A NY contribution to Cuban literature cannot, if so I may call it, but possess considerable interest at this absorbing moment. The following pages embody the experience gathered during a visit to Cuba some years ago, and to this I have added many facts and memoranda bestowed by friends whose knowledge of the country is more recent than my own, and information collected from various works upon Cuba and West Indian subjects. I do not pretend that the book is an authoritative text-book on Cuban mat

C UBA , "the Pearl of the Antilles" and the key to the Gulf of Mexico, is not only the largest, but the most important and the wealthiest island in the West Indian Archipelago. Its curious shape has been aptly compared to that of a bird's tongue,—a parrot's by preference. From Point Maisi, at one extremity, to Cape San Antonio, at the other, it describes a curve of 900 miles, being, at its greatest breadth, only 120 miles from sea to sea. It is traversed throughout its Eastern province by a rang

T HERE must have been people in Cuba in the very night of time, for some prehistoric race has left its trace behind. Numerous stone implements of war and agriculture, closely resembling those so frequently found in various parts of Europe, have been unearthed, near Bayamo, in the Eastern Province. Then, again, within the last thirty years, a number of caneyes or pyramidical mounds, covering human remains, many of them in a fossilized condition, have been discovered in the same part of the island

I T was on the morning of Friday, 12th October 1492, that Christopher Columbus first saw the New World rising on the ocean horizon. The ardently prayed-for land proved to be an island, called by the natives Guanahanè, and by the explorer baptized San Salvador, but known to us now as the chief of the Bahamas group. After making friends with the gentle natives, and taking in supplies of food and water, Columbus, though at some loss as to which way he should direct his course, set sail once more. S

T HE difficulties of governing a colony blessed with so heterogeneous a population as Cuba, are, as may well be conceived, great and manifold. The ordinary newspaper reader is apt to conclude that his favourite daily fully instructs him as to the Hispano-Cuban question, and takes the Spaniards for a set of damnable inquisitors, who harry, torture, and starve the angelic Cubans out of sheer devilry, precisely as the unlucky Abd'ul' Hamid is supposed to have given his personal supervision to the A

T HE dying Cespedes bequeathed his honours to his friend and henchman, Don Salvador Cisneros y Bétancourt, Marquez de Santa Lucia, who was forthwith elected President of the Republic. He displayed exceptional ability, endeavoured to bring some discipline into the ranks of his more or less disorderly followers, and succeeded for a time, not only in this attempt, but also in reviving the dashed spirit of the rebels in the Eastern Province. At length he wearied of what ultimately proved a thankless

N OTWITHSTANDING the mosquito nuisance and indifferent drainage, the traveller's first impression of Havana is distinctly agreeable, and the pleasing illusion is never completely destroyed. The harbour is wonderfully picturesque. Opposite the entrance stands the Morro Castle, built by Philip II. of Spain in 1573. It was formerly almost a facsimile of that curious little castellated Moorish fortress which faces the beautiful Monastery and Church of Belem, at Lisbon, but has been considerably alte

T HE immediate environs of Havana are disappointing, although some of the neighbouring villages are pretty enough. Every visitor to Havana is sure to be taken to three places—Puentes Grandes, Marianao, and Carmelo. A little railway carries you, as slowly as steam can do it, in about an hour, out to Marianao. If it were not for the groups of palm trees and the huge plantain leaves, generally very dusty and tattered, hanging over the garden walls, you might easily mistake the country for certain d

T O my mind, Cienfuegos is the Cuban port which should, under a sensible and progressive administration, offer the finest prospect for future development and prosperity. The bay is extremely beautiful, and on its deep expanse the combined fleets of the nations might anchor in perfect security. Four rivers, which might easily be rendered navigable, the Damuji, the Salado, the Caonao, and the Orimao, flow into its waters. Here, in the brighter times to come, when the Spaniards shall cease from tro

T HE next place of importance on our tour was Trinidad de Cuba, a queer little city of about 18,000 inhabitants, with funny old-fashioned houses, their windows protected by thick iron gratings, like those of a mediæval Italian city, scrambling in somewhat disorderly fashion up and down the sides of a steepish hill called the Vija, or Watch Tower. Trinidad is situated about ten miles inland from the sea-shore, and is said to be one of the oldest and quaintest towns in this part of the West Indies

N O account of Cuba would be quite complete without some reference to the superstitious observances of the negro population, which have not failed to affect, by a kind of reflex action, the ideas and customs of the white inhabitants of the island. The negroes have a smattering, of course, of Catholic teaching, and a tincture of the superstitions which affect the lowest order of Catholic mind. Super-added to these—or perhaps I should rather say, underlying them—we find a great mass of Voudistic l

I T is only by visiting two or three of the great plantations, of various kinds, that one can form any idea, not only of the agricultural wealth of the island, but of the extraordinary beauty of its flora. There are plantations and plantations in Cuba, just as there are country houses and country houses in England: some (I am speaking of the island before the present rebellion) are magnificent; others are distinctly rough and tumbledown. The first sugar plantation I had the pleasure of visiting

I T was early on a bright winter morning that our good ship "San Jacinto" steamed into the harbour of Nassau, the capital of New Providence. As I leaned over the side and looked down into the waters over which our vessel moved, I could scarcely believe my eyes. It seemed impossible that water deep enough to float the ship should be so marvellously clear. We appeared to be gliding over a sheet of sea-green crystal. Not a pebble, bit of sponge, shell, fish, crab, or coral, but was distinctly visib

N O historical question has been more keenly disputed than that of the real place where Christopher Columbus was born. The majority incline to believe him to have been a native of Genoa, or else of the neighbouring town of Savona. One learned gentleman has even asserted in a very elaborate pamphlet, published not long ago, that he came from Cremona. The Abate Casanova of Ajaccio, in another pamphlet, attempts, on the strength of a very ancient but equally obscure tradition, to prove that Columbu

I N 1886-7 the writer of these lines became closely connected with the West Indian Section of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition, South Kensington. Sir Augustus Adderley, the Commissioner for the West Indies, a gentleman of varied knowledge and experience, displayed an activity in organising the Court for which he was responsible, which resulted in a thorough and most satisfactory representation of the various West Indian islands under British dominion. To add attraction to his Department, Sir A