Central Park, and from there Prado proper extends to the water front drive of Malecon, skirting the sea from the Maestranza building on the north edge of ''the old city," to San Lazaro Inlet on its way to Vedado and beyond. The Prado is a double drive, with a double promenade down the center, shaded by a double row of laurel trees. When first we strolled here, delighted to watch, especially of Sunday afternoons, the people who prome- nade down the middle and the other people who drive around the outside, we trod on dirt, and under thou- sands of shuffling feet fine dust arose to annoy the senses and ruin clothes. It was during the American 20 CUBA Military Government of the island that cement was laid the full length of the middle walk, around central reservations for landscape gardening in miniature. In those first years, however, the Prado was handsomer than it is now, despite these later improvements, for then its laurel trees were monarchs of their kind, — widespread and leafy ; the cyclone of 1906 leveled all but two or three of them, and the rest, even though some lived on after they were straightened to place again, are thin shadows of what they used to be. Beautiful homes face upon the Prado, which is still the most desirable residence avenue within the city, but it is indicative of the trend of affairs that, among its palaces, boarding houses, tenements, garages, cafes, and other sometimes very humble business places not only hold their own, but multiply. Central Park is the present pulsing heart of Havana. It is a large rectangle, paved with cement, around gar- den plots where ornamental shrubs and flowering plants flourish in the shade of laurels and royal poncianas trimmed horizontally above the heads of the people, — the people of every nationality, type, and condition, who pass and repass through that square ceaselessly, so that it is never deserted, neither by night nor by day. In the middle of Central Park there is a statue of Jos6 Marti, the ''Apostor' of Cuban liberties, pointing significantly down Obispo Street to the wholesale dis- trict where foreigners in shops and offices hold control over trade and commerce and agriculture in this, his and his followers' native land. According to Saavedra, the sculptor who designed the monument, Marti is addressing the Cuban people ^^just after he has once more given to the air the single-starred banner of free- dom furled at Zanjon. Inspired by him the Cubans Fhotocfraph by American Photo Compa7iy Central Park — The Heart of Havana Photograph by American Photo Company La India — Looking North along Upper Prado Photograph by American Photo Company HAVANA — THE CITY ITSELF 21 in 1895 threw themselves into the second war of inde- pendence. In high rehef around the pedestal I have/' the author explained to me, '^symbolized their action. There are sculptured nineteen figures which show this nation moving forward, — men, young and old, women and children, all eager, all straining toward the goal ahead, which is Independence. Overshadowing them with her great white wings is Victory, bearing the palm of peace.'' They have not, however, be it well noted, overtaken Victory, nor yet laid hand on the palm branch she carries far aloft. This is why, I think, that Marti continues to point so earnestly down Obispo Street where, in the less noisy but not less strenuous fields of business, Cubans must win against invaders or lose all and more than they have ever obtained in battle fields by force of arms. It seems to me that surely I know Central Park in all its moods and all its humors. Many and many a morning I have crossed it early, when the caretakers were washing its pavements with splashing streams from a hose. Then from the soil, above which roses nodded, heavy with sprinkling, there exhaled a fra- grance to remind me, hopefully, of open country and freedom there. I've seen it at noonday, when its cement reflects the sunlight in blinding glare, and one, obliged to cross it, tacks from spot to spot of the scarce shade its cropped trees now cast. I've seen it late in the afternoon and in the early evening when the sun, set- ting, pours down Neptuno Street into its open space all the varying, now flaming, now failing, tints of an ending day, which illumine the fagades of all the build- ings facing upon it, removing from them the sordid- ness of what they are, till one might imagine them pleasant fairy palaces of innocent gingerbread delights. 22 CUBA Then the park lamps are lighted, and they remind me of very yellow diamonds set in palest gold. Taxicab chauffeurs turn on their headlights. Coachmen waiting along the curb dismount grudgingly, and touch up their candles with tips of flame. From the staffs of the National, and Albisu, and Polyteama theaters, waving pennants proclaim '^ functions ^^ about to begin. The top story of Hotel Plaza, sidling up to the Park at one corner, is ablaze with light. Similarly, the lower floor of the Inglaterra shines. In all the cafes here- abouts there is animation. A band arrives, and its members take their places upon the raised platform about the statue of Marti. As they play the crowd already gathered in the Park grows more and more compact. All the green chairs are occupied, and many persons, finding or desiring no seats, walk, circling slowly round and round. have noticed, through the years, how the quality of this ^^ concert night '^ crowd in Central Park changes. Formerly, on the Inglaterra side, seated in the chairs there, one found ''the good people,'' especially of the American colony. After the band had played ''Bayameses'' and then ''Amer- ica'' they, already standing, turned with one accord to the Telegrafo, crowded about its little marble-topped tables and ordered ice cream, — and other things not as cold. Now one sees, if any, only the stragglers in the old places. "The good people" have deserted to the Miramar. The general color tone of the Central Park crowds is darker than it used to be ; I have some- times wondered if, eventually, there will not be a divi- sion among pleasure seekers in Havana as there is in Mexico, where, on Sundays, for instance, frock coats parade (or did when I was there) in the Alameda, while zarapes take the air in the Zocalo. Our discrimination HAVANA— THE CITY ITSELF 23 will not, however, be based on the cut of clothes, but rather on the unalterable hue of skin beneath them. When the band players pack up their instruments and depart, ladies disappear from the Park with them. Men, however, stay on, sitting about in little groups, some of which are rather well organized tertulias, — parties of friends who keep an unspoken engagement to meet there often to idiscuss politics, finance, and every other phase of life as they live it. Before the patrolling police have ^^ moved on,^' toward dawn, the lingerers who outstay even these gossipers, the acrid smell of kindling fires, and a general reawakening in all the establishments about the square, announce another day. Milkmen, riding in from outlying farms, pewter pots a-j angle in their panniers, pass, singing in high, strained key in time to the patter of their horses^ hurry- ing feet. When the Tres Hermanos puts out its lights (it never closes its doors), that other day is well begun. Years come, years go, but I have not discovered that their seasons vary this routine particularly. In summer the poncianas spread a canopy of flame, and driving rains, beating little waves of water across the mirror- like surface of the Parkas cement, carry red petals from under the trees, where they have dripped like blood. In the spring there are other posies than those which occupy the garden plots in the fall, and when one meets in Central Park a strange folk, wearing Panama hats and carrying guidebooks, who halt one with accus- ing index finger and the challenge: ^^Do you speak English?'^ demanding, as countersign, directions how to get to Morro Castle and to Obispo Street, then one knows that it is the dead of winter (though the Park bloom all about one as before) and that we are besieged, invaded, by aliens who desecrate our sacredest places, 24 CUBA and, viewing them, commune together : ^^ Huh ! We can beat it on Main Street!'^ ^^I can't say I think so much of that !^' ^^ Now ain't this interestin' ? '' ^^ How much will it cost to get there?'' '' How long will it take to get back ?" ''We've seen enough of this man's town." ''You'll have to hurry if you're going to make the boat." CHAPTER II THE tourist's HAVANA The " Florida Duck" is a festive bird, — The famous goose of whom ye've heard That laid gold eggs was a piker jay Compared to the subject of this here " lay.'* . . . — From " El Pato de la Florida." Like the little boy who couldn't see the forest for the trees, the average tourist fails, I think, to see Havana because of the points of interest here he manages to include in his hurried itinerary, — fortifications and churches especially, at which he stares without any understanding. He ranks chief in his estimation Morro, Castle of the Three Kings, that gray fortress on the headland {morro means promontory , which gives this and many other forts similarly situated their common name) at the harbor's mouth. It is irregular in shape, built (1589-1597) in part on solid rock and in part hewn out of rock, so that it has the character of a natural formation shaped and modified by man. It rises from 100 to 120 feet above sea level ; even its most prominent feature — the light- house tower erected in 1844 by Governor-General O'Donnell, whose name it bears, high up in immense letters — is dwarfed now by the spiderwork of an aspiring and useless wireless station at its rear. The ascent to Morro is by an inclined road, which is shaded with laurels and royal poncianas, and hedged with cactus. The moat, some seventy feet deep, thirty 25 26 CUBA of which are cut in rock, is crossed by a drawbridge to the sallyport and the entrance, between dark rooms, to the central court. I went all through it once, down to the farthest dungeon we could reach with ropes and lanterns, — saw cells, casemates, kitchens, bomb-proofs, and admired grated embrasures, vaulted roofs, dark recesses, — but I wouldn't go again, not for pay, for the stairs are wearying and the climb hot ; the smells I re- member were sickening, and all in all I found there nothing to recompense me for the energy I expended upon that trip. The guns on the ramparts are neither very old, nor yet modern. Below the castle, on the harbor side, are the dozen which constitute the Battery of the Twelve _ Apostles. It commands 'the harbor mouth. FTve hundred yards below is the Battery La Pastora. East of the castle, commanding the sea, is Velasco Battery, named in honor of that Captain Velasco whose fame is associated with the only fighting (1762) Morro — despite its warlike aspect — has ever experi- enced. He refused to surrender to the British, although he knew that Morro was undermined. Some of his men deserted him, even swimming across the harbor mouth to get away. He stayed on like the brave soldier that he was, and died of wounds received in defense of the fort intrusted to his charge. Hostilities were sus- pended between the English, attacking, and the Spanish on the defense, during the day that his funeral occurred. As his body was borne to its tomb in one of the churches the salutes of the Spanish guns in Havana were answered by those of the British across the bay. In the report Sir George Pocock made to the Admiralty the Englishman paid a just tribute to his enemy. In recognition of his services in defense of Morro (which was, however, Photograph by American Photo Company Cuban Pack Train Photograph by American Photo Company A Country Milk Peddler THE tourist's HAVANA 27 taken when the EngUsh sprung their mines and stormed the breach made in its walls) Spain created his son Visconde del Morro, and decreed that a ship in the Span- ish navy should always bear the name of Velasco. The vessel so named at the time of the Spanish- Ameri- can War (it was built in 1861) was one of the fleet at Manila, and it was sunk by the American ship Boston. In the assault on Morro, Velasco^s second in command, the Marques de Gonzalez, fell, sword in hand, and with these leaders died 130 men of their garrison ; 400 more were wounded. There is a tablet to their memory set in one of the upper walls, on the seaward side, above those rocks upon which the Spaniards were, according to common report and little evidence that I know of, fond of tossing the bodies of Cuban patriots as tidbits to sharks. From Morro one may walk to Cabanas, or, to give it full title, the Castle of St. Charles of the Cabin, which occupies a long length of hill above the harbor, and just opposite Havana. The harbor frontage is a continuous wall extending along the crest of the bay's east bank. The landward side has three pronounced bastions, and is protected by ditches forty feet deep. Within the fortification is a wearying labyrinth of windings and turnings, ascents and descents, narrow, high-walled passages and vaulted halls, covered ways, courts, bar- racks, prisons, quarters, a chapel ; there are tree-lined roads and a drill ground ; ramparts, parapets, and terre- pleins, one beyond another, in confusion interminable. The point of greatest interest is Laurel Ditch, an inclo- sure against the walls of which Cubans were lined up and shot by squads of Spanish soldiery detailed to the duty. When I was there the line marked by bullets in the wall was distinct for a distance of eighty-five feet ; 28 CUBA it was called significantly the '^dead line/' Under a tree where the firing squads stood the grass was worn till the ground showed bare; in contrast, close by the wall it grew thick and rank, fertilized, I veritably believe, by the blood shed there. A bronze memorial tablet has been set in the wall outside the ditch to com- memorate the martyrdom of those who died there. The design represents an angelic messenger receiving the soul of an expiring patriot ; when I saw the spot it now occupies nothing but a painted board sign filled it. Ascending to the ramparts, one gains a commanding view of harbor and town and sea and palm-fringed hills encircling Havana. The antiquated Spanish guns, elaborately ornamented and each one bearing the name of a sovereign, are quite in keeping with Cabanas age and general uselessness. These are the ones fired in salutation to entering ships. The marble shaft which rises from the next parapet commemorates the valor and loyalty of Spanish soldiers who marched out from Havana and captured Lopez and the Americans with him, who were betrayed into their hands in the hills of green Rangel, and executed with very unnecessary brutality at Atares along in 1851 or thereabouts. As a maze of intricacy, Cabanas is a place to see and marvel how governments spend their money ; its real worth has never been proven, for there has been no fighting here since it was built. It was erected after the English, who captured Havana because they occupied this hill, fully demonstrated that whoso holds its eminence cradles Havana in the hollow of his hand. Beyond Cabanas, at Triscornia, the Immigrant Sta- tion, there is an old and almost forgotten fort, — San Diego, — converted now to perfect peace, which ante- dates, I believe, both its neighbor and Morro. Photograph by American Photo Company Entrance to Cabanas Fortress PJiotograph by American Photo Company Cabanas Salutes THE TOURIST'S HAVANA 29 The oldest and by all odds the most interesting for- tification in all Cuba, I should say, is La Fuerza, half hidden between the Senate and the old post-office build- ing, on the Plaza de Armas. Here, now, is a place to see. It is in form quadrilateral, having a bastion at each of its four corners. It is twenty-five yards in height ; the walls are double and the terrepleins are supported on arches, so I read, though what the state- ment means I have no more notion than others who ponder guidebooks and are impressed with warlike ter- minology. There used to be a moat. The drawbridge is replaced by a permanent plank walk. They say there is a bell in the tower which formerly sounded the hours and clanged alarm at sight of a hostile sail in years before there was a Cabanas, a Morro, even a Punta, or any walls to protect the town La Fuerza alone guarded. Work on La Fuerza was begun by Hernando de Soto, and by 1544 a royal decree went forth that all warships entering thereafter should salute the place (then almost complete) with a ceremony not enjoyed by any other city in the New World save Santo Domingo. Here in Fuerza De Soto lived, and from here he sailed away to explore unknown areas of his jurisdiction, which em- braced everything he might discover to the north. He found the Mississippi and a grave in its dark waters. On his departure De Soto left La Fuerza, and with it his office as governor, in command of his bride, the Lady Isabel de Bobadilla, ^4ike her mother, a woman of character, and kindly disposition, of very excellent judgment and appearance.'^ For four years she awaited his return, scanning the sea, the story goes, from the little tower above' Fuerza, which one may dis- cover by looking close through intervening tree tops 30 CUBA from a certain position in the Plaza de Armas. The httle bronze image upon the top of this tower is ^^La Habana, ^' and until one has set eyes upon it one has not '^seen Havana/' as the usual raillery runs. When at last the remnants of De Soto's fleet limped in by the harbor's mouth, and survivors, landing, hastened to tell the Lady Isabel of her husband's fate, her heart broke, and, the chroniclers add briefly, ^^she died." La Fuerza is then the oldest habitable and inhabited building in the western hemisphere. Certain edifices at Santo Domingo antedate it (convents that while Chris- topher Columbus still lived arose in now despised Hayti, in size and architecture surpassing, their ruins show, any church edifice upon Fifth Avenue to-day ex- cepting only the Catholic cathedral there) ; but they are abandoned wreckage, whereas La Fuerza houses a garrison of Rural Guards ; its dungeons are storerooms, and General Monteagudo and his family reside on the second floor. To make him comfortable they have repaired the stairway; smooth cement steps have replaced the old stones, worn hollow by the feet which through the centuries had passed up and down. Arms and ammuni- tion of latest design are packed away in the dungeons, — damp and silent chambers, lighted by way of narrow apertures cut in the thick walls. I wonder into which of these they thrust ^^Mr. Bryant, prize master" ? It was in the year 1779, to digress in consideration of Mr. Bryant, while the American war for independence was on, that out of the North came sailing the Yankee sloop HerOj square-sterned, twenty tons, carrying four guns and forty men, captain, Caleb Greene, of Provi- dence, Rhode Island. She had a cargo of hoops and long staves, and she was bound to sell the same at Santo THE tourist's HAVANA 31 Domingo, in commendable Yankee fashion. There were, however, two British vessels, the Carlisle and the Gayton, cruising West Indian waters in wait for pre- cisely such as she. She was taken, to be brief, and a prize crew was put aboard, in command of ^^Mr. Bryant, prize master. ^^ ^^ With strong gales and cloudy^' they got her by Monte Cristi, bound straightaway for the prize courts of Jamaica. They were chased, however, by a Yankee brig through ^^ brisk gales and hazey^' and to keep right before the wind and outdis- tance her, as they did, they went far north of their course and brought up with a crash, in a storm, on the shores of eastern Cuba. Here is no place to repeat de- tails I read with such interest in Mr. Bryant^s logbook, preserved in the files of the National Archives of Cuba, then stored on the upper floor of La Fuerza. They '^caught a young shark and eat him''; they caught ^^some crabbes and eat them'' too; and they rifled a pelican's nest of its young. They flew ^^ signals in Destress," and a brig and a sloop went by, disregarding these as well as the voice of their swivel gun. They were finally taken off by ^^ye Havannah,^^ a small schooner whose master ^^ used" the castaways ^^dis- creetly," but at its destination. Port au Prince, they were, in accordance with the hospitable customs of the time, committed to the guardhouse. Mr. Bryant escaped ^^just as the Spaniards were saying their pater nosterJ^ A guide he bribed left him ^Ho wander about to and fro in a very dark and dismal night far from House or anything like a House, although I had," Mr. Bryant adds, ''before paid his fee." Fortune had not, however, entirely deserted ''the Enghshman," for he got liberty from a "Humain Spaniard, a gentle- man, to stay at his House," upon which he chanced, 32 CUBA where he amused himself, until opportunity offered to get to the British possession of Jamaica, by teaching English to the family of his benefactor, Captain D. Bernabe de la Torre, and from them, in turn, acquiring at least their names in Spanish. He left on hearing that a fisherman from Jamaica was on shore. The ladies assembled as he departed, and wished him '^good Luck,'' on which he, not ungallant, ^^give them three chears.'' The fisherman refused him passage and set him ashore on Sandy Key ''where 2 Spaniards, a mulatto and a portageezeman was living to fish for Turtle.'' Time went by. ''No appearance of any relief," Mr. Bryant confided to his log, "and God only knows when any will offer. . . . Every day seems a year, and still not the smallest appearance of any relief. , . ." Then blank pages. Mr. Bryant reached Cuba alive, however, for from Bayamo they forwarded to the captain-general the documents I examined, — "papers found on the Eng- lishman." Possibly they brought him, too, to Havana, though here I permit imagination to transgress. I do not know that the captain-general imprisoned "Mr. Bryant, prize master," in Fuerza, as he might be surely expected to do, however, at that particular period especially ; I do not know that he forgot to bring him forth again, — but such things have occurred. Per- haps "the Englishman" found favor with Santiago or with those of its people who had removed to Bayamo through fear of buccaneers; perhaps they gave him passage on the first smuggler's ship outbound for Jamaica, from where in time he returned his thanks to Captain D. Bernabe dela Torre, the "Humain Spainard" of Hayti, along with "2 english game cocks and a case of good Razon." Yet I declare that the ghost of Mr. Bryant gazes out at me from behind the double, barred PhoHnirapn oij A/ficricnn I'lioto Company Tower of La Fuerza Showing eflfigy, La Habana Photograph by American Photo Company La Fuerza The oldest habitable and inhabited building in the western hemisphere THE TOUBIStS HAVANA 33 doors of those dungeons at Fuerza, — he's looking through all the centuries for ^Hhe smallest appearance of any relief !'' And, as he turned from the unsympathetic sea around Sandy Key to reform the business methods of ^^2 Spaniards, a mulatto and a portageezeman, living to fish for Turtle/' because, as he gravely observes, they had not ^Hhe right notion of catch- ing them,'' so, I fancy, finding ^^no appearance of any relief" in visitor after visitor who intrudes, now, on his retirement, he must solace himself with criticis- ing the barrack life of the motley garrison with which he shares La Fuerza, time being. Mr. Bryant was something of a soldier, I doubt not, in his day ; I wonder if his judgment here, too, is that they have ^'not the right notion !" The very picturesque fort which adds so greatly to the beauty of the Glorieta at the foot of Prado where that avenue joins the sea wall boulevard of Malecon, is Castle San Salvador of the Point. Its construction was begun in 1589, work having commenced just previously on Morro opposite, which the fortlet at Punta comple- ments in defense of Havana. Upon the outer walls of the fort are old cannon ; they have earned their honor- able retirement, for when the English besieged Havana in 1762, they were silenced only by the batteries of Morro itself, held by the enemy. The reluctant sur- render of Punta marked the end of this city's resistance to Pocock and to Albemarle. Formerly the fort at Punta was well outside the city proper. It was 200 yards from the city walls, and it was separated from them by a moat and a drawbridge. Where the walls once stood is now a sloping reach of parked ground, stretching from the sea wall here to 34 CUBA Trocadero Street, and, interrupted by modern buildings, on to the old Arsenal. The building of these walls began in 1633, and nine thousand men, mostly African slaves, lent pro rata by residents in the city, labored upon them. A tax on wine went toward payment of the work, and the coffers of Mexico contributed. Originally there were two gates only in the city walls, one near Punta and the other at the head of Muralla Street. Later two other gates were opened. Thejwalls were finished in 1797. Havana outgrew the protection they furnished. No longer a necessity, they became a nuisance. I remem- ber that in 1900-1902 squatting tenements sheltered squalor all along their length, for we visited the last of the reconcentrados at about that time, in crowded and dirty quarters standing then under the single turret left now, like a landmark, back of the Church of the Angels and in front of the Tobacco Trust. It was under the Palma administration that the last of their wreckage was removed, leaving only this monument and another somewhat similar at the head of Teniente Rey Street as mementoes. The fortification known as Principe Castle, crowning Principe, formerly Arostegui Hill, at the end of Carlos III Boulevard, was built by Silvestre Albarca in 1774- 1779. The height had been temporarily fortified in 1771. This is now the national penitentiary. Beside it are many barrack-like buildings, constituting Military Hospital No. 1. Beyond these, on the seaward side of the hill, overlooking Vedado, Havana, green hills and valleys of inland country, and a wide blue sweep of gulf, is the old Pirotecnia Militar, now the University of Havana, an institution founded in 1721, by a papal bull issued to Dominican monks by Innocent XIII. It THE tourist's HAVANA 35 was then the Royal and Pontifical University of Havana. It lost the ^' pontifical'^ in 1842, with the secularization of the Dominican Order, and the ^^ royal' ' became ^^ national'' somewhere along in 1902, when the school removed from its old home in the Dominican Convent building, down town, to its present far pleas- anter situation. It seems strange, yet is a fact, that the University has always been co-educational ; first it was only potentially so, for it was so far from the thought of its founders that women would attend that they forgot to bar them, and now perhaps one sixth or even a fifth of the students are girls ; most of these are enrolled in the school of pedagogics, but some study medicine, and, now and then, one or two take to law. It is the University of Havana that legalizes foreign diplomas. Graduates of foreign institutions, in order to practice their respective professions in Cuba, must conform to the requirements of a long military order that sub- jects them to fees and examinations and red tape measureless ; time, money, and patience are consumed, but after the ordeal the name of the successful candidate is published in the yearly report of the University, and the applicant is then considered ^incorporated in the college." Of what Americans know as ^'college life there is none at all in this University. When I investi- gated I found that the student body was not organized ; there were no elections, and so no perennial excitement of petty but very practical politics. I found no rushes, rows, and rivalries between the ^ 'years." In fact, the courses are so arranged that no recognition of classes is practicable. There were no flourishing athletic or- ganizations ; those boys who constituted the nine and the eleven that did exist were regarded as suspicion characters by faculty and students alike. . There was 36 CUBA then no attempt at field sports. There is no gymnasium. I have heard since some dispirited ^' yells.'' There is no campus daily paper, no comic weekly, no literary monthly; in 1904 a ''Literary Review'' issued a few solemn numbers, in comparison to which the annual report of an archaeological society would seem frivolous reading. In short, the student here never goes to col- lege ; he merely attends school. He goes to classes and he comes home again, — not to a dormitory or a club or a friendly ''frat house," but to sl bordin where he is decidedly persona non grata^ because he and his kind (so one who ought to know confessed it to me) delight to break furniture and to steal small ornaments, to make love to lady lodgers, to invite ejectment by every known wile and others especially invented as need appears. There is an excellent physician in this capital whose boast it is that in college days he lived through all the student boarding houses in Havana, paid none, and from each was finally summarily set into the street '' without a latchkey." If then the Cuban student is not talking politics, or plotting against the class above, organizing next semester's campaign for his ''frat, " — what, besides ''beating" his boarding house, is the young man doing with his leisure time ? The question had better pass uninvestigated. They are a solemn set, these Cuban students, pale, emaciated, and sunken eyed. I'd like to think it is consumption of too much midnight oil ails all of them. Some, certainly, are serious-minded and well-informed, and they take a sur- prising, and, to an American, inexplicable, interest in matters one might imagine would concern them not at all. They frequently lead in demonstations for or against the government. They stoned the office of an editor who denounced Ferrer, and they compelled the PJiotogravTi by American Photo Company La Chorrera ' Kemnant (jf Havana'.s Old Cii^y VV^alls Showing part of the Prado-Malecon Drive in Havana THE tourist's HAVANA 37 speaker of the house of representatives to apologize to them for certain utterances of his. There is perhaps no body in this community any single man or institution desires less to antagonize, nor any body that, once an- tagonized, or, vice versa, pleased, can make its opinions quite so obvious to all concerned, as can the students of Havana University. Atares Castle, beyond the Western Railway Station, in the suburb of Jesus del Monte, was built by Agustin Cranmer in 1763-1767 after Havana^s English captors had emphasized the strategical importance of its hill, at the head of the harbor. On the slopes of Atares Crittenden of Kentucky and fifty of the Americans who with him had a share in the Lopez Expedition of 1851 were shot, and their bodies were dragged at the heels of the Spaniards' horses through the streets of the town over rocks and through mire. A park before the Beneficencia Orphan Asylum covers the site of Reina Battery; Santa Clara, also on the Vedado car route, is still occupied, as are those other battery-barracks along the shore in this suburb. There is a f ortlet at Chorerra, at the mouth of the Almendares, and another corresponding to it at Cojimar. All are recent constructions compared with the torreon (tower) at San Lazaro, just beside that vanishing inlet, in front of the leper hospital. This was built in 1556, not as a defense, but as a lookout against pirates. Here citizens kept watch by night and by day, and on sight of a suspi- cious sail, they warned Havana. Of all the churches the Cathedral interests the visitor most, because here in a niche now marked by a patch of fresh plaster, near the altar, on the left as one faces it, the bones of Christopher Columbus used to rest. In 1898, when the Spanish evacuated Havana, they took the 38 CUBA remains with them, reinterring them with ceremony in the Cathedral at Seville. Our Cathedral — of age- stained stone — faces Cathedral or Cienaga (Swamp) Square. It was planned as a convent by the Jesuits as early as 1656, and by them erected in 1724 ; after their expulsion it became the Cathedral in 1789. Its interior seems to me utterly devoid of interest, for despite guide- book assertion I cannot discover either value or beauty in its altar paintings, nor anything in particular to ad- mire in its decoration, because, to my notion, this deco- ration is not only in itself unlovely, but it actually detracts from what beauty the building might have by right of its size. Certain mahogany chests of the rooms back of the church proper are attractive because they look old and mysterious, and in one tall wardrobe-like casing there I saw a handsome silver '^holy of holies^' and a cross set with precious stones ; the genuineness of some (the emerald drops) I doubt seriously. The old Dominican Convent, filling the block bounded by^^Obispo, San Ignacio, O'Reilly, and Mercaderes, is older than the Cathedral, for it was founded in 1578. The white friars deserted it, however, years ago. Ware- house brokers and clerks hold forth in its cloistered corridors now. The Franciscan Convent, its tower standing well above any other in the city, faces the Plaza de San Francisco in the very center of the wholesale district. The convent building is, I believe, the oldest of its kind in the city, for it was begun in 1574 and finished in 1591. It has been several times remodeled and improved. It was '^desecrated'' by the English when they captured Havana in 1762 ; I understand that they used it as a barracks, and, what was worse, held ^^ Protestant" services here. From that date it has been deemed fit THE tourist's HAVANA 39 for secular purposes only ; it is the Havana customs house now. On O^Reilly Street, between Compostela and Aguacate, is the dreary pile of Santa Catalina Convent, a nunnery of the old and storied style. Some hundred women, bound by the strictest vows, pass their lives within its inclosure. The windows are closed ; no gleam of light ever shines through. One never sees the cloistered nuns. Acceptable girls who desire to immure themselves are received on a year's probation. At the end of that time they may leave, it is said, if they will, but they generally elect to remain, despite, sometimes, the prayers of their relatives, to whom they are lost forever once the doors close upon them at the end of their novitiate. The con- vent is wealthy. It has received many bequests, and girls who become its ^^ brides of Christ'' (by joining the sisterhood that is immured) usually bring some dowry to the institution. The convent building was begun in 1680, and the church was dedicated in 1700. It con- tains relics of the holy martyrs Saints Celestine and Lucida, brought from Rome in 1803. La Merced Church, on the corner of Cuba and Merced streets, is one of the most fashionable in town. Among its possessions is a faded painting representing with con- siderable inaccuracy in dates, names, and drawing what is considered to have been the first miracle performed in the New World, on a battle field in Santo Domingo, when Columbus and his men appealed to Our Lady of Mercies for help against the Indians and were rewarded with an apparition of the Virgin and the Child. Other churches are Cristo, where Catholic services are held in English, the Church of the Holy Angel, a com- paratively modern edifice on Pefia Pobre Hill, well worth visiting if for nothing more than the view down 40 CUBA the queer narrow streets that lead to its doors ; San Agustin ; and, in that suburb, Jesus del Monte Church, on a hill, from the yard before which a very beautiful view of Havana is to be had ; and, finally, Belen, on the corner of Luz and Compostela. It was built in 1704, and takes its name from Our Lady of Bethlehem, patron- ess in Spain of the Francisan Order of Jeronymites. The church and monastery, and free school in connection, were maintained by the Franciscan monks for nearly a century. Then the buildings were taken by the government for use as barracks. In 1853 they were given to the Jesuits, who established the College of Belen for boys, and set up an astronomical and meteorological observatory reputed to be the best in all Latin America, they also collected a library rich in prints and drawings illustrating Cuban history, and formed a museum of native woods and natural history specimens. James Anthony Froude wrote of them in 1887, when they had a school of 400 pay pupils and hundreds free: ^^ They keep on a level with the age ; they are men of learning ; they are men of science ; they are the Royal Society of Cuba,'' a reputation to which they live up even to this day. They have estab- lished a seismic station at Luyano. It is of Belen Church that the Countess Merlin wrote, in her letters, when she said : ^^ Yesterday afternoon I drove with my aunt, Maria Antonia, and before making our way to Tacon Boulevard (then the popular promenade) we went to see my cousin Pepilla. As we crossed Belen Square our way was blocked by a mob gathered about the church. The crowd beat at the doors, but did not dare to enter. One door was shut and the other half open ; through it suddenly appeared the head of a man who cried out solemnly : ^ Pray for the criminal, oh my brothers ! ' I asked what all this meant, and was told THE TOURIST'S HAVANA 41 that a murderer escaping from justice had just taken ref- uge in that church, which can extend the right of asylum. ^He made a clever escape/ added the unknown man who explained to us. ^It was a long distance and every- body ran after him. If he had not succeeded in reach- ing Belen . . . ' ^ How is that ? ^ I asked. ' Have not all the churches the same privilege of extending the right of asylum?' ^No, madame. Belen and one other are the only ones that have the right and no one but the priests know which that other church is. If by chance a fugitive does happen to get into it, his having guessed correctly is considered a proof of divine pro- tection, and the malefactor is pardoned.''' Few church services in Havana, even during Holy Week, are really interesting. I attended misa de gallo (cock's mass) one Christmas Eve at midnight, and heard the barnyard fowls imitated in the music, — at Santa Catalina, the cloistered convent ! That was years ago ; only recently I walked the town over on another Christmas Eve, and failed to find any church where such services were being held. It may be that the faithful were at mass behind the doors we found closed, but assuredly the half drunk and wholly irreverent public abroad on the streets on Christmas Eve is no longer admitted freely. During Holy Week, we have ^Hhe Monument," when the altars are brightly illu- minated and the Sacrament displayed to adoration, but even on these occasions the churches close early, to avoid scenes entailing disrespect. On ^^ Saturday of Glory" the Ascension is commemorated, as a tremen- dous clangor of bells at ten o'clock announces to an un- interested and unobservant town. No tourist in Havana fails to visit Colon Cemetery, the unlovely city of our dead. There are here no wide and 42 CUBA quiet lawns, no restful vistas, to comfort the living in the thought that they make the final abiding place of those who sleep eternally a little easier to endure, but only hard, dry paths among vaults of brick and marble, hung with hideous garlands of bisque flowers fastened, with painted tin leaves, on wire stems. One passes be- neath a ponderous entrance, on the pinnacle of which stands a group of three figures, heroic size, represent- ing Faith, Hope, and Charity. A bas-relief below shows Columbus bearing the light of Christianity into the New World. One looks, of course, for the tomb of General Calixto Garcia, recipient of the famous message, and for that of Maximo Gomez, who commanded the Cuban Army of Liberation, at the head of which he rode into Havana when the tricolor flag of the single star made its first official entrance into this capital. A little to the left as one advances, on a side avenue, is a monument erected to the Student Martyrs, shot at Punta in 1871. The figures at the base of the shaft represent Justice and vindicating History, truth written on her scroll. The very peculiar winged figure emerging from the door open in the pedestal is symboli- cal of Innocence. The eight young men who lie buried here were members of a medical class in the University. The class entire was charged with desecrating, in an idle moment while they waited a lecture to be given in a classroom adjoining the old Espada Cemetery, the grave of a Spanish journalist killed in Key West in the course of a political quarrel with a Cuban. Later this man's son was summoned from Spain ; the niche was opened, and the fact that no desecration had occurred was demonstrated. But meanwhile the class was arrested and tried by court-martial. It was a time of very bitter feeling ; for some reason or other the Spanish Volunteers, THE tourist's HAVANA 43 quartered in Havana in numbers, took up the matter, and, parading the streets in a state of mutiny, de- manded the death of the young men, who were Cubans, though of very loyal Spanish parentage. They were bravely defended by a Spanish officer, Capdevilla, but nevertheless to appease the mob eight were sentenced to be shot, and were duly executed, on November 27, 1871. The youngest was sixteen years old and the eldest in his twenties. It was considered significant then, but to me at least it seems natural enough now, that the last letters of these eight were addressed to their mothers, — none wrote to the Spanish fathers, one of whom offered his considerable fortune, first for his boy^s life, and then for merely a delay in the proceedings. After the execution, which occurred by the city prison, where a fragment of the house wall against which they were lined up is left standing as a monument, the bodies of the eight young victims were carted away and buried outside consecrated ground, crisscross, in one ditch, as those of traitors. Later, they were removed to their present resting place. Others of their classmates were sentenced to hard labor, and were jeered as they marched, like convicts, through the public streets of this city. Still others were exiled to Spain, and found more kindly reception there. Later, by way of pardons, the gov- ernment did all that it could in reparation for the fear- ful damage the mob had inflicted, in a moment when its madness found local officials weak. The man who signed the death warrant of his eight young compa- triots was a Cuban, acting, in the governor-generaUs absence, as his substitute. Behind the chapel in Colon Cemetery is the plot of ground where the vic- tims of the Maine were buried until their removal to 44 CUBA the United States. Before one arrives there, one passes the costly Firemen's Monument, erected by popular sub- scription to the memory of thirty members of the Volun- teer Brigade who lost their lives in performance of their duty when a warehouse burned on Mercaderes Street. Gunpowder stored within the building, in defiance of the law, exploded in the conflagration, and many persons besides these were injured and killed. There is to my notion nothing whatsoever either pleasant or peaceful about this cemetery of ours, but there is much which is astonishing to be seen along about four o'clock on any afternoon when funerals arrive. Cuba is a bad enough place to live in, but certainly it is a still worse place in which to die ! Twelve or fifteen years ago it was no uncommon sight to see upon the streets of Havana a carriage (perhaps an elegant conveyance, or maybe merely a hired hack) moving slowly, carrying inside a Catholic priest in the full regalia of his office; an altar boy, bearing the articles necessary to the ceremony of the last sacra- ment, preceded the equipage. Men who passed lifted their hats ; women crossed themselves and prayed, while the singular procession moved forward to the sound of a tinkling bell toward the house death menaced. Now, however, that public manifestations are for- bidden to the Church, its priests go to administer Extreme Unction quietly, with less display, but I re- member seeing a coche pass one day, conveying a priest and his impedimenta, and learned from a pedestrian, who uncovered and stood with head bowed, that al- though no altar boy was in evidence (a bell did sound) this padre preceded the Dark Messenger through somebody's door. The pristine glories of funerals, however, remain Photograph by American Photo Company Monument to Student Martyrs Colon Cemetery, Havana THE tourist's HAVANA 45 undimmed. The great black hearses still gleam with gold; their coachmen wear bright red coats trimmed with gilt braid, smallclothes to match, and cocked hats on flaxen wigs. The cars are drawn by three or four spans of horses, draped in black nets, with yellow garnishings. Occasionally, while one hearse suffices to carry the coffin, three or four more follow after it with flowers, the huge wreaths hung often upon the four corners of the conveyance, and across the decora- tive figures that kneel on top. At the cemetery these extra or gala cars (the more of them the finer the funeral) draw aside while the one conveying the body passes through the great entrance, slowly approaching the chapel, which is within the burial grounds. Chanting priests, dispensing holy water, meet it as it enters, and, turning, follow it, chanting still. If by chance the dead man died ^^out of the faith,'' he receives no such welcome, — lucky he to get within the ^^holy field'' at all ! The friends who have come in carriages leave their conveyances at the gate, and, bareheaded, march on foot to the church. No women, be it said in pass- ing, attend funerals in this country ; her grave is the only place a Latin lady approaches unchaperoned. The candles on the chapel altar are lighted, and from a long distance without they can be seen shining against the semi-darkness indoors. The hearse stops before the chapel, the coffin is withdrawn and carried inside upon the shoulders of the pallbearers, the priests hav- ing entered already. The friends troop after. Solemn chantings and responses sound. Without, however, the red-clad attendants of the hearse have uncere- moniously snatched off their yellow wigs, and stand mopping their faces free of sweat and lugubrious ex- pression. The coachmen of the carriages which have 46 CUBA followed up the avenue at the rear of the procession of pedestrians tilt back their high hats, and with the movement cast aside solemnity. They laugh and chat together. All the pomp and circumstance in which they acted part is tawdriest mummery ! From the chapel the coffin is borne to its vault, or to its grave in earth, for there are some such, in the excavated dirt of which one may see the unjointed bones of predeces- sors in this resting place, who have been removed to make room for the newcomer, deposited next with a jolt. Graves are for sale (price, $10 to $30 a meter) or for rent. There are, besides, certain burial dues, which may be waived in the case of the " solemnly poor.'' If at the end of five years payments of rent have ceased, the body is dug up, passed through the crematory, they say, and consigned to the bone heap. Along in 1901-1902 I climbed the wall of this osario (somebody had placed a plank conveniently), and photographed the moldering scrap heap inside, — skulls, thigh bones, arms, legs, and broken coffins, tossed there pell-mell and left to bleach in air and sun and rain ! Undertakers are scarce in Havana, or were five years ago, to be exact, when I had occasion to investi- gate and ^^ write them up.'' I learned enough then to satisfy me once for all, and have not turned any atten- tion to this matter since. Embalming was then a novelty here. The business of a tren funerario does not usually include it. Such an establishment merely sells (or rents. !) coffins, provides hearses, and stands ready to take more or less complete charge of the funeral in all its details. Coffins vary in elegance. There are plain boxes the poor buy, and carry away on their shoulders, receiving reverence in lifted hats of THE tourist's HAVANA 47 men and signs of the cross made by women in all the streets along which they pass. Or the very poorest may hire a coffin in which to convey the dead to the grave, where the body is taken from the box and buried in earth without any protection, the coffin being duly returned to the funeral establishment from which it was engaged. Nor is a hearse necessary to get a poor man^s corpse to the cemetery. Sometimes (especially if it is small) the coffin is carried on the shoulders of mourners, or the sanitary department will provide a wagon. If the deceased is rich, however, he buys his lot and pays his dues and his friends fare forth and hire him not only one hearse, but several of them. They buy him dozens and scores and maybe hundreds of hideous purple and white funeral wreaths tied with broad bands of purple ribbon and lettered in gold. If he is prominent, they lay him in ^^ burning chapel, ^^ that is, they light candles around the coffin and mount guard about it. Maybe they lay him in his place of business or in the public office where he was chief, and let the people file by and gaze upon him for the last time. Maybe they bring a priest there and have him chant responses, or they stop at a church door en route, and the priest comes forth to perform the service as all stand in the street. The body may not be taken into the church, so strong now is the reaction against the former custom of burying all the dead under the church floors or in the church walls. I shall never for- get the interview I had with the proprietor of a very well-known ^^ funeral train ^' (establishment). ^^The cost of a funeral,'^ said he, ^^ depends upon the luxury of the display made, upon the financial status of the family, and upon the affliction the survivors feel. I charged $1000 the other day for a funeral I would have 48 CUBA conducted for $500 if the persons who made the ar- rangements had been in any condition to bargain, which they were not ; I took advantage of the situa- tion and cleared $800 on the deal. One charges what one can, naturally, for customers don't die but once, and we must make the most of every opportunity. If you are thinking of burying anybody, my advice to you is to make your bargain first, and stand firm; stand firm, and you'll find the price adjustable, exactly like the price of all other things. If you make no arrange- ments beforehand, of course a funeral establishment will charge as it pleases, and when the affair is over and done with the bills must be met.'' The street car visitors take back to town from the cemetery passes along Seventeenth Street in Vedado ,the handsomest residence avenue in this, the newest and most aristocratic suburb. From a block above the car line clear to the sea there are avenues of homes, in beautiful gardens, the most attractive of which combine American comfort with local styles in architecture which assure coolness. It is here that the majority of the American colony resides. There are other suburbs, all of them worth visiting by street car. Out Principe way are the Botanical Gardefis and the Villa of the Mills, so called because once there were tobacco mills in this vicinity. The old royal ditch {zanja real) which used to supply Havana with water flows through the grounds. This was formerly the summer residence of captains-general, but was made later a public school. The car line into Cerro used to be a country road, as I have said. Beyond Palatino now a highway leads past the palace Las Delicias, the handsomest private residence in the island, to Vento, where the waterworks THE tourist's HAVANA J 49 attract. Las Delicias is the home of a wealthy Cuban lady who commissioned Cubans best painter to prepare panels for her drawing-room walls. In her entry are battle scenes ; in one (of San Juan Hill) the figure of Roosevelt is readily recognized. The grounds about this place are exquisite. Like Cerro Calzada, the main street to Jesus del Monte was formerly a highway among farms and country places occupying land now solidly built up. Here, when Cuba had ^^ night riders/' some centuries before Kentucky's, men captured in a pitched battle at Santiago de las Vegas were strung up on roadside trees to the total of a dozen ; thereafter growers thought better of government rulings concerning the produc- tion and sale of the tobacco crop. There are, in conclusion, countless points of interest in the city ; also outside of it, — accessible there to those persons who drive cars. There is Guanabacoa, a deca- dent summer resort across the bay, and Regla, where pirates used to rendezvous and one built a palace, on which the red plaster wouldn't stick, because, or so the neighbors surmised, it was mixed with blood ; they have their churches and their miracle-working images. Coji- mar has its pretentious modern hotel. There is beach bathing the year round at La Playa, below Marianao, and the country one sees in driving back from Marianao via Puentes Grandes and Cerro is exceptionally beautiful at sunset. Guanajay is reached by electric car, and from there one may drive to ^^ Ruben's Folly" above Mariel, obtaining from its unfinished balconies a panorama of that town, its harbor, and the fertile, cultivated valley behind it, impossible to surpass. One may take a motor- bus from Guanajay to Cabaiias or to Artemisa, or one may find enjoyment in that town itself. ^ 50 CUBA Opposite its principal cafe (named Niagara) is the plazaj unusually attractive, it seemed to me, the last time I saw it ; in its little plots of soil the roses bloom the year around. Adjoining the cafe building is the church ; its altars are curious, and I have since heard regarding one of the trees (any one !) of the small yard about it, the best legend told me with reference to any locality in Cuba. In the shade of that tree one must speak the truth, because, the story goes, in the early years when Indian chiefs were still powerful enough to make it worth the Spaniards^ while to placate them, the daughter of a cacique of a Guanajay tribe was robbed of a wonderful necklace of pearls. So great was her father's wrath it became necessary to punish some one for the theft, and as the culprit could not be identified, they picked upon a young man who by some unhappy circumstance might be safely charged with the crime. He was condemned to die, although he denied his guilt to the very moment of execution. A priest, mounted on a mule, accompanied him to death, which was to be inflicted at the spot where the church stands now. The victim, still protesting that he had stolen no pearls, asked for ten minutes' final grace, and it was granted. The firing squad stood close at hand, and especially near was the officer in charge. The priest, still mounted upon his mule, kept by the prisoner, and he, as the minutes speeded, called upon Santiago and upon Mary to heed his plight. The padre^s mule, at that critical juncture, snatched at a single leaf drifting down from the tree in shade of which he rested, and missed it ; but his teeth caught in the doublet of the officer in charge of the firing squad, ripped it open, — and the missing pearls fell to the ground in sight of all ! The truest points of interest in and around Havana THE tourist's HAVANA 51 are, indeed, those which cannot be foretold, nor found twice ahke, since they are, perhaps, only the blue of a deep shadow there, across a white pavement ; a detail of a balcony's construction, in a certain light ; the pink of a girFs apron ; the laugh of a chocolate-brown naked baby, grasping through window bars at a passing stranger's clothes ; in short, a thousand sights and sounds, trivial in themselves, yet cherished strangely in memory, by those few winter visitors (^^ ducks of Florida '' is our colloquial Spanish for tourists) who, as they wing their flight from spot to spot at a guide's mandate, have an eye to see, an ear to hear. ^^^ CHAPTER III DAYS IN HAVANA " They have wooed me from my own." — From " Outlawed." It has always seemed to me that the most interest- ing Havana exhibits herself not often to those who seek her en passant, but continuously to those of us who reside here, and, without desiring to observe, or con- sciously observing, come to know details of life here as one learns to know the printed characters of a book in a foreign language. At first sight they are strange and meaningless ; as they acquire a sense to us they lose the oddity we do not see again unless we pause to consider them, and compare. Then, with an effort, we can observe the peculiarities as a stranger does, realizing, further, their true import, as he cannot. There is nothing more refreshing when one is afflicted with the old-timer's passionate hate of Havana and all her works, as on occasions we all are, than to go forth into the city determined to behold it for the thousandth time as though one had never set eyes upon it before. Here is a capital over which, at four-thirty in the morning, the deep, resonant bells of an ancient cathedral boom, ponderous and mellow. Already, at that hour, boys with long poles are shutting off the gas lamps up and down the narrow streets of the lower cit^^ the arc- lights in the parks and on the promenades have sputtered their last, and died. / Before the heavy doors of all the houses,! their giddy colors paled in the twilight of dawn, 52 ^1. .rwff^ m M3s. < DAYS IN HAVANA 53 along all the cobbled streets, 'there are garbage boxes and barrels, left scattered at every angle, in the wake of the army of street cleaners, who charge through the town between midnight and daybreak, shouting to each other and from gang to gang, whooping up their mules, banging the receptacles they empty against their carts, and otherwise shattering the quietude of night and the nerves of all save hardened inhabitants. At half-past four there are few pedestrians in sight except policemen, on the corners, hooded in their voluminous capaSy — cloaks which are, I believe, the last vestige of the Roman toga, — and, chatting with them, perhaps, a night-watchman carrying a heavy cane, and, some- times, a lantern. The night-watchman is a private institution, but he is reckoned along with the police as an important guar dian of this city's safety. He takes under his care a block, say, especially in the commercial districts, and he is paid pro rata by the establishments it shelters. At Christmas time he is likely to present a card to individual residents in his territory who have not made previous arrangements with him, on which is printed a verse of very poor poetry explaining how, while they sleep, the faithful sereno tramps his beat in cold and storm to keep off thieves and fire and other calamities likely to disturb slumber, on considering which the reader is, of course, moved to contribute toward his support. The sereno no longer shouts the hours (''Twelve o'clock and all serene !'') as he used to do, which got for him his name, but he carries a stout stick, and as he tramps he raps with it, whack-whack-whack, upon the pavement. Or, occasionally, hejalla^usleep with it laid across his knees, as he reclines in a con- venient doorway, or he holds it under his arm as he sits 54 CUBA in a chair on the sidewalk reading by the hght of a street lamp. While he is engrossed, some inhabitant of his block, returning home in the dead of night, and, through some oversight, without a key. to his lodgings, is sure to look in vain for the sereno, who is provided with an arsenal of latch keys to open doors for just such prodi- gals. Incensed at delay, the belated one wakes all the hollow echoes with indignant thuds of the knocker upon his door. The racket brings the watchman run- ning, — or it doesn't, as the case may be. For the service he renders in opening doors at unconventional hours the sereno is not averse to additional tips. Also, if one desires to wake early, it is possible to enlist the assistance of the night-watchman, who will enter a house (on his beat) and arouse a sleeper, at request. He has access, as a matter of course ; his honesty is accepted. He is the custodian not only of property, but also, sometimes, according to his interpretation of his duties, of the morals of his block as well. Varied and strange are the sights he sees, and discusses, I presume, with porters along his route and with other night-watchmen in territory adjoining. When events which are beyond his comprehension transpire in his neighborhood, he has been known to suggest that explanation would be appreciated, and he has been suspected of informing lodging-house keepers and proprietors in general, within his precinct, when their tenants cease to merit his respect. Before the gate to Caballeria wharf, at half-past four in the morning, round-topped country carts, packed, in the pineapple-shipping season, with that fruit in crates, are in line awaiting admission. Just inside the gate a couple of square, tightly closed market carts stand backed close against the wharf, and beyond them, DAYS IN HAVANA 55 working in uncertain lantern light, are fishermen weigh- ing out to them the catch that is to supply Havana^ s tables for the day. They have towed the boat-shaped tanks, in which they keep the fish alive and swimming until wanted, across the harbor from the Casa Blanca shore, where the little lights sprinkled over the hill under Cabanas never burn out. On davits these tanks are lifted partly out of the water alongside the wharf, a lantern is hung to shine inside, and then with a net the imprisoned fish are scooped up and flung to flop and flutter on the planking of the dock until a man with another net tosses them into a basket, where they continue to writhe even after other baskets with squirm- ing contents are crushed on top of them. Five or six baskets, full, at a time are weighed, and carried to the waiting carts. The fish spring even from the carts, and must be gathered up again, sometimes after a quieting kick from a fisherman's boot. The catch is sorted roughly as to size. The biggest are the handsome pink pargo (red snapper), which die quietly, after a short struggle and many long, heart-breaking gasps. The other varieties fight for life like trained gymnasts, with countless gyrations and a continuous swishing, slipping sound of their scaly bodies rubbing against each other. When they leap from baskets or nets and somersault too far away, the men in charge stamp suddenly upon their heads, and thereafter they lie still, in that one spot. If there be a tourist present to cry out : '^Poor thing !'' the fishermen jest together in all the provincial tongues of Spain, or answer in Castilian : ^^What? ^Poor thing?' Who says ^Alas, the little creature ! ' when he beholds that fish fried for break- fast?'' Policemen stand about, chatting. There ar- rives a customs guard coming early to his day's work. 66 CUBA Wharf night-watchmen, wrapped in their long blue cloaks, pace up and down the aisles of canvas-covered merchandise piled along the dock. In the lighters and the barges tied here, there is movement, — a man stretching lazily into his shirt, a cook fanning his red charcoal fire, a long row of stevedores swinging their legs from the edge of a lighter, every man smoking in silence. Along Muelle de Luz tramps and beggars who pass the night there begin to crawl from hiding. On the corners cafes open early, and there, by the time it is light, the first patrons sit humped up over coffee, their coat collars turned to their ears. Street cars pass now with increasing frequency, their motor- men wearing knitted scarfs around their throats and mouths, for a Cuban seems to dread fresh air as a cat dreads water, for exactly the same reason, — not that it harms him, but because he is unaccustomed to it. Serving men and women begin, now, to drag the gar- bage boxes indoors, and once in a while one hears shrill denunciation because there is no garbage box to drag, the sanitary having carted it off with its content. At five-thirty reveille sounds sweet and clear from over the ramparts of Cabanas, and, gliding like a ghost- ship through the mists that blur the harbor, there enters some big transatlantic steamer, or the mail boat from Tampa or the Ward liner from New York. The sun, rising from the hills beyond Guanabacoa into a rose and pearl-tint sky, scatters with his first rays the delicate and filmy fog that dims the bay, and white- sailed schooners spread all canvas and make away, past Morro, to sea and off, with freshening breeze. The little fishing craft that loitered all night, their single lights agleam like fireflies, off shore, have all come in and tied up for the day at Casa Blanca and Muelle de 1 %9H ^ j^gj^Bp^Kpyi^plfe^^^ "^ ►>- ■ '^^^' ■** '*'' " -^^ ^,:iifM^'-***^^ *^'> 111 Photograph by American Photo Company Photograph by American Photo Company Panorama of Mariel DAYS IN HAVANA 57 Luz. From the railroad yards the whistles of depart- ing trains and irritable switch engines sound shrilly. All Havana is awake. Now wholesale shops open wide their great street doors, and those two-wheeled carts, drawn by sleek mules, with bells and tassels, which are Havana's drays and trucks, invade the lower section of the city in numbers, accompanied by noise. The retail shops roll up the corrugated-iron shutters that have protected their windows through the night, and clerks, inside, remove dust cloths from counters and shelves, in prepa- ration for the day's business. The markets have been astir since the gleam of dawn. * Their stalls are made inviting as may be with fresh vegetables displayed in large shallow baskets ; bananas in bunches, and peppers and garlic on strings, hang everywhere. Strangers in Havana insist upon visiting the markets ; why has always puzzled me, for I cannot conceive that any one save those obliged to enter there to pick and choose what's edible would care to endure the stench of fowls and rotting vegetable matter and meats, and the sight of sick cats and dogs and degraded humans (the loiterers) who haunt the corners and help the plaza reek. The cooks of the city have a regular matin round Df argument with venders : those who buy and those who sell berate each other, brandishing fists and copper pennies and paper bags and meat cleavers, while here and there an American housewife may be found tripping quietly from stall to stall, de- manding from each his best, and getting it, too, because she is willing to pay a bit extra for sound potatoes, the best bread, fruit neither green nor spoiling, and breasts of chicken in preference to other parts (laid out on the counter already cleaned and cut, so that one may buy 58 CUBA the particular pieces liked best). Between seven and eight o'clock the cooks, satisfied, scatter in every direc- tion from the market place, balancing upon their heads baskets of truck, carrying protesting chickens by the feet, or by a rope around their four legs lugging suck- ling pigs (especially at holiday time), who go to the sacrifice protesting with agonized squeals. By eight o'clock a multitude of clerks and other minor employees throngs the cafes about Central Park. To them come galloping down Virtudes Street newsboys, who at the head of Prado are joined by others of their tribe. Together they raise in every quarter of town cries I wish I could indicate, but there is no printing their variations on ^^Mundo! Traigo el Mundo ! Mundo de hoy!^^ which changes, instantly to^^PoM Havana Po' !'' on sight of an American, probable cus- tomer for the English, not the Spanish, morning paper. As the day wears on, the tumult and the shouting increase in variety and volume. Codies — there are, in Havana, five thousand of these victorias to hire at a peseta (twenty cents, Spanish) the usual trip — race plunging up and down the narrow streets. Pri- vate conveyances and government carriages follow with more dignity. Automobiles, — smoking, pant- ing, howling through their siren horns like devils in pain, — burst at breakneck pace from side streets. Omnibuses roar along their routes, dragged, bounding, after galloping mules. Continually I am reminded, and forcibly, of Martial and his sour complaints. I never duck from under a dripping balcony, where one prefers to suppose an overflowing flower pot is what has caused a sudden deluge, that I do not sympathize with him. Residents in this city no longer toss refuse and broken crockery 1 DAYS IN HAVANA 59 from upper windows into the street (at least, not when the poUce are watching) for the simple reason that it is against the law ; they used formerly to be less consider- ate of passers-by. I never overhear cart drivers quar- reling in a jam on Mercaderes that I am not reminded of his version of similar occurrences in ancient Rome. I never dodge a guagua (omnibus) that I do not think of his story of the little Roman slave with the bath oil and the towels waiting at home, while his master, knocked out of ancient history in a street accident, sits cold and penniless upon the banks of the River Styx, a jest for Charon, who recognizes no passes and admits no deadhead passengers. Along toward noon one sees delivery boys distributing cantina dinners, strung like white buckets (dozens of them !) on poles, sight of which would make intelligible to the student transla- tor other lines in the Satire to which I refer. Hand organs play, — selections from ^^Floradora,'' the '^ Merry Widow Waltz,'' the ^^Marseillaise,'' and songs I've heard in zarzuelas (one-act plays) of local popularity. Street venders cry their wares. Some arouse parrots, set out to sun on balconies, to mock them in screaming disapproval. One is, as I write, ringing a cowbell on the corner, though what he hopes to dispose of by means of that performance I cannot judge from the loud monotone yell which follows now. I heard one once, singing in clear tenor to the effect that a ship from far lands had just dropped anchor in harbor with a wonderful cargo of silks and satins and women's gauds aboard, consigned to the store, — now, I can't recall what store, but it must have been ''Spring Time," or ''The Little Marquis," or "The Paris Post," or "The Great Lady." In Havana the stores have names of their own, and are known by them 60 CUBA rather than by the company name of their owners. There are small boys who push carts and chant as they go a declaration of their desire to purchase bottles, half -bottles, and demijohns. Many men with trays of potted plants upon their heads shout out the single word, '' Flores! '' and again " Flores! '' There is a man who leans against whatever doorway he may find open, and fills the house with earsplitting, unintelli- gible clamor; when one runs down to chase him out one finds that he has plantains to sell. Another fruit dealer intones slowly, softly, convincingly: ^^ Oranges of China ! They're sweet as sirup ! Johnson ba- nanas !'' One knows they are excellent. Another, sell- ing a brown-skinned, red-hearted native fruit, shaped like a melon with the taste of dewberries, wails sadly through his nose: ''Colorado! Colorado el ma'^ey ! ^^ There are two who herald the springtime with raucous cheer and good tidings: ^^ Melons! Melons of Cas- tile !'' When another — some one of many who drive carts roofed over with bended palm leaves tied together at the tips — shouts ^^ Mangos! Mangos and man- gas!'' we know that summer has come. There is, too, the man who sells clothes racks, and the other who deals in sponges; one peddles tin cups and another enameled kitchen and bedroom ware. Another, with a whole dry goods store in his high-topped cart, lures the ladies with announcement of ^^Fine lace and linen edging!" There is one who swallows whole syllables of the sentence he pronounces, and it took me long to decipher that he offers an impossibility: ^^ Fresh eggs, eight for twenty cents ! For twenty cents eight of them!" Between twelve and two o'clock we are offered ^^Loo-oochay y Dizcoo-oo-sion !" as the after- noon papers come off the press. The tinkle of a little Photograph by American Photo Com pany Photograph by American Photo Compatiy Street Peddler, selling The Bread Man, who de- Tin AND OTHER KiTCHEN LIVERS " FlUKES " FROM DoOR Ware to Door Photograph by American Photo Company Street Vendor, Havana DAYS IN HAVANA 61 bell precedes the hawker of wretched ices, selling at a cent or so the tiny glassful. The sign on the cart he pushes reads: ^^ Purity, 2)^.'' There is a blind man who blows a horn as he peddles matches at ^^Four boxes for five cents ! '' Late at night arrives the vender of cracklings and fritters, and, last of all, the best of all, or successor to him who was so, a singer from whose cry a danzon (native dance) was written, I can well believe, for he used to offer ^^ Peanuts and hot chest- nuts ! ^' to a measure which informed one musically that his name was Vicente, and made further references I could never entirely understand to the teeth of his prospective customers, mentioned, probably, merely because Vicente, diente (tooth) and caliente (hot) rhyme perfectly. Between two and three o'clock in the afternoon Havana begins to revive from the lull which falls at about eleven, for, although this city no longer frankly retires to sleep the siesta as she ought to do, she does doze dully in the motionless thick heat of mid of day. After three one sees ladies, ^^made up'' as none are with us except beyond the footlights, venturing forth in twos and threes to the streets where the best shops are. This is the hour in which to witness, if one has eyes and humor for it, a whole series of comic occur- rences. Havana's sidewalks are narrow, and their lack of width gives rise to some local customs and a deal of heartburning. One does not keep hard to the right, regardless, in approaching another person, travel- ing along the narrow flagging in the opposite direction. One must take under advisement his or her sex, age, color, and present condition of servitude as blazoned forth for all to read in the details of personal attire. Men usually give women the inside of the walk, step- 62 CUBA ping down, when necessary, to let them pass. CathoHc priests, however, especially on church holidays, if one meets them, demand the whole walk along which to pursue their devout way to church, forgetting, as a certain prelate remembered when a Mexican friend of mine stepped aside to give him preference through an open door, that ^^ Madame, I was a gentleman before I became a priest ! '^ Also, when it rains, and the house walls do not protect from the shower beyond a narrow margin close against them, I have observed that the majority of men here are quite willing to let a woman w^ho happens to be caught in the storm take the out- side and get wet there, as their courtesy would never permit them to let her do in fair weather, when she has no particular need of their consideration. Serving people, regardless of age and sex, and all others who so humble themselves as to carry packages, are expected to yield the walks to their superiors, who then are about everybody they meet. Frequently, of course, it is difficult to make in the flash of turning a corner all the nice calculations requisite to deciding who shall have the wall and who shall surrender it. I know of nothing funnier than to watch two fairly well dressed and corpu- lent Cuban ladies determining, as they stand tottering face to face, on a foot-wide flagging, the whole delicate problem of their relative rank. The one arrayed in the giddiest garment seems, usually, to win. If there is small choice in color and cost between the tight pink costume of one and the tight blue costume of the other, the one with the straightest hair stands fast, and the other walks around, sometimes with grunts and com- ment sotto voce. Or, all details seeming equal, they face each other and glare, till the one with least nerve wiltS; swerves into an adjacent doorway, and the DAYS IN HAVANA 63 victorious sweeps by with up-tilted chin and exultant petticoats. The upper blocks of Obispo constitute our principal shopping district. Formerly, when no real lady left her domicile save in her carriage, — to go to mass, to a friend^s house, to ^Hake the air, '' or, possibly, to espe- cially favor some shop, — the stores along this street were even smaller, dingier than now, for then they were hardly more than warehouses, from which clerks car- ried to the best customers, in their residences, goods from which to make selection, or if, as customs relaxed, the lady came in person, she still did not enter the build- ing, but reclined in her conveyance at the curb, while all the clerks available bestirred themselves to bring forth to her every article that might please. Though usage now allows the Havanese ladies more liberty, and, in exact proportion to it, the liveliest shops have lighted and decorated their interiors, enlarged their win- dows and bought glass counters, the most have not even yet adequate showcases or other means to exhibit the varied and beautiful stuffs they carry in stock, among which are the very finest manufactures of all the earth, — French linens and embroideries, Spanish laces, man- tillaSy and other scarfs ; pineapple cloth of fairy weave and gorgeous pattern ; filmy organdies ; fans both French and Spanish of every style, size, price, and design ; pearl buttons, cheap ; Canary Island hand embroidery and Mexican drawn work ; Italian corals and Baracoa tortoise shells, carved ; Toledo steel and gold work ; Parisian millinery; and jewelry, — there are fortunes in gems in any one of half a dozen windows located about midway down the avenue ! One does not find .goods of this quality in New York shops. I have seen on Fifth Avenue single pieces of lace and a blouse or a gown 64 CUBA or two which approached Obispo^s average, — at prices which surpassed, amazingly, its maximum. Obispo is, in short, a veritable paradise for the woman of means and taste who designs and makes, or superintends the making of, her own clothes. She finds here everything necessary, from gold and silver net and edging of metal- lic luster, to daintiest transparent ''bride's linen'' and ''real" laces to suit any fancy, for the putting together of countless "dreams" and "creations" and "visions of loveliness" elaborately adorned. Obispo, however, and all the other retail streets of this city, are, alas ! the immeasurable despair of the other woman who wants a cheap suit quick. What its Americanized shops offer in the shape of ready-to-wear garments, for either street or house, in shoes, corsets, and other accoutrements for which reliance must be placed in factories, are burlesques on Broadway styles ! Havana knows nothing of bargain-day rush. One shrill girl's cry of "Cash !" or a really competent fore- lady's mandate of "Forward, please!" would carry consternation Obispo's full length and fill with regret all who, hearing, knew the frenzy these signs portend. With us, as yet, every one has time, — I actually believe it passes for money, because I know that many who spend the first lavishly in selecting precisely what they want do not pay for it in the other within the next half year. The fact that a sale to them means cash ac- counts for half the enthusiasm with which every store welcomes Americans. Clerks here are accustomed to see Cuban ladies, when out shopping, arrive leisurely, somewhat simply gowned if they come in the morning, eleborately ar- rayed if they come in the afternoon, when, between three and five, Obispo Street is our "Peacock Alley." DAYS IN HAVANA 65 No matter, however, what hour, they come cool, per- fumed, painted, powdered, and, I am convinced, with- out any set notion as to what they are to buy. There are chairs provided before the counter, and the shopper sits. She goes usually to her favorite store, where she has long been a marchante (customer), and is, therefore, entitled to definite rights and privileges, such, for in- stance, as a preference for a certain clerk, which the others respect. If he is engaged when she enters, she waits until he is at liberty. It is not unusual for him to leave the customer he is serving to inform her that he is making haste to get through in order to attend her. Other clerks, idling behind the counter, recognize her as Fulano de TaFs marchante^ and make no effort to wait upon her unless she indicates exceptional haste. One may then substitute for her special clerk until he can arrive to take charge. When her clerk comes forward, she states what she wants. This is by no means to say that she will get it. If the thing is not in stock, the clerk will exhibit everything else there is in hope to divert her choice. If, however, she is obdurate, he will send to other neigh- boring shops to see if they can supply it. When pre- cisely what the clever shopper wants is, at last, laid before her, she will exhibit no elation whatever. She asks the price, and is informed. It is, of course, too high altogether. The clerk expostulates. She is astounded at his temerity. They are both fully pitched, by now, in a cheerful battle of wits. The struggle may be long, but the outcome is always the same. As a special favor to her he lowers the figure. She condescends to take the goods, but, if he has not met her offer nearly, she remarks significantly that she'll patronize next time the shop next door. The clerk retaliates with the promise that at Christ- mas time marchantes of his establishment are to receive 66 CUBA the finest presents in all Havana. I understand that sometimes these hohday gifts are of real value, but all that I have seen displayed were atrocious bisque figures or plush picture frames. Meanwhile, he is leisurely tying up the parcel, if it is very small and she will carry it instead of having it sent ; he carefully knots the cord into a handle for her fingers that she may dandle it daintily and not lose her right to the inside of the side- walk because of its bulk or weight. If when she comes to pay the bill she is unable to make exact change, the clerk overlooks a small shortage, saying that she may pay it when she calls again. She thanks him for having waited upon her. He accompanies her to the door, and bows her out. Shopping in Havana is a game to which strangers are unequal. The leisurely procedure expected, the affa- bility with which a clerk will offer a substitute for what's demanded, and finally the knowledge that the first price asked is not what one is expected to pay for any article, all baffle and irritate. It is very difficult to recognize the solemn moment when the shopkeeper has un- covered his lowest figure from its wrapping of persi- flage and set it before one, fully anticipating that it will be accepted, now that he has at least approached the correct value. If, beyond a certain point, which is hard, as I have said, to determine, one still demands reduction, the shopkeeper becomes as indignant as a whist player whose ace is trumped. He is likely to fold up his mer- chandise then and there, to the considerable astonish- ment of the tourist, for instance, who, having beaten him down from $1.00 a yard to 75 cents (''Only for you do I give it such a price ! '') cannot understand why he is angered at insistence on 70 cents. Long as I have been here, I can give no formula for discovering when the price BAYS IN HAVANA 67 asked approaches what the salesman expects to receive, excepting this one : that it is time to Stop bartering when he becomes sincerely, not feignedly, ^' mad^' about it. Or, if one has not the time and the nerve to spend in regateo (this system of bargaining to beat down price), then one does as most Americans do : one pays what^s asked if one wants the article badly enough, and seeks revenge in condemning the government and high import duties ! Many merchants, however, realizing the advantage of reducing shopping to a business, stripped of all the finesse of the duel of spirit and humor it used to be, an- nounce ^^one price only, ^^ and I believe that some of them enforce the rule, though there are other shops where the clerks assure me very solemnly that the first price is the last price without inspiring in me any con- fidence that it is so for everybody. It is in shopping, in addition to all the other aggrava- tions, that one encounters in its most irritating form the problem of the many moneys in circulation here. Cuba has no coinage of her own. The official medium of exchange is American money, in which the govern- ment pays salaries and exacts contributions. There are in circulation nevertheless French gold, and Spanish gold, silver, and copper pieces the value of which fluctu- ates, slightly now, from day to day. In Oriente Prov- ince as far west as Holguin, only American money is used. Elsewhere in the country, as in Havana, large transactions are conducted usually in American money or French or Spanish gold, and smaller transactions in Spanish silver, a dollar of which used to be worth very much less than now. I can recall when salary paid in American money looked like wealth by the time its re- cipient had calculated it in Spanish silver at the rate 68 CUBA of $1.40 ^'bald-headed money'' for $1, of ''the real thing/' Spanish silver is called '' bald-headed" or ''monkey-money/' — the first name referring to the fact that the effigy of King Alfonso upon the coins is, from babyhood to manhood, always rather scant of hair. At five o'clock, when the government offices down around the Plaza de Armas close, releasing clerks, the tide of humanity sets up Obispo to Central Park, the Prado, and Malecon. Those who have carriages or cars or can afford to hire coches or taxicabs, drive, and the rest walk, toward the sea to watch the sun go down be- hind Vedado in a blaze of glory that flares to the zenith and casts its reflections in soft colors to the east whence night advances, creeping up from behind Morro and Cabanas as retreating day cedes place. The white fire of the Castle's lighthouse appears before the horizon it faces is dark. One by one the gas jets begin to glow in Punta Park behind the prison. With a hiss and sizzle the long lines of arc lamps on Malecon and Prado struggle into a glare. In the heavens the moon and stars assume their places in a sapphire sky before the sun's last reflection has faded from the scattered clouds floating there. In the dining rooms of the hotels on Central Park, and near there, tables are full, and just outside the rail- ings of their open windows crowds loiter, to gaze with frank interest on those who eat, and what they eat, while they are eating it. Before the waiters make their last scurrying departure with soiled small cups that con- tained black coffee, gongs in the entrances of neighbor- ing theaters invite attendance at the moving-picture show, vaudeville, the zarzuela, Jai Alai, or, if it be winter, the opera at the National. One does well to disregard their summons, save on DAYS IN HAVANA 69 exceptional occasions. The moving-picture shows of town, which have saved managers from the necessity of closing their houses entirely, while sometimes good, drop frequently into brutality and nastiness. The vaudeville performances are without merit, except rarely when some Spanish girl favors us with wonderful dancing, like Oterita's. The zarzuelas, at home in Albisu, are worth seeing, once, for they are written of Spanish life, by Spaniards, and acted by a Spanish com- pany to an audience invariably Spanish ; here, during the Intervention I heard the American flag hissed, as it flashed from the spotlight upon the skirts of an eccentric dancer ; there were American army officers in the boxes who leaped to their feet, and the demonstration ceased. Lately the management invested in some stage setting and a few costumes, and rejuvenated, in small part, at least, its ancient, faithful chorus. Pay ret is gratefully remembered for one or two rare treats, — for certain Italian artists who have appeared there, notably the actress Tina di Lorenzo ; and, only recently, for Calve and Bonci. The National (Tacon) Theater saw Bern- hardt and Rejane flouted in such a manner that many an amateur dramatic and musical society must needs la- bor hard to remove the stigma of the reception accorded to these artists and to all the other truly great ones who have condescended to come to Havana. Patti and Tetrazzini sang at the National, the latter very shortly before she was heralded elsewhere as a star of magnitude. Every winter opera companies, either Spanish or Italian, appear for a ^^ season.'^ ^^Fashionable nights'' find the boxes full, and it is the custom to consider the perform- ances good, which occasionally they are, despite a stage of Elizabethan barrenness, and costumes (of all save the particular leading light, if there is one) which 70 CUBA seem to have been made about that same period. The interior of the National consists of five horseshoe-shaped tiers of boxes (barren stalls, with a half dozen hard- bottomed chairs within each inclosure), rising one above the other about the pit, from which the seats may be removed, converting it then into a large floor, where, on occasions, banquets are served. They con- stitute spectacles viewed by onlookers filling the boxes as audience. It is here, too, during carnival season that public masked balls are given. They are reckoned very wicked, and Americans go in crowds (in box parties) in- tent to see the siglits. What they behold is a mob of shapeless gibbering dominoes (not a short skirt, not a bare neck, not an itiidraped arm !) who dance round and round, each couple occupying very little floor space, to the measure of ^Hropical waltzes'^ and danzones brayed forth by bands in the proscenium boxes. Dust, noise, stale perfume, and smell of cigarettes make the air fairly putrid. The men upon the floor (they do not mask) are obviously as low in the average as humanity drops even in Havana. They are approximately white ; on the other hand, where gloves part from sleeves, or the cotton lace on masks flies aside, one discovers that the women are, mostly, mulattoes and blacks. In con- trast to them, all swathed as they are in formless, cheap, gaudy-colored ''mother hubbards,'' there passes now and then the handsome figure of a well-dressed woman with face unmasked, — sonie demimondaine too notorious to assume disguise. I remember particularly one beauty who carried royally a modest organdie gown, in color magenta and black, and another gentler and younger, seated in a box, who wore her hair parted and combed low over her ears ; there was a velvet band across her forehead fastening there a sin- DAYS IN HAVANA 71 gle paste jewel. As for the rest, — the shrilhng domi- noes, — they are the laundresses, the scullery maids, the milliners' and modistes' apprentice girls, as well as the denizens of abysses these skirt when they ^Hake their fling'' at carnival balls. Across the Park from the National is Polyteama. It is an attempt at a roof garden, vaudeville and opera, grouped upon the flat top of the Gomez Block. Its opera house, the Grand, was opened last season with great eclat by Nordica and other singers of merit ; that same stage is occupied now by a local stock company, — actors from the Alhambra, which is enlarging its own building, — to whose performances women are not admitted. All in all, when the gongs clang one had very much better let them clamor unregarded, and turn instead to the parks and the Prado and the long sea wall where the finest show of all is on. Some of its best scenes are enacted in the side streets, where the hand organs grind late, to audiences leaning from the balconies above. Nursemaids sit in the open doorways. Children play in the streets. Young blades, twirling tender mustaches, pass and repass the windows from which the girls that they admire lean out. In some of these homes there may be dancing ; then a crowd of spectators gathers around the street windows and looks on, applauding the music and the couples on the floor. Or a ball at the Spanish Casino, or at the Centro Asturiano, may have attracted all the young people there, where to good music, despite heat and a crowded floor, they enjoy themselves in waltzing, in flirting, in making earnest love, in secluded nooks and on balconies, each pair utterly oblivious of everything save itself. Or it may be that the affair is given at the Clerks of Commerce Club house. The upper floor 72 CUBA of that building is an immense ballroom, which, when it is Ughted from end to end, as it was on the evening of the farewell reception to Governor Magoon, and filled with a brilhant throng ; or when, as on the after- noon of the tea in honor of General and Mrs. Leonard Wood, the dechning sun brightens all its pastel tints and the no more delicate gowns of a crowd of women promenading, is not, I think, equaled in beauty by any large salon in all the United States of America. Practically every periodical pubhshed here, including even commercial and political sheets, labor organs and lit- erary weeklies and monthlies, makes room in its columns for personal notes under various captions, — -^^ Social Havana,'^ ^ ^Elegancies,'' ^^The Social Day,' ^ ^^Elegant Chronicle," etc., etc. Here appear items somewhat similar to those admitted to the ''social pages" of cer- tain American daily papers, but, objectionable at their best, they take on, in the Cuban press, a tone disagree- ably intimate and personal. For instance, during a t eachers' institute (for their records are by no means con- fin ed to events rightfully considered ''soci al") a certain susceptible nobleman (such was his rank according to his nom de plume) ^ who was scribe at the time for a paper professedly and practically political only, favored a session with his presence, and there discovered "an en- chanting group" of some thirty especially simpaticas senoritas, whom he proceeded to enumerate with itali- cized accent on their first names, which were printed with tender diminutives in ita and cita; among the thirty were a pair of "enchanting little sisters," and a couple of "angelical beings," to say nothing of a "divine trinity, whose angelical features transported the sweet illusions [of that society reporter] to the eternal regions, as prayers in temples fly to confound themselves with BATS IN HAVANA 73 the rhythm of the universe in the bosom of eternity." I am translating from the item, and this is only a fair sample. These columns are piping with impertinent ^ ^ notes of lo ve. ^ ' Their readers know the instant ^ ^ a cor- rect gentleman/' — every suitor is a perfectly ^^ correct gentleman/' — makes up his mind ^Ho ask the hand in marriage'' of some ^^sympathetic young lady" from her ^^distinguished father" and her ^'respectable mother." They also chronicle births (the writer invariably sends a kiss to the newborn), christenings (under the stand- ing caption of ^'One Christian More"), and also deaths, — if the deceased is a baby the heading reads ^^ Another Angel." I have found that these writers do not apply their stock phrases haphazard, but according to a secret significance inherent in the worn words ; I used to know the code, which enabled me to gather the reporters' veiled notion of the appearance and social rating of the persons mentioned, but of it I remember now only that if they say she is a 'labo- rious" young woman you are to know that she's the rather homely honest daughter of parents in modest circumstances. These particular newspaper men are in their glory when some one of the many important clubs in town gives a ball, for they attend and dance like marionettes with the prettiest girls in sight, whose names, in recompense, head a column-long list of ''those pre- sent" when in the afternoon edition of the next day they are set apart from the following throng in a para- graph "lead" ebullient with admiration for their per- sonal loveliness and the elegance of their gowns. Neither, I hear it alleged, do the reporters fail to do a little business amid pleasure ; it is understood, in some instances at least, that if the restauranteur who serves the buffet wants its excellence mentioned, he will do 74 CUBA well not only to see that the gentlemen of the press sample it early and often, but also that their strength is further maintained by a free dinner at his establish- ment now and then, at the very least. At nine o'clock a single gun fired from Cabafias fortress shakes all the city with its jar. As though set a-j angle by the shock, all the clocks and church bells sound the hour. Every possessor of a watch, no matter where he may be at the signal, brings it forth and winds it up. The busiest of the retail shops now drops its shutters with a bang. Down in the wholesale districts clerks in doorways enter with determination upon the night's last game of dominoes. There is a further ces- sation in noise, for which, perhaps, an American seated upon his roof top, in the moonlight, is extraordinarily grateful. When from across the street a fairly good voice, to the accompaniment of a guitar, sings ^^La Paloma,'' he gazes with refreshed appreciation at the mise en scene and reflects that the girl opposite, now leaning languidly from her parapet, her garments trail- ing white, and, perhaps, a little live firefly entangled like an active diamond in her hair, might seem to him the final requisite of real romance had he not seen her that very morning, soiled and uncombed, berating some incompetent menial, doubtless, who remained dis- creetly in the background during the tirade. As he looks closer he distinguishes the glowing tip of a cigar- ette at which she puffs. If he, on his side of the street, which is between them, smokes long enough, she and others on roofs and bal- conies all about him disappear group by group and one by one. From Cabanas he may hear the bugles calling taps. Lights in windows in the single top rooms on the roofs which are called ''lookouts,' 'where servants sleep, DAYS IN HAVANA 75 go dim or vanish. Cats — black silhouettes — make their appearance now on parapets and railings, de- scending by devious ways to rummage through the gar- bage boxes which, set out after ten o'clock, begin im- mediately to make their presence perceptible to his nose. At eleven, maybe, he hears the regular tramp of police from the station setting out to relieve those on duty during the first half of the night. Perhaps as he dozes there sounds a sudden cry through all the silent street, and the patter of flying feet : ^' Ultima hora ! A la ul- tima hora! '' and he, having hissed from his roof to detain the boy below, descends in haste to the street door to buy for a penny or two some newspaper's '^ extra" announc- ing calamity, — a political assassination, or an explosion, say. Or, again having retired to sleep, he may be awakened by the sound of blows and choked cries : the Spaniard on the corner beating his wife again ! May- hap he may hear the police pound upon the door, de- manding and getting admission. He may hear the husband's tearful protests, — she is his wife, you under- stand. Presently cocks in patios begin to crow. The first morning street car comes up the avenue as the garbage carts go down. Cafe doors open, and Havana has taken up the round of her day's existence once more. Ordinarily the sun shines, intensely, with a brilliancy that blinds. From mid-October until late April the days follow each other like gold beads on a string, alter- nated with solid silver nights, — every twenty-four hours a cycle of perfect summer weather. Toward the first of May piled clouds ride thicker in the sky, and, of afternoons, quick rains blow up. Out in the provinces the farmers thank God for the beginning of ^'the wet season." When it rains it pours, in floods, till cataracts spout from the rain troughs, filling all the narrow city 76 CUBA streets. Then O'Reilly and Obispo and parallel avenues run rivers that cover the sidewalks in low places and invade shops despite their board barricades. Cathedral Square becomes a lake where Uttle pickaninnies splash to their armpits. ''Coaches'' that must navigate it seem to float, the water sweeping through their bodies ; ''fares" lift their feet to the seats. In shops along San Ignacio between Chorro and O'Reilly employees and patrons climb to the tables and sit marooned until the inundation subsides. Fifteen minutes after the downpour has ceased there is nothing to indicate "high water" except, perhaps, the expostulations of some porter angrily sweeping silt from his courtyard. Or again for days sharp twirling gusts of wind annoy the city. Then Belen Observatory may issue a warning to shipping to keep within port and the newspapers publish tiny "extras" as large as a sheet of note paper, which are distributed to the city by urchins screaming like Apaches : ''El ciclon ! El ciclon ! ' ' Then, if it is not a false alarm, a drizzling rain sets in and the downfall and the wind together increase hour by hour in violence. In my time two of these hurricanes have passed over the city. I had the rare luck to be outdoors in the height of the storm of 1906, which reached its maximum at mid- night, and I shall not forget to my dying day how the wind howled up and down the narrow streets, how the rain twisted and whirled, driven by winds that blew from every quarter at one and the same time ; how crossed live wires illumined all the scene with hellish glare, and as we fought our way thigh-deep in water pouring in a torrent down O'Reilly we heard tiles and bits of crum- bling mortar hurtling from the housetops into the street we navigated. The "voice " of this hurricane's " thun- dering roar" was deafening indeed : we could not hear DATS IN HAVANA 77 ourselves speak, nor could we see our hands before our faces. Northern nature never knows passion such as this was. Next morning we awoke to find the sunlight fresh and clear, and with all the rest of the town we went out to view the wreckage. Every tree in the Plaza de Armas lay flat, prostrated with leafy top toward the Palace. Those on the Prado looked as the toy trees of a child's Noah's Ark look when the baby lays them lengthwise with one sweep of his open hand. Cornices, turrets, balconies, and the top stories of some buildings had been blown in. Awnings, signs, kiosks were scat- tered far and wide ; the Daily Telegraph^ s bulletin board, for instance, was found three blocks up hill on a street parallel to that on which the office stood. In places alongshore the sea had flooded out families. Count- less lighters and small craft went down in the bay, but the American battleships at anchor there rode out the hurricane bravely. When the first newspapers came out we learned how, at Camp Columbia, troops of the American Army of Pacification, caught unprepared, had sat on their dog tents and other belongings all night, through that terrific tempest, singing as loud as their lungs would let them . All in all, loss of life and property in Havana was small. Out in the country banana groves lay supine ; tobacco seedlings were destroyed ; sugar cane was damaged. Tobacco barns and houses and huts alike went down, and, later, there was suffer- ing. Again, the variation in Havana's routine existence may be of another nature. How well I remember the day, during ^^The Little War of August" (1906), that Morro sent up the flag that reads ''American warship sighted.'' The news spread as though by magic, and down all the streets to the water front Americans came 78 CUBA hurrying, wearing, to the last man, a widespread grin. The Valdez rampart where I happened to be was packed with people, and never before or since on native faces have I seen looks as black as theirs, as without a mur- mur of comment they watched that cruiser enter, the Stars and Stripes whipped taut at her stern, her deck cleared for action, and there, in a long line, her blue- jackets assembled to land on the instant, with the little field gun they later dragged to the lawn under Fuerza when they made their camp beneath its ancient walls. I remember how we walked down to see them there, — we walked in twos at most, for martial law had been declared, and three persons then constituted ^'a gather- ing,'^ prohibited. I recall a later night, when it was rumored that the police, armed with rifles on the cor- ners, would rise and join Loynaz' rebels, carrying coal oil and torches, as they advanced into Havana from out La Lisa way, these same bluejackets in pairs patrolled the town, tramping all night long up and down its black and silent avenues. Their white uniforms con- stituted an excellent target for stray shots, in the omi- nous loneliness of a strange city, and they knew it, but their step was not the less firm and resounding on that account. There have been other days when Cabafias^ guns sounded monotonously every half hour from six to six, to remind the city of her illustrious dead, lying in state in her halls of congress or in her presidential palace on the Plaza. Then black bands drape the balconies, and the flags fly low. I had a position overlooking Central Park when they carried the Generalisimo Maximo Gomez to his grave, and from there I saw the funeral cortege make its way with difficulty through the soUd mass of people fiUing all that square. The coffin DAYS IN HAVANA 79 rode on a gun carriage. Many hearses bearing flowers, both natural and artificial, — in wreaths flying purple streamers, in bouquets, and in more formal designs, — followed at a considerable distance down the line. Government officials, — President Palma, congress, the diplomatic and consular corps, — on foot, marched immediately behind the caisson bearing the body, and upon them I saw the people charge, with mutterings like a turbulent sea, demanding that they be permitted, as they had been promised, to bear their general upon their shoulders to his last rest. I saw the police and rural guards beat them back, fighting, amid scenes of riotous disorder, to cut a passage for the procession on its way. Or perhaps it is a holiday, — say a Carnival Sunday. Then gay buntings brighten the balconies, and, here and there, in perfect conformity to Martial again, long palm leaves are tied to the doorposts. By four o'clock in the afternoon there is squawking and squall- ing of tin horns in every quarter, and carriages envel- oped in bright cambric and adorned with paper flowers carry girls in fancy dress toward Prado and Malecon. They have powdered their hair, and black masks hide the upper halves of their rouged and patched faces. On such a day as this the drives are overcrowded with conveyances, some few beautifully decorated, and all these the police endeavor to keep moving rapidly in good order. The walks are filled with people of every class, color, and condition, all in the very best attire their wardrobes can supply. Especially pretty are the little children, some in the gay costumes they wear to the ^ infantile balls'' all the regional societies give on the afternoons of the four Sundays of Carnival. All the balconies along the driveways are occupied with 80 CUBA hilarious parties of young people who throw bright paper ribbons, twisting and twirling downwards, to acquaintances they recognize, and to other persons they admire, or do not admire, as the case may be, in the carriages and upon the walks. These return the compliment in kind, as far as they are able. Young men stand up in automobiles and hurl their serpentinas high or shoot them far, from springs made for the purpose. The tiny paper streamers fill the air. They fringe all the balconies and housetops, and flutter like multitudi- nous pennants from telegraph poles. The streets are carpeted with confetti, — a particolored snow of diminu- tive round papers the merrymakers scatter with a free hand. There is music and laughter and freedom from restraint, which, toward sunset, pass the bounds of decorum, for then street urchins along the routes the carriages must follow begin to gather up trampled serpentinas from the street to hurl in hard balls into the open victorias. They wrap pebbles in the papers, and pelt the occupants of carriages in the face. At the turn by the Miramar, below the Ateneo, and in front of the Inglaterra, half-grown boys and men push close against the line, passing slowly, and freely commeht upon the personal peculiarities and dress of those driving past, who, not infrequently, repay them with a lash of the whip. The animation is at its height at sunset, and it dies away with the daylight. As the hghts come on the carriages scatter, driving off up the side streets, home. Meanwhile along Malecon and even well up on Prado, where the bright papers thrown have rolled into bundles as big as a man's body, in the wind, small boys set fire to them, and in the dancing light of their conflagration frightened horses prance, adding confusion to the jam at the head of Prado when the parade breaks. DATS IN HAVANA 81 Gay as this Carnival drive is to those who have not seen better, it is a poor enough survival of other days. The equipages are little if any finer than those one sees any Sunday afternoon along the water front boulevard. Handsome fancy costumes are scarce indeed. There have been attempts to make the Car- nival more than it is. Money was spent one sea- son recently to import features which at their best appeared forced and unnatural here. Meanwhile, cer- tain other spontaneous expressions of our own Carni- val spirit (negro bands that danced in grotesque cos- tumes through the streets) led to brawls and a killing, and were vigorously condemned by those who under- stood the full depth of meaning that lay behind what was to foreigners only half barbaric revelry. This year, because of lack of funds and also for lack of all inclination to make merry in the face of her present situation, Havana had no carnival at all. There were not even any illuminations, as there have been in pre- vious seasons, when thousands of tiny colored electric light globes, strung from Punta to La India Park made all the promenades between seem fairyland. Then golden apples grew on the palms of Central Park, and the laurels of the Prado bore a crop of lights of national colors. Equal with the illuminations, to my notion, in point of interest to see and to share, is the sunset hour, in Carnival time, on the terrace of the Miramar, when well- dressed people, of every nationality, sitting very prop- erly at their tables over refreshments, begin to buy, rather shamefacedly, from peddling boys the serpen- Unas and confetti these offer persistently. Unexpect- edly, some gentleman taking careful aim at a distant lady whose appearance for any reason whatsoever 82 CUBA catches his eye, drops into her lap a twisting paper circle. If she be an American unaccustomed to this levity, she will cast it aside with hardly a side glance at a stranger who has so presumed ; but if she be of any other nationality, she will throw another back at him with a smile. At another table some little old lady, having adjusted her spectacles with care, has hurled a similar bit of her ammunition at a tableful of Germans on the sidewalk. Perhaps she strikes a Frenchman four tables removed. Within fifteen minutes every one present is throwing as fast as may be, and any person who shows annoyance is target for the combined atten- tions of all. One is literally woven into one's chair. The waiters remove empty cups and glasses as rapidly as they can, to avoid breakage. They tear their way through papers from table to table, defending them- selves from the unwinding missiles as they go. Laughter accompanies the bombardment. There are exclama- tions of chagrin and approval in every modern lan- guage. Spaniards and Cubans murmur, '^Vaya!^^ Americans shout, ^^Take that!'' The English, look- ing very tolerant, aim with great solemnity. Germans fish the papers out of their beer with guttural good nature, and the Frenchman who throws bows to the lady he manages to hit. It is all very bright and very well-mannered and jolly, and the tourist who happens in upon it at its best considers ^ that he has, at last, '^his money's worth." CHAPTER IV Arroz con Frijoles^ Despite those worse than crimes — the blunders — committed in that name, th ere is no C uban people. The island of Cuba, has, however, a populatlohloTaboul 2,048,980 persons, — ''natives,'' Spaniards, who con- stitute the largest foreign element, Chinese, Americans, British, French, Germans, etc., down the entire list of present-day nationalities. '' Native&^_-7- that is, Cubans, — are negroid. Some ''pass for white,'' as the illuminative colloquial expres- sion has it. Some, possibly, are white ; few, however, would care to submit their lineage to scrutiny close enough to prove it. Only Americans think any the less of the Cuban because he is, if not colored, at least tinted. The aborigines of Cuba were Indians^ — naked, timid red folk who fled at first sight of white men, but returned cautiously to look closer at the marvels of ships, clothing, and, especially, horses and firearms. They were attracted by gifts of beads and red cloth. They particularly prized objects made of metal, above all brass, which they seemed to think possessed divine attributes. These aborigines lived in thatched huts, isolated on hilltops, or clustered into towns around a 1 White rice and black beans, — a popular dish, known also as "Moors and Christians," or, in Havana, as "Firemen," — i.e. a vari- colored company. 83 84 CUBA central square. Their residences must have resembled closely the bohios common throughout Cuba to-day, though students of these matters assert that the Indian constructed his hut more skillfully and furnished, it more artistically than the country Cuban of the pres- ent year of grace. Their beds were hammocks ; both the name and the article are of West Indian origin. They had carved chairs, but almost no other furniture. They lived largely on fish, which they captured in nets or traps, or speared with weapons having shell or bone points; bone fishhooks have been found. They are said to have used, too, the eel-like remora in fishing ; the remora^ attached to a cord held by the fisherman, was permitted to glide through the water and fasten itself to a fish or turtle by a dorsal sucker, after which the fisherman drew it back with its prey, which he appropriated to himself. The Indians also had com- munal hunts, in which a definite geographical area was surrounded and the game therein, driven together by the use of fire, captured or killed. The Indians very rarely killed animals except for food. They had pet ^'dogs,'' domesticated hutias (an indigenous animal of the rat family) and tame ducks. They made cazabi bread from the yuca plant's roots, and they liked pine- apples and peppers. Their utensils were of baked clay, roughly hewn stone, or wood. Their religion is known as ^^zemism.'' They had medicine men and believed in spirits. They burned tobacco as incense, that is, sought to waft their prayers upward in its smoke ; the priests also used the narcotic to induce inspiration. There were idols of stone, wood, and cloth, of which the Indians understood the manufac- ture. They wore no clothes ; they had, however, necklaces, girdles7 arTd heM ornaments of stone, gold, ARROZ CON FRIJOLES 85 pebbles, and feathers. The aborgines had no beasts of burden ; they were themselves tireless runners and marvelous swimmers. They traveled the coasts of the island in canoes, and even ventured to cross to the neighboring Antilles, and, possibly, to the mainland, in those fragile vessels. They spoke a language which seems to have prevailed in all the Indies alike ; little is now known concerning it, yet many traces of it run through the Spanish current here, — for instance, the names of fruits and woods, geographical names, and many other words such as bohio, hatey, and almost all that contain the syllable gua. Even English has drawn on this lost language for ^^ hurricane,^' from huracan; ^^ canoe, '^ from canoa; ^^ hammock, ^^ from hamaca. The aboriginal inhabitants of Cuba were not a forceful or a belligerent people. There was little with which to contend : the climate offered no hard- ships, and there were no venomous snakes nor any large quadrupeds. The only reptile worth a second glance was a big constrictor, the maja, whose vicious appearance and marked reluctance to live up to it have made his name synonymous to this day with blus- tering coward. The largest creature on four feet was, probably, of the bear family, easily domesticated, resembling, then, a dog, excepting that it never barked, which greatly puzzled the Spaniards, who beat it a bit, one historian relates, to see if it wouldn't find voice, whereupon it moaned in a disappointing undertone. The ^^mute dog'' could, however, howl, some writers have recorded. Next in size came the hutiay still plentiful in the country and still eaten by country folk, who also, by the way, sometimes eat the handsome flesh of the maja, though they confess it shamefacedly. There was also a small ant-eater which is rapidly fol- 86 CUBA lowing the doggish bear (deemed edible, too, in his day, especially by starving Conquerors) into extinction. The natives of Cuba were organized into tribes, and, appar- ently, into geographical divisions. They fought among themselves, using the customary arms of Indian war- fare, — bows and wooden arrows, hardened in fire, stone hatchets, which were neither very large nor very danger- ous, nor of much avail against the swords, arquebuses, pikes, and cottonpad armor of the Christians. Whether the original population of Cuba was one race or more is a question on which authorities have not agreed. Indians the Spaniards found in these islands and on the neighboring mainland are usually divided into three races : Caribes, who were warriors and cannibals, found especially in the Lesser Antilles and originating, probably, in South America ; Lucayos, a humble peo- ple at home in the Barbadoes ; and Siboneyes, a quiet fishing and agricultural people who lived on the larger isles of the Indies, inhabiting part if not all of Cuba. The Lucayos frequented these shores. The Caribes at least invaded this country (and left some skulls here), if they did not establish permanent residence. It has been stated that Indian blood is evident, to this day, in the natives of some isolated districts of Cuba, and very old families in both Pinar del Rio and Santiago claim a red strain. I recall meeting on the road into Palma Soriano, in Oriente, a lad very like peones I knew near Tlaxco in the state of Tlaxcla, Mexico. I have heard of an Indian village near Baracoa. Resemblance to Indians, however, no matter how marked, would in itself constitute no evidence that any aboriginal blood has been preserved in ^^ natives^' of to-day, because Indian slaves were imported into Cuba from Yucatan in droves within very recent years, ARBOZ CON FRIJ0LE8 e and doubtless they contributed progeny to the popu- lation. It does not seem at all likely, to me, that the present- ' day Cuban retains even a corpuscle of aboriginal red. No one who reads how the Indian women in the years immediately following the Conquest committed infan- ticide and suicide by drinking a deadly concoction obtained from the root of the bitter yuca, rather than be slaves and mothers of half-breed slaves, can enter- tain the opinion that much of that noble, simple people exists in its successors on this soil. The Indian men, meanwhile, died off of overwork and underfeeding, in the mines and on the plantations of their Christian masters. A plague of smallpox swept the isles and the mainland as well. As early as the year 1523 the Span- iards complained there were no Indians left to do the work. Importation of African slaves at once began. The slave trade was legal until 1870 ; it was not effec- tively suppressed even then. Black slavery was abol- ished in Cuba only in 1886 ; it existed, in fact, much later. , '/^ Cubans of to-day are descendant s of S^p^nkh mRsfprs M^ and negro slaves While some of them, especially in the cities, are all that such parentage implies, others, particularly in the provinces, are admirable. They respect themselves, and are respectable. In many instances, especially in remoter regions of the island, the admixtion is too thorough for analysis : I the countryman of Cuba is not necessarily a negro, a mulatto, a quadroon, or even an octoroon, though he may be any one, but he is, invariably, I should say, negroid. I recall a group of guajiros, — tobacco planters, we fancied, — whom we particularly admired as we saw them on the deck of the little steamer that 88 CUBA travels over Cienfuegos Bay. They were of medium / size, supple and graceful, with clear skins of a warm 1 brown no darker than any Anglo-Saxon's might become \ in the course of long exposure to tropical sun. Their eyes and their hair were brown, not black ; its wave I was by no means a kink. There was, in this particular / group, not a feature distinctively African. Yet the / black blood was there, though it showed in nothing \ save a certain voluptuousness of build, and an obviously \ cheerful outlook on life in general, evident in the fel- lows' happy manner, in their pleasantries, in the air of I careless optimism with which they regarded them- I selves, each other, and all the world. Their faces were lean, without any particularly brutal or vicious tenden- cies apparent ; they showed instead an unusual amount of inborn and well-intentioned intelligence. These men were Cubans indeed, and they constitute the class the country need be proud of. If ever there is a Cuban people, it will come into existence when such as they awake to the fact that they are citizens, and not sub- jects any longer. If one asked a countryman of this type if he were part black, far from resenting the question (unless he thought discourtesy were intended), he would in all probability undertake to answer it accurately. I heard this very point discussed, recently, with a man whose family owned a certain plantation in Pinar del Rio Province for a hundred years prior to its sale to an American land company. ''My family,'' he said, '4s reckoned as white, but," he added whimsically, "they do say that my grandmother had the not very nice hair. Who knows, now, but what it was too curly?" He shrugged his shoulders, spread his hands, and care- lessly twirled his cigarette, to indicate that he, personally, ARROZ CON FBIJOLES 89 was little concerned as to that detail. He considered himself, as indeed he was, none the less a gentleman because of a 'Houch of the tar brush/' I shall not forget a particular experience of my own in this regard. I came to Cuba with every prejudice we Americans are accustomed to entertain against blacks, and especially against mixed breeds ; tome, then, a single drop of black blood was worse than a whole bucketful. I made, presently, a slight acquaintance with a notable family. I met the patriarchal head of that house, — distinguished in a learned calling, — as kindly, courteous, and keen an old man as one is privi- leged to find extant. I met the sons, — half a dozen or so of them, — each the able head of a profession or business of his own, masters of two or three languages each, graduates of foreign universities, cultured and clever, fathers of whole broods of healthy, intelligent children ; I agreed with the rest of Havana that here was a family exceptional individually and collectively. I was told, then, that while they ^^ passed for white'' so successfully that Cuba's most particular circles were honored by their presence upon any occasion, it was generally known '^ among Cubans" (another enlight- ening phrase, by the way) that the ^Har brush" had touched the escutcheon, nevertheless. I denied it indig- nantly. I swore by the yellow heads and the blue eyes of the third and the fourth generation that the insinua- tion was monstrously false. I was informed, by way of rejoinder, that my friends were not so hot in their own defense, — at least, not among intimates. About that time I met the women of the family. They were handsome, — these sisters of the men I knew, — but in the very beauty of their eyes and hair lay evidence of the truth. I was reduced to quandary. My friends 90 CUBA were not less, in any respect, now that I knew ; they had lost nothing, merely because I was informed, of the real worth I had recognized. I am glad to say that my regard for them, one and all, was stronger than prejudice. I revised my views. I then, in short, drew near to the Cuban attitude of mind on the ''color question.'' As long as a person I like ''passes for white'' I insist on no investigation. If, now, a person I do not find simpatico (sympathetic) should attempt as much, I might be quite capable of spreading the news, behind my fan, that his grandmother had, forsooth, "the not very nice hair" ! I have not, in long years' residence in Cuba, been able to discover on what except appearances Cubans base the distinction they draw in favor of those persons who "pass for white." Nor are they especially exact- ing, always, even in this regard. Once an individual has been admitted within the pale, no matter what evidence his eyes, hair, lips, nose, and complexion may afford discriminating observers, it is all refuted in that one sentence (the open sesame of Cuba !) : "He passes for white" ! There is, so far, little bitter feeling in Cuba concern- ing matters of "color."^ Indeed, Cubans will explain, how can there be, when no man dare set himself above another because he, truly, is white, lest some country cousin, or an even nearer, dearer relative thrust a woolly head through the door to disprove his claims to such superiority ? Northern magazines publish, now and then, pitiful 1 Some Americans and also some Cubans insist that feeling here is more bitter than it is in the north, but I cannot discover any evidence of this. On the other hand I see mulattoes, whites, and blacks in friendly and close relations everywhere. ARROZ CON FRIJOLES 91 stories illustrating crises which arise when North American prejudices against mixed blood meet Latin- American tolerance of conditions for which there is, now, no remedy ; no fiction can equal the facts. Ha- vana knows, or used to know, of one American who married as dainty a Cuban senorita as ever attracted special attention on the Prado because her hair was golden and her eyes were wonderfully blue. Their children are unmistakably mulattoes. One American tells of a stinging rebuke a Cuban administered once to him. The Cuban in question was a young man, educated in the United States, where he had resided for long years, during which period he had taken on American ideas with American training, and also, alas for him, not a few American prejudices. His asso- ciates in Havana were all Americans. He never, however, invited them to his home. Once, when he fell sick, they went, quite unsuspecting that they might not be welcome. His mother admitted them to his room; they met his sisters. '^ Jorge,'' the Ameri- can who tells the experience said to him later, ventur- ing far on the firm basis of long friendship, '^why don't you cut loose, go north, be an American, as in fact you are, get married up there and forget . . ." ^^Yes?" the Cuban interrupted, ^^and do you think it would be quite fair to your American girl?" Restrictions enforced against those persons who do not ^^pass for white" are upheld with much tact and little friction. There are clubs, cafes, restaurants, hotels, etc., to which those who are considered ^^colored" are not admitted. No placards proclaim the prohibi- tion, however, nor, in case he makes a mistake in enter- ing, is the unwelcome patron needlessly offended. They tell, in this connection, that, on one occasion, a negro 92 CUBA politician of considerable wealth and influence entered the dining hall of a certain hotel and seated himself at table, evidently expecting to be served. This was a house which caters only to the elect, yet, such was the prominence of the man awaiting attention, no employee made bold to request him to depart. The proprietress was summoned. She is one of the most remarkable women in Cuba, — a figure almost national. The negro was an acquaintance of hers, and instantly she hit upon a solution of the difficulty. She went to him, greeted him with the customary handshake, and, making use of the friendly abbreviation of his first name, she said, so the story goes: '^Friend Fulanito, you know that in my business I am obliged to make certain rules which do not permit my waiters to serve you here. To show you, however, that it is because of business only that these rules exist, I have the honor to invite you to dine with me, in my private dining room yonder, as my very welcome guest.'' They say the negro arose and thanked her. ^^Doiia Zutana,'' said he, '^I appreciate your courtesy. I will not em- barrass you by accepting your kind invitation. I go, but now and hereafter, count me among your sincerest friends." The ability with which this Spanish woman overcame a difficult situation is in marked contrast to methods employed, this past winter, by an American hotel, which has been fined repeatedly for charging ne- groes exorbitant prices for drinks they insist upon ordering over its bar, and then, when they have set them down, accidentally breaking the glasses they used. I had occasion to meet, more than once, the lately deceased Senator Martin Morua Delgado, one of the republic's two most prominent negroes. He held high position under the Palma administration, and contrib- AEEOZ CON FRIJ0LE8 93 uted no small part to its overthrow. It is said that the senator's enmity toward that regime was strength- ened by the fact that President Palma pointedly denied Mrs. Morua recognition which would have been ac- corded her as her due, because of her husband's position, had she been white instead of black. Senator Morua was a mulatto, but he ranked himself as a negro. I have entered within his home ; I found there every indication of good taste, education, and refinement. I thought the more of the man because the wife, moving quietly about her business in the adjoining room, was very black indeed, and the crop of children who romped through the hall were pickaninnies. In public speeches Senator Morua stated, more than once, that although the Cuban negro insists upon political equality in the republic (with reason on his side, since blacks consti- tuted the majority of the armies who fought for Free Cuba), he does not expect to be accorded social equality. To reconcile this with the senator's resentment against Palma, it was not to Mr. Palma's private parties Morua demanded that his wife be admitted, but to state functions, — balls and dinners on public occa- sions when the president's official family were expected by right of office, — for then, he insisted, the palace was indeed not a private residence, but the executive mansion, and not Mr. Palma, but the president of Cuba, received. And who shall say that he was not right ? Under Gomez, Morua became president of the senate, and, very shortly before his death, secretary of agriculture, the first negro to hold a cabinet office. His wife attended official functions ; she dined with the diplomats, and was not the blackest present, either. When Morua died he was given a funeral calculated to allay the unrest of negroes throughout the country, 94 CUBA if, as reported at just that juncture, any existed. His wife and daughters were given quarters in the palace, that they might be near his body as it lay in state in the senate chamber. When it was borne to the grave, with great pomp and panoply. President Gomez ac- companied it, riding openly through the streets of Havana with the deceased's two brothers, more obvi- ously negroes than he. Havana professed to be scan- dalized. For my part, I should like to know why. Gomez was raised to power by an uprising of rebels 85 per cent of whom were negroes, according to Estenoz, a general prominent in that revolution. If one is to judge by the complexion of manifestations made here in Havana in the candidate's honor, about that per- centage of blacks voted for him. To descend to per- sonalities, the most exclusive of those who '^pass for white" here will not admit that Gomez himself is en- titled to do likewise ; they do not attend his social functions, nor, for instance, enter his box to chat with his daughters at the opera. I can't see but that he conducted himself with perfect propriety with regard to Morua. Moreover, it was most expedient for him to do so, I infer. The second of the two leading negroes mentioned is Juan Gualberto. He is Sr. Gomez, but the island, from Maysi to San Anton, knows him as Juan Gual- berto, and he is supposed to carry, always, an unruly cotton umbrella. This man was born a slave. He educated himself, and I understand that he did a good job of it, too. He is recognized as an able editorial writer, and, what's rarer here, as a man who believes at least some part of what he preaches. He supported Zayas for the presidency, crying aloud to the country that the election of Gomez would prove a national dis- ARROZ CON FRIJOLES 95 aster. When Zayas, who had proclaimed identical views concerning his opponent, found it expedient to join with him, resuming second place on the Liberal ticket, Juan Gualberto declined to follow his chief into the enemy's camp ; he was unable, he wrote, to alter his convictions overnight. Juan Gualberto is as black as the ace of spades, and as homely as the proverbial home-made brand of original sin. He has, nevertheless, a presence. He is the irrefutable evi- dence that Maceo — Cuba's one great fighting general/ — was right when he said, in answer to an inquiry asj to whether or not he resented to be classed as a negro : ^' When the black man is not ashamed to be a black man J there'll be no shame in being black." Complacently accepted as the outcome seems to be now, decadence and depravity in Cuba are due, largely, to the too free commingling of black blood with white, and especially to the opprobrium attached to it, par- ticularly in the cities. To walk the streets of Havana is to court horror. Disease and deformity, in hideous variety, parade even Obispo. To me the beggars, — the wry-limbed men, and especially the blear-eyed women — are by no means the most offensive among what one encounters. In the parks and on the promenades one passes, too often, male humans whose condition certainly warrants their removal from the public thoroughfare ; I have often seen American women cross the street rather than come close to such. If these things venture into public, one shudders to imagine what more exists hidden in the pov- erty and uncleanliness of the unlighted, unventilated cells in tenements that present their sometimes rather handsome fronts (they are occasionally the ancient palaces of old families) to Havana's principal streets, 96 CUBA leaning now against some leading commercial estab- lishment, or, again, beside some fine and modern apart- ment house. Not long ago the local newspapers stated that the sanitary department had just removed from one '' citadel,'^ as they call these swarming tenements, a monstrosity, in shape resembling a dwarfed and ill- formed human, which had died of leprosy. Its parents had occupied the same rooms for years but the neigh- bors were not, they said, aware that such a creature existed ; it was twenty-one years old. And, knowing, too, that into such hives as these '' leading citizens '' descend to visit families openly supported by their left hands, one wonders, now and then, what conditions exist behind the beautiful fagades of residences on the Prado where wives '' married by the church '' and children the law honors lead their lives. At any hour in any day any one who will may see men following with their eyes, with their muttered com- ment, little girls in short pinafores and pigtails who are on their way to and from schools. From infancy Cuban women are accustomed to such looks, such comments; when they are babes in arms they learn to smile over their shoulders at the '' pretenders '^ who trail their nursemaids. When Cuban young ladies walk out, teetering along on high-heeled shoes, tightly corseted, masked with rouge and talcum, loafers in the corner cafes, which are the saloons of Cuba, address them as they stroll ; their chaperone used formerly to murmur her thanks at the attention, but nowadays she merely looks unaware, or, at the most, complaisant. On crowded thoroughfares at busy hours men deliber- ately arrange themselves along the narrow sidewalks and on street corners in such manner that women must brush against their persons in getting by, — or ABROZ CON FRIJOLES 97 take to the middle of the street. There are certain localities to be especially avoided by ladies at certain hours, — for instance, the sidewalk of our oldest and furthest renowned hotel, toward evening and after nightfall, when the gilded youth of this capital assem- bles to make itself especially objectionable, and Obispo Street when the Institute (it corresponds to our High School ! ) releases youngsters whose occasional pastime of insulting women is condoned as the natural out- bubbling of youth, no more reprehensible than the hectoring of coachmen. There are districts in Havana, — one street, in par- ticular, — where, I am told, indecency beggars the average man^s imagination, to say nothing at all of his experience in tawdry lewdness. I have not had the curiosity which inspires many visiting women to drive, with their husbands, through this section. In the. years I have lived here I have seen quite enough in quarters rated respectable. The city is not really wicked, for that word implies a comprehension of vice and a realization of guilt. Its population is diseased, physically and morally, and also mentally. Crimes that are not mentioned, but only implied, in the United States, when, rarely, they must be dealt with, are here the subject of newspaper jest. Such literature as is not printed in English is displayed on the public stalls. Havana is rotten and rotting, and those who note intelligently even the sur- face signs of existing conditions here, see all her unde- niable beauties through thick miasma. CHAPTER V HOME LIFE Como quieres que te abra la puerta de mi hohioj Si adentro estd la mulatay reina del corazon mio ! — Popular Song. Each general condition presupposes its exceptions. Despite the fact that I believe to be true of Cubans, by and large, every evil under the tropic sun, I know, in the towns, a few who deserve no epithets, and I have seen, in the country, many who could, I believe, prove their innocence of every adverse charge excepting igno- rance. I remember saying once to a ^^ Cuban of Cu- bans,'' with a frankness I did not at the time recognize as rather startling, that, whereas I do despise the people in Cuba as a whole, I rather like the individuals I know. To which he returned a telling thrust : ^^ Quite the con- trary with me," he said, ^^for whereas I immensely admire the great, kindly, philanthropic American peo- ple, I can't say that I think much of the individual citizens I have had to examine close at hand." Frankly, I do not wonder at him : en masse, there is no nation as wonderful, as be^^evolent, as generous as the American, but, individually, there is no person so perfectly cal- culated to '^rub" a Latin ^Hhe wrong way" as the self-seeking, aggressive, unmannerly scouts we send to Cuba, among other frontiers, of whose very faults, peculiarly enough, our national virtues and especially our strength are constituted. On the other hand, no 98 HOME LIFE 99 attempt at a nation could be more inadequate than this y^t) one : weak, corrupt, vacillating, and shortsighted, and yet, in its component individuals these very vices become urbanity, generosity , leisurely nonchalance toward essen- tials of the present and possibilities of the future, — restful and charming qualities that please, in acquaint- ances and friends. I have Cuban friends I honor. We do not, it is true, exchange visits frequently, for, because of differences in language, customs, and interests there is not, between us, the little ^Hies that bind^' and demand a daily inter- course. I am thinking particularly of one family through whose portal I have not entered for a year or two. I had the pleasure once of working for a considerable period under this man's immediate orders. He was conscientious, and, moreover, ambitious. I use the word in English with all the laudatory significance Americans attach thereto; in Spanish ^^ ambitious '' means ^^pretentious,'' and to apply it in that language is to offend. I recall with what pride I accepted an invitation to his home, to meet his wife, for the first time. I found her large, in body and in mind ; not over- cushioned with fat, bespeaking inaction in muscle and brain as well, but built big on generous lines and in fine proportion. I have never seen a handsomer woman anywhere. She was his mate in very truth, and she stood upright beside him, his equal in every respect. Later, I saw them again in a little wider-, sunnier envi- ronment, for promotion and appreciation had rewarded his worth and application. They brought forth their two children to show me, — beautiful, well-formed, big- boned sons they are, — one as sunny as she, and the other as silent and thoughtful as the father in a serious mood. We walked down to the new house they werie building then, on plans they had drawn up together, and as we passed through the unfinished residence they forgot my presence and talked as though I were not there. She would have a bay window in her room. He wanted a closet in his. They'd have blue tiles in the kitchen; no, white, — well, then, white with a blue border. He suggested, she amended, he substituted and they both considered ; as each detail of difference came up, they hit happily on a compromise. Maybe there are more like her and hke him, and it is only my acquaintance which is limited, but this couple stands out in my mind as exceptional in Cuba because in the har- /monious whole there are two equal parts. She is a wife, / not a legalized mistress ; he is a husband, not a master. Their house is a home, and in it there are children, not defaced miniatures of men, born old. Under Palma he held high political post ; its requirements did not at any time disturb the quiet order of his household. With Palma he went out of office (with most particular praise from Mr. Taft for honesty and disinterested dis- charge of duty), and he holds, to-day, a good position in a private business concern of importance. His home life has altered not at all, I know, because of his business vicissitudes. The other day he approached me with a face of deepest concern. I fancied that another Ameri- can intervention had been declared overnight ! He unbosomed himself of his greatest problem : how to get those two boys educated ! They must of course go to the United States, but their mother cannot part with them, or him, nor he with either, — so what's to be done ? Here I register my guess : he will, by hook or crook, accompany the lads and their mother into the north when the time comes, and, I venture further, none of them will return, for, coming out of that home, those HOME li'jF'M] \ ',/ \/; 101 youngsters, once they are schooled in tlaief^J-iii ted St^es, will find their proper environment there, — especially since no man is more critical of conditions here than their father. When first I saw the boys, I exclaimed that a little sister was needed to complete the perfect circle, to which he replied with ^vehemence, while the mother nodded her agreementy^'No ! No girls ! The life of a woman is very sad here in Cuba, — very sad, even yet. It was worse before the Americans came, for then the only right a woman had was the right to starve to death, when her support failed. The day after the head of the family died, we expected the widow and her daughters to appear begging respectably from door to door. Now, at least, they can go into the offices of the govern- ment and work, but . . /' (Out of consideration to me, who was at the time doing just that, he did not say that he could not bear to think of a daughter of his put to it.) ^^ If a woman is notmarried,'' he went on, and his wife looked at me, with great luminous eyes full of pity, *^she has no joy in living ; nor has a single man, for that matter. Everybody ought to be married in Cuba. In the north men and women alike have their clubs, their amusements, while here, there is nothing ! It is bad for a man, but worse for a woman. She must marry. To remain single is truly a calamity.'' Prevailing realization of that fact forces many a Cuban girl into an uncongenial marriage. Now, the American girl will wait until she finds the man she wants, even though she die before that day arrive, but the Cuban girl will marry the first male creature who asks her after she has despaired (and she despairs young) of meeting her choice. I know many married women who, if they answered truthfully, would say : "I did not marry my husband because he is handsome, for 1[02 -:{} \/i\/:lJJUBA he if^^^h^«fe)xKi)r:J)eJafase Jie has money, for he has none. '' '' Because you loved him ? '' '' Oh, well, no, not exactly, and yethe doesn't displease me. '' "Why then V ''Because I was bored to death and there was nothing else to do.'' Yet even in a marriage from which love, as Americans fondly expect to find it from the very beginning, is ab- sent, not only in the woman, but also in the man, who by no means infrequently is jerked into matrimony pro- testing like a fish against the hook, both find much of happiness, for Cubans, both fathers and mothers, are devoted parents. Their love for their offspring is not the less sincere because it is tempered by neither wisdom nor foresight. They say that bachelors' wives are the best conducted and old maids' children the best brought up ; certainly I confess to a spinsterly disapproval when I see at family ' ' reunions, " as they call their intimate gatherings, and especially on the promenades and in the parks late at night, little toddlers, tired and silent or quivering with overwrought nerves, for whom there is no mandate to retire ''at candle-lighting time. " Yet again I some- times question whether wakefulness in the open air is not preferable to unrestful sleep in the overcrowded and unventilated quarters into which some of even the best of them are thrust. No wonder they wear deep black circles under their hot eyes. When, in addition, one observes on what food they are expected to find nourish- ment, and how irrationally they are drugged, one de- spairs indeed of any future for a country whose young dwindle in stature, intelligence, and courage under treat- ment such as this. I have had in mind children of the , city ; in the towns I believe that they fare better ; in I •the country they fare worse, for there, in damp and dust, HOME LIFE 103 they herd with the chickens and pigs, unwashed, unclad, unregarded, — but not unloved. There is a baby in the house where we have lived for five years, ^^come next October.'' He is as energetic, self-willed, bright-brained, high-tempered a little villain as one could find. When first we knew him he wore, at home, a single garment ; now tiny trousers have been added to his shirt. I never saw him, however, without socks and shoes. He plays with ball and blocks on the tiles of the ground-floor rooms and over the stone flag- ging of the open court, always in close proximity to a drain from which nauseating odors rise. Plumbing on the upper floor, now, is the best to be had, not be- cause his mother thinks more of her tenants' health than she does of her child's, but because white porcelain and sound pipes help to rent rooms, — she exhibits them as she would a fancy gas fixture, to attract. When the baby falls ill, the house turns end-to with anxiety. ^^Tell me, I entreat you," his mother said to mine, one day, ^^ where you obtain milk which is delivered to you in sealed bottles. It looks clean. The baby is sick. I would buy it for him even at twenty cents a quart." It was left for her some time. Presently I noted that the former service has been renewed : she was once more accepting milk in pewter pots, of such shape that they could not be scalded had it ever occurred (as it had not) to the dairyman that it was necessary to do more than rinse the vessels on his way home in pools by the road- side along which he passed, with water where hogs had wallowed. (I had occasion once to ^^ muck-rake" a little into local dairy methods, hence my detailed infor- mation as to this point.) I made inquiry, and learned that the baby was well ; why, then, continue the milk that, evidently, had cured him? She returned to the 104 CUBA cheaper nefarious service, yet from no idea of economy, for there is nothing too good for the one man child of her household. Simply, her untrained mind did not per- ceive the harm in what she did. On another occasion the baby had a cold. I stepped into the bedroom where he was confined to see him. He was playing list- lessly on a mat upon the floor. The mother was with him ; she had shut herself in, to keep him company. Every door, every window, was closed tight. The air within the chamber was so fetid I fled with my greeting to him half spoken, for I was on the verge of becoming '^actively ill, ^' as they say on shipboard. To my aston- ishment, after some days' exposure to the poison of that imprisonment, the baby emerged, — weak, pale, but on his feet, wearing a pitiful wry smile, of comment, it seemed to me, on the fearful cruelty of ignorance. This household, on whose daily life we have looked down for four years, has afforded me a better insight into the intimate existence of city-dwelling Cubans of the middle class than I could otherwise have obtained ex- cept through the ordeal of actually sharing it. The house itself in which we three families live together is not without interest to visitors. It is in shape a hol- low square, fitted tight into a solid block. It stands on a narrow downtown street in Havana, presenting a f agade unadorned save by a wooden door, wide and high as a commodious barn's, of some dark color, in which heads of great nails, or imitation heads, show through the paint ; and two windows, tall and narrow, barred like those of a county jail, shutters of which (there is no glass) remain turned until late in the afternoon, to keep out as far as possible dust, the glare of the sun on the yellow walls of the Supreme Court opposite, and espe- cially the nerve-wracking, ceaseless noise of cars, carts, HOME LIFE 105 automobiles, and street venders, as, chanting, honking, rumoling, and clanging, they collaborate to maintain pandemonium. The street wall of the house is smoothly plastered and tinted a fading pale green. Passing con- veyances have splashed it with mud. There is, before it, no sidewalk at all, but a narrow coping of stone. Electric cars whiz so close that passengers can, and do, touch its window bars by half-extending their arms. On both sides of our house are others somewhat similar in externals ; one is a modern two-story double apart- ment, erected since we have been here, to rent, and the other is a tenement which teems with mulattoes and blacks. In the block below us are the Department of Public Instruction and the National Library ; opposite the immense structure which shelters these and other government offices is a building which used to be the Court of First Instance, but now rents by the room to individuals, — among them a ^^hair-dresser" whose sign appears, I notice, at irregular intervals and in unusual business hours : sometimes at night a broad stream of brilliant light falls from her open door across the street outside, and passers-by, glancing in, see a bed with a Spanish lace spread, decorated with bow-knots of scarlet ribbon. One raps on our door with a small iron knocker, en- tirely uninteresting in age and design, and in the great door a small door opens cautiously; one is admitted grudgingly. Nothing small annoys me more than the way they open doors in Cuba, peer forth through the crack, or a peephole especially cut for the purpose, demand one^s business as they would a password, leave one standing outside while they close the door and retreat to consult, finally permitting one, possibly, to squeeze through. Experience has, to quote a sentence 106 CUBA I read yesterday, 'thrown a permanent scare into the Cuban soul/' At their thresholds they show it. I long to leap through crying ^^Boo !'' Admitted into our house, one finds himself in a wide entry. From the stone flagging of the slanting floor to the close-raftered ceiling stretch about twenty-five feet of whitewashed wall. This entry is large enough to accommodate a carriage, if there were one ; it was intended for that purpose. Under the backstairs there is room for a horse, but it is used instead to store old furniture. At the end of the entry, opposite the street door, there is a grille which may be locked or made to swing open hospitably in halves. Passing through one arrives in the dining room, which is also the living room of the ^^ family downstairs. '^ Nothing could be more instructive than this dining room. There is a central table of considerable exten- sion, for the family which gathers about it is numerous. It is covered, between meals, with a cloth of imitation tapestry. There is a spidery black hatrack with a broken glass in it. Opposite, an old-fashioned, high sideboard of cheap yellow wood ; on it stand crystal I and blue glass dishes, cups, tumblers, crumpled napkins, I playthings, and schoolbooks. In the corner is a filter. ^On the wall, an octagonal clock with a time-yellowed I face. Under it, a row of rocking-chairs. Up one wall of the dining room rises a narrow wooden stairway to the floor above, where 'Hhe Americans'' dwell, ^^on the roof" and isolated. They pay about two centenes a month, in their rent, for the exclusive privilege of their quarters. No one has a right to ascend those stairs without their implied permission, nor pass the door at the turn, which may be locked, without knocking. The American family in the tenement ad- HOME LIFE 107 joining is not so fortunate, for all the inmates of that house have the run of the stairs there, and washerwomen pass back and forth through their hallway with clothes. Off the dining room, back in the direction of the street, downstairs in our house, is the parlor, reached by way of an immense door. This room is usually half darkened. Its walls are like those of the entry, high and white ; they give a barren, empty aspect, and dwarf the furni- ture, which seems scant. There is a piano in a black case ; it is thin- toned and out of tune. There are chairs of several woods and as many patterns ; they know their places and keep them. There is a center table cluttered with worthless trinkets, — tiny animals in bisque, arti- ficial flowers, and porcelain figurettes. The whole place smells damp and musty. Another door from the dining room leads into the daughters^ bedroom, of which I have noticed only a high wardrobe with a long mirror in which I remember seeing the girls pleasantly reflected as they turned and twisted before it, one dressed in pink and the other in blue, arraying themselves for their first ball. Adjoin- ing theirs is the mother^s bedroom, which has a door and a barred window on the patio. Here is a wide, four-post bed, wardrobes, and a washstand. The patio is a square, stone-paved open court, into which the dining room, too, has a pair of doors. The walls about it are painted an atrocious blue. There are palms and foliage plants in tubs and tins that match the walls in color. From their roof neighbors in the tenement next door can look into the patio; their varie- gated children lean sometimes along the top of its wall and comment upon whatever may be transpiring below. The family on the second floor of the apartment house on the other side from their roof can catch glimpses of 108 CUBA anything of interest going on, and their children cast pebbles and small sticks down. These rattle cheerily on the tin roof of the lean-to in the patio which is the bathroom. It shelters a big tub of tile, once white, set into cement. Here are stored wash-tubs, foot-tubs, wash-pans, dirty clothes, in various degrees of un- cleanliness and corrosion. Havana has not yet a sewer system. I presume, however, because we are near the sea, that there is a connection between our plumbing and some drainpipe, rather than a cesspool under the court. At the back of the house, from wall to wall, is the kitchen, — roomy enough (most kitchens in new houses are very small), littered and smoky where, over charcoal on braziers, the cook prepares rare dishes : we perceive odors of scorched milk, garlic, saffron, and frying oil. Above the kitchen are two dark, close rooms reached by backstairs, where dwells '^ the woman in the rear.'' There are, then, in all the house downstairs, no win- dows to the street save the two in the parlor. There is no yard, either front or back : the patio is the substitute, and the flat roof, which, in this particukr instance, we tenants of the upper floor monopolize./There is not, in all the establishment, a single article or incident of comfort. There is no way to warm any part of the house,- nor, fortunately, is it ever really necessary. The light is gas, in unprotected jets that flare. Hot water non est, except as it boils from the faucet on summer days when the sun has been at the pipes for a few moments, 'undisturbed. There is not, if one except the growing plants which flower now and then in defiance of neglect, one item of beauty, — not a picture, not a book except- ing text-books from school. It is, I am confident, a fairly typical home of city Cubans of limited means. HOME LIFE 109 If this family had money, the house would change in some respects. The flooring of the downstairs rooms, instead of tiles, would be marble blocks. The walls of the rooms would remain high, but the rafters above might disappear under a stucco ceiling and the whole color of the chambers change from a dingy white to delicate tones of cream, blue, or pink. The furniture would come in ^^ sets'' ; it would lose, however, none of the prim orderliness of its arrangement. Pictures in obtrusively ornate gilt frames would appear upon the walls. Under a gardener's care the patio would become a beautiful formal garden instead of a hodgepodge of whatever happens to live. The plumbing would im- prove in externals, but not at all in essentials. The kitchen would hardly gain. There would, in summary, remain much of the roominess or emptiness, much of the free air and available sunlight, which, once one is ac- customed to them, make American houses seem close, dark, and suffocating ; there would also remain much of the bad taste (it runs to ^^ tidies," paper flowers, and knicknacks) which is scarce in our house because its resi- dents cannot afford it, but loads the wobbly center tables and corner whatnots of wealthy Cubans with porcelain pigs, bisque doll babies, china dogs, and seashells. The mother of ^ ^ the family downstairs ' ' and her daugh- ters despise work, — more, I am convinced, from a notion that it is unbecoming to a lady, than from laziness. Al- though, from an American standpoint, they can very ill afford it, they not only tolerate, but pary a little money to soiled and unskilled serving people no really thrifty housewife could be hired to have about. There are usually three servants : a slattern cook, a nursemaid of little better appearance, and a Spanish boy recently passed through the Immigrant Camp at Triscornia. 110 CUBA The cook ^' sleeps out/' She (once it was a decrepit negro man) puts in an appearance some time after seven o'clock with a flat, round basket containing ma- terials for the day's meals, — diminutive tomatoes, thick-skinned red or green plantains, boniatos, which are insipid sweet potatoes, beans, in a small brown paper parcel with the corners twisted to make it serve as a bag, rice, a fish, or a little meat. She has paid one, two, three, and four cents for each article — much more for the fish or meat — out of a per diem allowance made her, from which, in addition to a low wage, she collects her percentage of profit. If the allowance is small, the quality of what she buys is frequently not of the best. Now ''the family downstairs" could not permit any member, were any so strenuously inclined, to go into the reeking market in person to haggle with recalci- trant Spanish stall keepers for tomatoes of respectable size, meat of an edible cut, or eggs ''of the country," not "of the north," for to do that is to lose caste, as have "the Americans of the upstairs," who as they climb homewards with the best there is, in paper bags, — choice cuts of fillet, treasures of young beets, green peas not oiled, and unspotted melons, — return the contemp- tuous glances bestowed by "the family downstairs" with an equally contemptuous gaze of comment on the quality and preparation of the food their cook dishes up. The cook does not serve the first meal. About four o'clock in the morning the milkman with thunderous rap, repeated like a bombardment, succeeds eventually in rousing the Spanish boy (who sleeps, half clad, on a cot in the entry by the door), to force into his groping hand a pewter can of milk. This the nursemaid heats over an alcohol lamp, and at intervals, as they appear, the members of the family take their morning "coffee HOME LIFE 111 with milk/' Sometimes they gather, uncombed and half dressed, about the table from which the tapestry cloth has been jerked ; it lies carelessly thrown across a chair close by, while they eat off the oilcloth, slopped with milk and water and strewn with bread, which in broken pieces the serving boy hands out from the side- board drawer. ^^ Breakfast occurs at about eleven, and dinner at about seven at night. Formerly the two older girls used to attend a convent school near by. Their mother saw them to the street door, and, together, they were permitted to walk un- attended the two blocks necessary. Meanwhile, at home, the littlest girl sang ''b-a, ba!'' for hour after hour from her primer, on the supposition that she, also, was learning. She ^'ba-ed'' her way into a neat blue uniform of her own finally, and was duly admitted to at- tendance at the same school. Jesusito, the baby, then quarreled with his fat black nurse unhectored, ordered his mamaita about like a young dictator, fondled the cat (taboo pet of the Americans above), smiled shyly at them, and shook, not ^^ day-days'' as American babies do, but innumerable ^^ goo-byes" from among the palms. The mother seemed always busy ; sometimes she sewed. Her shrill, cutting voice kept up a constant rasping com- ment on the day's progress. Late in the afternoons, when school was out, she gathered her girls about her, in the rocking-chairs under the clock. Perhaps they sewed, or the more accomplished read in English, chant- ing the words in a strained high key, without proper accent, in most unnatural manner. The baby played with his horse on wheels. The servants stole a moment to themselves. The Americans from above, noting the family group and its contentment, nodded to each other in approval. '^The woman in the rear," 112 CUBA smoking in her kitchen window, looked on. Her only son is grown. We can always tell when el senor — father of ''th( family downstairs '' — is expected home, to visit or tc stay as long as he can, in the ''dead season.'' He is colono on a big sugar plantation in Santa Clara, — thai is, he grows cane on shares. For two or three days prioi to his arrival there is uproar below. The servants ar( harried hither and yon by orders given in conflict bj everybody at once in piercing voice. The Spanish boj pours water by the bucketful on all the floors ; he sweeps the flags and mops the tiles. He dusts the walls with rag on a long bamboo. He brings forth palms from the patio, and stands them here and there. The daughters tie tissue paper around their tubs and tins, with ribbon The mother dons a lavender wrapper with a great boTi to match on her breast. She combs her thick black hail beautifully, and the touch of white across her temple (which distracts her and occasions inquiry into reliable dyes) gives her an air of distinction; she is nearer beauty than either of her girls. A knock, — the door it opened to a crack, and then flung wide. ^'Jesusito !' we hear the sisters scream to the baby at his play, '' Papj has come! He's come!" They carry his boy to hi arms. They eddy about him in an animated whirl seizing his satchel, his hat ; patting his hair, his hands ; hugging him ecstatically, and talking loudly all together. Through the discord his voice sounds like a bass viol. That night's dinner is a state occasion. They put a tiny plant, tied up with tissue paper and ribbon like the rest, in the middle of the table. The Spanish boy laughs as he serves ; he spills the soup and wipes his hand on the seat of his trousers before handing up ''a bread" from the basket at the end of the table. The uncorseted nurse Photograph by American Photo Company Corridor of a Cuban Home of the Best Class /'holograph by American Photo Company Portico of a Vuelta Abajo Planter's House in Pinar DEL Rio HOME LIFE 113 behind the baby's chair jiggles Uke jelly as she laughs to make the baby crow louder. All lean on their elbows and ply knife, fork, and spoon industriously and indis- criminately, turning at intervals open, half-filled mouths to the father as, from the place of honor, he tells them incidents of his life ^'up country. '^ If napkins slip to the floor, they use the hanging edge of the tablecloth. It is the mother herself who brings forward from the kitchen a custard for dessert in making which she spent half a day. Over the coffee they linger long. When, finally, they arise, the table cover is wrinkled and damp and soiled at the edges and in spots everywhere; the setting is awry, and bread and crumbs and bones and peelings litter it from end to end. That evening they sit in a row in the chairs under the clock, father and mother side by side and hand in hand. The girls crowd close about him, the littlest at his knee. The baby climbs into her lap, and sleeps. When in time el senor returns, as he must, to the sugar estate, a renewal of commotion marks the day of his departure. Again the servants are hustled about and sharp staccato shrieks arise from the patio. I have never heard voices that reminded me so strongly of an orchestra tuning up. The girls bring their father's clothing. The mother packs his satchel, with pink and blue shirts and socks and linen suits. They accom- pany him to the train, and, when they get back from the station, sit silently in a row in the selfsame chairs under the noisy clock. The tissue paper disappears from the tubs ; they go back to the patio. The purple wrapper is hung away. The tablecloth writhes in new wrinkles over the board. I have seen the Spanish boy seize it at both ends, roll it into a bundle, — crumbs, bones, peelings, and all, — and thrust it, unshaken and 114 CUBA unfolded, into the sideboard drawer along with the ac- cumulating crusts of stale bread. The current of small events resumes its usual flow. From the altos the Amer- icans look down, in superiority, over late risings, burnt milk breakfasts, and a scant wash half clean, hstlessly wrung from a shallow pan. From the patio those below look up, with curled lips, as the Americans, with dripping mop, wipe up their own floors, cook their own meals, wash their own dishes, only to sally forth later un- ashamed, and wearing hats. Ah, those hats are our revenge, obtained at intervals. Having bought a new one, we pay cash and order it delivered. We know that the uniformed boy makes a great clatter on the front door, that he pushes the tremendous box in before him, and follows it importantly, that he sets it carefully upon our stairs, according to instructions, and retires, leaving all who are in the vicinity to study, in what mood they will, the French title upon that box. Our hats hail from Obispo, — and theirs from Galiano or San Rafael streets. We reflect upon that detail, and are comforted as we en- dure their contumely amid our homely tasks. ^^The woman in the rear,'' smoking in her kitchen window, — she has no hat at all. ? Each year at about Christmas time, or after carnival, perhaps, ''the family downstairs'' goes into the country to spend the rest of ''the grinding season" with el senor on his colonia. Last June, when they came home, we recognized that an important event had occurred meanwhile. The girls had become young ladies : their hair was piled high, their dresses were made long, a touch of rouge illumined their cheeks, and there was powder upon their noses. No more blue convent uniforms for them, — the littlest was alone in that glory. Then, indeed, there was a how-de-do. The HOME LIFE 115 house was whitewashed inside and painted outside. The plant tubs and tins in the patio were daubed anew with cerulean. The best palms took permanent place in the corners, and tissue paper and ribbons embellished them even in the father^s absence. Then a governess came of mornings : she taught French, I think, as well as English, music (chopsticks were abandoned and the eldest mastered a waltz), and sewing. I have seen both girls stretched almost full length across the table, poring together over Modes de Paris before proceeding to copy ^Hhe latest^' as best they were able, in thirty-cent figured lawn, bought in some one of numerous shopping expeditions to ^^The Enchant- ment,^^ ^^The Great House, ^^ or ^ Philosophy. ^' To their credit be it said they did attain effect ; their gowns were sometimes minus buttons and exhibited rows of pins down the back, but few American girls with as scant training and as little to do with, could compass the appearance these girls made, seen from a distance. In the afternoon they posed at their street windows, their mother rocking in her chair just behind them, or they walked out with her. The mother, too, had a new gown, a cheap little imitation of an American tailor-made ; unlike most chaperones who tag the eli- gibles, she was in her neat and attractive self a recom- mendation of her girls. Sometimes they went to the theater, airing light and filmy scarfs ; they returned home toward midnight, accompanied by whatever other family had invited them, and at the clatter of tongues as they bade mutual good nights the Americans upstairs woke and turned impatiently in bed. Or there was company in the evening ; until midnight then we were tormented with loud laughter and many voices in dissonant chorus, among which we could now and 116 CUBA then distinguish the uncertain tenor of some young man we knew was sitting on the edge of his chair cool- ing himself rapidly with a small black fan, which he replaced at intervals in his waistcoat pocket. On this, too, ''the woman in the rear,'' smoking in her kitchen window, looked down interestedly. Her son is only a mechanic. During the family's absence in the country each sea- son, caretakers have been installed. Once it was a round, kind woman and her comely daughter, to court whom a policeman called. He was rather handsome in his blue uniform, and they held forth in the chairs under the clock, openly fondling each other. The mother bent low over the dining table, spelling out the Associated Press telegrams in the Diario de la Marina. I ventured to compliment her once on her prospective son-in-law. She spoke disrespectfully of him : he had been courting nine years, and now earned only thirty dollars a month, on which he and his sweetheart agreed that they dared not marry. Yet they could not break off the match, or the girl would be ruined, so carping is custom here. Already her sweet face had taken on a shade of tragedy. This year, however, when the family went they left in charge ''the woman in the rear." Prior to that time she had lived in two rooms and a stair landing, at the back of the house above their kitchen. These rooms have two windows, barred, overlooking the patio, and a door opening on the back roof, to half of which only are we "Americans of the upstairs" entitled. Before she occupied them these rooms were filled with two very old ladies, one of whom was bedridden, their niece. Dona Maria, who sewed for a pittance, her son, German, a boy such as God sends infrequently, and the HOME LIFE 117 bent old black hag who served them to the very ending of her strength. The negress delivered cantina dinners for a restaurant by day, for what few pennies it paid, and at night she fished in the garbage for what she might find. Betweentimes she cooked and washed and waited upon her mistresses. She was the last faithful slave of their retinue. She slept in one room ; they, Dona Maria and the child, slept in the other, — the sick woman in a heavily curtained unaired bed, and the rest on cots, with the windows and doors all closed. Fortunately, the walls do not quite touch the roof, and under the eaves there is a ventilation they could not stop up. In this bedroom was an altar, gaudily trimmed, before which they burned an uninterrupted lamp of oil. The negress died, and two strange women of her own race, as silent and as old, came in a carriage and laid her out ; they came again and carried her away, having begged permission to take her down our stairs, which have only one turn. Later still, the sick one of the two old white women died and was buried ; German, the child, pitiful and lonely in his black, rode after her body in a carriage, her only mourner. The survivors prepared then to move away, as is the custom when death occurs. The remaining old lady brought us a gift of two china cups with her initials burned in, in gold, part, evidently, of an especially made imported set. We urged her to save them for German when he should be grown. She said she had a cupboardful beside. Doiia Maria gave us a glass butter plate such as one could buy for five cents in a department store ; and so they passed out of our lives, struggling on in theirs. We saw them go with keen regret, for these were gentlefolk. When first we spied her face at the window ^Hhe 118 CUBA weman in the rear^' looked very dark-complexioned to us. We don't see that now, since we know her. Her husband is an artisan, — a plumber and boilermaker, machinist and engineer, combined, as nearly as I am able to discover. He is about sixty years of age, and won't, so his wife says, admit it. Certainly he does not look it, though he is gaunt and tall and grizzled. He wears the expression of an exceedingly good-natured Russian hound. She is thirty-five. Their only son, an artisan like his father, is about twenty, I suppose. When first they moved in, these three kept close to their quarters and surveyed us through the bars. I do not recall how the almost intimate acquaintance between us first began ; perhaps it was spontaneous, for certainly we have much in common with these Cubans. They are country people from Pinar,*' and typical, I take it, not of any class in any city, but of the middle class of a small town. The altar where the former tenants enshrined their Virgin has become a sideboard. There is not a sacred picture, a holy lamp, or a scapular to be found on the premises. Perfect cleanliness prevails. There is a red cloth on the dining table in the largest room. There are a few chromos hung around. There is a swinging lamp with a red shade, and in the evenings they light it and sit under it in rocking-chairs, all three smok- ing together. In the bedroom there is a four-poster, and the counterpane and pillow slips are clean ; they are hand-embroidered and trimmed with lace Dona Pilar crochets. One night the rats ran through, and bit the mother's ankle as she slept. They nibbled the finger tips of the boy, asleep on his cot in the middle room; he had been eating cheese the night before. After that Doiia Pilar gave the American's cat the run HOME LIFE 119 of her rooms ; in the first three days she was installed below as caretaker she caught nineteen rats in a trap and drowned them in a washtub. By the door to the back azotea (roof) are Doiia Pilaris flowering plants in rusting pots. There is no paint here, but there is more bloom than all the patio below can show. The son fashioned a tiny watering pot from a condensed milk can, for his mother to sprinkle her garden, and many are the mornings we have seen him out, bending over her as she showed him one by one the new blossoms as they burst open to the day. This woman is by no means disinclined to work. She mops and dusts and sews and cooks and washes and ^ irons, and reads two daily papers from editorials to advertisements ; when she leans in her kitchen window and smokes, it is because there is not one other thing that she can do. She constitutes then a perfect picture of unwilling idleness, and these are the only times when any unhappiness descends upon her thin keen face. In the years that we have known her she has not gone even into the street for a holiday but once, and then she developed a keen desire to attend her sister's wedding, which was to occur at Guira, twenty-eight miles west. Her husband disapproved. She asked and obtained washing to do for ''the Americans upstairs'' to the amount of fare there and back, and she and her son went, nevertheless. She returned with great bouquets of flowers for her house and ours. I have never known her or any of her family to go to church. Now ''the family downstairs," they do at- tend mass ; the fact that young men line the sidewalks about fashionable churches to see the fair attendants come and go may have something to do with their fervor. I shall not forget one day that Dona Pilar / 120 CUBA happened into our rooms, where, having found a stick of Chinese incense, I had, in a moment of idleness, set it burning before a BiUikin. She gazed long at the image, puffing her cigarette thoughtfully, and then with a tolerant smile she said : ''Some (puff) burn it to Saint Anthony ; and some (puff) to Saint Joseph. (Puff, puff.) If you wish, why not to that?'' Instead, on Sunday morning Doiia Pilar and her husband go to the market and bargain for their Sunday's dinner — On week days she patronizes venders and hisses for the corner grocery boys to call. It is a sight to see them return and spread their purchases upon the table in little piles, to admire. The moment ''the family downstairs'' were well away and "the woman in the rear" installed in the spacious elegance of their dining room, two bedrooms, the court and the kitchen (the other rooms were closed up), a great change came over this house. A solitary hen, her pet, which had been confined to her rooms, and only rarely, under close watch, been permitted to bask in the sunlight on the back azotea, was loosed in the patio, A rooster appeared, and presently there was a flock of chicks among the palms. Cubans are fond of pets, especially birds, of which Doiia Pilar keeps a melodious dozen in cages, and I believe that they are not often consciously cruel to them ; yet they prepare their cocks for fights by pluck- ing the feathers from their living flesh, and sometimes try to keep so many animals about that some starve. I recall seeing a mocking bird gasping from heat in its cage, hung on a summer day in an exposed place on a house wall. I inquired of the manager of the planta- tion we were visiting how much he thought the woman who owned it would sell it for; to my surprise he HOME LIFE 121 replied that he didn't beheve she would sell it at all. '^ She's very fond of that bird/' he said. I called her attention to the fact that her darling was gasping like a swimmer about to go down for the third time. She stared at the bird, and, snatching it from the wall, car- ried it to a nail in the shade. Simply, she had not ob- served its predicament. No sooner was Dona Pilar quite at home downstairs than her relatives began to arrive from the country, — an elder sister, as lean, active, and full of a certain wit, as Dona Pilar; and a younger sister, the sweet little bride of a policeman groom, who probably does not earn more than the thirty dollars a month the other one got, but, with her as a helpmeet, finds it enough. The son acquired a puppy dog, a little yellow mongrel with bristles like a hog and a vigorous yap. The bride brought a pair of bantams, — a cock and a tiny hen, which she held in her arms sometimes and kissed vig- orously, at which the little cock would stretch his neck and crow loud and long. The sister brought a parrot, which mimicked the dog and meowed like the cat and cackled with the hen and without her. Morning and night it called ^^ Antonio," and finally, one day, I was astonished to see this elder sister spring at a stranger who asked admittance at the front door. From a tight position in his arms she called upon heaven and earth to witness that Antonio had arrived, — he was her husband, from Guira. He stayed some days. A little child joined the household, and a young man, a friend oftTie son's, paid long calls. The father mean- while — Doiia Pilar' s husband, Romero — was in the country, at work in a near-by mill. Where the phonograph dropped from I have no notion, but presently it began to grate forth the sextette from 122 CUBA ^'Florodora'' every night. We could hear the shuf- fling of feet on the stone flags below, and saw that they were dancing together, the boys as one couple, Dona Pilar and a sister as another. Dona Pilar was smok- ing, puffs ascending in time to the measure of the dance. We understood that we were witnessing a very orgy of prosperity and the pleasures that it brings. One day we rushed downstairs at the sound of loud screaming. We found Dona Pilar in hysterics, her two sisters bending over her with solicitude and cold water. Her son's employer had called to ask why the boy had not been at work for two weeks. That he had not been working as usual was news to the mother. When he arrived that night, apparently from his day's labor, she took him vigorously to task. Thereafter the phonograph was silent for many days. Dona Pilar was sullen. The son sat humped up in his chair. The elder sister returned to her home. The bride and the policeman betook themselves to the two upstairs rooms, and Romero came home from the sugar mill. Under his eye the household moves decorously. These people have many salient virtues. They are generous to a fault. One dare not admire even a blos- som in their garden, because they immediately present one with the plant. One cannot pass their table with- out a courteous invitation to partake of the meal ; it is meant to be declined with the usual formula (^^May you profit by it V^), and yet, were one actually hungry, one would be fed. They are industrious and willing to learn. Dofia Pilar, for instance, watched my mother make bread, tasted the finished article, discovered that her husband thought it good, and appeared one day with flour, other ingredients, and a request that she be taught. She learned with astonishing facility. She HOME LIFE 123 borrowed our ^^tin oven'' once or twice, and having found it pleasant to be able to bake, as well as stew and fry, proposed to buy one of her own, but at that moment both father and son lost their positions. Then, indeed, there was sorrow in the household, for not even these Cubans are provident. Both men had been earning good wages, and they had fed our cat more food than my mother and I bought, but there was not a cent saved. We gave Dona Pilar our wash to do, and once, with her eyes downcast, when there was no wash she asked for a peseta. She had stood all day at her window, but she did not smoke, for there were no ciga- rettes. Now she expected the men, and there was nothing whatsoever to eat. Both of them were return- ing to a supperless house after a long day of useless walk- ing from place to place in search of work. Before they found positions Dona Pilar had borrowed almost three whole dollars of us, and this money, to our surprise, she never repaid, but instead she has embroidered a scarf for us, given us flowers, fruit, and her choicest bird, done odd pieces of washing in a hurry, and other- wise stood ready to assist us in any way. It was during the time that the men were out of work I saw come to the surface the only fault, except im- providence (natural enough to those who reside in a climate where every condition, natural and political, enforces it) which one can impute to these people, — that is, a lack of self-confidence. For instance, al- though they were both skilled workmen and it was reported at the season that the Department of Public Works was in need of such, the elder man came to me and begged me for a letter of introduction to the supervisor, in order to enable him and his son to apply for a job. I urged him to go on his own account, to 124 CUBA ask to see Colonel Black, to tell him his qualifica- tions, which were, to an American, his only recom- mendation of value. He could not understand my point of view ; he thought I was not his friend at all, so finally, although I had not the acquaintance with Colonel Black to justify me in doing so, I gave him a letter, with which he set forth in high hope. Unfor- tunately, although the supervisor received him most considerately, there was no opening in his line. I do not know where finally he found employment, but after more than seven lean days he did find it. The son was equally fortunate, so now they are living high on seasoned stews and yellow soups, of which they still throw away enough to keep another family. This same lack of self-confidence takes on at times the aspects of duplicity. I believe that if one ap- proached Dofia Pilar in attitude sufficiently domineer- ing, one could compel her to bear witness to anything that one desired, even against her own friends; to a certain extent one could compel her to act against them. The man, her husband, being a little stronger, might in a dilemma be merely silent ; he could not be forced to do much of which he did not approve, but nevertheless even he in an emergency would not stand firm. This is not more reprehensible than it is pitiable ; like the timid manner of opening doors, it is but an evidence of the permanency of the scare thrown. Just as they would not defend friends, so these people would not defend themselves face to face against enemies. They would suffer while they must, and fade away. They are Cuba's famous noncombatants. Through the wars with Spain they and their kind remained apparently apathetic, though secretly they assisted the revolutionists and in the long run consti- tuted the strength of these so effectively that Spain ordered the notorious reconcentration of the noncombat- ants, — the herding into towns the Spanish controlled of the simple country people, like 'Hhe woman in the rear.'' While '^patriots'' then roved the woods and lived, or existed, free at least, these, their wretched allies, starved in confinement within restricted areas. They accumulated the bulk of that permanent scare. They are cowed. They observe that they are no longer subjects, to be oppressed, but they have by no means discovered that they are citizens, despite the fact that a republic has been declared in their name. When election day comes around Dona Pilar makes ice- cream, and her two men stay safely at home and eat it. There is a battle on they know, not of bullets now but of ballots, between two contending parties. For what these may do they do not consider themselves responsible, — God forbid ! — for they are still non- combatant. I am grateful that circumstances have permitted us to know Dona Pilar and her Romero and Francisco well ; they have raised our opinion of Cubans, and made intelligible, to some extent, those others of their same type one meets in traveling through their native habitat, the provinces. They are ^Hhe leading fami- lies'' of the country districts; on the mountain slopes of Pinar del Rio and in inaccessible valleys of Orientt I have found them dwelling in two- and three-rooml bohioSj tightly thatched that the rain may not beat! in upon the American-made sewing machine which is I the wife's proudest possession, or upon the saddle and I trappings of the dainty-footed stallion, whose quarters \ are quite as good as his master's own. The furniture \ in a home like this is a solidly built table, with top \ 126 CUBA scrubbed more or less, and chairs (of a crude '^mission style/' with hide backs and bottoms), supplemented with empty boxes upon which one reads such familiar legends as Crosse & Blackwell, and Gail Borden's Eagle Brand. Usually, somewhere upon the wall, one will find a patent-medicine calendar, prized for its bright picture. The women of this household wear, like Dona Pilar, a chemise, a white petticoat, a waist fas- tened at the belt with a gathering string, and a calico skirt so long it drags in the dirt. If they have shoes, they are of coarse quality, poor workmanship, and a stubby native pattern. If the season has gone well with fathers and husbands, they may attempt a corset and hat, which, combined, take from them every line of easy grace, and all their charm. The men wear trousers of light washable materials, and shirts in many colors ; their best suit is linen, ironed to resplen- dent gloss, the upper garment of which hangs outside their trousers like a coat, but is split at the hips like a shirt and finished over the shoulders with tucks, pockets, and pearl buttons. With this suit they wear brown shoes and a panama hat, a combination which all together constitutes Cuba's national costume. When I meet on the highway a man in a suit like this, rocking atop his nag, which moves as easy as a swinging chair on the peculiar ^^gait of the country," I salute him, not only because it is the courtesy of the road, but also because I know he is a useful citizen. He owns a little tobacco field, or a small coffee plantation, or a sugar coloniay or a herd of cattle somewhere ; he may only plant on shares on another man's land, or, again, he may possess a title in ''dollars of possession" to acres and acres of hill and plain. Sometimes his women accompany him, — his wife, perhaps, seated on the HOME LIFE 127 crouper behind him, and a couple of daughters follow- ing on a docile mare. When he raises his hand to his hat in military salute, responding to my greeting, they lift up their voices and chant all together, in the peculiar high whine of the Cuban countrywoman, with a drawl inimitable : ^^Bueno-o-o-os Di-i-i-i-ias !^^ or briefly bid me farewell, with a murmured ^^Adios!'' Below these, who are the very best and most active inhabitants in all the country, rank those other guajiros who, being either less intelligent, less active, or less for- tunate than they, exist less comfortably, also in bohios, but poorly bound together so that the rain drives in and makes mud upon the floor in which dogs and chick- ens wallow unregarded, along, sometimes, with the pig. There is no sewing machine here, and when the head of this household travels he jogs along on a mud- stained mare with burrs in her unbraided tail. He wears no stiflGiy starched coat-shirt, with tucks and buttons and an intricate monogram embroidered upon the pocket, but a plain colored shirt, undisguised, un- ornamented, and unwashed. His wife walks abroad in two garments only, a waist and a skirt, and her feet are bare inside frayed carpet slippers. What a man of this sort does for a living depends, I suppose, upon his surroundings : he may burn charcoal, or cut tobacco poles, or do, as far as I can make out, nothing at all. If he has a plantain tree and a patch of malanga or yuca in his neighborhood, he passes for thrifty. No matter what his circumstances, however, he and his wife welcome a visitor into the house, and to the only chairs or boxes it contains. He calls for coffee, and she serves it ; if they fail to offer it, the caller may rest assured there is absolutely nothing whatsoever to eat beneath that roof. 128 CUBA How many recollections throng my mind of visits to these country homes of Cuba ! I see the prosperous family at Rangel : there were fences all about their place, and they kept half a dozen vicious-looking dogs. There were also cats. They served us coffee in pink and gilt cups with saucers to match, and referred us to an octogenarian neighbor of theirs who knew more than they about the country concerning which we sought information. There were no wide eaves about his house, and our horses, when we dismounted there, took the storm. His wife threw old gunny sacks over our saddles to try to protect them, and, this done, she roused him from an inner room where he was sleeping. He came stumbling out, all wrapped in quilts in rags, with which he had been trying to keep warm. Dirt and disorder were everywhere in that house. It was a human pen. The coffee cups here had no saucers, but the beverage they held was excellent. I see again the bohio at which we paused near Omaja. The most precious possession here was a chocolate drop of a grandchild kicking arms and legs into the air from a mat upon the floor. I see the hut on the Paso Estancia tract where we stopped, below the neglected cornfield. There was a pile of charcoal in bags in the corner. A whole flock of chickens raised dust in the dooryard, where a great bougainville vine, uplifting itself like a tree, spread a royal wealth of bloom. The woman here was alone, her husband having gone to work as a cutter in the fields of a distant sugar plantation. I remember one other home, a five or six-room frame, with a thatch roof, board floors, a red cloth on the table, and iron beds to be seen in the rooms off the central living room. The father here was part French. The family about him was his pride, especially the daughters, Photograph by American Photo Comyany A Country Family in Gala Array Photograph by American Photo Company • • • • I ROME LIFE 129 — bright, rosy, black-eyed, half -grown girls, — one of whom was learning a little English. The father, keen as he was in every other respect, — for this man owned land and cattle and many plantings, — was unable to judge Americans, and extended where it was not merited a confidence the unworthy object of it had boasted he proposed to abuse. I recalled as I looked at him, his wife, and his too innocent girls, rocking back and forth in the living room where they received me, another family, very like this in enterprise, standing, and appearance. They lived on the outskirts of Havana, and I came to know them when they figured as principal parties in a sen- sational trial for manslaughter. During the starving times of the Reconcentration this father took into his family (there were already more mouths about his board than he could keep well filled) a young boy he found as good as dying in the streets. This lad he treated as a son, and he, when he was about twenty, returned the benefits received by seducing the young- est girl of the family he should have considered sacred as his own. All his cronies heard from him of his suc- cess, and the secret of the girl child's dishonor became pubhc property. Her father, however, the last , to learn, still shared his roof with the renegade, until, evidently to escape his sweetheart's entreaties that he fulfil his promises and marry her, the young man left the house, having sought the pretext of a quarrel. When the father complained of this loss of his son (for so he considered him) the neighbors told him how well rid he was of the traitor. The afternoon he heard of the facts the father left his work in the quarries and came home at once. He called his daughter into a shed outside the house, and questioned her as to the truth of 130 CUBA the matter. She confessed her fault, on her knees, and told him all the pitiful circumstances. He raised her to his heart, and as she wept there his tears mingled with hers. At this instant there reached their ears the voice of the young man, singing, as he sat on the veranda of a roadhouse across the way, a song in which he bragged of his conquest. The father cast the girl from him, ran to the house, seized a weapon, and shot the singer dead as he, seeing the avenger on the way, attempted to flee. There was a trial, and while it dragged along the father chafed in prison. In accord- ance with the strange proceedings of Cuban courts, there came a day when the judges (there is no trial by jury here) repaired to the house where the family lived. They noted the comparative location of the shed, the room where the revolver was kept, and the direct route the angry father took to the cafe across the road. Then they shut themselves up in the shed where the girl and her father had been at the moment the singer's voice was heard. Meanwhile, on the veranda of the cafe a white-faced youth, a friend of the family, touched a guitar with trembling hands : he sat just where the lover had sat, and at a signal he sang. He sang, — not for a man's life, for the maximum penalty for the crime, if it was one, was fourteen years' imprison- ment, — but he sang for a man's liberty through that long period. A rock crusher was at work in the dis- tance, and from the road by the river below came the chug-chug of an automobile speeding fast, but over and above all, clear and readily distinguishable in words, rose the high, strained voice of the neighbor boy, sing- ing. No man ever had more attentive audience. We of the press stood motionless by the fence. The eldest son of the family was by the gate, close to the shed HOME LIFE 131 door, and when, again at a signal, the singer ceased, he looked at us triumphantly, and cried : ^^ You heard ? You heard ?^' The judges came filing solemnly from the shed, and one, at sight of the anxious face of the daughter, heavy-eyed with tears, as she stood in the doorway, nodded his head. They had distinguished the words sung. It was proven that the father could hear the taunt that supplied the final impulse to his act. A light sentence was passed upon him (the judges had no discretion, according to law, save to impose it), and the moment it was pronounced. Governor Magoon affixed his signature to a pardon already prepared, and the father came home, an exonerated man. Lax as their morality seems sometimes, these people are by no means without an honor they defend. I do not forget an incident in which I figured, years ago, in a manner I am not proud to look back upon. I had some jewelry stolen from a box in my room, and, because I prized the trinkets for their association rather than their slight value, I appealed to the secret police to recover them for me, and accused my black wash- woman of theft. I believed that she alone knew where I kept the key to my box from which she had seen me many times get the money for her. About three days later I received a call from a noncommissioned officer in the rural guard, a man about three shades lighter in color than the woman. He upbraided me for having entered the charge against her on shght or no evidence; he made me thoroughly ashamed of myself. He described the humiliation I had occasioned her, for the police had called and searched her premises, — while all the neighbors looked on ! He assured me that I must be mistaken (and he convinced me I was, whereupon I called off the police and continued to patronize the 132 CUBA laundress without any further comment on the size of her bills), and as sufficient evidence of her integrity he told me : ''Senorita, she has been my woman for twenty years, and I know !'' It was a rather remarkable cer- tificate of character, come to think of it, but I accepted it. Similairly, in these country homes, in a very great many cases she ''has been his woman for twenty years.'' The omission of formalities at the commencement of their life together does not, however, cause her to take a back seat when visitors enter through her door. I see her thin, brown, keen face yet, through a blue haze of cigarette smoke (for in such a frame the composite picture hangs in my memory) ; sometimes she is silent, and sometimes garrulous. If she talks, she asks ques- tions : she wants to know the relationship between members of the visiting party. Are the women married to the men? If not, of course they expect to be? Or are the gentlemen brothers? She thinks she sees a family resemblance. Finally, if she is very bold, she will ask me curiously how in the world I get into a divided skirt, and when I exhibit the cut and fastening of that garment, she will, so polite is she, pretend to admire it, although it outrages, I am aware, every fiber of her peculiar modesty. Meanwhile, her husband (undersized and sinewy, lean-jawed and brown) will sit up very stiff in his hide-backed chair and answer inquiries. It has not been my experience that country Cubans feel any reluctance to give what- ever information is requested, so far as they possess it. Neither have I ever been intentionally misinformed. They will tell you routes and former names and history of places in the neighborhood, and talk intelligently of possibilities of cultivation and quality of land. HOME LIFE 133 If you ask for ^^ buried treasure/' as I always do, in hopes to start a folklore story from cover, they will look at you from the tail of their eye and tell you how the other fellow found a palm tree with a nail driven into it, and, when he went later to investigate that sign, found an excavation newly dug at the roots in the bottom of which was an iron-rusted square from which evidently a box had just been removed. If you ask for ghosts (in hopes to scare up a legend), they will, it has been my experience, laugh at you or look at you curiously as though they thought you not quite sane. I have never got a ghost story or a legend from any country resident ; either they are too superstitious or not superstitious at all, — I can't determine. If you make inquiry into their views on the political situa- tion, they will shrug their shoulders and avoid reply ; or sigh heavily and declare that politicians ruin the country ; or flatter you with an expressed desire for the return of American control ; or tell you it was better in Spanish days; or frankly admit they don't know or care anything about the government, being quite too busy with their own affairs. CHAPTER VI FOREIGNERS IN CUBA hey have made the native an alien in his own country." — From " Gem of the Caribbean.'* In the open country Cubans are clearly the majority of the population of this island, yet even there wherever a bodega (general store, but especially a grocery) stands at a crossroads, one finds a Spaniard mopping up the counter, across which he sells drinks, provisions, the commonest hardware, and, perhaps, hats, shoes, cheap print cloth, and coarse linen. He is an important per- sonage because he also lends money, and when con- ditions or events so alarm him that he no longer advances cash or grants credit, his district knows that times are hard. He charges a usurious rate of interest, there being no law against it ; he keeps everybody in his debt, and he pockets the profits of their labor. .He buys and re- sells their crops, to his advantage, actually monopolizing what little trade there is in his vicinity. In towns and cities, similarly, the Spanish control, I believe, commerce both wholesale and retail. They are the merchants, large and small, of the country, and constitute the most considerable foreign element of the population. According to the census of 1907, there are 228,477 foreigners among Cuba's total population of 2,048,980 ; they are, that is, 11.2 per cent of the whole, a gain of only .2 per cent since the former census (1899) . Of these 134 FOREIGN EBS IN CUBA 135 foreigners, 185,393 are Spaniards, who are, therefore, 81.1 per cent of the foreign element. More than half of them reside outside the cities of the island. It would be instructive to know what proportion of the wealth of the country their holdings are. It must be large. They o wn, I know, about one fourth of the sugar business. TheyTiguf e big in the second greatest "industry (tobaccoj. They are wholesale importers m every line, and they are the retailers of merchandise. The Spaniard is so keen a business man it is commonly said that no Jew can compete with him; Americans who have had transactions with him laud his honesty, declaring that his ''word is as good as a bond.'' They prefer him to a Cuban in every business relation. Certainly the Spaniard is a willing worker. At half- past four in the morning on our street, as regularly as the Cathedral bells ring forth sonorously, we hear the milkman beating on the door of the nearest cafe, rousing the sleepy lads from their cots, spread in the corner by the glass-covered counter, to turn out and receive the milk. By the time the earliest customer ap- pears for his matitudinal cafe con leche they have it pre- pared for him, and all the place is ready for the day. Not until midnight do they close the doors, although by eleven o'clock the chairs are turned legs uppermost on top of the tables, that the floor may be cleaned. Whether these particular boys sweep and mop late at night or early in the morning I have not observed, but I know that I have never stayed out long enough or arisen soon enough not to find the water trickling from under some cafe door to the accompaniment of splash- ings and the swish of a broom within. ''Dependents," as they call the clerks in establish- ments of all sorts, here, usually reside in the building 136 CUBA where they work. Sleeping room is found for them somewhere, in the hot, low entre suelos, behind the counters upstairs, or in the rear. In that house, too, they usually have their meals, which are prepared on the premises or fetched in. There is a tailoring shop on O'Reilly Street which used to put a bar across its front entrance at meal time, as a suggestion that customers were not to disturb the clerks passers-by could see at a table laid in the rear. The senior partner had place of honor at the head, and, in this instance, his wife sat be- side him, for he had already attained the dignity of matrimony, as few do before they retire from business. From him, down the board, ranged all the clerks, ac- cording, I presume, to their importance in the firm, for I noticed that a round-faced, red-cheeked 'prentice boy was at the foot. If the partners who control are decent and agreeable men, this system of ^ living in'' works well enough, as far as the individual is concerned, for then the '^ dependents " are happy and properly fed. I remember seeing one lot — thick-muscled roustabouts of a wholesale warehouse, they were — at breakfast served for them, at a cafe close by their establishment where their firm boarded them by the month. They were laughing uproariously at a monologue delivered by the wittiest of their num- ber, as they put away a bounteous meal which looked appetizing. Obversely, it is quite possible for his su- periors to make a clerk's life wretched indeed ; he has no escape from them by day or night. ^^Dependents'' receive a stated wage, but not all in cash ; on the contrary , most of it is merely placed to their credit in the business, and the only complaint I have not heard made against the system is of dishonesty in this particular. They say that partners in control do not FOREIGNERS IN CUBA 137 trifle with these accounts or ever fail to hand over the total amount due if some one man decides he has had enough and will withdraw, to go into business for him- self, or even to join a rival establishment. Few, how- ever, do so withdraw, I am told ; they prefer to let their share in the business accumulate, until, perhaps, some day they reach a chair at the head of the table and look a long way down the board and through years passed, to the round-faced, red-cheeked 'prentice boy at the foot, beginning where they began. Meanwhile the partners to right and left are crowding close and closer. They expect the senior member to retire, and so he does, in due season, betaking himself and his profits home, ^'to the Peninsula, '^ there to marry and settle down to ^4ive off his rents,'' with a buxom Spanish wife. In time, he sends his son to some friend or relative, who will give him the 'prentice lad's place and opportunity, and if it be in a cafe he works his father will have taught him, ere his landing, that all tips must be turned into the savings box, built under the counter for the purpose, contents of which is divided equally among all. This whole system is a survival from days when the Indies were far indeed from homes in Spain. Then parents needed to commend their boys who sought for- tunes ^^ in the colonies, " to kinsmen or fellow townsmen, who assumed every obligation toward them, not only to see them started in business, but also to keep them ^^ straight" in every regard ; in return, they must ren- der service and tender obedience and respect. To this day ^^dependents'' are not free to leave the store when their work is done, if it is ever done, unless it be their ''night off. " Instead, they sit in the store doorway and play dominoes, or, if they are young and ambitious, ask and readily obtain leave to attend night school at the 138 CUBA particular ^'regional society'' as a member of which they are inscribed before ever they leave the govern- ment immigrant station at Triscornia, — some one of the several mutual protective associations organized among Spaniards according to the province from which they hail ; his society will educate him, permit him to attend its social functions, care for him if he is sick, and, if need be, bury him when he dies, all for the insignificant monthly fee of a dollar or a dollar and a half. It would be interesting to know what the effect of this system of ^'living in'' is on the morality of Havana, for instance, where it prevails largely. I have heard it alleged that the ^^dependents'' of town support certain disreputable districts, on their ^^ nights off"; again, I have heard this denied. Certainly, they cannot marry until they have reached the top in business, for if they were to insist upon freedom to live where and how they choose, the wages paid them, were they to demand these in cash, would not, even if they held their jobs, suffice for their needs in this city where the poorest living costs so very dear. The entire plan is, obviously, an anachronism; it belongs to paternal monarchy, instead of the days of a republic which calls for citizens, and not ^^ dependents. " Already it is no longer universal, and I believe that enforced observation of the newly enacted eight-hour labor-day law will further hasten its inevitable disap- pearance from modern business here. Then the little 'prentice lad will be trained to account to himself for himself. He's the proper timber to with- stand responsibility, whether his face beams at you over the counter of a cheap grocery or comes shining up your stairs as he delivers your bundles from the biggest dry FOREIGNERS IN CUBA 139 goods emporium, or struggles through a permanent cloud of grime as he takes your order in his dingy shop for char- coal by the bag. He's always cheerful and ^^ on the job/' He wears a permanent smile induced by the sheer joy of being up ^'and doing.'' There isn't a lazy bone in his sturdy body nor an unwilling muscle in his short, thick legs that have worn long trousers ever since they wore any at all. He can understand your Spanish when everybody else has failed, or, if even he cannot puzzle out your meaning, he will offer you every article in his shop, item by item, until he hits upon what you want. He reads ^^ Don Quixote " and El Diario de la Marina by a guttering candle if he can get no other light, and he plays cards all day on Sunday. Observing him, you wonder that ever the country which produced him lost the leader- ship of the world ; probably it was because he refused to* stay at home, but insisted instead on navigating the Unknown Sea, on being first to scale the Andes, and first to press his prow through Magellan's Straits into the wide Pacific. If you look him over for faults, you find his chiefest is women, and, in what seems to me remarkable contradiction with most glorious passages of his history, he lacks imagination. If the Spaniard had the constructive imagination of the American, in- stead of merely gathering pesetas together off the counter of a corner grocery until the pile looks to his humble mind like a fortune on which to retire, he'd put the Yankee out of the running in way of trust and combine building, for assuredly he has the vigor, the energy, the endurance, and the determination, — but he cannot see ahead to apply them beyond the details of his daily task. He remains, therefore, a drudge, asking little and receiving only that. I had the privilege to work, once, for a year, among 140 CUBA Spaniards of high intellectual and social rank. The editor-in-chief of that newspaper — the oldest, the most influential in Cuba — was the very personification of the same paternalism evident in thie system of '^living in'' I have described. He has an immediate family of his own, — a tall son, and little ones, handsome daugh- ters, grown and smaller, who, despite the fact that he is Spanish through and through, are Cubans and so they would be even were their mother not also a Cuban, as she is. It is pecuhar that, no matter how intensely national the Spaniard seems, his children born out of Spain belong always to the country where first they see the light : they are Cubans, or Mexicans, or Ecuadore- ans, unlike the Englishman's foreign-born offspring, who are always British, and the American's, who are usually ^ven more obstreperously American than he. Outside his immediate family Don Nicolas has a larger family ; it includes every employee, no matter how exalted or how humble, connected with his great business estab- lishment. From each he exacts, with more or less of the personal vanity of his race, marked deference ; it is so notably his due that all pay it gladly. In exchange, he extends his protection to all. Is one imposed upon ? Tell it to Don Nicolas, and Don Nicolas, with kindly hand, metes out j ustice. Never have I known an individ- ual for whom I came to entertain profounder liking or more sincere respect than this same handsome old man, fine-featured and white-haired, who wears, sometimes, the bright ribbon of a royal order across his breast. Yet every ideal he cherishes seems to me archaic. He is in person an ^^enlightened despot" of the variety I studied about, half understandingly, in a history course on the eighteenth century, with which I supposed his species contemporaneous. He has made the heroes and FOREIGNEBS IN CUBA 141 heroines of certain of Morse Stephens' lectures really intelligible to me for the first time. Paternalism colors his outlook in every direction. Because it is a paternal institution he upholds the Church, endorsing it, not so much for himself as for other people. Because it was a paternal government, and his, he championed Spanish rule in Cuba; he came out for autonomy only when that was the last recourse. When Spain was forced to retire definitely, his newspaper backed up the American Military Government, with many a backsliding criticism, however, of its ways and means, for these seemed remarkable to him. Later, through the various ups and downs of Cuban politics he has invariably supported the side that was topmost. His policy, as he announces it, is to be with the party that controls, or, as he puts it, ^'to uphold the existing gov- ernment no matter what it may be. '' To him, opposi- tion to the existing government (and he confounds gov- ernment with administration every time) is unfilial. I beheld with mortification the antics of his editorial column in a certain troublous period ; it would have excited then the contempt of an American public and lost the paper all confidence forever after. Don Nicolas was uncertain who held the whip hand, and he vacillated between factions till Joseph's coat was modest com- pared with our record. Yet I concluded the man was not to be censured ; his mind worked that way. It is this same paternalism in him which makes the Spaniard tolerant of ^^ graft'' ; leaders must, he thinks, be some- what rewarded for their labor in supervising the led. That public office is a public trust is no doctrine of his ; he considers it a private privilege, to be exploited for the benefit of himself and his friends. When labor troubles arise, Don Nicolas through his paper lectures 142 CUBA the workingmen as an indulgent parent might an un- grateful son ; he tells them a deal of truth, in the detail, and they break his windows in recognition of his services, for they are moderns, and have been known to mention ^Hhe principle of the thing.'' They talk of ^^ rights,'' and he of ^'concessions." Again it is paternalism which prompts a Spaniard to arm himself with many letters of recommendation whenever he desires, for example, a government job. I wish I had a dollar for every letter of recommendation to public officials I translated into English during the Provisional Admin- istration. They asked jobs as typewriters for girls who were orphaned and honest, and had fathers and brothers in all the uprisings since Lopez' time, — but not ona mentioned that the applicants could spell, or punctuate^ or manipulate a machine; they asked clerkships for young men who had relatives already at the crib, and^ small children to support, and aged parents dependent, * — none gave any qualifications except such as these. Patronage — patronage ! They actually expected the chap who worried his prospective chief with the most of this junk to carry off the plum ! Offices are considered plums, that fall, not to the fit, but to the favorites of that Great Paternal Power, — the central government, — which is to be cajoled and hoodwinked and ''done" precisely as spoiled children impose on a too lenient '' governor." Once one masters the truly Spanish conception of the whole fabric of organized society, one understands that country's and Cuba's decadence, for from Spanish ancestry Cubans have inherited all these points of view. My time on the Diario de la Marina was a course of instruction which left me dizzy indeed. I had thought that in fifteen years' association with Latins I had come FOBEIGNEBS IN CUBA 143 to understand them; now I know that I shall never comprehend them, nor they me. I heard members of that staff talk as though they were the sole zealous support of Mother Church in the Americas ; yet I never discovered that any of them attended mass, except by proxy in their women and children. Neither did they express, or feel, any resentment, when, as regularly oc- curs during Holy Week, other newspapers printed car- toons which made me, who am unreligious enough, goodness knows, cold with horror. No American news- paper — not the most skeptical and critical — would dare to offend the public with pictures as stupidly sacrilegious as these. I observed that they claimed to consider personal honor a possession of exceeding value, and yet I saw them pass over unjustifiable insult directed at their very home's heart, in the course of a personal and political squabble, in reparation for which an Ameri- can would have sent somebody to the cemetery before the ink was dry on the printed calumny. I saw them, on another occasion, make sport of their own delicate institution of duelling: ^^an affair of honor'' arose, they considered themselves required to fulfill the for- malities, but they avoided conflict by ludicrous subter- fuge ; still that inexplicable honor of theirs was satisfied. I heard them jest at the money-mad Yankee and his '^almighty dollar," and saw them drive bargains so sharp no Wall Street Jew could equal them for edge. And, withal, I came finally not to question their sincerity in all they said and did : I think that they believed them- selves. Therefore, I concluded that they were, individ- ually and collectively, a problem my Anglo-Saxon intelligence could never grasp. I believe they reached a similar conclusion with regard to me, for, on one occa- sion, they ^^ wrote me up," and I was surprised to learn 144 CUBA that my major shortcoming consisted in that I walked Hke a man, looked neither to right nor to left, and favored them with no ' ^ silvery cachinnations ' ^ during office hours ! From which they deduced that the masterful and mas- tering Yankees were about to crush in iron grasp the very flower and essence of Spanish sentiments as inter- twined about the heartstrings of Cuba ! The cleverest editor on the staff (an essayist of the admirable variety disappearing from belles lettres in English) was the author of the piece. Little as they understood me, they seemed, nevertheless, to put a value on my work, for they gave me a man's title and a man's pay, and permitted me upon occasions to assume full responsibility. They recognized that I had the right to attend, for instance, a certain annual dinner to be spread in the very handsome reception room of the editorial department. Our office, by the way, was beautiful, — tiled, painted, decorated with chandeliers, statuettes, artificial flowers, and por- traits. We were not permitted to scatter paper upon the sanctum floor ; by so doing, in my novitiate, I in- curred the only rebuke Don Nicolas ever administered to me. I was, as I have said, entitled to go to that din- ner because it was an editors' dinner and I was one (there were about three editors to every reporter, on that staff) . All the day preceding the festivity those unhappy Spaniards stood around, on one foot first and then upon the other, unwilling to request me to stay away, yet fearful that I would appear, like a white elephant, at their feast. As soon as it dawned upon me what the difficulty was, I removed it by assuring them that, al- though I felt honored (as indeed I did) to have the privilege of being present, I trusted they would per- mit me to be absent upon that occasion. I had never entertained any intention of being present ; I had not FOBEIGNERS IN CUBA 145 supposed they could imagine I would want to be the only- woman in a gathering of perhaps half a hundred men. Again, at a time when I was acting correspondent for the New York Herald, Don Pepe, the correspondent, being absent in Hayti, it happened that a representative of that paper, the late Mr. White, visited Havana, and Don Nicolas desired to give him a dinner, at the Mira- mar. I had not anticipated being invited, but, despite what must have been the promptings of his mental train- ing, Don Nicolas asked me to be present, because had I been a man doing the work I was doing, he would as- suredly have done so. I demurred, fearful of being a ^^wet blanket'' ; he requested me to accept, and I went, with him, his managing editor, his business manager, and his son. Not so much out of gratitude for a pleas- ant evening, as out of respect to the marked fairness of mind his conduct evidenced, I have always honored Don Nicolas more because of that one trifling incident than for any other act of his of which I know. All of that paper's staff were fair-minded, — it strikes me as the more remarkable the more I consider the fact that they were. They received me on a footing of equality and respect, and this attitude toward me they consist- ently maintained always, although I moved among them as no decent woman of their own would, and they saw me come and go with a freedom that defied every article in their accepted code of an honest woman's con- duct. Everything they could not understand they nevertheless accepted and excused as ^Hhe American custom," just as I, trying to be as broad as they, ceased, eventually, to judge them by my standards, and measured them by their own. Then, indeed, they weighed up as not wanting in any particular. Finally when I desired to leave them to accept another position they forestalled 146 CUBA me, preventing me from offending them by doing any- thing as crude as that ; they granted me, instead, inde- finite leave of absence, without pay ! Only one other individual stands out to my mind as I review the distinguished and wealthy Spanish colony, and he, too, is an editor, a man so bitterly pro-Spanish in every struggle, he was asked why he had remained behind when the Evacuation occurred. It was on the twentieth of May, 1902, the story goes, during cere- monies establishing the Republic of Cuba, that the in- quiry was put, and he is said to have replied, with an inclusive gesture: ^^I remain — to attend the funeral of this. '^ Since then he has worked with an admirable consistency to accomplish that event. He has been at intervals the friend and at other intervals the enemy of each passing administration, and, after every catastro- phe, it has appeared that he urged all sides on to every possible calamity. Through the columns of his paper he emits, now and then, biting criticism ; ^^we Cubans'' smart at the truth of it, and laugh at the caustic wit he exercises. San Miguel has grown rich off his particular '^ sick man.'' He speculates, uses his paper to influence stocks and to obtain concessions, and he hires it out to good paymasters, too, for, as he says, ^^ When La Lucha dances somebody pays the fiddler." He was elected, if you please, a representative from Pinar del Rio, de- spite his past and ever-present record ; his own amuse- ment at this must have been intense. He took the job and also the pay, and he has both yet. Next to the Spanish the Chinese colony (11,217) is the largest in Cuba. These Celestials are merchants, truck gardeners, and day laborers in the sugarhouses of the great plantations whose managers ask no ques- tions as to where the constant supply afforded them FOREIGNERS IN CUBA 147 is procured. There are anti-Mongolian immigration laws. !\ Next in size ranks the colony of the African-born negroes (7948). These are almost all surviving slaves, for the Census shows only 10 immigrants from Africa in 1902-1907. My acquaintance with these is limited to| seeing one, an old man, who seemed to be a leader in charge of an African cabildo, which used to hold forth onj Sunday afternoons from one to four o^ clock in a house on the outskirts of the suburb of Cerro. It was a social- religious organization licensed by the municipality un- der a name in which figured that of a Catholic saint. When we attended its dance, we were accompanied by a member, a mulatto, the leader of an orchestra well known in Havana. Before we reached the house we heard the nervous beat of the drum which takes the place of the tomtom, forbidden by law, and the accompany- ing rattle of gourds shaken up and down inside a beaded net. Three young negroes standing on a bench ma- nipulated the gourds ; another, seated below them, pounded the drum in maddening rhythm. The music was unquestionably African. In the open space, on the stone floor, before the players, members of the organ- ization danced, not together, but singly, jerking and gesticulating in a circle, round and round. They sang in an African dialect. We were told that one song, movements to which simulated a snatching from above, was a prayer to Saint Barbara for blessings. In an ad- joining room we were shown altars. One was to Our Lady of Mercy, one to Saint Joseph, and one to Saint Barbara, at the base of whose shrine was an iron image of a black jockey such as used to stand, before good taste made them scarce, on sidewalks before houses in the North as hitching posts. These altars were decorated \ 148 CUBA with cheap hangings and tawdry trinkets, which had, probably, their secret meanings. In another room, in which also was a bed elaborately trimmed with yellow satin and ribbon, was an altar to the Virgin of Cobre. There were dishes of food before it, in the process of being blessed, I gathered, and there was a covered soup tureen we were given to understand held a- holy secret. We returned to the dancing in time to see one apt per- former throw a fit. ''The saint'' had entered into her. Immediately other women unbound her hair and re- moved her shoes. They hustled her into the other room and returned her clad in a garment which seemed to imitate the robes altar images of the Virgin and saints wear. She wore gold and brass bracelets which jingled as she danced forth. She proceeded to salute all present by throwing her arms about the shoulders of men and women alike, one after the other, kissing them on the cheek, if they were women, and rubbing each of her shoulders to each of theirs, in turn, if they were men. As she went she collected offerings of pennies and dimes. She approached us, and with more or less good grace we, too, submitted to these caressings. It seemed to me the frenzied creature took a particular delight in seizing hold of one of our number, a very precise and very relig- ious young woman from Kentucky, whose face fairly froze with horror as she was smacked soundly on both cheeks. We were told that sometimes in this condition of hysteria those who had ''the sainf prophesied and prescribed remedies for the sick. Later, I asked police headquarters to tell me exactly what this cabildo was, and learned that it, and organizations like it, are all the law allowed, at that time, of the old nanigo clans. It was, as it were, the threshold beyond which lie their nefarious mysteries and the trickery of witchcraft. FOBEIGNERS IN CUBA 149 The nanigo clans were, I understand, a revival in Cuba of tribes that existed in Africa. I am not suffi- ciently informed, nor is there space here, to tell of their objects, their rites, and known and suspected rami- fications. There was a time when on ^Hhe Day of Kings '' their leaders were actually received in the palace of the governor-general ; on that date their bands paraded the street, and whites kept within closed doors. They had their jealousies, and members of rival clans killed and were killed in the public streets. One Spanish governor collected all their paraphernalia and boasted that he had persuaded them to disband. The police force of the American Government of Occupation de- clared that it had suppressed them. The spontaneity with which, during one carnival season not long ago, certain groups of maskers appeared upon the streets, leads an observer to suspect that neither was successful. Later still, after two white children had been killed and cut up by ^^ witch doctors'^ in the country, and the per- petrators of the crimes caught and convicted, the Pro- visional Administration grew critical of even such societies as that we visited. I venture to say, however, that, openly or secretly, they still exist, and if ever there is a negro uprising in Cuba they will play their promi- nent part. Yet not all their members are negroes. Our guide was, as I have said, a mulatto. He was an officer in the or- ganization, and as such those entering after he had ar- rived saluted him. One pretty young girl, who might have ^^ passed for white'' in her clean lawn dress with blue sash and neck ribbons he compelled by a glance to do as the rest, — to throw herself prone on the floor before him, and turn from hip to hip. We had no man- ner of knowing what immoralities lay behind many of 150 CUBA the suggestive details we noticed. Taken at its sur- face value, the perf onnance we saw that afternoon was a demonstration of fanaticism and ignorance it would be hard to equal anywhere. It was the most astounding confusion of heathenish and Catholic worship one could imagine : they sang in barbarous tongue ta Christian saints, and to them they sacrifice white cocks occasion- ally ; in the dances, which must have originated about African campfires, they flaunt yellow as the color of Our Lady of Cobre, white for Mary of Mercies, purple and green for Saint Joseph, and red for the favorite saint, pro- tecting Barbara, each of whom has an African name. In honor of these respective patrons they wear copper, silver, bead, and coral trinkets. The local Catholic church recognizes this same symbolism, in color and in ornament. The American colony ranks next to the native African \in size; it numbers only 6713 individuals for all the pland. These in themselves or in representation of rincipals own a good third of the sugar business, and a lep^ding railway ; what mines are in operation ; some few flourishing tobacco vegas ; and they control ^Hhe trusf cigar and cigarette factories ; they are the constructing engineers and architects of the country, and do consid- erable business in boots and shoes, lumber, agricultural implements, machinery, and many things besides. Outside of the cities they are scattered, singly and in little colonies, from Pinar del Rio to Palmarito ; they grow some pineapples, a few vegetables, and citrus fruit, but are as yet a small factor in agriculture, except in sugar. Their industrial importance, as a whole, is, however, immense, partially because of the political importance inherent in it. In Havana itself they reside "upstairs" because they FOREIGNERS IN CUBA 151 consider lower floors damp and unhealthy, and to what- ever quarters they affect their wives strive to impart something of home, or, if they have no wives or these re- fuse to accompany them in Cuba, details of their com- fort or discomfort are left with the landlady. The boarding houses of Havana, even as Americans (who demand the best wherever they go) find them, are the saddest institutions that I know. The best rooms to be had are big, with ''balconies to the street,'' as the advertisements always mention, or windows over- looking a patio. If one rooms alone (paying from $15 to $25, American money, monthly), there is but one bed, a black iron frame, in the corner, without mattress on its springs, which are thinly spread with a pad, perhaps, or a quilt, sheets, a counterpane, white or gorgeously colored, and a pillow stuffed with ''tree cotton,'' sour smelling and in lumps. Over all hangs a mosquito netting of always doubtful cleanliness, tied back with tape or ribbons ; the more elaborate the bows which hold it are the more suspicious of the bed do I, for one, become. There is a table, marble-topped, usually, and uncertain on its legs. There is a wardrobe and a dresser, and they never match. The floor is of black and white marble blocks, or fancy tiles, or glazed red brick, or un- glazed redder brick, which rubs off. There is a scant rug or piece of matting before the bed. The walls about are whitewashed, or tinted a brilliant blue, with a wainscot- ting, colored on, in hues that clash. To reach this chamber one probably passes through the sitting room or the dining room of the family who rent, up rickety stairs and along a balcony upon which the rain drips from the eaves. The bathroom is in some distant part of the house, usually near the kitchen. Its shower drizzles into a painted tub, on the inside of which an in- 152 CUBA quisitive finger rubs up the dirt in rolls. If one takes one's meals ^4n/' they are served, perhaps, at a very long table on a cheap white cotton cloth ; the dishes are thick and the glasses foggy. There is soup at noon and at night, and fried eggs with rice, always, for ^^break- fast,'' followed by ^'bifstek" and fried potatoes; at night the meat is baked. The bread is hard, and comes in ^^ flutes " so long and thin it is a time-worn joke to sug- gest that it is purchased by the yard ; one finds a sec- tion at his plate at each meal, and, if it is not enough, the waiter offers other similar sections from a basket. The people about one, if they are Spaniards and Cubans, vociferate and gesticulate and argue in mixed company sometimes on most indelicate subjects. If one takes one's meals ^^out, " one learns to know that one restau- rant serves the best fritters, and another has baked ap- ples on Thursday at noon, or baked beans on Tuesday, or fresh fried fish all the time ; one learns too to discrim- inate in favor of those which do not charge five cents extra for bread, and, if one is wise, one eschews butter, for ^' south of Key West, " as the parody runs, ^Hhe best is like the worst." Of course there are, now, hotels one may patronize if he can afford it. Then he approaches his room via a lobby, an elevator, a pleasant corridor, but, once within, he finds little comfort even here. The walls are a little whiter, the space a little smaller, the bed has brass trimmings at least, a mattress, and a netting if he demands it ; the bathroom is nearer, but he had better keep his finger off the inside the tub. When he comes to his meals he may have a table to himself, and from the bill of fare choose dishes, not much dif- ferent from those of the boarding table ; he can only control their number and the order of their appearance. FOBEIGNERS IN CUBA 153 In exchange for few additional privileges, he pays, — he pays. There are, too, some few thoroughly Ameri- can boarding houses, where, for a price above the first I have described and a little below the hotel's, one may get whatever comfort and cheer its overworked mistress is able to impart. Despite the rates she charges, she makes no profits dull summer months do not eat up. Some of these establishments are truly pleasant, and in them a resident or a visitor is lucky to find a niche. Still others have a general tone which becomes so wearing that its patrons, after a short sojourn, betake themselves gladly into the isolation of some ''native'' bordin. The life of the man or woman who must board in Cuba has little attraction. Those who live it stay, and endure, only because they are paid, and well paid, to stand its loneliness and petty annoyances. They are usually the local representatives of American busi- ness concerns, clerks, and stenographers. They earn from $80 a month, which the ''English only" stenog- rapher and t^^pewriter considers very poor pay indeed, to $100 or even $125 paid to the "English-Spanish" stenographer, or extra competent clerk, up as far as $200 and $300 "and commissions," maybe, coming to the agent of the little steamship line, or the machinery?- manufacturer, or the wholesale dealer in sheet tinfoil. No matter what amount he draws on pay day, the American finds that it goes fast, and the chap among the lot who saves is a phenomenon. The lad who loses, and sometimes wins, at the rate of a hundred a clip on Jai Alai is easier to locate. The money comes easy and it goes easy. One's room is no place to stay ; the sitting room below, if there is one, is no more invit- ing, unless the landlady's daughter is pretty, and then 154 CUBA it is dangerous. Amusements are few. The theaters are hot and the plays poor. It is an exertion to attend outing parties, — even to get to the bathing beach on Sundays. Friends Uve at distances, scattered over the city and suburbs. It is hard work, and dull work, even to call. The easiest thing to do is to loaf in a cafe, svhere the other fellows are doing likewise, or to join a /poker crowd in somebody's room or at the Club. If one loafs in a cafe it comes natural to drink something. It takes very little liquor in only a very shallow cup to drown, here in Cuba, even an able man's chances for real and lasting advancement. Unfortunate indeed is the young man who, on coming to Cuba, finds an easy job in Havana itself , and never progresses further than the Ambos Mundos or the Cafe Aleman. Profitless as life then becomes for a man, it is worse yet for a woman, — for the stenographer, for instance, who works for the agent along with the clerk. The stenographer lives on a roof, at the top of an endless stair that leads up from the patio of a boarding house. She has one room ; its walls are shining white, with blue trimmings. There is one high window and two doors opening on the flat tiled azotea which is the top of that three-story building. Her bed is a couch in the daytime, hidden under a bright-colored cover and a pile of sofa cushions. There are pictures everywhere, of everything, from chromo calendar tops with the ad- vertisements cut away, to Copley prints and water- color originals and pen-and-ink sketches by artists the stenographer has known. Her dresser wears a white, lace-fringed scarf, and, with its array of cushions and ebony and silver toilette articles, is not the least attractive piece of furniture in her apartment. There is a typewriter in one corner and a sewing machine in FOBEIGNERS IN CUBA 155 the other, and small cups and saucers and tin boxes of crackers and candles on a tea table in the third; the fourth is curtained off, and sometimes a ruffle or a ribbon or an edge of lace protruding proclaims that this is her wardrobe. Her washstand is banished to the limbo which is behind that curtain, along with her trunk. There are plenty of big chairs, and the doors of the room are always open so a good wind whips through, and sometimes there comes with it the perfume of flowers from the little collection of potted plants standing about on the roof which is her garden floor outside. She gets her meals where she finds them best, or, wearied sometimes of hunting for them, she has them sent in, in white enameled dishes that fit together like a tall white can, from some near-by kitchen, which for about $10 a month will furnish her the noon '^break- fast'' and dinner. Few visitors come to the stenog- rapher's roof except other girls who work and fellow clerks in their own or similar offices, among whom one calls oftener and oftener, until the rest, when they do happen up, feel like '^ a crowd," and thereafter stay away. Together, then, two sit in the still silver light of a won- derful tropic moon hung like a special glorious lantern in the zenith just above them, and under its solitary eye they are quite as well behaved as though each tall cement basket that ornaments the fence-like top of the house's street fagade were the most carping of chap- erons. He invites her to go to Malecon to hear the band ; to dine with him, at some fair restaurant ; to attend some special performance at the theater, and then she wears the fluffy and lace-trimmed dresses she has made for herself at trifling cost, and a hat wonderfully fashioned out of the flounce of a last year's party dress, shirred on a wire frame that cost a 156 CUBA dollar, with an ostrich feather added to it, which her Aunt Susan at Pasadena sent her three Christmases ago. The only fly in her clear ointment these days is the knowledge (though she says she doesn't mind) that a couple of score of other American women who do not know her or understand her ways are asking each other with a certain accent, ^^And who is Miss Jones?'' They are blaming her for living in the only way she can endure to live : before she took to the roof she tried ^Hhe cultured Spanish family" who rent ^^one airy room," — ^Preferences exchanged" ; and also the big Cuban boarding house on Industria near San Rafael; and ^Hhe pleasant front room" off Mrs. Smith's parlor, as announced in the Havana Post. She has climbed to the roof in desperation and usually seen to it that there are no other Americans in the house, either ; she has insisted upon a latchkey, and made it plain that she proposes to use it at any hour she will. She has also announced to the landlady that she. ex- pects to receive visitors in her room, — men, women, and children, as they come, and when they come. ''It is the American custom." This goes well enough for a year or two, and then, either he suggests that they happen across to Key West and '' tie up " on the strength of a recent raise he^s received ; or a relative in the North falls ill and summons the stenographer ; or, without any apparent reason for so doing, she drifts away, to Mexico, to South America, to Europe, or home, with a second language and a little money to show for her residence in Havana, — for she has learned Spanish, and saved from her salary during her stay. Or it has happened that it was not a clerk, but ''the boss" himself, who frequented her azotea, and took her to dine at no merely fair restaurant, but to the very best FOREIGNERS IN CUBA 157 there is, which considerably increased the agitation of the ladies of Vedado, — ^^for he is such a nice man, you know/^ One day the stenographer decides to go home. About a month later ^Hhe boss'^ follows, ^^on business,^' and a little later still one reads in ''Brief City News'' that Mr. and Mrs. John Richard Doe were among passengers arriving yesterday on the Ward Line steamer. They decide to carry the war right into the enemies' country : they rent a house in Vedado, on the hill, which is the choicest section of that aristo- cratic suburb, with a view of Old Ocean and Morro from its veranda, and a lovely outlook on the sunset over Chorrera to be had from the dining room door. The bride's girl friends in the North, when they read of her wedding and honeymoon return to the South, imagine her ensconced in a bungalow cottage ''in the shade of the sheltering palm" or "under the bamboo tree." She knows that one must be a strenuous acro- bat to chase the shade of a palm around its bole, and, furthermore, that the bamboo is not, as far as appear- ances go, a tree. She is not surprised to find her new home in Vedado a solemn, one-story, rectangular con- struction of stone and mortar, with no amiable nooks or corners in evidence anywhere. Outside it is plainly plastered and colored a bearable buff, or a delicate pink, or sea green, or sky blue. The windows are set in even rows ; their regularity reminds her of pictures children draw with the aid of rulers at their earliest artistic age, labeling them: "This is a house." The door will be exactly in the middle of the front, and the windows distributed with mathematical precision from that as a starting point. These windows are large, and, as is usual in Cuba, without glass panes. They are equipped with iron bars, or a fancy grille, which is 158 CUBA painted white or blue ; there are wooden shutters colored to match, and, inside of these, solid wooden blinds to close when it rains. She, being acquainted with Havana, is not struck with the absence of a chim- ney in her house, as in all the rest she overlooks from its eminence on the hill. This new home of hers probably stands boldly out in the middle of a treeless lot on grassless ground where still are piled the scraps of stone, the heaps of sand, and all the driblets of mortar scattered by the work- men who built it there. She will not find a single vine entwined on the fancy iron railings of the fence about that small desert. But the house next door stands embowered in green, and from it she takes comfort. With it before her as encouragement she bullies her landlord and browbeats him into some sort of coopera- tion, or, failing of this, entirely at her own expense she has the trash removed from her lot, and she buys rich red soil to spread over its poor foundation. In this dirt she will eventually succeed in growing crotons, with gay bright leaves, and possibly some roses, to- gether with creepers all along her fence and over her veranda, but she will not succeed in covering her red dirt with a lawn unless she can afford to hire a very skillful gardener. Between the rows of her little plants it will continue to glow, dark to a magenta shade in heavy rain, a constant menace to her trailing petti- coats, which it stains. The internal arrangement of her house will be simple, — and much the same as that of our house in town. The whole front probably is one room, — the parlor, — and back of it are other rooms in a row, intercommuni- cating by way of door spaces from six to ten feet high, midway of which hang little glass screens like the baize FOREIGNERS IN CUBA 159 doors of American saloons. All these rooms in a row open upon the patio. The kitchen is somewhere at the back of the house, with the dining room, the bath- room, the servants' quarters and the storerooms, all located without any consideration for convenience. The walls throughout are white plaster (woodwork, blue) and so very high the bride will measure the im- mense distance between bright-tiled floor and raftered ceiling and despair of ever decorating it all, as she did with difficulty succeed in doing in the case of only one small room on a roof. As time passes, however, she will find that these bare walls no longer look lonesome to her, — they seem only clean and fresh and cool and restful ; when she goes North on vacation low-ceiled rooms oppress her and the patterns of wall paper irritate. She comes to like her curtainless windows through which she sees the eternally blue sky, with clouds of morning pink and noonday white and even- ing gold, and at night the setting of southern stars around her friend the moon, now round and bright, now thin and pale, a very ''little feather.'' She comes to like her bedroom with its pipe-legged bed all swathed in mosquito netting, and its long-mirrored wardrobes (no C uban house has c lothe s closets)^ She comes to like evSrhnrlittle T^ftchen with its shiny tiles around the sink, its glazed brick fogon (stove) with charcoal gratings on top, and little puddles of ashes it has let drift upon the floor. By that time, too, the neighbors have called, and she discovers there are no enemies in the enemies' country, — Miss Jones is lost to their recollection, and there remains only Mrs. John Richard Doe, ''a dear little thing," who's the wife of ''such a nice man, you know." Far be it from me to attempt to disclose here those 160 CUBA mysteries of social circles within circles into which she is gradually initiated, until, perchance, she comes to be one of ^^the Vedado sef (almost entirely American), and to play bridge and five hundred as devotedly as do the rest of them, unmindful of others less fortunate, who may not enter in, but sit unreconciled and disconso- late upon the portal, murmuring : ''Gamblers !'' She forms, too, her own little clique somewhat apart from ^Hhe Vedado set,'' which is, as nearly as I can make it out, an aggregation of particular stars, each one of whom is the central sun of a little solar system of her own. She shares now all those trials and tribula- tions, echoes of which used to amuse her in other days : she herself bemoans the tragedy of the servant prob- lem (the stupidity of Spanish immigrants and the un- reliability of Jamaicans), the heat of the summer, the utter dullness that falls upon ''society'' when winter passes, and she may, too (she who us^d to work eight hard hours a day, regardless of the thermometer), suffer a nervous collapse (for which she blames "this enervating climate"), and demand an annual vacation North as other wives do, considering it both fashionable and necessary. Or, again, she may do none of these things at all, but bend her every energy to making Dick comfortable, to helping him get on in business, to entertaining espe- cially those friends who can and will assist him. She will then find a close "chum" among those English and Canadian matrons who take their tea in quietude at home and appear only when a musicale or some such genuine attraction draws them out. Then she'll find no summer vacation necessary except on account of the children, and the only complaint she'll make against this country is the lack of good schools. FOREIGNERS IN CUBA 161 Touching edges with ^Hhe Vedado set/' there is in Havana a cosmopoUtan social coterie such as one finds, I think, in every capital city, the world over. To it belong, by virtue of their appointments, tlie resident diplomats of the United States and Europe, and a few other persons, regardless of nationality, whose culture makes them acceptable and whose wealth enables them to ^^keep the pace,'' which, here, as far as I am able to observe, is not particularly a ^^ swift" one. These people live much the same life the world over. Their customs are not national, but international, and they converse in any and all of the modern languages, as convenience may dictate. It is not unusual to hear one address the other in French and elicit a reply in Span- ish, or, having put a question in English, to get its answer in German. In this circle, here in Cuba, there is, as far as I know, only one American woman (beside, of course, the United States minister's wife) who genu- inely ^'belongs" ; she not only '^belongs," but she leads. A few others of her compatriots cling to the edges, and may, in time, attain. I know at least one English- woman who would be welcomed, if she desired, as she seems not to, to enter in. There are, in this same small company, a good representation of Cubans, the wives, in some instances, of Germans. There are German- born ladies, and French. It is customary to suppose that there are more permanent and exacting social circles than even this one, in which only Cuban ^^ old- est families" move, but I doubt that this is the case. Americans are enrolled as members in about all the Spanish regional societies ; they desire the benefits membership confers in case of sickness. Some few Americans belong to the amateur musical and dramatic associations here. There is a German Club, considered 162 CUBA very exclusive ; it gives a ball on the emperor's birth- day. There is a Yacht Club with a single yacht which visits its clubhouse at Marianao Beach every Sunday. There is an American Club to associate membership in which other nationalities are admitted ; it is the pivot around which the formal social life of the English- speaking colony swings. The Club gives balls on American national holidays, when every American, his wife, and daughters, their English, Canadian, Spanish, and Cuban friends, the diplomatic circle and local officials, march up its marble stairway, which is then trimmed in greens and tiny red, white and blue lights, and, after a turn on the unyielding marble floors above, march down again. The Club is the informal rendezvous of all English- speaking residents here. It has, in this capacity, a rival in the unnamed, unchartered tertulia (party, gathering), to which they all belong, that holds forth on the terrace of the Miramar at the foot of Prado, regu- larly, each day at the hour when the sun goes down beyond Vedado, hghting all the intervening sea and sky to the zenith with flaring color. At the poUshed tables of native hardwood along the seaward side of the hotel one may find, between five and six on any after- noon, the leading foreign residents of Havana; they are unfaiUng habitues. Here, too, their wives appear, from shopping or the afternoon drive, to partake of an ice or tea. Before them passes as on parade along the Malecon drive the endless chain of conveyances in which all the city is ''taking the air'' at the sunset hour. Steamers leaving or entering port negotiate the narrow mouth of the harbor within a stone's throw of the drive- way ; or, again, it is a white-sailed schooner beating in under Cabanas, whose moss-patched walls glow pink FOREIGNERS IN CUBA 163 in the waning light. As the southern night falls, thick and quickly, whirling carriages and automobiles seen from Miramar become animated silhouettes against a burning background. When the flame in the west burns low, and out, and only ^^ ashes of sunset strew the sky,'' their lamps are lighted; then, in the darkness, each seems a link in a running chain of intermittent glow. Now and then a touring car drawing up at the curb turns the inquisitive eye of its searchlight upon those at table. They sit long. Their thoughts travel far to sea and across it, north and south, and east and west, in the hour they share together on the terrace at Miramar — they will remember that rare period in their days here through after years and over long distance, when they scatter whence they have come, — back again to those various regions they refer to as home. CHAPTER VII A FARCE Las cosas de Cuba no tienen igual} Foreigners (resident or absentee) own, I am con- vinced, at least 75 per cent of Cuba, — fully three fourths of the very soil of the island. I have heard their real estate holdings estimated, by an ofl&ce whose official business it is to know conditions here, at 90 or 95 per cent of the whole. Foreigners (Americans and Europeans of many nationalities) are the owners of the far-reaching sugar fields,^ of the tobacco vegas 1 From a popular song entitled "Cuba," the best known words of which are, freely translated, as follows : "Affairs in Cuba are without their equal anywhere. Her honorable sons are dying, and while they struggle for their ideal, — the American laughs." The tune to which this is sung is one of the syncopated melodies in a minor key most typical of the country, and I know of nothing more touching than to hear these pitifully true words, chanted after nightfall, in the thin high key he affects, by some solitary countryman jogging along his quiet trail in and out among the ghost-like palm trees of the fertile valleys in his native land, especially when he arrives at the wailing chorus : " Cuba, thy sons weep !" 2 Statistics carefully compiled go to show that foreigners own two thirds of this, Cuba's biggest business ; Europeans (Span- iards in the majority) own one third and Americans the other third, exclusive of mortgages American interests have on many a mill rated as Cuban. In perusal of this chapter the reader will be led to the correct conclusion that times are hard in Cuba. The only quarters in which they are not hard are the sugar districts, where the mills (two thirds of them foreign) are very busy piling up profits for foreigners who invest or spend it outside of Cuba, in New York or Paris, the twin heavens of the sugar planter. The great sums they 164 ''CUBA LIBBE — A FABCE 165 of account, of the bristling ruby pineapple fields, of the scattered green citrus fruit orchards,^ and of great circles and irregular rounded segments of circles granted originally to the ancestors of the Spaniards among them by the King of Spain. Probably legal right to small areas (between circles) not covered by these royal grants vests in the government of Cuba, but so muddled are titles and so imperfect the surveys existing, that govern- ment cannot or does not prove its title, — there is no land for homesteading, — ^nd the Cu ban remains a te nant and a squatter in his own cou ntry^ i^or political and administrative purposes the island is divided into barrios, corresponding roughly to our wards and counties, which are grouped into provinces, analogous on the surface only to our states. Six of these are comprised within the so-called Republic of Cuba. Foreigners, and, with them, those Cubans who own real property, pay an annual tax on it, when improved, to the municipalities, which also levy an industrial tax upon business of all sorts ; this, because they are the storekeepers of the island, falls, like the tax upon property, on foreigners. expend in wages go to foreign help, — British, French, German skilled employees and to thousands and thousands of Spanish peasant day laborers, who, when the season ends, embark by the shipload for the Peninsula, where they spend their earnings during the dead sea- son with their families, returning at the commencement of the new crop to repeat the performance. Of the ''wealth of the Indies" the sugar business constitutes Cubans get only the pittance paid to them for the humblest, hardest work entailed, — that of the cane cutter, who swings his machete or guampera from dawn till dark, felling and stripping stalks in the sweltering field. ^ Spaniards and Americans who finance them own the pineapple fields ; Spaniards and an increasing number of American companies own the tobacco vegas ; Americans and Canadians own the orange and grape fruit groves. Cubans are their workmen on wages which average a dollar, American, per diem. 166 CUBA Now the government of municipalities, the govern- ment of the provinces into which they are grouped, and the central or national government over them all, are administered by Cuban citizens, in the name of those other Cubans who are tenants and squatters on the soil which is the foundation of the whole fabric, in consideration of salaries they, the office holders, receive from the revenues accruing in small part from taxes on real estate and industries, paid in by foreigners, as stated, and in large part (85 per cent) from import duties on merchandise brought into the country. This 85 per cent, too, foreigners pay, for they are doing the general business in the course of which that merchan- dise is needed. We have, then, in Cuba, a country owned by for- eigners, the government of which .is supported by foreigners, but administered by Cubans, after such a fashion, however (foreigners have not the suffrage), that these Cubans in office are not answerable to the real source of their salaries for the disbursement of these or other revenues, paid in by the foreigners,. nor in any legitimate manner can they be obligated to con- sider the welfare of the country (owned by foreigners) or of the business conducted (by foreigners) within its boundaries. As at present constituted this is the most expensive government on earth, and those who operate it (the Cuban office-holding class) have every reason to labor to make it even more so, since its extravagancies run to salaries, which they receive, and to even more outrageous contracts and concessions, on which they get liberal ^^ rake-offs.'' While they enjoy these profits on their independence, the bills for the maintenance of the government, which is the sole evidence of the exist- ence of that independence, fall for payment not to ''CUBA LIBBE'' — A FABCE 167 them, but to the foreigner, and, through him, on the ^^ ultimate consumer,'^ who, again, although he is Cuban in part (foreign proprietors, industrials, and business men in general are regardless of nationality when they turn from the customhouse intent on wringing reim- bursement for what they have paid out there from the most necessitous among their renters and customers !), is not in the majority the Cuban office-holding class.^ He is, instead, the unhappy ^^ Cuban of the country, '^ — the petty planter, tobacco grower, charcoal burner] pig-herder, perhaps, and humble wage earner in hamleti and small town, in whose name that fabric of govern- ment stands which is crushing the life out of him. This situation is the reason why only professional politicians, who hold the ^^jobs'^ and accumulate the ^^ rake-offs, '' advocate the continued maintenance of this so-called Republic of Cuba, as against the property holders, the business men of every class and condition, and the miscellaneous population of the island, des- tined, some day, to become its ^^ people ^' who, the first two directly and the last one indirectly, pay the exorbi- tant cost of this republic's upkeep, protestingly, be- cause they do not receive any benefits from it to make the excessive expenditure seem worth while. Americans, when they rushed to the aid of Free Cuba in 1898, supposed that they were intervening in behalf of an oppressed people struggling for justice. The truth is, they championed a horde of disgruntled political aspirants after ^^jobs,'' who cloaked their real aims in the mantles of not a few visionaries working with them, inspired, unquestionably, by genuine patriotism, that modern sentiment which Cuba, like Heine, might have done better without, inasmuch as in these warm latitudes it tends to become maudlin and is readily 168 CUBA prostituted. These two very different varieties of '^patriots'' — the one class working to their own personal ends and the other to accomplish an '^deaP' — found their joint efforts against Spain seconded in the provinces by the simple countryman, who, for his part, cared little for his country and aspired not at all to a place at her ^^crib,'' but desired solely peace and a good market for his crops. Under the Spanish regime he got neither, and therefore he was perfectly willing to see a change. So the '^wars for independence'' waged on ; the office seekers conspired in the town, the visionaries fought in the field, and the noncom- batant guajiro, from Maysi to San Anton, lent to the cause the heavy weight of his inertia. By 1898 the situation taxed human endurance. The Spaniards held only the principal towns (Maceo had died within eighteen miles of Havana itself) to which they had access by sea but not by land. The Cuban insurgents wandered in ragged bands over the interior, avoiding as far as possible formal combat with the. regulars, green and unwilling Spanish boys recruited under laws that compelled them to service, who entertained no animosity against Cubans, but preferred, like their opponents, to escape real battle. Each party in turn, endeavoring to starve the other out, destroyed what- ever of value was encountered ; since the fields and the buildings they burned were either the vast properties of foreign-born proprietors, or the wretched all of the unresisting guajiro, neither Spanish troops nor Cuban insurgents hesitated to apply the torch. All the coun- tryside was rendered bare and black, littered with fallen walls and ruined machinery. At this juncture the battleship Maine blew up in Havana harbor, and the United States intervened. ''CUBA LIBRE'' — A FARCE 169 The first impetuous belief that the Spaniards had brought about this catastrophe out of hate of the Amer- icans, who permitted filibusters to aid the Cubans in arms, cooled under later consideration of the fact that the Cubans alone profited, or might have expected to profit, by the calamity. Still later, when an accident which, had it not been heroically prevented, would have been identical in effect, was so narrowly averted aboard another American war vessel in southern waters, suspicion was lifted somewhat from the Cubans them- selves, so that now the opinion generally prevailing is that the Maine was not willfully wrecked by either Spaniards or Cubans, but was blown up by an explosion within her own hull. The American government's apparent unwillingness to remove the debris from Ha- vana harbor, where they remain an unsightly menace to navigation, has lent support to the rumor that Washing- ton rather dislikes to exhibit the evidence those bent and twisted armor plates, now safely buried in the mud, may show, when lifted to the gaze of an interested world in whose ears rings yet the Spanish-American war cry of ^^ Remember the Maine, '' If the Maine was sunk by an explosion in her own magazines, it will throw a rather unwelcome light on Uncle Sam, who will be shown to have taken up arms on the impetus of a mis- understanding, and, as Cuba learns to her cost in other directions, that eccentric old gentleman fears nothing in the world excepting that world's ridicule. The destruction of the Maine, due to whatever cause, was a very happy occurrence for the Cuban insurgents, for it occasioned the Spanish-American war, brought about the Occupation and the Evacuation of the Spanish forces, into whose places, at the convenience of Amer- ican officials, the soldiers of the Liberating Army (its 170 CUBA ranks vastly increased the moment all danger of fight- ing was over) were permitted to march to the triumphal tune of '^The Invasion.''^ From 1898 to 1902, the United States administered Cuba under a Military Government with generals of our army at its head. The last and best known of these was General Leonard Wood, whose name is associated with improvements effected during the four years mentioned, — with sanitation which routed yel- low fever so that it is no longer epidemic ; with the establishment of schools ; with the building of roads ; with the beautifying of parks and promenades, and the general cleaning, repairing, and furbishing of the coun- try which was done. On May 20, 1902, the American Military Govern- ment of the island withdrew, leaving a Cuban presi- dent, Sr. D. Tomas Estrada Palma, in the palace. The American flag went down from Morro Castle, and the single star of the Cuban banner rose in place of its numerous constellation. I think there can be no doubt but that a very grievous wrong was done to Cuba that day. As one who fought to see his colors on that staff said to me, only yesterday: ^^You claimed to be our friend, yet you handed us a loaded pistol, knowing we would shoot ourselves. '^ Americans since they became such have known no form of government save that of a republic, as constituted by the United States. We consider it the only form of 1 In 1895-1896 Maceo ordered the Cuban revolutionary army to join him in Pinar del Rio Province, theretofore undisturbed by the revolution, and, from all the provinces, across all the trotchas, they came swarming. "The Invasion" is a military march written to that movement, and it was played by the bands which escorted Generalisimo Maximo Gomez and his men into Havana City when they made their triumphal entry here. ''CUBA LIBRE'' — A FARCE 171 government suited to free-born man, and so, doubtless, it is. We were friendly to Cuba, and therefore we handed out to her the best form of government we knew, since, apparently, she had to have one ready-made. We for- got to consider that she was unskilled in manipulating it. A few of us knew at the time that she must destroy herself with the dangerous gift ; the rest of us were so overcome with hysteria at consideration of our own gen- erosity to our young ward that we refused to be in- formed. Americans in the persons of their ancestors were trained toward republican form of government from the very day of the Magna Charta to the famous date in 1775 when they declared their attainment of independ- ence, the expression of which is the government they then constituted. The form of that government was assumed to fit conditions as they existed. The republic was an emanation from a people already trained to exercise the suffrage, and with it the self-control that liberty entails. The United States was not created out of chaos in a moment of stress by a group of divinely inspired statesmen. It was but the next step forward in a logical course of development extending, already, through generations and centuries of time and experi- ence. Cubans have had none of that training, none of that experience ; they did not evolve their own republic as the fit expression of their needs. They and their ances- tors before them were colonial subjects of a Catholic monarchy, and their republic as they got it was fash- ioned for them in four short years by strangers to them and their necessities; it was thrust upon them inopportunely, as a man's worn coat might be wrapped by a hurried nursemaid about a small boy she proposed 172 CUBA to desert. Cuba was forthwith abandoned to her own devices. The result was disaster. We were, in brief, not successful in fitting conditions to a form of government entirely unsuitable to them. Hardly had the battleship bearing General Wood hence dropped over the horizon on which Morro Castle faces than the ''outs'' began to insist on ''jobs'' with most unseemly greed ; the "ins" held on to theirs with might and main, and a vigorous tussle followed. In the course of it, all patriotism, as the visionary who had fought for his "ideal" — Cuba Libre — understood that word, was forgotten in sordid contest. The welfare of the guajiro, planting sweet potatoes, yuca, and malanga out in the country, was not once considered, although he himself was the last man to note the fact, inasmuch as, in the full tide of new hope, the country was prosperous, and he, demanding only peace and a market, was getting, then, all that he desired. Estrada Palma was a good man ; few of his opponents deny that. He was, however, a weak man ; that they live to revile him is one strong bit of evidence of this, his gravest fault. Another is the quality of official friends he chose. Mr. Palma was selected president without regard for factional differences. There was not then and is not yet any party organization in Cuba along lines of difference in policy expressed in platform. There are only absolute divisions into cliques without issue save on the personality of leaders, who, one and all, hold their followers on the strength of "jobs, " actual or potential. As the date (1905-1906) for presidential elec- tions approached for the second time, Mr. Palma thought it necessary to ally himself with one of these factions, known as the Moderate party. Among its leaders, who forthwith gathered about him, were not a few pro- '''CUBA LIBRE'' — A FARCE 173 fessional politicians as unscrupulous as those of the opposition. As the campaign advanced they brought unlawful pressure to bear to win it. To assure Palma's reelection (it meant their own continuance in office) they resorted to insufferable interference in municipal and provincial elections, abuse to which these organi- zations are open because they are not self-supporting (their income from taxes is insufficient), but must ac- cept contributions from the central government, and endure, apparently in recognition of them, its exacting authority over even trivial details of their administra- tion, in a manner surprising to Americans accustomed to see the autonomy of states and counties respected. Palma's partisans padded the election rolls, stuffed the ballot boxes, and intimidated by display of govern- ment forces at the polls those voters who would have gone against them. These things those guilty of them (notably Freyre de Andrade, secretary of state and government) confessed to Mr. Taft at the time he, as head of the American Peace Commission, was sent here by Washington to investigate into the true state of affairs. The Liberals, w^hose own hands were by no means clean, cried aloud to Heaven to witness that it was impossible for them to express theirs, the will of the majority, by ballot. They then resorted to the only recourse Cubans know, — armed rebellion. The ^ ^ Little War of August ' ' (1906) was long gathering. Conspiracies existed in Ha- vana for months beforehand ; the leaders, their meeting places, and the general outline of their plans were known, yet the government took no action against gentlemen it might readily have caught in flagranti in treason. '^Pino" Guerra raised the standard of revolt in Pinar: it consisted, by the way, of a Cuban flag draped in crepe. 174 CUBA Times were hard, as they are apt to become when trouble is anticipated for a long period ahead of its actual ar- rival ; many men were idle, and therefore ready for any diversion. Many others who were or might have been employed, harking back to the not unpleasant freedom of former campaigns, joined in with alacrity. Other leaders appeared in other provinces, and by the end of August there were armed bands out in every province. I shall not forget that ''war'' ! No burlesque on any stage was equal to it in comedy, as seen, at least, from the city editor's desk of the Telegraph, then the best daily paper published in English here. It was difficult to believe that what little blood was shed was of more vital consistency than red ink. I recall with what anxiety we dispatched a ''war correspondent" into the west to inquire of "Pino'' Guerra what this revolution was all about. The cor- respondent, who developed under responsibility from a mediocre reporter into a very capable man "at the front" (he has since been made a Cuban consul in Europe), returned to us a handful of penciled sheets; across each page was signed the potent name "Faustino Guerra, " with a flourish. I have since sent these papers as historical curiosities to the Library of the Johns Hopkins University. This authorized interview was in effect a rebel proclamation ; it was the leader's first public statement of the revolution's demands, and al- though I forget their details now, I know that each and every one of them concerned office, — to wit, "jobs," and the disposition thereof. The uprising had no other object than to oust those who occupied certain desir- able posts, in order to seat other men. With what keen enjoyment I typewrote that pronunciamento and myself pasted it to the Telegraph bulletin board facing upon "CUBA LIBRE'' — A FARCE 175 O'Reilly Street ! Here a crowd congregated to read it, in perfect silence. Shortly another representative sent in a similar communication from General Asbert, then in arms in Havana Province, and when we pasted this, too, alongside the interview with General Guerra, the secretary of war at the palace was moved politely to protest ! We agreed not to paste up any more sue proclamations ; we didn't expect to have any more to paste ; but we did continue to publish all the news we could get from the front, together with a running fire of editorial comment. It was our policy to whoop the row along until American intervention occurred, which we advocated at the earliest plausible opportunity. The government, not daring to suppress us, comforted itself with appointing an official translator of our edi- torials, the inference being that the moment he found in them an excuse for it, the editor would be deported as a ^^ pernicious foreigner. '' There was hardly a line in the editorial column in those days which might not have been considered good ground for violent action, yet the writer of it walked to and from his office at all sorts of hours, unaccompanied, unarmed, — and untouched, despite threats carefully conveyed to him by one or two of the individuals he criticised cleverly. Next door to us La Lucha was doing its best to roll events along in the direction we preferred. Our correspondents were careening overbad roads in farPinarin a volanta together with a big white sign like a flag of truce flapping over them, on which the names of the two publications were lettered in black. I remember receiving one batch of correspondence from our man with a note attached which read : ^^ Please to give this letter also to the Lucha. His correspondent has got catched by the revolution." Needless to say we passed the '^ stuff along. Be- 176 CUBA cause of our attitude toward their movement, our men received every consideration from the rebels. In Havana we got Httle satisfactory news from the palace, after things got to a point where they could no longer with straight faces assure us that ^^ perfect tranquillity prevailed/' We surmised on many occasions that we got no news because they had none to give, the rebels having cut the wires, but received theirs rather from us, who were frequently in closer conamunication with the front than they were. Those were great days. Well-known correspondents of American papers began to arrive, among the keenest of them the late ' ' Nick ' ' Biddle of the New York Herald, who, with ^^ Billy'' Inglis of Harper^ s, made our office headquarters. I remember the first evening after they landed, — how ''Nick" Biddle returned late, and, seating himself at my desk, asked me if I wanted to take down a good ''story." " G-g-g-graf t, " he be- gan, "says Freyre de Andrade, is 'Pino' Guerra's sole motive in heading the present uprising against the Palma government." He then went on in his own peculiar stammering fashion to dictate to me what seemed to me then and still seems, long after, the most perfect newspaper "story" I have ever read. He had seen the secretary of state and government and from him obtained a declaration that "Pino" Guerra had offered to quash a previous start at revolution "for a consideration." The man was again in debt and hard up, and Freyre inferred that the revolution then in prog- ress was but another attempt on "Pino's" part to hold up the government. When he had finished the article Mr. Biddle arose, and fixing me in my chair with a kindly eye he said : " You write the caption, and p-p-put it all in the headlines. Miss Wright. P-p-put it all in the T PhJiogfaph ^ylAmtiiuin Pf: qfo Crmpfiny PlERO Gu^RlA ' * > , ' ' ^ 7' Revolutionary Leader of the " Little War" of August, 1906, which overthrew the Palma administration and occasioned American intervention "CUBA LIBRE'' — A FARCE 177 headlines. Every good story is told once in the head- lines, once in the first p-p-paragraph, and then you tell it all over again, you s-s-see/' I saw, and no novice ever had better schooling in real newspaper work than I under '^Nick'' Biddle, during the next few weeks. I learned immensely to admire that man, against whom, prior to his coming, I had heard much that was unfavor- able, most of it untrue. He was his own worst enemy, and he had no fault save that which had almost mas- tered him on another memorable night when he dictated to me the famous tale of the armored train. In the telling he hesitated and was silent between paragraphs ; he struggled, and then, helplessly, would say to me : ^^P-p-put me on the track, Miss Wright, p-p-put me on the track. '^ I would reread the last paragraph he had dictated, and with that as assistance his mind pushed on, against the fog over it, erecting word by word and sentence by sentence the masterly structure of a news- story, — for there is a skill in the hot and hurried work, done while the linotype waits, and ''Nick'' Biddle was a genius at it. I wish that I could retell here as he told it the classic history of ''The Gunshy Armored Train, '' as Slevin, the editor, in comment not often equaled for wit, named it, suggesting a camel stomach attachment for armored engines to avoid thereafter difficulties such as befell this one. It set out, bravely enough, with the "Foreign Legion'' of highly paid scrub volunteers aboard in com- mand of a remarkable collection of American officers, all in a Western Railway train protected against attack, and carrying a small field gun. Near the Ovas bridge it ran, so its officers explained, into an ambush. We learned later from our correspondent that what it encountered was "Pino" Guerra and his staff, riding ahead of their 178 CUBA column, who, being as surprised as they could be to see a train not on schedule, took a few shots at it from behind some side-tracked freight cars, preparatory to removing themselves from range immediately. To their astonishment, however, the fireman jumped off the en- gine and ran for cover, the engineer reversed the throttle, and the whole train retreated down the tracks at top speed, scattering wild shots from roof, sides, and bottom regardless of damage done to Western Railway property. Thereafter the company sent troops out in box not passenger cars. Backward the train took its headlong flight, till it drew up, many kilometers from the scene of the encounter, beside a water tank where it refreshed itself somewhat. It was then offered in explanation that the engine had to have water, so, discovering its necessity on sight of ^^Pino^' Guerra, went back after it, none of the water beyond Ovas or in numerous tanks passed on the retreat having tempted its particular taste. Meanwhile, all Havana hung in suspense to know the havoc this armored train and its ''Foreign Legion'' might work on Guerra and his men. When the truth became known, hilarity passed all bounds. In vain the officers sought to stem the tide of laughter, nor did my own contribution to the merriment subside when one assured me that what they had retreated for was ammunition. ''And where was the ammunition?'' I inquired, desiring to poke no unmerited fun at any warrior. "It was," he said, in confidential tone, "in the baggage car, ahead, ^^ Looking back, now, without any file of the paper to guide me, I cannot recall the sequence of events. I remem- ber the day we heard that Orestes Ferrara had blown up three great sugar mills, the property of foreigners, in Santa Clara province : one Spanish, one English, ''CUBA LIBRE'' — A FABCE 179 and one American. We learned that the Discusion had received a dispatch to this effect, signed, as usual, '^Cor- respondent/^ Our city man, hastening to the depart- ment of state, had seen the owner of the Spanish mill rushing from that^ office, white with rage at his loss. The department had received a similar dispatch, sent by the government telegrapher at the station nearest to the disaster. Not till much later did we learn that the mills had not been touched ! Ferrara had merely taken possession of the telegraph station, sent the dispatch signed ^'Correspondent'' himself, forced the telegrapher to send the other, and then destroyed the station to prevent any denial going forth. He accomplished as much by the ruse as he could have done by blowing a few million dollars worth of property into useless junk. From that day the foreign legations began to take close notice of the situation, and their home governments communicated, doubtless, with Washington. It is known that the Court of St. James was not inactive while Cuban Central Railway engines were sent head- on full speed to collide with each other on bridges, and Western Railway culverts soared skyward at the dis- charge of dynamite. Both of these companies are British, and they were attacked precisely to compel action in London. They have since collected damages. The insurgents desired to occasion American interference, and the end, in it, of the Palma regime they were not able to oust by other means. The cruiser Denver came, with decks cleared for action ; she poked her stern into the front door of the port captain's office. Her guns then commanded O'Reilly and Obispo streets. I remember the night ''Nick" Biddle came pounding up our circular stairs, thrust his head through the door, shouting: "Come on, Slevin, all hell's due to break loose in fifteen 180 CUBA minutes, and Vve got to be there to see/' That was the night the rebel General Loynaz was expected to invade Havana with fire and oil, the police mutinying to meet him ; it was the night Palma declared his inability to protect foreign life and property; and the night the Denver landed her bluejackets. It was also the night that nothing happened at all. My mother and I walked home, unaccompanied, all the long length of O'Reilly in the dawn, unmolested, as usual ; on the corners we saw policemen carrying rifles instead of clubs, the sole indication that we were under martial law. I recall the night that President Roosevelt's letter to the Cuban people, announcing the appointment of the Peace Commission, arrived page by page over the cable. From the ^'flimsy" I typewrote it for appear- ance down the center of our front page next morning. We blazoned it forth, for its appearance marked the triumph of our desire : American intervention, though not formally declared for some time thereafter, had, in point of fact, begun. I think that when President Roose- velt wrote that missive he wrote from his heart, for sent by cable and in multitudinous copies to all the news- papers of the Associated Press and nobody knows how many independent services besides, it still retained a vibrant personal note, — an echo of the living voice of the man who thinks himself their friend, addressing in a crisis a people who begin to doubt it. Soon the Peace Commission landed, Mr. Taft, then American secretary of war, at its head, and thereafter for many days long conferences were held in the Amer- ican minister's palace in Marianao. Representatives of the Palma administration told their troubles into Mr. Taft's left ear. Representatives of the rebels in arms, camped just beyond La Lisa bridge, told their "CUBA LIBRE'' — A FARCE 181 troubles into his right ear. Later Mr. Taft submitted a Report which was printed and pubhcly distributed, in which he retold what they told, in a manner so simple, frank, and faithful that the astute gentlemen who had done the talking were paralyzed with astonishment at his na'ivite. That report is the clearest statement possible of Cuban character and conduct before and during that troublous period, and who would know the facts need but read it. It is monumental evidence that Mr. Taft understands Cubans and the Cuban situation. It does not explain why, so knowing, his policy should have been what it was. I remember how news arrived that General Mario Menocal was coming up from Chaparra, at the last moment, to effect a reconciliation between the administration and rebels, in the name of the Veterans of the Wars for Independence, among whom he is in- fluential. I think we never learned just what oc- curred, for the general was reticent, but it was under- stood that he received scant courtesy at the palace; he went home, and the incident alienated many of the administration's friends, for General Menocal is trusted as well as admired and it had been hoped that he would succeed in arranging a compromise by way of which American intervention might still have been avoided. President Palma, however, insisted upon resigning. Official dispatches exchanged at the time between Havana and Washington indicate that Palma had ex- pected the American representatives to uphold him and his government, as, assuredly, he had every reason to do, since it was the established government they themselves had set up and he was the president elected, legally or illegally, to be the head of it. During his administration, it is true, abuses had been committed, 182^ CUBA but they were all remediable ; certainly the men in arms against him were in no position to criticise him even for the worst that had been done, in his name. Yet Mr. Taft and Mr. Bacon trafficked with forces in open rebellion against their own country. It is a hard thing for Americans to accept, but the only explanation is that the Peace Commission was actually afraid of the horde of ragamuffins assembled at Havana^s gates. Yet these unorganized hordes would have vanished at the Commission's mere mandate, or, had they not, one charge of American cavalry would have dispersed them. It was precisely the effect of having, perhaps, to charge them which Mr. Taft as the head of that Commission feared, for the time was close on the elec- tion in which he was to appear as candidate for the American presidency, and, undoubtedly, necessary and wise as it might have been under the circumstances, had he had to use force to disband the Constitutional Army (as the rebels were called) it would not have made pleas- ant reading in the opposition newspapers of the North. Therefore Mr. Taft temporized, — and in so doing he gave tone to all the Provisional Administration which followed. He suggested compromise to Mr. Palma, this compromise to consist in the resignation of certain officials elected at the time that he was reelected for his second term : in short, Mr. Taft suggested that a few fat '^fruits'' from the official '^plum tree'' be handed to the leaders of the opposition then encamped beyond La Lisa. Mr. Palma retorted that if the gentlemen Mr. Taft proposed to sacrifice were not entitled to their posts, then neither was he, elected under identical condi- tions. Mr. Palma maintained that the proposition stripped him of dignity as a man inasmuch as it implied that he held office to which he was not entitled; "CUBA LIBRE'' — A FARCE ' 183 moreover, as president sworn to defend his country and its constitution, he could have no parleyings with men guilty of treason against that country. He left the palace stigmatized as a coward, but, as time passes, history, on whom he called to judge him, inclines to declare that, under the circumstances into which his weakness had led him, he did all that remained to him as right. The vice-president also having resigned, Mr. Taft called upon the congress to choose a successor accept- able to both contending parties. No quorum could be secured. I remember that night, especially, how we in the newspaper office sat waiting, as hour after hour the reports came in ; the last one was to the effect that friends were leading General Boza from the chamber, protesting, with tears pouring down his face, that they postpone adjournment just a little longer in hopes that enough of his fellow members could be rallied to their duty to save the country from formal foreign interven- tion. Before morning Taft declared himself provisional governor. The Provisional Administration of the Republic of Cuba was organized. Note in the title how careful its guardians were to preserve the name of the fabric from which they had just crushed what little of substance it had had ! ' Judge Charles E. Magoon, who had made an enviable record but lately in Panama, was soon appointed pro- visional governor to succeed Mr. Taft. Although I have, naturally, no means of knowing, I believe that Magoon' s sole instructions were to keep things quiet that there might be no ''Cuban Question'' to trouble the campaign in which Mr. Taft was elected President of the United States. If these were his instructions. 184 CUBA assuredly Magoon carried them out to the letter, for during the critical electoral period Cuba was little more than mentioned. To secure that quietude, how- ever, to disturb which might possibly have jeopardized Republican success, Magoon paid dear in American reputation in this country. Mr. Taft had set him the example; all potential trouble makers were to be bought off, as the Constitu- tional Army was, with the sacrifice of the Palma ad- ministration to its leaders, and the free gift of horses they had stolen to the rank and file of its men. I refer to what has become notorious as ^Hhe docked- tailed horse deal.'' The rebels in arms against the government helped themselves as they traveled over the country to horses, which they bestrode. When details of disbanding came up for consideration before the Peace Commission, how to return these horses to their rightful owners was a vexing question. It was decided to provide each man with a card accrediting him (as nearly in accordance with the laws of the country as might be) as provisional owner of the animal in his possession until such time as the rightful owner might be found. Many riders docked the tails of their horses and otherwise attempted to disguise them so that the rightful owners might never identify their own. ^^Un- fortunately,'' to quote Mr. Taft's own version of what occurred. General Frederick Funston '^allowed the cer- tificates to read in Spanish as if vesting title" to their mounts in the insurgents. The mistake was a trans- lator's slip for which Mr. Taft assumed the blame. He had not, however, the courage to remedy the matter, but, estimating that it would cost the Cuban government only $500,000, he let the matter stand and arranged that the rightful owners when found should be paid ''CUBA LIBRE'' — A FARCE 185 for the horses they had lost. Naturally, they did not get full value. The bitterness engendered throughout the country was an even higher price paid in addition to the cash the mistake cost Cuba. The feeling of a hard-working petty planter who had saved for years to buy a horse may be imagined when he saw some loa^giig neighbor come riding that beast home, made safe by Mr. Taft's certificate that he owned it, while he, the man who had worked and paid for that one possession dear to a Cuban's heart, received, after some months' delay, a sum in recompense considerably less than he would have accepted for the beast at sale ! In accordance with such example as this Mr. Magoon governed the country for the period that the Provisional Administration was permitted to endure. He dealt through the official ^^ Commission on Jobs,'' whose duties were to distribute honors and office among con- tending factions in such manner as to keep them all satisfied, or, at least, hopeful. He provided reasons for continued excursions abroad for those leaders it was not wise to have at home. He tolerated and even made much over a good many persons that no American can doubt that as good an American as the Nebraskan was must have longed earnestly to boot down the steps of the palace they frequented. Meanwhile, Mr. Magoon considered the millions in the coffers of the treasury, — the surplus Estrada Palma had jealously guarded, — and, determined that it should not, as Mr. Palma had half feared, ^^fall into mercenary hands, " he proceeded to spend it all, and more, on public im- provements, especially roads. The distribution among workingmen of this treasury surplus made the control of Cuban affairs far less interesting to most political aspirants than it had seemed, yet, when the hour for 186 CUBA presidential and other elections arrived, there were three factions with candidates in the field, — the Conservatives (successors of the Moderates, though they deny it), the Miguelistas (followers of General Jose Miguel Gomez), and the Zayistas (those of Lie. Aif^^edo Zayas), which are the two wings of the Liberal partj^ disrupted in a quarrel over ^^jobs^^ in 1905. As the names indicate, there was no organization into parties on the line of principles, but still the old absolute divisions according to the personality of the leader preferred. The Conservatives, whose candidate was General Mario Menocal, proved so unexpectedly strong that the Miguelistas and the Zayistas found it necessary to combine into one Liberal party again to save the day, so they divided up the slate, and General Gomez headed the ticket, with Zayas as candidate for the vice- presidency, and only Juan Gualberto, who declined to support Zayas in the move, saw anything to be ad- versely commented upon in this sudden reconciliation of two bitter opponents. It is understood that to effect the combination Gomez promised not to accept a second term. Next election it will be Zayas^ turn as occupant of the presidential palace. Gomez was elected. He was duly installed ; Ma- goon and the army officers who were the officials of the Provisional Administration sailed away on the battle- ships (one was the new Maine, which entered Havana Harbor eleven years to the hour after her ill-fated pre- decessor) and the transport sent to convey them. Once more Cuba was left with a hair-trigger republican form of government, cocked, in her shaking hand. This administration, inaugurated on February 28, 1908, has already lasted longer than it was anticipated, "-CUBA LIBBE'' — A FARCE 187 at its commencement, that it could. Its record is the same old story of greed and ^^graff in high places and in low, too monotonous and sordid to be pleasant or necessary to detail. The biggest '^deaP' yet attempted is at the present moment pending : it concerns the concession by the government of exceedingly valuable lands along the water front to a railway corporation in exchange for certain centrally located but much less valuable lands in the heart of the town. The loss to the country, if the transaction as first planned occurs, will be very great ; the gain to the railway company will be as great, and the profit to certain of the legislators who champion the ^ transaction, in proportion. The newspapers are by the ears pro and con, and one con- gressman in favor of the exchange only the other day attempted to shoot another on the floor of the house because of his opposition to the bill in the matter. This same Congress has just raised the salary of its own members a hundred dollars a month, — meanwhile public improvements are at a standstill for lack of funds, and schools are being abolished on the ground that there is no money to pay for their support. The lottery is in full blast, and there is cockfighting every Sunday in pits newly built all over the island ; agree- ments to establish these two forms of national diver- sion were important planks in the Liberal party's plat- form. General business, especially around Havana and through the center and west of the island, is at a standstill ; only in the far east, where cane flourishes in sun and rain, and in the far west, where tobacco grows luxuriant in the marvelous soil of Vuelta Abajo, is there some semblance of prosperity, — and this because the regions and their industries are far removed from the seat of government and the center of the machina- 188 CUBA tions of professional politicians, than whom there is here no other kind. As early even as the ending of President Palma^s first administration the visionaries who constituted the second active element among those who labored for Cuba Libre, and at first took some part in public affairs, began to discover that their '4deal,'' attained, was turning to ashes in their hands. Before the Provisional Administration was through with the country, they were ready to cast aside the few cinders which remained within their grasp. I know one such man personally. He fought through the ''bush'^ four years for Free Cuba. The day that the Cuban flag went up on Morro Castle was the happiest, so he says, he ever saw. '^It was,'' he has told me, ^Hhe realization of the dream that warmed me through many a rainy night on the open road and cooled me through many a hot and sweltering day in the sultry jungle.'' Under Palma this gentleman, having learned the work of that de- partment under the Military Government precisely as a man learns a business of his own, rose to be secretary of the treasury, and he it was who held the key to the coffers where the millions in surplus were stored away. Mr. Taft, in the Report I have mentioned, names Secretary Fonts and President Palma as the two honest men he encountered in the course of his investigation here as Peace Commissioner ! With Palma, Fonts Sterling went out of office. The change meant little enough to him personally, because his attainments were sufficient to obtain for him immediately a good post with our leading bank, but the humiliation entailed at the time on his country meant much, and now, I, who used to hear him say time and again, when he was assistant auditor under Lieutenant Brooks, and, "CUBA LIBRE'' — A FARCE 189 later, under Major Terrill (1900-1902) : '^How kind and good the Americans are ! They are training my country ; and we are learning V have now to hear him inquire of me, whenever we meet : ^^ Well, what do you think of this ? See what they have done to us ! If ever another American intervention such as this second one is threatened here I will go out and fight ; they shall come in only over me, dead ! They have ruined us, but, prostrate as we are, we^U stand no more such treat- ment !'' This man^s attitude is that, I think, of most of those who fought against Spain solely for their country's cause. They consider that they have been betrayed, and they are desperate. They see no way to turn. They hold aloof from affairs as they stand to-day, here, for they are powerless to reform them. They recall the Provisional Administration with rage and hate they make no attempt to disguise, for it was that ad- ministration which handed Cuba over, a sacrifice to the Republican party in the North, into the power of her own worst elements. They consider that the caliber of men elevated to office is an affront to the culture and intelligence of the island. They will have nothing to do, personally, socially, or politically, with the persons now in the heyday of power. Only once have they attended in number any public social function since Palma was president, and that was the reception ten- dered by the City of Havana to General Leonard Wood and Mrs. Wood upon the occasion of their recent visit here. There were no less than seven members of cabinets under Palma, with their wives and daughters, present that day. With them came all the '' quality '' of the capital. It was a resurrection. If General Wood was asked once that afternoon how soon Cuba 190 CUBA might expect him back, in his former capacity, he was asked full fifty times. The query followed him through all the fetes and functions with which he was kept busy from the moment he landed until his warship cleared. To this question he replied, once that I know of, that ''We must hope for the best/' To which the little Cuban lady who had asked, cried eagerly : '^ Ah, then, — it is soon !'' The welcome Cuba extended to General Wood had, as it was fully intended to have, just one significance. Through Havana the country said: '^ Return! We are in dire need ! You have betrayed us, yet, being helpless, weVe no recourse but to trust you again. Give us, since nothing we have had since has proven as good, the strong-handed military administration we had before. '' Even men of the type of Fonts Sterling, though possibly he, personally, is too deeply hurt ever to forgive, say, looking into the future : ''Never again such an administration as the provisional government ! But a heavy-fisted determined regime like General Wood's, much as we may have criticised it when he handed it out to us, is the only thing to save us now.'' Not even that, it seems to me, can prove more than a temporary palliative unless the deep and underlying evils of which the whole state of affairs in Cuba is but symptoms, are remedied : and to remedy them, if it can be done at all, will take more than a generation of time. The reform, like charity, which, to Cuba it would prove to be, must begin at home, — in Wash- ington. The United States has acquired dependencies. Cuba is one of them ; no legal fiction can alter the fact that she is. It is a little late in the day to discuss whether or not we want dependencies : the fact stands that we have them on our hands. Here they are, and we can't ''CUBA LIBBE'' — A FARCE 191 get rid of them. Having them, we must administer them, and to do it properly we need a colonial depart- ment. During the late provisional administration of Cuba the world witnessed the peculiar spectacle of an official under the state department (the American minister to Cuba, for we kept up the farce of diplomatic representation here during that period) presenting his credentials to an official under the war department (the provisional governor, who received them in Cuba's name). The detail is interesting merely for its ulterior significance : we have not the proper means by which to administer these dependencies we can't get rid of. We bungle the business : they suffer. Succeeding ad- ministrations at Washington are loth to provide the means necessary, because, forsooth, they fear an ^^anti- imperialistic'' hue and cry from the country at large. Under the pressure of necessity, however, a semblance of a colonial department is coming together, surreptitiously, as it were, around the nucleus of our Bureau of Insular Affairs. Such a department, once it exists, ought to be removed from politics, — a feat much easier to suggest than to accomplish. Until, however, we do accom- plish it, the peoples whose fate we must continue to handle will still be batted hither and yon like tennis balls over a court in the course of the ^^game" of politi- cal controversy which is the very life of our Great Re- public. The one single reason why General Wood succeeded in administering Cuba where Governor Magoon failed was because General Wood was a military man and his a military government, — that is, he had no need to consider politics in any aspect. He had nothing to do but what was right, and, with soldierly brusqueness, he did it, as far as he was able. Governor Magoon, on the other hand, himself a political possibility to higher 192 CUBA place, conducted a civil administration for the presi- dential nominee of a political party. It was his task to do not so much what was right as what was expedient, — and he did it. Once we have a proper colonial department, with men not biased by political considerations at the head of it, the future of our possessions will brighten like the east at sunrise, for such men will have inclination, ability, and opportunity to consider what those dependencies need, and time to carry out the projects so intelligently formulated. They will discover for instance that the '^ crisis'^ which seems to exist, eternal and omnipresent, in Cuba is not, despite appearances, political at all, but economic. Having discovered this (they will not be the first to know it), they will have tenure in their office assured them long enough to permit them to rem- edy basic evils. This is the opportunity which has not presented itself to any American administration of Cuba yet; Governor-General Wood thought it was his, as, doubtless, had McKinley lived, it would have been; but McKinley died, and the impetuous Roosevelt snatched it from him by the order terminating the Military Government in 1902, — many a good long year short of its season ! At Roosevelt^s command (not by the will of a non- existent Cuban people) the Cuban republic arose in a night, on soil owned by others than its electors, swarm- ing with a bureaucracy these foreigners and producing Cubans have had to support ever since. There it stands, tottering, and pregnant with militant trouble as was the Trojan horse of old ; when finally it collapses to its inev- itable destruction let Americans on hearing the crash recall distinctly, that this republic is not a creature of Cubans, — it was neither fashioned by them nor by them "CUBA LIBRE'' — A FARCE 193 upheld, — but on the contrary, it is of all- American manufacture. Americans built it. Americans set it up again when once it fell flat. American influence is all that sustains it to this moment. If they discover any- thing to criticise in it, or its failure, let Americans re- member in so criticising that they are dealing with the work of their own hands. CHAPTER VIII WANTED : A MARKET ! Cuba, tus hijos lloran ! ^ Investigating into basic — that is, economic — : conditions underlying all the surface — that is to say, the political — evils to which Cuba is protesting heir, — such a colonial department as the United States ought to have (must have, some day) will take note that despite frequent boasts to the contrary this is a country crushed under heavy taxation: it is largely indirect taxation, and therefore easily disguised ; it falls heaviest where its burden is least readily borne. Consider, for instance, the fundamental matter of the land owned in large tracts by wealthy individuals or in community by families. For centuries titles and surveys were in such condition no legal transfer could be made ; all sorts of subterfuges were resorted to instead of outright sale. It was easier and simpler to rent small parcels rather than part with them to petty buyers. On undeveloped tracts there has never been any taxation : to this day owners can well afford to let square miles of countryside lie idle, refusing to cultivate it themselves or to allow others to do so; there is no penalty in the form of a land tax on this, their ^^dog-in-the-manger'^ attitude. But the moment they, or tenants, begin to develop land, it acquires a rental value, and on this there is taxation (4 per cent in the case of rural and 8 per cent in the ** ^ Cuba, thy sons weep." See note 1, p. 164. 194 WANTED: A MARKET! 195 case of urban property, per annum, 30 per cent of which the municipahty which levies it turns over to the prov- ince within which the real estate is situated). In effect the government penalizes the owner, and, through him, the renter, for the serious misdemeanor of industry. Why should such a landed proprietor trouble himself (such is the red tape involved it is, indeed, a trouble) when he can well afford to wait until, as they say here, ^Hhings remedy themselves'^? What encouragement has the small farmer to exert himself beyond the day's necessity? He cannot, unless he is very fortunate, possess himself of any land of his own. Even if the proprietor would, he cannot^ very frequently, to this day, give title to any particular parcel within his estate. If he troubles himself even to rent to the small grower of any crop, he must charge enough above the real value of the soil's use to reimburse himself for the fine (it amounts to that) the government then levies upon him for permitting his land to be made valuable by cultivation. The neatest solution all 'round is for the man who desires to grow anything to go squat in a locality he likes ; when the owner discovers him at work there (he may be long finding it out), he will set a price on his continuance, and this the countryman will pay, if he can ; he will move on if he can't. These are reasons why the guajiro of Cuba lives like a hog in a hovel : why should he build a house suitable for human habita- tion on ground he may have to vacate to-morrow? Why should he plant more of any crop than he is quite sure he can consume or dispose of immediately, when he does not know that he will be permitted to stay with it to see it reach maturity, and value? Why should he, indeed, when in addition to this uncertainty ex- perience has also taught him that soldiers, of this army 196 CUBA or that army, may arrive any day at any hour to take what they can remove and burn the rest for him ! No wonder he owns only sl hammock and a horse to carry that away on. When the Advisory Commission, dur- ing the Provisional Administration, was busy arrang- ing a few laws for the country's adoption, the American members of this board desired to revise the land laws in such manner as to place a tax on unimproved land, — to shift, in short, the burden of taxation to rest where it belongs. The only time the Conservative and the Liberal, Cuban members of that Commission united ' in agreement during its long sittings, was to oppose the proposition ! They gave as the reason that its enact- ment would cause trouble, — even to the extent of a revolution ! The American members could not com- prehend why Cubans should rise in arms were a tax laid on the real estate holdings of men who are, in vast majority, foreigners. The truth is that at the time, out of respect to their preponderance in economic affairs here, the question had already arisen of granting foreigners a voice in affairs political. This injection of a rational element into politics was regarded with jealous resentment by Cuban politicians of every stripe, and, Conservatives and Liberals alike, they feared that were foreigners more heavily taxed directly, they would successfully demand some representation in return for it. Therefore, to insure the continuance of ^^ jobs'' in the hands of Cuban politicians solely, they voted in sweet accord against revision of land laws and allied taxation, — voted, that is, to tighten the girth that saddles his burden on their compatriot, the Cuban countryman. Let him continue to support the bureaucracy, — God help him, he's well used to it ! Only those travelers who see Cuba, — who ride for WANTED: A MABKET ! 197 hours over mile after mile of her rich, undeveloped terri- tory ; who see her common people (living wretchedly from hand to mouth, ambitionless, because they have inherited a realization of the uselessness of striving), can comprehend what detriment the present situation with regard to land, lack of surveys, uncleared titles, community holdings, and improperly adjusted taxation, is to the island. From property holders, then, the government gets small part of the revenues which support it. It gets another small part from industrial taxes, paid in largely by foreigners, who are doing the business. Every shop, factory, office, here, pays for the privilege of bidding for trade ; wagons and carriages, automo- biles and carts ; peddlers, funerals, and public amuse- ments, — every form of activity and energy, in short, is taxed. The contributions required from these, how- ever, are not particularly onerous. Neither, added to taxes from real estate, does the sum total of them raise that amount to the money requisite to support even the municipalities and provinces, to say nothing at all of the central, national government, nor is the necessary fig- ure reached even when there is thrown in that govern- ment's very questionable income, now accruing, from the national lottery. This lottery was only recently author- ized by the present administration. By appeal to the Latin's second greatest weakness (his propensity to gamble) it gathers in his scarce '^quarters'' from the very poorest and most ignorant. It takes the rent money, the money due the groceryman, the money needed to buy the family clothing ; in witness of these facts the local newspapers are at present citing an increase in evictions throughout the country for nonpayment of rent, and a marked falling off in school attendance, due, 198 CUBA the record reads, to the pupils' having not even the few garments thought sufficient here to clothe them ! It is, instead, not to real estate, industry direct, or the rifled pockets of the gambler it encourages, but to the customhouse that the Cuban government looks for its real support. The system there in vogue is extortion for revenue only. Eighty-five per cent of the administra- tion's total income is obtained there by way of duties on goods imported. According to the latest official report of the Cuban treasurer that I find available (that for the fiscal year) the total of collections during those twelve months was S 24,794,966.07. This means that (dividing that amount by 2,048,980, Cuba's population at the time (according to the Census of 1907-1908) every man, woman and child in the country contributed $12.10 toward this government's support in that period under the one single heading of customs receipts. This is the world's record, for, comparing it with those of ^'high protection" countries elsewhere, it shows up as follows : Austria, $.51 ; Germany, $1.22 ; Italy, $1.72; France, $2.22; United States, $3.55, and Cuba, $12.10! Be it further noted in this connection that whereas these other countries maintain the tariff fence at their ports to protect (in theory, at the very least) home industries of their own, Cuba maintains hers frankly for the sole and single purpose of getting the cash to keep her government, for she has no industries to protect. Fifty-one and eight tenths per cent of Cuba's im- portations are articles to eat and to wear, — things she cannot, in some cases, by any possibility, produce at home, such for instance, as cereals and cloth; and other things which she does not, despite the protection, grow or make in appreciable quantity. Her heavy tariff is a tax, then, not on luxuries, but on necessities. WANTED: A MARKET! 199 It is instructive next to observe who in the final analysis settles this big bill. It is, of course, the whole- sale importer who pays the actual duties in the custom house ; he, however, is reimbursed by the retailer, — by the grocer and by the haberdasher, the restaura- teur and the dry goods dealer, who handle in detail the merchandise. These, again, ^^get theirs, ^^ and they get it from every man, woman, and child in Cuba who eats and goes clothed. They, for their part, have no one on whom to be revenged ; their sole solace lies in bitter complaint against the exorbitant cost of mere existence in Cuba. There is no city on the map where the simple necessary things all must have, cost as they do here. Rents and every allied expense are in proportion. It is true that salaries and incomes seem to be in keeping, but, when the tally is taken, finally, receipts have all leaked out on the expenditure side, and nobody ^^gets ahead.'' When one considers the situation seriously, tracing the trouble to its source, it is enough to make all of us who reside here determined to get a government ^^job,'' and so put back into pocket some part of what we pay that there may be '^ jobs'' to get, or, otherwise, ^Hake to the woods" to live on mangoes, a fruit that is usually free for the picking, and wear whatever garments we can ^4oot" from the guajiro who lives there. Some- times he has a second shirt. This is the man whose situation is desperate. He has endured long past the point where patience ceased to be a virtue, becoming, instead, despicable weakness. Under Spanish rule he was ground between the mill- stones ; Americans stepped in, not to release him, but to change these stones for others more relentless be- cause more vigorously greedy, — those of his own political factions. Had the Cuban guajiro been in 200 CUBA truth, as he is supposed to be, a freeborn citizen ripe for a repubhc, he would have salUed forth and fought all hands concerned in his wretchedness : Spaniards, home- grown politicians, and, finally, Americans, alike, not to obtain or maintain this republic, but to abolish it, and, along with it, all the cost it is to him. Because he is not a citizen, trained by inheritance and experience, he assumes the attitude of a humble subject, which his forefathers were and he continues to be, accepting, so far, whatever is put upon him in the name of that extraneous Power he recognizes as being above and apart from him, — the Divine Right to Govern. He has not, as yet, the slightest perception of the fact that it vests in him, and that his is the right and the duty to call to account those who exercise it. It has not dawned upon him that they have usurped it from him. This humility of his does not, however, prevent the Cuban guajiro from entertaining a growing suspicion that Authority is not infallible, or omnipotent, as he has heretofore supposed it to be. Despite his simplicity, his lack of education, and scanty information, he is no fool, — this Cuban countryman, — and he is learning, thanks to a hard school. He has from the commence- ment dimly understood that his interests are not those of either the professional politician or the visionary, the one demanding a republic and the other ^^jobs'^ under it. He felt, under Spain's oppression, that their ways and his did lie together for a little length. As ' they traveled forward, he saw the visionary reach his goal, — the Republic of Cuba, — and find it a farce ; he watches the office seeker revel now in '^ jobs'' for which he provides the salaries. He begins to feel that, next, it is his turn to make demands, and what he asks is : a market. WANTED: A MARKET! 201 For he observes that there is no money for him in tobacco ; they tell him it is because duties are high on it entering the United States, and there's no sale any- where else. He finds there is no money in pineapples, partly for the same reason. There is still a living in cane, in those years when American market conditions permit a profit to the mill owner he sells to. There is always something to be made in growing plantains and the native root crops the local market will accept. Nobody, however, seems to have any money; the crossroads groceryman remains overcautious in matter of credit because there is constant talk of further revolution, and, what's new now, of race war. Meanwhile. . . . '^What do you do, then, for a living?'' I inquired of one keen-faced fellow, who was showing me over his little home place recently; he was a squatter, but they had been unmolested for fifteen years, and the oleanders and jasmines in their dooryard were trees in size. I had assured him I was not a prospective purchaser, so he no longer feared that if I saw its beauties I would buy, and turn him from the place. '^What do you do, then, for a living, now that high duties make tobacco unprofitable?" '^We dedicate ourselves," he said solemnly (I am translat- ing literally), ''to earning the dollar off the American." There was a considerable American colony all about him. The dollars of the American ! I am convinced that if the Cuban guajiro knew that by becoming himself American he could obtain more of them he would exert himself to make the change as he has never exerted himself on any other account. It is a mistake to consider the Cuban lazy; he is, not infrequently, half sick, because he is half fed, half clothed, and 202 , CUBA wretchedly housed. He is, however, wiUing to work whenever he foresees any return for it. He is unskilled, because he has never had any training ; he is prone to '^knock off the moment he has a bit ahead, for his climate and all his history instruct him to use up his surplus before it deteriorates or is taken from him. He would certainly prefer a healthier, fuller life among cleaner, improved surroundings if he thought that to obtain such lay within his means. None can doubt it who observes how quickly he lays a board floor in his house, buys himself shoes and his wife a hat, in those colonies where he is permitted to ^^ dedicate himself to earning the dollar off the American. '^ '^What angers me,^^ I heard one man who is the gran senor in a community of these people say of them in general, but of those who work for him as partidarios in growing to- bacco especially, ^'is to hear the guajiro, my country- man, called lazy, dirty, ignorant, — to know that he is despised ! How can he be other than he is, when he has never had a chance to improve, when he hasn't a chance, when he will never have a chance, unless — this changes V ''Changes ! '' was the retort. ''What's the matter with this ? These are the men you fought Palma to exalt ! Don't you like 'em?" "My God !" (this favorite exclamation of his is not as forceful in Spanish as it is in English) "when we upset Palma how did we know that the Americans would go away so soon?^' "If you wanted them back to remain, could you secure a vote of your guajiros to that effect?" "It would be a question of money only, not for them (they would not be consulted), but for distribution among their leaders, who would then go to them, assure them that annexation or whatever you wanted to make it would mean good money for our tobacco, and, my WANTED: A MARKET I 203 God (again), they^d vote or fight any way we told them/' They'd vote or fight for anybody or any banner that assured them just one result : a market ! I have sometimes wished that the American people would listen, with ear turned to the southward, on some clear night, and, with a De Tornos Method and a Spanish- English dictionary in hand, translate for themselves the call from across Florida Straits. They would, undoubtedly, distinguish the voice of the guajiro de- manding, certainly not a republic of his own (he's had too much of it !), nor, definitely, annexation, a protectorate, or any other particular form of control, for he has not studied out the details, but merely a market, — an honest price for what he grows. And, secondly, that he be made to pay only an honest price for what he receives. In short, that he be no longer discriminated against in favor of his rivals (Porto Rico, the southern United States, Hawaii) and told to go solace himself, so handicapped, with his ^' liberty." He can't eat or wear that '' independence " of his. He de- clares that in poverty, ignorance, and hopelessness he's being made to pay too high a price for '' freedom." He will, unfortunately, have to cry his protest long and loud in the wilderness of the virgin lands all about him which he cannot, under present conditions, cultivate ; for against him in clamor rises the voice of the ^^ sugar trust " unwilling to free his sugar from import duties into the United States because it competes there with the home- grown article ; and the voice of the American tobacco grower, in similar protest ; and the united groans of the Florida and California and Hawaiian and Porto Rican fruit growers, afraid of the oranges, grapefruit, and pineapples raised by that American he earns the dollar 204 CUBA off; and the yelp and outcry of the pack of his own poUticians, who would lose place and profit were the United States to establish here an economical regime, lowering duties on imported foodstuffs and similar necessaries, in buying which (if he affords them at all) the Cuban now pays, in addition to their value, the sal- ary of some government clerk in a sinecure. Also, against him is the tremendous influence of those Ameri- can statesmen, — Roosevelt, Root, and Taft, — who have contributed to his sad plight, and who, to remedy it, must make unpalatable confession that they were in error when, respectively, they created this republic be- fore its time, made a general promise to uphold it, bulked in with all those of this hemisphere, and, finally, feared to set things straight with a strong hand in 1906 lest to do so cost the Republican party an election. Yet signs of the times point to his ultimate victory. Those signs are sordid, but hopeful, nevertheless. Chief among them is the presence alongside him of that American off whom the guajiro earns the dollar, — in canefield, tobacco field, pineapple patch, and citrus fruit orchard. The '' sugar trust/^ or at least ''a sugar trust/' is acquiring preponderance in Cuba's principal industry; its money is American. It will soon be able, and exceedingly willing, to carry the ques- tion of Cuba's status to Washington, where it is to be decided, finally. Then, because it will presently suit larger American interests to have Cuban sugar pay no duty on entering the United States than it now suits to compel it to pay much, this island will be brought into closer economic relation to its only possible market, — the American market. This closer economic relation will probably entail a thorough change in the shape of Cuba's government : it may mean annexation or a WANTED: A MARKET! 205 protectorate or a colonial administration of some sort, — these names and details are unimportant, after all. The establishment of the economic relation is all-im- portant. Less powerful individually than the sugar interests, yet aggregating as strong, there will line up tobacco men, weary of uncertainty here and charges on their manufactured products there ; orchardists, vexed at duties that handicap them; railways, who want their culverts and rolling stock preserved from revolu- tionaries ; other property holders who, like them, desire to feel secure ; and all the countless varied business corporations and individuals throughout the whole country, worn out of patience in the attempt to preserve their credit against wars and rumors of wars. All alike demand one thing, — improved economic condi- tions, — though sometimes they call it another, — ^'a, stable government. ^^ Each of these forces will fight the fight for its own particular purpose, — not one of them is laboring altruistically for the good of the Cuban countryman. It is merely his excellent fortune that their fight hap- pens to be his fight, with them powerfully arrayed upon the side that is also his. They are destined to win, and he will share in the fruits of their victory. Their opponents here (the same who are his own) are negli- gible : they are only the politicians, accustomed to the muzzle which will be applied when necessary to stop their din that now confuses the real question at issue. Up yonder, where the battlefield lies, opponents are more numerous and formidable ; they are American interests resentful of the competition of other Ameri- can interests located here, which they are pleased to call Cuban ; the American government, unwilling to confess to its mistakes, and, what's most to be dreaded, 206 CUBA the sentimentality of the American people, prepossessed with a mistaken notion as to what Cuba really asks to receive. Assuredly it is not that parasites be permitted to / speak in her name any longer ; to parade in the trap- / pings of a fictitious independence ; to bleed her for their / support, in the name of a liberty she does not possess ; / but, instead, nothing more or less than opportunity to / produce her crops in quietude, to sell them for what / they are worth, and to buy from the proceeds what she must have at a fair price for it. Closer economic relation to the United States ! To obtain that she'd actually be willing to continue to tolerate this republic of hers, if Washington which erected will not permit her to abolish it ; could she but have altered tariffs to enable her to sell what she might then grow (even on squatters' plots and rented land !), she'd be well able to support her politicians, if their keep is the penalty laid upon her for Washington's erroneous snap judgment of her needs. For then, under altered tariffs, she'd prosper despite everything else ; she'd be able, then, to buy a new horse to replace that Taf t took away ; to have leather shoes, and hats for the women, and bright cotton parasols for the children, when they walk out in the sun. It would mean plenty to eat and wear ; coffee in the coffee cups and cigars and cigarettes for all the family, in every hut on the hillsides and in all the valleys, from Oriente where cacao grows, through Remedios, Manicaragua, and the partido tobacco dis- tricts, past the sugar fields of Santa Clara, Matanzas, Havana, into Vuelta Abajo in Pinar del Rio, — from the cane country all around Maysi to the tobacco regions this side of San Anton ! CHAPTER IX WEST BY WATER The Shores of Pinar del Rio PiNAR DEL Rio is the westernmost of the five topo- graphic provinces into which Nature divided the Island of Cuba ; it is also the westernmost of the six political provinces of which man has constituted the Republic of Cuba. It is bounded on the east by an arbitrary line separating it from Havana Province, irregularly drawn from Estero de Baracoa on the north coast to a point a little west of Embarcadero de Guani- mar on the south coast. An imaginary straight line between these two points has a general southwesterly trend ; from about this vicinity the whole island seems to bend south and west. The distance between Estero de Baracoa and Embarcadero de Guanimar is thirty- four miles, as a buzzard, say, — the largest bird visible in those skies, — might fly if, circling above the inlet (estero), he suddenly discovered he had immediate business at the southern boundary post. The narrow- est part of Cuba is a little west of the boundary line : from Mariel to Ma j ana the distance, in a straight line, is given as twenty miles. The most northerly point in the province, Punta Gobernadora, four miles west of Bahia Honda, lies in latitude 23° 1', longitude 83° 14' ; the most southerly, Cabo Corrientes, in latitude 21° 43^ The latitude and longitude of Roncali Lighthouse, on Cape San 207 208 CUBA Antonio, the far western extremity of province and island alike, are given as 21° 51^; 84° 58^ The Province of Pinar del Rio is completely debarred from direct communication with the outside world. It has 290 miles of coastline, — 130 washed by the Carib- bean Sea, and 160 washed by waters pouring through Florida Straits, — yet in all that extent there are but three deep water harbors (Mariel, Cabanas, Bahia Honda), none of which is at present frequented by any craft plying regularly to and from a foreign shore. On the south side of the province the sea is so shallow that vessels drawing scant six feet stir the bottom sands in passing. On the north, the shore is paralleled for one hundred and twenty miles — from Cape San Antonio to Bahia Honda — by the half-submerged and wholly dangerous line of the Colorado Reefs. Between them and the land is shoal water. It is be- cause the province is, in this fashion, completely sur- rounded by shallows, which prevent transocean craft from drawing near to western harbors at present in use, that travelers, along with all merchandise destined to any point within its boundaries, are compelled to enter via Havana. From Havana the way west is open, overland, by rail and by road, and, overwater, by north and by south shore. The little steamer Julian Alonso on which we made the sea trip west, by north coast, is comparatively new, and we heard with pleasure that she was built in Scot- land, where they do that sort of thing rather well, as we turned away from Morro that night in the face of a threatening sky on a choppy sea that seemed fairly to spit its contempt. My recollections of that voyage are painful. To begin with, the start was made twenty-four hours late. When we arranged for our transportation, WEST BY WATER 209 we were assured by the owner that the steamer would leave with very great exactitude on the stroke of ten on a Sunday night ; otherwise the entire post-office department of Cuba would be thrown into irremediable confusion. Sharp at nine on the proper evening we arrived, bag and baggage, at the dock, only to find that, regardless of the precious mail contract of which he boasted, the owner had decided to lay over a day ; it had not occurred to him to notify any of his prospec- tive passengers. My abiding indignation at this con- tinued to abide even after they had quartered my mother and me in the bridal stateroom, though I con- fess that as I lay supine watching the gorgeous trappings of its berths and its portholes flap to the vessel's roll, this indignation was gradually commingled with far more intimate emotions. I recall with internal re- vulsion yet the appearance of the long table they set down the middle of the social hall and loaded to creak- ing with every dish Spaniards and Cubans prize ; I remember, too, the persistency with which anxious waiters tendered us fish afloat in oil, meats garnished with garlic, rice glistening with lard, thick black coffee, sweetened tea, and all the delicacies on the menu as dessert, only to retire them one after the other in pained discouragement while the captain murmured that it was difficult, obviously, to please these Ameri- cans. I believe we passed Mariel, and Cabafias and Bahia Honda : I have an indistinct impression of quiet waters, green keys, and a blue bulk of mighty moun- tains somewhere near at hand, but far more clearly do I bring to mind that even the '^seafoam'^ biscuits we had brought with us proved to be stale, and there was no relief, no, not anywhere ! I had particularly wanted to see the region which 210 CUBA got by me unobserved. This north coast is the sugar- producing section of the western province; four of Pinar del Rio's seven mills are in the vicinity of Caba- nas. Bahia Honda is a United States coaling station ; no steps have been taken toward its improvement unless the completion of a macadamized road connecting it with Havana be counted such : over this highway troops could, were it necessary, be thrown upon Ha- vana without any loss of time. Bahia Honda harbor is entered by way of a narrow channel, in direction almost due north and south, about two miles in length, quite straight, with water sufficient to accommodate vessels of the greatest draught ; the middle of the harbor and the shore line are taken up by coral reefs, greatly reducing available space, but there remains room for the largest vessels at single anchor. Ameri- cans and Canadians own plantations all through here. Between Cabanas and Bahia Honda the Colorado Reefs begin to assemble. Just beyond Bahia Honda light-draught coasters enter into the shoal water between these reefs and the island ; it is navi- gable, among keys and numerous heads of rock, for those drawing not more than ten or eleven feet. Inasmuch as the outer limits of the Colorado Reefs are but imperfectly defined on charts, and even the lead is not a sure guide, deep-draught vessels give the rocks a wide berth, passing far north of them, en route between Gulf ports of Mexico and the rest of the world. On the horizon we saw the smutch of some steamer, steering clear. I searched the water between us, as we picked our way close in, and that distant smoke, for a glimpse of the hidden danger both shunned, but not a break ruffled the surface ; not a sign proclaimed that this is one of the most dangerous coasts that mariners know. WEST BY WATEB 211 Fancy assembled for me on those quiet waters mem- ories of fleets that used to dare their dangers in days when voyages here were not always monotonous. I conjured up the ghost of Cornelius Jols, '^celebrated in the naval annals of the Dutch/ ^ Known to the Span- iards as Peg-Leg the Pirate, he was honored in his own land with the rank of admiral in that navy which, cross- ing at its will from hemisphere to hemisphere, kept all America alarmed during the years of Spain's desperate fight with the gallant Low Countries. Peg-Leg spent the summer, in 1629, on this west coast of Cuba, taking on wood and water now at Cabanas, now at Bahia Honda, and again sailing around to the Isle of Pines, where there was always congenial company. He got, meanwhile, for his pains, no booty save what a few in- significant coasting vessels afforded. Disgusted with his luck, he actually lined up to attack Havana ; on August 29 he threatened Chorrera and exchanged shots with Morro, but evidently thought twice on the matter, because on September 9 he disappeared over the horizon, to the very great relief of the city that saw him go. In 1630, still another Dutch fleet hung about Cuba, rounding Cape San Antonio along the first of March, but far from obtaining any booty it lost one of its own vessels on Caiman shoals, from which wreck the captain general of Cuba helped himself to thirty cannon. Cornelius Jols came back again in 1638, with ten large galleons in his command : on arrival in West Indian waters he was reinforced by six more which met him, and by several private filibusters anxious to avenge the discomfiture they had suffered at the hands of the Spaniard, D. Carlos de Ibarra, who cleaned them out of the pirate stronghold of Tortuga in that same year. Jols met Ibarra himself off Cabanas. The Spaniard 212 CUBA was escorting seven galleons out of Cartagena with Peruvian treasure aboard. A pitched battle followed ; no fiercer engagement was ever fought in Cuban waters, not even in 1898, when Americans received Cervera just off Santiago de Cuba. Peg-Leg's own ship and five others of his best vessels bore down on the flagship of the Spanish convoy and the captain ship of the treasure fleet. These two vessels were the ones which might be expected, according to custom, to carry coined money and bullion bars. ^^ Whirls of smoke arose, lighted for a moment at the cannon's mouth by the fire of the dis- charge. The thunder of shots added tumult to the scene which the smoke, settling, partly hid. . . . The captain ship and the flagship were hard beset. . . . Peg-Leg tangled his rigging with Ibarra's. ..." Boarding hooks were thrown. ^^But the Spanish in- fantry aboard that day," Pezuela, the historian, re- marks proudly, ''had fought in Flanders and in Italy. They were men who knew how to win on sea as well as on land. Not once did they fire save at the voice of command, and their shots told with deadly effect. Not a Dutchman Uved to board a Spanish ship. Exhausted and sick with loss of blood from a serious wound and seeing that all his attempts to fire the enemy's vessels had failed, Peg-Leg ordered the retreat late in the after- noon. More than 400 men were killed, and many more than that number were wounded. Some of his vessels were leaking, and the rigging of all was awry. Ibarra, injured by a fragment of exploding shell, but still on foot and in command, gave chase. ..." The plate fleet took refuge in Cabaiias Bay. Adverse winds prevented it from continuing to Havana, near as that safe harbor was. It returned instead to Vera Cruz. Jols saw it go, and sent a few shots after it. He did WEST BY WATER 213 not, however, venture to attack, despite the fact that additional fiUbusters, Uke birds of prey scenting a meal, had joined him. King Felipe IV of Spain rewarded Ibarra and his men with praise, promotion, and pen- sions ; they had saved more than thirty millions to his treasury by that one day's work. As Jols and Ibarra blew hence, like the smoke of their combat, lost on the skirts of the Organos, almost three centuries ago, I saw instead, passing in ghostly defile, those humbler seafarers, led by the Hattie Weston (whose captain found a reef and lost a ship not so many years ago), — schooners, tramp streamers, nondescript merchantmen whose goodly company is swelled each year by sacrifices Neptune still demands, on the altars of the Colorado Reefs ! While I watched, a fisherman's little schooner bore down on us from the north. It had passed through the reefs safely, by way of some one of those breaks in the rocks experienced navigators know, into which they ride their light-draught craft when wind and weather favor the hazard of such passage. The coast, westward from Bahia Honda, now lying very low and flat, now rolling in dry hills, timber- covered, is fringed with mangroves which grow to the water's edge ; here and there are promontories and detached keys, islets held together by mangrove roots, isolated and in groups. In the distance, to landward, rise the Organos, somber, irregular in outline, ending abruptly in the two sentinel peaks that stand above the town of Guane. Cacarajicara, Pan de Azucar, Gua- jaibon (called Saddle Hill in English), and other high and noted peaks are readily distinguished and serve to guide vessels beating up. 214 CUBA The more flourishing of the ports at which coasters stop (San Cayetano, Dimas, and Arroyos, for instance), from warehouses ashore send forth wooden piers into nine or ten feet of water, and to these the weekly steamer ties. From other ports, either in sight on shore or hidden up-river, Hghters put out to receive cargo and passengers. Our particular destination was Ocean Beach, off which the Julian Alonso made pause at ten o'clock at night. We made ready to descend into a lighter rocking uneasily in the darkness below. Suddenly a lantern was lifted from a seat we were evidently expected to occupy, and its rays fell on the face of a friend. Though he wore a two weeks' rebellious beard and the hat of a border ruffian, no man ever looked so good to us as that one, as he extended a helping hand, and announced reassuringly, in Enghsh : '^ Well, here you are.'' The steamer proceeded further westward, to Juan Lopez. I do not remember her particularly as she faded into the night, for, oddly enough, I see her as she must have looked upon another and later occasion. During a recent cyclone, — or rather, in the confusion imme- diately following it, — word reached Havana that the Julian Alonso J caught by the storm, had been sunk off the north coast of Pinar del Rio. Speculation as to probable loss of life began. The owner, however, pres- ently received details : the vessel had been sunk, — quite correct, — not by the storm, however, but by her cautious captain, who selected a nice soft mudbank in a sheltered spot, opened her seacocks, and sat her down in shallow water while the hurricane, undoubtedly duly scandalized at the performance, blew over. He later pumped out his good ship, and came floating WEST BY WATER 215 jauntily back to Havana, little the worse for his aston- ishing maneuver. Cape San Antonio, the west end of Pinar del Rio Province and of the island of Cuba, is, they say, low, covered with trees from seventy to eighty feet high, which, seen before the land by vessels approaching from the west, often appear like ships under sail. The shore is intersected alternately by ragged limestone cliffs and sandy beaches. The extreme end of the island bends round so gradually for about four miles that it is diffi- cult to make out any projecting point : the cape can be distinguished only by Roncali lighthouse towering there upon the sands. The vicinity is reputed to be as cheer- ful as its names : Dead Man^s Point, for instance. Coffin Point, and Tombs, which, I take it, is the name of what- ever settlement exists. Good water is to be had, and they say there is no other inducement to land, yet I know that I, for one, have always entertained an unex- plained but keen desire to see Cape San Antonio. I would like to know who named it, and why ; probably it was Sebastian de Campo, that ^^ gentleman of Galicia, a follower of Queen Isabel, who came to the New World with the First Admiral, Columbus, in 1493,'' since he was the first Caucasian to round it, when he circum- navigated Cuba, proving that this is an island, and not part of the mainland as it was thought to be up to the time of his voyage, in 1508. No correct and complete survey has ever been made of the Caribbean south of Pinar del Rio. It is very seldom that vessels of any importance are called into this neighborhood. Names of capes and bays here commemorate events of which they were the scenes. There are Hollanders' Point and French Cape, and especially Punta Perpetua, 216 CUBA and Cabo de Aguirre, concerning which is told a pretty tale of a hero of Vuelta Abajo. Offshore in that imme- diate vicinity, in the year 1794, Don Antonio Aguirre, in command of his frigate, the Perpetua, captured two French brigantines, the Liberie and the Sans Culotte. He took prisoners 150 men. The vicoroy, Azanza, expressed a desire to meet so valiant a fighter as Aguirre had shown himself to be, and a short time afterwards the hero was presented to His Excellency. ''I am glad to know you. Friend Aguirre,^' exclaimed the viceroy, intending to flatter with condescension. '^And I to know you, Friend Azanza,'' replied Aguirre, meeting him squarely on his own terms. The viceroy started with astonishment at such unwonted familiarity. '^ Ah, pardon me. Your Excellency,'' continued Aguirre, as though hastening to rectify a mistake, ^^when I heard that word 'friend,' I thought a friend used it, but now I see that it was instead His Excellency, Seiior Viceroy Don Miguel Jose Azanza." The conclusion is that the viceroy arose to the occasion. '^ Singular man," he cried, ''an embrace ! You are of the stripe I admire.'' They were fast friends, Tranquilino Sandalio de Noda states, from that hour. Azanza always spoke highly of the lesson in equality, firmness, and courtesy which Aguirre taught him, also according to Noda, who saw correspondence that passed between the two. '' Aguirre, instead of demanding a reward for his services, ceded to the state, which was in need, what of the booty fell to his share. Moreover, he added $300 from his own pocket. He had already given a priest $100 for masses offered that God might grant him to meet his enemies soon." A weekly steamer, the Veguero^ plies between Bata- WEST BY WATER 217 bano, opposite Havana on the south shore, and Puerto Cortes, ahas Cortes ' Lake, ahas Pirates' Lagoon. This harbor has two and a half fathoms of water, but at its entrance, very narrow between two green keys, there is less than six feet. The bay is quite land- locked. On the shore opposite the entrance is a settle- ment, — warehouses, a pier, a bathhouse, a hotel, a post- office, and other signs of life supported by the prosperity of a big tobacco-producing region lying inland, especially around Remates and Las Martinas. Off Puerto Cortes lies the red hulk of a Spanish merchantman, a blockade runner, which went aground and was burned by her captors during the Spanish American War. Residents here will tell you sadly, remembering, evidently, some- thing of the starvation they were enduring at the time, that only a little flour got ashore. Cortes got its name, I fancy, from the conqueror of Mexico. He captured, I believe, some vessels in this vicinity, which he com- pelled to accompany him on his expedition ; he referred to his conduct later with some pride, exclaiming : ^^ Ah, I was the proper sort of pirate in those days ! '^ Perhaps in this lagoon he overlooked his victims and laid out for them their immediate itinerary. Between Puerto Cortes and Batabano the coast is monotonously the same. Between Cortes and Coloma it is very low and very flat ; on the northern horizon, now, are the Organos, cut by gullies and thinly clad with spindling pines. In the vicinity of Pinar del Rio City, above Coloma, they begin to trend away, disap- pearing into mist, amid which, however, one can still distinguish the familiar outlines of the same peaks (Cacarajicaras, Pan de Azucar, and Saddle Hill) seen 218 CUBA nearer at hand from the north shore. Once the range is lost, all the voyager sees from there eastward is tran- quil transparent sea- above light sands over which the steamer picks its way, sounding as it goes. Absolute placidity ! One would surely be justified in searching here for the Islands of the Blest. Instead, what searching is done is for buried treasure. Of half a dozen ports hereabouts they tell the story of the guarded treasure chest. It lies at the bottom of the bay, plainly to be seen through the shallow waters in pleasant weather. Crossed on its lid are antique firearms. The version I got was that certain gentlemen of Guira, hav- ing discovered the chest, went out in a boat with tackle to hoist it to the surface. All went well until they lifted the chest into the air, when shooting in most pro- miscuous style began. Each man, to defend himself, fell upon his neighbor. A free fight ensued. The chest dropped to the bottom ; clouds of mud, arising, obscured it from view. To this day those gentlemen of Guira are not quite sure whether members of their own party or the rusted arquebuses crossed on the chest's lid, fired, alarming them. At any rate, they got no treasure. It is still there, at the bottom of this bay or that inlet, awaiting whoever dares undertake to hoist it, weapons and all, to the top. While we lay at anchor at Cortes a negro came aboard and asked the loan of whatever instrument or appa- ratus it is ships keep to enable their masters to peer into the water : a glass-bottomed bucket, or something of that sort I understood. This negro had found some- thing interesting, he thought, sunk somewhere. His pe- tition was not granted ; the captain was weary, he said, of befuddled treasure seekers. Who knows over what WEST BY WATER 219 lost wealth we bumped along, back that pleasant No- vember, from Cortes to Batabano? I remember the steamship Veguero kindly. And so I should ! Did it not put back to port for us when, hav- ing misunderstood the sailing time, we came galloping down to Punta de Cartas, en volanta, from San Juan, only two hours late by the watch Senor Pinillos held in his hand, as he stood by the rail still scanning the half- finished cart road in hopes to see us, as, luckily for us, he did ! Our driver had been inspired by the mournful tootling with which the Veguero proclaimed to earth and air and sea that two hours' wait was all that could be expected of any respectable steamer. He astonished us, his fares all unsuspecting imminent calamity such as desertion on that particular shore would have seemed, by a sudden burst of speed : over the undressed maca- dam he bounced us, out of the mangrove clumps, up to the pier, whereupon the Veguero, rounding gracefully, put back, and received us. We learned then that the hour of departure from Punta de Cartas was ten, not twelve o'clock. Admirable Veguero! We ate at a httle table laid on deck, under an awning. There was an American negro steward, and he eliminated grease and garlic, — watermelons and yellow-legged chickens be his reward ! Occasionally, one overbold sailor emerged from a companionway to regard us with interest. Never had either of us ever beheld a creature cut so close to the original pattern of human brute ! What inteUigence the cranium held was animated by a curiosity not at all ill-intentioned, but the very wide, thick, short-toed feet of that sailorman annoyed us, until, I fear, our uneasi- ness showed, for we observed that he was shortly ordered 220 CUBA below. He indeed would have been at home in a pirate crew, and, regarding him, I was almost relieved to re- flect that some centuries of time elapsed are a bar across which those famous 'Hhieves by sea'' cannot come sailing back into reality, no matter how light draught are their ^4ow rakish'' craft, — seen to best advantage ^4n the offing" ! .^ CHAPTER X THE LAND Sierra de los Organos All the western end of Cuba is dominated by the Organo Mountains, which begin in hills rising here and there from the general plain of Havana Province; near Mariel they marshal themselves into more aggres- sive array, increasing in size and number, improving in orderliness of arrangement, becoming, in short, a for- midable sierra that extends, broken by passes, west- ward to Guane, there terminating abruptly in twin peaks above the ancient town. The Range is composed of many ridges, parallel and interlapping, lying, in general, northeast by southwest. These constitute a gigantic maze, a veritable labyrinth of steep and sparsely settled or unpopulated valleys, all very much alike. Their slopes are green with luxuri- ant vegetation. Here and there a bare cliff — like a blanched face exposed — shows on what firm base this tangle of tropical foliage has taken root. The back- bone of the Organo Range is hard blue limestone, not distinctly crystalline, intersected with small white veins of calcite. It is one of the oldest formations not only in Cuba, but in all the world^s physical make-up. Upon this hard blue base are laid strata of softer, lighter-hued limestones, and some sandstones, readily eroded. In 221 222 CUBA these water has worn caverns that fairly honeycomb the hills. The aboriginal Indians knew these caves, and in them sought refuge from their Spanish conquerors. They were joined, as the years passed, by runaway slaves known as negros cimarrones {cimarron meaning wild or savage) and to this desperate company of red and black refugees, fleeing extermination and slavery, were admitted outlaw whites who had good reason to shun their kind, — murderers, smugglers, highwaymen, and disreputable characters of every impossible variety. They herded together in places least liable to discovery, but well adapted to defense in case of need, and these fortified camps of theirs were called palenques (stock- ades) . There was war between all residents in palenques and the settlers on the plains below, — cattlemen these, for the most part, in those early days, from whom the cimarrones stole what fresh meat they desired. Owners so robbed organized hunting parties and routed the thieves from their dens, or died trying to, like Ramon Cordero, who, when he saw the impossibility of attacking a cer- tain stockade in the Campanario Hills save in single file, placed himself at the head of the column, '^because,'' he explained, '^I have the smallest family. '' So he led the way to death he knew awaited him, and met it there '^without once looking back.'' Then travelers had to go armed prepared for encounters like that sustained by Otero, ^^ who in the sierras, when he had only a lance with him, overcame two wild Indians and a negro, who shot him full of arrows, despite which he did not flee though pierced through the breast. He killed the biggest Indian. . . . And Malvar who was with him, — wounded, one arm helpless, — neither fled nor aban- doned his dying companion, but maintained the unequal THE LAND 223 fight until his adversaries retreated. Then, and not before, he retired, carrying with him his unfortunate friend, already almost dead, who, in fact, did die, very shortly afterwards/^ Again, the warfare between out- law mongrels in the hills and white citizens on the plain took on an even fiercer aspect. Homes where the women and children were sheltered were at distances one from another, for the cattle ranges into which all the country was divided in that day were immense estates ; the herds had a wide run, and to attend them properly the men were necessarily absent on the ranges for days at a time. While they were gone the cimarrones sometimes attacked their helpless families. It was no uncommon tragedy which occurred once ^^on the plantation Del Toro, in the Palacios district, where a family lived in a solitary place. . . . The husband was not at home. His brother, young Paez '^ (and, by the way, this family is at present most prominent in the village of Consola- cion where its members are noted now for political as well as military prowess) '^ was in charge of the house. ... One day he heard a great noise, and, rushing to the door, saw coming a mob of cimarrones, whose furious cries and open attack demonstrated plainly their intention. He was one man against fifty savages. To abandon the house and save himself was an easy thing to do, but it meant to desert the family left to his care. To save them and himself, too, was obviously impossible. . . . Paez ordered his sister-in-law to flee with the children. ^ While they are killing me,' he cried, ^you will have time to escape into the bush !' He made the woman go while he remained. To give her time to hide he enter- tained the savages in a good fight, selling his blood dear. He had but a machete, and they were fifty to one, so he fell finally. They wreaked their rage on his dead body. '' 224 CUBA All this occurred many, many years ago ; the dark green mountains of northern Pinar harbor no desperate char- acters any longer ; the only inhabitants of their fast- nesses now are the hospitable guajiro and his garrulous wife, to whom the explorer is a welcome diversion in the monotony of their loneliness. One particularly picturesque set of the small deep valleys common to the Organos, — hardly more than great clefts in surrounding rocks, — is to be found in hills known as Sierra del Infierno, within a few hours^ riding distance of Pinar del Rio City. Roads leading that way dwindle into trails up and down steep slopes, along the tops of narrow ridges, from where wide views of exquisite landscape, extending even to the Caribbean Sea on the south, are to be had ; thence, finally, into a gorge so narrow one might readily toss a stone across. Here, on fertile bottom lands, an in- dustrious countryman has built his hut and tilled what ground there is, for the planting of corn and tobacco in rotation. No wheeled vehicle could possibly be of any service in this neighborhood. A little creek runs the length of the valley, disappearing at its farther end through a tunnel cut by a stream in the canon's wall. Venturing through it the traveler finds himself in an unroofed circle, completely shut in by white cliffs. He stands within what was once a cave, until the top fell in. There is but one entrance, the narrow door in the living rock, by which he came ; there is no other exit. The walls round about are full of cavities, some of sufficient dimensions to wear the title of caves indeed. Through one series of these the little stream vanishes. When I visited this place it was raining ; the path the length of the valley had become, in the downpour, a stream of some volume. The sound of its waters THE LAND 225 echoed formidably in the tunnel, frightening our horses till they shook, but advanced, nevertheless, like good cavalry mounts, as they were ordered to do. The caves where the eddying current burbled and sank were full of sullen sound and darkness. In dry weather and daylight we might have explored them ; as it was, none of our party ventured in. Night was coming on ; in the twilight the vicinity looked all that its name im- plies. It is called Sitio del Infierno, to translate which would be plain profanity. As we gazed in silence upon that curious locahty there descended upon us, although reason protested, primitive fear of a trap, — of a corner, of being brought to bay. I think none of us, from Lieutenant Shelley in command down to the faithful strikers who brought up the rear, regretted departing from that most uncanny place. We sought a hilltop, and there, the rain having considerately ceased to fall, we waited until the lights of Pinar, glimmering to our relief, showed us in what direction to make our way homeward, down gulches, beside a river in whose bed the torrent rolled bowlders with a sullen rumble and a grating of rock on rock which warned us not to ford, — through tobacco beds, and, happily, into the highway that conducted us eventually into the city well toward twelve o'clock at night. Like this weird valley there are many others, larger and smaller, all through the Organo Range. What tillable land there is iii them is always very fertile, and, from San Diego de los Banos westward, is eagerly seized upon by vegueros (tobacco growers) who refer to their estates when situated in such inaccessible, isolated spots as that described, as ^^holes in the hills,'' than which no description could be more accurate. They measure their size, not by extent of ground or yield, 226 CUBA but by labor required ; i.e. there are ^^two man holes in the hills/ ^ and ^^six man'^ and ''twelve man holes/' Now and then areas of hillside in the Organos which at first glance seem virgin wilderness, show to the more observant eye unmistakable signs of former cultivation : a patch of bananas, perhaps, or coffee trees grown gaunt and unfruitful in their struggle against encroaching bush. Little enough information, usually, is to be gained con- cerning their predecessors from the families who inhabit the shacks of palm board and palm leaf to be found in clearings, at no great distance, sometimes, from piles of crumbling brick and mortar, almost lost in thicket, which are the ruins of pleasant villas destroyed, some of them, only as late as 1896. Recent as their ruin is, their history is already lost to their immediate neighborhood. So little time need elapse in this climate and among these people to obliterate not only the habitations, but the memory of men who lived, labored, and became, in the particular instances I have in mind, world-famous for their work done here in the Organos. I was fortunate enough to make, on one occasion, an excursion on horseback from the town of Taco Taco into the hills opposite. ^^ Before the war'' Taco Taco was but the railway station for Santa Cruz de los Pinos, situated two kilometers north of it. To-day, Taco Taco is a village, a shipping point of some importance ; Santa Cruz is debris, — blackened walls, remnants of broken sidewalks, — mere litter marking the site of the place Maceo burned when he devastated Pinar del Rio Prov- ince during ''the Invasion" of 1895-1898. Beyond Mr. Benton Webster's estate, where fruits and flowers he has transplanted from his California home grow in profusion, the particular road over which Mr. Laughlin led me that August day becomes a trail, per- THE LAND 227 severing to Mr. Bonomi's camp. From that point on- ward we found a path into the Santa Cruz canon, where the clear creek of that name comes down over the pohshed blue limestone bowlders of its rough bed. Wild fruit trees and flowering shrubs cast lacy shadows on pools where little fishes sport. Three or four springs of clean, wholesome water spout forcefully from the west wall of the gorge at no great distance from its debouchment. The place seems to be primeval wilderness ; each visitor may imagine himself the first Caucasian on the scene. But beyond the ford, above Bonomi^s, the path, turning to skirt the foothill, threads a jungle of aroma trees; their scraggly trunks and branches support a canopy of leaves interlaced, all hung, when we rode under, with tassels of purple and gold, — the blossoms. There, dank in the shadow of the aroma^ moss-grown and crum- bling, are brick steps in a wide flight through a preten- tious gateway. A little beyond are the ruins of an ex- tensive villa, which had a formal garden, fountains, and an aviary ; at a further distance, the wreckage of slave quarters, a concrete circle where coffee was dried, and then a good mile of palm trees in double row, marking an entrance avenue. Only the trunks of the palms in their regular order, showing white in the green gloom of the surrounding forest, bear witness now to the former beauty of that stately approach. The very trail seems here to disappear, buried under vegetation. This is all that remains of Villa Rangel, built for his residence by Don Francisco Adolfo Sauvalle, Cuba's first and still her foremost botanist, who, by the way, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1807. His was a French family, renowned, before his advent, for warlike rather than scientific achievement. He was educated at Rouen, in Normandy ; he arrived in Cuba in 1827. He 228 . CUBA was an active citizen in Regla and a coffee planter at Rangel. By 1855 he was recognized abroad as a botan- ist worthy to wear the honors foreign societies bestowed ; twelve years later he received some meed of apprecia- tion in his own land. He was a member of the Economic Society of Friends of the Country, and of the Academy of Sciences, in which body he held high office from 1874 until death overtook him at his writing table in Regla, on February 1, 1879. Sauvalle contributed a very large number of treatises to the scientific literature of Cuba. The one work which immortalized him, how- ever, is his Flora Cubana, prepared in collaboration with the noted American botanist, Charles Wright. The Sauvalle Herbarium of six thousand specimens belongs to the Academy of Sciences, which had allowed it to go pretty well to pieces when Prof. C. F. Baker, then of the staff of the Government Experiment Station at Santiago de las Vegas, rescued it, fumigated it, and re- stored it to as good condition as was possible. The col- lection contains results of work done by Sauvalle him- self, by Jose Blain, his relative and neighbor, and by Charles Wright. It includes several original specimens of new species to which are attached Wright's manu- script notes. In some instances the specimens, which, by the way, are again in jeopardy of destruction, are the only ones in existence, for part of Wright's col- lection was lost in transportation. While Sauvalle lived, Rangel was the resort of such men as the Count de Morelet, to whom Sr. Blain presented a valuable collection of land moUusks, and Felipe Poey, Dr. D. Juan Gundlach, a German so long a resident of Cuba he came to be considered as Cuban as Poey was, together with other visitors of less renown. THE LAND 229 Carlos Echevarria, however, who Uves yet, in a hohio at Aspiro close by, is not aware that Sauvalle was other than Don Francisco, his friend and a kind master. It was he who told us as we sat in his wretched hut that afternoon while the rain came down musically on myriad leaves of trees and shrubs around, all rustling to its touch, of the days when the coffee plantation, up yonder on the mountainside, ^'gave results.'^ Then Don Francisco kept twenty-eight slaves, mostly black field hands ; only three of them were chinos (not Chi- nese, but mulattoes), and these were skilled laborers. They built the villa, and themselves put on the prodig- ious number of tiles its roof required. This was forty, maybe fifty, maybe more years ago ; Carlos is indefi- nite on this point. The house was completely fur- nished; ^Hhere was even a billiard room.^^ Thither, at Christmas time especially, the owner came with gay parties whose pleasure it was to picnic high in the hills. Presently, however, these parties came no more ; it was because the coffee ^^failed to give results.'' The house stood closed. Sauvalle remained in Regla. Carlos kept the key, opening the villa only now and then to friends Don Francisco sent up, or friends of Don Jose Blain, whose own estate. El Retiro, near by, fared no better than Rangel. These visitors — and Carlos smiles — hunted handsome spiders and plants in the wildwood, and at night sipped the good wine he, the caretaker, brought forth from Don Francisco's store of prized beverages. Suddenly, once, the place took on new life. Expensive furniture to replace the old came out from Havana; the freight alone on it amounted to $700, as Carlos clearly recalls. Every- thing was put in readiness, and the old master's son and his bride came to Rangel to reside, — for less than a 230 CUBA year. They returned to Havana. Time passed. The coffee trees were entirely abandoned. The slaves, declared free, had long since left their quarters. The fountain ceased to play, though at its source of supply the springs in Santa Cruz canon still flowed vigorously. From Havana the widow of Sauvalle wrote, ordering the house reroofed. Rain was leaking in, and she would preserve even the tarnished furniture in memory of happier days, when the coffee '^gave results.^' Carlos, the caretaker for twenty-eight years (under no contract, he proudly adds, but because of confidence between him and Don Francisco), argued, with the boldness of a faithful retainer, that the sum required for the work was more than should be spent upon it. Piece by piece the ruining furniture was sold and carried away. When Maceo swept the plain below with torch and machete^ the empty shell of Sauvalle's old home burned, too. With the smoke seems to have dissi- pated all comprehension thereabouts of what the man was; only in the heart of Carlos the caretaker, his memory lingers as that of a good master. Since then the aroma which, they say, once kept primly to the confines of the formal garden, has had its way over the villa site ; it is tying down the wreckage under a snarl of knotted roots. Midway down the avenue of palm trees as we en- deavored to make our way out, our trail lost itself utterly in bush. We could hear the steady strokes of a. machete at work, clearing, near at hand. We hallooed, and a countryman, half naked, wet with sweat and rain, as formidable a desperado, in every detail of ap- pearance, at least, as ever inhabited a palenque, hacked his way out of the bushes and greeted us. We were, he said, within a biscuit^s toss of the residence of Ameri- THE LAND 231 cans, Mr. and Mrs. King. The fellow led us through the undergrowth to the edge of their clearing, cutting bushes, boughs, and small trees from before our horses, with free and easy swing of the blade he flourished. It developed that he was their very tame and faithful hired man. Here we were invited to ^^ breakfast,'' — that is, to partake of the noon meal, — a courtesy we accepted with alacrity. Overlooking the country- side from the porch of their temporary residence, the Kings explained their plans for the future, which were nothing less than to create for themselves there a home on the order of Sauvalle's, which, by the way, they supposed to have been built much earlier than it was. It is a very common error to ascribe to ruins like it an antiquity they do not possess. A frequent disil- lusionment American settlers in western Cuba — and in other parts of the island, too, for that matter — suffer, follows when, after turning up in plowing some broken dish or old knife, or, perhaps, uncovering a heap of disintegrating bricks and shattered tiles, they find on inquiry addressed to the nearest ^^ oldest inhabit- ant'' that the land they have just purchased as ^^ virgin soil" was, even within the previous twenty years, worked by others. No sooner is any plot of cultivated ground abandoned, in Cuba, than Nature busies herself successfully in removing or hiding under vegetation and its mold every vestige of man's im- pertinent alteration of her original design. In five years she will make a wrecked house look as though Columbus might have sojourned there; in ten years she will so disguise an abandoned canefield that any active land company can sell it — to Americans — as first-class savannah, suitable for citrus fruit, un- touched by cultivation since the Indians the First 232 CUBA Admiral scared off it dropped their crooked plow- sticks and ran ! From the Kings' we rode homeward, toward Taco Taco. Late in the afternoon, wet, bedraggled, but, thanks to the soaking, cool and unsunburned even in August, we made bold to pass through the citrus fruit groves of Orr Brothers, Scotchmen, who have had the money and the patience to develop here trees from which last March they sent in the handsomest oranges on exhibit at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Cuban National Horticultural Society. We met these gentle- men — they are twins, by the way — on one of their avenues : they were mounted on bay horses that matched, they wore raincoats of identical cut, with caps alike, and, having drawn up beside us, regarding us with a mild astonishment, they opened their mouths with one accord, and both together, with the very same inflection and accent, chorused cheerfully: '^ Won't you have tea?'' We had tea, in a tiny living hall which proclaimed itself through all the bachelor dis- order to be the habitat of gentlemen. One brother dis- coursed on the cost of a grove and fertilizer, while the other, consulting a small notebook and a large account book, reenf orced his every statement with brief mention of pounds and pence. In Pinar del Rio Province, as in the greater part of all Cuba, the arrangement of the water courses is ex- ceedingly simple. The divide is the crest — when the range is composite, the southern crest — of the mountains. From their sources in the hills the streams make straightaway for the sea. Those flowing north- ward pour through cafions and gulches, swiftly, seek- ing the ocean by no devious route. Those that jour- ney southward do not always reach their destination, THE LAND 233 for the plains they cross are underlaid with porous limestones through which not only rain water disap- pears rapidly, to arise, after flowing long distances underground, in bold springs, but whole rivers sink out of sight ! Some vanish gradually, merely ^^ petering out,^' to the exasperation of helpless residents along what ought to be their courses. Others make their exit more picturesquely, gurgling into yawning caverns. Some pass under mountains, welling forth on the other side of great ridges. Coursing along underground these buried rivers provide the province plentifully with springs of fresh, clean water. Large areas entirely de- void of running streams are, nevertheless, green the year around, roots of vegetation there seeming to reach water just below the surface. With the exception of few localities, wells dug short distances give satisfac- tory results. Drilled wells touch exhaustless supplies. A piedmont plain entirely surrounds the Organos. North of these mountains it exists, nowadays, more in the eye of geologists than in reality. Here the low- land belt is much narrower than it is on the south, and elevated. It does not have a regular slope to sea level, but is at least two hundred feet high near the coast. It would appear that the northern edge of the island, here in the west, was in some past era elevated about three hundred and fifty feet more than the southern edge. The northward-flowing streams lowered their channels as the land rose, so that the country north of the range is now deeply dissected ; only the flat tops of hills, in fact, indicate the position and extent of the piedmont plain, in this locality. South of the mountains, however, there is a plain in fact, with a maximum breadth, between the Organos and the Caribbean, of twenty miles. It ascends gradually from 234 CUBA ocean level to the base of the hills at the rate of seven or eight feet to the mile. Its seaward portion is extremely flat, deserted, they say, by all save herds of cattle turned out there, to fatten, if they can, for market. Their keepers exist, sheltered somewhat in isolated huts or scarcely more cheerful groupings of these, called rancherias, which, being translated, is less than hamlet. As the Organos are approached, this southern plain becomes more undulating. The beds of its streams he deeper, between banks overhung with palms, bamboo, and indigenous fruit trees. It is on the plains, north and south of the moun- tains, that the considerable towns of Pinar del Rio Province stand. The largest of them are on the south side of the Organos, all strung along the tracks of the Western Railway like colored beads on a silver thread. It seems to me one of history's gentle ironies that this railroadj the greatest single factor in the development and sustained prosperity of Pinar del Rio Province, should be owned and operated by English. Now, to be sure, the word ^ ^ English 'V means capital, invest- ment, and, especially in the slang of Cuba, it means creditors, but there was a time, — as late as hardly more than a hundred years ago, — when, particularly to Pinar del Rio Province, it meant pirate, marauder, enemy, in brief, to life and property. When Diego Managuaco killed 'Hhe enemies'' by sixes and dozens, according to legends of his prowess, one understands that they were English whom he slaughtered. When the Corderos, who resided on the slopes of Cacarajicaras, went down to the coast and made '^ihe enemies'' respect the north shore '^from Manimai to Verracos" (wherever those limits of their patrol may be !) they were English corsairs who were intimidated. To-day, 1 3 1 Si 1^ ^^^B !-'■ s' ■ i| 1 - 1 ^^ «■■> ^^^^^H '"^^B £ 't ■ 1 THE LAND 235 oddly enough, none are so interested in the welfare and further development of western Cuba as the English, especially those who finance and manage the Western Railway. The gentleman who, were it organized as an American company is, would be called its president instead of chairman of the board of directors, was adopted some years ago by Pinar del Rio City as a ^^ favorite son.'' The honor was offered in evidence of the high esteem in which the territory it serves holds the Western Railway. The company's popularity is the more to its credit because its relation to the region is such as might induce a concern of smaller caliber to seek undue profits in unpleasant policies. Pinar del Rio is, to be quite frank, the Western's province. No neater monopoly was ever laid off for a fortunate corporation than western Cuba (surrounded by shallows and without good ports, or, until very lately, passable roads) constitutes for this railroad, with its one hundred and forty-seven miles of track connecting famous and prolific tobacco districts with Havana, back from which city, into the country, in exchange for trainloads of leaf, it carries trainloads of general merchandise, and, especially, foodstuffs. Pinar del Rio is engrossed in tobacco culture : there is no secondary crop. In his dooryard the veguero (tobacco grower) permits a few boniatos (a variety of sweet potato), some yuca and malanga (indigenous crops, roots of which he deems edible), and, perhaps, a little rice, along with a clump of ragged bananas, to survive neglect, if they can. What energy he sees fit to expend on agriculture is bestowed on his tobacco field. Tobacco is, unfortunately, a precarious crop, and its market is unstable. Therefore it happens every now and again that, weather or prices failing, 236 CUBA the people of Pinar are reduced to starvation, an un- pleasant condition against which repeated bitter expe- riences have not availed to teach them to guard by grow- ing minor crops for their sustenance. When they have a tobacco crop and can sell it, they buy imported pro- visions hauled out over the Western ; when they have not, they demand charity, and the government assists in movement to mitigate ^^ famine in Vuelta Abajo^' ! The pinareno is not, however, without excuse in this shortsightedness, in which he has the company not only of other natives and Spaniards, but also of American and Canadian settlers throughout the island as well. More than half of Cuba's purchases abroad are food and clothing. The former item was equivalent to 35.7 per cent of the republic's importations in the year 1907-1908 (latest available treasury report), details as follow: meats, 8.9 per cent; fish, 1.3 per cent; cereals and fruits, 12.4 per cent ; vegetables, 3.9 per cent ; oils and drinks, 3.3 per cent ; milk products, 2.2 per cent ; miscellaneous, 3.7 per cent. A very large proportion of this might very readily have been produced within the island, — especially the pork, eggs, chickens, beans, and, possibly, even the rice; for each of these items millions of dollars are expended annually abroad. Students of economics maintain that Cuba must neces- sarily remain a two-crop country (sugar and tobacco), but to the superficial observer it would seem logical for her to produce, if not for exportation, at least for her own consumption, a few of those articles to home- growing of which every condition is favorable (like the pork, eggs, beans, just mentioned), that now she gets from her neighbors at desperate cost to the ultimate consumer. Possibilities in this direction merit at least the consideration of those whose narrow profits THE LAND 237 from either sugar or tobacco are quite obliterated time and again by the high price of Uving off Mexican beans, Indian rice, Argentine jerked beef, and cold- storage eggs (from Heaven knows where !) . Especially does this phase of the situation in Cuba invite the atten- tion of incoming settlers, — Americans and Canadians, — who, however, usually arrive with an irremediable bent toward expensive crops, the market for which is distant, costly to reach, and utterly beyond their con- trol. CHAPTER XI WEST BY RAIL Towns of Pinar The towns of western Cuba are not, I think, par- ticularly interesting ; or it may be that I have lived here too long to find attractive their unpaved streets, littered with stones half buried in dust in the dry season, and flooded over with mud in the wet. The colors of their gaudily painted houses please me still, though in degree much modified from earliest enthu- siasm, entertained when I had not learned by too personal experience what dirt and discomfort their pretty red-tiled roofs shut in ! The little naked babies, — black, brown, and yellow shading toward white, — who stand by the cactus hedges, in the village outskirts, I no longer see at all, unless some half-scandalized tourist be at hand to call my attention to a sight on which I, too, wasted my kodak films and my protesta- tions, ten years ago. Ragamuffins at the depots who demand ^^one cenf are to me only worthless beggars; they are not cold or hungry, and they will not work, but prefer to parade instead a poverty usually fictitious, assumed, very frequently, only in the presence of an American. I have seen well-clad children (especially in Havana) whose every garment bespoke a home of more than average circumstances, stop their play, at sight of a tourist, twist their bodies into attitudes, put 238 WEST BY BAIL 239 on an expression of cajoling woe, and extend a hand for alms. I have told them, in impolite Spanish, to remove themselves to a distance, and seen them then, at that evidence of my residence here, doff their hy- pocrisy in a flash, sometimes with chagrined laughter, oftener in the silence of disappointment, but rarely, I have observed, in shame that they are properly esti- mated. The whine of ^^ Gimme one cent^' is, to my notion, the expression of an appreciation, general here, of the fact that we Americans, individually and na- tionally, are ^^easy marks.'' For my part, I resent the reputation, though I could, I regret to state, sum- mon several husky impostors in evidence that I did my share, in greener years, to uphold it. It is a relief to the very soul to look beyond the towns and the people in them, into the country itself, which is, after all, Cuba. At no hour unlovely, it is espe- cially beautiful in the early morning, even as late as seven o'clock, when the Western Railway train pulls out of Cristina, into the open, as the sun comes up over Atares, rising above the hills that lie around Guanabacoa and Luyano. This is the time of the day when the plains and the shallow valleys, the distant dim hills, the cultivated fields, the fallows and grass- matted untamed stretches between them, are green, sparkling with dew, gemmed with morning glories like sapphires and amethysts, enlivened with coralillo (exquisite coral creeper) and white-flecked with agui- naldo blossoms, the pearls of the posy jewels. Solitary royal palms cast long slim shadows, in the early light ; where they stand in groves their blanched boles form an indistinct gray blur. In low places mists linger, drifting, opalescent, disappearing imperceptibly as day brightens. 240 CUBA From Guira onward evidences of man's industry interest the traveler, rather more than the natural beauties and oddities of the scenery. He has entered the district where partido tobacco is produced at its best. White cheesecloth shelters, stretched taut above .acres of valuable plants, are high lights in the picture, from this point westward. Here and there are brown- thatched, peaked-roofed tobacco barns. At Alquizar one sees through the green of surrounding shrubbery the plantation house and the red outbuildings of the famous Luis Marx estates. One by one the stations file by. Artemisa was for- merly the center of the famous Spanish trocha, a forti- fied trench across the island from Mariel, on the north shore, to Majana, on the south, intended to hamper the action of Cuban revolutionists, who, nevertheless, crossed it time and again without apparent difficulty. The town has since acquired enviable reputation as the center of one of the most productive fruit-growing and farming districts in the island. Millions of crates of pineapples are shipped from here annually for the markets of the United _^tates. Candelaria and San Cristobal are ThecenEers of districts which produce coffee ; in the sierras to the north are lands admirably suited to this crop, and here, when formerly the indus- try was profitable, there were extensive plantings, later abandoned, but now reviving under the skilled care of those who are reestablishing the culture, conditions having become favorable once more. Between San Cristobal and Taco Taco the railway line crosses wide savannas, which, ^' before the war,'' afforded pasture to large herds of cattle, stock-raising being then one of the principal industries of the neighborhood. Los Palacios has been rebuilt since its destruction by B|^if*. J- ^' ^:-. ,:;,...■■■ :5*»->-" ...::.,;,.,:. v^?l Photograph Tjy American Photo Company Raja Yoga Academy, Pinar del Rio I'hatoijruph by Aitn.rUau I'hoiu C'c Hotel Ricardo, Pinar del Rio WEST BY RAIL 241 Maceo, in 1895-1896. Shortly beyond Paso Real the country undergoes an abrupt change. Its coloring dulls somewhat, and in place of the royal palm appears a peculiar ^^ bottle palm/' oddly swollen halfway up the trunk, ending in an unkempt tuft of foliage. Here, too, one first notices thin and spindling pine trees, the aftergrowth, possibly, of considerable pine forests, cleared out of here, they say, by movable sawmills, especially in 1861-1865, when civil war paralyzed the lumbering business of the southern United States. This is obviously a less fertile region — at least in that part the railway traverses — than others passed or that into which it emerges on approaching Pinar del Rio City, — a typical .provincial capital, with wide white country roads entering to form its principal avenues, gaily colored low-built houses, a plaza, hotels, clubs, a parish church (dating from 1764), schools, and all the leisurely life of a Cuban inland town. Commer- cially, the city is lively, especially in the season when it is the center for negotiations between growers and buyers of tobacco. At Consolacion (of which town the passenger en route sees only the railway station) he entered the sacred precincts of ^'the genuine Vuelta Abajo,'' the most famous tobacco district on earth, limits of which are variously defined, but usually conceded to embrace about all Cuba west of Consolacion. The very center of the region is just beyond Pinar del Rio City, at San Juan y Martinez and San Luis, where lowland tobacco classified as ^^best of the best'' is grown, — by and for the American trust. The vicinity is, to my remem- brance, the most beautiful, as well as the most instruc- tive, in all the west. There are swelling hills and tiny valleys dimpling between, over which troop the royal 242 CUBA palms that never weary in their changing grace ; hills are to the north, cloud-crowned and iridescent ; close at hand, countless red tobacco barns, and Cuban bohios (shacks) walled with palm board and thatched with leaves ; in pastures between tobacco fields the cattle add a touch of quiet contentment, and, over all, when first we saw it, there rested the marvelous coloring of such a sunset as I have seldom seen, — a very riot and revel of pastel tints, mixed, it seemed that even- ing, with a living liquid gold. Guane, one hundred and forty-seven miles from Havana, is the present terminus of the Western Rail- way, which has in project, however, building farther west and south, to Remates. Guane is the oldest town in all the west country ; it sits high and dry on a ridge of land above the second largest river in Cuba, the Cuyaguateje, a stream which varies in volume with the season from a rivulet to a raging torrent. Beyond Guane, on lands first hilly, then rolling, and finally flat, as the sea is approached on north and south and west, there are ancient and prosperous com- munities, — around Mantua, Montezuelo, Las Marti- nas, and Remates, — where very famous tobacco is grown. Here, too, lying in a circle almost embracing the railway station of Mendoza (one hundred and forty- five miles from Havana) within its circumference and quite touching the sandy beach, twenty-five miles away, — the same on which my mother and I landed, from the north coast boat, — is a tract of land on which Canadians especially have been induced to settle. This colony has been more frequently and more openly condemned, by disheartened settlers and inves- tigating agents of the Canadian and British govern- ments, than any other in Cuba, despite the fact that JVEST BY BAIL 243 not a few more have equal if not greater claims to attention. The land is, as a glance at the map shows plainly, distant from its center of supply, Havana, which is also its only present port of shipment. I do not know what misleading or untrue statements con- cerning boat service, dockage facilities, the exact loca- tion and present condition of government roads between the property and Havana, nor what glowing exaggera- tions of ^^big, sure profits,^' were laid before those who have become investors there. Certainly, the proposals must have been cleverly put, for one does not frequently encounter anywhere better or more intelligent people than those who have come, in person, to cultivate their purchases. I remember Ocean Beach kindly, — a little frontier town, situated close to an inviting stretch of clean white sand, over which shallow waters lapped in silence. Its modest frame residences, facing each other, like soldiers of a brave outpost, stood lined up along the one main street, on which some attempt at grading had been made. From the town we rode eastward, over grassy lands, among palmettos blackened by fires which occur in the dry season, and along the shore of a dark still lake. We visited settlers, — citrus fruit growers, some of whom were turning toward tobacco. Their homes were all comfortable. One stood by a long, shady pool of considerable size, on which they had launched a little rowboat, and there were ducks. This planter was equipped for irrigation. The night of that day found us at the Jones', and the night of the next at the SoUeys'. The morning after we made the last twelve miles or so into Guane, driving pellmell along the main street to the railway station, where the train already puffed to be off. Half a dozen willing men, 244 CUBA employees and loungers, bundled us aboard, bag and baggage, which done, the conductor gave his delayed signal to pull out. It is two years and more since I made that trip, and I forget many details of the visit, but not the way the blood-red sun went down behind the singed and withered palmettos along the road to the Jones' ; Poe has put the spirit of that landscape into '^ Ulalume '' ! Nor do I forget the thorough hospitality of the SoUeys, the courtesy and the cleanliness of their table, as it was spread for us at supper time and again for a day- break breakfast on which the blazing morning star looked in through the door, shaming our yellow lamp. I remember the valiant little orange trees, putting forth their glossy new growth, and the luxuriant tobacco on the hill at Hato Guane, site, probably, of the origi- nal town ; it was the first congregation of Europeans in all the west of Cuba. But most distinctly of all do I recollect that at Ocean Beach I was hungry, — hungry with a depth of emptiness there did not seem to be enough of anything available to appease, — not even of fresh eggs fried at the Jones^ nor of sorrel sauce; nor of bread nor thinly sliced cold meat at the SoUey's, nor of crackers, nor pie, nor anything ! Nor did any realize that what they served was not the measure of healthy appetite ! They were schooled to less. This I came to realize as I heard them discuss the fact that because of a rumor of revolution imminent at Guane, the weekly boat had brought the store no sup- plies ! Mrs. SoUey thought she had enough beans and rice to tide her over seven lean days ; she regretted that she must decline, for the time being, to lend her less well-stocked neighbors any flour ! There was no revolution in prospect, really ; they wondered, vaguely, WEST BY RAIL 245 what recourse they'd resort to if ever there were trouble in earnest, entaihng indefinite delay of the weekly boat, and cutting off railway connection with Havana, — sole source of very necessary food ! Appetite enlivened my imagination. I suggested they surround the wire- less station the United Fruit Company maintains on Cape San Antonio, and to New Orleans send a cry for help. I could, especially at the time, imagine what revenue cutters, laden to the gunwale with provisions, that gallant city would send across in response to such appeal ! Most citrus fruit plantations in Pinar del Rio Prov- ince are nearer Havana, — between Candelaria and Consolacion, though there are some in the immediate vicinity of the city of Pinar itself. The majority are set in sandy or gravelly soils, derived from adjacent highlands, distributed by streams and floods. This soil is notably poor in plant food. Citrus fruit growers argue, however, as they supply it by the carload in the shape of fertilizer at an average price of $45 a ton, that precisely because this is true they are enabled to control their trees, and especially the quality and color of their fruit. To produce a grove under these conditions necessitates, however, considerable expense, which grow- ers are now finding themselves obliged to increase further by the cost of irrigation. Those owners who can are installing plants. Because they did not understand that capital and labor both are required to develop a citrus fruit grove in Cuba, some growers have had to abandon their estates. I have seen fire running wantonly through one such de- serted grove at San Cristobal, licking up the dry grass from among the stiff dead pineapple plants between rows of gaunt and leafless trees, set out there by God 246 CUBA knows what tired schoolma'am, what city-imprisoned bookkeeper, what pensioned veteran of war or industry, whose inexperience detected no flaw in the land-com- pany hterature on which they fed their enthusiasm for a ^^self-supporting home'^ in a ^4and of perpetual June. " Still other investors, being on the ground, have been able to shift their course in. the face of the same adverse circumstances which overwhelmed the absen- tees : they are cultivating secondary crops, — tobacco, in happy cases where their soil is suited to this exacting plant, or, in few successful instances, vegetables, — from which they obtain the money and still more money a citrus fruit grove requires (through the years, — five to eight, according to its particular circumstances) to bring it to full bearing. The few who had the means and the determination to see their undertaking through without detrimental and delaying economies find themselves, like Orr Brothers, in possession of handsome groves from which they are just beginning to obtain fruit of a quality that challenges comparison with the best grown any- where. Because many have, at least not yet, succeeded where they triumphed (had all the orange trees planted in western Cuba arrived at even average bearing, they must have flooded the local market carloads deep !), these gentlemen find profitable sale near by for all the oranges they care to dispose of here rather than ship, which is, to be exact, about all the oranges they grow. Shipping expenses are high between groves in Cuba and markets of the United States, where citrus fruit must be sold, until, at least, better connection is made with Canadian, and, possibly, European demand. The total of the numerous necessary items averages from $1.50 to $1.75 (round numbers, but fairly accurate, I would undertake to prove) per box on fruit from west- WEST BY RAIL 247 ern Cuba. Competition in those markets is keen, and Cuban oranges do not, usually, return enough to the grower, over and above this cost of shipment, plus cost of production, picking, packing, etc., to recompense him for his work. A cent or two each for fruits hang- ing in his grove, or, at most, delivered by the cartload in his nearest town, '4ooks good^' to him. He can get it, at the present time. Grape fruit, on the other hand, repays shipment. Cuban grape fruit is '^A 1,'' in the language of com- mission men who have handled fair samples. It costs little if any more than oranges to transport, and nothing more to grow, pick, and pack ; it sells higher, and, most important of all, ^^ stands up'^ through long voyages, which fact multiplies the markets to which it may hopefully seek admittance. In the fiscal year 1908-1909, the island of Cuba shipped about 40,000 boxes of citrus fruit. Of these only 494 came out of Pinar del Rio Province (from Artemisa and Taco Taco). To the total from western Cuba, however, Santiago de las Vegas added 253 boxes and Rancho Boyeros 6275. These towns are in western Havana Province. Western Cuba produces pineapples. Cubans total crop last fiscal year was 1,263,466 crates, of which more than one third — 463,473, to be exact — came into Havana from towns on the Western Railway line Artemisa contributing 298,966 crates ; Canas, 141,586 San Cristobal, 9077 ; Alquizar, 6750 ; Palacios, 3160 Taco Taco, 2537; Paso Real, 819; Candelaria, 578. During the season now ending exportation was even larger (over 1,300,000 crates), of which the region un- der consideration produced half. Despite evidence to the contrary which the size of the crop marketed would 248 CUBA seem to constitute, pineapples are not profitable to their growers. It can be proven by documents covering actual shipments that the planter loses money on every crate of fruit sent forward. Frequently it is a fact that he does lose ; acres and acres of plants set out have been abandoned during the past few years. No new plantings have been made. Usually, however, the grower who ships is "taken care of by the for- warder, who advances him at least crates, paper, and nails. The interesting mystery is why the forwarder should lend his encouragement ; were there such a thing as an international commerce commission, the reason might be revealed. There is no sentiment, to say noth- ing of law, against rebating in freights by water between the United States and Cuba. Meanwhile, the present situation is satisfactory to nobody ; the whole fabric of Cuba's biggest fruit business rests on an unstable base. Economy and skill in growing, elimination of terrific waste in transit, and reform in matters of forwarding are imperatively necessary if a crisis (avoided this pass- ing season only by extraordinary circumstances) and the ruin of the whole traffic in Cuban pines is to be averted. There would seem to be an opening in western Cuba for a pineapple cannery. It is my impression that it would have to be undertaken on a scale to attract favor- able attention from this not too observant government, expressed, say, in drawback on sheet tin or tin cans, since these materials must be imported and duty is high. There are seven sugar mills in Pinar del Rio Province. During the last five years their output, combined, has been 914,218 bags, or only two per cent of the island's. ** Before the war,'' this industry had far greater impor- tance in the west than it now enjoys. It offers, in this WEST BY RAIL 249 quarter, opportunity for the profitable investment of conservative capital. Such opportunities are, however, plentiful in this region, especially just now that good roads have made available certain sections of the province not, in all the centuries their exceptional qualities have been known, properly exploited, because of their inaccessibility. CHAPTER XII WEST BY ROAD ** The Cart Roads of Magoon'' All Cuba, but most particularly Pinar del Rio Prov- ince, owes gratitude to the former provisional governor, Judge Charles E. Magoon, who ordered roads built, and to Colonel William M. Black, who planned and executed the project for their construction. One of the greatest obstacles to the agricultural development of Cuba has been, ever since such effort first began, the almost complete absence of improved roads. Maps of Cuba show a network of lines all over the country, which their legends assure the unwary are roads ; in truth, these lines indicate only rights-of-way, which are hard enough usually in the dry season to per- mit wheel traffic, but become nearly or quite impassable, sometimes even for pack animals, during the wet season, which is May to November. The immense detriment this is to the country will be appreciated when it is re- called that Cuba is entirely an agricultural community. For more than two hundred years preceding the final struggle between Spain and Cuba the people begged roads of successive regimes. Petitions were drawn up, especially through the Economic Society of Friends of the Country, a learned body vested with certain advi- sory privileges. Extensive plans were prepared, — and pigeonholed. When the Cuban congress came into ex- 250 WEST BY ROAD 251 istence, the need of a definite program of road construc- tion by the state was placed before it, — and ignored. Meanwhile, the Cuban countryman continued to produce bumper crops of sugar and the cream of the world's tobacco, amid conditions entailing heavy economic waste, and such delay and hard usage in transportation from field to shipping point that he was effectively prevented from exploiting any secondary crop on which to fall back in case of the failure of the two principal crops. This restriction to two crops, both, on the whole, somewhat uncertain, has kept financial conditions in Cuba unstable. Unstable financial conditions have had their direct effect on the general temper of the people here. It is a fact that every political disturbance of magnitude in Cuba has followed a failure of either the sugar or the tobacco crop, most especially the sugar crop, since it is the principal interest of a larger area in the island. The Spanish counted low prices on sugar an infallible sign of impending revolution ; vice versa, when sugar sold high they rested on their arms. At the present time it is commonly remarked that the exceptional prosperity of the sugar industry during the past two seasons (thanks to fine weather and favorable conditions, from Cuba's point of view, in the world's market) is what has so far upheld the existing Liberal regime. When prices are up, everybody is too busy making money to conspire or execute conspiracies. When prices go down there are idle hands, and the devil provides mischief. Poverty, frequently actual hunger, have in times past induced ''patriots" to take up arms merely because men in arms may forage. There is no secondary crop, largely because sugar and tobacco are profitable. Even when they are not more 252 ' CUBA profitable than other crops could be made to be, they are still the two crops the countryman knows how to grow best, — he has, in short, ^^got the habit ^' of pro- ducing just tobacco and sugar and nothing more. Furthermore, few crops withstand, like sugar and tobacco, transportation over such ways as Cuba has heretofore called roads. Corn can be carried far and roughly, and, by the same token, it comes nearest con- stituting a secondary crop of any, for it is produced largely, and at the rate of two crops per year in many districts, especially wild country in the far east. The local supply, however, does not meet the domestic demand. In limited regions cacao and coffee are grown for sale, often far up among mountains. Big pineapple plantations are always close to railway lines. Every countryman, as I have remarked, allows some root crops (the same, undoubtedly, that Father Adam gnawed outside the garden gate !) and a brave plantain or so, to linger in his dooryard ; he does not, however, cultivate them, for he is too busy in the tobacco field or in the nearest cane field, where he works hard on an average per diem wage of a dollar and a quarter. It is to me a most astonishing anomaly that this most fertile island does not feed itself. Even its rural population does not grow minor crops sufficient to sustenance, to say nothing of supporting villages, towns, and cities. These being the facts, it is obvious that road building is a step toward diversified crops, and the protection they constitute against ^'famine.'' Therefore, since hunger is inspiration to revolution, road building is also an assurance to peace, so vitally necessary to Cuba, and a step toward genuine independence she can hardly hope to enjoy so long as she remains utterly dependent on the United States not only for the sale of her only WEST BY ROAB 253 crops, but also for the purchase of the very food she must have from day to day. Frankly giving these as his reasons for so expending the millions then accumulated in the national treasury as surplus, Governor Charles Magoon, on April 19, 1907, endorsed the plan of public improvements drawn up in the Department of Public Works, over which Colonel William M. Black presided as advisor. Its principal feature was road work. It was proposed to build a grand trunk highway from Santiago de Cuba at the east end of the island to La Fe, at the west, connecting all the principal cities, from which main line branch roads will be thrown out north and south to at least one port on each shore in each of the six provinces. It had been intended to distribute the work ratably throughout the country and to begin it in each province at about the same time. Instead it was found desirable to give Pinar del Rio Province the preference, though the work elsewhere was not neglected. The revolution which overthrew Palma and occasioned American intervention in 1906 broke first in the west. In the fastnesses of the western hills Pino Guerra, who led the revolt, had recruited his followers, and there he flitted hither and yon all through August and September, leading the government forces a vain chase through wilderness. Into the west every idler in the island hurried forthwith, intent on battening on disturbance. In October, following the political upset of September, a cyclone swept the island. The tobacco crop, owing to ^Hhe Little War'' and the big storm, was estimated a total failure. The sugar mills of the center and east had closed down, throwing thousands of men into the vortex. Every omen was portentous. In May, 1907, work on the roads in the west com- 254 CUBA menced. The very camp followers who had gone into Pinar del Rio looking for trouble were attracted by the wages offered, and accepted work on the government roads instead. A very serious aftermath of "the Little War'' was unquestionably thus averted. Realizing that the torrential rains of the tropics would soon render dirt roads useless, the government undertook the construction of highways built to last, on a solid foundation of telford macadam of the best stone native quarries afford, and finished throughout without neglect of any detail requisite to durability. The right of way is uniformly twenty meters, of which the pavement covers sixteen feet. Culverts are made of concrete, and the bridges of steel or native hard woods. Where needed to protect the roads from inundation, ditches have been dug to drain low lands. At inter- vals first of six and now of eight kilometers, neat houses have been erected in which dwell public-works peoneSy whose duty it is to keep in good condition the extent of highway confided to their care. In their yards these employees are growing trees which will be set out all along the new roads, after the Spanish custom, which makes travel over public highways such as these a cool delight the year around, no matter what the tempera- ture out from under the leafy canopy of foliage which laurels and royal poncianas stretch above them. Now a main east-and-west highway through ap- proximately the center of the island already existed in fair condition and constant use, from Havana westward as far as San Cristobal, a town 92i kilometers from Havana and 80 kilometers from Pinar del Rio City. In conformity with the general plan, of which this ex- isting road was really part, contracts were let to con- tinue it through to the western capital. . * • •• ( • • • * WEST BY BO AD . 255 Theoretically, there was a road westward from San Cristobal. Theoretically, it passed through the prin- cipal centers of population on the plain south of the Organos. In fact, that road, from San Cristobal on, was a linked chain of bog boles interrupted by rivers it was unwise to ford in the rainy season when the palm- tree bridges oxcart drivers had thrown across had been washed downstream. In fact, after 1895-1896, it lay to the north of some of the principal towns, — to wit, Taco Taco, Palacios, Paso Real de San Diego, and Herra- dura. Not the road, however, but the towns, were to blame ; they moved, not it. When they were rebuilt in times of peace after Maceo had burned them, they aban- doned their old sites, north of the Western Railway line, to take up life anew, alongside the tracks. Therefore the new government road, because it follows the course of the old road, misses these towns which moved; it crosses their old sites, or passes even north of them, and from their old deserted locations branch roads have been thrown out, like feelers, in search of the runaway towns. For instance, the new highway passes through what used to be the main street of Santa Cruz ; from there a two-kilometer branch goes south to Taco Taco. There is a five-kilometer branch from the main line to the modern town of Palacios on the railway. From the station of Paso Real de San Diego a fine branch road strikes northward over the site of the old town, and, con- tinuing even across the central highway, arrives at the famous health resort of San Diego de los Baiios. To the statement that the towns of Pinar del Rio Province are uninteresting one exception at least must be made, and that in favor of San Diego de los Banos, nestled among foothills of the Organos. San Diego is 256 . CUBA modern ; it was built in 1843 by D. Luis Pedroso, who platted it in correct squares around a central park named Plaza de Isabel II. The town got its name from a cattle range known as Corral (not an inclosure, but a ranch) de San Diego, in honor, probably, of the saint ^ of the owner, one Diego de Zayas, to whom it was transferred in 1632 by Mateo Pedroso, proprietor of a still larger estate of which its lands formed part. The streets of San Diego are laid at strict right angles ; they are rocky where stones meant to pave them have been trodden out of place or lifted by vegetation grow- ing between flags and among cobbles. Some of the houses are raised, in the endeavor to maintain a level against the sudden dropping away of the street, on foundations the height of which makes necessary a flight of steps from the sidewalk, when there is one, to the front door or portico. The village, ^^ situated in the bottom of a valley (alti- tude, by the way, is 225 meters above sea level), . . . seems to be quite surrounded with compajct and beauti- ful palm groves, which lend it an enchanting aspect, and form an outlook sufficient in itself to enliven the spirit of the most melancholy. '' I am quoting from Dr. Jos6 Miguel Cabarrouy. '^Vegetation in general is varied and exuberant, as becomes a tropical country : the soil is wonderfully fer- tile. 'Small fruits' are produced in plenty, and the district exports an important tobacco crop, — not ^ San Diego means St. James. Spanish Catholics claim as their saint that one whose festival falls on their birthday ; they usually bear his name and consider him patron of their affairs. If they choose as their name that of a saint whose day falls on other than their birthday, they celebrate their ''saint's day," instead of the anni- versary of their birth. WEST BY BOAD 257 'genuine Vuelta Abajo/ it is true, but of the quality known as semi-vueltaj much in demand in the United States. In the hills a leaf is had, which, because of its quality, obtains an even better price, and is used in the cigar factories of Havana. '^ Hard woods abound in the mountains back of the town, — cedar, mahogany, majagua, oak, and many another precious variety, together with tall and vener- able pine trees'. ^^ Fruit trees grow even wild: in the fastnesses of the hills everywhere there are mangos ^ guanabanas, sour oranges, mameyes, both the red and the Santo Domingan varieties, mamom, caimito, canitel, and others, while on cultivated lands and about ranch houses one sees zapotes, mangos, pineapples, pomelos, limes, anones, cocoanut palms, guavas, and all sorts of banana trees.'' The woods are full of little birds, gay-colored and cheerful. There are deer. The San Diego River bounds the town upon two sides. This stream takes its rise in the mountains above, and flows southward, passing through the Portals. The Portals are, I understand, a narrow exit water- worn through rock, which, if closed again, would cause a great lake or reservoir to form, up there in the hills ; and from it all the arid sections of the distant southern plain might be irrigated, were proper pipe lines laid. Engi- neers consider such a project feasible, and its necessity has already been considered by the government, dur- ing Governor Magoon's provisional administration. All the left bank of the river is ''sown,'' as Dr. Ca- barrouy puts it, ''with springs of sulphurous water, some hot and some cold. " The most famous are within the village of San Diego. The story is that their exist- ence and marvelous curative qualities were discovered quite by accident. ' ' A slave named Domingo developed 258 CUBA a repugnant skin disease, and his master, with the laud- able intention of avoiding its transmission to his other slaves, freed the man, giving him liberty to go away, where he would. Wandering among the hills Domingo chanced upon a cavern (the cave of Taita Domingo is still shown to visitors), near the left bank of the San Diego River, close by the present town, wherein he made his lair, living as best he could on roots and fruits. He bathed in the stream. One day as he was wading up the river he noticed with surprise that the water had become warm. He glanced at the bottom on which he stood, and saw that for some three yards all about him it was white as though the rocks there had been white- washed. He discovered, too, that in that spot the water welled forth, rising slightly above the level of the rest.'' In short, Domingo had stumbled upon the sulphur springs of San Diego. He bathed in them, and was cured of his malady, whereupon he returned to his master and spread the good tidings. The two main springs were early known as Templado and Tigre ; where their overflows met was designated as Paila Bath. These names continue in use. The fame of the waters went abroad. The sick sought them, and were cured, the really beneficent quali- ties they possess being aided in their work by the resin- ous, clean, cool atmosphere of the place, and by the calming restfulness of all the surroundings. In 1868, San Diego was made an acclimation and hospital camp for Spanish troops. Municipalities all over the island shipped their indigent sick to the springs. Fashion at the same time favored San Diego. Handsome bath- houses, with ornate columns, garden seats, and long walks under arches, were erected there. Fashionable WEST BY ROAD 259 beauties came in volantaSy driving up even from San Cristobal when the railway reached no farther. Gentle- men on horseback escorted them. Serving-people fol- lowed in caravans. The season at San Diego was bril- liant then, as slavery and high-priced sugar could make it. But war came. The Ten Years' struggle, far from adversely affecting the west, actually lent it unusual prosperity. In 1895, however, when Maceo rode over Pinar del Rio, the village of San Diego was abandoned by its residents, who fled — men, women, and children — over the hills to the north coast and thence to Ha- vana, by boat. The revolutionists entered the town freely. They would have burned it, save that a ransom was promised. While negotiations were in progress concerning the sum of money to be raised, the Spanish came back and occupied the barracks. In 1895, too, it was that a freshet (not unusual to the San Diego River) came ripping down the canon, and in one mad whirl carried away bathhouses, promenades, piping, garden seats, arches, and all that stood for the opulent, indolent resort of the passing regime. The health-giving springs remained, bubbling among the debris. Their flow continues unchanged, year in, year out. Temporary bathhouses have been erected. Society still foregathers at San Diego during its season, which is from February on into the summer. San Diego pleases foreigners. Among its distin- guished visitors have been many Americans of promi- nence, such, for instance, as Generals Grant and Sherman, who visited the springs accompanied by quite a party in 1886, and also leading officials of the Ameri- can Armies of Occupation and Pacification in Cuba, some one of whom, by the way, cut out and bore away 260 CUBA the signatures of Grant and Sherman, which were the pride of the register of Hotel Cabarrouy ; by the manner in which the landlady relates this incident I gather that she was paid to permit the mutilation of her book. Some distance west of the crossing of the branch road to San Diego with the main highway between Havana and Pinar, an eight-kilometer branch leads south, over the site of the original village, to the new Herradura, an American town on the railway line. This road, as it approaches the station, constitutes the main street of the village, facing which are stores, a church building which is at once townhall and school also, and, here and there in the double row, the comfortable homes of settlers who have preferred to reside among neighbors rather than in opener country. Here, too, is the hotel. Herradura was, until its acquisition in 1904 by an American land company, a cattle range owned by the Pino family for a hundred years at least, on available parts of which tobacco was produced, as it is still pro- duced, in fact, by the present representative of the original owners, by his partidarios {vegueros who grow tobacco on shares), and some few of the American settlers who raise this crop along with citrus fruit groves and vegetable gardens. These American resi- dents on the tract now number some 300, men and women largely from the northwestern United States, of the highest type of pioneer. The town of Consolacion, just beyond Herradura, stood by its original site despite the war ; a branch road three kilometers long leads from the town to the rail- way station, the main road passing through the town. From Consolacion the highway takes its logical course to Pinar del Rio City, in part following the line of the 1 i 1 ^^ Jl 1 ' i 1 ■ ■T ^tt ''^m^^^M i SI i»4> •','. e\.. "*-'%"^„ , < - _^iL_„.^ ,„...„._\^.--^ ^ "r^^^^^l P/iotograph by American Photo Company Quarry beyond Luis Lazo Stone for macadamization piled ready for hauling Photograph by American Photo Company QuAifRYiNG Native Stones for Road Dressing, in Pinar DEL Rio WEST BY ROAD 261 old highway and in part opening up new country. It passes through no towns. The central trunk line does not terminate in that city. There it swerves north and west, continuing through the Cabezas, Sumidero, Luis Lazo, and San Carlos districts, whence it bends back to Guane, thence resuming its northerly trend and pressing on toward Mantua and Los Arroyos, that town's shipping port on the north coast. Considering the road north and west of Pinar del Rio City as part, as it is, of the main trunk line out of Havana, calculation shows that that central artery of traffic, if ever completed, will extend from the national capital to the very end of the island, over an inter- vening distance of 173| miles, exclusive of all branch lines, which aggregate, say, 120 miles more. Between Havana and Pinar del Rio City the high- way is complete, and it is as smooth and white as a marble table-top. Automobiles speed upon it, without restriction on velocity. While interesting, and, in some neighborhoods, very beautiful, this stretch of road is lacking, nevertheless, in the very picturesque features to be noted elsewhere, especially along the roads beyond Pinar. One is impressed with its utility, whereas, along these other roads, one realizes that they are lovely rather than that they are useful, or, what was more important in the government's mind when they were planned, that they are military roads built for military purposes. Unfortunately the main highway is not completed through to Guane ; there is an unfinished stretch between Pinar and that town, over which auto- mobiles make their way with difficulty. The govern- ment ran out of funds before the work was ended ; the contractor went as far as he thought the administration's 262 CUBA credit good, then paid off his laborers, and quit. His bill is still unsettled. At kilometer 10 out of Pinar on the way to Luis Lazo, the road climbs to an elevation of about 800 feet ; from this vantage point travelers obtain a wide view of all the undulating plain to the southward, even to the featureless shore the Caribbean meets. On a very clear day the waters of that sea are distinguishable. The city of Pinar del Rio occupies the middle fore- ground. In the distance, looking northwestward, are the higher ridges of the Organo range. Between kilometer posts 10 and 18 on this road, the Huston Company did the heaviest work attempted on any highway in Cuba. In building those eight kilo- meters over 500,000 cubic feet of earth were moved, cut and fill. Literally, the hills were leveled that the road might have its way. Gulches have been built up ; summits have been torn down. All the country- side is rent and scarred with the struggle, but the road passes through, triumphantly maintaining its grade. In succession the highway traverses the Isabel Maria, Cabezas, Sumidero, Luis Lazo, and San Carlos valleys, touching the little towns which are their respective centers of settlement. These valleys are, in general, fertile, flat-bottomed inclosures shut in by abrupt walls of limestone from the crevices of which stunted palms shoot upward; wherever there is soil to support the roots, verdure sprouts to hang the rocks with green. Wherever he found conditions suitable the native tobacco grower has prepared his patch of ground, even atop the cliffs themselves in places so precarious that his only means of ascent and descent is a rope. From Guane, approached from north of the moun- WEST BT ROAB 263 tains through which the road has worked its way since it left Pinar, the highway is projected on toward Mantua and Arroyos, but only the grading has been done, in part. The general plan of road work called, as has been noted, for branch roads to one south coast port and to one north coast port, in each province. With its logical south coast port, Coloma, the City of Pinar del Rio has been connected by way of a good road since the time of the American Occupation, in 1898-1902. What repairs this highway needed were made in 1907. It was de- cided to build a second south branch road to the neigh- boring port of Punta de Cartas, below the town of San Juan y Martinez. This branch is some ten miles long ; it lies through a low and level country, uninteresting after the tobacco fields are left behind. North and a little west of Pinar del Rio City is the port of Esperanza, a harbor frequented by coasting schooners and the weekly north shore steamer. It was determined to build the north branch road demanded by the general plan, from Pinar del Rio City to Esper- anza via the famous Valley of Vifiales and San Vicente Vale. Out of Pinar del Rio City this highway descends gentle slopes, between tobacco fields. It ascends again, amid patches of yuca, malanga, and sweet potato vines alternating with tobacco. Everywhere, in the shade of mango and aguacate trees, are shaggy huts. As the country in general rises to the foothills north of the city lands less adapted to tobacco succeed pre- ferred areas, and cultivated tracts become rarer. Pine trees put in appearance, standing side by side with royal palms and manaca palms almost as regal. The road winds through the foothills, twisting with many 264 CUBA a crook and turn to avoid grades above the permissible maximum. The summit is reached at an altitude of 850 feet. The view from here, fine as it is, is not com- parable with that other which greets the traveler, suddenly, as, having traversed the famous field where, in 1896, occurred the bloody battle of the Guao, he arrives on the brink of the Valley of Vinales, low-lying among the peculiar monolithic mountains termed, locally, mogotes. Evidently all the valley was once one tremendous cave, worn in the limestone formation of the Orango Range by the constant motion of subterraneous waters. The mogotes were the pillars which supported the roof on a level with the plateau to which the road has climbed laboriously ; they happened to be of harder formation than the surrounding stone, and resisted erosion. One fearful day in the long ago the top of that great cave fell in ; its debris have long since crumbled, disintegrat- ing to form the fairly level and very fertile floor of the valley. The pillars which originally supported the roof, however, — the upright mogotes^ — have continued to resist erosion, and all attacks of wind and sunlight after rain ; they rise above the floor level to heights varying from six hundred to two thousand feet. They look like projecting fingers of Titan hands grasping from earth, or, where they are larger, like gigantic knuckles protruding. Their sheer cliffs are scarred and weather- beaten. In the valley itself the veguero cultivates his tobacco fields in patchwork fashion. His thatched hut stands in crannies under the cliffs, or again bravely out in the open, a dot on plowed ground. Roads and bridle paths fine the level. The place looks like a child's sand map (as I saw it in the season when the tobacco WEST BY ROAD 265 had not yet come up green and tender to carpet all the fields) decorated with toy huts and stiffly straight palm trees. In the midst of the valley is the town of Vinales, red-roofed, white-pillared, incredibly clean and pros- perous. It has its church in a barren square. Its streets cross at right angles. Beyond the town the road leads on, through the Gap, a narrow gateway opening into a smaller vale, that of San Vicente, very similar to the main valley in origin, doubtless. Its bottom, too, is exceedingly good tobacco land, and appreciatively cultivated. The Gap itself is a portal : on both sides tower cliffs of whit- ish limestone, ornamented still with stalactites and sta- lagmites which proclaim the fact that once it was the passage of an underground river. The mountains cast a chill shadow on the road. Just beyond the Gap are the sulphur springs of San Vicente. They equal in curative qualities, it is said, those of San Diego de los Bafios, with which they are closely allied, according to analysis. What bathhouses there used to be have fallen into ruin ; mud and grass choke the springs themselves. Yet the beauty of the place is so remarkable, and the medicinal value of the waters such, they warrant a prophesy that at no very distant date adequate accommodations will make a famous resort of San Vicente. A stream of clear sweet water runs through the little valley. Its bank, close under the highest mountain of the Gap, is a camp site preferred by outing parties from Pinar del Rio City, and from distant Havana as well. The road, having arrived by the only entrance, the Gap, leaves the vale by the only exit, a pass on its 266 CUBA northern side. Once outside, it skirts the hills which inclose the vale, and then turns abruptly toward the coast. It takes its way through pine lands and an oak grove hung thick with aeroids, to San Cayetano village, — a cluster of huts grouped around the smoke-blackened shell of a church which was destroyed toward the end of the last Cuban war against Spain. From here the distance is short to the port of Esperariza. Esperanza (some thirty miles in all from Pinar) lies on a flat beach. The sea here is quiet ; what force its waves might have is spent on the Colorado Reefs out- side. The town itself is without interest. The only sights to see are the rusted hulks of two abandoned locomotives. At one time Esperanza was connected with Vinales by way of a very narrow-gauge railway, built to handle freight (tobacco and guano) ; it carried only what passengers were willing to negotiate its remarkable grades and turns at their own risk. Plans existed to carry it through the San Carlos district to Guane. In 1895, however, the big storm took out an important bridge, and thereafter, though trains ran in spite of the washout, the enterprise went rapidly into decay. War took possession of the province, and the company's rails were used to help build a series of blockhouses across the country. Around these fortlets some real fighting was done. When the Americans came in, in 1898, evidences of the struggle, consisting of empty cartridges and skeletons, were thick enough in all the vicinity around about Pinar del Rio City itself and Viiiales. Now, however, no spot in Cuba gives more evidence of peace and prosperity. Every ox in the region is fat, though he is working overtime, and even on Sun- Photograph by American Photo Company On the Bayamo-Manzanillo Highway Stones from the river beds used in macadamizing Photograph by American Photo Company On the line of the Bayamo-Manzanillo Highway Distress the new road has relieved PhotoQraph by American Photo Company An Or.n T?,OAr> ttm TsroRTPr"WF;sTF/R7sr Ptmar r>Tr.T. Rin wnT?iM P! at?t?t Amr«_ WEST BY BO AD 267 days there are men, women, and children at labor in the fields. The district is Cuba as Cuba ought to be, — industrious, encouraged by every prospect of substan- tial return to recompense the willing labor everybody is expending upon the fertile fields. The government highway, in connecting the vicinity with the railway, at Pinar, on the one hand, and with the steamship line to Havana, via the north coast, on the other, has given it new life. It presented to me, when we passed through, pictures and panoramas that return to my mind with remarkable clarity despite some time that has elapsed since I was there. The Vifiales district is, to me, pre- eminently Pinar del Rio ; at mention of that province's name I do not think of any section the railway into the west traverses : not the fruitlands of Artemisa, the tobacco lands of Alquizar, the abandoned canefields, the desolate palm barrens, nor the citrus fruit groves of hopeful Americans along the line; I see, instead, Vifiales, red-roofed, quiescent, low-lying amid its care- fully cultivated fields, where not a spot remains un- touched by the tobacco grower's hand, — at peace beside its towering mogotes, among which winds the cream-white ribbon of the road. CHAPTER XIII TOBACCO IN WESTERN CUBA Whenever a " priest of Partagas " " opens the old cigar box " and gets him a genuine " Cuba stout " he hfts incense to this one partic- ular small area of the earth's surface. — From "Scenery in Cuba." ''Happy/' they say, '4s the country which has no history/' The remark is apphcable to Pinar del Rio. It was settled, though sparsely, for two hundred years before the central government of the colony of Cuba took cognizance of its existence or supplied it with a definite name, to say nothing of an organized govern- ment. Thereafter, in similar unobtrusive fashion, it con- tinued to prosper unobserved, possibly because heroic events elsewhere in the island held general attention continuously. When the smoke finally cleared away it was notable that the five other provinces were in proud possession of bloody annals, and of little else; Pinar del Rio, patriotic protest to the contrary not availing, is lacking, by comparison, in those martial records mistakenly accepted, in subtropical America, as constituting the magna pars of history, but, in recom- pense, she has intensely cultivated areas, a master grip on the world's tobacco market, and, despite the recent blot on her records, a reputation for tranquility likely to assist toward still greater prosperity than that at present enjoyed. When one attempts, however, to trace the sequence of events which brought about the present stage of the west's development, one is almost 268 TOBACCO IN WESTERN CUBA 269 convinced that there were no events; that Pinar del Rio, as it is to-day, Hke Topsy, '^jest growed/' Pinar del Rio was, during the Spanish regime, proud of her reputation for loyalty to the established govern- ment, and she made market of peace preserved in the west. She drove from her shores Colombian priva- teers who first attempted to ruffle her allegiance to Spain. Lopez, the leader of an ill-starred expedition which sought to free Cuba in 1851, was betrayed to government soldiery close by that same Rangel I have described as the country home of the botanist, Sau- valle. The Ten Years' War did not disturb the west. In 1895-1896 Maceo ordered the Invasion; that is, he bade the bands of Cuban revolutionists then in the field elsewhere, to rendezvous in Pinar del Rio, where there was something to be had to eat. Despite Spanish resistance, his ragged companies crossed the trochas, came around Havana, and, even from Santiago and Camaguey, they arrived within the province of Pinar. Out of Pinar, refreshed and somewhat reorganized, Maceo was leading them toward Havana itself when he was killed at Punta Brava, in Havana Province, within eighteen miles of the capital. In 1906 Pino Gucrra astonished the natives by initiating in Pinar del Rio Province that rebellion against President Raima's ad- ministration which has come to be known as ^Hhe Little War of August.'' It occasioned American inter- vention in the form of the Provisional Administration of Governor Charles E. Magoon, who in 1908 turned the republic over to the actual president. General Jose Miguel Gomez, head of the Liberal party. In the world at large, however, Pinar del Rio is not renowned on account of any of these events, or any others of similar nature. The province is famous in- 270 CUBA stead for its tobacco. In the records of the tobacco business what real history the region has is to be found. All Cuban tobacco is good tobacco, as compared with that grown elsewhere. In itself it is divided into infinite variations of quality. It is conceded that the best, — both filler and wrapper, — grows in western Cuba, particularly in Vuelta Abajo (pronounced Voo-el'-ta Ah-bah'-ho). Why one small particular section of the earth's sur- face (Pinar del Rio westward from Consolacion, and especially south of the mountain range) should produce the very finest of this especial crop is not definitely known ; but it has been demonstrated that the excel- lence inheres, not in plants indigenous or acclimated, but in some peculiar combination of soil and climate prevailing there. Vuelta Abajo tobacco removed to other sections of Cuba, to say nothing of other coun- tries (experiments have been made as far away as India), loses its distinguishing qualities ; whereas other to- baccos (Mexican varieties and hybrids used to replant western vegas when the original Vuelta Abajo variety became very scarce indeed during and after the war) when cultivated in this vicinity acquire quality not equaled by plants of identical origin matured elsewhere. The tobacco districts of Pinar del Rio are compara- tively recent developments. Cuba was supplying Europe with tobacco grown in regions which lie within the provinces of Havana, Matanzas, Santa Clara, Camaguey, and Oriente, long before western leaf was recognized. Before the commencement of the seven- teenth century, wherever the veguero was able to wrest half a chance from adverse conditions and neighbors entirely inimical to him, the little patches of cultivated ground which were his vegas had made their appearance. TOBACCO IN WESTERN CUBA 271 in central and eastern Cuba, along the banks of the* Guanabo and Canasi rivers on the north, and those of > the Arimao, Caracucey, and Agabama on the south side y^ of the island. By the middle of the seventeenth century tobacco culture was the principal business of the coun- try people of Cuba. Before the end of that same century some few growers had taken up more or less permanent habitation among the far western hills : Pinar del Rio had not yet a name, — only corsairs knew its coasts, and few save runaway slaves had traveled its plains or penetrated the highlands of its northern part. These scattered pioneers fought for the privilege of growing their crop. They were at war against the vested rights of cattle- men who held title to the west country. These pro- prietors owned land granted by the Crown in tremen- dous circles the centers only of which were known; the circumferences were undetermined. Being unable, to prove definitely what was theirs, the cattlemen in question laid claim to everything in sight. Some- times they permitted the vegueros to cultivate the banks of streams through their ranches ; sometimes they declined to do so, or later, being compelled by law to allow it, they refused to permit the growers to cut fence posts on their land (and all the land was their land), at the same time letting their stock range the neigh- borhood, and, incidentally, trample the tobacco down. If a veguero resented this, and killed the cattle, he was liable to the ungentle judgment of the stockmen them- selves. Vegueros considered, moreover, that the cattle- men were bound to allow them the use of convenient parcels of ground for the sowing and culture of seed- lings ; the cattlemen held that it was their option whether they should grant the favor or not. Some- 272 CUBA times they generously consented to the use of land for seedbeds, but saw to it that the small tracts designated for the purpose were at such distances from the ve- guero^s home he could not properly attend to them at night. Again, proprietors might grant everything asked in the way of land for seedbeds and tobacco fields, but charge the grower a prohibitive rent for other land on which his bohio and the miserable garden where he raised his foodstuffs stood, thus making his existence impossible. For his part, the veguero retaliated as best he could. His very name was synonymous with thief ; he plundered his neighbor's chicken coop, caught his hogs as they wandered in the woods, and slaughtered fat calves, no matter who their owner might be, when- ever he wanted meat. At war on land with all his surroundings, and espe- cially, in spirit, with that shadowy and distant Author- ity to which they appealed who oppressed him, to justify their conduct toward him, the western veguero was friendly with every floating representative of law- lessness on the high seas. Spain's enemies, — who defied Authority, — bent on rifling her colonial mar- kets, pirates, and the smugglers who succeeded them, — all alike^ — represented to the tobacco grower in the west a welcome market. Foreign vessels, and vessels which flew no flag of any nation, dropped frequent an- chors in western ports. The veguero, far from assum- ing offensive attitudes, went down to the harbors, — to Pirate's Lagoon, for instance, — to greet the visitors, and, in all friendliness, delivered to them in exchange for merchandise or cash, tobacco which, reaching Europe, aroused the admiration of connoisseurs at courts. As may be deduced, this disposition of the western product aroused also the indignation of the Spanish monarch, Photogravh by American Photo' Company Shade-grown Tobacco Fields at San Juan y Martinez, Vuelta Abajo PfiotogravJi by American Photo Company A Tobacco Warehouse, Havana The tobacco in palm-leaf covered bales TOBACCO IN WESTERN CUBA 273 when he came to discover that his trade laws were effectively violated ; but Spain had as yet no force in the district, since become the Province of Pinar del Rio, sufficient to prevent traffic between vegueros and ^^ for- eign pirates/' Therefore it continued. In other parts of the island, where Authority was a fact and not a fiction, tobacco culture was controlled, — encouraged now by a ruling in favor of the grower, hampered next by a restriction laid on the sale of what he produced under that very encouragement. In the west, however, the veguero grew tobacco where he could and sold it where a market offered, in the capital or elsewhere, all with fine disregard for the Spanish exchequer, which, endeavoring to wring revenue from it, almost choked to death the tobacco business else- where in Cuba. In the year 1773 the supply of tobacco on hand in Spain exceeded the demand, — apparently for the first time. Then, for the first time, the government author- ities began to consider quality in this merchandise. Where, previously, they had been ordering only to- bacco and more tobacco, they now demanded less tobacco, but a better quality. The moment Spain's demand was for the best tobacco available, it developed that the finest leaf was that which had been furnished in small lots by certain isolated growers in western Cuba whose fields lay along the banks of the Cuya- guateje River, sixty leagues or more beyond Havana, in lonely, neglected, unpopulated country, nominally a part of Havana's jurisdiction, but still, in reality, without government at all. Governor de la Torre resolved to found a town out there, in the furthest west, and to name a lieutenant governor to reside in it, in representation of his author- // 274 CUBA ity. His object was to encourage the cultivation of the exquisite tobacco of Vuelta Abajo (which means, merely, ^^down country,'^ as all the island west of Havana was indefinitely designated), by placing western vegueros in touch with the civil and social life of the rest of Cuba, and, by ''protecting^' them from their friends, the pirates, to secure their crop to the government. In 1774 the first governor of the newly created lieu- tenancy (he was Captain Fernandez, according to some historians) went into the west to establish his author- ity over Nueva Filipina (as the territory was called) from the Palacios River, to Cape San Antonio. He discovered that he had no need to found a town, — one almost two hundred years old already existed within his jurisdiction ; he had merely to legalize it to provide himself with a capital, and this he proceeded to do at once. The town was Guane. Guane seems to have been, in those days, of an am- bulatory disposition. Its first location was the Hato Guane I have mentioned, ten or twelve miles from its present site; thence it moved into the Acosta Hills, from where it traveled to Sansuefia, and next to Barrancas, finally settling down to stay atop its ridge of high land beside the Cuyaguateje River. Originally, persons in fifty leagues around brought their children for baptism to Guane's church ; there are entries dated 1604, and these are not the first made, evidently. Gradually this great jurisdiction (both civil and religious) was subdivided, and the parishes of Mantua, Baja, San Juan y Martinez, and Pinar del Rio itself, acquired distinct identities, and an equipment of officials of their own. Just as it was tobacco which first brought organized government into the Vuelta Abajo, in 1774, so it was TOBACCO IN WESTERN CUBA 275 tobacco in the Cabezas de Horacio district which caused the development of Mantua (founded about 1716) ; it was the fact that their lands produced the best tobacco of all which changed the cattle ranches of San Juan, Martinez, and San Luis into the most renowned plantations under cultivation to-day ; and to the volume of tobacco business transacted there the city of Pinar del Rio (made the capital of Nueva Filipina in 1810) owes its importance, solely. Finally, it was the traffic offered in tobacco which drew the Western Railroad from Havana to Guane. To tobacco, briefly, the west of Cuba owes all. From the moment, in 1774, that a distinction among good tobaccos was drawn in favor of the best, the rise of Vuelta Abajo was quick. The far west of Cuba immediately attained a supremacy which has never since been questioned. Tobacco culture throughout the rest of the island has regulated itself with reference to business there. In districts where once it prevailed, tobacco has been abandoned (i.e, in the immediate neighborhood of Havana, where it was at one time prohibited by law) ; in others where it has not hereto- fore been known it is even now developing, thanks to improved transportation facilities {i.e. in the center and east of the island). In Vuelta Abajo, however, production has been uninterrupted (save during one short period in war times, 1895-1898), from unchron- icled years, prior to 1600, to date. Yet the industry, even in this heart of the west, has not approached the maximum of its possibilities. It is not modernized. Modernization, in this par- ticular instance, is an undertaking to be approached with considerable care. Americans have lost fortunes because of unwise haste in abandoning what they con- 276 CUBA sidered antiquated and superstitious methods of native growers. It is a notable fact that no foreigners succeed in tobacco culture in western Cuba unless they associate themselves with Cubans. Cubans are expert vegueros, — or, better said, — expert vegueros are Cubans. With some, even field hands, culture of the plant has been the business of their families for generations out of mind. They possess an art which has hot yet been reduced to a science. Ask him, and the Vuelta Abajo veguero will tell you that he knows — simply knows — where to plant his seedbed, where to locate his vega, when to irrigate and when to cut ; even on the best plantations it is largely the intuition of skilled employees which determines when a pilon shall be turned over, what temperature shall be maintained, and when the tobacco in each pile shall be selected for bundling and baling. Native growers are unable (and possibly a bit unwilling) to tell newcomers precisely what indications guide them in their delicate work. Yet there is no question but what their methods, or perhaps only their manner of executing their methods, can be improved upon. What Americans seek to do is to systematize tobacco culture, to distinguish between essentials and nonessentials, to understand, in brief, just what the Cuban grower does and why he does it. What he does must be learned by observation ; why he does it^ he himself has no idea. The necessity of fertilization, for instance, is an axiom. Yet the fertilizer is applied without a thorough knowl- edge of the soil it enriches ; therefore without assurance that the particular variety used is, after all, what is best. There is evidence that this ignorance is costing growers dear. Again, irrigation plants in modern sense are actually a novelty, even in Vuelta Abajo, yet tobacco TOBACCO IN WESTERN CUBA 211 has been irrigated through all the centuries. To this day many a good vega is supplied by hand from Standard Oil cans with water brought from creeks on drags of a pattern Cain must have originated. So accustomed are they to this method that many native planters insist tobacco can be properly irrigated in absolutely no other fashion. Experiments, nevertheless, are being made to determine whether surface irrigation, by ditching or overhead sprinkling, or subirrigation, or some as yet untried combination of any or all, may not prove cheaper and more effective. Some native planters de- clare that steel implements extract the virtue from to- bacco lands, which must, therefore, be plowed with wooden plows ; more intelligent growers know that the trouble lies in the fact that American plows sometimes cut too deep, turning up a clay from the bottom which, mixed with even the best top soil, will ruin a vega. It has been argued that to use draft animals in a tobacco field was impossible ; with field labor in Cuba demanding a wage of a dollar and more per diem ! Lately, however, reports are coming in of pronounced success with patent transplanters, hoes, and cultivators. A revolution in means, at least, if not ways, is imminent. One may therefore with little danger of contradiction assert that despite the years which have elapsed since its commencement, despite the tremendous commercial success it has already obtained, the business of growing tobacco in Cuba, even in western Cuba, is not more than well begun. Modern implements, intelligent fertiliza- tion, and scientific irrigation are bound to increase quantity, without impairing quality in the least. They will also make the crop less precarious by enabling the grower to control conditions. Improved transportation facilities are daily enlarging the possible field area. 278 CUBA There are lands in Pinar del Rio Province to this day- untouched, which would, in time, with proper care, yield the very best returns. Capital, not unmindful of the opportunity, is providing the last requisite, the ready cash. Three hundred years of development are only the prelude, the barest introduction, to the story of tobacco in Cuba, — to the history of Pinar del Rio, which I have not in my desultory reading found fully written anywhere,^ perhaps, now that I come to think of it, because it has not yet transpired. 1 For information concerning tobacco in Cuba, especially in the west, the author is indebted to Pezuela's history of the island. CHAPTER XIV THE ISLE OF PINES ... A spot endowed by the hand of Providence with so many- blessings, willfully denied to her by men incapable of correct judg- ment, who may, fortuitously, in the coiu-se of time, stand in need of her favors. — Dr. Jose de la Luz Hernandez, in his "Memoir on the Salubrity of the Isle of Pines" (1857). It is possible that in the beginning Cuba was two islands, — that a prehistoric sea inundated its leveler portions, between the highlands of Pinar del Rio and those of Oriente. If so, it is probable that the Isle of Pines was then an integral portion of the western divi- sion. Perhaps the very upheaval which elevated regions that are now the provinces of Havana, Matanzas, Santa Clara, and Camaguey, lowered the ocean bed to the southwest, thus making the Isle an isle, situated as it is to-day, at a distance of some fifty miles from Cuba, due south of this island's narrowest part. Its surround- ing waters are the Caribbean Sea, pleasant as an inland lake, and still variegated in color as they were in that June of long ago (1494) when Columbus' inexperienced sailors (the first Europeans to venture there) grew alarmed to see an ocean now green, now white, and again dark as though ink had been spilled into it. They had not before navigated a sea so shallow that the color of its bottom showed through. An elevation of less than fifty feet in the ocean bed would reestablish land connec- tion between Cuba and the Isle. Even the specially 279 280 CUBA constructed light-draft steamers which ply between Batabano and its ports stir the sands in passing. There is a channel, and they follow it, among shoals and man- grove keys ; to err is to spend hours aground, as we did, because we essayed to go around a dredger anchored in the right o' way. Apprised of our predicament (by way of our indignant comments shouted across), the crew of the dredger poled a lighter alongside and helped remove a little of our cargo. So, lessened in weight, we floated, regained the channel, took back our cargo, and proceeded on our way. The area of the Isle of Pines is estimated at nine hundred thousand acres. Of these perhaps three hundred thousand are south of Lanier Swamp, a marsh some fourteen miles long, varying in width from one mile to three, which,, stretching straight from an indenta- tion on the east side of the Isle called Boca de Cienaga, to Siguanea Bay upon the west, separates what is locally designated as ^Hhe South Coast ^' from the better known northern portion. Only a very narrow strip of coral rock, they say, submerged ten months in the year, joins the two component sections of the island. I was told that the South Coast is a true tropical wilderness. There Nature set the stage for dramas of piracy and smuggling. It is supposed to be the real shore of ^^ Treasure Island. '' Stevenson, it is claimed, once visited the Isle of Pines ; I have not been able to verify this statement, and I doubt it. Approached from the sea, that is, from the south, the South Coast is- a ledge of rock, running parallel with a sandy beach that varies from no width to a mile or more. In some parts the ledge is missing for a considerable distance ; elsewhere channels lead through it here and there into coves, some protected from the full force of the sea THE ISLE OF PINES 281 by coral reefs awash, past which, in best of weather, experienced pilots venture to bring in the light-draft schooners entering to load hard wood, particularly tobacco poles, for sale in neighboring ports of Cuba proper, especially in those of Pinar del Rio Province. A dim trail parallel to the coast, impassable for animals and difficult for man, leads over treacherous seboruco, from settlement to settlement ; for people reside here. They are mulatto and black natives of the Caiman Isles, those three dots of land accidentally dropped into the sea to the southward, and forgotten by all save England, who keeps a governor there. The more I heard of the South Coast, the more deter- mined was I to see its terrors face to face. I listened with -interest to tales of schooners becalmed or driven upon its secret reefs : none equaled the reality of the more recent wreck of the steamer Nicolas Castano^ which, thrown ashore in a cyclone, seems to have ex- ploded, scattering the naked bodies of her crew over sea and land. I was not diverted from my resolution even by statements that there was nothing whatsoever to. eat there. I had read that Captain Tirry, inspired like myself with a great desire to see, had found, as early as 1797, five brave men willing to accompany him : two to show the way and three to kill opposing croco- diles. I opined that their equals in valor might be dis- covered, even in these degenerate days. The nearer, however, that we approached to the fearful region, the less, to our disappointment, did its dangers appear. At Los. Indios, the most westerly American colony, we found persons quite willing to accommodate us, — to run across to the South Coast on a day^s picnic. Grandfather Symes shouldered the baby ; Mrs. Symes took the littlest boy by the hand ; a six-foot Kansan, 282 CUBA keen for adventure as could be, carried the lunch bas- ket; Mr. Brown provided the launch, and the cap- tain thereof headed her downstream, on the black and sullen Indios River, sluggish between its mangrove banks. At the bar a multitude of gray waves leaped at us, tossed us hither and yon, finally persuading us, much against our inclination, to delay our voyage until the bay should present itself in pleasanter mood. The following morning, early, we set forth again, and, emerging from the stream, found the waters in good humor. The air was clear. We could discern the furthest shores, where, especially among the distant Siguanea Mountains, light mists lay. Siguanea Bay is formed by the west extremity of the South Coast, which projects like a beckoning finger. We approached its inner curve, making our way carefully, for it was shoal water among keys. Arrived as close in as he thought safe, the captain anchored the launch, obligingly j umped overboard, waded ashore, and returned with a rowboat he found by a little pier, along which, evidently, when it was in condition, logs had been rail- roaded from land to lighters, I presume. In this rowboat we made our way to shore, in detachments, and, reas- sembled, we advanced up the road. There were thick woods on both sides, but little enough resemblance did they bear to the deep and dreadful jungle I had keenly anticipated. My ideals in this direction have been more nearly realized since, in Oriente, where, there being no snakes in Cuba, long and wriggling tendrils of vines, hanging pendent, furnish the illusion, anyhow : the presence of snakes and monkeys is, it seems to me, imperative in a real jungle. Here on the South Coast there was neither : not even a parrot flashed his bright feathers, — it being out of season. The forest was, in THE ISLE OF PINES 283 brief, a disappointment ; we were not wholly consoled by the few towering cedars we saw, nor those other trees flourishing in the rich scant soil which we were fain to believe were mahogany. Having tramped about two miles, we arrived before a shack; beside it a happy hibiscus lifted great flaming cups of bloom. The shack was alive, — with chickens, ants, and fleas ; its human habitants were, we could deduce, further up the road, with a mule team, logging. We fled to the open road, and followed on. It was a very good wagon road. Suddenly, as we mounted rising ground, a cool wind fanned us, and we knew that we were nearing the southern shore, having crossed from coast to coast of the peninsula which, as I have said, embraces Si- guanea Bay. We found the sea at Caleta Grande. It licks the rocks and the sand around that cove, hungrily in the finest weather. In a storm, it must thunder in, with a savage roar, across the bar on which, even in a calm, the blue waves reared white crests. A schooner was gathering in timber with feverish haste, making the best of favor- ing wind and tide. Along the beach, separated from each other by un- sociable distances, there were gray and weather-worn frame houses. There was no sign of life about them, nor any sound audible above the pleasant murmur of the sea. We entered the store. A native mulatto woman welcomed us, in English ; she had the British intonation, but the words were blurred, like her features, by the African in her. She invited us to be seated; there were not chairs enough to go around, so we sat also on boxes, and on the idle counter. There was nothing whatsoever on the shelves, to sell. The woman offered 284 CUBA us tea, and brewed it from the leaves of the wild lemon. She said, with pitiable embarrassment, that she wished to make us biscuits, but there was no flour. Honey, to accompany the biscuits, she had. By the door bees, with worried bumblings, were lamenting their loss, as it dripped, rich and yellow, from overcrowded hives. There was no sale for the honey ; she could not eat it all. She supposed the bees would leave, presently. Ad- joining the storeroom where we sat was the woman's bed- room. Drapery on the two beds it contained was tied back with strips of pink sateen, like ribbons. There were pink-flowered curtains before boxes nailed up on the walls to serve as cupboards and shelves. On the improvised dresser I noticed cheap fancy-headed hatpins in a pink cushion. On the wall, in a great gilded frame, was a crayon portrait of a man, obviously an American, with an American woman, his wife, and their children. We stared at it in astonishment, and she saw us look from that group to her. She had gathered up from the bed, where it had awakened with a querulous complaint, a httle child she now let slip from her arms, to the floor ; there it stood, surveying us through questioning eyes, one of which was hideously swollen and discolored, with an ulcer. He, the mother said, had left three months before, with a schooner load of lumber, for Batabano. She made no com- plaint, save to shrug her shoulders at our reassurance that, of course, he would return. She looked from one to the other of us intently, as a stray dog looks, hunting a master. Her eyes stayed on the Kansan, and he got up and sought the door. '^It is the jump- ing-off place,'' said I, to create a diversion. '^And some of 'em that jumped, Ut hard, God help 'em," said he. THE ISLE OF PINES 285 We filed out, and she stood looking after us. Ere we rounded a turn in the path she called, and came running to ask whether or not we would take her in the launch across to Los Indios, where she had heard there was scullery work to be had, in the hotel. We promised. We clambered over the seboruco; it is water- worn Umestone, full of holes and pricked with sharp points, ready on slight provocation to skin a shin, twist an ankle, or break a leg. We sat down under a tree, and inquired of each other where in this particular vicinity the loggers and their precious mule team might be. They had returned, we learned, for the camp, and so, there being no remedy for it, we again set our faces in that direction. All roads seemed to lead that way, for- tunately, and, in time, we arrived at the shack we had passed hours before, — hot, red to bursting, dirty, and famished for the lunch we had left. We found the loggers, in charge of Mr. Symes II and his son, Symes III, with whom we had our meal. My mother and I, however, escaped as quickly as we might with what skin the fleas had left whole. We sped over the last two miles. We hallooed, the captain appeared with the rowboat, took us to the launch, and then, at our invitation, rowed himself back to shore and disap- peared inland. We hastily cast aside our clothes, and plunged into the water, on the seaward side of the boat. Strange fishes came up and commented upon us. Marine plants tickled our toes. I gathered shells from the bottom. We were hardly clad before shouting ashore warned us that the rest of the party were at hand. We arrived in Los Indios at sunset, little the worse for wear. We had ''footed if for fifteen miles or so over the formidable South Coast in the blistering 286 CUBA month of May : three women, a babe in arms, a little boy, an old man and a young one ! The South Coast woman did not accompany us home. One of the loggers said that he passed her, struggling along the road to port, with a bundle and the child. Another had seen her coming on an oxcart whose driver she had persuaded to ^^give her a lift.'' Yet we left her, — to make the journey back again, in disappointment, to the house that even the bees were to abandon in its desolation, presently. The topography of the northern half of the Isle of Pines, — the six hundred thousand acres constituting the Isle proper, — is simple. It consists essentially of a plain, now almost perfectly level, now rolling in undulations that rarely reach thirty feet above the general elevation of 75 to 125 feet above tide. Along the seashore is a coastal fringe of beach sand and mangrove swamps, varying in width from a few feet to five miles, and in elevation from tide level to ten or fifteen feet above. This fringe is practically continuous about the Isle, in its northern part, save where two headlands — Punta de Colombo and Punta de la Bibijagua — pro- ject into the sea. Rising abruptly from this general plain are a few isolated ridges, — mountains, by courtesy. The most important of these are the Sierra de las Casas, west of Nueva Gerona, height estimated at nine hundred and forty-five feet; Sierra de Caballos, east of the town, height, estimated, nine hundred and eighty-one feet; Sierra de la Daguilla, in the southeast, and Sierra de la Canada, approximate height fifteen hundred and seven feet, in the west. These ridges are entirely due to differential erosion, being composed of more resisting rocks than those which underlie the surrounding plains. THE ISLE OF PINES 287 Their contours vary ; some are smooth, while others are rugged, with precipitous slopes. Casas and Caballos (and possibly other mountains in the Isle not yet so carefully examined) are composed of crystalline marble. They constitute the most important mineral resource of the Isle. There are in Caballos beds of fine white statuary marble, and others of in- ferior grades also commercially valuable for interior finishing and outdoor work. The colors vary from pure white to dark gray, and in some cases there is a strongly marked banding. Both the coarse and the fine-grained stone appear to be remarkably free from cracks and flaws ; slabs of any dimension could doubtless be ob- tained. There are beds from five to twenty feet in thick- ness, so that the size of the block to be quarried would be limited only by the purpose for which it was wanted. The conditions for quarrying are exceptionally favor- able. No stripping or other dead work would be re- quired. Channeling machinery could be used, and the rock worked in horizontal courses, if desired. Nothing, however, is at present being done, owing to the fact that transportation expenses between the beds and possible sale in Havana are more than similar expenses between Italy and the same market. In 1834 the French chemist and geologist, M. Chueaux, exploring the West Indies in search of gold, was at- tracted to the Isle of Pines by reports that buccaneers had mines of the desirable metal there. He discovered the composition of Mount Caballos, and appreciated its value. The ridge as it stood, — honeycombed with curious caverns, only partially explored, and draped with tropical vegetation in interesting variety, except where, near its western summit, there is a sheer cliff about a hundred feet in height, — looked to him more 288 CUBA like a gold mine than anything else he found. He abandoned further search. He secured from the Spanish government the privilege of establishing and operating a quarry ; he obtained a grant of land con- trolling the Brazo Fuerte stream, less than a mile in length, which gushes from the Mount, running swiftly to join the Casas River. He began work; oxcarts hauled his rough-hewn blocks to waiting schooners. In leisure moments M. Chueaux planted flowers around his residence at Brazo Fuerte, and while botanizing came upon what he took to be a vein of gold-bearing quartz. He went to Havana to denounce his claim, and died there of yellow fever. His quarries, his machinery, and his tropical garden stood neglected until five years later, when, in 1844, Captain-General O'Donnell, Gov- ernor of Cuba, bought the place. He formed a com- pany to exploit the property. A great mill was erected at the quarries ; it was equipped with American machinery. Elaborate quarters were provided for the superintendent, — for the guards, — for the prisoners from the Gerona penal settlement, who were to do the work at a wage of ten cents per diem, payable to their keeper. A limekiln was put up to burn the refuse, and extensive docks were built on Colombo Bay. The first block of marble Captain-General O'DonnelFs com- pany cut was wrought into a baptismal font, and pre- sented to the parish church at Nueva Gerona. Just as business began to move pleasantly the Captain- GeneraVs opponents in Spain induced that government to impose a tax on the sea sand to which he was helping himself for cutting purposes; and the company col- lapsed in 1849. Some years later Major Sarda, a noted Spanish engineer, acquired Mount Caballos, Brazo Fuerte, and Colombo Bay. He did not continue work in Photograph by American Photo Company Casas River THE ISLE OF PINES 289 the marble quarry ; its machinery was left to rust and ruin under the rank overgrowth of tropical vegetation. Instead, he made bricks and tiles. Terraces in the vicinity of Nueva Gerona, at an altitude of about fifty feet above the tide, are covered with red and gray sandy clay from which with proper manipulation a fairly good quality of brick might still be had. Sarda^s tiles floored Morro Castle, and were found acceptable for use in the public market building of Havana. Hard times, however, becoming harder and harder as Cuba wore to its outcome her long-drawn fight with Spain, completely paralyzed the Brazo Fuerte brick and tile yard, and also the tannery located there. In 1901 the marble mountain, its wrecked machinery, the tile molds and the tanning vats, all passed from the possession of Major Sarda^s widow and children to that of Mr. T. J. Keenan, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, who has erected at Brazo Fuerte one of the handsomest winter homes on the Isle of Pines. We approached it early on a pleasant morning, and were admitted from a porch heav- ily shaded with a magnificent flowering creeper, which has, I know, a proper Latin name, forgotten, however, in favor of its local designation, ^'Keenan's blue vine.'' In building the house, old walls found standing were used ; it has given the residence a rambling plan that is charming. Details I have let fall from memory, save that the sun shone brightly through shrubs and vines without, into softly curtained windows. Daintiness was in the dining room. There were handsome stairways of polished hardwoods. We were shown the immediate grounds, somewhat of the citrus fruit grove, and the bath, — a swimming pool built at a little distance from the house. We bore away flowers, information, and the commencement of a highly prized acquaintance. 290 CUBA The marble beds of Mount Casas across the Casas Valley from Caballos have not been more than sampled. Of the composition of the Daguilla Mountains and the Canada Mountains no repor,t is at hand, such as Ameri- can government geologists have furnished on Casas and Caballos. In the Sierra de la Siguanea, where Lanier Swamp meets Siguanea Bay, in the southwest, siliceous schist containing very pure brown hematite is found. Masses of this ore are scattered over the surface in con- siderable abundance, but no veins of workable size have been reported yet. In some places (Santa Fe and in the Valley of the Mai Pais River) there are deposits of manganese ore which may, in time, prove valuable. Around the mountains stretch those leveler reaches which constitute the general plain of the country. Here, in groups and thinly scattered, are pine trees, charac- teristic of the temperate zone, but here growing side by side with the commoner palms of the tropics ; from these pine trees the Isle got its present name, which has replaced the title — Isle of the Evangelist — origi- nally bestowed upon it. According to the quality of the soil which supports them these conifers vary in size from merest saplings to trees of girth sufficient to make them worth a sawmill's while. In fertile places — along lowlands watered by creeks, and at the foot of mountain ridges — are royal palms, in clusters and rows, adding to the landscape the beauty of proud white trunks and crests of deep green plumes. In the shadow of the monarch and of the neighboring pines, grow palmettos, dwarf palms, manaca, and, I think, '^bottle palms,'' with still other members of that numer- ous family, differing yet resembling each other in pecul- iarities. There are shrubs everywhere, the scrawniest of which bloom, white and yellow, thereby redeeming a THE ISLE OF PINES 291 certain gauntness evident in them, as in all the flora of the Isle of Pines. The streams, few of which deserve the name river, flow in broad shallow depressions with very gentle slopes. Their channels are sharp cut, from five to fifteen feet in depth. These channels fill when the streams are in flood ; during the dry season (November to May, approximately) their flow dwindles and some go dry. Few if any of the streams have flood plains. They usually reach tide level some distance from the coast, and toward the mouth they are deep. Navigation is usually impeded, — at present prevented except in Jiicaro, Casas, and Indios River, — by a bar formed of sediment deposited where their waters meet the in- beating sea. There are native fruit trees along the streams, especially mangos, hung thick with fruits ; there are caimitos, zapotes, wild orange trees, — though their presence together in any number indicates almost infallibly the site of some homestead of former times, of which, perhaps, no other trace remains. Wild bam- boo fringes the water courses. Picturesque aeroids drape the sturdier trees, in damp places. In the north of the island there are, along the creeks, choice hard woods, suitable for finest interior finishing and furniture, for which purposes they are skillfully em- ployed by American settlers. As to fauna, the Cuban scientist Poey convinced himself that the Isle of Pines is part of one zoological region with Cuba proper and the Bahamas. The native land bird varieties are computed at 203, of which about 115 are resident and the rest migratory between North and South America. Among the commoner birds are thrushes, humming birds, cuckoos, owls, little birds of the brilliant family of Tanagridse, and Trogonidse, 292 CUBA fond of forests. The green pigeon is no longer seen. In June and July the woods are full of parrots, red and green in plumage. They are caught young and exported ; they can be trained to talk, though they are not the most loquacious variety.' Reptiles are scarce, and what there are are harmless. Crocodiles in the rivers afford good hunting. There are spiders and scorpions ; their bite is little more painful than a bee sting, and is attended by no more serious consequences. There are ants in multitudes : the bibijagua troubles the citrus fruit grower, while the smaller varieties pester his wife, as flies do in the north, until she learns to rout them from her larder. The fresh waters of the Isle contain few varieties of fish, none of commercial importance; there are tortoises and turtles on the coasts. The land shells are numerous in design and variety, but generally without value for ornament or utility. Isle butterflies are of little scientific interest. There are thirteen sorts of dragon flies, some of beautiful metallic luster. As a whole, the fauna of the Isle of Pines is small, but par- ticularly interesting for the lack of orders characteristic of the continents to north and south, notably monkeys, Edentata, and the Carnivora. The settler is truly grate- ful for the happy absence here, as in all Cuba, of really • noxious creatures. His worst enemy is the diminutive sand fly, — the hateful ^-hay-hen,'' as he pronounces its Spanish name, Jejen, Some persons never become immune to the bite of this insect, small and colored like a tiny speck of ash ; it lays hold like a live coal and hangs on to be killed where it bites. A few fortunates are not molested, — among them I have noted especially children born on the Isle. I have frequently suspected that the immunity of their elders was feigned, particularly when, even THE ISLE OF PINES 293 while assuring me that jejenes are scarce and harmless, the speaker was industriously rubbing his ears, neck, ankles, and wrists. There is no defense against them : they bite through sheets, I know by burning experience ; they bite through stockings, lisle gloves, and waists, — it is their particular delight to frolic in and out through lace insertion, tattooing its patterns on the wincing flesh below. Residents on the Isle endeavor to screen them out of their houses, using wire netting of finest mesh, or cloth, in the windows instead of glass. Such windows, found everywhere on the Isle, are evi- dence of the universal prevalance in every section of 'Hhe pest,'' as natives call jejenes. Yet at McKinley I have been solemnly assured there are none, except at Los Indios ; while enduring agonies at Nueva Gerona I have been consoled to hear that they are much worse at Santa Fe. Santa Fe, in its turn, claims exemption, while Los Indios excuses the undeniable presence of sand flies there by telling the truth, — they are every- where on the Isle. They are worse in the rainy season toward sunset and by moonlight in windless places. Each time that I have returned from the Isle of Pines, I have come minus as much skin as though I had fur- nished material for extensive experiments in grafting. But, I hasten to add, I have been just as badly used in Cuba, — for sand flies feast on the unwary traveler in these latitudes whenever he loiters along the seacoast, on sandy beaches, where thick settlement has not yet driven out the ^^ hay-hen'' to make room for the festive flea. The jejen is obviously indigenous ; on the con- trary, they say the Spaniards brought fleas to Cuba in their ships along with themselves and their dogs. Christopher Columbus discovered the Isle of Pines in June, 1494. In search of provisions and water, he 294 CUBA visited a port, presumably on the north coast, ob- tained what he could, named the place Isle of the Evan- gehst, and from there retraced his way along the south coast of Cuba, through the Gardens of the Queen, to Santo Domingo. He saw little or nothing of the aboriginal Indian population. It is supposed that the people were one tribe. The Indian name of the Isle seems to have been Garmaraco. Indications are that as Spanish settle- ment advanced from north and east, the natives re- treated south and west ; they left no reminders save a curious well at Brazo Fuerte, some bones in the caves of Gasas, and a name, Los Indios, — ^'the Indians,^' — used yet to designate a tract of land, a river, and certain keys down by Siguanea Bay. Before 1600, Spaniards, arriving from Guba, had es- tablished themselves on the Isle of Pines. There was travel between the two islands. In 1596, Drake, on one of his marauding expeditions, descended on the Isle, demolished their huts along the seashore, and massacred the inhabitants with the exception of a few who escaped to Guba, to tell their story to D. Juan Maldonado Malnueva, the Gaptain-General, who, incensed at this invasion of his domain by English, prepared an expedi- tion to punish the invaders. Meanwhile, Drake got away. For some time thereafter no further attempt at colonization was made. Though fishermen from Guba visited the Isle now and then, it was better known for many a long year to pirates of the Spanish Main than it was to any representative of Their Most Gatholic Majesties, in whose name the First Admiral took posses- sion of it. The worst of the cosmopolitan pack that harried the seas in those days, — Morgan, the English- man, and Peg-Leg Jols, — followed by all the hetero- THE ISLE OF PINES 295 geneous crew that emulated their supremacy in robbery, rapine, and murder, made the Isle of Pines a rendezvous. They alone knew the shoals and deeps of those treach- erous waters. In the inlets and up the hidden quiet rivers they anchored, awaiting opportune time to sally forth on the plate fleets of Spain as these came forward from Cartagena and from Mexico. Lacking treasure ships, they fell upon the few merchantmen who ven- tured to ply between coast ports ; or, times being very dull indeed, they traded for tobacco in Vuelta Abajo, and smuggled it home to Europe. Or, again, in the Isle of Pines they assembled forces, laid in wood, and or- ganized to raid the thriftiest settlements in the Indies, — Santiago, Puerto Principe, Sancti Spiritus, Vera Cruz, — even Cartagena itself, Panama, and Havana. From Spanish galleons, under armed escort though they sailed, these marauders took silver and gold in coin and bars ; from the defenseless residents in colonial towns they took cash and jewelry and whatever else pleased their robber fancy. The booty was sometimes brought to the Isle for division. Undoubtedly, too, it was sometimes buried here for safe keeping ; but if it has not been all dug up long ago, it is not because romantic and credulous persons have not searched diligently for caches. In May, 1908, an old chest which was, in appearance, all that a treasure chest ought to be, was lying on the sands of Bibijagua Beach. No one knew its origin. Questions concerning it brought up reminiscences of an American, supposed to possess a secret and a map, who loafed about the Isle, left, returned, and disappeared into the interior, only to reappear later with no ex- planation of a deposit amounting, if I remember rightly, to some two thousand dollars, he made at the Nueva Gerona bank in old gold coins. 296 CUBA In 1630, the Isle of Pines was presented by royal grant to Captain D. Hernando Pedroso, from whom by inheritance it passed on, becoming in 1706 the property of two brothers, D. Nicolas and D. Francisco Duarte. When D. Francisco died, in 1727, D. Nicolas purchased his share in the Isle from the widow, and thus it came once more into the possession of a single individual. In 1728, this sole owner commissioned the French expert, M. Gelabert, who had already established one for D. Francisco on the South Coast, to build up two more big cattle ranches in the southeast of the northern section ; they were the haciendas San Juan and Santa Fe. These names and others, like Calabaza, El Hospi- tal, Las Piedras, Santa Rosalia, Santa Barbara de las Nuevas, La Caiiada, which belonged to early ranches, still appear on modern maps, to designate districts approximately the same, and, sometimes, also the American land companies that are now reselling the tracts. 4t the same time D. Nicolas ordered D. Francisco Abella to organize five other plantations in the north and northeast. In short, the Isle was divided by its owner into seven great cattle ranches. In 1760, D. Nicolas Duarte having died, these seven properties were distributed, one to each of his seven sons. The South Coast and whatever land was not specifically included within their boundaries was held pro indiviso. In 1763, one of these inheritors, D. Francisco Javier Duarte, was named first capitan a guerra of the Isle of Pines ; he received his appointment from the Count de Ricla, then Captain-General of Cuba. Later he resigned and was succeeded by his son, D. Domingo Duarte. In 1765 he, too, withdrew, and D. Andres Acosta y Duarte was named captain in his stead. THE ISLE OF PINES 297 It appears that these early governors labored in vain to secure from the State authority to bring over immi- grants, and, from the Church, to obtain a parish church for the Isle. The secular authorities in Havana evi- dently concluded that the less there was in the Isle the less inviting it would seem to enemies from whom they did not protect it ; the spiritual authorities, at Quivi- can, within whose jurisdiction it was, likewise declined to do much on behalf of the stray sheep there, nomi- nally of their fold. In 1789, however, a church build- ing was erected beside Almacigos Spring, almost in the center of the island. Magnificent mango trees mark its site, now part of a citrus fruit plantation of Ameri- cans. In 1773 the Marquis de la Torre, Captain-General of Cuba, by decree ordered the district to contribute annually a certain number of cattle for the public supply of Havana. This was the first taxation exacted from the Isle of Pines. In 1792 the English captured a ship en route from Cartagena to Batabano aboard which was D. Dionisio Franco, former secretary of the viceroy of Lima ; they set him ashore on the Isle of Pines on March 6, and there he sojourned until April 15 of that same year, — a little over a month, — time he employed in studying the country, on which he prepared an interesting re- port. It was published in 1847 in the annals of the Economic Society of Friends of the Country. It is not stated to whom the report was made, and the general tone of it indicates, it seems to me, that it was written for his own pleasure. The document is, apparently, little known except as Captain Tirry presented it five years later as his own. Franco listed the mountains and streams and ports ; 298 CUBA hills and rivers bore then the names by which they are known to-day. What traffic there was made use of the Santa Fe (Jucaro) and the Casas rivers, as it does at present, and of the Nuevas River, as it may again to- ^ morrow. The careless raising of cattle and hogs was the sole legitimate occupation of the few residents. These residents numbered, according to his count, just 86 persons, of whom 55 were men, 16 women, and 15 children ; 66 of the total were white, 14 were black, and 6 were mulattoes ; 72 were free and 14 were slaves. They were scattered among the twenty ranches then in existence, twelve of which belonged to the Duarte family, six to the Zelaver family, and two to the Zayas family. They lived at their leisure. The boundaries of the various estates were merely nominal. The live stock was rounded up only when need of real money compelled owners to the exertion of exportation. There was little profit in either tasajo (jerked beef) or beef on the hoof. Meanwhile, it was pleasant to sit in the shade of trees that grew, and produced fruit, without making any demand on a gentleman^s attention ; and it was but hospitable to share that shade with whatever visitor ap- peared. The visitors appeared, unexpectedly, and went as they came. They happened in from Jamaica and Grand Cayman, and they crossed from Cuba. They did not always advertise the reasons that had accelerated their departure from the land of their previous abode. The y Isle of Pines was headquarters of outlawry, the refuge of ^^ thieves by land and by sea. '^ Between these tran- sients and the resident pinero who, in his isolation, ac- cepted the pleasure of their company, the authorities in Havana were unable to make distinction. There- fore they classed all alike in their bad opinion ; and to THE ISLE OF PINES 299 this day, against all reason, the idea persists that the people of the Isle of Pines are necessarily (by nature or by acclimation) a lawless and a turbulent lot. In the years between 1775 and 1780, the population of the Isle reached a total of 200 ; of these some 75 were honestly employed, and the rest were fugitives, vaga- bonds, and smugglers, — men who had committed of- fenses more or less serious against the laws, especially of Cuba, and who fled to the Isle, where, safe from justice, they tramped from ranch to ranch, fished some- times, or shipped on the first smugglers' craft they found busied between the Isle and British possessions. Later, perhaps, when they had money or thought their mis- demeanors forgotten, they returned whence they had come. When the Excelentisimo Sr. D. Luis de las Casas took over the government of Cuba, he authorized D. Andres Acosta, then governor of the Isle, to round up the vagabonds and fugitives at large in his jurisdiction. Accordingly a few idlers were sent back to Havana, where, presumably, they fared ill; for suddenly the population dwindled to 76 persons, — land owners, overseers, their families, employees, some slaves, and one or two convalescents who were there for their health. These were the 76 inhabitants Captain Juan Tirry classified in his report in 1797 : 36 white men and 18 white women, 4 black men and 4 black women; 60 of whom were free and 16 slaves. These 76 (ten less in legitimate population than Franco found five years before) still lived along on jerked beef, taking but slowly to even the little cultivation of the soil necessary to supply their own simplest needs in vegetables and fruits. Captain Tirry visited the Isle of Pines in 1797, on royal order issued the year before, his mission being to 300 CUBA discover whether or not the pine trees there could be used for masts, and whether pitch and resin might be had to supply the arsenals of Spain. He reported adversely on both points, the cost of transportation especially being prohibitive. Tirry, accompanied by two guides, traveled around the Isle in a canoe, dropping anchor at night. He ex- amined the shores, rivers, and inlets. The South Coast interested him especially, yet he did not examine it thoroughly. He saw, however, where the English had removed great trees of valuable hard woods. He mar- veled that the scant soil could support such luxuriant plant life. He found a single inhabitant, — ^^an European,'^ — at Punta del Este. Returning to the northern half of the Isle, he spent twenty-eight days in visiting its twenty-four estates. He summed up his conclusions: ^'The country is worthy development; it is suitable to agriculture, but needs population, the attention of the Church, and the help of the State for its defense. It could be put in a position to defend itself with little expense, were the State to aid, cooperat- ing for its advancement. The cattle industry could shortly be made four times what it is. If assistance is not forthcoming, however, island, inhabitants, and herds are doomed to decadence and to a state of misery and desolation even worse than that which at present ex- ists. Tortoise fishing, tobacco culture, and exportation of hard woods are three lines of industry I believe could be made profitable ; they would increase in im- portance. ... It would indeed be a pity to leave desolate an Isle that has rivers to water its fields, which are so suitable for cultivation ; that has coasts for rich fishery; that with so little assistance could be made so highly profitable. For ... in general . . .'' he rnotograph by American Photo Company An American Residence in the Isle of Pines Photograph by American Photo Company Colombo Bay, where Columbus is Supposed to have Landed THE ISLE OF PINES 301 adds, ^Hhe soil of the Isle is easy to cultivate, though there are some areas on the plains which are in truth quite useless. . . . The flanks of the mountains and the river banks present the very best of soil. Here, on estates commonly called vegas, they raise all kinds of produce, cane, coffee, and especially tobacco. Ex- perience certainly shows that tobacco grown on the Isle along the rivers is of excellent quality, equal to that of Vuelta Abajo, so celebrated for its fragrance and the aromatic flavor it retains after manufacture. The two haciendas of Jagua and the four ^possessions' of Las Nuevas contain exceedingly good land. In some sections there is a high-grade black soil ; in others there are areas of mulata soil of as good quality, — and all alike mutely complain of the neglect of owners ; they await cultivation in order to produce. ^' Tirry suggested that the king might find profit in experimenting with tobacco himself in the Isle of Pines ; incidentally, his patronage would tend to attract population, and to awaken an interest in agriculture, — improvements His Majesty desired at the time. Yet years went by, and conditions in the Isle bettered very little if it all. The British reaped more advantage from its existence than did the Spanish. Mahogany and cedar logs continued to disappear from the South Coast, — stumps were the only record of their going. Small schooners, fitted with everything necessary for tortoise and turtle fishing, came up from Grand Cay- man or crossed from Jamaica, to spread nets all along the Isle, east, south, and west, from Punta del Este to Indian Keys. These poaching mulattoes and blacks (fisher- men by their own profession, pirates and wreckers by the accusation of their victims) knew those coasts far better than the Spaniards themselves. Their descend- v/ 302 CUBA ants — residents on the South Coast — are to this day the best pilots for any expedition, no matter what its nature, in this vicinity. They knew where to look for their game, how to catch it, and how to dispose of it to the best advantage. The English, Tirry complained, ^4n fifteen days catch more than all the Spaniards to- gether in a year.'' Also they knew how to turn any leisure they might have to good advantage ; their craft carried small cannon, and, while they waited for their nets to fill, they sometimes held up coasting vessels, helped themselves to the wreckage of any ships they might be fortunate enough to find in distress, and, when they ran short of provisions, they put into the nearest Isle port and took their fill from the neighbor- ing ranches. In October, 1797, according to Captain Tirry, a tortoise fishing schooner, armed with a single gun, and manned by 25 mulattoes and blacks (with 45 live turtles aboard and tortoise shells) captured two boats laden with tobacco, from Bayamo ; they put into the Casas River, went to the ranch near by, and took what fresh meat they wanted. They also captured what craft they found in the harbor there. They willfully shot cattle along their route to and from the ranch house. As late as 1826 this sort of thing was still going on. The people of the Isle were unarmed, and Havana had no firearms to spare them when they appealed there for help. In 1826, when the government made official investi- gation into reasons why Cuba, and especially the Isle .of Pines, ^4ts accessory,'' were not settling up with whites as rapidly as events transpiring in Hayti made appear desirable, Sr. D. Hipolito Odoardo Grand-Pre, in reporting, gave the misconduct of these English marauders as the prime reason for the Isle's delay in THE ISLE OF PINES 303 development. Agriculture could not be expected to thrive in a district boundaries of which were no obstacle to pirate raids ; the interior settlements themselves were not safe. Development was further retarded by the fact that legal transfers of land could hardly be made. ^'I'U have a lawsuit on you/' was, he says, the favorite menace of the time. Persons who were '4and poor'' had difficulty in getting rid of any part of their unwieldy holdings ; other persons who might have cultivated small holdings could get possession of none. Odoardo charged the people, moreover, with a disincli- nation to work and push forward. In conclusion he recommended, first, that land titles be straightened out ; the final clearing of these and accurate survey of tracts are two great benefits American land com- panies have conferred on the Isle. Titles there are, for Cuba, exceptionally good. He recommended that a garrison be established at Nueva Gerona; the Isle would then command the southern coast of Cuba, ^^from the Laguna de Cortes to the Ensenada de Cochinos. " An unpublished report made in 1908 to the American government suggests, I believe, that the Isle might wisely be made an American military reserva- tion, for this same reason. Odoardo suggested that as many prisoners as could be safely managed be sent across to the Isle to clear land, open roads, and cultivate the soil. He urged that all facilities be granted immigrants, — such as cheap land and exemption from taxation. His recommendations were followed largely. Almost immediately (1826) Lieutenant-Colonel Cle- mente Delgado y Espaiia was sent over with the title of commander-in-chief of the Isle and director (jefe) of the Colony Queen Amalia. He traveled around and over the Isle he had come to govern. In his party were 304 CUBA an adjutant, a corporal, six men, and Dr. D. Jos6 Labadia. Delgado made reports to the government, of which I have seen extracts only; I gather, however, that he formed a very poor opinion of the people. Ac- customed as they were to going their own gait, they re- sented, he declares, his gentle administration of justice, and complained before they were molested thereby. Dr. Labadia presented the Captain-General with ^^A Topographic Description of the Isle of Pines. '' Delgado and Labadia were the first to make anything like a throrough examination of the South Coast. They found the swamp which divides the Isle into two parts (Cienaga de Lanier, so named a few years later for Lieutenant D. Ale jo Helvecio Lanier, public surveyor, who made a map of the Isle) to be much smaller than had been supposed; Labadia intimates that exagger- ation of its extent had been intentional. They went inland from Carapachivas, and found that the rocky formation called seboruco gives place shortly to excellent soil, supporting an astonishing wealth of vegetable life. ^^ Never did Nature make more luxuriant display of herself ! . . . The dilfficulty with which one arrives in the interior can be the only origin of the prevailing mis- taken opinion of the nature of the place.'' Labadia described the mountain slopes and the river banks as fertile; but condemned the plains between as sandy, arid, covered with spindling pines and skeleton shrubs. He could see no good in them ; even the cattle, he com- plained, found little pasturage there, and were lean. He declared that the Isle might he made to produce three times the rice that Cuba then consumed. He remarked that fig trees bore good fruit, as he and Colonel Delgado had the pleasure of proving by experience on one of D. Andres Acosta's estates; he deduced that THE ISLE OF PINES 305 viticulture would prosper. ^^I believe that an in- finite number of products of Europe not common in Cuba might be cultivated to great advantage on the Isle of Pines.'' ''The soil is/' he stated, ''of superior qual- ity though arid ; but the miserablest settler can with very little effort irrigate his lands and thus make sure of the fruits of his labor." He complained against absentee landlords, and repeated charges of laziness against the residents. "What a pity it is to see these handsome fields given over merely to a languishing cat- tle industry, when Nature has bestowed on the Isle every advantage in the way of fertility ; watered as it is by twelve principal rivers and thirty-seven tributary streams, it awaits only man's hand to bring forth its riches. These lands ask at least that the occupants cultivate them enough to produce their own sustenance." Labadia, further, called attention to the Isle's possibil- ities in exportation of hard woods, tannery, and marble, in addition to agriculture — especially cacao. He sent samples from the marble beds in Casas and Caballos, to Havana. He recommended granite from "Columbo" for the paving of Havana. He surmised that there was iron in the west. The year following (1827) Colonel Clemente Delgado founded the town of Nueva Gerona on 112 caballerias of land on the west bank of the Casas River, donated by D. Andres Acosta for the purpose. He gave it the name it bears, because at the original Gerona, General Vives, then Captain-General of Cuba, from whom Delgado had his commission, had won laurels. The first inhabitants of the town were Lieutenant-Colonel Delgado, Dr. Labadia, twelve private soldiers, one artilleryman, a corporal, and fourteen chain-gang prisoners, — the first of the "enforced exiles" Spain 306 CUBA continued to banish to the Isle as long as she owned it. Their equipment was a small cannon, some ammuni- tion, and the implements necessary to fell trees and prepare the cleared land for the establishment of the nascent capital. The first buildings in Nueva Gerona were four large halls of mixed clay and palm leaves, 'Hhe first being appropriated to the commander and his oflficers, who were the adjutant and the doctor; in the second the troops were lodged; the third was designed as a prison for the chain-gang ; and the fourth served as a general store.'' These buildings were given pretentious names, — Vatican and Quirinal, for instance, — ^Hheir humble architecture contrasting strangely with the monumental structures which were the pride of proud Rome !'' The site of Nueva Gerona was chosen because it is readily reached via the Casas River. Moreover, Casas Mountain was, at that time, a pirate haunt, and Delgado proposed to oust the buccaneers. ^^It would not have been easy to watch them from the old village of Santa Fe.'' Despite the lieutenant-coloners activity against pirates, and the growth of his town^^some fear still existed on account of the pertinacity of the priva- teers, who once captured the commander himself !'' Nueva Gerona is now the largest and the liveliest town on the Isle. It is, in appearance, a typical Cuban municipal capital. Its streets are wide, fairly well kept, and clean. Along them stand bright-colored houses, red-roofed, with porticos under which pedestrians pass as on a sidewalk, which, in fact, their pavements are. The windows are barred as though each house were a prison ; women and girls idle at these gratings, and little naked babies play in and out of the open doors. Beyond, in sunny courts, are plants, in tubs painted THE ISLE OF PINES 307 red or green. There is a cuartel (barracks), — the same that was built early for the first garrison. It has round corners, and, when I first saw it, was painted a delicate canary yellow. It was in the possession then of a detachment of United States marines, representing the authority of the American Provisional Administration. They had, too, temporary barracks near by, and I recall that the afternoon we walked out in that direc- tion half a dozen husky privates in scant attire and excellent form were sprinting up and down the road before a small assemblage of spectators, — natives who marveled at the incomprehensible conduct of yanquis thus exerting themselves, for no apparent reason, in sun and heat. The boys were preparing for a Fourth of July Field Day at Camp Columbia. The barracks house now a detachment of Cuban rural guards. I don't know who occupies the little bungalow on the veranda of which the lieutenant and the lieuten- ant's wife, her friend from Mexico, and the doctor whose commission was in the navy (a very superior branch of the service, his ^^ striker'' bragged), the local banker, the banker's wife, and my mother and I, spent a pleas- ant evening. The lamp shone pink on the tiny table where later the coffee machine was set to shine and bubble. We nibbled British ^^ biscuits" brought forth from square tins, and talked of I don't know what, for we were assembled from the four quarters of crea- tion on slight acquaintance, and to the four quarters we have scattered again. At the other end of the town is the plaza, a desolate square ; it was never, as is some- times supposed, the slave market. As is customary, the church faces upon it, as do the municipal offices, more prosperous in appearance. There are mineral springs somewhere in this vicinity. The Isle entire is one munic- 308 CUBA , ipal district (within Havana Province), and its mayor, Sr. D. Benito Ortiz, resides in Nueva Gerona. Strange to say, he is a Spaniard, and when he recently announced his intention to return to Spain there was consterna- tion among Cubans and Americans ahke, between which factions I beheve it is he who keeps the peace. He was, at the latest elections, the unanimous choice of all parties : his election was practically by accla- mation, and while Cuba was arguing angrily over the polls on the mainland, the Isle of Pines painted the southern sky with bonfires in honor of Ortiz, who walked back into office to succeed himself without any opposition whatsoever. There is a bank in Nueva Gerona, — an American enterprise. There is as lively a weekly newspaper as one could find anywhere in the United States ; it is principally English, but includes Spanish pages. There are hotels, — native hostelries and American headquarters for settlers, who come driv- ing or riding into town on ^^mail days'' to meet the boat from Havana, get their letters and papers, ex- change greetings with each other, and, in the grocery, dry goods and general stores of town, to buy what they need. Their automobiles, spring wagons, buggies, and carryalls enliven the streets. The Isle of Pines is one municipal district, as I have said, and this town of Nueva Gerona is its head (cabe- cera). Since this district is, for all purposes of admin- istration, an integral part of Havana Province, and therefore, of the Republic of Cuba, its inhabitants are liable to taxation, — national, provincial, and munic- ipal. In matters of real estate, following a usage general throughout Cuba, an official appraisement is made once every five years by the municipality, which is concerned to know, not the value of the property itself, THE ISLE OF PINES 309 but rather its rental value, on which a tax amounting > to 4 per cent on rural real estate, and 8 per cent on ^^ urban, is levied. No account is taken of improve- ments which may be made after an appraisement, increasing the value, until the next regular appraise- ment comes round, with the fifth year. The appraiser has not, to date, held an objectionably high opinion of the rental value of Isle property ; I know, for instance, that in 1907-1908 he expected to obtain $745.20 from urban property, and $1180 from rural property, — in all the Isle. There has been no complaint on this point. It is the municipality also which levies taxes on business in the shape of licenses required to follow a trade or profession, or conduct a shop, store, or fac- tory. Carriages for hire, saddle horses, public enter- tainments, are taxed. Revenue from these sources is twice what it is from real estate. The taxpayer who settles up with the municipality is not usually aware that he is at the same time liquidating accounts with Havana Province. However, 4 per cent of the 8 per cent he pays on the rental value of urban real estate, and 30 per cent of the receipts from taxes on industries, conveyances, amusements, etc., as collected from him by the municipality, are handed over by that corpora- tion to the provincial council in Havana. There is but one custom house on the Isle of Pines. It is situated at Nueva Gerona, and through it all direct importations from abroad must pass prior to distribu- tion among their various destinations. Hardly aware why or when he pays it, or to whom, it is to the na- tional government collecting through its custom house that the American resident along with the native on the Isle of Pines, as elsewhere, hands over his heaviest contribution. So instinct is quite correct when it leads 310 CUBA him to look to the central, national government for major favors, — donations to cover threatened deficits, money for roads, etc., — in short, a general paternal supervision of local governmental affairs. In exchange for taxes paid, the people receive the usual services rendered by governments; sanitation is looked after more or less (fortunately soil and climate are such little is required of the department) ; there are municipal and provincial police, and, to reinforce them, rural guards (a national force). From Nueva Gerona we drove to Santa Fe. There is an excellent macadamized government road. Our conveyance had no top. Angela, the fat gray mule which drew it, advanced with as great caution and as little speed as though she hauled some tons of bagged sugar or building blocks. Captain McLane, driving, admonished her gently and in vain. We huddled under our parasol in its one dot of shade, and before our half- blinded eyes the landscape passed, monotonous, waver- ing in the heat of the hottest hours of the day, inter- minable. We passed the wreck of Santa Rosalia, the first attempt at an American town made on the Isle of Pines. There is a deserted store, an unused packing house, the frame of a residence not completed : irrefutable witnesses all to the fact that the ^^ golden apples of the Hesperides'' are not always easy picking, even on the Isle of Pines. Elsewhere along the highway we saw still other forsaken houses and lands where orchards were set out and later abandoned; yet other little frames had, we understood, been burned down, because their appearance, their open doors and unhinged win- dows, were hardly an encouragement to further invest- ment. They might better have been left to stand as a THE ISLE OF PINES 311 salutary warning. Along that same road we passed, as we neared Santa Fe, some of the best-looking groves in the Isle. Despite the fact that it was toward the end of the worst drought remembered by the present gener- ation, either there or in Cuba, the trees were green and their leaves drooped but slightly, even at noonday. Their condition, however, worried growers that season : we found Dr. Kellogg, for instance, in a rather savage mood, striving with a watering can to save the garden which is his dooryard; he was not inclined to discuss the future of citrus fruit growing in any aspect, but three days later, a rain having fallen, we met him again, enlivened, along with his trees, by the shower, and be- come, by reason of the downpour, once more an optimist. The town of Santa Fe, attractively situated by a bend in the Santa Fe River, antedates Nueva Gerona by some years, for '4n 1809 . . . Mr. Acosta, who was then the owner of the farm of Santa Fe, allowed some houses to be built, granting for that object as many as twelve lots on a spot known to-day by the name of Bosque de Mangos, which trees are planted in the yards of the houses built by the inhabitants, who contributed as many as five or six lots. And being desirous to favor the development of the growing village in spite of the constant struggle with the pirates and malefactors, a few years later he had a church built in which his son D. Ignacio officiated, whilst even before that time he had confessed and exhorted the neighbors. . . .^^ Elsewhere than in the pamphlet I quote (which came to me minus a cover, flyleaf, and all other means of identification) the date of the establishment of the church at Santa Fe is given as 1810. ''This [Santa Fe] was the only village that existed in 1826.'' It was situ- ated then, apparently, at some distance from its present 312 CUBA site (I do not know where Bosque de Mangos may be), for the sick had a mile to travel to the thermal spring of Santa Rita, which now is exactly in the middle of the town. The establishment of Nueva Gerona almost depopulated Santa Fe. In 1849, however, there was a sizable distillery there. By 1850 Sr. Calvo, who owned it, had established a weekly steamer service between the Isle and Batabano. In 1856 Dr. Luz Hernandez wrote: ^^ There are at present both in Nueva Gerona and in Santa Fe a sufficient number of houses to accommodate twenty-five or thirty families, besides the hotels and boarding houses, which can con- veniently lodge as many more individuals. There is no special building for the market, which is held in the streets and in the shops, where many articles of luxury can be purchased at a small advance on their current prices in Havana. The meats are generally of good quality, the bread superior, the vegetables most excel- lent, and the poultry very fine ; there is occasionally good game and fish ; the milk is incomparably better than in Havana; and greens or salads are not want- ing.'' We remained a night or so at the Santa Fe Hotel, and found it, at that time, good. The building was old and attractive. The dining room was, I remember, especially pleasant. It was the rendezvous, at night, of a few young men, who drank beer ^ and reveled to excess in phonograph music. I think I have not seen anything in Cuba which appealed to me as more comical than the preternaturally solemn and pre- occupied expression these young fellows wore as they sat, beer bottles in hand, listening attentively, appre- ciatively, to maudlin sentimental ^^ ragtime'' emitted, with squeaks and rasps, from the horn. THF ISLE OF PINES 313 We found Santa Fe more attractive, to our notion, than Nueva Gerona, thanks especially to pleasant green woods along the river there. We went down to the neat new bathhouse. We drank of the two mineral (magnesia and iron) springs, famous even among the Indians. It is of these springs John Esquemeling, the Dutch pirate author of ^^Bucaniers of America'' (Lon- don, 1684) wrote when he told the following legend of their origin : — ^^Many ages agone, before the white men came in their great ships from the other world, the Isle was peopled by a powerful race of Indians. One tribe only dwelt among its hills and valleys and therein lay the strength of the people ; for, though the great island to the northward (Cuba) boasted by far more inhabit- ants, they were divided into many tribes, no one of which was as strong as the race which dwelt on the smaller isle. Now, the tribes in those days were very fierce and constantly at war with one another, but though they that inhabited the larger island envied the great people to the southward, they could not prevail over them because they were divided. '^The ruler of the warriors on the smaller isle was a mighty chief, whose word was their law ; and this chief had a son whom he cherished above all else. ^For,' he said, 4n time he shall rule in my stead.' But it was the custom among the warriors of the Isle that no prince should be suffered to rule over them until his courage had been tested in war. And so strong was this tribe and so great the fear with which it inspired its enemies that throughout the youth of the prince there had been no war and he had grown up in the midst of peace. Moreover he took no pleasure in the tribal dances and mock battles of his people, but delighted in the silence 314 CUBA of the woods, for he was a pensive youth. And while wandering thus among the sohtudes, he had acquired much wisdom, but it was the wisdom of peace. He drew his lessons from Nature. On the sterile hilltops, where the trees were at constant war with the elements, they brought forth no fruit, but grew up gnarled and stunted, while in the rich soils of the valleys, where all was peaceful and still, they thrived and bore bounti- fully. Thus he reasoned that all tribes of the surrounding isle might prosper if they would abandon their strife and be at peace with one another. But when he spoke of these things to the young men of his tribe, they turned away and smiled, for he was not of their nature. ^^And so it came about that when age had whitened the hair of their chief, the old men of the council came to him and said:* ^Lo, the days that remain to thee seem not many, and whom shall we have to rule over us when thou art gone ? For thy son, the prince, has not yet been proven.' And the chief fixed his eyes upon the ground, for brave though he was, he feared for his son's sake. At length he roused himself and, meeting the gaze of the council, replied : ^ It is well. My son has not been tried. But lo, our enemies on yonder island are many. He shall go forth to battle with them.' So the chief called his warriors together, and leading forth his son, placed his own spear in his hand and hung his own shield over his heart. Then he bade him enter his war canoe that he might go against his enemies, and counseled him to return no more until he had proven himself. And the prince sailed away at the head of his father's warriors to con- quer the tribes on the great island to the north. ^^The days passed, and at length one evening the THE ISLE OF PINES 315 heralds came running down from the hilltops with the news that the war canoes of the trib'e were returning. So the chief came and stood on the island strand, with the old men of his council about him, to await the com- ing of his warriors. And as the canoes drew near he saw that all of them save his son's were decked with branches of the palm tree. At this the chief marvelled greatly, and turning to his council besought the reason thereof. But the old men looked gravely across the waters, for never before in all their years had they wit- nessed such a home coming of their warriors. '^ At last the canoes grated upon the shore, and as the warriors stepped forth the chief grew pale, for lo ! his son was bound. For a moment the old chief stood speechless. Then lifting up his voice he addressed the sub-chief of the war party : ^ And you call this a victory, to thus return my son to me in bonds ! Haste thee and explain or die ! ' To which awful command the sub-chief made reply : ^ May our great chief live long, until the sorrow of this day be forgotten ! Lo, thy son is thus returned to thee for that he left our camp on the first day of our landing and went among our enemies to talk of peace. And lo ! he had suc- ceeded but for our warriors who fell upon them while in council and put them to the spear, all save this, thy son, whom we could not slay because he is thine.' ^^When the speaker had finished the chief fixed his eyes upon his son and in a terrible voice commanded : ^ Speak, dog ! What hast thou to say ere thou per- ishest ? ' And the prince, smiling, thus made answer : ^Patience, my sire. Lead me, I pray thee, into the forest depths, and there I will tell you all.' And the chief commanded and they led him far into the woods to the banks of a beautiful rivulet. And here the chief 316 CUBA bade them sever his bonds, whereat the prince stood up before them and told again the story of the wind- tossed tree on the mountain and the fruitful one in the vale. But when he told them how he had sought to impart a lesson therefrom to their enemies, they mocked him, and the chief, in his anger, caught up a spear and thrust it through the heart of his son. And the prince sank lifeless upon the greensward, while his blood flowed in a tiny crimson rill down the bank until it mingled with the waters of the rivulet. ^^And straightway the people knew that the Great Spirit was wroth with them for the evil they had done, for a hot wind swept down upon the Isle and smote them with a deadly plague. Then while the dire afflic- tion was upon them, their enemies from the great island in the north suddenly appeared and would have fallen upon them had they not chanced to see the prince lying dead on the greensward. ^^When the chief of the avenging tribe learned the cause of the young man^s death, he paused, ere begin- ning his work of destruction, and commanded his warriors to fashion a grave beside the rivulet, and stooped down and lifted the body in his own arms. As he did this the assembled warriors marvelled, for out of the ground in the very spot where the prince had lain gushed forth a beautiful spring as clear as crystal and as warm as blood. And the invading tribe knew this to be a token of good-will. And, instead of aveng- ing themselves on their stricken enemies, they brought them to the wonderful spring and laved them in its waters, where upon they immediately became well. ^^And this is the reason, declare old-time natives about Santa Fe, why those waters for many years afterwards bore the name of ^The Spring of Peace, ^ and THE ISLE OF PINES 317 why, unto this day they are so revered throughout the Indies/' Unto this very day, — that I record their reputation, on a typewriter for a Hnotype to repeat ! There has never been any doubt in the minds of those who know the country that the Isle of Pines enjoys a salubrious climate. Fever, plague, and the thousand epidemics that at one time or another have taken the mainland of Cuba to task for wholesale neglect of the simplest laws of sanitation, never invaded the Isle of Pines, precisely as they have never spread to similar pine lands of Pinar del Rio. The Isle's elevations and declivities, and the nature of the soil itself, are such that even the heaviest rains leave no death-breeding pools. Rivers and creeks of pure water thread the sur- face of the land, while in every quarter are natural springs of valuable medicinal waters, both hot and cold, those at Santa Fe being merely the niost renowned among many. Over all is a clear and sunny sky, hand- somely flecked with white clouds, scudding hither and yon with the constant breeze that blows from the ocean, which is around about on every side. The mercury is not given to sudden rise or fall. The maximum tem- perature in the year 1907-1908, according to observa- tions made by Messrs. Young, of Santa Teresa estate, was 96 degrees at high noon on August 11, and again on August 30; minimum recorded, 51 degrees at six A.M. on January 26 ; average temperature for the year considered (three readings daily) 78.95 degrees. The air is balsamic with the resinous fragrance of piny woods. The Isle was known as a resort for persons in ill health long before 1800; by 1826 it was famous for the curative qualities of its waters and its air, but the 318 CUBA hardships of the trip hither deterred physicians from recommending patients to attempt to reach a place then so far off regular routes of travel, except in cases so serious that a longer journey into a region even less known seemed to be the only alternative. As early as 1827 the Spanish government was favorably consider- ing advantages the Isle offered as an acclimation and convalescent camp for the Spanish army in Cuba, an army constantly, in times of peace as in times of war, decimated by Yellow Jack (called by Cubans ''the Great Patriot,'' because it is so inveterate and fatal a foe to Spaniards along with all foreigners) . In the year mentioned the commanding colonel of the Barcelona Regiment proposed to send to the Isle of Pines /'such privates as suffered diseases of the lungs, in order to utilize for their advantage the virtues and excellence of that climate, considering it an appropriate place for convalescents to recover their lost health/' "The supreme authority of the island of Cuba," says Dr. Ramon Pina y Pifiuela, in his Treatise (1850), "ap- proved this project and commenced to send to that place the individuals of the troops who, according to the judgment of the physicians, were in a state to stand in need of this measure." Of the 173 patients listed in a table by Dr. Jose de la Luz Hernandez, "who were removed," he says, "from the hospital rather with an intention to console them than with the pious hope of curing them," 138 astounded the doctors by getting well, thus reflecting credit upon the Isle of Pines. During these same years (1844 on) Dr. Luz Hernan- dez was recommending the Isle to his patients, and conducting experiments there, from which he formed the very favorable opinion of the Isle's climate expressed THE ISLE OF PINES 319 in 1857 in his published Memoir on its salubrity. He gives a list of diseases cured or at least bettered on the Isle which reads like some fonts of type, pied. And ever since his time to and through the present date all physicians who have investigated climatic conditions, and especially the mineral springs at Nueva Gerona and at Santa Fe, have agreed in lauding the Isle as a health resort. The only drawback is the lack of really good hotels. The hotel at Santa Fe has suffered changes in management since I was first there. The hotel at Nueva Gerona was, at that time, almost un- bearable to persons in the best of health. On the occa- sion of my second visit (1910) the American hotel at Santa Fe was closed ; I found very good accommoda- tions at the old native hostelry on the laurel-shaded plaza. The hotel at Nueva Gerona was overcrowded ; I had to seek rooms in a private family. A handsome bungalow hotel was in course of erection out at Key- View-by-the-Sea. I do not know what accommoda- tions were to be had at McKinley. Santa Fe (it has its pioneer weekly newspaper, origi- nally all English, but now published in two lan- guages ; its churches, Protestant and Catholic ; its stores, both native and American) and Nueva Gerona are the two towns Americans found already established on the Isle when in 1898 the change began which since that date has transformed the country. Then com- menced the American invasion, which still continues; it has brought in men, women, and children of other race than ever was in the Isle before : a hard-headed, strong-handed, dominant and domineering people who refer to all things not American in a tone which tells the truth, — they have made the ^^ native'^ an alien in his own land. 320 CUBA No sooner was the Treaty of Paris signed, putting an end to the Spanish- American War, than certain alert Americans, presimiing that the Isle of Pines had be- come American territory by virtue of Article II in that treaty, which cedes to the United States ^^ Porto Rico and all other islands now under Spanish sovereignty in the West Indies, ^^ began an American occupation of it in all its length and breadth. They bought great tracts of land from Cuban and Spanish owners, which areas they at once laid out in smaller parcels and resold to settlers whom they assured that it was American soil. How well do I recall the fever to own a home in a per- fumed golden garden in that fascinating simimery island (under the American flag) that burned through certain government offices here in Havana along about 1900, when many a clerk, hit by a sudden ambition to save and invest, turned into Santa Rosalia and espe- cially Columbia the surplus of salaries Jai Alai would otherwise have won. Yet in 1902, when the American Military Government of Cuba withdrew, leaving the first Republic of Cuba constituted, the Isle of Pines found itself still administered as part of Havana Province, just as it had always been. Protests were made to Washington. On one occasion Havana was startled to learn (through a young daily newspaper much inflated by the ^^ scoop '0 that the Isle of Pines had seceded, organized a territorial government of its own, on an original adaptation of the usual American plan {vide the histories of Texas and Hawaii), and was demanding entrance into the American union ! It was at this time that Nick Biddle of the Herald (his very aura was r-r-rousing r-r-revolution), whose reports, and Richard Harding Davis, whose photograph of ^^Nueva Gerona on a Busy Day,'^ the people there still THE ISLE OF PINES 321 resent, honored the Isle with their disquieting presence. When the secession spirit faltered, Nick Biddle ''set it up/' When news got scarce, he made more. Flags and firearms were in evidence. Just as real trouble was imminent, according to the most interesting story, the waterworks ran away (the works were a goat cart and a garafon), everybody was reduced to stronger drink, which, before the hour set for declaration of war, melted Cubans and Americans to sentimental good humor, — and bloodshed was thus averted. What- ever the facts may have been, — and they were widely at variance with the most amusing versions, — seces- sion and rebellion were put down by ridicule, but not before considerable irritation had been occasioned in both the United States and Cuba. No final recogni- tion of the Isle as American territory was obtained ; on the contrary, Secretary Root called attention to the fact that it has always been an integral part of Cuba (that it assuredly was prior to 1898 no one disputes), adding that in his opinion the United States has not acquired any substantial claim to it. Yet the Piatt Amendment provides (1901) that title to the Isle shall be left to future adjustment by treaty between the United States and Cuba; evidently its framers pre- supposed some claim to American ownership to exist, even if not '' substantial. '^ Two treaties relinquishing the Isle to Cuba having failed of ratification in the United States Senate, the door is still open to that ''future adjustment.^' In the interim the Isle remains de facto Cuban, pending definite action by the political departments of the two governments concerned. It seems to me that recent discussion regarding ownership of the Isle, semi-official on Cuba's side, has been rather foolish in its futility, the facts being those the Su- 322 CUBA preme Court of the United States, Pearcy vs. Stranahan, has dispassionately declared them to be. Meanwhile, American residents there have made the Isle of Pines an American community in everything except political status. As surely as now we own California, political recognition must follow, inter- national law being, like other law, simply a statement of what is. Americans are in the majority of the population; American money is not only the official, but the actual currency of trade ; the prevailing architecture outside the towns is unreasonably American; American min- isters preach from the pulpits; American automobiles and spring wagons have replaced the clumsy oxcart, and they travel over the best of roads, wide, smooth highways provided by an American Provisional Gov- ernor of Cuba, to facilitate shipments of fruits from orchards and gardens owned by Americans, producing for American markets. There are maps published, on which lands whose proprietors are Americans are col- ored red; these maps show that, literally, Americans own the Isle of Pines. It is especially significant that on these maps one or two little spots they do not own are colored red anyhow, at the request and with the connivance of the Spaniards and Cubans who do. They too would like to see conditions, as they are, recog- nized in Washington and in Havana, and they throw even this small item of influence in that direction. I do not believe that were the United States to purchase the Isle of Pines, or accept it, say, as a very inadequate return for money our government has spent on Cuba, there would be anything but rejoicing in the Isle, among natives and Spaniards, as well as Americans. The event would assure prosperity that would speedily THE ISLE OF PINES 323 obliterate sentimental regrets, if any such were enter- tained there. In Havana, on the contrary, the trans- action would not be popular, for the moment it is suggested Havana discovers incalculable value in a bit of territory she has, for generations, ridiculed as un- productive, sterile, arid, and uninhabitable, making it the prison place of her convicted criminals. It is remarkable that so little friction should exist between settlers in a community as thoroughly Ameri- can as the Isle of Pines and local officials who represent political administration of it by another nationality. There has been some bad feeling in years past : certain Cuban authorities installed at the time of the inaugura- tion of the Republic in 1902 lacked tact and ability to handle the difficult situation created at that juncture by the bitter humor of the American settlers, for the first time compelled to realize that they were deceived in believing the Isle to be recognized American terri- tory. Those officials were very shortly replaced. The most violent of the agitators among the settlers — the sort who advocated battle, murder, and sudden death unless immediate recognition as American terri- tory were forthcoming — were also retired. There succeeded an era of good feeling, skillfully fostered by rational men placed at the head of local affairs, and, from Havana, by judicious expenditure, especially under former Governor Magoon, of public funds for public improvements on the Isle, in the shape of maca- damized roads, which cost $176,525.65, various repairs, and the erection of municipal buildings. Americans on the Isle, if asked their opinion of the government at Havana now, admit that, up to very recent date at any rate, it has been more than fair to them. They will not say as much of the government at Washington. 324 CUBA It must be recalled that the American settlers on the Isle of Pines form, as seen from Cuba proper, a community of foreigners ; they insist, vigorously, upon remaining so. They have taken possession of a large and valuable territory, which before their advent paid unquestioned allegiance to Cuba. They even venture to dispute that allegiance. It is not difficult to imagine how unpleasant, toward any similar foreign com- munity within American jurisdiction, the attitude of American officials would be. Cuba, however, far from forcibly exacting compliance with her laws to minutest detail, has winked at many a breach, insisting only upon maintaining her flag afloat. Recently, a scarcity of funds having made itself evident in the treasury, so officials say, certain govern- ment schools conducted on the Isle in English, as Ameri- cans use that language, under American teachers, for the exclusive benefit of American children, have been discontinued. The resentment aroused is keen. It has not been assuaged by the dilatory tactics of the authorities, who have promised much and done nothing. Brought face to face with the point, most pineros admit it is expecting a good deal of a government to ask it to maintain public schools in a foreign language for for- eign children within its territory ; they argue, however, that they have had such schools for years, that they want them yet, — and, anyhow, who's paying cus- tomhouse duties and taxes on business which con- stitute the sole revenue accruing from the Isle to the central government ? Answer : Americans, who get no representation in return, — not even half a dozen schools ! Principal among the forces which work toward the inevitable acknowledgment of the Isle as American, THE ISLE OF PINES 325 are its land companies, American corporations which have bought up large tracts from Spanish and Cuban owners, cleared their titles, surveyed the land, and laid it out in parcels of convenient acreage which now they are reselling to individual settlers, Americans almost to a man. At places which suit their convenience these com- panies have located new towns. Many of these towns exist only in prospectuses and the roseate imagination of the developing company. At McKinley (1908), I recall, we drove some miles away from pleasant resi- dences along Cleveland Road, to ground entirely unoc- cupied except by a few courageous trees and grass ^^of grand valor, ^' as they say in Spanish. Here, however, we were shown the plaza^ and told the very patterns accepted for its embellishment in landscape gardening ; the church stood yonder; the hotel (I forget what it cost), and the sanitarium, — right there and there. We drove through the residential quarter and then to the docks on the Nuevas River ; at a certain spot under- bush had been cut away, and as we stood, gazing from the steep bank into the thick dark stream, unmolested quite in its primitive majesty, we learned the height and cost of the wharf planned ; and were astonished at the frequency of direct steamship communication between this and American ports. In the overhanging bushes a tiny wild bird trilled. Ah, well, of such dreams as these, irrigated with the sweat of the facile believer, grow cities in reality, such, for instance, as California's. On the north shore of the Isle two promontories break, as has been said, through the monotony of the coastal fringe of mangrove. They are Colombo Head- land, so called for the Discoverer, that being the Italian version of his name used by his companions, and Bibi- 326 CUBA jagua Point. The Headland forms the eastern protec- tion of Colombo Bay, a beautiful sheet of water, bril- liantly blue and sparkling, as the writer saw it, on a sunny morning when just breeze enough stirred to dimple its surface from shore to shore. It seems quite encircled by Ceballos' valuable marble piles, green- draped and picturesque. Immediately west of Colom- bo Headland, between that promontory, with its atten- dant islet (DeviFs Dot), and the headland next to the east, known as Indian Point, a pleasant beach lies in a curve; it is clear white sand, every separate grain of which is a sharp-edged quartz crystal. Beyond In- dian Point, — an abrupt and bushy bulk, — the coast dips in again, to form the sheltered cove of Bibi jagua Beach, which, to my disappointment, I did not see, for as we arrived clouds suddenly assembled, let down rain, — not in drops, but in hurtling sheets, like bucketsful thrown. We saw the framework of a new hotel dimly, through water. This vicinity looks much as it must have appeared to Columbus' admiring com- pany ; his men were undoubtedly the first Caucasians to venture into the seclusion of these anchorages. These places witnessed later, I harbor no doubt, dramas of piracy, through scenes in which characters as arro- gant and ruthless as novelists imagine in fiction strode in fact. Next, a quieter era of agricultural develop- ment, when the marble quarries of Brazo Fuerte, its tanneries, and the sugar estate at Bibijagua itself were in operation. Now, another act, for over these head- lands and pleasant beaches, sugar lands around the hills, and poetic ruins of the handsome mill (excellently equipped, and in operation as late as 1875), Americans have spread the blueprint map of a town site called Key-View-by-the-Sea, in which they are selling resi- THE ISLE OF PINES 327 dence lots to Pittsburgers, for winter homes. Around the giant laurels, which, gnarled and mighty, mark the entrance to the deserted sugar factory, they have laid out an experimental garden to supply tropical fruits, flowers, and shrubs. Beside Colombo Headland, where the Discoverer himself may have stood to look across the fair country he found, they are reconstructing docks from which the sugar mill shipped in its time ; they will rebuild, they say, its warehouse. On the hills they plan handsome driveways, and here they invite residences to appear. Of all the towns-that-are-to-be this one, because of its truly beautiful situation, and its historic associations, most pleases me. Certain other towns (in addition to Nueva Gerona and Santa Fe) already are. Columbia is the oldest of the settlements Americans have built up since their arrival. It is situated at a distance of some three miles from that point on the Jucaro River which is Port Jucaro on one side and Columbia Landing on the other. It has its post-office and general store, church services and school, blacksmith, physician, and watch- maker. There are orange groves around the resi- dences even in the town. Los Indios, a settlement on the southwest coast, is accessible by land and sea. We drove across from Santa Fe, via La Ceiba. Part of the way lay through pine lands where the trees attained considerable girth. Here we found Stark's sawmill in operation. We stopped for a moment at the house to exchange a word or two with Mrs. Stark, and we asked her if she ever grew lonely in that solitude. There is a Httle creek near the house, over which trees bend. ''That,'' she said, in reply, ''is my Broadway. All the leaves are on parade. They change their gowns with the seasons 328 CUBA and with the weather. Notice the wide variety in styles/' — and she called our attention to differences in the trees and in their leaves. ''I think/' she concluded, ^^one can find much of interest in any environment. A plant has its identity as well as a person ; its likes, dis- likes, its moods and humors. Yonder are my friends ; and I assure you, they are good company.'' (Ponder that !) We passed, also, on our way, the Hansen resi- dence, on the Canada tract, and for none I know have I a stronger admiration than for this man and his wife, as I saw them, abandoned by a land company's change of plans, in an isolated region, without neighbors ; for they had, against all odds, made for themselves a home. I wonder what vicissitudes of fortune have been theirs since that day. At Los Indios, because, I think, of its location, frontier conditions are more obviously present than elsewhere on the Isle. The settlers are, or were at least in 1908, mostly Westerners, acquainted, if only by heredity, with hardship ; they were bravely meeting difficulties and overcoming them. Their houses were scattered over a considerable area. Through white sandy soil the citrus fruit trees were coming up. They proudly called attention to the fact that in that driest ^' spell" on record Los Indios had not lacked for rain, thanks to the Cafiada Mountains, which had held up rain clouds drifting in from sea, and compelled them to ''stand and deUver" grateful showers. There is a gen- eral store at Los Indios : I understand the building it occupied when we saw it was leveled by a cyclone, and no one hurt. The company provides a school building, and when we were there the government paid a teacher. There were church and Sunday-school services. There was a hotel. From Los Indios we returned to Nueva THE ISLE OF PINES 329 Gerona by launch, in some five hours^ trip, skirting the western and northern shores of the Isle. The Caribbean was blue and placid ; cool breezes blew ; the shore line was of interest, attention centering now on the moun- tains (Caballos, Canada, Daguilla, Casas), always in sight yet altered each moment in aspect ; or, closer at hand, in islets and promontories, and indentations in the coast that are the mouths of rivers entering the sea. Most residents on the Isle of Pines live, however, outside the towns, which are only centers of supply. They dwell upon their estates, in homes that vary from simplest board shelters to frame, or part concrete resi- dences, wherein, in floors, wainscoting, and stairways, a wealth of hardwood, polished and carved, has been employed. Comfort is everywhere, and there is not a little of luxury, — in rugs, cut-glass ware, pianos, — and, most symbolic to my mind, in the twoscore automobiles, little ^^buzzers'^ and touring cars and big red buses, which travel the highways nowadays, amid little attention from their rivals, the sophisticated mules. The ^^ social atmosphere^' of the Isle of Pines has seemed to me, during my two visits there, most admir- able. The settlers are men and women of the very highest type of American ; they are legitimate heirs to the spirit, courage, health, and ability of those other pioneers, their forbears, who hewed the American Union out of the wilderness of North America, and wiped even the Great American Desert off the map. Some of them are people of means, to whom their groves are pastimes pleasant during the winter season. Others are kept awake nights considering the imperative necessity of making both ends meet. Of mere book- learning some have much, and some little ; none, how- 330 CUBA ever, are ignorant. They are by no means afraid of work; the men labor in their groves, and the women in the homes. Sons and daughters help ; decidedly, there is no deference paid to idleness. And, as was true on the original frontier, these people (with two or three exceptions) are American born ; the natural- ized citizen has not yet arrived in any appreciable number. As is invariably the case when people are busy, gossip is happily scarce, — or perhaps I, an outsider, was not admitted to full discussion. I saw only neighborly good will made manifest. Jealousy there is, yes, but it seems to be between communities, rather than persons. Nueva Gerona desires to be known as the only real town on the island ; people who live there are confident it is so. Other people at Santa Fe are quite as confident that Santa Fe leads in every respect. Settlers at Columbia and at Los Indios have their own, very different, opinions on the subject. On one point, however, everybody agrees : that the Isle of Pines is the finest spot on earth. No view to the contrary is toler- ated. So omnipresent and so prevailing is this loyalty, blended with strong 'optimism, even a visitor is affected by it and must retire outside the Isle to judge it reason- ably ; for as long as he remains among its settlers he will find himself sharing their enthusiasm. And since faith moves mountains, there is no reason why it should not fertilize and irrigate plains, and bring whatever fleet of fruit schooners or steamers may be found necessary into seas where they are wanted. The firm belief its people have in the Isle is the surest pledge of its future prosperity. The rivalry before mentioned which exists between towns (a frontier condition which makes for improvement THE ISLE OF PINES 331 and growth) does not disturb private or social affairs. When an entertainment is given at Nueva Gerona the other settlements are expected to send a representative attendance ; when Santa Fe entertains, grief and some resentment are expressed if people from Nueva Gerona are not there. I remember hearing a general invitation sent out by announcement : ^^ Everybody on the Isle/' proclamation was made, ^'is cordially invited to be present next Tuesday night/' etc. I inquired whether or not this ^^bid'' might not occasion difficulties. ^^Why, no/' was the astonished response, ^Hhere isn't anybody on the Isle we don't want, is there ? " For my part, I couldn't think of any one I'd seen there that I objected to. This is not to say that the absolute harmony of the Millennium Dawn prevails. On the contrary, anybody can start trouble any time by innocently inquiring how much fertilizer a citrus fruit tree ought to have at any given, period, or, worse yet, how much profit so-and-so really did realize from eggplant or honey or tangerines ; but the private life of the most erring in matters of fer- tilizer and accounts of sales is — as far as my experi- ence goes — inviolate. Now that I think of it, how- ever, I do recall having been told, amid much apologetic confusion on the part of my informant, that a certain teamster discovered, as we drove by, in recumbent position under a small wayside shrub, was known to drink ; had, in fact, so far forgotten himself as to drink that very morning. As his wagon rolled along home- ward he rolled from it to the roadside, and there his virtuous assistant left him, to recover. Passers-by did not disturb him. He was not a permanent resident on the Isle, anyhow. That afternoon it rained, and re- vived him, I trust, to a realization of the enormity of /" 332 CVBA the discredit he brought upon the Isle, — in the eyes, too, of a visitor ! In short, the prospective investor on the Isle of Pines may rely on finding himself, on arrival, in the midst of as pleasant a community as he could discover anywhere. He will be made one in a hard-working, intelligent, hos- pitable settlement ; the men will give him voluble ad- vice as to soils, insecticide, and methods of cultivation, while the women will teach his wife to make mango pie and sorrel wine and guava cobbler. He himself will have little leisure to seek for amusement ; but if he does find time for it, there is fishing and hunting at hand. Neither will wife and daughters be lonely; there are the Hibiscus Club, the Embroidery Club, the Card Club, the Santa Fe Social Club, the Pioneer Club, the Carnation Club, the Casas Club, — in all of which and still others they will find congenial com- panionship. There is also the American Federation, — not a social organization nor yet a business association. It exists for the mutual good of Americans resident on the Isle, and to defend their legitimate interests when occasion requires. It considers complaints made by Americans against Cuban officials ; it insists upon impartiality in public services (post-office, taxation, police). Long without occasion for activity, it has recently met to consider, for instance, schools. There is an American Club, and various business- men's associations. ^The principal interest of Americans on the Isle of Pines is citrus fruit culture. They have, one and all, devoted themselves to that, to the very detrimental neglect of every other consideration. ^^And whereas,'^ to quote Franco (his criticism emitted in 1792 applies in Photograph by American Photo Company Pines of the Isle The Isle of Pines was named because of its pine trees, not its pineapples, — which, however, are the biggest and the juiciest on record; 8, 10, 12 and 14 lbs. is their weight. Photograph by American Photo Company A Young Isle Grove TEE ISLE OF PINES 333 1910), ^Hhey might live well on grains, tubers and vege- tables which that soil will produce in repayment of very little exertion on their part, — whereas they might busy themselves in raising poultry, . . . thus getting their sustenance without expending their capital, — they nevertheless prefer to exist . . /^ — not, to be sure, now, as then,^oir~^lt meat, but on canned meats (''even fresh meat is to be had only on 'killing' days''), on condensed milk ("Milk, another of their foods, is not always to be had"), and on tinned vegetables imported in large lots at the very time the consumers proclaim, by advertisements and word of mouth, the Isle of Pines to be the "greatest truck gardening possibility in the western hemisphere." ^ I visited the Isle of Pines in 1908 as special agent of the Cuban department of agriculture (Provisional Administration) : I was most particularly impressed by the lack of fresh foodstuffs on even the best tables there. At the hotel in Nueva Gerona we sickened of canned goods, — there were even canned tomatoes, when within two miles of the town fresh tomatoes were rotting on the dying vines in the yard of a discouraged settler. Of course, there were one or two gardens, — notably Jones' Jungle, whose provident owner, thanks to a little irrigation plant, some foresight, and a willingness to rise betimes and care for his truck, was making a bit of money selling it at high prices to his neighbors. I asked one rather husky young man who seemed endowed with more common sense than the average why he did not raise at least the commonest vegetables for his own consump- tion. He replied with considerable asperity, for himself and part- ner: "We are citrus fruit growers, I'd have you understand." I fancy he spoke for the Isle, which had not, at that time, stirred to the movement now interesting all colonies on Cuba proper in a "safe and sane" development of their lands to homely, indigenous, sure crops, to sell in the immediate home market. This country has had almost enough of "fancy tropical farming." In this connection it interested me to note that I was but the latest of a procession of special agents who, each in his hour, inves- tigated the Isle of Pines, commencing with Franco in 1797, and in- cluding Granville Fortescue in 1908, every one of whom commented at length and none too flatteringly upon the improvidence of the 334 CUBA I had occasion to investigate the customs record of direct importation into the Isle for the fiscal year 1907- 1908, and found hay (retail price, $40 a ton average) to constitute the largest single item of direct importa- tion; fertilizer^ which I was assured was thQ^laxgfist individual item in freight receipts, is distributed from Havana, and, having paid duties there, does not enter into the calculation of direct importation. In this list, oats was second, and corn fourth ; in their enthusiasm these citrus fruit growers have neglected to provide pasture, or, if necessary, to plant forage for their draft animals. The third largest item was canned vegetables ; fifth, canned fruits^; sixth, soap (with which not the most captious critic will find fault) ; and, seventh, condensed milk. • Only recently have some few land companies begun, I understand, to practice ffie^wisdom of urging their customers to make themselves comfortable immediately on arrival, in a house, not a tent, with a garden about it, with irrigation, and a pasture lot in the vicinity planted, in part, at least, to forage. This done, it is time enough then to expend energy and cash on a citrus fruit grove it takes years, considerable capital, and incalculable hard work, to bring to profitable bearing. Because he did not take these precautions to save his money (ex- penditures which must be made are heavy at their lightest), and also himself (for the work entailed is hard and wearing), many a man who expected to find an easy fortune in the Isle of Pines dropped there, instead, pinero in not "getting his sustenance without expending his capital." That part of my report which dealt with the point was written be- fore, in looking up the past history of the Isle, I came upon their identical views, worded even more strongly than I had ventured to put mine. ^THE ISLE OF PINES 335 what he possessed, and was forced to abandon his hold- ing and the country. This is not the time or place to discuss soils (there are several varieties on the Isle), nor fertilization (impera- tively necessary), irrigation (which actual growers find advisable to have at least handy in case of need) , methods of cultivation, pests, stock, varieties, cost of living, equipment, labor, picking, packing, and transportation.^ These are matters into which each prospective investor must look, and look carefully, for himself. He will do well, by the way, to visit not only the Isle, but other parts of Cuba, and to investigate possibilities not only in citrus fruit culture, but in very different fields of agricul- ture and horticulture, before committing himself and his savings ; especially does he owe it to himself not to buy or undertake the cultivation of land ^^ sight unseen^' on the spur of enthusiasm induced by land-company Uterature. But it is the time and the place, it seems to me, to remark that, despite all obstacles (there are some), the Americans on the Isle, of Pines are succeeding. They, in this, like the Romans in martial campaigns, have not perceived when they were defeated ; against pre- cedent, all reason, and the anticipation of onlookers, they are ^^making good.^' The sugar estate which existed at 1 Shipping expenses, every item included from the dock in the Isle of Pines through sale in New York, according to shipping papers lent me by Mason Brothers, shippers, from which I cast an average, are proximately $1.64 per box, on grape fruit. This is exclusive of the cost of production, picking, packing, and hauling to the dock. It is easy to deduce (estimating these omitted items, adding their total to $1.64, and comparing it with prices for which oranges sell) why few oranges are exported from either the Isle of Pines or Cuba, expenses there, too, being about the same. There is, how- ever, a margin of profit on grape fruit, if the fruit is good (as care will make it) and the market right. 336 CUBA Bibijagua is gone; its fields are grass-covered, and the walls of its factory have crumbled to the ground. The plantation house at Las Nuevas, once the center of a principality, is a scattered ruin, haunted, they say, by the ghost of a suicide. With the country places which were its pride, the old regime has vanished. The great estates that belonged to the Zelabers, the Zayas, the Duartes, and the Acostas, divided into ten, twenty, and thirty-acre groves, are the property now of Smith, Jones, and Johnson. Amid the disappearing wreckage of what was, these are building anew, in their own way. In place of the almost feudal conditions which prevailed from the day Captain Pedroso received the Isle entire, a kingly gift from his monarch, through the supremacy of the Duartes, down to D. Andres Acosta's succession, a new regime exists : it is democratic, energetic, individ- ual, and all- American. CHAPTER XV THE NORTH COAST Havana to Santiago My first acquaintance with Cuba east of Havana was made in September of the year 1900, when, not ^4n a nutshell/' as the Spanish song has it, but aboard the stout Herrera liner, the Julia, we set out for Porto Rico on a holiday. I recall it was night as we left, and that as Morrows light with its attendant satellites, festooning the coast from Cabanas on the left hand to Vedado on the right, dropped below our horizon, there was left to record that setting of our only constellation, a faint glow against a close and clouded sky. Indefinite gray distance was everywhere, — above, below, and round- about. The second day one yellow promontory broke into the monotony of our eastward course. We turned to our fellow passengers for amusement. Among them I re- member there were a bride and groom, Cubans, who sat together in chairs on the deck, like ^4ove birds'' on a perch. There was a Spanish wine merchant, from whose bearded face looked out the finest qualities of his nation- ality, minus, it seemed to me, all objectionable character- istics. There was a Hollander, — a Dutch traveling man, — who was, literally, too big for his stateroom, so he slept, we discovered one night, uncomfortably curled all around the smoking room. There was an American, z 337 338 CUBA on a ''big deaP' bent, who landed at Santo Domingo and disappeared into the interior, from perils of which he escaped, however, for I have seen him since. There was, to complete the collection, a Porto Rican, — talkative, vivacious, — who amused us with many a good story. He discoursed at length on one occasion concerning Spaniards and knives, explaining effective grips and blows, with rich detail of many bloody encounters. ''When a Spaniard comes at you with a knife,'' was his advice to our assemblage, "meet him with a bigger one, or run!'' He, so he said, when confronted by this dreadful dilemma, had taken the latter course at full speed. At nightfall the revolving light at Paredon marked our turning slightly south. Next dawn found us anchored under the tower at Maternillos Point, awaiting break of day to light us through the winding channel that is the entrance to Nuevitas Bay. We stood under the bridge, and watched as the Julia glided forward, to the rattle and clank of the wheel sounding loudly, like a strange echo, to the captain's brief commands. On each side of us were low black banks. White birds flew up from wooden posts marking our course. We emerged into open water, beside three shapeless isles of rock, sparsely covered with bush. A sudden turn, and, after fifteen miles' meandering, we beheld the town of Nuevitas ; we dropped anchor some distance out. I recall that we went ashore in a small boat, that we landed on a wooden pier, and that an American in uniform watched us curi- ously. Unerring instinct led us to a hotel. The loaded board of the good ship Julia was to us, through all that trip, Tantalus' own table ; we could not eat of the dishes provided, for they were flavored one and all with garlic and with oil. We bribed the. steward, once, to bring THE NORTH COAST 339 US boiled eggs between meals, a favor for which he gave us to understand he ran grave danger of irons, the yard- arm, the plank itself. We consigned the eggs, after very slight investigation, to the sea, with great grief but scant ceremony of burial. Therefore, seated at the hotel table, in Nuevitas, when they brought us fresh eggs, fresh milk, fresh bread, we ate and ate and ate. The Spanish wine merchant joined us, replenished the supply of food before us once or twice, and watched us reduce it to shells, crumbs, and empty glasses, with amusement that was obvious. He paid the bill, with insistent Spanish politeness ; my conscience is clear that we permitted it, for I feel confident that as an exhibit of the marked capacity of American women, in literal sense, we were his money's worth. Refreshed and strengthened, we fared forth to see the town. All I remembered afterwards was one wide street. At each end, on rising ground, was a round fortlet. Together, they commanded that avenue, and with it, the place entire. We had the curiosity to approach one of these ^^blockhouses,'' and found the weeds grown over the path to it ; there were no steps to the doorway, cut half- way up in the wall. Presently the train from Puerto Principe came in ; we returned to the Julia, where new companions joined us. We steamed awa^^ again past the three whale-like islands, through the channel, banks of which the magic of sunlight had changed from black to green, into the open sea, southward, and on. Lately, we revisited Nuevitas, approaching it this time from inland, via the railway from Puerto Principe, or, I should say, Camaguey, for in 1902 the old Indian name was restored to that city and to the province of which it is the capital. We were, on this occasion, en route to La Atalaya, formerly a ^^ very famous sugar 340 - CUBA estate/^ and now a cosmopolitan cattleman's country home, about which a small citrus fruit colony has developed. We found the city much the same, after nine years; we recognized the main street, the round towers, even the hotel ; from the same wooden pier we entered into a little sailboat, and skimmed away, in southeasterly direction across the bay, to Guiros Inlet, and up that arm of smooth, brackish water, between thick mangroves that effectively cut off the breeze. The boatman rowed. It was so still that ripples from his oars, and in the vessel's wake, sounded loud against the tangled roots of those unfriendly trees, as the little waves washed up and down among the oysters incrust- ing their boles and lower branches, like extraordinary rime. Fish we were told were tarpon, in their frolics made now and then commotion about the boat, actu- ally splashing us with drops of water. Overhead wild fowl sailed, black specks against the sky. This seemed to be an untouched wilderness. From the landing, however, which, far up Guiros Inlet, is the first sign to the contrary, a made road leads inshore. It is evident that once it was macadamized in no mean fashion, for stones and bricks from which the top dressing has worn away keep it in condition still for wheeled vehicles to travel. None met us as we clam- bered from our boat, however, for notice of our coming had preceded us by little time, — in fact, had not preceded us at all, but arrived after we did. We walked up the road, therefore, and found that presently it leaves the mangroves on sand flats, where land crabs scuttle, becoming an avenue on firmer ground beside which a few tall cocoanut palms remain like survivors of a loyal guard assembled after disastrous attack. It climbs a hill, and we climbed with it among ruins : THE NORTH COAST * 341 crumbling walls and rusted machinery, half-hidden under rank vegetation; past three broken columns of an entrance, probably to a church ; by an inclosure, evidently a garden, — relics, these, of the old estate. La Atalaya means the Watchtower, and we sought a tower. Above us, instead, lordly and secure, loomed a modern residence, seated upon the very summit of the hill. Built of stone, shingle, and lattice, it is most American outside, and equally so inside, we found as we entered, down to the detail of paper on the walls. We ascended to the veranda, and there, for the first time, met the owner. This was, for an instant, an ordeal; we had arrived '^unheralded and unsung,'^ on business connected with the citrus fruit colony, which had not, I think, Mr. Saucier^s entire approval. I have seldom experienced such elation of flattery, I cannot refrain from adding, as was mine when, in the instant of that ordeal, we were weighed by the Bostonian in this man and not found entirely wanting ; therefore the Texan he became in long years' residence in that genial state, accepted us, with the French courtesy to which Mr. Saucier was born, in Paris ! We were shown to the guest chamber, and the housekeeper, whose name, but not her pleasant personality, I have forgotten, was summoned to place the conveniences of the house at our disposal. We were welcomed to easy chairs on the wide veranda; and here we learned what the lattice work on which the building seems to stand hides from view : nothing less than the missing watchtower ! We were permitted to see for ourselves how cleverly Mr. Saucier has made the octagonal fort he unearthed from the hilltop serve as the foundation for his house. To such use has he humbled that stronghold, built, none remember how long ago, as a lookout, doubtless, against sea rovers, who, 342 CUBA to enter Nuevitas Bay, must thread the same channel the Julia negotiated, every turn of which is visible from this height, as well as is a long reach of the coast outside, and the towns, inland and on the bay, to which, spying a sus- picious sail in the offing. La Atalaya was in position to signal a call to flight or to arms. From the veranda we ^^ viewed the landscape o'er/^ Immediately below us were citrus fruit groves, in all about seventy acres at the time; among them stood the comfortable frame homes of the few settlers already established. Looking beyond these, however, I was more interested in what I did not see than I was in what I saw. Father Antonio Perpina, who visited this district in 1866, has, in his book ^^Camaguey,^^ left a vivid descrip- tion of the vicinity at that period, and this was in my mind. The priest had ridden northward from the city of Camaguey to San Miguel. San Miguel is still on the map ; it was then the principal town in all the Mayanabo district. Its population was 1400, Father Antonio states, and along its wide, smoothly graded streets were stores which supplied the trade of a flourish- ing region. There were tanneries, manufactories of yarey hats, and through San Miguel en route to Baga, on th^ neighboring Bay of Nuevitas, passed large quanti- ties of valuable woods, tobacco, guanos, hides, and, above all, sugar, molasses, and sirups, for shipment away by sea. From San Miguel the traveled road led down, as it does yet, to this port, and the priest followed it, on his journey. ^^ Between San Miguel and Baga,^' he writes, ^^we saw nothing but canefields stretching away in every direction. To our left were the Ingenios La Caridad, El Recreo, and San Antonio, while on our right were Las Casimbas, Las Flores, and La Atalaya.^' THE NORTH COAST 343 The highway paralleled the railroad, in operation then between Guaimaro and Baga. As the priest and the party with him went cantering along upon their spirited horses, the train bore down upon them. They raced it with might and main, and. Father Antonio relates, the horsemen were in the lead when the engineer, piqued by the taunts of his passengers, threw open the throttle and filled the air with smoke and sparks and extra noise attendant upon his greatest possible velocity. ^^The passengers cheered loudly, exhorting us to greater en- deavour. The very earth shook under the flying feet of our horses, and reverberated with the sound of grind- ing carwheels. '' The priest, who had not fallen behind in the running, chronicles with regret that the railway and the highroad parted company before the race was decided. Baga was — the shadow of it is yet — on the south- west shore of Nuevitas Bay opposite the channel en- trance to that sheet of water. It affords anchorage to schooners and whatever other light-draft vessels will honor it in its decay. Baga is supposed to be the site of the original settlement, which later, moving inland to escape pirate raids, became with time the present provincial capital of Camaguey. The village numbered two hundred inhabitants when Father Antonio visited it in 1866 ; its most imposing buildings then were ware- houses. Now, I was solemnly assured when I inquired, its most interesting feature is its abandoned cemetery, where one American, accidentally drowned in the bay, lies buried among the dead of a dead town. From Baga Father Antonio journeyed the short dis- tance necessary to reach La Atalaya. It belonged then to one Sr. D. Jose Planas y Sucona. Buildings around his residence formed quite a village upon the hill about SU CUBA which his cane fields lay. He was lord over about seven thousand acres of cultivated land and woodland, sa- vanna and seashore. He owned rivers and a lake and ocean inlets. Two hundred and fifty slaves labored as he commanded. His dumber cattle pastured on great ranges. From the watchtower on the summit above his residence, Father Antonio looked out upon a scene which enraptured him : ''What a view of all the Bayatabo district ! It was a clear and quiet morning ; the sun, appearing from the folds of a cloud of gold, poured his light splendidly upon the country, far and wide. To the north we saw perfectly the great bay, upon its surface resting darkly the Ballenatos, native haunt of wild birds, those three islets of shapeless rock, which, rising above the quiet stretch of sur- rounding waters, seem to dominate all their neighbor- hood. A little to the eastward we saw the long channel which gives entrance to the bay, and we discerned the lighthouse on Maternillos Point. We could distin- guish all the lonely peninsula Del Sabinal, while fur- ther off the Atlantic lay, scintillant as the sunlight fell upon its waves. The city of San Fernando de Nue- vitas was to the northwest, resting upon the slope on which it is built. The white walls of its holy church showed like a luminous bulwark aglow on the horizon. To the east we saw San Luis Hill and the wide estates of Sabanalamar, Nuevas Grandes, and Santa Lucia, the properties of residents in Camaguey. All to the south and west were sugar plantations and cattle ranges and tobacco fields and gardens, watered by the Arenillas River, which takes its course through that pleasant countryside, pouring finally its crystalline waters into the clear current of the Saranaguacan. All this wonderful panorama lay bathed in magic light as THE NORTH COAST 345 I looked down upon it that clear calm day, from the watchtower seated so proudly upon its hill.'' The day it was our good fortune to overlook the scene described, from the American home built now upon that humbled watchtower as a firm foundation, a heavy rain blew in from the sea. It advanced in darkening clouds from the surface of the Atlantic, blotting from view the country to the eastward where Sabanalamar, Nuevas Grandes, and Santa Lucia are names now, for very little cultivation and wider, neglected areas. Few are the traditions, even, which remain of palmier days. It dropped an impenetrable curtain between La Atalaya and Maternillos Point, and over the long, winding chan- nel which still leads ships in, around the three shape- less islands, still the favorite haunt of wild fowl. The church at Nuevitas, faithful through all change, shone brilliantly as of old on the distant slope where the town clings yet. The rain beat down on deserted Baga, and the route of the railway train the priest and his caval- cade raced so valiantly : trains and tracks have van- ished, — hardly more enduring than the smoke, the sparks, the noise of their transient endeavor. Finally, it shut out every detail of that panorama save the near- lying citrus fruit groves of the American newcomers ; these tossed their leaves, green and shining, welcoming the storm. The house on the hill and its close neighbors were alone in wind and rain. But when the tempest had passed, with vivid lightning and resounding thun- der, all the picture reappeared, refreshing and brightened, like a canvas an expert has retouched. One looked in vain, nevertheless, for the cane fields, the tobacco plantations, the gardens that Father Antonio saw from La Atalaya as he looked down. War and neglect have wiped them out. 346 CUBA The next stop the Julia made, beyond Nuevitas, on that eastward journey of ours along the north coast, jwas at G ibara. The first detail our glasses rested upon as we looked shoreward from anchorage in the bay, was Old Glory, never so brilliant as then, held out by the wind against the sun, setting behind hills of emerald. The bay curves inshore like a horseshoe. The village is on the western side. A lighthouse stands on the point opposite. We rowed to land and wandered along the unpaved, oil-lit streets, chancing at last on Calle Real, evidently the main business avenue, which seems to fall down a steep hill. We promenaded through the plaza, with its blue kiosks facing the twin towers of a yellow church. We saw the Union Club lighted for a ball, and at a member^s invitation entered, and were pleased with the hall, the library, the billiard room. Morning found the Julia still at anchor with three hundred head of cattle aboard to be lifted out, one after the other, by the horns into lighters. Having time, we returned ashore, engaged the finest carriage available, — a collection of old iron, firewood, and rags bound toge- ther by mutual sympathy, — and directed the coach- man to exhibit Gibara. He drove westward through a village of thatched huts. Naked children ran forth in droves and then ran back, fetching their elders to see Americans. Beyond these suburbs we found Sifinca, the only estate accessible, the coachman said. It consisted of two whitewashed huts, a lone bullock by his cart, and a half-plowed field the size of a building lot. From there on, a wild growth of prickly plants so hedged the road we lost interest and returned toward town. We made a detour along the seashore past what, our driver said, had been THE NORTH COAST 347 the American cemetery while the garrison was there. He assured us that all bodies had been removed ; dis- appointed buzzards ornamented the fenceposts and circled thick overhead. We passed a blue blockhouse, on our way back, and went through a breach in gray walls that once surrounded the town, from which an enterprising alcalde had been supplying stone for road repairs. We got safely over streets of positive, com- parative, and superlative badness, to which, obviously, the walls had not been applied, and, by another block- house and an arched gateway, where beggars sat, emerged upon a road that became a trail just beyond the railroad bridge. The bridge, a modern steel struc- ture, had fallen from its masonry foundation into the water ; the tracks had been raised on a wooden frame to enable trains to continue through, despite the mishap. Our coachman told that two insurgents with a bomb blew up the bridge, a fort guarding it, and ten Spanish soldiers ; probably the Spanish version would have reversed the figures, and the truth have agreed with neither, but, at all events, the bridge was down when we saw it, and beyond it there was no road, but the rail- way track wavered away into a country I know now ceases at a very little distance northward from the coast to be as desolate and unpromising as I remember it about Gibara. From Holguin, whither one may arrive, with vicissitude, via that railroad and another it meets somewhere near Chaparra, I have ridden into the inter- vening district on horseback and found it a region rich beyond compare. All along the ^^ royal road^' which exists, in official imagination, between Holguin and Gibara, its port, there are ruined blockhouses, which, by signals at least, maintained communication in war times between the interior city and the coast. ^^ 348 CUBA Between Gibara and Baracoa we passed Banes and Nipe Bays without entering. It was not until nine years later that we came down to them, by land, and visited there mines, sugar mills, fruit plantations, on shores that, had we explored in 1900, we must have found uninhabited and wild. We arrived next day at the oldest city in Cuba, — Baracoa la Bella, — first capital of the island, from where spread Spanish exploration and settlement. Here Velazquez had his seat. Here Panfilo de Narvaez and Hernando Cortes, both, along with minor characters in famous scenes, made their debut in history. We dropped anchor in a landlocked harbor, a sheet of water round and perfect as an illustration to the de- finition of ^^bay^' in primary geography. Ashore, we breakfasted on eggs, — on boiled eggs, although we are by no means overfond of these. We had, however, already discovered that Cuban cooks have not yet in- vented means to introduce either oil or garlic into an unopened boiled egg ; the outside they make fragrant and greasy, but the inside they perforce respect, — the only limitation, this, I have found on their use of the two objectionable ingredients we sought to escape by demanding boiled eggs. I recall that the eggs we got at Baracoa that day might have been improved by association even with oil and garlic, for they seemed to antedate the establishment wherein they were served, by a considerable period; it was ''The Twentieth Century Hotel.'' As we were making the best of our bad bargain an American looked in at the door, hailed us without formality, demanding to know if we were indeed American women ; on our confirming his hopes that we were, he asked and received permission to join us. We were, he said, the first American women he'd THE NORTH COAST 349 beheld in half a year. From him we learned that there were at the time ten soldiers of the famous colored Tenth Regiment, three officers, two civilians, and an American-made typewriting machine in Baracoa. He praised the climate, the scenery, the salubrity, the cocoa- nuts, of Baracoa, and advised us to see the church and the cross in it Columbus is supposed to have set up here. We found this, — it is small, black, tipped with metal, — an object, evidently, of special veneration; it oc- cupies an altar garlanded with paper roses, a wonderful flora that flourished on every shrine in the church, in luxuriance and coloring truly tropical. We climbed to the sky-blue fort on the hill, and were shown the rock on which the First Admiral is supposed to have stood, overlooking the country he later de- scribed, according to Las Casas, as '' so beautiful that one never wearies to see it. '^ Hereabouts, if it was really here that he landed, Columbus found trees and fruits of marvelous flavor. The air was pleasant, — neither too hot nor too cold, as they had found it elsewhere ; little birds sang day and night, and the Spaniards were de- lighted with this approach, as they supposed it, to the rich empire of the Grand Khan. There were humble native settlements in sight, from whose people they inquired by gesture for gold and pearls. They called the place Rio de Mares, and from here, if Las Casas is right, as many contend he is not, in supposing it was at Baracoa Columbus landed, in the last days of October, 1492, he continued a short distance westward, — per- haps only to Nipe, or to Banes, or, as some authorities maintain, to Nue vitas Bay. The honor of this first land- ing of Europeans on Cuban soil has been claimed for Nipe ; and again, with more show of reason, it seems to me, for Banes Bay. Be this disputed point as it may. 350 CUBA Baracoa was, at all events, the first settlement of Euro- peans in the island. Others, to complete Velazquez's seven cities, were founded later, and, especially Santi- ago de Cuba, at her expense. As we wandered about Baracoa, we were seized upon by a fellow passenger whose home and destination was here. She carried us to her house, a beautiful and spacious residence; she summoned ^Hhe family '^ in numbers to come sit about and admire us, her friends. She served us refreshments, loaded us with flowers, assured us that Baracoa liked Americans. One of ^Hhe family '' had been in Boston with the Cuban teach- ers sent there to summer school a little while before ; this lady had reported favorably upon the United States and its people, by and large. We carried away a very grateful recollection of this incident. We walked down to Fort Punta, garrisoned by an American corporal, a Cuban policeman, and a horse. The Cuban showed us a bathing place, — used, if I remember rightly, by the women of town in the morn- ing, and by men in the afternoon ; it was out of hours, but we requisitioned towels, and the key to its gate. Having stationed the policeman on guard, we securely locked the gate, descended the stone steps, and, having hung our clothes '^on a hickory limb,'' or a substi- tute therefor, we invaded that water. How cool and clean the waves surged into this tiny cover, screened all about by bushy cliffs ! Never was bath so ineffably de- lightful as that one ! It was the first we'd had since we left Havana, for the Julia, visible to us as we splashed — she rode at anchor not far away, — had no parti- cular conveniences for comfort such as cleanliness. There was, to be sure, '^ water, water everywhere," but not a bathtub aboard in which to make good use of THE NORTH COAST 351 part of the superfluous supply. We had, when the hot- test days were at their hottest, considered asking the captain to tow us astern by a hne. We watched Anvil Mountain by Baracoa fade into blue haze, with keen regret to lose the town so soon. The propeller drove us onward through seas of a color that paled even the deep-tinted sky above us ; by a shore of endless green hills and valleys ; through a glorious sunset, into misty twilight and a moonlit night. We saw lights ashore that to seafarers mean Maysi and Guantanamo. CHAPTER XVI SANTIAGO DE CUBA From here my conquerors fared forth, Departing southward, west, and north To bring new empires to my sway — And souls to God. . . . — From " The King of Spain." We approached Santiago de Cuba on our way back from Porto Rico and Hayti, before dawn on a morning early in October. The moon, riding in the zenith, grew paler as we neared the welcoming lights along Morro (headland). The twilight of daybreak lay on the hills as we came under the hidden battery, Zocapa. A small boat glided out of the darkness of the channeFs mouth to question our entrance there. The captain's quick reply, '^El Julia, ^^ answered the challenge, and we moved on, without a sound to herald us, the engines muffled at quarter speed, black waters yielding thickly as we advanced. I have since visited Morro Castle, under shapeless walls of which we passed that morning. To reach it we drove out from the city through a rather wild region, over a good road, each bend in which developed some new vista, especially of the bay. A pass must be obtained before travelers are admitted, and this, together with an ambulance to convey us, Mr. Rosado had obtained from officers, war-time friends of his, who had shown us the barracks and soldier life there. We found Morro Castle a dilapidated ruin. Stripped of cannon, its walls are 352 1 m _^v 1 L43i . i ■np • J rho(0(jr(iph h]i Ai/uncni I'liohi ('oni oauji SiBONEY, NEAR SANTIAGO DE CUBA MONUMENT TO ShAFTER's CoMMANI) ERECTED ON SiTE OF AMERICANS' LANDING IN 1898 San Juan Hill I'hotogravh by American Photo Company SANTIAGO BE CUBA 853 crumbling away. Its dungeons, to which we descended by long flights of steps on the seaward face of the forti- fication, leak daylight through unhinged doors. The floors were strewn with old torn copies of the Saturday Evening Post and the Christian Science Monthly. From the battlements the visitor looks down upon the narrow, winding channel which gives meager entrance to the bay : the city is good six miles distant in a straight line. The islet of Smithes Key is immediately below : it seems one might toss a biscuit into the front door of its diminutive chapel. We saw the spot where Hobson sank the Merrimac; projecting masts no longer mark the place, as they did when the Julia went by. We stretched our eyes toward Daiquiri and Siboney, where the American invaders landed in 1898. Commercial- minded that I am, I was more interested in the approx- imate situation of the iron mines of Juragua, — camp of another and more important American invasion. I desired to know just where it is that the land thrusts that closed flst into the sea which Richard Harding Davis^s '' Soldier of Fortune '' was intent to make let go its riches at his will. The geography of this vicinity is that of the novel. Along the coast we overlooked Cervera's fleet was burned and sunk when, in 1898, it came out to lose, with the battle that day, His Most Catholic Majesty's last hold upon this New World, once so largely his, thanks to the prowess of the Conquerors who, in their time faring forth from this same harbor under happier auspices, added it, empire by empire, to the dominions of the King of Spain. From here it was, in 1518, that Grijalva sailed, west- ward along the south coast of Cuba, to the discovery of Yucatan. Hernando Cortes cleared from Santiago for the conquest of Mexico. Later, Panfilo de Narvaez 354 CUBA led eighteen ships and a thousand and more men from this same harbor toward the Aztec capital, where, far from curbing Cortes, as intended, they became his reinforce- ments. In 1538, Hernando de Soto, successor to the first governor's honors, landed at Santiago de Cuba and from here marched overland to Havana, gathering men and mounts for his expedition into Florida. Santiago is to me by far the most interesting city in Cuba,primarily because it has taken so prominent a part in the history not only of Cuba, but also in that of Spanish conquest of the mainlands, and in the explora- tion of regions which to-day are populous states of the North American Union. I regret exceedingly that I have not resided there, for through residence I should have learned more than the little I know of the place. I have revisited it half a dozen times within the last year, making the journey from Havana via the Cuba Rail- road, thanks to which the traveler nowadays is enabled to accomplish in twenty-four hours the destination we reached in 1900, only after days spent loitering along the north coast. Yet the route we took was, at the time, the only practicable way ; the alternative was to go from Havana to New York and from there to Santiago. The Cuba Railroad, connecting the west and the east of Cuba through the center of the island, was not com- pleted until 1902. Its importance — especially its political importance — is not likely to escape those who were brought to realize, by personal experience, as we were, that previous to its completion the second city of the republic of Cuba was as far removed from its capital as is Galveston or Newport News. Baracoa, Bayamo, Trinidad, and Camaguey were settlements already established, and an expedition had, furthermore, partially explored the island as far west SANTIAGO BE CUBA 355 as a district known as Havana, when, in 1514, Diego Velazquez decided upon Santiago, and summoned set- tlers with their Indians, from Baracoa especially, to help build and to inhabit the new town, laid in its present location, which was desirable because the harbor is landlocked and defensible, and is, moreover, within easy access of the city of Santo Domingo, where the First Admiral, Columbus, resided then, in whom vested the government of the New World. Also, the Spaniards had discovered copper, and, they hoped, gold, in the neighboring hills. The beginnings of Santiago are sup- posed to have been made along the water front in the vicinity of the present customhouse, but if Velazquez's residence occupied, as is said, the site of the Union Club building, the new town must shortly have grown up- hill to embrace what is now known as Cespedes Park. I presume this has always been the principal plaza, inasmuch as the cathedral faces upon it : this church is to this day the most imposing edifice in the city, — how mightily then must its twin towers have lorded it over Santiago in earliest years. Within this sanctuary (long the master church of the island) Diego Velazquez was buried, and forgotten; his resting place was a mystery to history until his tombstone was identified not long ago by its half-erased inscription. Its defaced and melancholy angels are objects of interest now, in the museum. By the time Velazquez's successor, Hernando de Soto, had cleared from Havana bound to his destruction in the Mississippi Valley, Cuba was almost depopulated of Spaniards, few of whom resisted news of the achieve- ments of Cortes and the Pizarros, remaining here to work for a piece-of-eight when more might be had for the taking in Mexico and Peru. Those who did stay 356 CUBA fell out among themselves, and the history of each settle- ment in the island at this period is the chronicle of petty- intrigue and treachery ; from Santiago the ^' under dogs'^ in its particular squabbles were shipped to Spain in chains and disgrace. By 1551, Santiago was reduced to very little impor- tance. Corsairs insulted the city with impunity. On July 10, 1553, French pirates landed four hundred men, and marched into the place, holding it at their pleasure for a month. They demanded and received $80,000 ran- som. It was at this time that many families deserted Santiago for Bayamo, giving to the inland city an im- petus toward greater development. Next an earthquake jarred the neighborhood. San- tiago's cathedral was ruined, and in 1580 the principal prelates betook themselves to Havana. Santiago was, however, still the seat of the bishopric. In 1607, the island of Cuba, which theretofore had been one jurisdiction, and Santiago the head of it, was divided into two. Havana was made the capital of the western half, Santiago retaining authority over the east. Cap- tain Juan de Villaverde Oseta, former commander of Morro Castle at Havana, was made first governor of this reduced area. It was he who established a lookout on the heights above the mouth of Santiago harbor, where later another Morro Castle, destined to become even more famous than Havana's, was built, in 1664. When the English seized Jamaica they also threatened Santiago, but Spain rallied enough men into the city to make an attempt upon it not advisable. Yet on Octo- ber 18, 1662, nine hundred English landed at Aguadores, a beach near the city. Don Pedro de Morales, in com- mand of Santiago, had but two hundred men, and these the invaders easily dispersed. Women and children I SANTIAGO BE CUBA 357 fled to the interior. Forces on garrison duty on Morro Heights, having witnessed the discomfiture of the city^s defenders, followed after. The English took possession of Santiago. They were angered at finding little booty, and promptly burned up everything inflammable, using, moreover, a lot of powder to blow up the few edifices the fire had not consumed. They did not respect even the cathedral. They stayed a month among the ruins they had made, while the Spaniards hung about the outskirts of the city, as near, even, as El Caney, which was their headquarters. The English withdrew only on hearing that reinforcements were coming to the Spanish from Trinidad, and that a combined attack was planned. When they left they carried off, as almost their sole plun- der, two hundred boxes of sugar from two nearby mills, the cathedral bells, a few black slaves, and the artillery which had been abandoned on Morro. They were really starved out, for the Spanish had prevented the entrance of ships which might have brought supplies, and had also cut off communication with the interior. The next governor, Bayona Villanueva, shipped Morales to Spain in chains for incompetency. He then proceeded to build Morro Castle and the three comple- mentary batteries, ruins of which are visible yet from the castle walls. From 1664 to 1670 Santiago pros- pered. Smuggling was carried on largely with Jamaica. '^ All that is lacking, ^' one bitter complaint reads, ^'is for Santiago to declare herself English. '^ In 1679, another earthquake occurred and another piratical invasion threatened. Franquesnay disem- barked, but was beaten back, along with his eight hun- dred men. Fighting, smuggling with French and English, suffer-/ ing earthquakes, fires, and unwelcome attentions from 358 CUBA buccaneers, Santiago passed the decades. At one time one governor with armed men was trying to uphold his authority from his stronghold at Cobre, while another, newly arrived from Havana, was asserting his su- premacy in the city itself. The European wars of succes- sion brought their concomitant excitement to Santiago. In 1704, Chaves equipped two frigates and descended on Providencia and Siguatei, isles of the Bahamas ; he killed a hundred English, captured as many prisoners, and got away without mishap. This feat won for San- tiago her honors as ''Very Noble and Very LoyaP' City. Having had a taste of the business, her people promptly set up as corsairs on their own account. They captured enemies' vessels, saved a Spanish galleon attacked by British off Cartagena, and Hoyo Solorzano, made governor in 1711, fished up four million dollars from a ship which had been sunk in the Bahama channel. It was alleged that he did not deliver all of it to the government authorities, either, but the people of Ca- maguey liked him none the less for that, when, being threatened with arrest by enemies he had made in San- tiago, because he opposed smuggling, he hacked his way out of a body of armed men sent to arrest him, and rode pellmell into Puerto Principe for refuge. In 1744 Spain engaged in war with Great Britain. An expedition under Vernon — the same for whom Mount Vernon was named — landed at Guantanamo. It is said that George Washington was a member of it, though I have not been able to prove or disprove this. General Wentworth marched from Guantanamo on Santiago. The loyal Tir adores de Tiguabo (Tiguabo Sharpshooters) made his advance so unpleasant that he desisted, and eventually the English (minus, thanks to Spanish marksmanship and Cuban fevers, about SANTIAGO BE CUBA 359 two thousand of the good men who landed) sailed for Jamaica, leaving behind on the site of the town of Cumberland they had attempted to found, dead bodies, provisions, and firearms. The landing of this expedi- tion, disastrous for the British, advanced the interests of Santiago, for Spanish authorities, brought to realize how fatal a mistake it would be to permit the British to seize that city, forthwith established in it a large force of men. From this event dates its renewed importance. As the war with England progressed, Santiago inter- ested herself in it. Sea robbers who served Spain by despoiling her enemies made their headquarters here : they wrested from the British shiploads of sugar, rum, slaves, and all varieties of provisions. On April 8, 1747, eight British ships-o'-the-line attempted to enter Santiago harbor; but the Spanish, firing from Morro and the three assistant batteries at the harbor^s mouth, drove them back. Knowles, the English commander, considered landing at Aguadores, but of this, too, he thought better, and refrained. When Havana fell into English hands in 1762, Santiago and all the other cities of the island prepared to march to her delivery : only the announcement of peace impending prevented their attempting the rescue. D. J. M. Perez, in the second volume of Bacardi's ^^ Chronicles, '' has described the Santiago of 1800. Simplicity of dress was then the rule : tHe women's best attire consisted of silk skirts and waists of fine batiste; the men wore embroidered silk shirts, long embroidered coats, and short trousers. Precious stones were not used. The favorite dance was the minuet, accompanied by verses sung. There were but two orchestras in the city; their members were negroes 360 CUBA who played one or two clarinets, one or two violins, two trompas (peculiar horns), a bass violon, and a bombo (drum) called a tambora. Religious processions, of which there were many; '^saints' days''; judios (lit- erally, '' Jews,'' — a celebration on the Saturday before Easter, which consists in destroying an effigy of Judas) ; marriages, baptisms, the election of mayor, — all alike ended in a ball at which the refreshments were agualoja y Sangria (sweetened and spiced water). The young men went forth on foot on holidays, for there were no quitrines, and only eight or ten calesas (chaises), — vehicles emblematic of luxury invading the simple life. They promenaded the streets with their sweethearts, — or flew kites, tying them captives to the doorposts of the girls they most admired. In those days break- fast was served at eight in the morning, dinner at twelve or one, and supper at nine o'clock. After dinner Santiago slept the siesta until three. When priests appeared from the cathedral, closed doors were opened, and ladies, carefully arrayed, appeared, to pose in the windows and on the balconies. In the afternoon friends exchanged visits, announced beforehand ; choco- late was served with fancy breads and guava, orange, or lemon preserves. At vespers the callers went home, there to receive intimates. A little later there sounded over the town the whacking blows with which cooks were preparing jerked beef with rice for supper. After- wards, perhaps, one heard a violin, or voices singing, to a guitar, the peculiar and plaintive ballades of the time, or again, the passing tread and the lantern lights of a belated party seeking home ; then silence through the unpaved, littered, steep, and narrow streets. If the moon shone full, it threw sharp shadows from fluted eaves, odd cornices, and overhanging balconies and SANTIAGO BE CUBA 361 windows, barred. The night watch passed, crying ^^Sereno /'^ and lovers dodged, — or perhaps that bulk in the corner was an escaping slave, off to the ^^stock- ades'' and their defiant liberty. In 1803 or about thatjfcime 27,000 French emigres^ fleeing from Hayti where the Hacks had gained control, came into eastern Cuba, settling especially around Santa Catalina. Santiago, province and city, pros- pered greatly. The newcomers did much to develop the culture of coffee and cacao ; ruins of many exten- sive estates exist in the mountains. They brought with them other manners and,cus.toms than those that were Santiago's own ; some, like the round dance, were adopted, adapted, and survive. In their social inter- course with the orientales (natives of Santiago) they engendered bitterness, as the words of a certain song, given in Bacardi's ^^ Chronicles," would indicate. In 1808, Spain being at war with Bonaparte, all who in- sisted on retaining French allegiance were compelled to leave the island ; most departed into Louisiana. Some returned in 1814. Others at once gave up their French citizenship and allied themselves definitely wiih, Cuba. The lower classes of Santiago speak a French- Spanish patois to this day. Some of the best families x are of French descent and bear French names. In the / surburban villages of Cristo, San Vicente, Cuabitas, ' it is easy to fancy French influence evident in intensive cultivation, and in the very appearance and construc- tion of the pretty villas in their gardens, in the vales and on the hillsides. There is in Santiago itself (Spanish colonial as it is, in large externals) something exotic, — a certain general effect due, it seems to me, to especially daring combina- tions in color ; because a fetching combination or con- 362 CUBA trast in color is, to an American, ^^very French/' for lack of another term Santiago seems ^^Frenchy/' especially, I presume, to those of us whoVe not seen France. Others have called Santiago a ^^ dream city,'' laboring, evidently, to word this same appreciation of something exceptional to the everyday. Visitors whose experience acknowledges ^ ^ skyscrapers ' ' and '^brownstone fronts" as normal are, certainly, inclined to pinch themselves to see if they are awake, when, gaz- ing up a narrow street in Santiago, they behold sea- green and mauve houses, royal purple and indigo houses trimmed in lavender^ pink, yellow, orange, scarlet, with red-tiled roofs and glassless windows in sky-blue frames. The buildings are usually of one story, and the skyline they present, would, as a study in angles, confound Euclid ! Despite this very artistic appearance, Santiago is a practical and busy town. In population^j[45^470), and also in trade and commerce, it is, and has been for very many years, the second city in Cuba. Its business streets are frequented ; its stores are well stocked, but especially its wholesale establishments, and the ware- houses and offices of its merchant traders are active. There is nothing of sloth here, but instead an alertness of wit and execution most untropical, had, possibly, not only from the French whose arrival it antedates, but also from association with the English, across the way in Jamaica, with whom the orientales were always as ready to trade as they were to fight, preferring usually to combine business and battle, for Santiago used to whip the English when she could, even while she grew rich off smuggling with British possessions ; and the fact that she won titles and praise from the Spanish king for besting the French at their own law- ?:::• \z- ^.. t'^-^if- ^ y^ -^^i^m^ -.^£JL ■3Pf. :^' h 'A Photograph by American Photo Company A Street in Santiago de Cuba SANTIAGO BE CUBA 363 less game on the high seas, did not deter her from traffick- ing in slaves and rum with the isles France owns down around Martinique, in the face of his angry opposition. Finally, the long, hard wars Cuba waged with Spain for her independence were especially felt in the east. Santiago Province, now known as Oriente, boasts that it was always the hotbed of patriotism, and trouble ; the ^^ Cries'' (declarations) of Yara and Baire which began the Ten Years' War and the Revolution of 1895, respectively, were both upraised within her boundaries. Pino Guerra occasioned considerable astonishment and no little indignation here, when, in 1906, he inaugu- rated ^^The Little War of August," elsewhere than in the east. As though in sullen remonstrance at such infringement on her historic privilege to open hostili- ties, of whatever nature, Santiago remained quiet during that ^^ picnic." ^ It is understood, however, that she will not be less than the first to commence it, should , another similar outing be found opportune at any time. The only real fighting done, on land, in the Spanish- American War was in the vicinity of Santiago in 1898. The city was regularly besieged. Noncombatants fled, as they had done many a time before, into the sur- rounding country; the weary defile of women and children marched then, footsore and afraid, over the same routes that fine macadamized highways mark now, toward Cuabitas and Cristo, while the Americans and Cubans attacked from the direction of El Caney. Tourists now travel by guagua, carriage, and auto- mobile to the heights that were harder to win in that memorable July. The old church at El Caney was, when first I saw it in 1900, riddled by shot and shell, ^ President Taft's very accurate definition of the latest Cuban revolution. 364 CUBA its bell tower shattered so completely that little more than four uprights and some bits of roof remained. The Texan who was our guide on that occasion told revolting details of what he saw when, having captured the town, the Americans entered this building, which the Spaniards had converted into a field hospital. I revisited it last spring : they had removed blockhouse lean-tos which were there, nine years previous ; they had repaired the tower, and, with paint and plaster, covered in the walls the most obvious signs of its cam- paign. Images and decorations had been returned to the altars, but the interior was, despite that, very deso- late indeed. From the church we followed a trail, in 1900, to the creek, where we surprised a good part of the village population at their bath ; thence ascending by a steep way to the fortlet El Viso, on its hill command- ing the immediate vicinity. Where we then found nothing at all within four broken walls, we discovered, last spring, a monument to Americans and Cubans who lost their lives in the storming of this insignificant blockhouse. I looked over the fair and peaceful country, — green and gold fields stretching away to hills of a darker shade, — and tried to recall what the Texan, himself a soldier in that war, had said of cavalry, in- fantry, artillery, shelling, advances, charges, and death to the tune of ''A Hot Time in the Old Town,'' to which the Americans came on. I inquired of Mr. Ro- sado, also a veteran of that campaign, as to why, in advancing on Santiago, it was considered necessary to occupy this particular outpost ; he explained that, having been at the time very busy down the road to Santiago, lying in wait for possible reinforcements to the Spanish, who might come out from the town, he had not himself perceived the real necessity of the SANTIAGO BE CUBA 365 storming of El Caney. We all agreed, however, that it was ^^a glorious victory,^' which is, after all, the object of war. The fight at Caney was no less a glorious defeat, for the Spaniards who fought here inspired by Vara de Rey. The house where that general lived is in the village ; the house where he died is on its out- skirts. In time, probably, his monument will arise, here in the town where he did, at least, his best for his country's cause. San Juan Hill is nearer Santiago than El Caney. It is within easy walking distance from the end of the Vista Alegre street car line. One passes ^Hhe Peace tree, ''en route, inclosed now by a bayonet-tipped fence. Opposite is an imposing entrance to grounds where the Raja Yoga school is to have its buildings. This is the hill up which Theodore Roosevelt charged to the presi- dency. In 1900 we were able to find, under the bushes, trenches, like scars. Last spring I had not the enter- prise to look for them, but contented myself with sitting still in the shade of imposing monuments recently erected on the summit. A little off the electric car line by way of which one returns to the city from San Juan Hill is the hand- somest public school building in Cuba. It was built during the American Occupation in response to the initiative interest and a large donation presented for the purpose by a Mr. Higgenson of Boston to his friend, General Leonard Wood. The materials are native stone and brick. Its rooms are arranged according to hygienic plans; ventilation and lighting are excel- lent. The building, embowered in flowers, stands in large grounds where the children are permitted to play. It is, in brief, just about such a school — building and equipment, — as one finds in every small city thi'ough- 366 CUBA out the United States. It constitutes, by reason of excellencies which are only the average there, a dis- heartening contrast with the average here, for in Cuba schools are usually conducted in small, dark rooms rented in buildings built for other purposes, in locations, in towns and cities, which make playgrounds and therefore health-giving recreation impossible. During the Occupation a good school system was at least well begun in Cuba, special credit attaching to Mr. Fry. I believe that President Palma, in his time, at least desired to maintain it : he had been himself a teacher for many years. During the Provisional Administra- tion the national Department of Public Instruction afforded luscious scandals : misappropriations were long generally known, and finally officially confessed, for which those notoriously guilty have not been pun- ished. What conditions are under the present regime I am not accurately informed, but I know that the work has been even further curtailed lately ^^for lack of funds. '^ If, as her greatest citizens have always main- tained, the sole salvation of Cuba lies in popular educa- tion, the day of redemption seems still far off. On the face of a long, blank wall, which makes itself very evident to persons approaching the school build- ing, is a memorial tablet. Along this wall in Spanish times political offenders and suspects were lined up and shot. No record was kept of the number who died here. In another direction, a little out of town, is the abattoir, which, in 1900, bore a bright blue sign an- nouncing that here officers and crew of the Virginius were shot, in small lots, until the British consul ended the performance, in the name of humanity. The cemetery is interesting. There is a wall around SANTIAGO BE CUBA 867 it somewhat thicker than a coffin, in which, in regular rows hke shelves, are niches that just accommodate a casket thrust through a square door on the inner side. Niches were for sale or rent, before all were occupied and ground burial came into its present vogue. If the occupant's surviving friends or relatives failed to pay the rent due, his body was removed to a grave in the earth,' just outside the walls. Quite a city of the dis- lodged clustered around the back gate when we were there. Close by were the smallpox and cholera colo- nies. Near one little door in the wall at the end of a walk to the left as one enters, which was tightly sealed and marked with two printed words, one, ^^ Perpetual, '' meaning that it had been purchased in perpetuity, and the other, ^^ Smallpox, '^ explaining why it would not be well to disturb the tenant, we found another engraved, simply, ^^ Marti.'' A few rusty crowns of artificial flowers garlanded the resting place of him who was the intelligence of the Revolution of 1895, and who asked in a verse of touching simplicity that, when ^^dead, without a country but without a master," there might be placed above him ^^a blossom and a flag." Elsewhere we found the tomb of Carlos Manuel de Cespedes. Here, too, lies Acosta, captain in the Spanish armada that went down under Yankee guns. Aboard the Julia when we entered were two Sisters of Charity, an English and a Spanish woman. The latter was the sister of this Captain Acosta, and I see her yet in her robes of black and white, as she stood on deck, gazing toward where they indicated that the cemetery lay, murmuring softly to herself : ''Would that I might land and see his grave!" To notable graves in San- tiago's cemetery they have recently added that of Estrada Palma, martyr, if ever there was one, to Cuba's 368 CUBA inability to understand the fundamental principles of free government. To his country place, here in Oriente, whither he had fled in actual poverty, they followed him to hale him forth, dying, and, finally, dead, amid ostentation of grief, and, possibly, repentance. He was given a state funeral, despite his own well- known objections and those of his widow. They laid him where from his niche Marti may see (who knows ?) how rests the first president of that ^^free and inde- pendent republic ^^ for which he, in the pitched battle of Dos Rios, was fortunate enough to die early, with his worst enemies before his face. __Therearenow many excellent drives around about San- tiago. The most iDeautiful is that to Boniato Summit. The road is officially known as the Santiago-San Luis highway. It was constructed, along with others radiat- ing from the capital, when General Leonard Wood was governor. Colonel William M. Black being chief engineer. It constitutes, I am convinced, the very commencement made, here in the east in 1901-1902, of the great system of state roads presented by this same Colonel Black, as supervisor of the Department of Public Works, to Governor Magoon in 1907, who, as I have described, had much done on it during his administration, especially in the far west of the island. The road to Boniato Summit is known, locally, as ^^Wood^s Folly,'' because it cost a mint of money, and led, to all appearance then, nowhere in particular. From Santiago it gleams away, white, into the outlying villages of Cuabitas and San Vicente, thence winding up the face of a high hill. The altitude of the summit is 1526 feet, and the traveler should make the trip in automobile, for the distance is twelve kilo- meters and the grade varies from 5 per cent through an PhotograpJi by American Photo Company The Cemetery at Santiago de Cuba Looking toward Marti's Niche, which is in the wall in the background, Estrada Palma lies at the immediate left PhotograpJi by A nn rictm Photo Company A Back Steet in Santiago de Cuba In the first house on the right Cuba's one fighting general, Antonio Maceo, was bom SANTIAGO BE CUBA 369 average of 8 per cent to a maximum of 10 per cent : the panorama from this point is not equaled elsewhere. The Vinales Valley in western Pinar del Rio is weird ; the view from The Pines, over the Nipe Bay country, is instructive ; but this, over Santiago, is more beau- tiful than either of these. To right and left are the towering mountains of the Sierra Maestra : at sunset and at sunrise the light shows widest variation in blues and greens and shading gold along their ridges and in their deep-cut valleys. Below are the party-colored villas of Santiago's suburbs ; just beyond is the city itself, its harbor, and, deep blue in the far distance, the sea. On the return the car descends steep grades, rounds quick turns, circling like a bird. The road is, obviously, a masterpiece of engineering, — admirable '^ Folly'' of a builder who built wiser than they knew who watched his commencement, here at Santiago, of the greatest undertaking in public improvements any government of Cuba has yet attempted to execute. Uncompleted, once more it bides the slow sequence of events. In years to come when memorial tablets are erected they will bear the names Wood and Magoon, governors ; there will not, in addition to these, be lack- ing another to whom possibly even greater credit attaches : that of Black, engineer, who, I believe, from existing half-drawn plans of the Spaniards, formulated the project as it exists, began it, cherished it, revived it, and was permitted to accomplish much. May he return again to take up the task out of the neglect into which it has once more fallen, and to finish his high- ways, from La Fe, at the west end, to Santiago, at the east, through six provinces by way of all their principal towns ! At the same time that roads were built, that is, dur- 2b 370 CUBA ing the Military Occupation (1898-1902), many other improvements were made in and around Santiago. The city was cleaned, — it had long been a pesthole of yel- low fever, a disease no longer epidemic. Streets were paved. Sewers were provided, and pure water was piped in from a reservoir high in the cool, fresh hills. This modernization, however, merely removed things objectionable, while respecting the original and pictur- esque. Santiago, made neat and inviting, has suc- ceeded in retaining all the charm of her old swash- buckling days, when local officials and respected citizens became buccaneers once they cleared Morro, when slavery and wealth and Creole beauty combined in a regime the vestiges of which are evident in the new and better renaissance. There is much in the city itself, exclusive of its environs, well worth seeing. The cathedral contains, I understand, certain valuable carvings. The only altar I remember was one over which hangs Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico's Virgin, in whose miraculous appearance, they say, the astute Cortes was secretly concerned; I should like to know the origin of this particular replica. In the museum is the best collec- tion I know of relics of the aboriginal Indians, together with pennants, armor, and official regalia preserved from medieval times; there is the tawdry throne of the puppet negro king Melchor ; specimens of natural history ; and mementos of the Spanish- American war. Not far from the central plaza is the house where the poet Heredia (who wrote in French and wore French laurels) was born. They say it was at Santiago that Patti made her debut under Gottschalk ; I trust it was to a more enthusiastic audience than recently greeted Calve when Santiago permitted her to pour SANTIAGO BE CUBA , 371 ^'pearls of song^' to empty seats. The Union Club is an institution of which all Oriente brags ; socially and politically it commands consideration. Hotel Venus, — a fountain splashes in the marble-floored dining room — is known the world over, especially where traveling men do congregate ; no caravansary in Cuba has wined and dined more distinguished visitors. The single institution, however, which has brought most renown home to Santiago is Bacardi's distillery : beer has not done more for Milwaukee than, for Santiago, has rum. As is the case with most Latin- American cities, one remembers Santiagjo'.s, ylaza as vital, — the heart of the town. I recair it as I saw it one iiight in 1900, when, awakened from sleep, I arose and went to my window, overlooking it, under a full moon. Great laurels cast on its pavements pools of shadow. From somewhere in their depths men's voices rose, full-noted and strong : they sang, I have not forgotten, '^My Old Kentucky Home,'' then, after a moment's hesitation, they inquired melodiously : — " Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? " I could, indeed! From the government office building opposite the cathedral it floated, in moonlight so brilliant its proper colors glowed : the first American flag raised in Cuba. When next I saw the plaza, that I recall, it was night of a carnival Sunday. There was music and serpentinas and laughter in the air. The clock in the cathedral tower accused the loiterers below that the hour neared eleven. We found our places on the veranda of Hotel Casa Granda (so had the mere boarding house we 372 CUBA patronized nine years before risen in excellence and in rates !), and, ordering refreshments to our round-topped tables, we became part of the evening. The last time I viewed the park, from that same veranda where, about tables set al fresco, resident mem- bers of the American, English, and Canadian colonies assemble nightly, a round and yellow moon rode the sky. Some of the great laurels that had beautified the square were gone, — bested by storms. Under its halo of electric lights the band played danzones and two-steps. Down toward the station the incoming rail- road train whistled to announce its belated arrival. Presently, victorias, which are the public carriages here, came pounding up the paved streets, in a racing pro- cession, bringing the passengers to the principal hotels. There was no stir of interest in the blonde young offi- cers of the German schoolship Hertha, who, swarming around the prettiest girl in town, holding court on the veranda, lent the requisite military touch to the scene. In the park the ^^ merry, merry villagers ^^ continued to circle round and round, criticising, courting, amusing themselves and each other. The band brayed allegro. The moon brushed aside a cloud and threw the spothght down. Upon the scene appeared William Jennings Bryan, escorted by Consul Holaday. He'll never have a stage more delightfully set for him, anywhere, than was Santiago's on this occasion of his arrival, en route to South America on his recent tour. CHAPTER XVII OUR LADY OF COBRE " Sweet Virgin of Charity ! I'll wear thy yellow color in my coffin, — but grant me this one little thing ! " — From " Antonina." The village of Cobre-is some twelve miles distant from Santiago. We made the journey, in 1900, over a road which lost itself in rock heaps and pebbly creek beds half a dozen times. Many changes must have occurred since then : perhaps the road has im- proved since our swaying, creaking ambulance strained after its four mules, over the stones, into the ruts, and up and down grades on that journey. Possibly some of the quaintness has gone from that odd corner of the earth, but they cannot have altered much the village itself, nor the hills surrounding it, which belched forth red soil stained brilliantly with the copper that abounds. Mines at Cobre were worked by the Spanish in the very earliest days of the colony ; in their tunnels and shafts the Indians forced to labor there died miserably, mak- ing room for sturdier African slaves who took their places. Later, mines, slaves and all were abandoned. The negroes, left to shift for themselves for a hundred years or so, opined that they were free, finally, if I remember rightly the little I have read, obtaining recog- nition of that fact. An American mining company operates here now. Upon the top of one hill stood, in 1900, the_.shrine ofJDur Lady of Charity. I understand that the build- 373 374 CUBA ing has since been almost destroyed ; it was undermined and the foundations gave way. I do not know what roof shelters now that revered small image of Mary. '^Her beauty is admirable. She consoles all who look upon her. Her glance is pleasant, yet so serious that, without causing fear, it evokes reverence in all beholders. Her color is clear brunette ; her eyes are so lively they seem to be looking in every direction at once, yet their regard is composed, and frank. Her whole aspect is one of celestial authority. . . . On her left arm she carries her Son. ... In her right hand is a cross set with an emerald. The features of the Child are perfect, in color very like the mother's. He bears in His left hand a round ball, signifying the world, and His right is lifted as though He were about to bestow a blessing. '^ ^ This image is famous. Our Lady of Cobre is the patroness of Cuba. She has been identified with the island ever since Christianity first arrived here in the persons of the Spanish conquerors. Her origin has been considered miraculous, but dispassionate investigation finds in legends concerning it some little of secular his- tory. In the years 1510-1511 Alonso de Hojeda, one of the most daring of the companions of Columbus, and the first colonizer of the South American mainland, made a most disastrous attempt to settle the Isthmus of Darien at a place he called San Sebastian on the Gulf of Uraba. The story of that colony is a tale of almost incredible suffering. At one time the garrison was on the point of succumbing to starvation, when over the 1 Chaplain D. Bernardino Ramirez, in his History of the Apparition, quoted by P. Fr. Paulino Alvarez in his own Brief History. The image is said to be of wood ; it is about three palms high. OUE LADY OF COB RE 375 horizon sailed a buccaneer named Talavera, in a ship he and his rascals stole from a port in western Hayti. Hojeda and his men raised small question as to where Talavera obtained the supplies they bought of him, for which they paid in slaves and in gold. This relief was, however, only temporary. Therefore Hojeda decided to embark with the pirate in the stolen vessel and proceed to the city of Santo Domingo, there to procure food and reinforcements for his unhappy colony. '^But,'^ says Las Casas (III, Ix), ^'they were not able to fall in with that island ; they struck on Cuba in the port and province of Xagua.'^ The name Xagua still clings to Cienfuegos, and, judging by Las Casas' (and Oviedo's) remarks elsewhere as to the size and excellence of the bay of Xagua, it was near Cienfuegos Hojeda was wrecked on this occasion. No Spaniards had as yet settled there, though the port had been visited by Sebastian de Campo when he circumnavigated Cuba in 1508. ^'Here,'' continues the Clerigo Las Casas, 'Hhe Spaniards landed, abandoning the ship. They set out to walk across Cuba eastward in order to come nearer to Santo Domingo. '' Unfortunately, they kept to the coast hoping to avoid conflicts with the Indians, whom they were not prepared to fight ; and the shore of Cuba on the south is bordered with mangrove swamps. The Spaniards, supposing .the marsh they met would not last long, plunged boldly into it ; before they came out again they had suffered horrors of hunger, thirst, and utter weariness. That any survived the ordeal may be recorded, perhaps, as the first miracle worked by the Virgin of Charity, since become Our Lady of Cobre. ^^For,'' Las Casas informs us, ^^in his knapsack along with his little food, Alonso de Hojeda carried an image 376 CUBA of Our Lady which was very holy and marvellously delineated ; it was made in Flanders and presented to him by the Bishop Juan de Fonseca, who loved Hojeda well. Hojeda felt a deep devotion for this image; he was always a devout servant of the Mother of God/' — roystering, swaggering, pious daredevil ! There- fore, whenever the Spaniards, struggling through the tangled growth of mangrove in the swamp which seemed endless, drew themselves up on the gnarled roots to rest uncomfortably, Hojeda brought forth his image from his knapsack, and set it up in the tree beside him, to worship and to pray to it. He exhorted the others to adore this Mary, entreating her to remedy their condition. ^^ With great devotion he commended his party t Our Lady's pity. He made a vow that he would leave her image in the first village to which he arrived safely.'' It appeared, day after day, that their prayers were vain. Still they pushed onward ; some who had less courage and strength were left behind sooner, and others later. ^^Half of them all, I believe, and they were seventy, died there of hunger and thirst, and by drown- ing. ^^It pleased God that some, the most active and strongest and best able to endure such misery, should live it through. They found a beaten path and followed it. At the distance of a league they came upon an Indian village named Cueyba, y long, and on reaching it some fell as though dead from sheer exhaustion. The Indians were astonished at the sight. ... In that village [which was on the way to Camaguey, thirty leagues from Bayamo (IV, xxxi)] the survivors were served for many days, fed, entertained and comforted as though the natives thought them angels." In accordance with his promise, Hojeda, before he OUB LADY OF COB BE 377 proceeded on his way to Santo Domingo, gave his image of the Virgin Mother to the chief of the village of Cueyba, ^^and had him erect a hermitage or oratory, with its altar, whereon the image was placed. He gave the Indians some idea of God, as best he could put it to them, explaining that the image represented the Mother of God, Lord of the world, who was in heaven, and that she was called Holy Mary, intercessor for men. ^^The devotion and reverence the Indians felt for her was admirable; they decorated the church with cloths of cotton and kept it swept and sprinkled; they made verses to her in their own language, sung in their dances and festivities (called areites) in which they danced to the sound of their own voices. '' Father Las Casas passed through Cueyba with Velaz- quez' expedition in 1511, and himself saw the image, upon the altar, in its little church ^^so well kept and decorated. '' ^^ The father had with him at that time another image, also made in Flanders, which had many devotees, but not so many as this now belonging to the Indians. The father desired to exchange images with the cacique (chief) of the village. ^^ After the Indians, at Cueyba, had received the Spaniards [arriving on the expedition mentioned] well, and offered them much to eat, and the children had been baptized, which was the first thing done, always, and all had found lodgings, the father began to negotiate with the cacique concerning an exchange of images. The cacique arose from the conference, sad, dissimulating as best he could ; when night came he took his image and fled to the hills with it, or to other villages. '^ On discovering his absence. Las Casas in vain sent 378 CUBA the chief messages to return, assuring him that he should retain his image. If he brought it back to Cueyba, it was after the Spaniards had moved on. To my knowledge there is no further mention in the secular history of early Cuba of Hojeda^s image, Mary of Cueyba, as such.^ P. Fr. Paulino Alvarez, of Santo Domingo Convent, in Havana, has written a ''Short History of the Virgin of Charity.'^ He quotes the first chaplain of the sanc- tuary, Onofre de Fonseca, whose writings were pub- lished by a later chaplain, D. Bernardino Ramirez, to the effect that about 1515 there was in the east ^ of Cuba a certain band of Indians who always won in battle, thanks, it was believed, to an image their chief had which was given him by a Spanish soldier, who also taught him to salute that image with the words ''Ave Maria !^^ Once a dispute arose between this chief's tribe and another tribe as to which was the more power- ful, that image of the lady, or their idols. To decide it they bound two men, one from each tribe, and left them helpless in the middle of a field. The tribes then drew aside, and while one invoked the image whose salutation was "Hail, Mary!'' the other called upon its heathen gods, to come loose their respective worship- ers. Then it was that the cacique who prized the image the Spanish soldier had given him, was granted a vision of Mary as she drew near to the man who trusted in her, touched his bonds with a scepter, and set him free. So 1 Oviedo, author of The General and Natural History of the Indies, an authority of considerable weight, states that he heard of the devotion shown by the Indians to an image of the Virgin, but adds that he never saw the image, and had, moreover, his doubts as to the sincerity of the devotion. 2 It is my impression that the village of Cueyba occupied the present site of Camaguey City. OUR LADY OF COB BE 379 miraculously liberated, this man went to his opponent, and tied him tighter, all the while mocking his and his tribe^s trust in false gods. This tribe was much angered by the whole affair, and continued the warfare against the chief who had the powerful image. Our Lady, on the other hand, continued to vouchsafe him her special protection. Indeed, this cacique was so devoted to his Virgin, that he forbade that her name be mentioned outside the temple he had built for her, excepting in cases of grave danger, when her aid might be invoked. When he was wearied with fighting, and sought peace, this old cacique retreated to the north and inland, taking his Lady with him; finally, one day, fearing that she might fall into the hands of his enemies after his death, or in some unexpected attack be captured, he thought best to dispose of her, and so he threw her into one of the rivers that empties into Nipe Bay, according to the first chaplain of the sanctuary of Cobre. There is no positive proof that the image which cham- pioned the devoted cacique in his battles was the same Hojeda left at Cueyba, but the inference that it was is natural. Now, in the year 1628, two Indians, brothers, named Rodrigo and Juan Hoyos, residents, apparently, on the Varajagua cattle ranch, accompanied by a negro child of ten, called Juan Moreno, went down to Nipe Bay to gather salt. They were detained on Frances or Vigia Key for three days by bad weather ; on the morning of the third day they put from shore and had not gone far when they discerned an object floating toward them on the waves. They steered to it, animated by curiosity, which turned to astonishment when they discovered that the object was an image of the Virgin Mary. 880 CUBA She was riding untouched by the waves, the story- goes. In her right hand she carried a cross on which were letters of gold that read : '^ I am the Virgin of Char- ity/' On her left arm she carried the Child. She appeared, in short, much as we saw her, crowned Our Lady of Cobre in her chapel on the hill above that village. There is no proof, of course, that the image found in Nipe Bay, since become the Patroness of Cuba, is the same Hojeda left at Cueyba, the same the Indians valued, and the same the cacique confided to the river when he began to doubt his own powers to defend; but the supposition that they are all one and the same with the Lady still adored by devotees at the mining village is entertained. The three who found it floating on Nipe lifted the image to their boat, and, having collected the salt for which they came, returned to Varajagua, bearing the Virgin with them. They related to the mayoral, Miguel Galan, how they had found her, and he in turn informed his superior, the administrator of the royal copper mines at Cobre, D. Francisco Sanchez de Moya, who ordered a little temple built to shelter her; he sent a copper lamp to be kept burning upon her altar. Diego Hoyos became Our Lady of Cobre's first sacristan. It was he who noted on two or three occasions when he went at nightfall to tend the copper lamp, that the image was missing. When she went it was vain to search for her^%she always returned by morning, — wet, perhaps, and bedraggled, which moved the sacristan — faithful servitor that he was — to scold ! It was believed that the Virgin sought to indicate by such ab- sences that she desired a more sumptuous temple than had been provided. She was therefore removed to the • OUB LADY OF COBUE 381 parish church at Cobre amid great pomp and rejoicing. She has insisted on remaining in the village ever since ; when she has been removed she has returned of her own volition. The people of Cobre prayed that they might be in- formed why the image continued, nevertheless, to dis- appear from time to time from the altar where they had placed it. In answer to their prayer mysterious lights burned upon the summit of a hill above the town, and thus it was understood that upon that height she desired her shrine. For some reason or other the church then built for her was not placed exactly where the lights had appeared, though it was near that spot. In this little church the image stood, apparently satisfied, for twenty years. Then it was found that a vein of copper ran immediately under the church, and in working the vein the building was made unsafe ; it was demolished and another built precisely where the mysterious lights had shone, and where the Virgin was seen in person once by a little child. In this sanctuary the Virgin was long worshiped ardently: her altar became the mecca of pilgrimages on which persons came in numbers from great distances. It was here that we beheld her, in our turn. Flowers and lighted candles were the gifts of her humble wor- shipers ; the wealthy brought jewels and gold. The Lady in exchange worked miracles upon the sick and needy. Small silver medals were left in large quantities at her feet in recognition of her powers ; stored in the church we saw piles of crutches and sticks cast away before her altar by those she cured of diseases that had crippled them. From end to end of the island her cult spread. She is to-day the most popular Virgin, especially among the lower classes. Ne- 382 CUBA groes adore her because one of the three to whom she came on Nipe Bay was a negro child. Yellow is her color and coral and copper are her emblems ; this is the favorite hue with blacks in their wearing apparel, and these their favorite trinkets of jewelry. (And I read in this morning's newspaper that it is before the altar of Our Lady of Cobre the negro political party's leaders have ^^ sworn to the death'' to maintain the rights and privileges of ^Hhe noble race of color"!) The Virgin of Charity has suffered with her country. Wars have attracted from her the attention of her followers ; her shrine has been abandoned, and once it was desecrated by sacrilegious robbers. She has, in troublous periods, been driven from her church by fire and sword. Though she still occupied the place of honor in it, her chapel was barren and desolate when I saw it. Since then it has become unsafe ; at the present time I understand the image occupies a temporary altar in a private house in the town below. There is a movement on foot to build a new shrine ; pious women have originated it and contributions are promised from all quarters, — from the palace in Havana down to hovels in the hills. Photograph by American Photo Company CUTTING AND STRIPPING CANE Photograph by American Photo Company LOADING A CART IN THE FIELD In THE Cane Fields of Cuba CHAPTER XVIII THE SOUTH COAST Santiago to Cienfuegos It was at sunset on the 10th of October, 1900, that we left Santiago by sea, turning westward from Morro Castle through the Straits of Columbus, past Cabo Cruz, which he named. Next morning brought us before Manzanillo, a town we had always thought of to the tune of En las Lomas. It appeared before us most prosaically, without a hill worth considering, without even the flag the song tells of, and certainly without Gomez and his forces prepared for war. Instead, in the barracks were troopers of the '^Fighting Tenth Cav- alry,'' ready enough, undoubtedly, for trouble, but quite at peace ; above them swung the American flag, and all I saw to indicate that piping times had not always been the rule, were the rusted hulks of Spanish gunboats sunk by their own crews, and the skeleton of a side-wheeled mailboat that failed to stop when re- quested so to do, — she burned, set afire by a rebuking shot. We looked through an old fort which appeared to have been built in the Year One and neglected ever since. I have not seen Manzanillo again. Of it I know nothing more, save that it ships hard woods, and, shortly indeed, is to become the Cuba Railroad's southern terminus : already the extension is complete between Manzanillo and Bayamo. 383 384 CUBA Another morning found us off Santa Cruz del Sur (port of exit for much hard wood), where the Queen of the Angels — this was the exalted title of the ship we rode — made a short stop ; the uninviting water front did not tempt us ashore. There followed a day^s sail through seas as still as a land-circled lake in a calm ; the translucent green waters were dotted thick with islets of emerald. These indeed are gardens fit for a queen, as the First Admiral rightly thought as day after day they embellished the course he steered, westward, in 1494, through virgin waters. Late at night we stopped off Jucaro, where a schooner lay far out to receive cargo ; it rose to our eyes like a canvas ghost taking form out of darkness ! Dull lan- terns burned in the hold, into which we looked from the advantage of our high deck. Bulky figures moved in the indistinct light they cast; one, by the mast, was a bearded man, whose clothes a red sash with a knife thrust through held about him. He hailed us, in sonorous Spanish, demanding, not our life, but freight in a hurry, for we were late and he had swung there for hours, waiting for casks and boxes, bundles, bales, and bags which were swung over to him with sharp creaking of ropes and pulleys. As we parted we heard him sing, — some ribald chanty of the still Carib- bean. The next day we were at Casilda, port of Trinidad, one of the seven cities Velazquez founded. It sits well up among the distant mountains, in a position of compara- tive security. Moving on we followed the hilly shore, all morning long, at noon reaching a glistening new lighthouse that bears the ancient name of Jagua. A little to one side we saw grouped the brilliantly colored houses of Paso Caballos. We could, however, espy no THE SOUTH COAST 385 entrance inland to where they said the city of Cienfue- gos lay. Our ship headed for the coast, inclined, it seemed, to mount the walls of a tiny gray fortress, placed to dispute her passage. Quite unexpectedly she shifted her course to the right, and before us opened the placid waters of the famous bay, jeweled with keys, at the far edge of which we could make out the bright houses of the ''City of a Hundred Fires.'' ThereweTef t the Queen of the Angels to continue her westward course to Batabano. I shall not forget that vessel, nor the companions, particularly a fine young Englishman, who made the voyage pleasant. I remem- ber especially the dining table, overcrowded with dishes of every imaginable variety ; the Caribbean is a friendly sea, and I found them palatable. Arriving at the sum- mons of the bell, one found every course in place, from soup to dessert. Before one could, with decency, finish the soup, the stewards began to remove things. This animated the passengers to resistance. After one meal's experience one learned to take a bit of everything offered in dizzying rapidity, piling up fish, meats, entrees and sweets, in conglomerate confusion. By the time one was served, in this manner, the tables were stripped, and everybody then settled down to enjoy what had been retained with difficulty during the melee. In mid-afternoon the stewards appeared to offer refresh- ments. Passengers are free to order what they will, and the stock of wines and liquors is, I am told, excellent in variety and quality. I can speak well from experi- ence of the ginger ale. They told me that in years past the cost of passage along the south coast was extraor- dinarily high. Travelers were, then, mostly sugar planters. The fare included everything, from the necessary food up to champagne whenever called for, 2c 386 CUBA and the best cigars manufactured in Cuba. There were no extras. A trip on this Hne was a lavish entertain- ment, — to be enjoyed to the full, and paid for accord- ingly in the price of one's ticket. From Cienfuegos we returned to Havana by rail. I revisited that city in 1907. It is the most important in the Province of Santa Clara; its present population is thirty thousand and one hundred, which makes it fourth in the republic. It is the south coast terminus of the Cuban Central Railways. It ships more sugar than any other port in the island, I believe ; since the railways constructed there the steel and concrete pier which projects a thousand feet into the bay, Cienfuegos has become a cheap port, whereas it was, prior to this improvement, one of the most expensive, because of charges for lighterage now not necessary. The lar- gest steamers which enter come alongside that pier, and load to full capacity direct from the cars. From Columbus' time, navigators have agreed that Cieufuegos Bay is the handsomest harbor in the New World. It is landlocked ; eleven miles long, and three to five wide; tranquil, transparent, and capacious, — it could comfortably accommodate the assembled navies of the world. The city itself lies on a slight elevation on shore above these quiet waters, at a distance of six miles from the entrance to them from the sea. It is modern in every respect ; its streets are wide ; its stores exten- sive. It is fortunate in its hotels. The plaza is one of the largest and most inviting in Cuba. The Terry Theater was built by the family of that name at a cost of $115,999, and presented to the city. The cathedral near is rich in ornate shrines with relics deeply revered by the faithful. The old Jesuit college on the edge of town is picturesque ; I wish I knew more of its history. THE SOUTH COAST 387 The city has its drive and promenade, which extends across intervening waters to Punta Gorda. Punta Gorda is a most beautiful bayshore spot. A green and shady promontory, it projects into the crystal-clear waters of the great harbor, and they reflect in the sunlight the colored walls and red-tiled roofs of the summer residences of the wealthy, set like gems on the little headland. Each villa possesses its own boat landing and bathhouse, of lattice work. We rode forth, aboard a comfortable little steamer, from Cienfuegos, past Punta Gorda, Cayo Carenas, and other settlements on the shores of the bay, opposite the city itself. Our objective point was the little fort called Our Lady of the Angels, that first I saw from sea. Brilliantly colored houses, clinging to the steep hillside of Point Sabanilla., on which the fortlet stands, form one of the most fascinating views IVe seen in Cuba. The tiny castle itself, headquarters, when we were there, for a detachment of Cuban rural guards, was built in the reign of Philip V to protect the harbor, and especially settlements and the country inland to which this gives access, from the marauders who then infested the Span- ish Main. It looks to a visitor in these modern days like an engraving cut from some history of the Middle Ages, — angled walls, deep moat, drawbridge, round solid shot, and all. Not a fortification in the country surpasses in interest this curious little castle, — per- fectly preserved specimen of its time. The view from its battlements is lovely in the extreme. Inland and at a distance are misty hills ; nearer at hand stretches the green, palm-grown, open country. Immediately below are the calm waters of the immense bay, gemmed — there is no other simile for it — with verdant isles and promontories, these, in turn, jeweled with villas 388 CUBA set here and there ; and, on the far opposite shore of the harbor, scintillating in the sunlight, is Cienfuegos, '^ City of the Hundred Fires, '^ named, prosaically enough despite legend to the contrary, by the French emigrant from Louisiana, M. Clouet, for General Jos6 Cienfuegos, who was governor of Cuba in 1819, when the modern city was founded. CHAPTER XIX SANTA CLARA " The wealth of the Indies " pours, — ole Prom the chutes of a sugar mill. — From "Glorious Santa Clara." From Cienfuegos the railways run almost due north, across the island, even to Isabela de Sagua on the other shore. They traverse the greatest sugar district in Cuba, — the very heart of Santa Clara Province. From Cruces alone five of the most renowned mills in the coun- try are in sight : Dos Hermanas, Andreita, San Francis- co, San Agustin, and Caracas. Santa Catalina, Santa Maria, and Santa Rosa are near by, and at no great distance is the famous mill of Hormiguero. Each of these estates has its particular identity, — as well known to Cuba in general as that of any race horse at a famous meet. To me it has always seemed that each grinding season is indeed a race; each mill is entered, — to beat its neighbors' or its own record, as the case may be. The great goal is the government statistician's estimate of what each and all should accomplish. All summer long they groom. In the sugarhouse the intricate machinery of the mills themselves is put into condition, worn parts are replaced, antiquated processes are removed, latest patents installed, and each treatment is planned to get best and most results for least expendi- ture of time, space, and energy. Suddenly, some day 389 390 CUBA in Noyembeiv one manager, finding his hour ripe, gives "" tEe signal ; his mills move. From end to end of the island the news flashes: ''The zafra's on!'' News- papers print it in headlines. Friends telegraph their encouragement. Agents who have sold the machinery in use journey to the plantation to see it work, — to criticise, to help. As the days pass and other mills fall in, interest grows. Bets are recorded. It is wagered that this mill will beat that one in output ; that the other will raise its own record by so many bags ; that still another will get best rendition, or its neighbor lose least time in repairs. Partisans cheer their favorites, or pound upon their desks in indignation when a roller breaks. In such a crisis the cables are hot with n^essages to makers of spares, and the foundries of Scotland — or France or America, as the case may be — echo with the rush of a hurry order. Every day's idleness in a sugar mill during the grinding season is hundreds and hundreds \ of dollars lost. Neither^by day nor by night is there any respite, while things go weir ^ Men work in shifts. Machin- ery is cleaned in relays. The cane trains, homing to the mill at nightfall, bring stalks enough to feed the crushers until the cutters return to the fields at dawn. Daylight and dark, the sugarhouse throbs in its labor : the crashing reverberation of its unloaders discharging their burdens into the carrier's maw is felt in Hamburg and Hawaii ; the echo is heard in the beet fields of Colorado and down among the Andes of the Argentine. In New York and in London the accomplishment of each central is measured, for Cuba is a factor in the world's sugar market : the quantity of the crop her mills send forth influences sugar conditions around the world. Her plantations are indeed business undertakings of a magnitude to demand the respect even of men accus- SANTA CLARA 391 tomed to big affairs. The k managers are not captains, but generals of industry. They are masters of wide stretches of territory, — absolute masters if, as fre- quently happens, they own all, or large part, of what they manage. They command thousands of men, — men willing, too, I truly believe, not only to work, but to fight for them, should, by any unforeseen chance, that necessity arise. (I have in mind one manager who could, unquestionably, muster an army of five or six thousand men on an hour's notice.) They are respon- sible for millions of dollars in machinery, cane, live stock, railway equipment, and the miscellaneous im- pedimenta of the settlement around their headquarters, which is, usually, a town, with stores, churches, schools, and considerable population. The tasks confided to them are extraordinary; they demand extraordinary powers. They also reflect upon these managers ex- traordinary honor even in their own land. No class of men is more respected in Cuba, — for ability and integ- rity, — or more looked up to as a very important con- servative element in the island's affairs, financial, social, and political. They are recognized as the embodiment of Cuba's most prolific source of wealth,— wealth which IS created hew each year, originating in the very soil of the island. The deference paid them is the country's tribute to producers, to contributors to the world's demand for a wholesome and necessary article. In the last five years they have delivered 43,933,238 bags of sugar, each bag containing 325 pounds. Of this, 2 per cent came out of Pinar del Rio Province; 12 per cent from Havana ; 26 per cent from Matanzas ; 37 per cent from Santa Clara ; 3 per cent from Cama- guey; 19 per cent from Oriente. It is interesting to note that of 170 mills grinding last season, 34| were 392 CUBA owned by Americans and 651 by Europeans, or, lOOf by foreigners, as against 693 by Cubans. Of the total crop (1,513,582 tons) 34 per cent was had from mills of American ownership, 35 per cent from mills of Europeans ; or, 69 per cent from foreigners as against 31 per cent produced by Cubans. If it were possible to take mortgages into account, they would be found to increase foreign ownership largely, particularly the American. I confess, however, that the vital interest inherent in these matters escaped me quite, as we journeyed north from the junction at Santo Domingo to Sagua, on the occasion of our visit there. Of what we passed en route I have no recollection, for the nausea of exhaustion was on me : from the pit of my stomach outward hot waves radiated, and my heart, having removed itself to an unusual situation in the back of my neck, beat there like a pile driver. It was midsummer. There was a drought on the country, and water was scarce; I had not yet learned to accept bottled substitutes. Odors of oil and garlic leaped at and enveloped me at every eating station. The very people, wherever they con- gregated together, were a stench in my nostrils. To add climax to my discomfort, I was harrowed with the necessity of admiring what I saw, for I was writing a railway folder, and no railway folder was ever written, that I know, except to praise ! We were accompanied by a very pleasant young Englishman who mitigated the discomforts of that journey as best he could. Through the long and wearing days he remained cool, clean, and immaculate, content with Apollinaris and boiled eggs, immune from dust, insects, and, apparently, every prevalent annoyance. I admired him tremen- dously ; and ever since I have conceded without argu- SANTA CLARA 393 merit that we Americans have a deal to learn from the ' Eng;lish. They ma ster conditions, and, with conditions, empire. We arrived at Sagua la Grande. I remember it as a very modern Cuban town, with straight, wide streets in which the dust eddied and swirled, for no rain had fallen since quien sabe cuando: it was the ^^dry speir' after the cyclone of 1906. There was a withered plaza; a church ; a hotel, with wooden floors upstairs, warped for lack of scrubbing, and a stairway unswept in the corners of its steps. The proprietor of this es- tablishment was most obliging and desirous to please ; he would have swept the stairs with alacrity had it been borne in on him that anybody really wanted it done. I have since heard Sagua praised as a clean and pleasant place by others who have visited it, doubtless in better mood than mine. Were I to return now that I have learned how to travel in the tropics, I^d probably see it myself in another light. Meanwhile, to tell the truth, I bear no pleasant recollections of it, except as the resi- dence of a fine and manly Scotchman with a name as stanchly Scotch as he; and of a hospitable English- man and his wife, who, taking pity, I like to believe, upon our plight, invited us to tea in their cool and quiet quar- ters. A big vine climbed to their porch from the patio below. A red-cheeked nursemaid, to whom, though she was a Spanish immigrant, they had imparted Eng- lish cleanliness and neat attire, brought out the baby — are these British babies born with manners ? How else do they acquire them so young ? No tea was ever as refreshing as the tea they served us here ; no tiny cakes were ever as delicious as those that accompanied it. From Sagua la Grande we traveled eleven miles 394 CUBA north to its port, Isabela de Sagua, at the mouth of the Sagua River. We passed through rich grazing land, and cane land where ''before the wars'' there were half a dozen small sugar mills, by actual count, into flat marsh lands nearer the coast. Here mangroves thrive in pools of brackish water, beaten in from sea to lie motionless about their roots. The town of Isabela (alias Concha, alias La Boca) is a travesty on Venice ; its wooden houses are built on piles above the sea itself, which ebbs and flows under and around them, ham- pered by the streets,which are sand banks piled high and leveled to the doors of the buildings placed carelessly along them. We sought the hotel; we were shown to a room, and, I recall, there was a square cut in the board floor through which to throw slops and trash into the water below. Isabela is famous for fish and oysters, and on oysters and fish we made our meal. Refreshed, I was, on the way back to the train, enabled to appre- ciate the fact that there is a big warehouse, docks, corrals, — complete facilities to accommodate the considerable traffic in and out from here. Isabela is a port of exit for large quantities of sugar and molasses, tobacco and hides ; through Isabela enter, for distribution over the island, cattle, coal, machinery, and an endless variety of miscellaneous cargo. The place is in direct com- munication with other ports of Cuba, and of the United States ^d Europe. It was evening as we traveled back to Sagua. The sunset glowed blood-red in the salt pools below the mangroves. From Sagua, shortly, we went out again, southward and east through a country I remember yet as beautiful. Everywhere were pleasant pasture lands or thick luxu- riant cane; we passed new mills and the ruins- of old ones. Beyond Quinta we saw tobacco. This is the F^^HP^^ei''fl SANTA CLARA 395 Remedios district, one of the oldest in the island. In that town, and others (Camajuani and Placetas) we saw tobacco warehouses and packing houses. We spent the night at Caibarien, an important shipping point. It^yjaarbor was full of light-draft vessels. Others anJBr off the keys, outside, and send their cargoes in by lighter. From Caibarien we dropped south to Placetas del Norte over a narrow-gauge line which threads its way up grade and down, through highlands where banana groves thrive among jagged rocks and cane flourishes in pleasant valleys between strange, pointed hills, thickly wooded. Our little train staggered up the steep incline, attaining, it seemed, the divide with diffi- culty : from that height we looked back and down over the way we had come, seeing Caibarien and the coast at our feet, with the wide blue sea beyond. All about lay a verdant tropical country. The region was delightful in every aspect, and a cool fresh breeze blew in from the ocean. High on these uplands are located some of the finest sugar estates in the island, — Altamira, San Pablo, San Jose, and San Agustin, bringing their sugar down by private line to the one small station of Zulueta ; Adela, patronizing Vinas ; and Zaza, Pla cetas del Noxte^ whera>_ _ presently, we arrived. This town has the reputation of being the highest above sea level of any in Cuba. I ^ remember the magnificent trees of the plaza , — and the wretched discomfort of the cramped, hot, noisy hotel. We made the five kilometers from Placetas del Norte to Placetas del Sur, and here, thundering out of the un- known east, came the Havana-Santiago through train, to pause, pick us up with a snort, and continue along its way late and in a hurry. CHAPTER XX CAMAGUEY Famous fOThorses and women, — the province of Camaguey. ^~~~ . — From " Cuba's Kentucky." Eastern Cuba is no longer unknown to me, for IVe traveled it pretty well over this past year, leaving Havana invariably by the night train that pulls away from Villanueva station at nine o'clock ; there is a day train but it happens that I have never taken it. On each occasion IVe awakened late, well rested (for the sleepers are cool and clean), and on each occasion IVe been able to identify my whereabouts by the gayly tinted houses, at the foot of queer little hills, which are Zaza del Medio. Of all the country between Havana and western Santa Clara, except that to the north which I have just described, I have, unfortunately, seen nothing at all. From Zaza del Medio a branch of the Cuba Rail- road (this road serves all Cuba east of Santa Clara City) runs south over a distance of seven miles to Sancti Spiri- tus, through a rich country, well watered, rolling, pro- viding large pastures where it is not cultivated in cane and tobacco. On every hand are evidences of industry and prosperity : now the tall chimmeys of Tuinucu sugar mill (standing at the end of a wide drive leading from the little station which bears its Indian name), or, again, workmen busy among tobacco plants where poles arranged, at the season we passed, at regular inter- 396 CAMAGUEY 397 vals through the fields exposed the leaf to the curing rays of the sun. The city of Sancti SiOT2tus_(present .population^ - 17,440) was ordered fouhded in 1514 by Diego Velazquez, and actual settlement commenced in 1516. In 1544, its inhabitants numbered 18 families, 14 negro slaves, and 50 domesticated Indians. By 1667, it was rich enough to tempt pirates, who invaded it, "to the detriment,^' so the historian, Pezuela, observes, '^of the persons and properties of its people. ^^ In 1719, it was sacked once more by French and English corsairs from the Bahamas, who retired only when threatened by armed reenf orce- ments coming to its rescue from Trinidad and Villa Clara. From the devastation inflicted by these un- desirable guests Sancti Spiritus recovered, however, thanks to a lively smuggling trade carried on through the south coast port of Tunas de Zaza. Money made in ilhcit business was invested in honester undertakings and the community prospered. In 1741, and again in 1754, fires almost obliterated Sancti Spiritus, yet the people roofed their new buildings with the usual palm thatch regardless of the danger ; in 1766 another confla- gration punished them for their carelessness. This time the town was rebuilt of brick, masonry, and tile, taking on much of the picturesque appearance it wears to- day. Its streets constitute a maze; they are very narrow as well as crooked. Some are steep, and most are paved with cobbles, laid in places in fancy patterns. We hired an automobile, and rode forth in state to see. We skidded around corners and raced full speed down hills. Children cheered our mad career. Countrymen hurried forth from corner cafes to seize their terrified horses. Some led their mounts right into the nearest 398 CUBA houses. I give my word we rattled the plaster and whitewash from the house walls as we raced along. Near the town, on the banks of the Yayabo River, is a pumping station which raises most of that stream to a reservoir on a hill near by, from where it is distributed to the city below. On the bank above the pumping station is the ruin of the private home of the concession- aries. The front is pitted with bullet holes and larger indentations made by shells, in sharp engagements here between Cubans and Spaniards during Wars of Libera- tion. The approach to the villa must have been im- posing in its prime ; only one file of the great laurel trees which shaded it remains. From the hill where the reservoir is, approach to which is marked by younger trees grown since the Spanish wantonly destroyed their par- ents, a beautiful view of the city is to be had. On the other hand is open country, pleasantly diverse in nature. On the horizon are hills. There is no station of any particular importance be- tween Zaza de Medio (if that be considered important !) and Camaguey. The railroad tracks continue their marked southerly trend, keeping close to the very middle of the island. Between Taguaso and the station of Jatibonico the boundary line is crossed and one enters into the Province of Camaguey. The sugar- house at Jatibonico appeals to me as about the homeliest I have yet beheld : it is severe, rectangular, and an ugly gray. It is said to contain the finest sugar machinery in the republic, a circumstance of more importance than its exterior. Some gardening is being done around about it, in laudable attempt to make the place look inviting. All the little stations along here ship cattle and hard woods. The hard woods of Cuba are numerous and beautiful. C AM AGUE Y 399 Some of them are the best cabinet woods known. Very beautiful furniture is made of majagua, for in- stance, an exquisite greenish wood which takes a high pohsh. Acana, now used largely for railway ties and bridge timbers, is a magnificent carving wood. Wher- ever transportation facilities have permitted removal of logs these woods are scarce, but in the center and east of the island, inland, where there were no such facilities until very recently, much good timber is still to be found. The logs lie around some of the platforms at these flag stations like a jam on a northern river. Many enterprising American settlers in the center and east of the island have built themselves homes of hard woods which elsewhere would cost fortunes. At Omaja asad at Bartle especially I have seen excellent effects in paneling. Mahogany furniture is common ; the polished is a little scarce, for cabinet makers are the same, but high-seated square-cut chairs of the solid wood in natural state are plentiful, — and the house- wives who have them complain that they are heavy to lift! At Ciego de Avila Chinamen serve meals. They are, withal, very good meals. The Chinaman who holds the concession here and at Alto Cedro is a character. Employees of the railroad company will tell you that ^^Chong is one good Chink. ^^ They say that on one occasion, in the carefree days of construction work, some of ^Hhe boys,'^ feeling a little hilarious, took it out on Chong^s eating house, which they wrecked in a transient spirit of playfulness. Next morning, the fact that to a man they were sorry for what they had done did not restore the broken crockery and disabled chairs. The manager of the railroad company, informed of the trouble, sent for Chong, and, 400 CUBA obediently he traveled to the ^^boss. '' He confessed that the incident had occurred, — yes, unfortunately, windows, tables, and kitchen utensils were smashed. He was not, however, quite able to say just who had done it; no, he had not recognized anybody. Indeed, he could not say whether the miscreants were his regular customers and employees of the company or not. It was night, and both his eyes and his memory were very bad, — very bad. The manager, dismissing him, or- dered him to render a bill. Chong did ; it read, ''One rough house, $70 American money. '' The manager sent it down to camp where the little affair had occurred. Whether it was paid or not he has not since inquired, I understand, for somehow the matter dropped out of official cognizance. New dishes, new chairs, new tables, and a complete renewal of good will returned to the eating house; and up and down the line his reputa- tion prevails, — ''Qhmg is qne_^od Chm^ At Ciego the railroad crosses the famous military road (trocha) built from Moron on the north side to Jucaro on the south by Spaniards, who patrolled it, as a barrier against Cuban insurgents. Little forts stood at short distances apart along its length, — dismantled, battered, covered with moss, draped with vines, they are there yet, — so picturesque and poetic it is difficult to imagine they were ever intended for other than decorative purposes. A very narrow-gauge railroad runs now along the line of the trocha. It makes acces- sible certain sugar mills and citrus fruit colonies (Ce- ballos). East of Ciego de Avila the through train's route is through thick forests and less wooded pastures, with here and there a sawmill at work. It emerges upon a plain, and here, midway between coasts and 852 feet above sea level, is the city of Camaguey. CAMAGUET 401 Camaguey is the aboriginal Indian name for the region into which Diego Velazquez sent Panfilo de Narvaez to establish his authority in 1511-1512. As Narvaez moved westward, the Indians thronged the villages through which his cavalcade passed, bringing gifts of fish and fowl and cazabi bread to the Spaniards, who accepted it as their due, and asked for more. At some distance from the native village of Caonao (which may have been the site of either Sancti Spiritus or Camaguey) where the Conquerors massacred without valid excuse those same Indians who rescued Hojeda and his men, ^ treating them as though they thought them angels/' Narvaez made the first Spanish settlement in all this region. The settlement, however, which later developed into ^Hhe always faithful, very noble and very loyal city of Santa Maria de Puerto Principe, '' — now Camaguey, — was not made until 1515, on order of Velazquez, and then at a point on the north shore, possibly, as I have said, at or near Baga, on Nuevitas Bay. It must have removed to the interior very early (1530?), for no records and few traditions of its original location re- main. Most distinguished among the first residents in Camaguey was that very picturesque character, Vasco Prur^aJlojie Figueroa. He was young when he identi- fied himself with the town ; he was of noble birth and was in high favor with the governor, Velazquez. But twenty-one years of age, he had already helped to found five other cities (Santiago, Bayamo, Trinidad, Sancti Spiritus, and San Juan de los Remedios) . He was noted for his courage. Once he rode into Sancti Spiritus pell- mell, with twenty men at his back, to quell a row among the inhabitants which was a reflection of inter- 2d 402 CUBA nal troubles in Spain. He beat up the mayor, took away his rod of authority, arrested everybody in sight, snatching one man even out of a church where he had taken refuge. He was brutally cruel to the Indians. In 1527, he reenforced Panfilo de Narvaez for his dis- astrous exploring expedition to Florida. Narvaez, the year before, had been made Adelantado of the ter- ritory above Las Palmas River and in Spain had re- cruited men in numbers sufficient to need five ships; with this fleet he arrived at Santiago de Cuba. Coast- ing along the south shore he encountered a hurricane. It was the damage this storm did him which Porcallo in part repaired with gifts of money, men, and animals. When in 1538 Hernando de Soto, newly appointed governor of Cuba, marched through Camaguey at the head of the men, handsomely equipped, whom he, in his turn, proposed to lead to the conquest of Florida and all that lay north of it, Porcallo, who was tranquilly getting rich off his possessions (Indians, lands, and cattle) , not only contributed to the undertaking, but further- more accepted a commission, and himself accompanied De Soto. The expedition sailed bravely enough from Havana in 1539, and soon after the landing in Florida Porcallo saved it from annihilation by a spirited cavalry charge ; but immediately after in attempting to persuade his men to cross a swamp, he was pitched headlong from his horse and treated to a nasty ducking, which fully convinced him that he was an old and a useless man. He left the expedition in the first caravel sent back for sup- plies, and returned safely to Camaguey from Havana. A son remained with De Soto to fill his father's place at the front ; this son was one of few members who sur- vived the horrors of that expedition. In Camaguey Por- callo continued to prosper. He lived (1562) ^4ike a CAMAGUEY 403 lord, '' the chroniclers tell, " with many servants, a house well furnished, and when he visited the towns around about, he carried attendants and impedimenta, like a grandee of Spain ; in those days he was always accom- panied by a chaplain who said mass for him and admin- istered the sacraments/^ It is implied that the treat- ment he accorded the Indians who fell to his lot in his younger days weighed heavy on his soul in his last years ; he believed he needed the kindly consideration of the Church. When the people of Peru revolted against Pizarro, Porcallo spent a fortune on a relief expedition, commanded by a son of his. This considerably re- duced his means. Nevertheless, he was at the time of his death a rich man, honored and respected by all the community of Camaguey. His sons were leaders in the country, and his daughters married well, even those among them who were illegitimate and part Indian. It is probable that, as they say, Camaguey moved early into the interior from the coast to escape the un- welcome attention of pirates, and, with due apology to all interested, honesty compels me to remark that they were enterprising pirates indeed, and deserving of booty in recompense, who traveled on foot or on horseback across those desolate palm barrens over which the Puerto Principe railroad hurries between Nuevitas and Camaguey to-day. If it was the inten- tion to place between the city and its port country most likely to discourage callers, those earliest colonists were ^^good pickers, '^ for, although there are fertile lands north of Camaguey, off the cross-island railway and along water courses (they show gratefully green on ap- proach, like oases in a desert), of all dreary, God-forsaken regions on the surface of this globe, my experience ranks 404 CUBA the palm barrens just north of Camaguey City first and foremost in bad preeminence. Despite precautions Henry Morgan sacked the settle- V ment in 1668. "In the Isle of Pines he had assembled ^^ twelve ships and 700 English and French rascals with intent to take Havana, attacking from landward via Batabano. Convinced that he could not succeed in this, he turned his attention to the next most valuable prize, which was Camaguey. He sailed eastward from his rendezvous, and landed at a convenient point on the south side of Cuba. The people of Camaguey were warned of his approach by a runner crying (on the morning of March 29) : ^^The English are at La Matanza, says Father Galceran!'' Father Galceran was the parish priest who had sighted Morgan's men from his country home. It is said, too, that a Spaniard, escaping from the pirates' ships, made his way to the city with infor- mation of their purpose. The inhabitants buried their valuables. The women and children fled into the country. The men, poorly armed, mustered under the alcalde. The defenders at their best numbered 800, all untrained, badly equipped, of whom 100 only were mounted. Morgan easily routed them, taking the town. He shut all who offered resistance into the two principal church buildings while he and his followers looted the place. They tortured those persons they thought might be so persuaded to give up more jewels and money. They drank and ate up all available stores, while the legitimate owners hungered and thirsted in the prison-churches. Finally, they went off, accept- ing as ransom 500 cattle, delivered aboard the pirate ships, with salt for curing. Other pirates returned to Camaguey next year, but were beaten off (February 23, 1669). CAMAGUEY 405 The city, meanwhile, recovered rapidly from the devastation Morgan inflicted. With it the whole district grew in importance and arrogance. In 1728, the governor of Santiago, Don Juan del Hoyo Solorzano, being in dire trouble, fled to Camaguey to avoid arrest. The people of the city where he sought refuge stoned the cavalry that came after him. He was a genial rascal, and the camagueyanos liked him. They resented it when he was removed, finally, by force. Later they made other violent objections to enforcements of the authority not only of the governor but of the captain-general, and the Audiencia itself ; the governor resided in Santiago, the captain-general in Havana, and the Audiencia in Santo Domingo. The government therefore set over Camaguey a capitan a guerra, whose duty it was to tame the spirit of its people. The whole region was prosperous. The cattle busi- ness thrived, and, moreover, there was profitable smug- gling between Camaguey and British and Dutch buccaneers. The district carried on a large and illegiti- mate trade with the isles and mainland holdings of other nations than Spain (as did every other section of the island) the while its commercial relations with the mother country also developed rapidly. In 1800 the Audiencia of Santo Domingo removed to Camaguey, where it remained until 1838, when it was transferred to Havana. While the Audiencia stayed the city swarmed with litigants, having cases before that court ; they dropped their money into the hands of the camagueyanos, who, wiser than their benefactors, in- vested it in cattle and in cane. In 1814 Camaguey was organized as a province (called Puerto Principe). There were then only three prov- 406 CUBA inces; it was the middle one, between Havana, em- bracing all the west of Cuba, and Santiago, comprising all the east. By 1827, its chief city (Camaguey, of course) had become the second in the island. It now ranks fifth, Havana, population, 297,159 ; Santiago de Cuba, 45,470; Matanzas, 36,009; and Cienfuegos, 30,100, preceding it. The city of Camaguey looks its antiquity. It is full of quaint and picturesque corners. ^^The project- ing wooden window grilles, the heavy cornices and overhanging, fluted tiled roofs, the crumbling masonry, and the venerable aspect of streets and houses, make a succession of attractive pictures which lure the visitor to extended explorations. Many of the streets are so tortuous that it is impossible to see far ahead, and one is continually piqued to discover what new pictures may be around the bend. No two streets in Cama- guey run parallel, nor do any two meet at right angles. (The story is that they were laid on the plan of a laby- rinth, or followed the homeward meanderings of leisurely cows, to befool pirates, as in a maze !) The street plan is a study in curves : the stranger must direct his course by pure orientation.'' Among the chief attractions of Camaguey are reck- oned its churches. They actually look older than they are. The cathedral existed (in organization) when the settlement becoming Camaguey stood on the north coast. The building originally erected for it here was burned on December 15, 1616, in a fire which destroyed almost all the town. The present edifice was at once begun. Its construction cost $16,500 at a time when a dollar was worth more in labor and materials than it is to-day. Funds were contributed by the State and by private persons. The first tower was built in 1776; CAMAGUEY 407 it fell through the roof soon after. The present tower was built in 1794. The building was improved in 1775. La Merced ^^was built about the year 1628, by mis- sionaries of. Our Lady of Mercy. ... In Camaguey the order died out until only one old priest was left to care for the church ; before his death it was taken over by the Barefoot Carmelites, . . . The architectural lines of the church are interesting, but there is lacking richness of mural decoration. The high altar of silver is resplendent ; it was fashioned of 40,000 Spanish dollars. There is a sepulcher of hammered silver, weighing 500 pounds, which contains an effigy of the body of Christ. . . . The church is remarkable for its extremely massive construction. . . .'' I quote the Standard Guide. My own inspection of these churches has been cursory. It included La Caridad, on the outside; we could not get in. The building dates from 1734. And La Soledad, which was a her- mitage in 1697 ; the present building was begun in 1758, and the frescoes (rather weak in both design and execution, if I am any judge) which do make it unique, date from only 1852. I found here a charming old priest ; he interested me more than any other ancient fixture, — not excluding the ^^coal black '^ San Benito on one altar, — I do not recall in which church. This priest apologized for the ^^ abandoned ^^ condition of La Soledad, for the erasure of the frescoes where the rain had beaten in, for the cobwebs and the dust, and the general dilapidation inside, and especially for its timeworn appearance outside, which was, of course, by far the most attractive detail of the whole. He went on to say that, as I must have noticed. La Merced had recently been painted; it had, as no one could fail to observe, been painted in a checkerboard design 408 CUBA in most atrocious coloring. I have not seen anything in Cuba quite so aggressively hideous as Merced in her new coat. My point of view was evidently not one with the old priest^s, however, for he spoke enviously, and explained that it had been the earnest intention of its clergy to paint La Soledad, similarly. Being short of funds, they had applied to Sir William Van Home, whose Cuban interests seem to center in Camaguey. Sir William had, I understood, not replied, but presently there arrived a great case by freight, for La Soledad Church. Unpacked, it disclosed a very wonderful set of new chimes, the gift of Sir William, who remarked in a letter accompanying that he greatly admired La Sole- dad as it is. Obviously, if he admires it as it is, La Soledad, having accepted chimes from him, can hardly, with good grace, alter the appearance he prefers. Those chimes, they say, cost some thousands of dollars ; they are chimes of the latest patent and device, very won- derful, very sweet, but — nobody can ring them ! La Merced flaunts her paint and whitewash. La Soledad is not content with silent chimes. An appeal had been made to Sir William to send a mechanic to ring them. He had not come, — and I don't know of anything more pitifully ludicrous than the disap- pointment and despair of that simple, good old priest. There are two hotels at Camaguey. One, christened the Plaza, is more generally known as Ike's, a place to obtain a good meal, especially if you have sent word ahead, and are expected. On the walls of the dining room are six rare old engravings, of most particular interest to students of Cuba's cities in their earlier days ; under each, in miniature, is the seal of the province of which the town shown is the capital. Ike ^^jest picked 'em up"; to my notion, he gathered in a treasure J'lioioijrdph hy Aim rtcan Photo Company In the Patio at Hotel Camaguey CAMAGUEY 409 when he did so. Hotel Camaguey is famous. It occupies a city block; the building was erected and long used as a Spanish cavalry and infantry barracks. In 1902 it was purchased by the railroad company, cleansed, fitted with running water (from a drilled well), baths, and furniture on simple lines of good taste. Its charm lies in its wide, high corridors, through which cool breezes loiter, even in the hottest weather, and in its patiOj which is a tropical garden of considerable extent and notable beauty. In the rear is a tennis court, and a truck garden from which the kitchen is supplied. Under the new management, the table is good. I have not found in Cuba a pleasanter place to sojourn than here. I have never gone into the east, from Havana, without breaking the trip with at least twenty-four hours' stop-over at this hotel, — to rest, to bathe, and, so refreshed, to take renewed interest in scenes beyond. The stations along the railroad in eastern Camaguey Province are logging camps or centers of distribution for cattle ranches. Between Ignacio and Marti half a dozen husky young cowpunchers, — sombreros, chaps, red neckerchiefs, and quirts, — are sure to board the train; from the cantinero (in charge of the assorted buffet) they get cold beer and newspapers. I was born and raised in the wooliest part of the Wild West, but I had to come to Cuba to see the ^4ikes of these'' off the stage. They are Americans, in charge of herds they and their fathers own. This is a famous grazing region. From the time of Vasco Porcallo to date stock raising has been the principal occupation of the inhabit- ants of this province. In the early days the cattle- men of Camaguey supplied Havana and the Spanish fleets with jerked beef; they also supplied the English 410 CUBA and Dutch buccaneers who harried those fleets with more jerked beef; they ate it themselves, and they shipped it anywhere a market offered. They also bred bulls for fighting, and riding horses of the most desir- able qualities. According to latest statistics Cama- guey now ranks third among the provinces, graded ac- cording to wealth in live stock. It ranks last in matter of population (116,269), though second in area. Its people claim that it is the ^'whitest'' province in Cuba, which, probably, is true, for the cattle ranches into which it has been divided for centuries do not demand much labor (hence black slaves were few), a circumstance which, too, accounts for the scarcity of population. CHAPTER XXI V^^ COLONIES OF ORIENTE %'(tjO. "Hoeing an orange tree? Yes, — and shaping up a new state for the Yankee Union, — that's what he' 8 doing." — The Havana Telegra'ph. There are many American and Canadian colonies throughout Cuba. They are pioneer settlements fos- tered by land companies, by subsidiary development companies, and, more slowly but also more surely, by in- dividual purchasers of ten, twenty, forty-acre and even larger tracts, many of whom, with their families, reside upon their estates. Concerning conditions in these colonies something has been written, now and then, usually on scant information, padding the ^'hard luck'' story of some discouraged settler; occasionally the American or the British or the Canadian government * investigates,'' and charges and countercharges excite a few newspapers. Although I have visited a considerable number of colonies, especially in the far west and in the far east of Cuba, I hesitate longer now to take up the famous case of Colonist vs. Company, or, more generously, vs. Conditions, than I should have hesitated three or four years ago when I had seen and heard very much less. These are matters into which the personal equa- tion enters so very largely. I have seen some families ''curl up" under hardships another family twenty miles away would have borne without any recognition that such hardships existed. I have listened to women be- 411 412 CUBA moaning a fate that compels them to endure those things my own mother, who has heard wolves howl in Michi- gan, and blizzards shriek in Nebraska, and Indians war- whoop in Colorado, referred to once in a moment of weakness as 'Hhe petty annoyances of lifehere/^ Simi- larly, when you inquire whether or not these colonists make any money in reward for their heroism, what is one to conclude when a Swede down at Bay ate says, with a grin, '^Ah tank so,'^ mentioning his profits, and an American from a middle western state, now located in Pinar del Rio, names an identical sum as his, and growls, in conclusion, '^I could do better than that on day wages at home!'' Then again, were they de- ceived into coming here by lying literature issued by land companies? An examination of the literature shows, nine times out of ten, that it tells no lies, but does exercise the art of elimination, very cleverly. It per- mits, in short, the reader's imagination to have full swing ; being an American, he may be relied upon to erect his own roseate castles in Cuba upon very slight suggestive foundation. ^^Sea Island cotton thrives in Cuba." It does ; why add that the boll weevil has always managed, so far, to cut short that thrift ? ''The climate is suited to the mulberry and the silkworm" ; why mention in this connection high cost of labor and a prohibition on the immigration of coolies? ''Cuba imports butter. ..." Why lose a deal by pointing out to a man that the site he's buying for a dairy is 418 miles from the market he proposes to produce for, and there is no ice plant within a hundred miles, no refrigera- tion on the cars, and no possibility of his paying ex- press on his product and competing with imported rivals in price? No truer remark was ever made than Barnum's, COLONIES OF OBIENTE 413 to the general effect that the American pleads to be ^^done/' He begs to be gulled especially in matter of real estate. ^^ A pig in a poke^' is a conservative invest- ment compared with his purchases, especially of fruit lands in Cuba. In concluding, sometimes, that he might as well take ^Hhe candy from the baby'' before the next fellow does so, the real estate man seems, very frequently, to be almost excusable. Usually the land company he represents has done a little something, anyhow, to earn the money. It did, to be sure, buy the land ^^dirt cheap,'' — perhaps as low as $2 an acre ; that price is no reflection upon the quality of the soil. It bought in a big lot, and, if it is a good company, even as land companies go, it cleared the title and surveyed the tract. These are no insig- nificant services. It would be too long a digression here to enter into the intricacies of old circular surveys, measured only nominally from a center : no outer boundaries were marked. Or into the worse intricacies of titles, as these properties, measured not in area, but in imaginarj^ ^^ dollars of possession," were subdivided and passed on through transfer by sale and inheritance, until a hundred and more persons owned parts of one piece, none of the hundred knowing exactly what was his and what was the other man's. Or to consider the subterfuges to which the law resorted when these circles overlapped or failed to touch, leaving queerly shaped unoccupied parcels in between. It is sometimes a work of years to get a title surely cleared. Again, land in a colony which has a company back of it becomes in proportion to the strength of that backing preferable to as good land elsewhere, because there is hope at least that a settlement will grow near it, and that even- tually its colonists will have the mutual assistance which 414 CUBA neighbors afford each other. This is a strong considera- tion. Of course, there are companies doing business which have bought no land; Wey have, perhaps, an option on some. They have made no surveys, though they may distribute blue print '' advertising '^ maps just the same. They have cleared no titles, and can, therefore, neither get nor give any. They have not the ability nor the money to develop any settlement at all. Such concerns as this are plain frauds ; a very little inquiry discloses their nature. Personally, I don't know of any now doing business on this basis, or lack of basis, in Cuba, though any real estate man here would, I think, be pleased to furnish inquirers with insinuations, any- how, that some of his rivals belong in this class. I confess that sometimes my sympathies are with the land company. They are apt to swerve to the settler when I reflect that it is the company that fosters in him, I presume, the attitude of mind which alienates one's consideration from him. He arrives in Cuba with his mind made up : he knows all about this country, conditions here, his prospects both present and future. He knows usually exactly where he is going to locate, and he will recite you a string of special advantages this particular spot holds over every other in Cuba ; these, I am confident, he has accepted, verbatim without investigation, from land company literature or agents. He proceeds at once to the location he has preferred, and there he camps. It is an even bet he selected his land from a blue print map and paid something on it before he left home. Some- times he has not the money, but more often it is the inclination he lacks, to travel about over Cuba and see for himself whether this is the country for him, and, if COLONIES OF OEIENTE 415 it is, what section is the best section, and in that sec- tion what crop would be the best crop. He prefers for instance to pay $100 an acre for poor land which happens to be the best in one colony, rather than travel six hundred miles at the furthest and buy for $25 an acre rich land as well if not better situated which will not in the long run cost him two thirds as much as the first to make profitable. Few people have any conception of the differences between one part of Cuba and another. They say, as I have elsewhere remarked, that in the beginning this was two islands ; had the sea bottom never risen be- tween them, connecting the halves, the two ends of Cuba could not have remained more widely different than they are, as it is. I know a successful dealer in lands at one end of the island who has never traveled farther from his own holdings than the middle ; he has no conception whatsoever (apparently) of what the other end is really like, and there is nothing more amus- ing, though at the same time distressing, than to hear this gentleman hold forth on Cuba at large. His state- ments, allowing for some bias because it is his business to sell land, are fairly true of the region he knows. They are quite untrue of a good many other sections of the country, to which, however, he applies them in general with an indifference which is both pitiable and irritating. It is, however, precisely what he doesn^t know about Cuba which equips him to sell a slice of palm barren to a North Dakota farmer, and as long as he doesn^t himself realize that there is anything else much better to be had, his crime is, perhaps, less than it sometimes seems to be. At any rate the conduct of the North Dakota farmer assists us to condone it, for this man, having purchased 416 CUBA his land ''sight unseen/^ pulls up stakes in the North, disposes, sometimes, of a profitable business up there, and, having landed in Cuba, hustles as fast as he can make it for his recently acquired estate. He will see nothing of the country en route ; he knows he has just bought the best of it, anyhow. He will learn nothing of what other men, elsewhere, are doing. Why should he ? He knows what he is going to do : he is going to grow oranges. The land company is, here too, largely responsible for his determination. I have asked my friend who sells land to settlers for them to grow citrus fruit upon, if he really considers its culture the best they might undertake. He extinguishes me with the statement that he owns groves. ''Do you think I'd risk money if I wasn't sure? Haven't I thousands and thousands of dollars invested ? Et cetera ! Et cetera !" I fancy this is about what he has previously said to the North Dakota farmer. The answer is : No, he hasn't any groves. The land company owns some, however, and they are planted right where they'll do the most good, — in plainest sight from the railroad train window, and there's a big sign up informing admir- ing passengers whose groves they are. He has not thousands and thousands invested in it. The com- pany, it is true, has expended some money on its groves, and I'd be willing to bet a quarter "good money" against a "bald-headed peseta^ ^ that it is debited under the head of advertising ! He has not made what money he possesses (and he has some, all right) out of the citrus fruit business ; he made it selling land. The North Dakota farmer comes to know these details in time, but ere that he has committed himself to oranges. He wasn't deterred by the fact that he knows nothing about his soil ; nothing about his crop ; nothing COLONIES OF OBIENTE 417 about its cultivation; nothing about its marketing. I remember with what a start I, who honestly don't know a pumpkin from a gourd, or either from a paw- paw, heard the hopeful owner of a six-acre lemon or- chard already well under way ask a nurseryman what he meant by budding ! The nurseryman paused for a very perceptible moment, and stood gazing at the ground ; then, politely, he explained, but for my part I believe I could pardon him if I found out he sold Valencia late oranges by the hundred to the next cus- tomer who ordered Duncan grape fruit ! There is no excuse for ignorance like that ! Yet one rather admires the nerve of these American settlers, especially when the nerve carries to success, for there is no denying some of these people are succeed- ing. It seems incredible, but in time they learn, and then, if luck, not foresight, was theirs when they chose their land, and, more important yet, when they selected the variety of citrus fruit they planted, they will, probably, break even, or, possibly, ahead of the game. If, however, luck was against a man, he may, like one poor dupe of a dishonest nurseryman I read of, take five years of heart-breaking toil and privation to dis- cover that the trees he has nursed to bearing are not Valencia lates or navels, or any other marketable variety, for which he bought them, but sour stock which bears a fruit inedible, and bitter indeed. The nursery- man who sold them to him has, of course, already flitted. Of all the colonies I have visited I should prefer, if I were to invest, some one of those in Oriente. I have seen, I think, about all of them there. While general conditions are about the same throughout the province, each colony has its special attractions and its particu- 2e 418 CUBA lar disadvantages, and, what is more interesting, each has its own pecuUar identity. The most westerly colony in Oriente is Bartle. The town, on the railroad main line, is laid out to advantage. Its buildings (plantation house, hotel, stores, church, and the homes of settlers who reside within the town- site limits) are sizable frames, neatly painted white, with, usually, green trimmings. Their clean cool colors harmonize with the scene in which they are set, in such manner that one's first impression of Bartle is agreeable. To add to it, there is a citrus fruit grove in plain sight from the car windows ; it is too far off for passengers to discover, unless they are experts, defects due especially, I think, to shallow soil, which one observes when closer to it. Before the plantation house are American Wonder lemon trees hung with fruits as big as pomelos, for which they are readily mistaken from a distance. Truck gardens and small cornfields, also in evidence, contrib- ute to the general air of prosperity and industr3^ There are two sawmills at work, and, on a siding, always a car loading with logs for shipment. Finally, there is at Bartle a pretty concrete block station. I spent the best part of two days riding over this tract and that of another company, which is contiguous. Of the 25,000 acres originally purchased, approximately 3000 lie north of the railroad tracks and the rest south of the line. The land is, with very little exception, covered with the thick woods common to these rich and virgin regions of Oriente. There are, however, shallow patches like that under the grove near the station, and there are savanna lands assuredly less desirable than others. About one half of the total acreage has been sold ; of this about 1628 acres have been cleared, and approximately 310 are planted to COLONIES O^ ORIENTE 419 citrus fruits. Water is obtained from wells, which tap good supplies at varying distances, averaging, say, 25 feet ; there is a driven well by the depot, from which by the use of a pump the railroad water tank is filled from a depth of 147 feet. Some houses have cisterns as an insurance against mishap, and also because soft water is preferred for washing purposes to the hard of the wells. There is a small mineral spring near the town. There are some 150 permanent residents on the tract, including the rural guard garrison and a few Cubans and Spaniards engaged in business there, one of whom, at any rate, from logs and guana is gathering unto himself his share of this country's currency. Guana is the inside bark of the guana tree. To olBTain It the tree is felled, left to soak in water for some time, after which the bark is stripped away in long thin pieces very like gauzy cloth. These strips of material are brought to the factory, which is a shed, where they are trimmed to standard length, cleaned smooth with sharp knives, and tied into neat packs resembling bolts of beautiful, glossy, cream-colored silk. The guana in this shape sells readily ; the first grade is shipped to Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Spain), there to be manufactured into leghorn hats, principally ; the other Ihree grades sell in Cuba, especially to tobacco sections, where the material, cut into narrow ribbon widths, is used to tie up bundles of tobacco leaves in assorting houses. The English-speaking settlers are Canadians and Americans, divided, to all appearances, about half and half. I visited many of them in their homes, and one or two of the houses I saw were in themselves especially attractive. The forests around Bartle are rich in 420 CUBA valuable hard woods. The settlers have made good use of many of them in sealing the rooms of their homes. In the plantation house eight different varieties were used in the walls of the rooms downstairs. One gentle- man, an expert in woods and their application, has sealed the front room of his hoifte iwith mahogany and allua in alternate strips in the waihscotting ; the upper part of the walls is majagua and the ceiling of allua. In the dining room the wainscotting is majagua^ the upper walls of handsome curly mahogany^ -and the ceil- ing of cedar. The stairway is trimmed with dark majagua. These woods have beea roiled-^" give them a finish. Their various colors and grains, combined and contrasted, decorate the rooms in themselves. Another parlor we found similarly sealed with hard wQpds; different varieties in different patterns had not been oiled and in their natural state they made the room seem lighter. There is much social life at Bartle, — ^'Too much,'' one uncomplimentary gentleman was heard to observe morosely, '^ they expect a man:iio make merry all night and work all day, and the undertaking is too much for me, so IVe cut out the dancing and the ca3fdparties4'' There is a Ladies' Improvement Society, the principal purpose of which is to keep the town looking well. This Society cleared the park, and fenced and planted it to corn, profits from which crop will go toward that plaza's final embellishment. The Society built bridges neces- sary to make approach to the church easy. Meetings are held bi-weekly, and entertainments are given, ad- mission fees going to the good c^^Jlses the ofganization espouses. There is a literary society. There is a post-office at Bartle. There We four general stores, and a comfortable hotel. There id a COLONIES OF OBIENTE 421 school conducted in English ; it had, in January, 1910, an average attendance of twelve pupils. There are church services every Sunday, a Church of England minister from La Gloria alternating with a Methodist preacher from Camaguey. There is a reverend among the residents now, who fills any vacancy that may occur. One building, owned by the company, accommodates both church and school ; it is also the town hall, and meetings of a general nature are held there, or in the plantation house, as occasion may demand. Many enterprises thrive in the community, among them the sawmills, the new furniture factory, a monthly magazine, two citrus fruit tree nurseries, and three or four subsidiary or independent development companies, — one man- aged by a woman who offers for sale home sites sur- rounded by a variety of fruit trees. A cannery is planned. A sanitorium is half built. An electric light plant is contemplated, in connection with the furniture factory, and there is voiced a longing on the part of the most enthusiastic residents for a telephone system and street cars ! In short, Bartle has not yet found herself. One hundred and ninety-eight acres of the citrus fruit trees planted are grape fruit, 107 oranges, and 5 lemons. The settlers seem to believe that the future lies in pomelos. They are none of them so far com- mitted, however, that they might not change their minds, or, without abandoning their groves, turn to cane, were the project for a mill which existed once and has since been neglected if not abandoned, or another like it, to presentr itself. Adjoining the Bartle tract on the south are a number of small estates and land belonging to Sir William Van Home ; on the north and west is a cattle range owned 422 CUBA by our cosmopolitan friend of La Atalaya; and the ranch of another ranchman who resides at Bartle. On the east is the tract of a company which owns 4000 acres and has platted a town around the flag station of Manigua, but patronizes the depot at Bartle, for there the trains stop. The one hundred and seventy acres this company has cleared and planted to sour stock was, to me, exception- ally interesting. It was, to the eye, a pretty rough piece of work, for they had naturally followed the system of clearing in vogue in these heavily wooded districts, which is to machete out the underbrush, fell the trees, and burn the land over ; then to plant the citrus fruit trees among the fallen and charred logs without further preparation of the soil. A circle is kept hoed about the tree and the grower endeavors to fight down the weeds in all his grove, calling to his aid a cover crop of lablab or velvet beans or other legumes. Later, when the logs and stumps have rotted, he begins to plow and fully cultivate. No other system than this just out- lined seems advisable in this section of Cuba. To attempt to clean the land completely would flatten a fat purse. Now, not to clean it and plow it and eternally cultivate it, is a neglectful proceeding, accord- ing to a grower located, for instance, on the Isle of Pines, where they have a comparatively light vegeta- tion to remove in clearing. Any time one desires to see a facial expression of horror and hear exclamations of affright, describe to a pinero how they do the thing in Oriente ; or, if indignation is the emotion one would arouse, innocently inquire of a planter in the east why he doesn't keep his place neat and clean, as they do, you know, in far Pinar. This company beside Bartle, in growing sour stock in the spots they desire their COLONIES OF ORIENTS 423 cultivated trees to occupy eventually, is following a system I understand has been proven elsewhere. The idea is to avoid transplanting of the roots, and this is said to prevent gummosis. Budding, of course, is done as usual, but in the field. There are about eight hundred acres of citrus fruit groves planted within a radius of fifteen miles around the town of Victoria de las Tunas, east of Bartle, and, like it, on the railroad main line. In these orchards, too, grape fruit predominates ; the acreage of oranges and lemons seems to be about equal. .Tunas was a stor m c ente r_ui-every, revolution against Spain. It was the scene of a notable victory won over the Spanish in 1896, when the place, although defended by six hundred regulars and twoKrupp twelve-pounders, was taken after two days' hard fighting by six hundred .Cubans under General CaUxto Garcia. Among the officers in charge of the Cuban artillery was Frederick Funston. They showed me the hill from which he is said to have trained his guns upon the town. The establishment of peace at the close of the Spanish- American War found Tunas in debris. During the period that has elapsed since, it has revived. Among the fallen walls of former homes and old places of busi- ness transaction, all about the wrecked church on the battered plaza, houses have been rebuilt, and stores reopened. The railroad has inspired courage, and foreign capital has invested. I rode fifteen miles north to the oldest grove in the neighborhood, Yarigua, the property of Mr. R. B. yan Home. The plantatio7r~T!omprises seventeen thousand acres, of which seventy-one were set to citrus fruit in 1903 and abandoned about a year later. I fancy investigation would disclose that it was first 424 CUBA intended to build the railroad through or near there, but plans changed. It seems to me there is no other explanation why a Van Home should plant seventy-one acres of citrus fruit trees in that particular spot, — at the end of fifteen miles of bad road leading out from the nearest point of present possible shipment. In mid- January, 1909, Mr. Burton was put in charge, on con- tract to clear up the grove. He cleaned away the choking overgrowth of weeds, vines, and shrubbery, dis- covered the buried trees, and, when I was there, was waging relentless war on blight, scale, footrot, and all the other calamities which had accumulated. He was cutting down the nursery which had outgrown any service. He was planning to replace trees wild fires had destroyed. In the thick grass in an open, left origi- nally for the later erection of a handsome plantation house, he called our attention to garden flowers and foliage plants which had survived neglect. Yarigua has in it the making of a very beautiful country place, and from what I hear, I have gathered the notion that some day it will be the center of a great modern sugar estate. I remember with particular delight our ride back. A shower fell, and to avoid it we rode under the hos- pitable roof of a countryman whose family assembled to see the sight which I was, according to all their ideas of decorum, for I rode astride. Even the dog — a skeleton, she — stood paralyzed, regarding us, and two fat black and white puppies ran forth, seated them- selves under her, and began to suckle with loud smack- ings, unnoticed and unrebuked. The guajiro told us how well his tobacco crop had done that season. He bade a child go fetch a bundle of his best leaf, — ''as fine as Vuelta Abajo,'' he pronounced it, — and so indeed it looked to be. The shower having passed, we COLONIES OF OEIENTE 425 rode on. We recrossed a pasture where the grass stood evenly to our horses' knees, waving in the wind and richly yellow. In its golden sea clumps of trees and bushes floated like islands. The sun had reappeared, and from the wet earth in the hollow into which that meadow dipped he drew hot steam. Our passage across was a Turkish bath. Before we reached home the floods descended in very truth. Glad that there was no other course, I bared my head and took the deluge. No drowned rat was ever sleeker with wet than I ! At one point the adventure lost its amusement. There was an arroyo to cross, down which on one side we found a narrow path, worn like a chute in clay, slippery as grease. Mr. Fisher led his horse, which was notably uncertain on its feet. When I saw that animal sit down upon its rump and coast, I thought it wiser to dismount from mine, which, as though to rebuke me for lack of confidence, went down daintily without mishap. To ascend, we had to make it up the opposite bank. We stood in the bed of the stream and considered the situa- tion without comment. The water was rising rapidly. My horse formed our decision for us by commencing to clamber up the clay. At one juncture he paused, with a grunt of disapproval, to see where, within six inches of his only possible path, the bank dropped straight fifteen feet to the stream. I had the rare wisdom to offer no advice, and with great clatter of anxious hoofs on the bare rock that topped the bank, on which it seemed his unshod feet could find no hold, the gallant animal righted himself with a shake and a whinny on the level above. Mr. Fisher's horse followed, with what protest I did not see. We were safe, and the ride instantly became sport again, — mud-spattered and dripping as we were. If one is willing to accept the 426 CUBA momentary discomfort of its commencement, I don't know of anything jollier than a ride in the rain, in Cuba. The pouring water, — it comes in drenching sheets, — washes the weariness and heat out of one. It wipes the sunburn off. There is no chill in it, — only exquisite refreshment to all the senses, and to the very heart and mind. The delights of a ducking were evidently not under- stood by our friends at ''the hotel,'' who surveyed us with dismay, discreet smiles, some professed alarm, and finally, frank laughter. ''The hotel' ' is that two-story concrete visible from the passing train. It stands on a hill. It is a monu- ment to the great plans of a stock company which failed. It is at present the plantation house of the owners of a four hundred acre grove to which I rode out from there with Mr. Matteson, visiting the holdings of individual settlers en route. Captain Kies sent Big Black Ben and the buckboard to convey me, later, over the nine miles that lie between Tunas and Vista Alegre, a plantation which merits its name, meaning pleasant or delightful view. As we jogged along Ben talked, telling me how this country, — stretches of softly green grass alternating with wood- lands in which tropical trees stand close together, bris- tling with orchids and hung with vines, — had, "before the wars," a greater population than now. Then there were hamlets where to-day only an isolated palm- thatched hut remains, or, in some instances, nothing at all is left save a group of mango trees heavy with fruit. He pointed out the ruins of an old Spanish fort on a hill, built and occupied to protect this, the military road. He told of fierce fighting through all this region in '68 and again in '98, of which he himself saw some part. COLONIES OF ORIENTS 427 He mentioned men killed from ambush, and pointed out where they lie buried. He told me of a meteor which struck here, to judge by certain peculiar rocks left. There is a spring of sweet water somewhere about. When conversation languished, I inquired concerning the superstitions of the people, and learned that they fear to ride out at night, for the spirits of the dead ride with them, unless they carry a light. Again, I inquired concerning buried treasure. I wish I could tell as he told it the story of the two Cubans who with ill-concealed excitement came to Ben to borrow shovels and a pick. They confessed that a brujo (wizard) had informed them where a treasure lay hid. The brujo had his knowledge from a bottle of clear water into which he gazed, for a consideration. Ben loaned the implements, and followed the borrowers at a discreet distance. From hiding on top of a con- venient hill he watched them dig. Presently a little green fly flew into the excavation. Wherever it lit they delved like mad, on the supposition that it was the spirit of the former owner come to direct them. They labored for half a day in vain. Ben, wearying of looking on, paralyzed them by advising, as he emerged from the bush, to consider whether it was not likely if the wizard knew, in fact, of a treasure, he would unearth it for himself. Vista Alegre is a plantation which fulfills ideals. The estate, as originally purchased by the com- pany, comprised 12,500 acres, of which one thou- sand were sold to a developing company whose fifty- acre grape fruit grove one passes just before arriving at the Vista Alegre plantation house. Seven thousand acres of the land the company still holds are virgin woodland, of value for the timber contained, which is 428 CUBA suitable for poles, ties, building materials, furniture, and finest cabinet work. Other areas of the estate are, apparently, savanna lands, but in certain sections of these the plow discovers old stumps and buried roots which are evidence that they are not all savanna proper; some were formerly forest lands, cleared by a previous owner, probably by one Ramon Pastor, who had four thousand head of cattle on this range. It was Pastor who seeded large tracts between the ranch house and Tunas to guinea grass, and erected fences, the hardwood posts of which still stand along the road. His brick house was the center of quite a settlement, wiped out in 1897-1898. It occupied the site of the present plantation headquarters, where amid broken roof tiles there were garden flowers growing wild when Cap- tain Kies arrived to establish himself upon this estate. His company has since erected a comfortable house for him and his family, - — it is roomy, well furnished, and has a bath. The dining room is alfresco. Near by, in another building, are the workmen's quarters. The plan- tation work keeps fifteen or twenty men and thirteen mules busy. There were one hundred and fifty acres of groves when I was there, of which 80 per cent were grape fruit. The oldest are just beginning to bear. Much money has been expended here. It seemed to me that there was more prospect of its coming out again with interest than I recollect having felt I saw in any similar undertaking in all the island. From Vista Alegre a trail through the woods leads the adventurous to the neighboring settlement of Omaja. I remember the ride as one of the most delightful I have ever made. We started early (two women of us, neither of whom really knew the way !) . The road we followed led to the jungle's edge, and there almost disap- COLONIES OF OBIENTE 429 peared among thick bush. It was the rainy season, and a Hne of muddy water twisting ahead of us showed where others had, perhaps the night previous, traveled before us, and this indication we followed. When the sun rose it shone first in the tops of tallest trees and climbed down them gradually, but never penetrated the green gloaming below through which our animals plodded on. Vines dangling from above rapped our heads, entangled our horses' feet, jerked at our stirrups, and, from leaves and branches overhead, heavy showers of water descended upon us whenever we disturbed the slender trunks below. We were soon as wet as though it had rained. I took delight in pulling at pendent vines and listening then to the sharp patter of the drops pre- cipitated behind me as I rode on. More than once we found our trail blocked by fallen branches ; we had then to work our way around, coaxing our horses forward, with them literally wriggling our way through, and' back to the trail again as quickly as possible lest we lose it. At times it followed close beside a muddy clearing I was informed was a road, — an oxcart road, which these vehicles actually travel. They are drawn then by ten and twelve oxen, and it takes them days to make half the distance we covered, going slowly on horseback, in one. As we had begun to wonder whether or not we were on the right trail, — it seemed intermi- nable, — we heard voices; they sounded clear and distinct in the silence of that wilderness. We met two Cubans, whose astonishment at seeing us was evident. They assured us we were upon the proper path, and, shortly, we emerged upon dry land, into a clearing where a hut stood. The sun was hot on the savannas that day. Pleasant as the ride through the forest was, it suggested 430 CUBA to me how disagreeable it would be to lose one's self or be benighted in such a place. As long as we kept going, it was cool and nothing troubled us, but the instant we stopped mosquitoes settled upon us, and stung. There was a fly which bit the ears of our horses. To move through there in the dark would be a physical impossibil- ity. Had we been compelled to dismount we could not have found a dry spot in which to stand nor a cleared spot in which to stretch our limbs, nor could we, I think, have fought off the insects. The region around Omaj^a is very beautiful. It was until recently part of^ih^liacienda comunera Maji- bacoa, a cattle range, and is in part still used for grazing and breeding purposes. Its lands are wooded, though there are savannas here and there amid the timbered areas. There are running streams. At some distance from the railroad main line, on which the town stands, there are hills, and among them we found the aban- doned workings of old copper mines. The population of Omaja was two hundred and sixty- three when I was there. Most are Americans, but there are some English and Canadians, and also an industrious colony of Finlanders. There are, as usual, stores, post office, a government school with one American teacher, but no hotel : visitors find accommodations in the homes of settlers. Omaja is musical ; there are six pianos, seven organs, one angelus, and four violins, — quite the best showing of instruments I have yet encountered in anyone settlement. Church services are held early and often, . for there are among the colonists many varieties of religious belief, Brethren and Seven Day Adventists predominating. There were seven hundred and ten acres of citru s fruit groves already set at Omaja when I was there, of COLONIES OF OBIENTE 431 which only 46 per cent were grape fruit. The largest acreage belongs to a company with head offices in Boston which has contracted for thirty-eight hundred acres of land here and had planted three hundred and thirty acres to Duncan grapefruit and Valencia and pineapple oranges when I rode through. I found the companies which center at Omaja to be selling not so much land as groves, on contracts covering sometimes nine or ten years, with a first payment in cash and others monthly thereafter, for four years. At the end of these four years cash payments cease. The customer may, generally, assume control of his own grove then, or he may leave it for another five or six years or indefinitely in the care of the company, which undertakes to continue to develop it, to gather and to market its product, on a percentage of proceeds. In details of contract each company differs from the others slightly. The basic idea is that a large grove under one control returns ^ more per acre than an equal area of small groves each under separate management. There are about one hundred and twenty-five acres of citrus fruits out in the vicinity of Cacocum, the rail- road junction from where an eleven-mile branch runs northward to Holguin, but I have not visited these in passing through. The city of Holguin lies at the foot of a group of hills, grass-covered, the smooth sides of which are relieved here and there by low-growing palm trees, in the dry foliage of which winds in passing make a ghostly rus- tling. All about the hills are savanna lands, — uneven, grassy, their monotony of color broken only by these palms, standing here and there, solitary or together, like straggling soldiers on a disordered march. Hills and savannas viewed together give the immediate 432 CUBA environs of Holguin an arid, unfertile appearance; the city itself has the dry and barren look of a Mexican pueblo. The truth is, however, that beyond the skirts of the hills and the savannas over which their sand and gravel have leached, the neighboring lands are rich and most prolific. The region around about the present city of Holguin was not settled until almost two hundred years after the Conquest of Cuba in 1511-1512, though its lands were early parceled out in great circles (hatos) among stockmen whose ranch houses at the centers of their respective grants were long the only visible signs of Europeans' residence in the territory. In 1698 there was a hermitage at Hato de Managuaco, some leagues north of the present site of Holguin. This hermitage was moved, in 1700, by Bishop Compostela to Hato de las Guasimas, and again, in 1720, it was moved to Hato de Holguin. In going it but followed after its parish- ioners, who had already been attracted thither by the more fertile lands there. From their establishment on the banks of the Holguin or Maranon River developed the city of Holguin as it is to-day. The parish church, founded on its present site in 1720, as mentioned, was rebuilt in 1730 and finished in 1800 as it stands now. In 1726 Holguin consisted of sixty houses of palm boards and thatch. At present it has a population of JZ522-,at home in commodious dwellings, some of which are furnished beautifully. They stand along streets of which the main avenues are in good repair ; the byways are full of cobbles, once placed in fancy patterns as pavement. Thanks in part to the absorbent nature of the soil on which they are laid, the streets are unusually clean. There are good stores, and they do a lively business with country residents whose undersized nags COLONIES OF ORIENT E 433 are tied, in the morning, by dozens, along the curb. When one asks what really supports all this very evi- dent activity and well-being, one touches upon mystery. Even its residents can hardly explain why Holguin exists, especially in its particular location. In the beginning the district around about was a - ca ttle c ountry ; not until the commencement of the eighteenth century, however, did even that industry attain importance. It is still the leading interest of residents in this region. Early, too, owners of lands near Holguin, and in the wide and shallow valley at the head of which it stands, grew sugar cane. Remnants of their primitive mills exist, in evidence of their industry. Coffee was exported, along with sugar. Nowadays the principal exports are bananas, which are sent out by rail; honey, most of which goes to Hamburg; pine- apples ; and, above all things, sugar, if the great planta- _. tion of Chaparra, which is reached via Holguin, but ships fronPEEeliorth coast port of Puerto Padre, be considered to lie within the region under consideration. Chaparra is the largest sugar mill in the world, but I do not see that it contributes to the neighborhood of Holguin. Tobacco_is grown all about here, but in quantities which do not exceed the local demand. It is very heavy quality. Formerly, the exportation of native woods (mahogany and cedar) was an important source of revenue to Holguin ; some woods so hard they are of little service are left, but the best of the forest products have been removed. Hard pine is now im- ported ; in this business and in the sawmill in operation in the town, Americans are engaged. Near Holguin ar& the only gold mines in operation in Cuba. The Indians whom its Spanish conquerors found in possession of the island of Cuba had knowledge of gold ; 2f 434 CUBA they knew where it was to be found and how to wash it from the sand of streams. They also knew how to shape it into ornaments for personal adornment which were called guanines; what few of these trinkets they had, however, were not comparable either in workmanship or value to those treasures Cortes, Pizarro, and their followers wrested from the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. What crude ornaments they did possess, made of or at least decorated with gold, they do not appear themselves to have prized more highly than the polished pebbles they strung, beadlike, around their necks. It is not likely that the aboriginal Cubans ever made of their own accord any extensive excavations to unearth gold ; it had for them no extraordinary value until the Spaniards gave it such by their relentless de- mands for nuggets and dust. Their desire for the yellow metal undoubtedly puzzled the Indians. Las Casas gives what purports to be an address, in this connection, delivered by the famous chief Hatuey to the aborigines of Oriente. ^'More Cuban than Hatuey himself is a stock phrase applied in the Spanish spoken here to a person whose love of this island is very much in evidence ; especially is it said of foreigners when they take to championing Cuba and her institutions with an ardor not equaled by natives, the reference being to the fact that the Indian chief named was not born in Cuba, but in the neighboring island of Hayti. He crossed the narrow straits, how- ever, and was a leader in the region about Point Maysi when the Spaniards under Velazquez invaded. In his own land Hatuey had already experienced the manners and methods of the Christians, and he warned the Cubans that their coming meant slavery and death. He assembled the Indians of Oriente, and, according to Las COLONIES OF ORIENTS 435 Casas, recalled to their minds the persecutions the Spaniards had inflicted upon the natives of Hayti, saying: ^^You know how these Christians have re- mained among us, taking to themselves our lands, our sovereignty, our persons, our women and children, murdering our fathers, brothers, other relatives and neighbors ; they killed this king and that lord of such and such a province ; they destroyed utterly the sub- jects and vassals these had, and if we who are here had not fled from our land into this one, we, too, must have perished at their hands. Do you know why they persecute us so, — to what end they do it?^^ All answered: ^^ Because they are cruel and evil/' But Hatuey said: '^I will tell you why, — it is because they have a great god whom they fondly love, and him I show you now/' He uncovered a little basket of palm he had (called in their language haba, sl name which has endured to this day), and it was full or partly full of gold. ^^ Behold here their god whom they serve and love well, for whom they look. To obtain this god of theirs they afflict us, persecute us. For this they have slain our fathers and brothers, with all our kindred and kind. For this they have confiscated all our goods, and for this they seek us out and mistreat us ; and in search of this they come to ' Cuba now, for they are always looking for this master of theirs. To find him they will wear us out in hard work as they have done the people of my native land. Wherefore, let us make a feast and dance before this great god, so that when the Spaniards come he may tell them to do us no harm.'' All thought that it was well to honor the idol, so they began to dance and sing, and continued all night from twilight till dawn, until all were tired out. After they had shown this honor 436 CUBA to the little basket of gold, and were wearied, Hatuey again addressed them, saying: ^^Look, after what I have told you let us not keep this god of the Christians in any place, because though we hide it in our vitals they will have it out ; therefore let us throw it into this river, into the water, so that they may not know where it is.'' So they did, throwing, sinking the gold in the stream. ^^All this was afterward told by the Indians and reported among us,'' Las Casas concludes. Early in the course of the conquest of Cuba Hatuey was burned at the stake on the charge of resisting the Spanish. His death is said to have quieted the far east of the island. That very year, in a note concerning a shipment of gold sent to Spain from the City of Santo ^omiogo, it is stated that the consignment comprised a certain quantity from Cuba, — necessarily from east- ern Oriente, since this was all of Cuba the Spanish as yet controlled. In 1514 Diego Velazquez wrote that he had visited the gold districts of the Province of Guanabaya (wherever that may have been), and that he had also obtained gold which had been gathered by the Indians from certain rivers, particularly in the neighborhood of Jagua (Cienfuegos). The sands of the Arimao were said to abound in the precious metal. Velazquez reported in all eight places in Cuba where gold occurred ^4n large quantities." Between the years 1515 and 1534, accord- ing to records in existence, many consignments were made from Cuba to the mother country, the aggregate value being about 260,000 pesos, Cuba's gold seemsLto have been considered of superior quality as compared with that being sent during this same period from Hayti, and, possibly, from Puerto Rico and from Jamaica as well. In fluajitity, however, COLONIES OF OEIENTE 437 it was evidently not sufficient to hold interest when news arrived of Cortes^ exploits in the treasure land he had found. In the years following his departure for the Conquest of Mexico, in 1518, Cuba lost the most adven- turous and avaricious of her newly acquired population : they departed pell-mell for the mainland. From the era of their going until very recent date accurate infor- mation concerning gold in Cuba is difficult to obtain. Yet the mines of the island were worked. Operations extended to Camaguey and to Santa Clara. ^^In 1534 the governor of the island reported to the empress during the reign of Charles V that he had visited gold mines in the Province of Puerto Principe (Camaguey) which had been of considerable value in times past.'' In 1868 Manuel Fernandez de Castro, Cuba's foremost geologist, made a report on the gold mines of Santa Clara Province, especially those in the vicinity of Gua- racabuUa. Denouncements have been made as far west as Mantua in Vuelta Abajo. The far-eastern province, however, forged ahead. Eventually Oriente, and, in Oriente, the Holguin district, obtained recognition as the "t f" <^^ principal, if not the sole, gold-mining region of Cuba. ^ Tlining claims have been denounced in numbers all through the neighborhood, yet, excepting the Santiago mine, nothing save some prospecting and a little prelimi- nary work had been done, when I was there last fall, in the way of development of these claims. The com- pany then operating the Santiago mine had put in about $156,000 worth of improvements, which consist of waterworks, amalgamating and concentrating plant, sawmill for preparing mine timbers, office and residence buildings. The amalgamating and concentrating plant, installed then over two years, is small (thirty-one tons) and although run at a loss due to poor extraction 488 CUBA obtained had produced during the time it had been in operation $89,685.50 worth of gold. Sixty men, Span- iards, were then employed at the works. The actual diggings consisted of six thousand feet of gallery ; the greatest depth was two hundred and thirty-five feet below the surface. Mr. W. G. Grey, then resident manager, stated to me, the day I rode out to the mine from Holguin, that when he began work on the Santiago he found on the place extensive old diggings, filled in and overgrown with tropical vegetation. The last work previous to his own was done by a Frenchman, M. Guillien, who employed slave labor on the mines for ten years prior to 1887. The first work may well have been done by the aborigines themselves, for their Spanish masters ; that they appreciated the locality is evident in the name, Sucunucun, they bestowed upon it, mean- ing ''River of Gold.'' All the workings Mr. Grey found were shallow : below a certain depth the water encountered was too severe a problem for his predeces- sors. The fact that rich ore has been found just below the level of the old diggings indicates that it was not for lack of gold in the vein that they were not pushed deeper. The Mejor Mine and the Casualidad adjoin the Santiago claim. The country around about these mines, and especially that lying between them and Holguin itself, seems very barren. The hills north of that city and the ridges extending to the mines, are nude of trees ; grass grows scant over their pebbly, discolored soil. Only immedi- ately along the water courses is there generous growth. On the contrary, the country out towards Aguas Claras is cloaked under vegetation. We made into it a wonderful ride, fifteen miles or so, due north from Pedernales. What seemed to be merely a bridle path, COLONIES OF ORIENTE 439 across the gravelly skirts of hills and hardly more desir- able savanna, became a well-graded road over a ridge from which we descended into fertile and cultivated country, — that is, as country goes in Cuba, — for there were patches of sugar cane, corn, and plantains flourishing wherever man had taken time and trouble to plant a crop. We rode among abrupt and irregular hills, following now trails and now roads, by rather pros- perous places and through wilderness, sighting once or twice the ruins of blockhouses, by way of which, in war times, conmaunication was maintained between Holguin and its port, that same Gibara I have previously de- scribed. At a point about midway between these towns we came upon the camp established by a Mr. James Allan, experienced on the Rand, who has denounced here certain claims he considers similar in formation (banket reefs) and in quality to the best of the renowned Transvaal. He has interested a London firm, a representative of which is now boring. Here, too, Mr. Allan found old workings, but natives of the vicinity have no recollection as to who made them, or what (gold, copper, or iron) they sought. Those who know Cuba best flout the idea that there can be here gold veins or deposits of any great value. Ten years ago they laughed, in similar tone, at mention QLiron,in quantity or quality to count ; yeLtorday Cuba is a very large factor in all calculations concerning the world's supply of this necessary metal. The history of her great deposits, long known, as the fact that there is gold at Holguin has been known, and long contemp- tuously overlooked, as gold claims there have been, ought to make skeptics a little more reticent than they are. I spent pleasant days among the Canadian and Amer- ican settlers in the vicinity of Holguin. I made my 440 CUBA home, for a time, with Mr. and Mrs. Angus Campbell at Guirabo. Their house stands just where, some three miles south of the town, the savanna lands give way to fertile country covered with the forest, growth indicative of good soil. Upon it bamboos, mangoes, and mamoncillo trees cast grateful shade ; there is a little stream close by and a spring which supplies sweet pure water. Mr. Campbell is the resident manager for a company which owns 210 acres of land, of which 70 acres are set to citrus fruits. Beyond Guirabo are the settlers who constitute the colony of Pedernales. They are, in the majority, Canadians who bought of a com- pany that placed this land upon the market eight years ago. They are engaged primarily in citrus fruit cul- ture, but have lately of necessity turned their attention also to plantains, corn, and especially to hog raising. They are a pleasant community of hard-working people. Their homes are all humble ; with two exceptions they are ^^ shacks'' (bohios), into which, however, comforts have been introduced according the the taste and indus- try of the occupants. There are ^^ shacks'' with dirt floors ; there are also other ^^ shacks " in which good fur- niture is not out of its proper setting. In one of these I saw a piano, and here from the sideboard, dustless and dainty with embroidered doilies, delicious orange wine was served us by the frail and faithful hands that made it. Pedernales is struggling forward against disad- vantages. At first, against lack of transportation facilities, later supplied by the railroad which, building into Holguin in 1906, has placed these groves in com- munication with Antilla (port of export) via Cacocum. Later, against tragic misfortune, — the local head of the colonization company was murdered, and his death so paralyzed the company in which he was an active part- COLONIES OF OEIENTE 441 ner that it has done nothing for the colony since. Next, against errors in selection of varieties of fruit to grow. Shipments made demonstrate that it is hardly profitable to export either oranges or lemons, which together are more than 50 per cent of the groves as set ; returns on the grape fruit are, on the other hand, satisfactory, espe- cially when it is sent to Canada. And, finally, against the very virtues of the soil on which they are located : it produces unwelcome vegetation and insect pests in proportion to its own good qualities. These difficulties the settlers master by dint of unwearying and unin- terrupted hard work. Under adversity their own sterling characteristics have developed ; in no colony in Cuba have individuals and the aggregate seemed to me to average higher than here. Yetitwas atTedernales I saw what I remember as the saddest sight I Ve found in any colony, — not forgetting, either, the solitary women IVe come upon here and there, battling alone ; nor the men, some of whom have provided well, whose wives will not remain with them in Cuba ; nor the houses with children in them where I suspected there was hunger too ; nor yet those others where there was fault-finding, bickering, and mutual recriminations in families breaking under strain. It began to rain as we arrived before the house we were to visit, and my entrance there was abrupt, for I dis- mounted and ran to avoid a drenching. It was a native- built hut, — with thatched roof and walls, and a dirt floor laid, it seems to me, in part with flat stones. There were some pieces of American furniture, disabled and weather-worn. At one end was a cook stove, littered, like a table near it, with dirty pots and pans. As I sat watching, a dog thrust his muzzle into a kettle rolling upon the floor, and hcked it hungrily. I do not 442 CUBA recall other details of the interior of that ^ ' shack ^^ except to remember that inground dirt and despairing disorder were everywhere. The woman who resides there wore a thin white shirt waist, and her undergar- ments beneath it had slipped low, leaving handsome bust and rounded arms exposed through the muslin and its openwork. She was uncorseted, and embar- rassed because of it. She apologized for receiving us in the kitchen ; it was also the dining room, and a stretcher cot leaned, folded, against one wall. She explained that since her husband removed the lean-to kitchen of ^Hhe other house,^^ they had really lived here. ^^The other house'' was a small residence, erected near by on the usual American plan ; it appeared to be closed up, and its abandonment seemed to me symbolical. He had used the lumber of the demolished kitchen to build a cockpit, even before chicken fighting was allowed by law ; admission to the ring was charged, and he prof- ited by that, and, probably, also by the betting. He had not, as he promised, ever added another kitchen to ^Hhe other house.'' He had, however, recently erected a ^^baile house." It was a planed plank floor, with a thatched roof held above it on uprights ; there were no walls, but from the supporting posts dried palm leaves bent, supplying decoration and a satisfying sug- gestion of walls. Here public dances were held. Na- tives who were not welcomed to particular clubs in Holguin, and the country people, patronized it. Ameri- can and Canadian neighbors who had come also at first were falling off, — especially the women among them. At the dances the men paid admission. There was, by way of music, an accordion sometimes ; or the men whistled and clapped tunes and time. There was a bar, and her husband sold beer and soft drinks. He COLONIES OF OEIENTE 443 had once had crops planted, but these he abandoned. They were tired, she said, of getting up early and work- ing long and hard for little or no return. ^^And so,'' she concluded, with an upward lift of her head and a bright defiance in her full clear eyes, ^^we have decided to have just a good, good time.'' She held a chubby baby girl in her arms as she said it. At this moment her eldest, a slim active mis3 of seven or eight, ran in and stood regarding me, squeezing the mud on the floor by the door through her bare brown toes. The dog, licking the kettle, attracted her attention to him- self with an extra loud lap, and she chased him and the chickens out into the rain, with a shout. Some- thing of the mother's bravado vanished as she looked from the little girl to me : ' ' We want to send her home^ ' ' she said, almost brokenly, ^^home — to school." V^^^^^ Whenever I hear Cubans declaim concerning all the profits we ^^of the North" have had of Cuba, there arises before my eyes a picture, and I know that we have paid for what we got and must continue to pay for what we get, in exchange dearer to us than minted gold. I see that woman at Pedernales, half-clad, unshod, — in the very beauty and prime of mother- hood, — clasping her baby to her breast as she an- nounced her solution of problems beyond her strength. I know that when her husband bought his one hundred acres she shared his hopes ; when he planted his crops she labored with him. When he abandoned these, she accepted his decision. With a lantern at night she has looked for him, and lifted him from the ditch where he had fallen on his way back from town. When a friend trusted him with a supply of beer and coca-cola to sell at his ^^baile house," she drank with him as he drank, and helped sell what was left over the bar. 444 CUBA Circumstances were deaf to her protests, unmoved by her struggles; they ground her down and she ceased to resist. She held one baby to her heart, and prayed, for the other one, far and lasting separation from what she must accept, in her dirt and desolation, — ^'just a good, good time/' In contrast, it is near Holguin that I have on two occasions visited in the home which seems to me the thriftiest of all I know. It, too, is a bohio, the heavy supporting posts and roof poles of which were put in place perhaps fifty years ago : they are hard wood and bound where they belong with withes, more lasting than nails. The thatch is of palm leaves, and it is cool, serviceable, and picturesque. Perhaps it does shelter rats, for there are times when the spotless pussy cat sits upon the rafters and gazes longingly upward into the leaves where the slightest rustling sounds. Mr. Towns put in his own walls and floor and parti- tions of board. Inside, Mrs. Towns and her mother have done the rest. No listing of details can give the general impression of that home, which all who have entered into it cherish long in their recollection. There is cut glass on the improvised sideboard, and it gleams in the soft light of the lamp. There are books and periodicals from three quarters of the globe (Ameri- can, English, and French) on the shelves and upon the tables. There are easy chairs. The kitchen is a triumph ! The stove is oil cans with charcoal braziers fitted into their upper ends. The cupboards are swing- ing boxes. Kitchen utensils hang, each in its place, upon the walls, or they lie in proper order upon shelves. The whole establishment has the air of fitting the lives of cultured and industrious people. There is nothing useless under that roof. Twice I have arrived there COLONIES OF ORIENTE 445 as a shipwrecked sailor arrives on land or a lost desert traveler stumbles into an oasis, — exhausted and sick, hot and hungry. Recalling my reception I can't say which revived me quickest, — the bouquet of roses upon the dining table, or the generous dish of fried peanuts (served at dinner like a delicious vegetable), the hot bath, in a tremendous wash pan, poured for me in the bedroom, or the gentle faces and neat attire of the two ladies who make that lonely spot ''sweet home,'' especially to a son who has gone out of it, to a col- lege in ''the States." Outside, Mr. Towns' handiwork blooms in the garden, which is an experimental plot. He is by calling a nurseryman, and in his yard speci- mens of ornamentals, creepers, flowering shrubs, and plants of every variety thrive, in a glorious riot of perfume and color. Up the road is the nursery proper of citrus fruit trees. There are thirty-two acres of orchard, three fourths of which is grape fruit. I have lately heard that he plans to remove his home and his business from Mayabe to a place better situated with regard to transportation. At present he ships from Gibara, which is thirty miles distant on the north sea shore. I cannot imagine Mayabe deserted, or in the hands of other owners. In my memory the pink coralillo creeper will always swing, just so, in the wind from the arbor beside the door which shelters the filter and the earthen tinajon (water jar), and, at night, I see the house in moonlight so clear one can still dis- tinguish the particular bright colors of the garden flowers, and all the markings of the house cat, dancing up and down the brick path to the outbuildings, quite alone except for his shadow which frolicked with him like a spirited partner in his joyous antics while I watched. 446 CUBA At Paso Estancia it is, I think, the traveler along the railroad line obtains his first view of the Cauto, largest _^ river in all Cuba. It takes its rise far to the east and \ south of this country, but here bends to the westward, following the long length of its marvelous valley, even to the shores of the Gulf of Guacanayabo, indenting the southern coast of the islajid as part, really, of the Carib- bean Sea. This Cauto country, south of the present main line, is the region the Cuba Railroad^s new extension is just opening up to further settlement. The company has almost completed construction of road leaving the present trunk line at Marti, in Camaguey Province, for the renowned old city of Bayamo, thence continu- ing via Baire to Palma Soriano, which is already con- nected with the trunk line again at San Luis, and there- fore with Santiago de Cuba, twenty miles beyond this junction. The new road between Bayamo and its port, Manzanillo, part of the general extension, is already in operation. There is no question in the minds of those who know the island but what all this district, now for the first time made easy of approach, is the very richest within the confines of Cuba. Earliest Spanish colonists appreciated it, and Bayamo was among their seven original settlements. It lies in the Bayamo Valley, on lands which are fertile, watered by clear streams pouring off the Sierra Maestra, well drained, and now supplied with the one advan- tage, lack of which has heretofore prevented proper exploitation by capital and industry employing modern methods : that is, means of communication with the rest of Cuba and the world outside. Under the recent American Provisional Administration of the Republic it was decided to furnish the region with its first wagon Photograpn by American Photo company Bayamo-Manzanillo Highway The Old Bridge, photographed Nov. 20, 1907 Photograph by American Photo Company Bayamo-Manzanillo Highway The New Bridge, photographed Dec. 29, 1908 Flioioiimpk bu Aiittruaic I'huio ( u/npany Hand-shaped Timbers of Valuable Hardwoods used for Bridge- COLONIES OF ORIENTE ' 447 road, that one which was at least partially built between Manzanillo and Bayamo (before complications halted the good work) by an American contractor through a district where cart roads, consisting of a succession of bog holes, had been notorious for centuries as the very worst to be encountered between Maysi and San Anton'. They were impassable in the rainy season even for oxcarts dragged by a dozen yokes; both vehicles and animals have sunk beyond extrication there, in the mire. There were places on flat lands near the coast where the roadmakers had to lay foundations for • their gravel highway. Bayamo (present population, 4102) was, prior to the Ten Years' War, reckoned the richest city in Cuba. It bore the brunt of that fierce struggle, in the course of which many of its patriotic people wrecked their for- tunes, sometimes destroying their own plantations and homesteads rather than permit the Spanish to occupy them. Not even in peace after the inauguration of the republic did it revive to any degree, until the com- mencement of actual work on the railroad. The open- ing of the line between the city and Manzanillo has given further impetus to development and prosperity, which, because of the natural advantages with which it is endowed, cannot do less than restore the town, and all its jurisdiction, to the important place it formerly occupied. Beyond Bayamo, on the way to Palma Soriano, the railway passes through Baire, like Bayamo renowned for valor, since here in 1895 began the revolution against Spain that culminated in American interference and the present state of affairs. Baire is in the Contra- maestre Valley. This valley, — beautified with palm trees, its water courses feathered with wild bamboo, 448 CUBA ridged with minor hills on slopes of which hang fields of corn, coffee, cacao, yuca, and plantains, — is in- closed by towering mountains which furnish it with never-failing streams, and add, as well, a final touch of grandeur to enhance the delicate loveliness of its details. In these same mountains there are mineral deposits (manganese, iron, and, probably, copper). The Palma Soriano district is famous for its coffee. The plantations are primitive in their arrangement and cultivation ; every process observed until the prod- uct is brought to town for its first sale is antiquated. Yet profits satisfy native growers, — especially those who have large families, each member of which, to the smallest, can assist in the work. Cacao is grown hap- hazard among the coffee trees. According to prevail- ing prices the grower favors now one and now the other. Corn produces regularly its two crops a year ; they plant the rows wide apart so that as one crop matures the other may have room to arise in the open spaces. The vicinity exports starch, produced from yuca on little estates by aboriginal methods. We were a day or so in Palma Soriano, and no town in Cuba has seemed to me more hopeless, more horrible. The streets were alleys of mud. We were hurtled through them in a hotel carryall after sore-backed and suffering horses, beaten by an unintelligent native driver, who, when we asked him if it would not be good business policy to cure the animals and feed them so they might live longer, laid on a few extra whacks and said he thought it cheaper to use ^em up and get others. The people in the huts on the outskirts of the town lived in a manner Digger Indians would improve upon. The hotel was to us appalling, though we appre- ciated the owner's willingness to do his best for us and I'hohxirnpli hij Anil riaiii Photo ( 'ompony Primitive Coffee Mill Mortar hewn from a solid hardwood log ; pestle a hardwood pole tl COLONIES OF ORIENTE 449 make us comfortable as he could. We learned that there was an American missionary in the town, and we found her on an errand in a dry goods store. We asked her to give us accommodations. Her welcome was far from cordial. She assured us she was not running either a boarding or a lodging house, in her little home, on a road leading out of town. My mother retreated in dismay at her attitude, but I, cheered on by the aspect of the quarters in which we must sleep unless I suc- ceeded, determined to compel a thaw, and did manage to break the ice. We were, although it crowded Miss Purdy and the half-sick woman and two children she had already accommodated, given cots in the best room of her incompletely furnished house, and placed at her clean table, upon which everything served was the best available. Before we left we came to hold that noble woman in sincere esteem, despite the fact that we could not sympathize with her efforts to save the souls of the natives of Palma Soriano. We went so far as to ad- vise her to teach them, instead, if she could, to wash their bodies and feed their young ; it was our impres- sion that, this done, what souls they may have could be relied upon to take care of themselves. When we saw that she took our remarks as mockery we ceased to make them. Perhaps the Judge above sees it other- wise, but I declare that it seemed to me the comfort and happiness of this one woman would outweigh in fair scales the fate, both here and hereafter, of that entire community to which, cheerfully, she made their sacrifice. From Palma Soriano, in company with a Mr. Rol- ston, detailed, to his very evident embarrassment, to be my escort, I rode out for some fifteen miles over the railroad work. I saw where grading was already com- 2g 450 CUBA plete, and where it was in progress. I saw gangs of stout Gallegos (Galicians) laboring their best, and learned that they work on contract, which inspires them to keep at it from daybreak to dark, and late into moon- light nights. I saw groups of Jamaican negroes toiling to equal their pace, and I thought, later, when I met the Norwegian engineer in charge of all this, how odd his intensely blue eyes, ruddy skin, and fair hair — especially if set off, as they were when I saw him, by white linen and a green-lined helmet — must look to all his swarthy, sweating crew. No ^^ foreign devil'' could offer greater contrast to a Chinaman than he to them. We saw a protesting mule jerked down a twenty-foot embankment because an unskilled driver backed him too far with a loaded cart ; we observed how he arose from between the broken shafts of the cart and the loosened harness, shook himself free of the debris and dirt, and stood frowning upon the man who had occa- sioned his discomfiture. Beyond the scene of his mishap there was no grading. In the clearing in the forest ahead which marked the right-o'-way one man was digging post holes and others were shaping ties. We plunged into the uncut jungle beyond even this, and, after some miles' riding in delightful wilderness, came upon American surveyors and their party. They were at the moment squeezing the good out of a native bee's nest they had found in a hollow log. The honey was thin and dirty, as it ran from the comb into a bottle we held for our share ; at luncheon we found its flavor wild, and, to me, the more inviting because of the tang. The bees buzzed unhappily about their ruined nest, helpless to defend it, because Cuban bees have no sting ! We found a camp by noontime, — a cluster of three COLONIES OF ORIENTE 451 or four tents, in one of which an American woman (the wife of one of the men we had passed) made her- self and a bouncing baby daughter comfortable as though she were picnicking. We had a good dinner in the mess tent, and returned to town by a road which led us through native settlements, by pastures and some small cultivated fields, along a high ridge which over- looked a country beautiful beyond any words to tell. I saw it that afternoon in sunshine, and then dimly, through driving rain ; and again, refreshed, as the clouds passed by, drifting over the lowlands and up the distant mountain slopes in wreaths and streamers of mist. Toward sunset we descended to the bed of the purling Cauto again, trickling at that season among the rocks of the bottom it shows at lowest water. But that very day the men at work on a great cement bridge they were throwing up with the quickness of magic, to span it, had removed all their machines and materials to the topmost bank, in anticipation of a flood. When I inquired why they strung a bridge at such a seemingly needless height as that one (grade ninety-six feet above low water), they told me how in the rainy season this river becomes a raging torrent (as the nature of its banks indicates), down which whole trees are hurled singly and in jams. They told me, too, of the famous ^Hwenty years' high water, ^' and how carefully the bridges and culverts and all the new rail- road tracks are being prepared to withstand even that. It is the Cauto and its moods which constitute the only drawBacks 1 could discover to the settlement of Paso Estancia on the main line. There is as yet no station here, and it was to a grass-grown platform that I dropped from the train in front of a native hut or so, before one of which, however, there stood to welcome ^H. 452 CUBA me an American girl with her own horse and one for me. When the train had gone, we followed the road to the river and forded readily, climbing again from its deep bed to the grove and the plantation house on the hill upon the other side. The history of Paso Estancia, as well as its present, is instructive. The company which owns this land bought it in 1903, and thought that it had at the same time acquired land across the river. This land, north of the Cauto, was lost in some manner or other in the course of a later lawsuit, over titles, I believe, which did not, however, impair the company's possession of the tract south of the river. It did, nevertheless, prevent the platting and development of a town imme- diately about the railroad station, as had been intended. Various plans have been entertained from time to time concerning the development of the tract. It was in- tended originally to fetch families from Germany to colonize it ; only the stringent anti-emigration laws en- forced in that empire prevented success. It was later proposed to establish a sweet corn canning factory here ; it was discovered opportunely that sweet corn cannot be grown in Cuba. Finally, the company determined to experiment and to demonstrate to its own satisfaction exactly what can be accomplished under conditions pre- vailing at Paso Estancia before urging anybody else to invest. Accordingly, in 1905, one hundred fifty citrus fruit trees were set out on a pleasant hillside, in the townsite laid out, after the loss of the northern tract, on the south bank of the Cauto opposite the railway sta- tion. These trees were fifteen different varieties. Later, one hundred fifty more trees were purchased and planted. From that time on the company propagated its own nursery, extending the grove at reduced cost, COLONIES OF ORIENTE 453 until now it covers forty-five acres, of which seven or eight are grape fruit, three or four are lemons, and the rest, oranges of many kinds. The grove was set in unplowed land, — the underbush had been macheted out, the trees felled, and the whole burned over. The ground was staked off and the trees dropped into the holes prepared. Cultivation followed later. No irri- gation was found necessary, nor has any fertilizer been applied. I found the older section of the grove in bearing. The grape fruit trees were bent under their burdens of smooth-skinned, luscious clusters. The navels had attained exceptional size. Color, flavor, and texture of all the fruit was good. I sat under the tawny tangerine trees and ate my fill in blissful appre- ciation of the fact that the company is assuredly justi- fied, now, in selling land similar to this as fruit land. Profiting by general experience elsewhere, settlers in planting have preferred grape fruit, setting only enough orange and lemon trees for their own supply. There were about seventy-three acres out when I was there, last fall ; I presume there are as many more planted by now. The settlers were, then, about forty in number. In nationality, they were Americans, Canadians, and English. They were for the most part inexperienced in either agriculture or horticulture, but full of enthu- siasm at their prospects. They had made clearings in the thick virgin forest and located their little homes, — zinc-roofed frames, usually, — on hillsides, con- veniently near running streams from which they carried their own water supply. They were notably free from insect pests; it was, I know, the dry and therefore the best season when I was there, but even so I was surprised to find mosquitoes, for instance, 454 CUBA scarce even in close proximity to the woods I had found, in the rainy season, to shelter them in swarms. As secondary to citrus fruits I found that these people plan to raise vegetables, corn, chickens, coffee, cacao, cattle, hogs, native root crops and plantains. They have, in Mr. Kobler, an experienced adviser, — no dreamer, but a man appreciative of the advantage of catering to the immediate, home market while waiting for crops intended for the foreign market to mature. I found accommodations in Royal Palm Hotel atPaso ^siSincia^.a cement building erected at the very com- mencement of the colony from materials found in the Cauto River bottom. The rooms were plastered, well furnished, and the table set was far above the average, — naturally, — for, by advancing boldly into the kitchen and adjoining quarters, where I was not invited, I discovered that the cook works under close and com- petent supervision. The outlook from the hotel is beautiful. Immediately in front is the grove, a maze of flowers and fragrance at certain seasons ; an orchard of exquisite fruit soon after. Below this, is the Cauto, an opaque green, bending sharply just here so that it surrounds the place on three sides, and sends up from each direction a grateful, pleasant murmuring, in fair weather. Beyond the ford, on the other side of the river, is the long cleared stretch through which trains pass, whistling and panting from the woods, puffing forth clouds of smoke by day and pillars of fire by night, always noisy and important, incongruous details in the picture they invade. Across the river to the right is thick unconquered forest, peopled with white- boled trees of countless varieties, hung with long, snake- like roots and tendrils of vines, prickly with aeroids at every crotch. Through these only bridle paths COLONIES OF ORIENTE 455 lead, between clearings, like the one I noticed where, on the very edge of the treacherous stream, an adven- turous veguero was tempting up a crop of tobacco. Nature never made a lovelier country than this. Prob- able it seemed all the fairer to me because, while I looked it over, I was comfortable, — well housed, well fed, and well mounted. The hotel at Paso Estancia is, in fact, hardly a hotel at all ; it is, rather, the mana- ger's residence, where transients may be accommodated and colonists are received until they can settle them- selves in their own places. It is by no means a tourist resort, but, were any real friend of mine to ask me where he and his wife and the baby might go, into country Cuba, and enjoy themselves, I would be able to think of no other place of the very many I have visited that I could honestly recommend to persons at all unwilling to withstand discomfort. I should there- fore suggest to my friend that by hook or crook he obtain admittance to this cool and spacious concrete building upon the hill at Paso Estancia. I can imag- ine no better spot in which to make a tropical holiday. Back from it there is a road, and this on horseback we followed on a round of the estates of settlers, and be- yond them we rode to certain native fincas cultivated by Cuban squatters. Here we found the Perez home- stead occupied by the Perez clan, who there grow coffee, cacao, tobacco, yuca, plantains, names, bananas, and many other things the identity of which I have for- gotten, on a plot of soil about the group of bohios which is their home. They have, also, some seedling orange trees, about ten years old, which, despite lack of cul- tivation, are bearing a fruit we found delicious in the samples we pulled as we rode by. In the forest there, too, I gathered limes, — large and smooth and yellow, 456 • CUBA — as fine in their native state as any to be found on the fancy market of the North. The next station south and east of Paso Estancia is Bayate. Here, now, is a colony which is adapting itself to Cuba instead of endeavoring, as others do, to adapt Cuba to imported notions of what this country ought to be. Situated in the heart of what is, by very many, considered the best cane province in the republic, its settlers have, logically, determined to make the grow- ing of sugar can e their principal occupation. They . had, when I was there, four hundred and seventy-three acres planted. They found their market for it at Auza mill, twelve miles down the railroad, which paid them 62 per cent in sugar on weight delivered there. They are not entirely dependent on Auza; there are other mills within reach. The skeleton of a new mill is up at Palmarito, close at hand, and it is the in- tention ultimately to convert all this country into cane fields to feed it. There is a hotel at Bayate, built of cedar and mahog- any, with a pleasant veranda all around it ; it is painted on the outside to preserve it from the weather and adequately furnished on the inside for the accommoda- tion of guests. There is a schoolhouse, the property of the settlers ; it is also used for a church if a pastor happens to call. For jbhe^ school the Cuban govern- ment provides two teachers, one a young Cuban woman who teaches in Spanish, and the other a colonist who conducts brief classes in English. Originally there were a good many Cuban youngsters in attendance, but they have dropped out, until now but three or four appear regularly. The rest (from twenty to thirty-seven, according to the condition of the roads they must travel to arrive) are white-haired, rosy, blue-eyed COLONIES OF OBIENTE 457 Americans, who are rapidly acquiring Spanish in addi- tion to the Enghsh they chatter among themselves and the Swedish they talk at home. The settlers at Bayate are, with very few exceptions among the one hundred and eighty residents, Swedish-born American citizens. In their attitude towarcf the school I found the most striking difference between them and American- born emigrants to Cuba. They are willing that the school should be taught in Spanish, for, they argue, the children learn something, no matter in what lan- guage the instruction is conveyed ; moreover, inasmuch as their parents do not acquire Spanish as readily, it is convenient for the children to be able to act as inter- preters between them and their native neighbors. This is not at all the view taken, for instance, on the Isle of Pines, where the colonists insist upon all-Eng- lish schools (or at least on having Spanish taught about as a foreign language is taught in the public schools of the United States). I inquired whether or not there was danger that the school might not assist the pupils to become altogether too Cubanized. The man I asked denied it and laughed. Turning together we looked at the line of little tow-heads filing down the railroad track to town, for the noon meal, and I felt that he was right in the confidence his quick ^^Nay, nay !'' implied. I rode back and forth over Bayate, visiting outlying estates. I noted that many settlers own their own cows, and enjoy the milk, and that some of them are raising a few head of cattle. All have their chickens, and sell surplus eggs. Some, who live at a distance, among the hills, are trying coffee and cacao. I was struck particularly by the scarcity^of .draft animals on the place, — there were, if I counted correctly, but 458 CUBA three mules. They use Httle field equipment, the hoe being the implement of leading importance. ^I saw ■^ citrus trees, on a well-drained slope, doing well at Bayate. Their fruit was good, and would have been salable if shipped, but this has not persuaded the colony as a whole but what sugar cane is the crop by which to abide. It is the staple crop of this country of their second adoption, — it is to Cuba what wheat was to the northwestern United States, where they found it the best crop to undertake. In short, as once they adapted themselves to conditions in the sections of the United States to which they originally removed from Sweden, now they are adapting themselves to conditions as they find them in Cuba, whither they are attracted from that Northwest by the warm and welcoming climate here. Yet in this flexibility they do not surrender here, just as they did not surrender there, any of those stanch and homely virtues which are their priceless in- heritance from the Mother Land. The gaunt frame homes on the Cauto hills are clean and thrifty as their prototypes are, out on the Minnesota wheat farms. In the yards the bright-colored posies bloom, a flame of red and yellow against the porches. A red box border outlines the path from roadway to door. The wash on the line, embroidery-trimmed petticoats, men's shirts, and wee pinafores, is blindingly white. And the blond children who troop down the railroad track to school are becomingly clad in starched and well- ironed garments ; gay ribbons tie the girls' tight braids, and the round freckled faces of the boys are sufficiently scrubbed. In brief, even in the tropics, where the outcome shows in less than a generation how fatal failure is, the Swedes are proving admirable colonizers, 4^ yielding~to'conditions where it is wisdom to yield, and COLONIES OF ORIENTE 459 maintaining a stolid front of opposition against other conditions which they will, in their own silent fashion, overcome. All the land of the Bayate tract is, with the excep- tion of a few forties and, perhaps, some distant parcels, sold ; therefore the colony which backed it has trans- ferred its attention to Palmarito de Cauto, the next stop on the main line to the southeast. The name means ^^ Little Palm Grove,'^ and refers, plainly, to the royal palms, — accepted evidence of fertility, — which embellish the scenery in every direction. They stand, tall and graceful, amid cane fields which are the promise of a sugar central here, some day. Six hundred acres are already planted. There are, as yet, few settlers, for the title to this tract has only just been finally cleared. The town of Palmarito is itself a squatters^ settle- ment, lacking all right to exist, but existing sturdily just the same, to the extent of thirty houses or there- abouts, of frame, composition and concrete, built in two rows paralleling the railroad tracks, on both sides, at the point where the trains make their regular stops. There is, now, a post office, stores, a colony house which is the hotel, and a stock corral in lieu of a railway station. Scattered over the tract (it comprises 6000 acres) are the small country estates of other squatterSr most in- teresting among them being that of a Spaniard, Sr. D. Salvador Casanova, who took unto himself a cabal- leria (33 1 acres) in 1903. It was at that time unpopu- lated wildwood, and appealed the more to him on that account, for the war between Spain and Cuba was recent history, and he had been a member of the Span- ish Civil Guard, a body most hated by Cubans. To 460 CUBA escape indignities to which he was subjected because of his connection with that force, Casanova, his French wife, and their three small children ^^ went to the woods, '^ as he puts it, ^^ because in the wilderness is the source of all wealth.'^ They picked out land they liked, and settled upon it. They could not, had they attempted, have secured a title in those days. They have now under cultivation some twenty-three or twenty-four acres : the rest of their caballeria is pasture. All the land lies well within the town site the new company which holds valid title to it has platted ; the company will, I was told, out of consideration for Sr. Casa- nova's unfortunate, but by no means unusual, predica- ment, sell his own to him cheap. This Spaniard has planted coffee, cacao, plantains, bananas, beans, yucay names, malangas, and the borders of his walks are pineapples; there are orange, anon, guanabana, mango, and nispero trees, in bearing, on the place ; there are ever-blooming roses near the house in a tangled garden of gay-flowered shrubs and vines, as variegated in color as the plumage of the parrot on his ring by the open door. The whole estate is a maze in which only the experienced eye discovers economy and profitable combination. Thirteen acres of the coffee, planted, as usual, along with cacao and a scat- tering of other crops, are in bearing, and Casanova has found them profitable enough; he anticipates, how- ever, a better income from the cacao trees when these come into full maturity. Some miles, by way of a newly made road, beyond Casanova's place, we found the one hundred acres an American company has just cleared, hewing it in the shape of a great rectangle out of the woods that cover the one thousand they have bought. Here ten thou- COLONIES OF ORIENTE 461 sand grape fruit trees are set. On a hilltop overlooking this orchard, which is just well started, the Americans in charge have built their home. They are New Englanders, and one would know it by the simple cleverness with which out of corn they had not intended to grow at all they have made a good part of the expense of their grove, to date. Corn lands in eastern Cuba regularly produce two crops per annum; one is harvested about October and the other about March. It is, as I have said, not unusual to see two crops in the same field at one and the same time. Both are, however, infected even beforeJhey„are gathered with weevil, which abounds in this island wherever corn is grown. Its activity forces the Cuban countryman who has a crop to sell it at once, when every other grower is doing exactly the same thing ; that is, throwing his corn on the market, accepting in exchange whatever the nearest corner groceryman will give him in credit at the store for the corn, shelled, bagged, and delivered. The groceryman, in his turn, hustles it through to Santiago, to Antilla, or wherever he can dispose of it quickly, without demur at the low prices which prevail at this particular season. The minimum at the close of a crop, when all hands are busy selling to beat the weevil, is given in different points throughout eastern Cuba as 50, 60, and 70 cents a bushel, — the usual measure is not, however, a bushel, but the oil can, the bag, and the barrel, this latter containing on an average three bushels. Within a month after the crop is in, prices begin to rise. This brings forth the better corn, which, being freer from the weevil, keeps a few weeks without extraordinary care ; later appears the corn which has been stored in sealed tin cans, in large glass bottles, 462 CUBA and in closed bins. Nevertheless, before the second crop is in, prices soar. Corn not infrequently reaches $1.66 a bushel in Santiago de Cuba; on occasions it has sold at $2.33, though this latter is regarded as an exceptional price. Average prices in western Cuba are higher than they are in the east. Great importa- tions are made from abroad, especially from the Argen- tine, local production falling far short of meeting the persistent and imperative demand. To prevent the destruction of corn by the weevil is a comparatively easy task. Bisulphide of carbon destroys the insect with- out at all affecting the corn. Thi^ my friends the New Englanders at Palmarito discovered (perhaps on reading the United States Department of Agriculture's statements to that effect) without paying a few thou- sand dollars for the information, as a grain dealer in Havana is said to have done. They built a small double bin, and lined it with concrete. They exposed a pound of the liquid bisulphide to the air in each of these two bins before they dumped in corn, from the top ; they let another pound seep through the corn once it was in, and they had doors arranged in the bottom of the bins which enabled them to examine the corn from time to time, and to get it out in a hurry if they saw need to do so. When I was there last December, the corn had been in storage a couple of months, and, although it was damp when put away, showed no signs of fermentation. Prices had already more than doubled, but the New Englanders were sitting tight and waiting for more. I have traveled around Cuba a little, with my eyes wide open and notebook in hand, but I never saw any agricultural or horticultural venture into which I itched to turn the very few dollars I have saved from describing the money-making propositions of other COLONIES OF ORIENTE 463 people, until I set eyes upon this corn preservation project as demonstrated to be feasible at Palmarito. I even went so far as to make tentative inquiries here in Havana into the chance of getting backing for busi- ness in this line on the smallest scale profitable. The first man I approached assured me, though he has lived here for years, that no corn is grown in Cuba ; he was so in earnest that if I hadn^t ridden through field after field of it in Oriente he would have convinced me, perhaps. The second one I approached took the matter under advisement only to inform me with horror in face next day that bisulphide of carbon explodes. I lost patience, then, and have concluded that to promote a corn-preserving company entails more of an educational campaign than I am willing to attempt. The field is all the New Englanders' to date. From Palmarito it is thirty-one miles to Santiago de Cuba. One makes the run, eastward bound, in the night, and sees therefore, unless the moon be full, little of the scenery, which, especially from Dos Caminos on, is charming. From Cristo the train speeds down- grade through the only pass a railroad finds feasible. It winds among hills and skirts deep ravines, above little country estates and villas in gardens. In the darkness the passenger distinguishes twinkling lights, and, once, a chalet brilliantly illumined dazzles him unexpectedly. In the sky above, if it be cloudy, he notices a steady glow, reflection hanging over Santiago, into which the train coasts, downgrade to the very depot. CHAPTER XXII THE NIPE BAY DISTRICT No traveler in Cuba should fail to visit Nipe Bay. In Havana, Camaguey, Santiago, he sees the Cuba of yesterday, picturesque and hoary, persisting yet alongside the Cuba of to-day, busy and alert ; but at Nipe Bay he glimpses the Cuba of to-morrow, em- bodied in gigantic enterprises which spring up the instant capital touches with the magic wand of industry the prolific possibilities with which Nature has endowed eastern Cuba. — ^' Through the Land of Promise.'^ On the summit of the Piiiales Mountains (ahas the Nipe, ahas the Mayari Range) on the north shore of Oriente Province, at an altitude of 1900 feet above the level of the neighboring sea, there is an hotel, — The Pines, — from the veranda of which what few guests arrive there overlook a panorama the like of which is not elsewhere in Cuba, nor, probably, in all the world. The mountain ridge rises abruptly from flat lands about the Bay of Nipe. Therefore from its top the view is unobstructed over all that great, landlocked harbor, beyond it to Banes, and even further; the radius of vision is twenty-five or thirty miles. Within that radius, laid like a colored map spread for inspec- tion, one sees, in Central Boston, at Banes, the second largest sugar mill in Cuba, measured by output, sur- rounded by far-reaching fields of cane intended to feed its gormand crushers. One sees, in Antilla, hardly distinguishable, far to the left, the northern terminus 464 THE NIPE BAY DISTRICT 465 -^f the Cuba Railroad system, — a port which places all this region in communication with the rest of Cuba, just as Munson liners plying between its docks and New York, and tramp steamers which tie up there, arriving from everywhere, maintain its relations with the world at large. At the nearer edge of the bay, flat (as seen from that height) and crossed with fire lines till it resembles green checked gingham cloth, is Preston, the sister sugar estate to Boston; on a promontory projecting into the water is its mill, with a red-roofed town laid out in neat squares all about it. Its twenty- three thousand acres of cane cover the countryside, constituting, with the twenty-five thousand acres at Boston, the largest area of cane grown under adminis- tration in Cuba. Closer still, at the foot of the moun- tain range, is the old town of Mayari in its lovely valley, through which the meandering Mayari River comes down to Nipe Bay. The banks of this stream constitute one of the oldest, if not the very oldest, among tobacco- producing regions of Cuba. Vegueros here were growing a famous crop before Vuelta Aba jo had a name, or a government, or any legitimate trade or commerce. Vegueros still grow a famous crop in the little fields laid like patchwork along the water's edge ; it is sold especially to Germany. One observes that the town of Mayari is one long street, and this is far more attractive seen through distance than near at hand. In addition to tobacco, native farmers throughout this Mayari Valley grow corn and other indigenous crops. There are herds of cattle. There used to be two small sugar mills in the valley ; they elaborated between them about ten thousand arrobas of sugar per season, — a record to contemplate which causes the modern mills of Boston and Preston to shake with mirthful contempt from 2h 466 CUBA foundations to chimney tops. From The Pines one overlooks Saetia, the largest fruit plantation in the island ; the eye distinguishes between the dark green of its banana groves and the lighter green of interloping cane. Across a narrow stretch of water from Saetia, to the right, as one looks down upon it, seeing dimly through a pall of smoke from its nodulizing plant, is Felton, a town grown up around a great electric power house, a model machine shop it operates, and the nodulizing plant, which is its raison d'etre, where the iron ore is treated which is brought down to it over inclines and by railroad from the mines at Woodfred, where the hotel — The Pines — is situated. In brief, as one looks down from the veranda of that hotel one sees, on Nipe and Banes bays, investment that has been made there within the last twelve years (most of it within the last eight) to an approximate total of sixty million dollars. It is American money. For mile on mile without the boundaries of the lands held by five great American companies (the United Fruit Company, the Nipe Bay Company, the Dumois- Nipe Company, the Spanish- American Iron Company, the Cuba Railroad) thick forest extends, rarely broken by any clearing, and passable only over trails macheted through thick jungle. Strange knotted ten- drils hang from the trees ; burrs and seed pods resem- bling unpleasant insects are thick in the shrubbery. From hiding in majaguas and cedars, or among the foli- age of native limes and wild orange trees, yellow with fruit in season, sleek black and very handsome brown birds send forth their curious, resentful comment. It is difficult to believe, in the face of this vicious ap- pearance, that there is nothing desperately evil here. THE NIPE BAY DISTRICT 467 There are no dangerous animals : the wild dog and the little boar are more fearful of man than he of them. There is no deadly vegetation : personally, I have in riding through woods like these never suffered anything worse than the quick rash the ^^ bully girP^ plant raises at touch, or momentary detention on the thorns of the ^^wait-a-minute^^ shrub, but I am told there is a tree, the guao, shunned by those who have experienced its poisonous effects. Certainly, one has naught to fear from human beings, for they are scarce indeed in all this wilderness, — which is the property of native and Spanish owners who have as yet attempted.no develop- ment whatsoever. We came up by rail from Alto Cedro, a junction on the Havana-Santiago main line, thirty-one miles south of Nipe Bay. The tracks run through woods so thick the train appears to thread a narrow aisle; the jungle^ seems to be with difficulty held back from closing over \ the rails like green waves engulfing metal ribbons thrown to them. Section houses have all the appearance of being about to sink under an onrushing sea of vegetation. It must have been a task that tried endurance more than skill to hew this way through jungle, fill hollows, and steady the rails ; the men who accomplished it see nothing heroic in their work, nor can they discuss it. They remember, it seems, only that ^4t rained^' and ^Hhe mosquitoes were a little troublesome.'^ At Dumois the railroad crosses the United Fruit Company's private line to Banes, and here we alighted, on the platform of the only house, which is all in one depot, bar and restaurant, storeroom and living quarters of the station master and telegrapher. From here we rode to plantation headquarters with the manager, Mr. Harty, who had come to meet us in a hansom cab 468 CUBA of a small steam engine, called a ciguena. Our route, between Dumois and Banes, was twenty-five miles over United Fruit Company lands, in the arc of a great circle. It was a glorious December day, and white clouds rode high in a clear, cool sky. From low hills, on one hand, where the haze lay iridescent in hollow and on height, to low hills, on the other, no less varied in their hues, there were rank, green cane fields. A breeze that blew played over the top and around the edges of them, with a pleasant rustling sound. At one point a bared brown patch in a field corner showed where the guampera (cane-cutter^s knife) had been at work, and a long loaded cane train, rattling past with right of way over even the manager's special, indicated that the all-important zafra was on in earnest. Here and there, in the course of the journey from Dumois to Banes, we passed buildings and groups of buildings, for there are several settlements within plantation limits, and many railway stations (with flagmen in charge) at junc- tions and sidings. The movement of all traffic is regu- lated, we learned, from a central dispatcher's office at Banes by means of a telephone system and a black- board chart of the estate, on which a peg indicates the exact position at the moment of every wheel of stock rolling, as this is reported by those employees along the route, who, as we neared, stood before their stations and waved signal flags to guide us on our way. At Tacajo we stopped in an orchard of citrus fruit trees, and the engineer jumped down from his seat over our heads to gather grape fruit we found, later, to be of very poor appearance but excellent flavor and good texture. We learned that there are perhaps two hun- dred acres of citrus fruit tr^ here, which have been neg- lected, as a result of which the fruit (for the trees are in THE NIPE BAY DISTRICT 469 plentiful bearing) is not clean nor as large in size as it might be. No foreign shipments^^e being made, be- cause expenses, favorable as transportation facilities would appear to be from this point, are considered too high, in comparison with prices the fruit would bring, to make the business remunerative. There is some local sale. The grove was planted five or six years ago by former owners of all this property, Messrs. Dumois, who came into the region about 1889 and out of primeval forest developed, as their principal interest, a banana plantation which drew fleets of fruiters into Banes Bay, to carry away, one season, a million and a half bunches. The particular property which embraces Tacajo and its orchard was not an integral part of the banana plantations, and has been only recently acquired by the United Fruit Company. In 1899 that company as it exists to-day resulted from the combination of several interests and their purchase of still others, among them the Banes and Sama companies, as the Dumois' organizations were called. The United Fruit Company proposed to con- tinue the banana business at Banes, and did so continue it, until experience demonstrated that it was not as profitable as had been anticipated. The fruit, for instance, did not carry well, nor was the season when it might be exported sufficiently long. Cana-then-begi to make its appearance in the fields ; in 1901 a mill, just erected, commenced grinding; and, in 1906, the cane fields closed over the last of the banana groves. Fruit was completely abandoned. The place was made a sugar plantation, and given the name of Central Boston. — — -— The plantation now comprises about 90,000 acres lying all about Banes Bay and touching the neighboring 470 CUBA Bay of Nipe. Of these 25,000 acres are under cane ; the company purchases the product of 1500 acres of other cane grown by adjoining neighbors, making a total of 26,500 acres of land producing for the consumption of Boston mill, which is converting their crop into 400,000 or 425,000 bags of sugar (estimated output for the season now in progress). ^^ Fifteen thousand acres of the company's land is i^ pasture, planted to guinea and para grass, for the benefit of 4400 head of stock, — horses, mules, oxen, and a few Mysore bulls used for crossbreeding with native cows, — needed on the estate. The company owns 250 oxcarts, made in its own shops ; they are used to haul cane from field to railway. To transport it to the mill the company operates one hundred miles of private road ; the rolling stock consists of 640 cane cars (there are also merchandise cars, ballast cars, etc.) and seventeen locomotives, including two curious in- spection engines, in one of which we rode. There is also an ocean-going tug needed to pull steamers in and out the tortuous channel which is the only entrance to Banes Bay. There is a small steam launch, for work inside the harbor. The company employs, while the grinding season is in progress, about five thousand persons, of all classes, colors, and nationalities. In the ^^dead season'' their number dwindles to one thousand or fifteen hundred, busied in the work of cultivation, repairs, and the general preparation mill, fields, and equipment must undergo. We realized only the size, and not the excellent or- ganization, of the community through which we trav- eled from Dumois to Embarcadero, where the custom- house, some other offices, the manager's residence and the THE NIPE BAY DISTRICT 471 guest house stand together, forming a village through which lies a stately, sanded avenue of casuarina trees. I shall not forget our first glimpse of Banes Bay, seen through a fringe of cocoanut palms, as we turned from that avenue. It lay like the deepest blue of opals, in a setting of emeralds, for especially the hills opposite were green. Our attention was invited to two of them and to their relative position as seen from the riverlike entrance to Banes Bay, all of which tallies with Colum- bus' description, as Las Casas gives it, of the harbor into which he entered when he first landed on Cuba. The manager's charming Scotch wife welcomed us, and showed us to the guest house, where we were given a room. A maid was placed at our orders. The mana- ger's residence was a step from this guest house. It was well furnished, and into it its occupants had put a re- freshing atmosphere of good breeding. I believe a manager of an estate like this one, and especially his wife, must have need of a very thorough grounding in unflagging courtesy. It was the holiday season, — two days, to be exact, before New Year's. Our party (there were three of us, — my mother, Dr. Karutz, the Industrial Agent of the Cuba Railroad, and myself) had no personal acquaintance with either Mr. Harty or his wife, nor any excuse for our intrusion beyond our desire to see Boston and a formal statement made to me upon the occasion of my chance meeting with Mr. Harty some months before, that visitors are welcome. Yet we arrived, announced only by a letter to the effect that we would be there. We found other visitors present, — a government employee and his wife who had come three weeks or so before, and still stayed on, with what pretext, if any, I am not aware. They had a room in the guest house and a place at the 472 CUBA manager's table. It happened that the Banes Polo Club; an athletic and social organization among the young men employees of the place, had planned a dance for New Yearns, and to be a special guest at this Mrs. Harty had invited a young woman from Camaguey, with her mother. The best room in the guest house was ready for their occupancy, — they were to arrive by a later train on that same day, - — when we walked in and made ourselves perfectly at home in it ! Mrs. Harty was obliged to take her own friends into her house and make them comfortable there as best she could, for there was no other place. Yet her welcome was cordial to interloping strangers who caused the incon- venience. Duck and turkey and tender green peas, almonds and champagne, were spread upon her board for our consumption, and we were, in every particular possible, shown the honors of Boston. The situation grew more acute — it must have, to the hostess — with every hour, for here she had every bed in her guest house occupied by strangers, friends crowded in her own resi- dence, and others, including one particular young man, invited to arrive from elsewhere : the question of what to do with him must have agitated her, and especially must it have disturbed the equanimity of the young woman from Camaguey. We relieved the situation, as soon as we perceived the strain of it, by announcing our own departure for the very earliest moment. I have seen nothing more heroic than Mr. Harty^s good- mannered struggle to keep an expression of relief from his face as he learned of our irrevocable determination to move on. He had been gazing into the abyss of the dire necessity of asking us to do just that, and I can fancy no more distressing situation for a gentleman as genu- inely hospitable as he. TEE NIPE BAY DISTRICT 473 Before we left we had a cursory look at the principal features of Boston estate. Plantation headquarters are just across the river from the town of Banes (population 4000), of which they seem, really, to be an improved extension. Here are machine and car shops, the saw- mill, railroad offices, the stores, the manager's office, and the offices of the heads of departments. Along both sides of a clean graded street where shade trees are planted are the residences of employees. Facing on this street is a ball ground, where the children romp ; and the Polo Club plays, when its members have the time. There are also tennis courts. Opposite the main office building is a park in which a gardener, trained in the government experimental station in Jamaca, has brought forth beautiful flowers, in well-ordered beds and groups ; there is a little fountain around which water lilies float. The company maintains here a principal store, with six branches scattered among the villages and settle- ments over the plantation (at the port, at the mill, at Los Angeles, at Guira, at Tacajo, and at Negritos). It handles general merchandise. The company operates the store department, not, primarily, to make money, but to assure a ready supply of all things needful. In evidence : American shoes of first-class makes may be purchased at the company store at less than their retail price within the United States. Employees are free to patronize the company stores or to buy else- where ; across the river in the native village there are competitive establishments. There are a post office and a rural guard station (garrison, twenty-five men, not including a small outpost at Tacajo). The post office and rural guard quarters are on company land in build- ings the company provides. The company pays its 474 CUBA own force of twenty field guards, who are, as is the usual custom, licensed to bear arms on the agreement that they are liable to the call of the local authorities in any case of trouble. The company maintains a hospi- tal ; it has a fever ward, ^"surgical ward, an isolated ward for infectious cases, and a woman's department. The operating room is completely equipped. There is little sickness at Boston. Some years ago an epidemic of typhoid fever occurred, since which date the company has supplied pure drinking water, pumped from the very source of the Banes River and distributed by cart and train, to man and beast, in every part of the plantation. We were particularly interested in the company school for children of employees. It occupies a company building in the village where the mill hands reside, close under the walls of the sugar house itself. The teacher, a gentleman of education and culture, is paid by the company, who declined the government's offefTo" supply a teacher because it is desired to keep politics out of the school and make it a good one. There are two depart- ments in the school, one for girls and one for boys; . the average combined attendance is, say, sixty pupils. The instruction given is directed toward making the ' girls intelligent and cleanly housekeepers ; the training afforded the boys is intended to form them into compe- tent employees. There are grassy playgrounds beside the schoolhouse ; gymnastics are taught, and the boys are exercised by way of military drill. On exhibition and holidays they appear in uniform, on which occasions the little girls all wear white dresses and gay ribbons. No advantage the company provides its employees is more appreciated than this really excellent school, — and nothing at Boston seemed to me more typical of the THE NIPE BAY DISTRICT 476 whole theory of ^^enlightened selfishness'^ so closely resembling philanthropy on which the whole plantation is conducted. Within sight and hearing from Embarcadero, across the waters of the Bay upon a point of land extending into it, is the heart of the plantation, the sugar mill itself. It began to grind in 1901, with a production then of fifty-nine thousand bags; in 1909 it manu- factured three hundred and seventy-three thousand five hundred bagfuls, an output which gave it second place among the factories of Cuba; in 1910 it plans to make from four hundred thousand to four hundred and twenty-five thousand bags of sugar, a production which will maintain it in that relative position, Chaparra still leading as the largest mill not only in Cuba, but in all the world. The foundations are laid for an enlarge- ment of the mill. Prosaic and dingily gray in the day, the sugar house at Boston shines at night, with the thousand arc lights that keep it bright as noon. All through the night watches the steady roar of its machinery sounds, and by the timbre of that voice the manager can tell that alFs well with the work. Its whistles, calling shifts of men on and off, echo in the far hills. To it as to a magnet the cane trains come by land and the sugar ships by sea. From Embarcadero we traveled back to Dumois, on the last day of the year 1909, in the ''mail train'' ; it carries box cars in which passengers are permitted to ride free. There were chairs placed for us, and we were comfortable. At Dumois we took the Cuba Rail- road train, when, at last, it passed through that station, and, after a short ride northward, we emerged from woods, over a long trestle across shallow salt water lying quietly among mangrove keys, into Antilla, on Nipe ' 476 CUBA Bay. From the depot on the wharf we followed a trail footworn in a little bluff one must climb to arrive in the town. There are those who profess enthusiasm for^Antilla. ^^ It is the northern terminus of the Cuba Railroad system, and this company has provided it with better terniinal facilities than most Cuban ports possess. The docks are long enough to accommodate four or five ships at a time ; the depth of water is twenty-three feet. There are three warehouses, used principally, I understand, for the storage of sugar, outbound from Jatibonico, San Antonio, and Tuinucu. They are conveniently situated so that cars draw up on one side to unload merchandise, which steamers, on the other side, receive as readily, or vice versa. There are three tanks for storing molasses ; the capacity of each is five hundred thousand gallons. The Munson Line maintains a regu- lar fortnightly service between Antilla and New York ; there are two trains daily from the town, inland to Alto Cedro on the Havana-Santiago main line. Antilla J s y theTogi.ca1 port (entry and pxit) for all the east end of ^CuHa / along the railroad trunk line and north of It. " 1 liel&rst year it was open for business its customhouse, which is not at Antilla, but across the Bay at Preston, ranked seventh in the island, on the basis of traffic liandled. Its imports amounted to over twenty thou- sand tons, not including several million feet of lumber ; its exports (sugar, hard woods, etc.) were valued at three million dollars. Exactly what its present standing is I am not aware, but I presume heavy importations of railway construction materials made recently have sustained its relative importance. I should like to know why Antilla was given the loca- tion that it occupies; excepting as the railroad com- THE NIPE BAY BISTBICT 477 pany has, at great expense, given it terminal facilities, it has not, that I can discover, the attractions of other points upon the bay a casual observer would prefer because of their deeper water close ashore, their pleas- anter outlook, and the fact that sweet water is to be had more readily. Yet Antilla seems to be developing : many a city flourishes despite greater disadvantages than those it is overcoming. There are, along its two streets, neat concrete cottages, built on models a little unsuited to that material and this climate, which house comfortably, nevertheless, those employees to whom they are assigned. Other residents in the town have built their dwellings of frame, each on plans as elabo- rate as he could afford ; they range in style from good- looking bungalows to '' shacks '' which are otherwise. We arrived at the new hotel here, then, on New Yearns Eve, and in its main dining room our dinner was served that night. Let us pass this point rapidly. My mother and I, Dr. Karutz, who is a German, and Mr. Dautrive, the French-American representative of the Munson Line, whom we met on arrival, gazed with a unanimity which would have done honor to an interna- tional conference, in disapproval on the five varieties of meat, unrelieved by any vegetable, which were served to us. Then and there we organized secession : on the back of an envelope Mr. Dautrive noted down the articles necessary to a wholesome simple New Year's Day dinner, as my mother counted them off on her experienced fingers. This list was later submitted to Mr. Young, ^Hhe pioneer groceryman,'' and next morning, bright and early, my mother and I took pos- session of Mr. Dautrive's bachelor cottage near, of his dining room, and of his kitchen most especially. He sent reinforcements in the person of a Jamaican cook. 478 CUBA Mr. Young had delivered the groceries requested, sup- plemented by contributions of his own. At one o'clock, our number augmented by his company, we sat down to dinner. To be sure, the potatoes were a little discol- ored, and in the one moment in which she was not watched the Jamaican cook had made the stewed chicken look as though it had been run through an in- discriminate meat chopper; the nuts were a little stale (this caused Mr. Young pained surprise), and the sliced oranges, to prepare which I had labored impor- tantly, had all the appearance of having been already chewed, but we deemed it a royal ^'spread, '^ and capped it with Spanish fruit pastes out of tins and small boxes, accompanied by fresh grapes (flavored with the sawdust in which they crossed from the Peninsula) sent by the landlady of the hotel, with generous courtesy, as her contribution to our feast. At supper time we once more gathered about the board, — and ate the scraps ! That night we played poker, recklessly, for chips, in the house of a neighboring family. The sound of our hilarity as we lost and won fortunes in celluloid on ^Hwo pair, nines high'' disturbed the quietude of our respectable neighborhood until as late as nine p.m. In the bar- room of the hotel the dock hands were dancing, to the accompaniment of an accordion and handclapping. Next morning before daylight we were dressed and ready to depart. Mr. Dautrive, swinging a lantern, accompanied us to the wharf, and here we took passage upon a small tugboat, on the supposition that it would land us at about nine o'clock that morning at Saetia. We put out, and the hours wore on. Now that I know the bay a little better, I wonder where we spent the time that elapsed between our departure and high noon, which found us, to our discomfiture, far up the Mayari THE NIPE BAY DISTRICT 479 River with Saetia about fifteen miles astern. We were the only passengers for that plantation, where, despite the fact that he had sold us our tickets, the captain seemed disinclined to deliver us as agreed. I was far too hungry, too hot, and too angry to observe, as we worked our way along, towing heavy barges, that the river we followed was exceedingly beautiful, mangrove which overhangs the banks at its mouth giving way very shortly to better land, cultivated especially to the extra heavy tobacco which keeps this district as famous now as it was in the sixteenth century. A turn brought us under a very high steep bluff; we saw houses on top of it, and people peered over, interestedly. We drew up at a landing, and learned that this was Mayari. I had, meanwhile, accepted the volunteered assistance of a most pleasant Cuban, a tobacco grower and manufacturer, who raises his crop at Mayari Abajo and elaborates it at San Luis. He agreed to accompany us to the house of the consignees of this erratic line, of whom I proposed to learn why their captain had sold us tickets to a wayport he later omitted to visit because, for some reason I had yet to learn, it did not suit his convenience to call there. I think news of our errand had preceded us, for when, after wading through mud from the landing to the main street, and traveling along this (it is as tortuous as a cowpath), we arrived before the gentleman, he urged us to return aboard at once, as the vessel was just about to clear, en route to Saetia and to Felton. We footed it back on a dogtrot. I paused only long enough to purchase four eggs and four oranges from a kiosk on the dock. A dozen persons who also desired to see the last of Mayari were on board. The captain reappeared presently, emitting fire, brimstone, and im- 480 CUBA pertinent remarks upon Americans, especially strong- minded American women who insist upon being taken where they may have paid to go. His conduct caused a red-headed Spaniard to shuffle his feet nervously. I think had anybody cried ''Seek 'em!'' in Gallician, we would have witnessed a fight. A pilot shoved us off and bade us God-speed with the air of commending us to our own insistent ways. One young fellow among the ten or twelve aboard began to relate the number and nature of the shoals we must cross to get into the bay; he doubted that we could make it over the last bar at the river's mouth, at that hour. Meanwhile, the solitary crew cooked our eggs, peeled our oranges, and served coffee all around, restoring good-nature generally. We helped ourselves to bread from a dirty canvas bag hanging in the litfTe cabin, through a hole the rats had chewed. When we came near the worst bars, the captain ordered all to the bow, and there we sat, crowded as far up as might be, in hopes to relieve weight in the middle and toward the stern of the boat. The captain opined we'd pass the night amid mosquito hosts among the mangroves. I suggested we should, if we stuck, go ashore in the small boat and walk across country to Preston. He assured me the small boat was unseaworthy. The passenger who knew the river interrupted to exclaim that we were hard upon the worst bar. Three or four of us then went through exaggerated pantomime of lifting up with all our might, — and she bumped, — she bumped, and cleared. It was now almost sunset. At the river's mouth we met another vessel of this same navigation company's, which should have gone on to touch at Saetia and at Felton before proceeding upstream. Instead, it trans- ferred its passengers for those points to our tug, and THE NIPE BAY DISTRICT 481 hurried home, leaving, as we found later, persons on the dock at Felton who were, because of its conduct, unable to make Mayari that night. We were, because it was late, compelled to forego our visit, then, to Saetia ; we proceeded to Felton, and there disembarked. We were consoled, in part, for the loss of our day at Saetia by the knowledge that, at any rate, the captain did not attend the cockfight at Mayari, to reach which, it seems, he had attempted to shorten his route by omitting our port. Early on that unhappy Sunday morning we had passed Preston. This^gar plantation is the property of the Nipe Bay Company ; the capital interested is American, and the executive officers are those of the United Fruit Company. They own all the common stock. The plantation comprises about 128,000 acres of land lying west of the winding Mayari River, along the south shore of Nipe Bay. Of this area 88,669 acres are unimproved land ; 13,329 acres of pastures planted to keep the 2800 head of stock used on the estate ; and over 22,000 acres are under cristalina cane, set six by six. Fire lines, extra wide and thick-carpeted with sweet potato vines, blocking the plantation into eighteen-acre squares, together with roads and railroad right of way, account for difference in the foregoing reckoning. Flat along the Bay^s edge, this land rises with distance from the water ; hills and streams diversify its surface. All trees have been removed ruthlessly, and, in some cases, obviously unnecessarily, till cane fields cover the country like a smooth, unwrinkled blanket. The area of cane to be cut and ground, this season, is 22^,228 acres, all grown under administration. Grinding began on the 20th of last December, ^nd should continue, conditions remaining favorable, until the 2i 482 CUBA middle of September, with no respite either by day or by night. Men work in shifts, and the machinery is cleaned in such manner that no complete stop is necessary. To feed the mill a hundred acres of cane must be leveled daily ; it is equivalent to about 3200 tons of cane, which the mill converts into three hundred tons of sugar, or 2100 bags, with an approximate value (at present prices) of $8 per bag, — $16,800 worth of product per diem. It is planned to add a third unit to this mill in order to grind 5000 tons of cane a day, and make over half a million bags of sugar a season. The enlargement would mean the investment of an additional million dollars. To bring its cane to the mill, which is all neatly packed within a single gray steel building on the point of land where the town of Preston congregates, the company operates sixty miles of standard-gauge railroad, with a rolling stock of eleven forty-three-ton Baldwin loco- motives and three hundred and thirty-five steel cars, equipped with automatic couplers and brakes. There are tracks from the mill the full length of the nineteen- hundred-foot wharf where the sugar ships tie in twenty feet of water. The interior arrangement of the mill is new : it is notably compact. The machinery is so placed that it does its work with a minimum outlay of energy, in a minimum of space. From the ground floor the juice is pumped to the top, from where it descends from opera- tion to operation by gravity. By the time it reaches the ground floor again it is sugar, pouring from a chute into a wide-mouthed bag. The machinery in use, with the exception of the boilers (English), is American. The pan floor is considered the finest in Cuba, basing judg- ment on arrangement and results. THE NIFE BAY DISTRICT 483 In short, Preston plantation represents the latest hy^ the sugar business of Cuba, and its factory is especially^ the embodiment of all that is revolutionary. It is, to begin with, owned by Americans. Americans have but lately become investors on any considerable scale in this industry, here. It is managed by an American, assisted by men of other nationalities, especially Eng- lish, with wider tropical experience and more thorough training to their duties than Americans have heretofore had time or opportunity to attain. The machinery is American, and it has given satisfaction. Ten years ago American makers pleaded in vain for any chance to demonstrate their ability to turn out acceptable sugar- mill machinery. Some offered terms equivalent to presenting plantation owners with machinery of their manufacture, confident that its installation would lead to business, but even the gift was declined, and Europe continued to monopolize this market. When American capital began to control and to own mills these American manufacturers were for the first time permitted to prove themselves. They have learned much at the expense of their fellow countrymen customers, but that they have learned is evident, for American foundries are to-day supplying a very considerable and increasing proportion of mill machinery imported into Cuba, and although it still lacks the finish in detail that European machinery has, ^4t results," as they say in Spanish. It is sold, too, despite very serious handicaps in the shape of high freight rates prevailing over the distance between American shops and Cuban plantations. Along with their Ameri- can-made machinery, and the ingenious new patents and devices it involves, American owners and operators have introduced other truly American innovations, especially in the arrangement of mills, the great 484 CUBA desideratum being very American, i.e. to save time^ The change shows in the very shape of the sugarhouse, in the comparatively small area of ground it occupies, and the close packing of its contents ; the older a sugar mill here the more room its parts take up. And, finally, in the general management of their gigantic properties, it is the American owners who have replaced defective and picturesque paternalism, formerly prevailing, with that same system of wisely ^^enlightened selfishness'' we remarked at Boston. It prevails, too, at Preston. It is not practiced from any sentimental motives, but because keen business men recognj^e it as the very best business policy. The population of the plantation at Preston was 6758 persons in April, 1909. Of these, 4956 were Cubans; 891, Spaniards ; 347, Haytians ; 162, Jamai- cans ; 134, Porto Ricans ; 126, Chinamen ; 52, Ameri- cans ; 12, British ; 8, French ; and 70, miscellaneous, — from the ends of the earth ! About 4500 men are directly employed by the Nipe Bay Company in the busy season. Many others are indirectly supported. There is a village for workmen. It is precisely laid out. Its cottages, all painted white, with red roofs, are free to employees, but there is an upkeep charge equivalent to a nominal rent. There are, in the village, two churches. The Catholic church represents an expenditure of $15,000 ; the altar ornaments and the vestments were presented by the directors of the com- pany. The company also built the Protestant church building. There is a school, conducted in a company schoolhouse, by a teacher the government pays ; this school is, therefore, part of the regular free school system of the republic. There is a good drug store, and a hospi- tal with beds for fifty or sixty patients, which we did not THE NIPE BAY DISTRICT 485 see because one of these patients was having deUrium tremens at the time, and it was rightfully supposed we would not enjoy the ravings of our fellow country- man. Every employee contributes fifty cents a month to the hospital maintenance fund, and is, in case of illness, entitled to care free of other charge. The hospital entails a regular loss to the company. There is a post-office at Preston and telegraph con- nection with the rest of the island. There is a telephone between the plantation and neighboring estates, to say nothing of a complete telephone system over the prop- erty itself. The same electric power plant which op- erates the machine shop and runs the cranes supplies the village, and Staff Row, with arc and incandescent lights, in the streets and in the houses. To assure its purity water is pumped in, over a dis- tance of nine miles, from the source of the Mayari River. The company has a very complete merchandise de- partment ; the main store at Preston has six branches on the estate. The furthest branch store, situated twenty- seven miles inland, sells at the prices which prevail in the main store, and these are lower than those usual where competition, which does not exist at Preston, is keen. All the stores are well stocked, and those articles of food and drink which are considered especially whole- some are retailed at exact cost. The merchandise department did business amounting to $612,000 last year ; this year the figure will probably be $700,000 and over. The company kills the meat eaten on the planta- tion, and conducts dairies which are operated under a physician's inspection. The manager's house is a two-story frame ; it is nearest the mill, at the head of a double row of cottages occupied by the higher employees of the plantation. 486 CUBA The street they face is graded, curbed, and shade trees have been planted. Each house has its yard and its garden, as handsome as the occupant sees fit to make it. There is a tennis court, and cricket and ball grounds. There is one carriage — a public conveyance — at Preston, and in this, for it was raining when we arrived, we made our approach to the hotel, a commodious white frame, far above the provincial average in cleanli- ness and service. This carriage did not, however, dare mar with a wheel the sacred gravel along Staff Row, so from the corner we walked. We had met, a short time previous to this, an English- man who holds high position among the employees of this company, a man who, in sturdy British fashion, learned the sugar business from the bottom upward, commencing as a junior with a ^^wine allowance^' on one side of the globe, and continuing it now on this other side at a very agreeable salary, with commensurate responsibili- ties. When, from the hotel, we sent him word of our arrival, he hastened up from his cottage to invite us to have with him a cup of tea. Kipling has, I think, in a couple of lines which are usually considered poetry be- cause he wrote them, referred to the fact that '^you can't get away from the tune that they play, to the bloomin' old rag overhead.'' I trust my quotation is correct ; I do not vouch for that, nor for the accuracy of its statement, but assuredly I do believe that no Englishman, even though he travel beyond the furthest echo of the loudest ''God save the King!" and past the tallest shadow of the reddest, bluest British ban- ner afloat, ever outdistances his tea. I recall my aston- ishment the first afternoon I happened to be, on busi- ness, in the office of the Western Railway in Havana at THE NIPE BAY DISTRICT 487 the appointed hour, and was proffered tea. With what amazement I saw the solemn Cuban porter enter, bal- ancing a very full cup as carefully as though it contained fragile treasure, or nitroglycerine, to the traffic mana- ger, who shoved aside schedules, claims, miscellaneous correspondence, and all the worry they represent, to drink that beverage with evident enjoyment ! I came to know that regularly the porter prepares it, from a supply the company keeps among files and records in a wardrobe in the manager's office, and the appear- ance of his steaming cupful pleasantly ^^ divides'' each English employee's afternoon. Their Cuban clerks are not included in the refreshing formality ; a Cuban buys his tea at the drug store, and uses it, when he must, as medicine. I have often wondered if an Englishman ever thinks, as he lifts his teacup, of all his fellow coun- trymen, and women, distant relatives and friends, in the shires and counties he loves and at far outposts in colonies he will never know, who join with him in that time-honored ceremony ? For my part, I always expect to see them spill a few drops to the floor, in libation to that noble beast, the British lion, who purrs amiably to the tinkle of teacups, — their fragrant steam his incense clouds ! The house our English friend at Preston inhabits is charming. Its color combinations, decoration, furni- ture, arrangement, — every detail is in exquisite taste ; we appreciated this before we were well through the front door. On the inclosed veranda, cool and pleas- antly protected from too bright light, his tea — a soli- tary cup already prepared — was waiting. He poured for us. As we sat there I studied the house, for it keenly interested me. It was obviously a man's resi- dence. There was the usual masculine disorder, yet 488 CUBA here it was not, as it generally is, synonymous with un- tidiness and neglect. Never have I seen bachelor quarters which proclaimed such success in independence ; they do usually wail for help ! Here no woman could have worked any improvement ; it was disconcerting to realize that every change she would have attempted would have been detrimental. The house, especially the atmosphere of it (preeminently masculine amid comfort and good taste) seemed to me no mean achieve- ment. Few men accomplish as much, — and many, many try. I began to consider more attentively the one who had succeeded. He possesses in marked degree in each phase of it the same duality of ability I have noted, before and since, in other Britishers, — but not in any \ American that I know : the ability, on one hand, to do a man's work in a man's world, and the no less desirable ability, on the other, to supply to himself ^^out of office V hours'' those vital comforts and perhaps no less vital ^ ^ amenities we Americans associate with ^^gentlewoman" ^ N^ only. Wherever, in Cuba, in the capital or in the provinces, one comes upon an Englishman, one finds \^ ^ him comfortable, — or as comfortable as may be. He is by no means above making himself so, having no women to attend to the details for him. I remember noting especially the case of a chief engineer who ar- rived here to occupy a position with a local railway which is British in its management ; an American would have entered upon his work instantly upon arrival, but this man's first concern was to find a house that suited him and to settle himself in it. Then, and not before then, he was ready to take up his duties. The employ- ing company gave him every opportunity, and time, to establish himself properly ; thereafter they expected THE NIPE BAY DISTRICT 489 and received the undivided attention of a man not harassed by petty annoyances outside his work. There is a very deep wisdom back of the Englishman's insist- ence upon his/ ^bahth/' which keeps him well; and upon his tea, which affords him mental relaxation and no detrimental physical stimulant at the heaviest hour in his day ; and even in his tendency to ^^ dress for din- ner/' one formality he can, I have noticed, be influenced to modify, but whether he changes to a dinner jacket or merely to a clean shirt for the evening, he by no means omits to change, with his garments, the whole tenor of his occupation and his thought. Meanwhile, bathless, tealess, dinner-jacketless, the American works on, absorbed and without respite, and about him ^Hhings move '' — while he lasts. Just as he is unable, and actually unwilling, to Bring to himself comforts and re- laxation in material things, so he is unable, no matter how willing, to relieve his mental attitude except by the aid of alcohol, so that as long as he is sober he talks by night, as he thinks by day, in a single groove that deepens. Those who look over Cuba may observe results. I know of two men whose friends have sent them out of the country, to asylums ; one was, I think, a Cana- dian (who is nearer to the American than he is to the Englishman in his mental processes) and the other was an American. I have yet to see an Englishman (and as ^^ English'' I here include . protesting Scotchmen and Irish) in this island living in a native hut amid unmodified native squalor ; I know half a dozen Ameri-^ cans who have permitted themselves to sink to it. I do not know of an Englishman whom his native neigh- bors do not regard as a superior, — to be somewhat imitated, — and so his influence spreads ; they can 490 CUBA hardly entertain that opinion of one or two Americans I have in mind, whom they have, on occasions, picked out of the roadside ditch and carried home. I know several Englishmen who have married native Cuban or Spanish women; it was because they found them what they desired. It is interesting to note how in dress even and in manner they have imparted to these ladies something of their own national characteristics. I know as many Americans who have married similarly, but, as far as I can observe, they did so from impulse. I take it that the women who are now these Americans^ wives happened to be close at hand in some desperate moment of the men^s insufficiency. They laid about for help, and in some cases they are cads enough to inform even casual acquaintances that they have failed to find it in the wife acquired. Few, fortunately, and far be- tween as are these discreditable American colonists, they are, nevertheless, '^straws in the wind'' to indicate that we have yet to prove ourselves as masters in the tropics. I sometimes almost fear the tropics will, in- stead, master us. Certainly, for any authority we ex- ercise under a southern sun, we are to pay dear, of our dearest. For the Englishman, who has long worn his spurs in the Anglo-Saxon campaign for empire, i have acquired and will maintain a well-grounded respect, which embraces his tea and his tennis, exponents of his appreciation of the importance of health in the fight he is making; his ^^ Blessed DamoseP' upon the wall, and his Sketch and his Graphic upon the living room table, reminders of his kinship elsewhere and the im- portant fact that he is alien and must remain so to an environment that would engulf him. How many long, long years of tropic heat, hard work, and loneliness his wbw'. THE NIPE BAY DISTRICT 491 capacity to take an interest in the color of his rugs, in the size of turnips in his truck garden, and in the local consumption of White Rose tea and Nabisco wafers, lias enabled him to endure ! On that endurance, and on the knowledge he acquires through his experience mean- while, depends more than his own personal welfare and advancement, for with him marches in step as he marches ^Hhe bloomin' old rag,^' and ^Hhe tune that they play^^ to its colors. From Preston we set out bright and early one morning in a gasolene launch for Saetia, determined to reach that place this time by the shortest possible route. Three of the Preston ladies and a little girl were with us ; the expedition took on a picnic air, which was some- hat dampened but in no whit discouraged by gray waves of bay water which leaped into our small craft, soaking us, one and all, as we cut across the white caps for our port. The village of Saetia is admirably located, on the inner side of a ridge of land forming the backbone of a penin- sula which constitutes the easternmost shore of Nipe Bay. This peninsula has been made an island, really, by a drainage ditch dug across its narrowest part. Saetia is clean and full of flowers and flowering shrubs and trees. Its houses remain in the memory as being all white with red roofs. The streets between are hard and smooth, and, leading away from the water, they lose themselves in banana groves and cane fields. Here dwell some five hundred employees of the Dumois Nipe Company, which is to all intents arid purposes the Du- mois family, a clan that acknowledges an admirable char- acter, Don Hipolito, to be the chief. The family resi- dence, or plantation house, overlooks the very entrance to Nipe Bay. From its verandas one views the sea, now 492 CUBA blue and placid, now gray and frothing in breakers all along the coast without ; its worst humor is tamed by the time it has arrived through the narrow channel it must thread to enter and become the bay, which, big as an inland sea, extends westward from Saetia. The Dumois Company owns forty thousand acres of land. Its principal business is still ban anas, six hundred thousand bunches of which were shipped last season from the six thousand acres planted ; from the packing house at the water's edge ten thousand boxes of grape fruit went forward, and only two hundred and fifty boxes of oranges. This by no means represents the total crop of the one hundred and fifty acres of citrus fruit trees now mature ; it is only all that could be marketed to a profit. Twenty thousand crates of pines completed the Dumois fruit crop last season.. The company owns, moreover, a thousand acres of cane. It is en- croaching upon the dank bananas and the overloaded orange trees which crowd each other for footroom among the rocks and rich soil here, whence, in all prob- ability, it will in time expel them all, until, at Saetia as at Boston, full acknowledgment is paid to the fact that in Cuba ^^cane is king.'^ Our launch made fast to the little pier at Saetia. Here the currents sweep in, in such fashion that it is exceedingly deep water at the very edge of the shore. We trooped up the promenade, admiring the gardens beside it, to the plantation house, where we paid our respects to Don Hipolito in the person of a son, who was in charge during his absence. Thence we made our way to the hotel, where immediately he joined us and ordered to be brought forth everything the estab- lishment had prepared to eat. A clean cloth was laid upon a long table in a room adjoining the main dining THE NIPE BAY DISTBICT 493 room ; napkins and glasses appeared, and here we were served in embarrassing profusion with the best avail- able. Dinner over, we were escorted to the wharf, and sent aboard a tug larger than our launch to that part of the plantation known as Tres Palmas, where we were let loose, as it were, among the king orange and tangerine trees thriving promiscuously among the ragged bananas, with permission to eat and carry off what we would. Assisted by the boatmen and two or three other employees of the place, who entered into our marauding humor, we filled baskets and bags, and gathered bouquets of oranges, — cutting whole branches off the trees (they are to be grubbed out eventually), which were bent to the ground and split, in some crotches, with the weight of their thick-clustering, delicious fruit. Our launch fairly staggered back to Preston that afternoon under its cargo of loot. I shall not forget the evening of my first arrival at Felton, the next stop in order after Saetia on Nipe Bay. From the tug which had taken us there we walked the long length of the pier thrown out from shore near the electric powerhouse. To the immediate left it loomed, funereal. Down a road beside which ground was preparing for garden plots that since have bloomed with commendable bravery, we approached the hotel. Sounds reached us through the descending twilight of that waning Sabbath day. It was a salu- tation and an assurance, sung stridently, in chorus, by men and women together. ^^Hail! Hail!'^ the greeting rang, extended with a force that sent it far, ^^Hail! Hail!'' and then the explanation, ^^The gang's all here!" There was a crash as of a house demolished. A single voice inquired raucously : ^^ What the hail do we care?" And echo answered ^^Wow!" 494 CUBA We had indeed arrived in a mining camp, the atmos- phere of which is as different from that prevaihng on the neighboring fruit and sugar estates as is the very air of Felton, heavy with smoke, ore dust, and coal, from the clean and fragrant breezes in their cane fields and their orchards. The immediate occasion of the hilarity in progress when we happened along was a baseball game. A nine recruited from the other settlements about the bay had failed to appear to contest honors. The Feltonites had therefore enjoyed a game among themselves, and, at the day's end, had awarded their own best team the championship of the Nipe Bay district by default and by acclamation, — most especially by acclamation. A modicum of beer and an exhaustless supply of animal spirits inspired the group on the veranda. After supper they went forth for a boat ride by moonlight. Although there was no extra room, they invited us to accompany them ; had we accepted, I presume they would have drawn lots to decide which of their own number must have remained at home. Toward mid- night they returned, as quietly as they knew how. There was a great trampling up and down stairs of heavy boots, the sound of a few playful thumps and shovings, a smothered laugh, and a choked whoopee. A door banged viciously in an unexpected gust of wind. Every particular board in the hallway along the second . floor creaked in its own particular key. One man, yawning prodigiously, was heard through the partitions of all the rooms in his vicinity. Presently he snored. The first time we visited Felton accommodations had been reserved for us in advance. The second time we failed to take that precaution, and as a consequence, on that fateful Sunday night when we staggered into the THE NIPE BAY DISTRICT 495 hotel burdened with hand baggage there was no one else to carry, hot, hungry, tired, and disgusted, the clerk informed us, with the air of a judge pronouncing sen- tence upon incorrigible delinquents, that he had no rooms vacant, didn't expect to have any, and, appar- ently, didn't care. We inquired if, under the circum- stances, we were expected to rid the community of our presence by jumping into the bay. We demanded the superintendent, and were informed that he sat outside upon the porch. He, then, had witnessed our arrival. We appealed to him, and although he had the air of considering us as dangerous as dynamite, he stepped bravely forward, ordered two gentlemen who were to leave on the following morning exported instead that same evening to Antilla, where they might pass the night, and had us installed in the room they vacated, which is, I understood later, that occupied by the com- pany's president when he visits the mines. Felton has no traditions regarding hospitality to maintain. The ^ Spanish- American Iron Company, which owns the place, honors no customs, such, for instance, as Boston and Preston and Saetia have in- herited from days when, there being no other accommo- dations available, travelers accepted entertainment the planters of the country offered with generosity becoming to princes of the soil. Consequently there is no guest house at Felton, nor is any welcome extended to visitors. The hotel, and also the posada, for humbler patrons, are operated for the benefit of employees, to whom their rates are lower than to transients. The hotel is a frame, finished within in shellacked pine. It is well furnished. Its bathrooms are supplied with hot water that is hot, and with cold water; its ' hot showers are a panacea for all the ^^ bites" that even 496 CUBA the most fortunate traveler in Cuba is sure to accu- mulate en route. The building is lighted with elec- tricity. Table and service in the dining room are surprisingly good. There is a steam laundry near. Although some families, as well as ^Hhe bachelors/' live at the hotel, most employees whose wives and children are with them are accommodated in cottages, owned by the company, which stand in a double row between the hotel and the plant. They are pleasant little homes. Distant some three quarters of a mile from Felton proper is ^Hhe village, '^ where in barracks and plain frame houses the workmen employed reside. When first we walked through there, open ditches where filthy water and garbage drifted and accumu- lated in decaying slime filled the air with stench ; digging was then being done to obtain better drainage, and I presume conditions have been improved. Near the village the railway track from the mines, above, to Felton, splits into numerous switches, covering the yards and making accessible to engines and trains the machine shops, near the powerhouse, the nodulizing plant, and all the equipment subsidiary thereto.^ The electric power plant consists of three 500 kilowat machines. The 1600-horsepower boilers are arranged in two batteries of two each, which may be run singly or together. An automatic stoker and an automatic ash conveyer are interesting features. This plant has the capacity to handle more work than is at present required of it, although everything that can be so Q^^rated js_nxoved by electricity at Felton. The keynote at both Woodfred and Felton is econ- omy in men. Tremendous work is being done by few hands, thanks to extraordinary devices in machinery. In the machine shop, — the largest in Cuba, — each THE NIPE BAY DISTRICT 497 machine is a unit, with its own motor. I was told that it had been necessary to train young men to handle these machines ; the older, experienced men were not able to master their innovations, and were appalled especially by their speed. Here there is everything at hand to repair the equipment throughout, to erect locomotives and ore cars from the knockdown. There is a powerful moving crane. The nodulizing plant is unique. There is none like it elsewhere, because it represents a special treatment required by a special ore. This ore comes down by the trainload from Wood- fred, on the summit of the Finales Mountains, over an intervening distance of seventeen miles. To the foot of the range the track lies, like any well-conducted railroad, along a rational grade, through a beautiful country. We rode in the manager's motor car in company with a young man whose work was on the inclines, and Dr. Schafer of the Bronx Botanical Gardens, on a botanizing expedition, with a friend. He was, at the time, making his headquarters at The Pines. The way lies close to the Mayari River for some distance, and finally crosses that stream by way of a high and narrow bridge. The natives assembled to see that bridge come tumbling down the first time a train crossed it, and not even the inclines arouse their astonishment like the stability of that great structure of steel and cement spanning the historic Mayari. The ore trains that thunder across it are the only rail- road trains many residents in the valley and in the hills above have ever seen. The big Baldwins abandon their cars in the yards at Piedra Gorda at the base of the Pifiales. Switching here is done by gravity. 498 CUBA Out of Piedra Gorda the tracks leap up the mountain- side on a 25 per cent incHne 2000 feet long; the lift is 500 feet. The ore cars (each weighs, empty, 45,250 pounds) are shunted over a trestle from below which emerges the '' barney ^^ car, resembling nothing else so much as a field gun. Pushed before it the ore cars ascend smoothly, one by one. The '^barney'' car and the ore car with it are drawn uphill by a wire cable which is 21 inches i^ diameter on the lower incline and 2 1 inches in diameter on the upper one. It stands the strain of 180 tons of ore plus two cars, each trip. The second incline is 7600 feet long, nearly all on the maximum grade of 25 per cent. Its lift is 1120 feet. Only one incline in the world — it is in South America — is longer than this ; and the grade of that is low. Engineers are interested in two bridges on these inclines : one, at the foot of the lower incline, on a 25 per cent vertical curve, and the other, 200 feet long, on a 25 per cent grade, on the upper incline. The inclines are operated by two steam power plants, 300-horsepower boilers, engines with 22-inch cylinders that turn 28-foot drums around which the cables wind and unwind. No one at the mine wastes time to con- sider what would be the result were anything to go seriously wrong with these plants, or, especially, with the cables that control the cars. Each car, loaded, is a weight of 157,750 pounds, which, were it suddenly re- leased to race down 9600 feet of 25 per cent incline, would work havoc en route and at the bottom, if it arrived there, difficult to over-imagine. No such accident is, however, likely to occur. The signal men who start and stop the cars on a system of red flag wigwagging, and the men who operate the machinery at their dicta- tion, appreciate their responsibility. THE NIPE BAY DISTRICT 499 The day we came safely down the mountainside on an ore car that traveled softly as an ambulance, 2250 tons of ore made the trip without a hitch. Full capacity of the inclines is 10,000 tons per diem. At even this rate the deposits at Woodfred will outlast seven centuries. At the top of the upper incline a locomotive seizes upon the car that has ascended, and hustles it away, around curves and up grades, to the mines themselves. Work at the mines resembles a big job of railroad grading far more than it does mining as mining is done, for instance, in the hard rock mountains above the Colorado camp where I was raised. The iron deposit here covers the surface over an area of more than 40 square miles ; it is 22 miles at its longest and 16 miles at its widest part. The depth varies from 35 feet maximum to 12 feet minimum, yet tapped, the average being about 18 feet. The ore is in places 58 per cent iron ; nothing under 42 per cent is mined. The average assay is 46 or 47 per cent. There is 10 of 1 per cent nickel. Steam shovels and drag line machines are very busy scooping the ore into waiting cars. The steam shovel lifts five tons at a scoop, and the exertion costs fifteen cents. The drag line machines (long-armed houses swung on a pivot !) dig ore from between rocks at a cost of seven or eight cents a ton. In consistency the ore runs from clay to gravel ; in color, from yellow to a brown that is almost black. At Woodfred is The Pines, even handsomer than the hotel at Felton. Here, when we had the pleasure of visiting the summit, young men employed on the inclines had a mess. It had all the enjoyable features 500 CUBA of a club, or fraternity. Hospitality certainly was here. It thrived in the light of the open fireplace (the only built-for-use and used fireplace I have met in Cuba) to tunes both classic and ^^raggy'' that the phonograph ground out in the twilight and long into the nightj while the stars came out above, and far below very similar twinkling lights appeared to mark the sites of Felton, Saetia, Preston, Antilla, and, away over at Banes, Boston, grinding busily in the glare of her blue-white arc lamps. Close by the hotel employees whose families accom- pany them even to this mountain top are at home in cottages. Never was a dwelling place nearer ideal, — high, dry, and cool, among pine trees, with an incom- parable outlook, and company enough. The summit is, naturally, salubrious, and here the company is erecting its hospital. Beside it, with irri- gation from a sizable nozzle, an industrious Spaniard had, when we were there, a truck and flower garden it was a delight to see. The fertility of the ore was evident, since the garden soil was as good ore as that sent to the kilns. From the veranda of The Pines, then, one oversees, on the one hand, the mining of the ore ; on the other, one looks down upon its wonderful route of transpor- tation to Felton. Lowered safely to Piedra Gorda one at a time, the ore cars are there made into long ore trains which the locomotives drag, thundering along, to the nodulizing plant. Shunted to proper position beside it, there at Felton, each car receives in turn the attention of the unloader. The unloader is operated by a 75-horsepower motor, the force of which is transmitted through gears that increase strength at the expense of speed. Two THE NIPE BAY DISTRICT 501 gantries do the tipping. Each car is Hfted by a lever which raises the back, the front meanwhile resting on a casting on the concrete wall of the ore yard into which the load is poured. One man, in a cage swung high, controls this entire operation. From that cage this same man steps into a trolley and operates a seven-ton grab bucket, which the trolley lifts, carries forward, and empties into the bins. From the bins the ore is scraped, automatically, into kilns fed with coal dust, through which long cylinders it passes as they revolve slowly. The highest tempera- ture in the kilns is 2400 degrees. Such heat removes free water, crystallized water, and some impurities, thereby lessening bulk and weight. The ore emerges in pellets about the size, weight, and color of buckshot ; in this form it is most acceptable to blast furnaces of northern steel works and iron foundries, toward which it travels in steamers that draw up at the docks to receive it. These same ships bring down, as their cargo, coal needed by the plant. In unloading the fuel and in preparing and conveying it to the kilns, and also in loading the ore into the ships, every economy is practiced in that the machinery is of latest patent, cal- culated to save both time and labor. I think that if I were bound to leave Cuba finally, not to return, I should prefer to go out by way of Nipe Bay, for then, looking back across the country, I should see the island not only as it has been, — inter- esting in the romance of its discovery and conquest, in the melodrama of its buccaneer days, in the tragedy of its modern history, even in the burlesque of its latest revolution, — and, moreover, as it is this hour, — a puzzling anomaly in politics and economics, a desper- 502 CUBA ate problem in sociology and morals, — but, also, I should see it, thanks to the prescience they develop who consider the Nipe Bay district, as it is to be, when the flood tide of prosperity attendant on the intelligent investment and management of foreign capital here shall have swept away all the anachronisms and all the subterfuges which, by embalming a dead past through a live present, succeed in preserving yet un- pleasant and hampering souvenirs of eras and regimes censurably reluctant to bury themselves and theirs. In that future will survive little, probably, of the confused Cuba I have described : modern improve- ments are removing much that is picturesque in the cities; in the country, tobacco vegas and cane fields cover battle fields, and ancient walls and fortifications are demolished to make roads. The present form of the island^s government wavers in vicissitude. Cus- toms peculiarly Cuba's own are very scarce. The language Cubans speak is invaded by an increasing host of half-naturalized words and phrases. The pop- ulation war suddenly released from colonial conditions has not found itself as a Cuban people or constituted a nation with an identity of its own. In short, here, five centuries after the first settle- ment by Caucasians, in a land where there are cities, railroads, and considerable modern agricultural devel- opment in isolated localities, frontier conditions do strangely outlast their time and place. The situa- tion in Cuba to-day is extraordinary. It constitutes, therefore, a rare opportunity for pioneers, and they are already here making the most of it. They are not, however, the pioneer type of which we read, for they are matched against odds which require another equip- ment than their storied predecessors elsewhere have THE NIPE BAT DISTRICT 603 carried. Because he wears no coonskin cap he is not the less a pioneer who invents a special treatment for magnetic ores which gives high value to thousands upon thousands of acres of iron deposits in Cuba, long known but considered worthless prior to his invention ; because he carries no squirrel rifle he is not barred from the same class who patents a process of treating cane which increases rendition and preserves a value to bagasse ; because he fights not Indians but bibijagua ants the man who develops a citrus fruit grove loses no standing as a real frontiersman. Those others who carved the American Union out of the wilderness of North America, wiping Death^s Valley and the Great American Desert off the map, have attained the stability of statehood and the prosperity government irrigation fetches; they who labor now in Cuba are striving toward the same ends, to give final shape to that which they have taken in hand. Arrayed against them are the rigors of a southern, not a northern, cli- mate; and the dangers of contact with decadent, not savage, contestants with them for control. It is, if one will but observe it, a fine and bitter fight, this that is being waged in Cuba to-day. No one who surveys the field can remain nonpartisan; for my part, when I looked down from The Pines at Woodfred over Nipe Bay and Banes, doubts I had entertained at previous times were dissipated, for there I recognized the strong intrenchment of victorious invaders. At tremendous cost, but surely, they will triumph ; and at the sacrifice of much that is worthy ,^^ itself, of a fairer fate, they will erect out of ruin and dec^ a fabric worthy them. All that the defeated lose in w^ con- test will be well lost, — though it be landmark\^the fame heroes have earned, office, native tongue, and\he 504 CUBA fiction of national identity ; all that the victors pay will be well invested, though it be, as it must be, the honor, the happiness, the cherished fortune, and the life itself of many and many a private soldier enlisted in the ranks. INDEX Aborigines, of Cuba, 83-87, 434-435. Of the Isle of Pines, 294, 313- 316. Acosta, Captain, 367. D. Andres, y Duarte, 296, 299, 304, 305, 311. Administration, American Provi- sional, 183-186. Africans (see also Negroes, Black, etc.). Colony of, 147. Aguas Claras, 438. * Aguirre, Cabo de, 216. Don Antonio de, 216. Albear, Engineer, 17. Square, 17. Allen, J. G., 439. Alonso, Julian, Steamer, 208-210. Alquizar, 240, 247. Alto Cedro, 467. Alvarez, P. Fr. Paulino, 378. American failure to resist Cuban conditions, 441-444. Responsibility for Cuban affairs, 167-168, 190-193. Settlers in Cuba, 150-163, 231, 279-336,411-463, 466, 501- 504. Americans, Cuban desire for return of, 133, 190, 201-202. Life of, in Havana, 151-163. Andrade, Secretary Freyre de, 173- 174. Annexation (see also Economic Prob- lems, Tariff, etc.), Cuban at- titude toward, 190, 201-202. Antilla, 440, 464, 475-478. Artemisa, 240, 247. Asylum, Beneficencia Orphan, 37. Right of, 40. Atalaya, La, 340-346. Azanza, Senor Viceroy Don Miguel Jose, 216. B Bacardi, 359, 361. Baga, 342-343. Bahia Honda, 208, 209, 210, 213. Baire, 446. Baker, C. F., 228. Balls, 70-71. Banes, 348, 349, 350, 467, 468-475. Banos, San Diego de los, 225, 255- 260, 265. Baracoa, 348-349. Estero de, 207. Bartle, 418-421. Batabano, 217, 280, 385. Earliest site of Havana, 3. Bathing, at La Play a, Marianao, 49. Battery, Reina, 37. Santa Clara, 37. Bayamo, 354, 356, 376, 383, 401, 446, 447. Bayate, 456-458. Bayona Villanueva, 357. Belen, church, school, and observa- tory, 40-41. Beneficencia Orphan Asylum, 37. Bibijagua Point, 286, 325, 326. Biddle, "Nick," war correspondent, 176-177, 179, 320. Black blood, intermixture of, with white, 83, 87-97. Colonel William M., 250, 253, 368-369. Blain, Don Jose, 229. Bobadilla, Lady Isabel de, 29. Boston, Central, 464, 465, 468-475. Botany, of Cuba, 228. Brazo Fuerte, 288-289, 294, 326. Brooks, Lt., 189. Brown, Charles, 282. 505 506 INDEX Bryan, William Jennings, at San- tiago, 372. "Bryant, Mr., Prize Master," 30-33. Buccaneers, see Pirates. Burton, Mr., 424. Caballeria Wharf, 54. Caballos Mountain, 286-289. Paso, 384. Cabanas (see also Castle) nine o'clock gun, 74. Reveille from ramparts of, 56. Salutes from, 78. Taps, 74. Cabanas Bay, 208-209, 210. Battle of, 212. Cabildo, an African, 147-148. Cacocum, 431-440. Caibarien, 395. Caimaneros, of Isle of Pines, 283- 286, 301-302. Caleta Grande, 283. Camaguey, City of, 340, 341, 342, 354, 378, 401-409. Churches of, 406-408. Hotels of, 408-409. Camaguey, Province of, 269, 376, 396-410. Arrogance of, 405. Cattle industry in, 405, 409-410. Gold in, 437. "Whitest Province," 410. Camajuani, 395. Campbell, Angus, 440. Campo, Sebastian de, 5, 215. Canada Mountains, 286, 328. Canadians in Cuba, see American Settlers. Candelaria, 240, 245, 247. Caney, El, 363-365. Caribbean Sea, 215, 384, 446. Caribes, 86. Carnival Sunday in Havana, 79. "Cartroads, the, of Magoon," 250- 267. Casas, Fray Bartolome de las, 349, 375-378, 434, 471. Luis de las, 299. Mountain, 286-287, 290. Casilda, 384. Castle, Atares, 28, 37. Cabanas, 27-28, 337. Morro, 1, 25-27, 337 ; at Santiago de Cuba, 352-353, 356, 357. Principe, 34. San Salvador of the Point, 33. Castro, Manuel Fernandez de, 437. Casualidad Mine, 438. Cathedral, at Havana, 37-38. Bells of, 52. Santiago de Cuba, 370. Cauto River, 446. Cemetery, Colon, 41-42. Of Santiago de Cuba, 366-367. Census, foreign population according to, 134-135. Cepero, Dona Maria de, 12. Cervera, Admiral, 353. Cerro, 49. Cespedes, Carlos Manuel de, 367. Chaparra, 181, 347, 435. Children, Cubans' love of, 102-103. Chinese, Colony of, 146. Chorrera, fortlet, 37. Chueaux, M., 287-288. Church (see also Cathedral and Con- vent), Belen, 40. Cristo, 39. Interesting services, 41. La Merced, 39. Of the Holy Angel, 39. Ciego de Avila, 399. Cienfuegos, 375, 385, 386-389. Cimarrones, Negros, 222. Citrus Fruit, 245, 310, 411-463. Clerks of Commerce Clubhouse, 71. Club, American, 162. Centro Asturiano, 71. Clerks of Commerce, 71. German, 161. Spanish Casino, 71. Yacht, 162. Coasts, of Cuba, 207-220, 335-351, 383-401. South, of the Isle of Pines, 280- 286, 300. Cobre, Mines at, 373. Village of, 373. Virgen del, 373-382. INDEX 507 Cojimar, fortlet, 37. Suburb of, 49. Coloma, 263. Colombo Point and Bay, 286, 288, 325, 326. Colonies, Foreign, size of, 134-135. Of Oriente, 411-463. Colonists (see American Settlers), ignorance of, 415-417. vs. Company (Land), 411-416. Columbia (Isle of Pines), 327. Columbus, Christopher, 37, 279, 293, 325, 326, 327, 349, 471. Straits of, 383. Commission, American Peace, see Taft. Company (Land) vs. Colonists, 411- i| 416. Consolacion del Sur, 241, 245, 260. Contramaestra Valley, 447. Convent, Dominican, 38. Franciscan, 38. Santa Catalina, 39. Corn, crops and preservation, 461- 462. Corsairs, see Pirates. Cortes, Hernando, 217, 348, 353, 355. Puerto, 217. Country Homes, Life in, 125-133. Crittenden of Kentucky (see also Lopez), 37. Crops (see Sugar, Tobacco, Pine- apples, Citrus Fruit), little diversification, 236. Cuban Inability to comprehend a Republic, 171, 186-188. Cuba Libre, a Farce, 164-193. American championship of, 167- 168. Not edible or wearable, 203-206. Cueyba, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380. Cumberland, Town of, 359. Cunagua, La, 327. Customs Duties, 166, 198-199, 309- 310. Of Cuba, 61, 96, 98-133. D Daguilla Mountains, 286. Daiquiri, 353. Dautrive, Mr., 477. "Dead Line," the, 28. Delgado, Lt.-Col. Clemente, y Es- paiia, 303-306. Martin Morua, 93. Denver, the Cruiser, 180. "Dependents," 135-138. Diario de la Marina, 116, 139-145. Ditch, Laurel, 28. Drake's Attack on Isle of Pines, 294. Duarte, D. Domingo, 296. D. Francisco Javier, 296. D. Nicolas, 296. Dumois, the. Family, 491. -Nipe Company, 466, 491-492. Station, 467, 475. E Earthquake at Santiago de Cuba, 356, 357. Economic Problems, 194-206. Embarcadero de Banes, 470. English, the, in Cuba, 16, 26, 38, 356, 357, 358, 359, 392-393, 487-491. Escobar, artist, 13. Esperanza, 263. Expense of living, in Cuba, 153. Family, Typical Cuban, 99-101, 108- 122. "Famine in Vuelta Abajo," 236, 341. Faults, Cuban, 95-97, 123-125. Felton, 466, 481, 493-501. Ferrara, Orestes, 178. Fisher, Mr., 425. Fonts Sterling, Ernesto, 188-189. Foreigners, importance of, to Cuban government, 164-166. In Cuba, 134-163. Ownership of, in island, 164-166. Forts, see Castle. Franco, D. Dionisio, 297. Fuerza, La, 29-30. Funeral Ceremonies, 44-48. Funston, General Frederick, 184- 185. 608 INDEX G Garcia, Calixto, 42, 423. Gardens, Botanical, 48. Of the Queen, 294, 384. Gates, City, of Havana, 34. Gelabert, M., 296. Geology, of the Isle of Pines, 286- 290. Gibara, 346-347, 439, 445. Gold in Cuba, 433-439. Gomez, General Jose Miguel, Presi- dent, 94, 186, 269. Gomez, General Maximo, 42, 78. Gomez, Juan Gualberto, 94, 186. Gottschalk, 370. Government (see also Administra- tion), American Military, of Cuba, 170. Excessive cost of, 166-167. Grey, W. G., 438. Grijalva, Departure from Santiago, 353. Guana, 419. Guanabacoa, 49. Guanajay, 49-50. Guane, 242, 261, 262, 274. Guanimar, Embarcadero de, 207. Guerra, General "Pino," 173, 177, 253, 269. Guira, 240. Guirabo, 440. H Hansen, the. Residence on Canada Tract, 328. Harty, Harold, 467. Hatuey, Cacique, 434. Havana, City of. Daily Life in, 52-82. Earliest site of, 3-4. Early appearance of, 5-7. Founding of, 3. Immorality of, 95-97, 138. Original name of present site, 5. Reason for full name of, 3. Statuette of, 30. Streets of, reasons for names, 14- 17. The "Old City" of, 8-10. Heredia, Poet, 370. Herradura, 255, 260. Higgenson, Mr., of Boston, 365. Hojeda, Alonso de, 373, 378. Holguin, 347, 431-438. Holladay, Consul Ross, 372. Home Life, 98-133. Horse, "Dock-Tailed, Deal," 184. Hotels in Havana, 152. Houses, Boarding, of Havana, 151- 153. House, School, handsomest in Cuba, 365. House, typical, 98-133, 157-159. Huston, the T. L., Company, 262. Ibarra, Don Carlos de, 212. Indian, Aboriginal, population, 83- 87, 294, 313-316. Persistence of blood, 86-87. Resistance of, in Oriente, 434- 435. Instruments, Musical, 360. "Invasion, The," 170, 226, 269. Isabela de Sagua, 394. Isle of Pines, The, 279-336. American Invasion of, 319-320. 322. As a Health Resort, 317-318. Business and Social Organiza- tions, 332. Cuban Consideration of, 324. Early Owners, 296, 298. Early Governors and Settlement, 295-296. Estimated Area, 280. Flora and Fauna, 290-293. Future of, 335. Land Companies in, 324-325. Population, 299. Relations between "Natives" and "Yanquis," 323-324. Relationship to Cuba, 308-310. Reputation for Turbulence, 298- 299. Rivers of, 291. ' * RR-r-rousing RR-r-revolution ' ' in, 320. Salubrity of Climate, 313-318. Slow Development of, 296-305. Social Atmosphere of, 329. INDEX 509 status of, 321. Temperature of, 317. Topography of northern part, 286, 290. Towns of, 305-306, 310-312, 325- 328. Visits of "Special Agents," 333. Jai Alai, 68. Jesus del Monte, 8, 40, 49. "Jobs," Supreme Importance of, 167, 172, 185-186, 200. Jols, Cornelius, Admiral and Pirate, 211, 294. Jucaro, 400. Julia, the Herrera Liner, 337, 338, 342, 346, 350, 352, 353, 367. Jungle, 282, 428-430. K Karutz, Dr. Paul, 471, 475. Keenan, T. J., 289. Key-View-by-the-Sea, 319, 326-327. Kies, Captain, 426. Kobler, Mr., 454. Labadia, Dr. D. Jose, 304. Land Companies, 231, 245-246, 324- 325, 411-416. Lanier, Lt. D. Alejo Helvecio, 304. . Legends and Tales, 216, 218, 222-223, 234, 313, 316, 373-382. "Legion, the Foreign," 178. "Living in," 135-138. Lopez, the. Expedition, 28, 269. Los Indios, Origin of Name, 294. River, 282. Settlement, 281, 285, 293, 327-328. Lucayos, 86. Lucha, La, 146, 175. Luz Hernandez, Dr. Jose de la, 312, 318. M Maceo, Antonio, 95, 226, 241, 269. Magoon, Governor, 72, 183-186,. 191, 250, 269. Maine, Burial Place of Victims of, 43. Theories concerning Wrecking of, 169. Wrecking of, Fortunate for Cuba, 169. Marble, in Isle of Pines, 287-290. Marianao, 49. Majana, 207, 240. Mantua, 242, 261, 274, 437. Manzanillo, 383, 446-447. Mariel, 207, 208, 209. Market, Cuban Demand for the American, 194-206. Fish, 54-55. The, of Havana, 57. Marriage, 101-102. Marti, Jose, Grave of, 367, 368. Statue of, 20-21. Martial, Satirist, on Havana, 58-59. Martyrs of 1871, 42-43. Marx, Luis, Estates at Alquizar, 240. Matteson, Mr., 426. Mayabe, 444-445. Mayari, 465, 478-480. McKinley, Isle of Pines Settlement, 293, 319, 325. President William, 192. McLane, Captain, 310. Meals, hours of, 110-111. Mejor Mine, 438. Menocal, General Mario, 181, 186. Merrimac, Hobson's, 353. Military Government (see also Wood), American, of Cuba, 170, 370. Miramar, Hotel, 22, 81, 162-163. Money, Variety of, in circulation, 67. Morales, Don Pedro de, 356. Morgan, Sir Henry, 294, 404. Moron, 400. Mountains, of Isle of Pines, 286-290. Organo, 221-234. N Nanigo Clans, 149-150. Narvaez, Panfilo de, 348, 402. "Natives," negroid, 83, 87-97. Negroes, African, customs of, 147-150. Prominent, 93-95. Relations with Whites, 90-97. 610 INDEX Newspapers, Social Reporters, 72. Venders of, 58. Nipe, 348, 349, 350, 369, 379, 380, 464-504. "Noncombatants," 124-125. Nueva Gerona, 306-308. Nuevitas, 339, 350, 403. O Obispo (see Street), origin of name, 14. Shopping on, 63. Ocean Beach, 214, 242-244. Odoardo Grand-Pre, D. Hipolito, 302-303. O'Donnell, Captain-General, 25, 288. Omaja, 430. O'Reilly, General Alejandro, 16. Origin of name of street, 16. "Organos, Holes in," 224-226.. Mountains, 213, 221-237. Principal peaks of, 214. Orr Brothers, 232, 246. Oseta, Juan de Villaverde, 356. Oviedo, historian, 375, 378. Palace, the, of Havana, 5, 11. Palacios, Los, 240, 247, 255. Palenques, 222. Palma, President Tomas Estrada, 93, 170,172, 182-183,185,367-368. Palmarito, 459-463. Palma Soriano, 446, 448-449. Parks, of Havana, 18. Campo Marte, 19. Central, 18, 20-24. Colon, 19. La India, 19. Parties, Political, 172-173, 186. Paso Estancia, 446, 451-456. Paso Real, 241, 247, 255. Paternalism, survival of, 141-142. Patti, debut at Santiago, 370. Pedernales, 438, 440-444. Pedroso, Captain Hernando, 296. People in Cuba, 83-97. Perez, D. J. M., 359. Perpetua, battle off Point, 216. Perpiiia, Father Antonio, 342, 343, 344. Pets, Cuban love of, 120. Pinales, the Mountains, 464, 497. Pinar del Rio, City. 241, 260-261, 263. Pinar del Rio, Province of, 207-278. Boundaries of, 207-208. Good Roads in, 250-267. Coasts of, 209-220. Opening Opportunities in, 249. Peaceful, 268-269. Physical Characteristics of, 221- 237. Towns of, 234, 238-244. Trip through, 238-244. Water courses, 232. Pineapples, 165, 240, 247. Pioneers, see American Settlers. Pirates, 211, 220, 272-273, 295, 297, 313, 359, 356, 404. Placetas, 395. Plaza de Armas, 5, 11. De San Francisco, 38. Monserrate, 17. The, at Santiago de Cuba, 355, 370, 371. Poey, Cuban scientist, 291. Political divisions of Cuba, 165. Population, 83, 134-135. Porcallo de Figueroa, Vasco, 401 403. Prado, the, at Havana, 19-20. Upper, 19. Preston, Central, 465, 481-487. Principe, 48. Privateers (see also Pirates), Colom- bian, 269. Processions, Religious, 15, 360. Puerto Padre, 433. Puerto Principe, see Camaguey. Q Queen, Gardens of the, 294, 384. Queen of the Angels, 385. Race conflict and feeling, 90-95. RaUroad, the Cuba, 354, 383, 396, 446, 464, 466, 471. INDEX 611 Railway, the Cuban Central, 179, 389. The Western, of Havana, 37, 177, 234-235, 239. Ramirez, Chaplain D. Bernardino, 374, 378. Rancho Boyeros, 247. Rangel, Villa, 227-231. Reefs, the Colorado, 208, 210, 211, 213. Regla, 49. Religion, evidences of lack of, 117- 118. Republic, the Cuban, reasons for failure of, 164-167, 170-174. Rey, Vara de, 365. Rivero, D. Nicolas, 140-141. Roads, good, in the island, 250-267, 368-369, 446. Rolston, Mr., 449. Roosevelt, President Theodore, 180, 204, 365. Rosado, Francisco, 352, 364. Saetia, 466, 478, 479, 491-493. Sagua la Grande, 392, 393. Salaries, 153. San Antonio, Cape, 215. Sancti Spiritus, 397-398, 401. San Cristobal, 240, 245, 247, 254, 255, Sandflies, 292-293. San Diego de los Baiios, 225, 255- 260, 265. San Diego, Fort, 28. San Juan Hill, 365. San Juan y Martinez, 241, 263. San Miguel, Antonio, 146. Town of, 342. Santa Clara, City of, 396. Santa Clara, Province of, 389-395. Gold in, 437. Santa Cruz del Sur, 384. Santa Fe, 291, 293, 310, 311-312, 319. Springs, Legend of, 313-316. Santa Rosalia, 319, 332. Santiago de Cuba, 351, 352-372, 401. Santiago de las Vegas, 247. Santiago Mine, The, 437. San Vicente Vale, 265. Sarda, Major, 288. Saucier, Mr. F. X., 341, 422. Sauvalle, Don Francisco Adolfo, 227- 231. Schafer, Dr., of the Bronx, 497. Schoolhouse at Santiago, 365. Schools, Public, of Cuba, 365-366. Shelley, Lt. James E., 225. Shipping expenses on fruit, 246, 248, 335. Shopping in Havana, 61-67. Siboney, American landing at, 353. Siboney Indians, 86. Sidewalks, customs concerning, 61- 62. Origin of, 9. Siesta, the, 61. Siguanea Bay, 282, 290. Sierra de, 290. Slaves, slavery, etc., 87, 222. Slevin, E. de Laureal, 177, 179. Society, Circles of, 159-162. Soto, Hernando de, 29, 354, 355, 402. Spaniards in Cuba, 135-146. Spanish-American Iron Company, 466, 495. War, 167, 353, 363-365. Stark's sawmill, 328. Stenographer, the American, in Ha- vana, 154-157. Streets, of Havana, names of, etc., 14-17. Venders on, 59-61. Suburbs (see also Vedado), 8, 48-50. Sugar, 164, 248, 326, 335, 389-392, 395. Swamps, 280, 290, 304, 375-376. Swedes, as colonists in Cuba, 456-458. Tacajo, 468. Taco Taco, 226, 240, 247, 255. Taft, William Howard, 173-184. Tariff, 203. Taxation, 165, 194-199. Telegraph, the Daily, 77, 174-180. Templete, The, 12-14. Terrill, Major, 189. Theater, Albisu, 69. Alhambra, 71. Grand, 71. 512 INDEX Theatre, National, 69. Payret, 69. Polyteama, 71. Tirry, Captain, 281, 297, 299-300, 302. Tobacco, 235, 241, 264-265, 268-278, 301, 394-395, 465. Torre, Marquis de la, 273, 297. Towns, Thomas R., 444. Train, the "Gunshy Armored," 177- 178. "Treasure Island," 280. Treasure, Search for buried, 218. Trinidad, 354, 384, 401. Trocha, 240, 400. Tunas, Victoria de las, 423. U United Fruit Company, 245, 466- 467, 469. University of Havana, 34-37. Van Home, R. B., 423. Sir WiUiam, 408, 421. Vedado, 8, 48, 157-159. Vegetable gardening, in Isle of Pines, 333. Veguero (see also Tobacco), steamer, 217. Velazquez, Adelantado Don Diego, 3, 13, 350, 355, 384, 401, 434, 436. Vento, water works, 18. Viiiales, valley and town of, 263- 267, 369. Virginius, crew of, 366. Vista Alegre, 427. Vuelta Abajo, 236, 270, 274-278, 301, 425, 437. W Walls, city, of Havana, 33-34. War, "The Little," of August, 77, 173-181, 253, 269. The Ten Years', 269, 447. Washington, George, 358. Watchman, night, institution of, 53, 361. Weather, "the Wet Season," 75. Webster, Mr. Benton, 226. White, "passing for," 83, 88-94. Woodfred, 466, 496-500. Wood, General Leonard, Governor, 72, 170, 189, 191, 365, 368- 369. Woods, Hard, 398-399, 420. Wright, Charles, 228. Yarigua, 423. Young, Messrs., of Santa Teresa, 317. Young, Mr., 477. Zayas, Dr. Alfredo, 186. The, family, Isle of Pines, 298. Zaza del Medio, 396. Zelaver family. The, 298. 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