Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-03-24

| NN or ten days in the
VI RO Cuban capital, let the
tourist find the per
fection OF sea travelin cruise eastward to
st. Thomas, then southwark around the
Lesser Antilles to Trinidad, on the coast of
Venezuela, and thence along the Spanish
main. AT st. Thomas, at LaGuayra, at
Savanilla, or at Carthagena, one may find a
steamer for New York, or he may go as far
as Asplnwall, and from there homeward by
the Pacific mail boats, or across the gulf to
New Orleans. :
The cost of the trip would be comparative
ly less than similar time spent in travel
ing on land, for there would be few hotel
bills, only occasionally the hire of car
l risge, and the excursion tickets are sold at
low fares. Five days in each week will be
spent at sea, land will seldom be out of Wis
ion, all sorts of places will be visited and
some most curious sights may be seen. The
traveller will find choice of most excellent
ships, constructed for tropic travel and
calm seas, will be troubled with no gales,
no heavy swells, no cold, no storms and
little seasickness, He will see all the prin-
cipal ports of the West Indies and the north
shore of South America, and will find
plenty of rest pleasure and novelty.
THE STARTING POINT.
You take the. steamer at Tampa, little
town surrounded by orange groves and
strawberry beds, the southernmost point OF
the Florida railway system, and spend day
at Key West, that curious little camel
shaped rock which rises from the ocean
among the Florida reefs. People generally
suppose that Kew West bears about the
same relation to Florida that Long Island
does to New York, or Martha's Vineyard to
Massachusetts,, and that the neighbors on
the reef can talk aero SIS the channel while
they are hanging out their clothes; but it
isn't so. The Key is as much "foreign
part" to all appearances, as Cuba or New
Zealand, with only flag and fortress as
links connecting the mother country with
this posthumous child.
The nearest point to Key West in Florida
is over 80 miles, while the nearest town is
Tampa, distant 20 hours by sea. You can
run across to Havana, however, any day by
a sailboat and the result is that the island
we own is an asylum tor Cuban politicians.
On this barren, scorching reef, for it is moth
ing more. simply few square miles of coral,
there is q compact town of comfortless
houses, sheltering from 5000 to 20, 900 peo-
pie, less than half of them citizens of the
United States, and the remainder Cubans,
mostly political refugees or fugitives from
justice.
HoTBED OF REVOLUTION.
The Captain General of Cuba would
sleep easier if Key West should sink into
the sea. Spain does not want our little
island, but it would be a great relief if this
4 refuge for disaffected politicians and embryo
fibusters could in some way be ex-
tinguished. The colonies of revolutionists
are a perpetual menace to the Spanish
authority at Havana, and most of the saw
ings of the Key West cigsrmakers are de-
voted to the cause of Cuban independence,
being collected regularly on every pay day
by the walking delegates" The United
States officials are kept on the alert for
violations of treaty obligations.
AT Key West summer is perpetual, and at
MONDAY every sonl is asleep. The cocoanut
trees nod drowsily and the great banana
leaves droop under the heavy air. The
flushed sun gilds the smooth trunks of the
palms, the hum of the insects is hushed and
the cigarmaker, who sings at his work
while the morning mist lies upon the land,
seeks the shelter of low-browed roofs,
smokes his cigarette. sips his coffee and lies
down to siesta. The people share their
slumber between the day and the night.
They work in the early morning and the
evening hours, give their nights to pleasure
and the MONDAY to rest.
AS one approaches Cuba from either side,
the island appears to look up out of the sea
like an enormous rock. rising in barren ter
races until the landscape eliminates in q
mountain range that is wild, desolate and
uninhabitable It looks more like part OF
Greenland than the t'Pearl of the Tropics. 81
Cuba is bigger than Maine or Virginia; 76O
miles long and quite 100 broad in some
places. More than half of it is barren and
not susceptible of cultivation, as much q
desert as Arizona, but between the noun
tains and on the slopes to the seas lie
the valleys which have produced more OF
value for their acreage than any soil in the
world.
IMAGINATION AT FAULT.
Moro Castle commands the entrance to
the harbor, by which no vessel is allowed to
pass without a licensed pilot from the city,
and as all pilots shut up shop at sunset, no
vessels can enter the harbor after that hour,
no matter what the weather may be outside.
Moro Castle carries one of the four light
houses on coast more than 1900 miles
long, and surrounded by dangerous reefs,
and yet Spain pays $24, 100000 a year to
maintain an army in Cuby. This sum is
wrung from the people to pay their op-
pressors.
The Cuba of the imagination is full of
fair women, bananas, and sensuous luxury.
The actual Cuba is far different. There is
no everlasting greenness and perpetual
shade, but the greater part of the island is
bald and naked ridge of sand; for outside
of the botanical gardens, and always except
ing the palms, there isn't tree in all Cuba
big enough to make a saw-log that would
pass inspection in Maine or Minnesota.
The fields of sugar-cane are dry and dusty;
the orange groves are usually full of tobacco
plants; the trailing vines are in inaccessible
swamps, with the murky rivers and alliga-
tors, and the most beautiful birds to be seen
about Havana are the vultures, which do
their share in keeping the city clean.
i There are parks in Havana, and the peo-
pie use them at night to sit in and chatter.
There are no notices to keep off the grass,
and none are needed; for where the turf
should be it is as barren as a sea beach, and
100 yards would measure the shadows cast
by all the shade trees in this Queen of the
Tropics.
ETERNAL SUMMER.
The whole year is summer time, and the
soil is richer than that of any region on the
globe. The greater portion Of the lives oil
tne people must De passed out OF doors, Dul
the only pleasure they find in their parks is
in the evening after gaslight. The Span
lard hates trees, and after an indiscriminate
slaughter of them in all the lands he has
ever occupied, they decline to grow for
him. There are few trees in the streets,
and in none of the cemeteries is there the
slightest glimpse of either flowers o. foliage.
The graves of the dead are like the houses
Of the living, glaring white, and their only
decorations are wreaths and crosses made ol
shells and beans.
But everybody enjoys himself in Havana.
For dolce far niente It is the greatest place
in the world. Laziness is not only respect
able, but 1t ID matter Of education. The