Cuba Past and Present

Any 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 matters--I give it as the result of personal observation, so far as it goes, supplemented in the manner already indicated; and as such I believe it will not be found lacking in elements of interest and entertainment. Certain chapters on Columbus and on the West Indian Manuscripts in the Colonial Exhibition have been included as an Appendix.

The description of the youth of Columbus, the "Great Discoverer," has never, so far as I am aware, been attempted before in the English tongue. It appeared to me to be appropriate to a work on the island he was the first to discover, and I have therefore included it in this book. It is founded on original and authentic documents, discovered in the Genoese Archives by the late Marchese Staglieno. These I have carefully examined and verified, and to the facts therein contained I have added others, which I have myself unearthed in the course of my own researches in the CittA Superba.

The chapter on the Colonial Exhibition Manuscripts speaks for itself, and my readers will be struck by the fact that the condition of the British West Indian Colonies, at the close of the last century, resembled in many respects not a little that of Cuba at the end of ours.

The chapter on the Bahamas, which closes the volume, has been inserted to mark an evident contrast, and point a moral, which will hardly escape the thoughtful reader's eye.

I cannot forbear paying here a tribute to the memory of the very remarkable American gentleman, the late Mr George Wilkes, in whose company I first saw the beautiful "Pearl of the Antilles." On the important paper which he founded, the New York Spirit of the Times, I worked for several very happy years, and I take this opportunity of expressing to its present editor and to Mr Stephen Fiske, my gratitude for much and constant courtesy, shown me ever since I left its staff.

RICHARD DAVEY.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

PREFACE v

CHAPTER I. THE ISLAND 1

" II. POPULATION 14

" III. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ISLAND 39

" IV. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE REBELLION 65

" V. HISTORY OF REBELLION UP-TO-DATE 93

" VI. HAVANA AND THE HAVANESE 121

" VII. MATANZAS 148

" VIII. CIENFUEGOS 161

" IX. TRINIDAD AND SANTIAGO DE CUBA 173

" X. SOME WEIRD STORIES 193

" XI. PLANTATION LIFE 205

" XII. AN ISLE OF JUNE--A CONTRAST 224

APPENDIX I. THE BOYHOOD OF COLUMBUS 237

" II. SOME UNEDITED DOCUMENTS CONNECTED WITH THE HISTORY OF THE WEST INDIES 257

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Portrait of Columbus Frontispiece

HAVANA to face 121

MATANZAS " 148

SANTIAGO " 173

MAP OF CUBA at end of Book

CUBA PAST AND PRESENT

CHAPTER I.

THE ISLAND.

Cuba, "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 range of mountains, which, according to Humboldt, continue under the Ocean, and emerge thence in British Honduras, to receive the somewhat unromantic appellation of the Coxcombe Chain,--another proof, if such were needed, of the fact that, in prehistoric times, this island, together with its numerous neighbours, formed part of the main Continent.