Efforts of the Early Governors to Encourage Trade—Cultivation ofSugar One of the First Industries—Decree Defining Powers of theCaptain General—Attempted Annexation to the United States—TheOstend Manifesto—Its Wonderful Predictions, in the Light ofLater Events—Exports and Imports Between Cuba and Spain—TheFuture of Commercial Cuba.
The commerce of Cuba has grown in spite of the limitations that have been placed upon it and not because of any encouragement that has been given to it. Columbus called Cuba the most beautiful land that eyes had ever seen. Its resources, granted by a generous nature, have enabled it to recuperate after destructive warfare with a rapidity simply amazing to those accustomed only to the climate and the soil of the temperate zone. The immense industries of Cuba have been hampered from the beginning by Spanish oppression and the fact that they have flourished under such unfavorable conditions is a striking evidence of what may be expected under a policy of encouragement and freedom. Sugar, tobacco, and other tropical products have made fortunes for Cuba every year, only to have them stolen by Spanish officeholders, sent there to plunder all they could get their hands upon. With peace assured, the opportunities for the extension of industries in the "Pearl of the Antilles" will be enormous.
The commercial development of Cuba has come through centuries of disturbance, warfare, and oppression. A simple catalogue of all the evils with which the Cubans have had to contend would fill a volume. All that can be done here is to indicate briefly some of the more notable events in the history of the island after the British conquests and the relinquishment of the prize to the Spanish authorities upon the return of peace. Near the end of the last century there came a period which offered more encouragement to the hope of permanent prosperity in Cuba than had been offered before. The successive governors appointed varied in character, it is true, but several of them were liberal minded, public spirited men who gave to the colony far better administration that it had been accustomed to. One of these was Luis de Las Casas, who imparted a new impulse to the agriculture and commerce of the island. It was under his guidance that trade with the United States began to assume importance, and to his efforts was due the transfer of the remains of Columbus from Santo Domingo to their present resting place in the cathedral at Havana. He encouraged literature, science, the fine arts and the erection of various public charitable and educational institutions. He was the founder of the first public library and the first newspaper which had existed in the island. He showed his ability as an executive by restraining the restless population under the excitement which accompanied the revolution in the neighboring colony of Santo Domingo, which ended by the loss to Spain of that island.
One of the earliest causes of ill feeling between the islanders of Cuba and the people of Spain occurred just at the end of the administration of Las Casas in 1796. In the seventy years prior to that time a great navy yard grew up on the Bay of Havana, and 114 war vessels were built there to convoy the Spanish treasure ships. All at once this flourishing industry was closed on the demand of the ship-builders of Spain that the work should be done in the mother country. As might have been expected, this aroused great indignation among a large number of people in Havana who had been dependent upon the industry.
It was about the same time, or just a hundred years before the outbreak of our war with Spain, that sugar became an important article of general commerce. Even then, however, it was not an article of common consumption, and was held at extravagantly high prices, measured by the present cheapness of the article. Market reports of the time show that the price approximated forty cents a pound, and this at a time when the purchasing power of money was at least twice as great as it is now. As the price has fallen, the product and the consumption have increased, until of late years it has been an enormous source of revenue to the Island of Cuba. When Napoleon Bonaparte abducted the royal family of Spain and deposed the Bourbon dynasty in 1808, every member of the provincial counsel of Cuba took an oath to preserve the island for their legitimate sovereign. The Colonial government immediately declared war against Napoleon and proclaimed Ferdinand VII. as king. It was by this action that the colony earned its title of "The ever-faithful isle," which has been excellent as a complimentary phrase, but hardly justified by the actual facts. For some years following this action, affairs in the island were in an embarrassing condition, owing to the progress of the Napoleonic wars in Europe, which kept all trade disturbed and Spain in a constant condition of disorder. If it had not been for the fortunate election of one or two of the governors things might have been even worse than they were, and it was considered that Cuba was enjoying quite as much peace and prosperity as were her neighbor colonies and the mother governments of Europe. In 1812 a negro conspiracy broke out and attained considerable success, and as a result of it the Spanish governors began to be more and more severe in their administrations.
Under the influence of the spirit of freedom which was spreading all around them, Cubans became more and more restless. The revolutionary movements in Spanish America had begun in 1810, and after fourteen years of guerrilla warfare, European power had vanished in the Western hemisphere from the Northern boundary of the United States to Cape Horn, except for the Colonies of British Honduras and the Guianas, and a few of the West Indian Islands. In 1821, Santo Domingo became independent, and in the same year Florida came into the possession of the United States. Secret societies, with the purpose of revolution as their motive, began to spring up in Cuba, and the population divided into well-defined factions. There was indeed an attempt at open revolt made in 1823 by one of these societies known as the "Soles De Bolivar," but it was averted before the actual outbreak came, and those leaders of it who were not able to escape from Cuba were arrested and punished. It was as a result of these successive events that the office of Captain General was created and invested with all the powers of Oriental despotism. The functions of the Captain General were defined by a royal decree of May 28, 1825, to the following effect:
His Majesty, the King Our Lord, desiring to obviate the inconveniences that might in extraordinary cases result from a division of command, and from the interferences and prerogatives of the respective officers; for the important end of preserving in that precious island his legitimate sovereign authority and the public tranquillity through proper means, has resolved in accordance with the opinion of his council of ministers to give to your Excellency the fullest authority, bestowing upon you all the powers which by the royal ordinances are granted to the governors of besieged cities. In consequence of this, his Majesty gives to your Excellency the most ample and unbounded power, not only to send away from the island any persons in office, whatever their occupation, rank, class, or condition, whose continuance therein your Excellency may deem injurious, or whose conduct, public or private, may alarm you, replacing them with persons faithful to his Majesty and deserving of all the confidence of your Excellency; but also to suspend the execution of any order whatsoever, or any general provision made concerning any branch of the administration as your Excellency may think most suitable to the Royal Service.
This decree since that time has been substantially the supreme law of Cuba, and has never been radically modified by any concessions except those given as a last and lingering effort to preserve the sovereignty of Spain, when after three years' progress of the revolution she realized that her colony had slipped away from her authority. The decree quoted in itself offers sufficient justification for the Cuban revolution in the name of liberty.
During the present century there have been a number of attempts on the part of men prominent in public life, both in the United States and Cuba, to arrange a peaceable annexation by the purchase by this country of the island from Spain. Statesmen of both nations have been of the opinion that such a settlement of the difficulty would be mutually advantageous, and have used every diplomatic endeavor to that end.
During Thomas Jefferson's term of office, while Spain bowed beneath the yoke of France, from which there was then no prospect of relief, the people of Cuba, feeling themselves imcompetent in force to maintain their independence, sent a deputation to Washington, proposing the annexation of the island to the federal system of North America.
In 1854 President Pearce instructed Wm. L. Marcy, his Secretary ofState, to arrange a conference of the Ministers of the UnitedStates to England, France and Spain, to be held with a view to theacquisition of Cuba.
The conference met at Ostend on the 9th of October, 1854, and adjourned to Aix-la-Chapelle, where notes were prepared. Mr. Soule, then our Minister to Spain, said in a letter to Mr. Marcy, transmitting the joint report: "The question of the acquisition of Cuba by us is gaining ground as it grows to be more seriously agitated and considered. Now is the moment for us to be done with it, and if it is to bring upon us the calamity of war, let it be now, while the great powers of this continent are engaged in that stupendous struggle which cannot but engage all their strength and tax all their energies as long as it lasts, and may, before it ends, convulse them all. Neither England nor France would be likely to interfere with us. England could not bear to be suddenly shut out of our market, and see her manufactures paralyzed, even by a temporary suspension of her intercourse with us. And France, with the heavy task now on her hands, and when she so eagerly aspires to take her seat as the acknowledged chief of the European family, would have no inducement to assume the burden of another war."
The result of this conference is so interesting in its application to present conditions that its reproduction is required to make intelligible the whole story of Cuba, and we give it here:
Sir: The undersigned, in compliance with the wish expressed by the president in the several confidential despatches you have addressed to us respectively, to that effect, we have met in conference, first at Ostend, in Belgium, on the 9th, 10th, and 11th instant, and then at Aix-la-Chapelle, in Prussia, on the days next following, up to the date hereof.
There has been a full and unreserved interchange of views and sentiments between us, which we are most happy to inform you has resulted in a cordial coincidence of opinion on the grave and important subjects submitted to our consideration.
We have arrived at the conclusion, and are thoroughly convinced that an immediate and earnest effort ought to be made by the government of the United States to purchase Cuba from Spain at any price for which it can he obtained, not exceeding the sum of $…
The proposal should, in our opinion, be made in such a manner as to be presented through the necessary diplomatic forms to the Supreme Constituent Cortes about to assemble. On this momentous question, in which the people, both of Spain and the United States, are so deeply interested, all our proceedings ought to be open, frank and public. They should be of such a character as to challenge the approbation of the world.
We firmly believe that, in the progress of human events, the time has arrived when the vital interests of Spain are as seriously involved in the sale, us those of the United States in the purchase, of the island, and that the transaction will prove equally honorable to both nations.
Under these circumstances we cannot anticipate a failure, unless possibly through the malign influence of foreign powers who possess no right whatever to interfere in the matter.
We proceed to state some of the reasons which have brought us to, this conclusion, and for the sake of clearness, we shall specify them under two distinct heads:
1. The United States ought, if practicable, to purchase Cuba with as little delay as possible.
2. The probability is great that the government and Cortes of Spain will prove willing to sell it, because this would essentially promote the highest and best interests of the Spanish people.
Then, 1. It must be clear to every reflecting mind that, from the peculiarity of its geographical position, and the considerations attendant on it. Cuba is as necessary to the North American republic as any of its present members, and that it belongs naturally to that great family of states of which the Union is the providential nursery.
From its locality it commands the mouth of the Mississippi and the immense and annually increasing trade which must seek this avenue to the ocean.
On the numerous navigable streams, measuring an aggregate course of some thirty thousand miles, which disembogue themselves through this magnificent river into the Gulf of Mexico, the increase of the population within the last ten years amounts to more than that of the entire Union at the time Louisiana was annexed to it.
The natural and main outlet to the products of this entire population, the highway of their direct intercourse with the Atlantic and the Pacific States, can never be secure, but must ever be endangered whilst Cuba is a dependency of a distant power in whose possession it has proved to be a source of constant annoyance and embarrassment to their interests.
Indeed the Union can never enjoy repose, nor possess reliable security, as long as Cuba is not embraced within its boundaries.
Its immediate acquisition by our government is of paramount importance, and we cannot doubt but that it is a consummation devoutly wished for by its inhabitants.
The intercourse which its proximity to our coast begets and encourages between them and the citizens of the United States, has, in the progress of time, so united their interests and blended their fortunes that they now look upon each other as if they were one people, and had but one destiny.
Considerations exist which render delay in the acquisition of this island exceedingly dangerous to the United States.
The system of immigration and labor lately organized within its limits, and the tyranny and oppression which characterize its immediate rulers threaten an insurrection at every moment, which may result in direful consequences to the American people.
Cuba has thus become to us an unceasing danger, and a permanent cause of anxiety and alarm.
But we need not enlarge on these topics. It can scarcely be apprehended that foreign powers, in violation of international law, would interpose their influence with Spain to prevent our acquisition of the island. Its inhabitants are now suffering under the worst of all possible governments, that of absolute despotism, delegated by a distant power to irresponsible agents, who are changed at short intervals, and who are tempted to improve their brief opportunity thus afforded to accumulate fortunes by the basest means.
As long as this system shall endure, humanity may in vain demand the suppression of the African slave trade in the island. This is rendered impossible whilst that infamous traffic remains an irresistible temptation and a source of immense profit to needy and avaricious officials, who, to attain their ends, scruple not to trample the most sacred principles under foot.
The Spanish government at home may be well disposed, but experience has proved that it cannot control these remote depositaries of its power.
Besides, the commercial nations of the world cannot fail to perceive and appreciate the great advantages which would result to their people from a dissolution of the forced and unnatural connection between Spain and Cuba, and the annexation of the latter to the United States. The trade of England and France with Cuba would, in that event, assume at once an important and profitable character, and rapidly extend with the increasing population and prosperity of the island.
2. But if the United States and every commercial nation would be benefited by this transfer, the interests of Spain would also be greatly and essentially promoted.
She cannot but see that such a sum of money as we are willing to pay for the island would affect it in the development of her vast natural resources.
Two-thirds of this sum, if employed in the construction of a system of railroads, would ultimately prove a source of greater wealth to the Spanish people than that opened to their vision by Cortez. Their prosperity would date from the ratification of the treaty of cession.
France has already constructed continuous lines of railways from Havre, Marseilles, Valenciennes, and Strasburg, via Paris, to the Spanish frontier, and anxiously awaits the day when Spain shall find herself in a condition to extend these roads through her northern provinces to Madrid, Seville, Cadiz, Malaga, and the frontiers of Portugal.
This object once accomplished, Spain would become a center of attraction for the traveling world, and secure a permanent and profitable market for her various productions. Her fields, under the stimulus given to industry by remunerating prices, would teem with cereal grain, and her vineyards would bring forth a vastly increased quantity of choice wines. Spain would speedily become what a bountiful Providence intended she should be, one of the first nations of continental Europe—rich, powerful and contented.
Whilst two-thirds of the price of the island would be ample for the completion of her most important public improvements, she might with the remaining forty millions satisfy the demands now pressing so heavily upon her credit, and create a sinking fund which would gradually relieve her from the overwhelming debt now paralyzing her energies.
Such is her present wretched financial condition, that her best bonds are sold upon her own bourse at about one-third of their par value; whilst another class, on which she pays no interest, have but a nominal value, and are quoted at about one-sixth of the amount for which they were issued. Besides, these latter are held principally by British creditors, who may, from day to day, obtain the effective interposition of their own government for the purpose of coercing payment. Intimations to that effect have already been thrown out from high quarters, and unless some new sources of revenue shall enable Spain to provide for such exigencies, it is not improbable that they may be realized.
Should Spain reject the present golden opportunity for developing her resources and removing her financial embarrassments, it may never again return.
Cuba, in her palmiest days, never yielded her exchequer, after deducting the expense of its government, a clear annual income of more than a million and a half of dollars. These expenses have increased to such a degree as to leave a deficit, chargeable on the treasury of Spain, to the amount of six hundred thousand dollars.
In a pecuniary point of view, therefore, the island is an encumbrance instead of a source of profit to the mother country.
Under no probable circumstance can Cuba ever yield to Spain one per cent, on the large amount which the United States are willing to pay for its acquisition. But Spain is in imminent danger of losing Cuba without remuneration.
Extreme oppression, it is now universally admitted, justifies any people in endeavoring to relieve themselves from the yoke of their oppressors. The sufferings which corrupt, arbitrary and unrelenting local administration necessarily entail upon the inhabitants of Cuba cannot fail to stimulate and keep alive that spirit of resistance and revolution against Spain which has of late years been so often manifested. In this condition of affairs it is vain to expect that the sympathies of the people of the United States will not be warmly enlisted in favor of their oppressed neighbors.
We know that the President is justly inflexible in his determination to execute the neutrality laws; but should the Cubans themselves rise in revolt against the oppression which they suffer, no human power could prevent citizens of the United States and liberal-minded men of other countries from rushing to their assistance. Besides, the present is an age of adventure in which restless and daring spirits abound in every portion of the world.
It is not improbable, therefore, that Cuba may be wrested from Spain by a successful revolution; and in that event she will lose both the island and the price which we are now willing to pay for it—a price far beyond what was ever paid by one people to another for any province.
It may also be remarked that the settlement of this vexed question, by the cession of Cuba to the United States, would forever prevent the dangerous complications between nations to which it may otherwise give birth.
It is certain that, should the Cubans themselves organize an insurrection against the Spanish government, and should other independent nations come to the aid of Spain in the contest, no human power could, in our opinion, prevent the people and government of the United States from taking part in such a civil war in support of their neighbors and friends.
But if Spain, dead to the voice of her own interest, and actuated by a stubborn pride and a false sense of honor, should refuse to sell Cuba to the United States, then the question will arise, What ought to be the course of the American government under such circumstances?
Self-preservation is the first law of nature with States as well as with individuals. All nations have, at different periods, acted upon this maxim. Although it has been made the pretext for committing flagrant injustice, as in the partition of Poland and other similar cases which history records, yet the principle itself, though often abused, has always been recognized.
The United States has never acquired a foot of territory except by fair purchase, or, as in the case of Texas, upon the free and voluntary application of the people of that independent State, who desired to blend their destinies with our own.
Even our acquisitions from Mexico are no exception to this rule because, although we might have claimed them by right of conquest in a just way, yet we purchased them for what was then considered by both parties a full and ample equivalent.
Our past history forbids that we should acquire the island of Cuba without the consent of Spain, unless justified by the great law of self-preservation. We must, in any event, preserve our own conscious rectitude and our own self-respect.
Whilst pursuing this course we can afford to disregard the censures of the world, to which we have been so often and so unjustly exposed.
After we have offered Spain a fair price for Cuba, far beyond its present value, and this shall have been refused, it will then be time to consider the question, does Cuba, in the possession of Spain, seriously endanger our internal peace and the existence of our cherished Union?
Should this question be answered in the affirmative, then, by every law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain, if we possess the power; and this upon the very same principle that would justify an individual in tearing down the burning house of his neighbor if there were no other means of preventing the flames from destroying his own home.
Under such circumstances we ought neither to count the cost, nor regard the odds which Spain might enlist against us. We forbear to enter into the question, whether the present condition of the island would justify such a measure. We should, however, be recreant to our duty, be unworthy of our gallant forefathers, and commit base treason against our posterity, should we permit Cuba to be Africanized and become a second San Domingo, with all its attendant horrors to the white race, and suffer the flames to extend to our own neighboring shores, seriously to endanger, or actually to consume, the fair fabric of our Union.
We fear that the course and current of events are rapidly tending toward such a catastrophe. We, however, hope for the best, though we ought certainly to be prepared for the worst.
We also forbear to investigate the present condition of the questions at issue between the United States and Spain. A long series of injuries to our people have been committed in Cuba by Spanish officials, and are unredressed. But recently a most flagrant outrage on the rights of American citizens, and on the flag of the United States, was perpetrated in the harbor of Havana under circumstances which, without immediate redress, would have justified a resort to measures of war in vindication of national honor. That outrage is not only unatoned, but the Spanish government has deliberately sanctioned the acts of its subordinates, and assumed the responsibility attaching to them.
Nothing could more impressively teach us the danger to which those peaceful relations it has ever been the policy of the United States to cherish with foreign nations, are constantly exposed, than the circumstances of that case. Situated as Spain and the United States are, the latter has forborne to resort to extreme measures.
But this course cannot, with due regard to their own dignity as an independent nation, continue; and our recommendations, now submitted, are dictated by the firm belief that the cession of Cuba to the United States, with stipulations as beneficial to Spain as those suggested, is the only effective mode of settling all past differences, and of securing the two countries against future collisions.
We have already witnessed the happy results for both countries which followed a similar arrangement in regard to Florida.
Yours, very respectfully,
HON. WM. L. MAECY, Secretary of State.
Unfortunately for Cuba the suggestions offered by this commission were not acted upon, although it is not probable that Spain, ever blind to her own interests, would have admitted the justice or reason of the argument, had the offer to purchase been made to her.
A table showing the amount of trade between Cuba and Spain duringthe year 1894 (the last authentic report), is instructive:
Importations in Cuba from Spain $ 7,492,622Exportation from Cuba to Spain $23,412,376—————-Difference in favor of export $15,919,754
Under happier conditions, there can be no doubt that Cuba will speedily attain a much higher state of commercial importance and prosperity than it has yet enjoyed. Great as its productiveness has been in the past, well-informed writers assert that proper development of its resources will increase the value five-fold, and a liberal system of government will enable it to take advantage of its admirable position to gain greater prominence in the commercial world.
A Delightful Climate—Grand Scenic Surprises—The Caves ofBellamar—The Valley of the Yumuri—Under Nature's Dome—GorgeousSunsets—The Palm Tree Groves—The Home of Fruits and Flowers—The Zodiacal Light.
When the little island of Cuba, "The Pearl of the Antilles," was assigned a place upon the terrestrial globe, Nature must have been in her most generous mood. Certainly no land beneath the skies was given a more perfect combination of mountains and rivers, forests and plains. Situated within and near the border of the northern tropical zone, the temperature of the low coast lands is that of the torrid zone, but the high interior of the island enjoys a delightful climate, and the verdure-clad hills, with the graceful palm and cocoa tree clear against the pure blue sky, may be seen at all seasons of the year.
As in other countries on the borders of the tropics, the year is divided between a hot and wet season, corresponding to the northern declination of the sun, and a cool and dry period. The months from the beginning of May to October are called the wet season, though some rain falls in every month of the year.
With May, spring begins in the island, rain and thunder are of almost daily occurrence, and the temperature rises high, with little daily variation. The period from November to April is called the dry season by contrast.
On a mean of seven years the rain-fall at Havana in the wet season has been observed to be 27.8 inches, of the dry months, 12.7, or 40.5 inches for the year.
July and August are the warmest months, and during this period the average temperature at Havana is 82 F, fluctuating between a maximum of 88 and a minimum of 76. In the cooler months of December and January the thermometer averages 72, the maximum being 78, and minimum 58. The average temperature of the year at Havana on a mean of seven years is 77.
But in the interior, at elevations of over 300 feet above the level of the sea, the thermometer occasionally falls to the freezing point in winter. Frost is not uncommon, and during north winds, thin ice may form, though snow is unknown in any part of the island.
The prevailing wind is the easterly trade breeze, but from November to February, cool north winds, rarely lasting more than forty-eight hours, are experienced in the western part of the island, to which they add a third seasonal change. Hurricanes may occur from August to October, but they are rare and sometimes five or six years pass without such a storm.
Many "globe-trotters" who have never included this little corner of the world in their itinerary, do not appreciate the fact that nowhere under the sun can be found a more perfect climate, grander mountain scenery, more charming valleys, more picturesque ruins, and fertile fields than Cuba offers to their view.
In another portion of this work will be found descriptions of the cities of Cuba, and brief mention here of some of the beauties of the country may not be amiss.
One of the grandest bits of scenery in the known world is to be found in the valley of the Yumuri, rivaling in sublimity the far-famed Lookout Mountain view and the Yosemite of the Sierra Nevadas. The journey leads over a winding trail, easily traversed by the native horses, up a steep hill, until, after a continuous climb of an hour and a half, the road turns around the edge of a grassy precipice, and the beautiful valley, with its patches of green and gold, spreads away in the distance. The little river of Yumuri winds its way through its flower-decked banks until it reaches the bay beyond, while in the distance rise the mighty mountains, clod in their coats of evergreen, and over all the fleecy clouds, and the sky of azure blue.
In this vicinity an opportunity is given the sight-seer to visit a sugar house and gain an idea of the sugar-making process, though on a very small scale, and enjoy a half an hour in the study of the natives, and their home life.
A traveler, in writing of this place, says:
"Our interview with the little black 'ninos' was highly amusing. On entering the court yard of the negro quarters, a dozen little black imps, of all ages and sexes and sizes, perfectly naked, rushed towards us, and crossing their arms upon their breasts, fell upon their knees before us, and jabbered and muttered, out of which could be distinguished, 'Master, master, give us thy blessing,' which we interpreted to mean 'tin;' whereupon we scattered sundry 'medios' among them! Hey! presto! what a change! The little black devils fell over one another, fought, tugged, and scrambled to secure a prize, while anyone who had been lucky enough to obtain a coin, marched off in a state of dignified delight, his distended little stomach going before him like a small beer barrel, while the owner of it kept shouting out, 'Medio, yo tengo medio' (five cents, I have five cents)."
One of the most interesting trips that can be made is to the "Caves of Bellamar," which may be found about two and a half miles southeast of the city of Matanzas.
The journey takes the traveler up a winding and rugged road to the top of a hill, where the "Cave house" is reached, a large frame structure built over the entrance, and containing, among other objects of interest, a large collection of beautiful crystal formations found in the cave.
Here the tourist enters his name in the visitors' register, pays his dollar, and follows the boy guide down the stairs into the cave. About one hundred and fifty feet from the entrance a small bridge is crossed, and the "Gothic Temple" is reached. The only light comes from a few scattered lanterns, and is consequently very obscure, but one can see the millions of crystals, the thousand weird forms, and realize that it is surpassingly beautiful. The temple is about two hundred feet in length and seventy feet in width, and while it does not equal in size or solemn grandeur the temple of the same name in the Mammoth cave of Kentucky, it greatly excels it in the richness and splendor of its crystal formations and beautiful effects.
The spectator possessed of strongly developed imaginative powers cannot fail to feel himself in fairy land. From the gloomy corners come gnomes and demons, and in the crystal shadows he sees sprites and lovely fairies, keeping gay revel to dreamy airs, played on invisible strings by spirit hands.
One of the most beautiful objects in the cave is the "Fountain ofSnow," a name given to one of the great pillars, called by thenatives the "Cloak of the Virgin." Others are known as "ColumbusMantle," "The Altar," and "The Guardian Spirit."
"Who has not seen the Caves of Bellamar has not seen Cuba."
One of the most vivid pieces of descriptive writing, referring to the beauties of Cuban skies, is from the pen of James M. Phillippo:
"The splendor of the early dawn in Cuba, as in the tropical islands in its vicinity, has been referred to. The whole sky is often so resplendent that it is difficult to determine where the orb of day will appear. Small fleecy clouds are often seen floating on the north wind, and as they hover over the mountains and meet the rays of the sun, are changed into liquid gold and a hundred intensely beautiful dyes more splendid than the tints of the rainbow. During the cooler months, the mornings are delightful till about ten o'clock, the air soon after dawn becoming agreeably elastic, and so transparent that distant objects appear as if delineated upon the bright surface of the air; the scenery everywhere, especially when viewed from an eminence, is indescribably rich and glowing; the tops of the rising grounds and the summits of the mountains are radiant with a flood of light, while the vapor is seen creeping along the valleys, here concealing the entrance to some beautiful glen, and there wreathing itself fantastically around a tall spire or groves of palm trees that mark the site of a populous village.
"The finest and most gorgeous sunsets occur in the West Indian Archipelago during the rainy seasons. The sky is then sublimely mantled with gigantic masses of cloud, glowing with a thousand gorgeous dyes, and seeming to collect at the close of day as though to form a couch for the sun's repose. In these he sinks, flooding them with glory, touching both heavens and earth with gold and amber brightness long after he has flung his beams across the other hemisphere, or perhaps half revealing himself through gauze-like clouds, a crimson sphere, at once rayless and of portentous size.
"The azure arch, which by an optical illusion limits our view on every side, seems here, and in the tropics generally, higher than in England, even higher than in Italy. Here is seen, in a perfection compared to which even Italian skies are vapid and uninteresting, that pure, serene, boundless sky, that atmosphere of clear blue, or vivid red, which so much contributes to enrich the pencil of Claude Lorraine. The atmosphere of Cuba, as everywhere within the tropics, except when the high winds prevail, is so unpolluted, so thin, so elastic, so dry, so serene, and so almost inconceivably transparent and brilliant, that every object is distinct and clearly defined as if cut out of the clear blue sky. All travelers agree in praising the calm depths of the intensely blue and gloriously bright skies of inter-tropical latitudes. In the temperate zone, it is estimated that about 1,000 stars are visible to the naked eye at one time; but here, from the increased elevation and wider extent of the vault, owing to the clearness of the atmosphere, especially as seen from a high mountain chain, the number is greatly augmented. If, however, these luminaries may not be seen here in greater numbers, they certainly shine with greater brilliancy. The different constellations are indeed so greatly magnified as to give the impression that the power of the eye is increased. Venus rises like a little moon, and in the absence of the greater casts a distinguishable shadow.
"The Milky Way, which in the temperate zone has the appearance of a luminous phosphorescent cloud, and, as is well known, derives its brightness from the diffused light of myriads of stars condensed into so small space that fifty thousand of them are estimated to pass across the disc of the telescope in an hour, is here seen divided into constellations, and the whole galaxy is of so dazzling a whiteness as to make it resemble a pure flame of silvery light thrown across the heavens, turning the atmosphere into a kind of green transparency. Besides this, there are vast masses of stellar nebulae of indefinite diversity and form, oval, oblate, elliptical, as well as of different degrees of density, diffused over the firmament, and discoverable through a common telescope, all novel to an inhabitant of temperate climes, and recalling the exclamation of the psalmist: 'The heavens declare the glory of God, … the firmament showeth forth His handiwork.'
"'The starsAre elder scripture, writ of God's own hand,Scripture authentic, uncorrupt by man.'
"An interesting phenomenon sometimes occurs here, as in other islands of the West Indies, which was long supposed to be seen only in the eastern hemisphere. A short time before sunrise or sunset, a flush of strong, white light, like that of the Aurora Borealis, extends from the horizon a considerable way up the zenith, and so resembles the dawn as to prove greatly deceptive to a stranger. As he watches the luminous track he sees it decrease instead of becoming more vivid, and at length totally disappear, leaving the heavens nearly as dark as previous to its appearance. This is the zodiacal light."
The Palm Tree, the Queen of the Cuban Forests—Sugar Cane and ItsCultivation—The Tobacco Industry—Tropical Fruits and Flowers—Beauties of a Garden in Cuba—Enormous Shipments to Spain—TheWealth of the Island.
The forests of Cuba are of vast extent, and so dense as to be almost impenetrable. It is estimated that of about 20,000,000 acres of land still remaining perfectly wild and uncultivated, nearly 13,000,000 are uncleared forest. Mahogany and other hard woods, such as the Cuban ebony, cedar, and granadilla, valuable for manufactures, cabinet work and ship building are indigenous, and are exported to a considerable extent.
The palm is the queen of the Cuban forests and is its most valuable tree. It grows in every part of the island, but especially in the west, giving at once character and beauty to the scenery. The royal palm is the most common variety, and frequently grows to a height of one hundred and twenty feet, the branches numbering from twenty to twenty-five, in the center of which are the hearts or buds of the plant, elevating themselves perpendicularly with needle-like points.
This heart, enveloped in wrappers of tender white leaves, makes a most delicious salad, and it is also boiled, like cauliflower, and served with a delicate white sauce. The trunk of the palm is composed of fibrous matter, which is stripped off and dried, forming a narrow, thin board, which the natives use for the walls of their cottages. The boughs are sometimes made to serve for roofing, though palm leaves are usually used for this purpose, as well as for the linings of the walls. "El yarey" is another variety of the palm tree that is of great utility. From it the native women make the palm leaf hats that are worn by almost all the villagers and country people of Cuba.
The fruits of Cuba are those common to the tropics. Bananas, pineapples, oranges, lemons and bread-fruit all grow in abundance, delicious to the taste and delightful to the eye.
Richard Henry Dana, Jr., after returning from a vacation trip to Cuba, wrote a charming description of a fruit garden that it was his good fortune to visit there:
"The garden contained a remarkable variety of trees, including some thrifty exotics. Here the mango, with its peach-like foliage, was bending on the ground with the weight of its ripening fruit; the alligator pear was marvelously beautiful in its full blossom, suggesting, in form and color, the passion flower; the soft, delicate foliage of the tamarind was like our sensitive plant; the banana trees were in full bearing, the deep green fruit (it is ripened and turns yellow off the tree), being in clusters of a hundred, more or less, tipped at the same time by a single, pendent, glutinous bud, nearly as large as a pineapple. The date palm, so suggestive of the far east, and the only one we had seen in Cuba, was represented by a choice specimen, imported in its youth. There was also the star-apple tree, remarkable for its uniform and graceful shape, full of green fruit, with here and there a ripening specimen; so, also, was the favorite zapota, its rusty coated fruit hanging in tempting abundance. From low, broad spreading trees depended the grape fruit, as large as an infant's head and yellow as gold, while the orange, lime and lemon trees, bearing blossoms, green and ripe fruit all together, met the eye at every turn, and filled the garden with fragrance. The cocoanut palm, with its tall, straight stem, and clustering fruit, dominated all the rest. Guava, fig, custard apple, and bread-fruit trees, all were in bearing.
"Our hospitable host plucked freely of the choicest for the benefit of his chance visitors. Was there ever such a fruit garden before, or elsewhere? It told of fertility of soil and deliciousness of climate, of care, judgment, and liberal expenditure, all of which combined had turned these half a dozen acres of land into a Gan Eden. Through his orchard of Hesperides, we were accompanied also by the proprietor's two lovely children, under nine years of age, with such wealth of promise in their large black eyes and sweet faces as to fix them on our memory with photographic fidelity. Before leaving the garden we returned with our intelligent host once more to examine his beautiful specimens of bananas, which, with its sister fruit, the plantain, forms so important a staple of fruit in Cuba and throughout all tropical regions. It seems that the female banana tree bears more fruit than the male, but not so large. The average clusters of the former comprise here about one hundred, but the latter rarely bears over sixty or seventy distinct specimens of the cucumber-shaped product. From the center of its large, broad leaves, which gather at the top, when it has reached the height of twelve or fifteen feet, there springs forth a large purple bud ten inches long, shaped like a huge acorn, though more pointed. This cone hangs suspended from a strong stem, upon which a leaf unfolds, displaying a cluster of young fruit. As soon as these are large enough to support the heat of the sun and the chill of the rain, this sheltering leaf drops off, and another unfolds, exposing its little brood of fruit; and so the process goes on, until six or eight rings of young bananas are started, forming, as we have said, bunches numbering from seventy to a hundred. The banana is a herbaceous plant, and after fruiting, its top dies; but it annually sprouts up again fresh from the roots. From the unripe fruit, dried in the sun, a palatable and nutritious flour is made."
Cuban tobacco is famous throughout the world, and is one of the most profitable of all its products. Prior to 1791 the crop was sent to the national factories in Spain, by the "Commercial Company of Havana," under government contract, but during that year the "Factoria de Tobacco" was established in Havana by the government. The tobacco was classified as superior, medium and inferior, and was received from the growers at fixed prices. In 1804 these were six, five and two and a half dollars per arrobe (a Spanish unit of weight, subject to local variations, but averaging about twenty-seven pounds avoirdupois).
By comparing the different prices with the quantity of each class of tobacco produced, we find that the "Factoria" paid an average price of $16 per hundred pounds for the leaf tobacco. With the expense of manufacture, the cigars cost the government seventy-five cents per pound; snuff, fine grain and good color, forty-three cents, and common soft, or Seville, nineteen cents a pound in Havana. In good years, when the crop amounted to 350,000 arrobes of leaf, 128,000 arrobes were manufactured for Spain, 80,000 for Havana, 9,200 for Peru, 6,000 for Buenos Ayres, 2,240 for Mexico, and 1,100 for Caracas and Campeachy.
In order to make up the amount of 315,000 arrobes, (for the crop loses ten per cent. of its weight, in loss and damage in the transportation and manufacture) we must suppose that 80,000 arrobes were consumed in the interior of the island; that is, in the country, where the royal monopoly did not extend. The maintenance of 120 slaves and the expenses of manufacture did not exceed $12,000 yearly; but the salaries of the officers of the "Factoria" amounted to $541,000. The value of the 128,000 arrobes of tobacco sent to Spain, in the abundant years, either in cigars, leaf or snuff, at the customary prices there, exceeded the sum of five million dollars.
It is surprising to see in the returns of the exports from Havana (documents published by the Consulado), that the exports for 1816 were only 3,400 arrobes; for the year 1823, only 13,900 arrobes of leaf tobacco; and in 1825 only 70,302 pounds of cigars and 167,100 pounds of leaf tobacco and strips; but we must remember that no branch of the contraband trade is more active than that in cigars. The tobacco of the Vuelta de Abajo is the most celebrated, but large quantities are exported which are produced in other parts of the island. The cultivation of tobacco has been one of the most uncertain branches of industry in Cuba. Trammeled by restrictions and exactions, it was confined almost entirely to the poorer classes of the population, who were enabled to raise a scanty and uncertain crop through the advances of capital made them by the "Factoria." Since the suppression of this monopoly, it has had to contend with the more popular and profitable pursuit of sugar planting, which has successfully competed with it for the employment of the capital, skill and labor of the island.
Maturin Ballou, in his "Cuba Past and Present," published in 1885, when the sugar industry was in its best days, writes an interesting account of cane cultivation:
"Sugar cane is cultivated like Indian corn, which it also resembles in appearance. It is first planted in rows, not in hills, and must be hoed and weeded until it gets high enough to shade its roots. Then it may be left to itself until it reaches maturity. This refers to the first laying out of a plantation, which will afterwards continue fruitful for years, by very simple processes of renewal. When thoroughly ripe the cane is of a light golden yellow, streaked here and there with red. The top is dark green, with long, narrow leaves depending, very much like those of the corn stalk, from the center of which shoots upward a silvery stem, a couple of feet in height, and from its tip grows a white fringed plume of a delicate lilac hue. The effect of a large field at its maturity, lying under a torrid sun, and gently yielding to the breeze, is very fine, a picture to live in the memory ever after.
"In the competition between the products of beet-root sugar and that from sugar cane, the former controls the market, because it can be produced at a cheaper rate, besides which its production is stimulated by nearly all of the European states, through the means of liberal subsidies both to the farmer and to the manufacturer. Beet sugar, however, does not possess so high a percentage of true saccharine matter as the product of the cane, the latter seeming to be nature's most direct mode of supplying us with the article. The Cuban planters have one advantage over all other sugar-cane producing countries, in the great and inexhaustible fertility of the soil of the island. For instance, one or two hogsheads of sugar to the acre is considered a good yield in Jamaica, but in Cuba three hogsheads are the average. Fertilizing of any sort is rarely employed in the cane fields, while in beet farming it is the principal agent of success. Though the modern machinery, as lately adopted on the plantations, is very expensive, still the result achieved by it is so much superior to that of the old methods of manufacture, that the small planters are being driven from the market. Slave labor cannot compete with machinery. The low price of sugar renders economy imperative in all branches of the business, in order to leave a margin for profit.
"A planter informed the author that he should spread all of his molasses upon the cane fields this year as a fertilizer, rather than send it to a distant market and receive only what it cost. He further said that thousands of acres of sugar cane would be allowed to rot in the fields this season, as it would cost more to cut, grind, pack and send it to market than could be realized for the manufactured article. Had the price of sugar remained this year at a figure which would afford the planters a fair profit, it might have been the means of tiding over the chasm of bankruptcy which has long stared them in the face, and upon the brink of which they now stand. But with a more than average crop, both as to quantity and quality, whether to gather it or not is a problem. Under these circumstances it is difficult to say what is to become, financially, of the people of Cuba. Sugar is their great staple, but all business has been equally suppressed upon the island, under the bane of civil laws, extortionate taxation, and oppressive rule.
"The sugar cane yields but one crop a year. There are several varieties, but the Otaheitan seems to be the most generally cultivated. Between the time when enough of the cane is ripe to warrant the getting up of steam at the grinding mill, and the time when the heat and the rain spoils its qualities, all the sugar for the season must be made, hence the necessity for great industry on large estates. In Louisiana the grinding lasts but about eight weeks. In Cuba it continues four months. In analyzing the sugar produced on the island, and comparing it with that of the main land, the growth of Louisiana, chemists could find no difference as to the quality of the true saccharine principle contained in each.
"The great sugar estates lie in the Vueltra Arriba, the region of the famous red earth. The face of this region smiles with prosperity. In every direction the traveler rides astonished through a garden of plenty, equally impressed by the magnificent extent, and the profuse fertility of the estates, whose palm avenues, plantain orchards, and cane fields succeed each other in almost unbroken succession. So productive are the estates, and so steady is the demand for the planter's crop, that the great sugar planters are, in truth, princes of agriculture.
"The imposing scale of operations on a great plantation, imparts a character of barbaric regal state to the life one leads there. Looking at them simply as an entertainment, the mills of these great sugar estates are not incongruous with the easy delight of the place. Everything is open and airy, and the processes of the beautiful steam machinery go on without the odors as without the noises that make most manufactories odious. In the centrifugal process of sugar making, the molasses passes into a large vat, by the side of which is a row of double cylinders, the outer one of solid metal, the inner of wire gauze. These cylinders revolve each on an axis attached by a horizontal wheel and band to a shaft which communicates with the central engine. The molasses is ladled out into the spaces between the external and internal cylinders, and the axes are set in motion at the rate of nineteen hundred revolutions a minute. For three minutes you see only a white indistinct whirling, then the motion is arrested, slowly and more slowly the cylinders revolve, then stop, and behold! the whole inner surface of the inner cylinder is covered with beautiful crystallizations of a light yellow sugar. Watching this ingenious process, I used to fancy that somewhat in this wise might the nebulae of space be slowly fashioning into worlds."
Some knowledge of the enormous wealth that has accrued to Spain from her Cuban possessions may be gained from the following quotation from "Cuba and the Cubans," published in New York in 1850 by Raimundo Cabrera:
"Oh, we are truly rich!
"From 1812 to 1826, Cuba, with her own resources, covered the expenditures of the treasury. Our opulence dates from that period. We had already sufficient negro slaves to cut down our virgin forests, and ample authority to force them to work …
"By means of our vices and our luxury, and in spite of the hatred of everything Spanish, which Moreno attributed to us, we sent, in 1827, the first little million of hard cash to the treasury of the nation. From that time until 1864 we continued to send yearly to the mother country two millions and a half of the same stuff. According to several Spanish statisticians, these sums amounted, in 1864, to $89,107,287. We were very rich, don't you see? tremendously rich. We contributed more than five million dollars towards the requirements of the Peninsular—$5,372,205. We paid, in great part, the cost of the war in Africa. The individual donations alone amounting to fabulous sums.
"But of course we have never voted for our own imposts; they have been forced upon us because we are so rich. In 1862, we had in a state of production the following estates: 2,712 stock farms, 1,521 sugar plantations, 782 coffee plantations, 6,175 cattle ranches, 18 cocoa plantations, 35 cotton plantations, 22,748, produce farms, 11,737 truck farms, 11,541 tobacco plantations, 1,731 apiaries, 153 country resorts, 243 distilleries, 468 tile works, 504 lime kilns, 63 charcoal furnaces, 54 cassava-bread factories, and 61 tanneries. To-day I do not know what we possess, because there are no statistics, and because the recently organized assessment is a hodge podge and a new burden; but we have more than at that time; surely we must have a great deal more.
"For a very long time we have borne the expenses of the convict settlement of Fernando Po. We paid for the ill-starred Mexican expedition, the costs of the war in San Domingo, and with the republics of the Pacific. How can we possibly be poor? While England, France and Holland appropriate large sums for the requirements of their colonies, Spain does not contribute a single cent for hers. We do not need it, we are wading deep in rivers of gold. If the fertility of our soil did not come to our rescue, we must, perforce, have become enriched by the system of protection to the commerce of the mother country. … The four columns of the tariff are indeed a sublime invention.. Our agricultural industries require foreign machinery, tools and utensils, which Spain does not supply, but, as she knows that we have gold to spare, she may make us pay for them very high. And since our sugar is to be sold to the United States .. never mind what they cost. When there are earthquakes in Andalusia and inundations in Murcia, hatred does not prevent us from sending to our afflicted brethren large sums … (which sometimes fail to reach their destination.)
"We are opulent? Let us see if we are. From the earliest times down to the present, the officials who come to Cuba, amass, in the briefest space of time, fortunes, to be dissipated in Madrid, and which appear never to disturb their consciences. This country is very rich, incalculably rich. In 1830 we contributed $6,120,934; in 1840, $9,605,877; in 1850, $10,074,677; in 1860, $29,610,779. During the war we did not merely contribute, we bled. We had to carry the budget of $82,000,000.
"We count 1,500,000 inhabitants, that is to say, one million and a half of vicious, voluptuous, pompous spendthrifts, full of hatred and low passions, who contribute to the public charges, and never receive a cent in exchange, who have given as much as $92 per capita, and who at the present moment pay to the state what no other taxpayers the world over have ever contributed. Does anyone say that we are not prodigiously, enviably rich?"