, 1888-03-18
COUNTRY CUBAN LIFE.
Manufacturing sugar on a ProdIglOus
Scale.

BILE wall between this wonderful garden
and the north, forever barring out all
chilling winds, and giving a thousand lazy
Monteros vine clad homes adown their
blooming sides, fairer than the peasants
home nests in dreamland Andalusia. To
the south sweeps another bold range
bathed in blue mists, lying there like an
eternal dream, half hiding another
thousand Monteros' homes, cascades,
villas and mountain chapels, white as the
face Of a saint, against the cowling of
perennial verdure. Far to the west an
other range, through which refreshing
streams come leaping down to the shining
valley. Far to the east still other
mountains, over which the sun rises IN
royal splendor, and winding with stately
grace comes the broad river, Santa Cata-
lima, cleaning like a great bed of silver,
and pushing the grooming wheels of an
hundred diminutive ancient mills. The
quaint old church of this Moorish town is
called San Julien de los Guines, or St.
Julien of the Reeds-Guinea being named
from guines, the reeds, which grew along
the banks Of Santa Catalina in the days
oil Columbus and pelasqueZ.
Guines seems a thousand years old. Yet
1t has the fair, bright ways of perennial
youth. 1t is the only place in Cuba where
| have not found shriveled old age, woful
lazzaroni, and importunate, though con-
tented, squalor a large part of the coloring
and effect. The outreachlng tentacles of
the Spanish government devilish haye
yet to suck substance, and leave ruin,
here. 1t is the only spot in this island
paradise where the heart Of a man who is
not altogether brute will not ache for the
curse of Spain and the dolor of the Cuban
people. But think of the marvellous pro
ductiveness of this wonderful valley of
Guines, as it is, and what it might be in
the hands of a people who have wrung
from the, comparatively, unwilling soil of
our own Mohawk and Cumberland valleys
such noble prosperity and store. The
entire valley has an area equivalent to
forty miles square, is susceptible of easy
irrigation; yields ceaselessly to constant
cultivation; produces three crops of corn
and all vegetables annually; while the
average depth of this, the richest soil on
earth, is upwards of thirty-six feet!
The tourist who visits Cuba, sits
under the great porches of Gran Hotel
Pasaje, duarreling with beggars and coach
men, during the three lay-days of a
steamer, and, maybe, sees Colon GENE.
terry, the governor generals quinta, a bull
fight, and possibly a two penny plantation
Just beyond the dreary Havana hills, feels
sure he has seen Cuba. But he knows
nothing of the island and its marvellous
possibilities in the hands of good govern
ment and earnest citizens, until the heart
of the island and its actual resources are
seen and comprehended. The great plan
~tations in this valley alone, like lei Bilboa,
Alexandria and Amistad, are simply as
founding in their areas, equipment, forces
Of laborers and annual yield, Some of
them would cover three or four Amcri-
can townships in area, indeed, half of
many of our counties; and the popula-
tions of each would frequently suffice for
incorporating an American city"
Though natural conditions should make
this island, with Louisiana, the sugar,
house Of the whole world, there is nc
profit in Cuban sugar-raisiDg to-day.
Cuba es la vaca de Espana, Pero hace
tempo que Ia vaca no la leche'-'Cubf
is Spain's COW. But she was a long time
ago MIXED dry"-is a Cuban saying
grown out of a governmental pillage 81
long, so comprehensive and merciless, tina
any other people would have gone mac
beneath it. Half of the vast estates have
been robbed by Spanish taxation here
until worthless, then coDiscated, theI
sold for a pittance to plundering Span
iards in league with the taxing powers
and these Spaniards. in turn, are now, in
common with Cubans who have SO IA
survived, being ruined by the final, ferces
~pillagings by the very power which mad,
their own villainy possible.
The great combinations and trusts il
our own country are gradually forcinI
down the price to the producer, while con
stantly increasing it to the American cor
sumers, by downward and upward move
ment1 of fractions of one cent per pound
every one of which means a trust profit Of
millions of dollars. The government
planter Ike are enormous. Merchants
are chary Of making advances under LA
bility of government seizure for those
taxes. Labor is constantly higher, though
gold is constantly dearer. 1t costs more
for an farroba of tassajo or jerkcd beef
with which to feed hands than the planter
gets for an arroba of sugar produced by
that labor. And only because the planter
has from a half million to a million dol
lars already sunk in land and machinery,
can he struggle on and squeeze out an
OlueI duu hLNllCl ClOp pEdS my, as lldIIlh
another human can, that, by some proyi.
kdence of God, the next year the Cross of
St. George, or the stars and stripes, may
float above him. Over 90 per cent. of all
Cuban sugar is consumed by the United
States. Cuba is noio ours, commercially
speaking. We are a nation Of towards
that she is not ours wholly.
Two leagues over II private road built
by the planters to connect with the Guines
calzada brought me to the great sugar
plantation. FL Bilboa, the estate of Don
Manuel Calvo, consignee of the Spanish
Royal Mail steamship line, which adjoins
the equally noted coffee plantation of Sc,
nora Mer"edite, and named I'll Mercedite
in the fair owners honor. / shall not at
tempt a description of these particular es
tates, or coffee culture and sugar raising
and manufacture, Those thing are all set
down in the books. / only hope to give
briefly the glimpses and impressions of
thing that come to any traveller in Cuba
with eyes :and ears about him. Though
sugar planting was begun in Cuba just
292 years ago., 1t is only within a few
years that the great Improvements which