CHAPTER IX

CITIES AND TOWNS OF CUBA

The political divisions of Cuba, known as provinces, are six in number, and are named as follows, beginning at the west: Pinar del Rio, Havana, Matanzas, Santa Clara, Puerto Principe, and Santiago de Cuba; the capital city of each bearing the same name as its province.

Of the provinces it may be said that Pinar del Rio, with an area of 8486 square miles, has a population of 225,891 (167,160 white and 58,731 black), and is the centre of the tobacco industry, the famous Vuelta Abajo district lying within its limits; sugar, coffee, rice, corn, cotton, and fruits are also raised. Havana, with an area of 8610 square miles, has a population of 451,928 (344,417 white and 107,511 black). It is the centre of manufacture, the capital province, and the most populous province of the Island. Matanzas, with an area of 14,967 square miles, has a population of 259,578 (143,169 white and 115,409 black), and is the centre of the sugar industry; corn, rice, honey, wax, and fruits are produced and the province contains a deposit of peat and copper. Santa Clara, with an area of 23,083 square miles, has a population of 354,122 (244,345 white and 109,777 black), and it is rich in sugar, fruits, and minerals, including gold deposits in the Arino River. Puerto Principe, with an area of 32,341 square miles, has a population of 67,789 (54,232 white and 13,557 black), and is a mountainous region, with the largest caves and the highest mountains; building and cabinet woods and guava jelly are its chief products. Santiago de Cuba, with an area of 35,119 square miles, the largest of the provinces, has a population of 272,379 (57,980 white and 114,399 black), and not only possesses all the agricultural products found in the other provinces, but also has deposits of gold, iron, copper, zinc, asphalt, manganese, mercury, marble and alabaster, rock crystal, and gems, and its commerce is most extensive.

There are 115 cities and towns in the Island having an estimated population of 200 and upwards named as follows:

CITIES. Population. | CITIES. Population. | Havana................... 200,000 | Macurijes................. 4,100 Matanzas................. 50,000 | Bayamo.................... 3,634 Puerto Principe.......... 40,679 | San Luis.................. 3,556 Santiago de Cuba......... 40,000 | San Cristobal............. 3,522 Cienfuegos............... 25,790 | Guira de Melena........... 3,500 Guanabacoa............... 25,000 | Morón..................... 3,017 Santa Clara.............. 24,635 | La Cruces................. 3,000 Cardenas................. 20,505 | Alfonso XII............... 3,000 Trinidad................. 18,000 | Arroyo Navanijo........... 3,000 Sancti Spiritu........... 17,540 | Sabanillo del Encomendador 2,991 Sagua la Grande.......... 14,000 | Palmira................... 2,987 Regla.................... 10,486 | Guanajayabo............... 2,879 Manzanillo............... 9,036 | Nueva Paz................. 2,737 Guantanamo............... 9,000 | Alquizar.................. 2,700 San Antonio de las Baños. 7,500 | San Felipe................ 2,311 San Juan de los Remedios. 7,230 | San Juan de las Yeras..... 2,267 San Fernando de Nuevitas. 6,991 | Jaruco.................... 2,200 San Julian de los Guines. 6,828 | San Jose de las Lajas..... 2,170 Colón.................... 6,525 | La Esperanza.............. 2,147 Bejucal.................. 6,239 | San Juan y Martinez....... 2,100 Jorellanos (Bemba)....... 6,000 | Corral Nuevo.............. 2,092 Santiago de las Vegas.... 6,000 | Consolacion del Sur....... 2,000 Guanajay................. 6,000 | Guines.................... 2,000 Pinar del Rio............ 5,500 | Santa Cruz................ 2,000 Holguin.................. 5,500 | Quemados de Guines........ 2,000 Caibarien................ 5,500 | Quivican.................. 1,950 Baracoa.................. 5,213 | Bahia Honda............... 1,889 Guira.................... 5,000 | Batabano.................. 1,864 La Isabela............... 5,000 | Bolondron................. 1,758 Artemisa................. 5,000 | Santa Domingo............. 1,750 Santa Isabel de las Lajas 4,924 | Mariel.................... 1,637 Guana.................... 4,650 | Cuevitas.................. 1,629 Gibara................... 4,608 | Cervantes................. 1,560 Macagua.................. 4,100 | Ranchuelo................. 1,533 Cabañas.................. 1,509 | Managua................... 896 San Antonio de Cabezas .. 1,500 | Ceiba del Agua............ 892 Zaza..................... 1,500 | Roque..................... 800 Calaboya................. 1,500 | Salud..................... 800 Cartagena................ 1,497 | Canasi.................... 700 Calabazar................ 1,481 | Caney..................... 700 Palmillas................ 1,471 | Jibacos................... 696 Aguacate................. 1,427 | Cidra..................... 695 San Diego del Valle...... 1,403 | Vereda Nueva.............. 672 Jiguani.................. 1,393 | Santa Maria del Rosario... 660 Mantua................... 1,380 | Rancho Velez.............. 656 Cayajabos................ 1,352 | Santa Ana ............ 601 Marianao................. 1,225 | San Jose de los Remos..... 570 San Antonio de Rio Blanco | Camarones................. 546 del Norte.............. 1,200 | Lagunillas................ 520 Candelaria............... 1,200 | Guane..................... 510 Ciego de Avila........... 1,167 | San Matias de Rio Blanco.. 400 Catalina................. 1,165 | Alto Songo................ 400 San Antonio de las Vegas. 1,136 | Limonar................... 330 Tapaste.................. 1,130 | Amaro..................... 320 San Nicolas.............. 1,100 | San Miguel................ 300 Melena del Sur........... 1,082 | Madruga................... 300 Santa Cruz del Sur....... 1,000 | Cimarrones................ 300 Bainoa................... 1,000 | Mangar.................... 209 Sagua de Tanamo.......... 981 | La Boca................... 200 Vinales.................. 925 | Alonso Rojos.............. 200

In addition to these are 132 places with less than 200 population, including railroad stations, bathing and health resorts, and farm hamlets.

As will be observed by the student of municipal nomenclature, the Spanish were liberal to Cuba in christening the towns in the Island, however parsimonious the mother country was in respect of all other things; and many Cuban towns have more name than anything else. The oldest town is Baracoa, in the province of Santiago de Cuba. It was laid out in 1512. Its chief products are bananas, cocoa, and cocoa oil, and there are some remarkable caves near by, noted for beautiful stalactites and well preserved fossil human remains.

The largest city in the Island is Havana, the capital, to which a chapter is devoted elsewhere in this volume.

The capital of the province of Santiago de Cuba is Santiago de Cuba, generally known as Cuba to the natives and Santiago to foreigners. Owing to its war record it is the best-known town in the Island. It is situated on the south coast, one hundred miles from the west end of Cuba, and its harbour is one of the safest and finest in the world, having an opening into the sea only one hundred and eighty yards in width, extending back six miles into a beautiful bay, three miles wide at its greatest width. Santiago has a population of forty thousand (estimated sixty thousand in 1895), and is the second oldest city in Cuba, the capital having been removed thither from Baracoa in 1514 by Velasquez. It is historically the most interesting city in Cuba, and it promises to be for the future second in importance to none in the Island, except Havana. It became a bishopric as early as 1527 and is now the metropolis of the Catholic Church in Cuba, the Archbishop of Santiago being the Primate. The celebrations of church festivals are conducted with ceremonies more elaborate than those anywhere else in the Island, and the cathedral, in the Hispano-American style, is the largest in Cuba, if not the handsomest. It is said that in a Santiago theatre Adelina Patti made her first public appearance, at the age of fourteen years; Velasquez is buried in this city, and so is Antomarchi, the physician of Napoleon, who died, as his emperor did, upon a foreign island. Cuba's greatest poet, José Maria Heredia, was born here, as were Milanes, Dona Luisa Perez de Montes de Oca, Dona Gertrudis Gomez de Avellanda; and Placido, next to Heredia in merit, passed several years here.

Although well located for drainage, Santiago is one of the most unhealthful towns in Cuba, and its beautiful bay is little better than a cesspool. Yellow fever and smallpox have been the prevailing epidemics for years, but under the new order a new condition will arise. Santiago, with very poor business houses and offices, does a flourishing trade, wholesale, retail, and in shipping. The surrounding country has many people employed not only in agriculture, but in mining as well, for Santiago is the centre of the mining district. Its railway facilities are practically nil, being located two hundred miles east of the last railway leading anywhere. The city is Moorish in its aspect. It is sufficiently ancient to be without hotels, though there are several clubs where civilised beings may be entertained comfortably. The fortifications about the city are interesting: the Morro,--which is one hundred years older than that of Havana,--La Socapa, La Estrella, and Smith Key--all these have received much mention during the late war. The mining interests of Santiago will be considered under a separate chapter.

Cardenas may be said to be the newest town in Cuba, and is known as "the American city," owing to the fact that many Americans are located here in business, or make it their headquarters, with business interests elsewhere in the Island. It was founded in 1828, is a thriving town, with wide streets, numerous wharves, a plaza with a bronze statue of Columbus, and is a purely commercial city. The harbour is shallow, and the piers running into it are from three hundred to one thousand feet in length. Although without sewers and located on swampy ground, Cardenas is not unhealthful as the term is understood in Cuba. There are fine water-works, but many of the people still prefer to buy water of street vendors. Gas and electricity light the town. Its chief business is in sugar, but, unlike other Cuban cities, it possesses numerous and varied manufactures, producing liquors, beers, metal-work, soap, cigars, fabrics, etc. It has connection by steamer and rail with the chief points of the Island. The population is 20,505, over 15,000 of which is white. Cardenas exported goods in 1894 to the amount of $10,008,565, of which $9,682,335 was in sugar shipped to the United States, as against $10,000,000 the previous year. Her imports in 1892 were $4,900,000, and in 1895 the United States sent 32,283 tons of coal to this port. Situated in one of the richest agricultural sections of Cuba, Cardenas is also not poor in mineral wealth, notably asphalt. Peculiar mines of asphalt are found in the waters of the bay. The mineral is broken loose by bars dropped from ten to twelve feet through the water upon it, and the pieces are scooped up with a net. The supply of the mineral is renewed from some unknown source as fast as it is taken away. One of these mines has furnished as much as 20,000 tons, and the supply is inexhaustible. Asphalt of the first grade is worth from $80 to $125 per ton.

Sagua la Grande, twenty-five miles from the mouth of the river of that name, is almost wholly a sugar town. It has a population of 14,000, and is the northern terminus of the Havana Railway system. Its seaport is La Isabela, with a poor harbour; and its exports in 1895 reached nearly $5,000,000--with a great falling off since, as it has suffered as much as any town in the Island from the insurrection. As an indication of this it may be said that immediately before the insurrection there were 23,500 cattle, 4500 horses, 4000 hogs, 700 sheep, and 450 mules in the Sagua district, practically all of which have been destroyed or stolen. Sagua has an ice plant whose product has sold at $3 per hundredweight. The railway from Sagua to Cienfuegos marks the boundary between the western and eastern districts of Cuba.

Caibarien is another nineteenth-century town, having been founded in 1822. Its houses are of brick, and its warehouses of recent styles of architecture. Its population is fifty-five hundred, and it is said to be not unhealthful, though its general level is not much more than ten feet above the sea, and the country is swampy. Its chief industry is sugar, although recently an active business in sponges has grown up, principally of local consumption, the annual value approaching half a million of dollars. The harbour is extensive, but shallow and poor. A railway extends to San Andres, twenty-eight and one-half miles in the interior. Some waggon roads, unusually good for Cuba, connect it with various sugar estates. The future possibilities of Caibarien are numerous and great.

Manzanillo is the best town on the south coast between Trinidad and Santiago, and was founded in 1784. It has a population of nine thousand, and is the seaport of several interior towns and a rich sugar district, and is also the gateway to the fertile valley of the Cauto River, the most important stream in the Island. It has a fine plaza, and numerous inferior houses on fairly good streets, wider than the usual Cuban street. There are no water-works, gas-works, electric lights, or street-cars. The town is one of the most unhealthful in the Island, and of Manzanillo mud the author has spoken in a previous chapter. The principal shipments are lumber, tobacco, sugar, honey, and wax. In 1892-93-94 four million feet of mahogany and two million one hundred thousand feet of cedar were exported.

Pinar del Rio, the capital of its province, should be particularly interesting to Americans, as it was founded in 1776. It is a brick and stone town of 5500 population and is neither clean nor attractive. It has very few foreigners and is in no sense a modern place. It is, however, of commercial importance, being the centre of the famous Vuelta Abajo tobacco district, which produces the finest tobacco in the world. Pinar del Rio is essentially a tobacco town. It is connected with Havana by a highroad (_calzada_) and also by railway. The town is lacking in most of the modern conveniences, and the spirit of the people is not quick to respond to new notions.

An alphabetical list of the lesser towns may serve a useful purpose to the reader whose geography of Cuba is as yet not complete.

Artemisa (Pinar del Rio) is a town of five thousand people, with a paved road to Guanajay, nine miles, and a railway to Havana, thirty-five miles. It is in a fine tobacco and sugar district, and is a low and unhealthful place, but beautifully shaded with palms.

Bahia Honda (Pinar del Rio), with about two thousand population, is one of the chief seaports of the mountain coast; and although it possesses none of the visible evidences of future promise, still it is one of the places which impress the visitor with belief in its future greatness. Its population is largely black, its wharves are miserable, its houses are poor; though over one hundred years old, it is not a port of entry--and still Bahia is promising. The harbour is one of the finest on the coast, the surrounding country is rich in tobacco and sugar soil, the climatic conditions are favourable, and the new times will be good times for Bahia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tunas de Zaza (Santa Clara), with fifteen hundred population, is in such a poor country agriculturally and aquatically, that the railway has a monopoly in carrying vegetables and water supply to the people. The town is hot and healthful. It has shipped as much as half a million dollars' worth of sugar, mahogany, cedar, honey, beeswax, etc., to the United States in one year.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of the 570 islands, or keys, on the north coast of Cuba and the 730 on the south, the Isle of Pines is the only one of sufficient size to be of importance; its area being 1214 square miles to 1350 square miles for all the other 1299 Islands. The Isle of Pines belongs to the judicial district of Bejucal (Havana), and was first called "Evangelist Island" by Columbus, who discovered it in 1494. It has a population of 2000, of which 1800 is about equally divided between its two chief towns, Nueva Gerona and Santa Fe. The people are rather superior to those of the Island of Cuba, and the climate is drier and better than that of the main Island. Besides the pines which flourish on the island, there is a great quantity of mahogany, cedar, and other hardwoods. There are deposits of fine marble, as well as of silver, mercury, and iron, yet to be developed. Turtle fishing and pineapple raising flourish to some extent. The Isle of Pines is really two islands, separated by a tide-covered swamp, over which there is a causeway. The south portion is rough and barren, while the northern part is fertile and pleasing to the eye. The towns are poor. Its mineral waters are much recommended for affections of the stomach.

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