The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-06-17
IsLA DE LOS PINAs.

The Future Carlsbad of the Western
 Hemisphere - Wonderful Healing
 Springs Which Will Soon Become
 the Mecca of filling Americans-A
 Balmy Cruise in Cuban Waters.
 Special Correspondence of the Journal
 and Courier)
 Washington, June IA, 1898.
 Maps of Cuba are so numerous nowa- days that you will have no difficulty in locating the Isle of Pinos, although it does not figure in the present war and has seldom been heard of in the United States. But the world is not long to re- main in ignorance of it. Soon as peace is restored and some level-headed Yam kee develops it's wonderful springs, it will hold the same relation as a sanita- rum to our continent that the Furnas Valley of St. Michaels, in the Azores, does to Europe. It lies off the south ern coast of Cuba, about ninety miles due south of Havana city and equi-dis- Spllb u oill tuC WCSlolll Ilpy eilltl lo tIiC only islet of size and consequence among the thousands that encompass the Queen of the Antilles. I visited it early last spring, sailing westward from Cienfuegos; but the future tide of travel will come down from New York or Tampa to Havana; thence two or three hours by rail across the narrow est portion of Cuba to the dirty little southern port Batabano; and then by steamer across fifty-four miles of tram quil sea to Pine Island A native coaster used to make the trip every Thursday from Batabano, until our blockade cut short it's career. It is a most delightful journey, similar to that among the keys of the Florida coast, winding in and out among innumerable green islets whose glistening beaches are fringed with cocoa palms, over wa ters blue as the tropic sky, smooth and luminous as a mirror, and so beautiful ly translucent that star-fish lying on the silvery bottom and sea-flowers growing far below, look as though seen through glass. The air is deliciously balmy, the same in midsummer as in winter, and your eyes are continually feasted upon the beauty of the verdure- clad shore close by and the distant mountains yelled in mist3the Guana- huga, or Golden Range"
 The Isle of Pinos, also known as "Reina (Queen) Amalia,'' is the same that Columbus discovered on a June day in 1494, and named La Evangelista. It is about sixty miles long by fifty broad and of exceedingly picturesque appearance, crossed from end to end by two hillchains known as the Sierra Canada and the Sierra de la Daguila, both averaging fifteen hundred feet in height. Between these ranges are broad green valleys and many beauti- full rivers, some of them of considerable depth and navigable four and five miles. A great swamp or jungle, like the everglades of Florida, extending | across the island from east to west, di- vides 1t into two unequal parts; and everywhere the tall pine trees, which have given the island it's later name, loom darkly against the sky. It Is a | singular fact that the pine family pe- l culiarly a product of cold and elevated regions, should have many species also l in the tropics and at sea-level. We are | wont to think of pine as upon the | mountain tops, and palms and yuccas | in the torrid lowlands, but here they grow amiably side by side. Two vari- | cities of the pines found in this island are extremely rare and of great inter- | est botanists.
 Being surrounded by submerged cays reefs, islets and impossible | o1a aJc Of oh to l Isle de Pinos are so few and intricate that in earlier days the piratical folk l who infested these waters found it a safe and convenient hiding place.
 For two hundred years they made it l a favorite depot for supplies and stolen l treasures, and sallied forth from here on many a murderous expedition. | When discovered by Columbus it was l densely populated, but now has hardly | two thousand people and only two in- significant villages, yet the small is-
 land is priceless territory, for three | things--fine marbles, wonder thermal 1 springs and a climate of such unrl- vailed salubrity that Cubans consider 1 1t an unfai1ing panacea for consump- | tion. The mountain ranges are almost | entirely composed of beautiful marbles l of all qualities and colors-a perfect
 mine of riches, waiting to be developed | by enterprising northerners One re. | markabe mountain, called Los Casas | (The Houses), seems to contain every | sort of marble known in all the colors | of the rainbow, piled up by art in con- trasting strata verying from black
 brown and gray to palest tints of pink
 blue and green. Another low noun
 tain, called Los Cristales, is even more
 curious, it's steep sides being literally
 created with beautiful green rock crys- tals, though not of great height, some of these hills are wild and impressive presenting to seaward a succession o1 1 sheer precipices one hundred and fifty
 feet high.
 You may disembark at either of tht
 two little ports-Nueva Gerena (pro. l nounced Hay-rone-as) or Santa Fe-
 both near the northern end of the is.
 land, but on opposite sides of the grea | marsh The regular steamer from Ha- | vana goes first to Nueva Gerona
 which is situated about three miles III the river Casas, backed by hills ant fronted by an emerald plain dotted
 with palm trees. It is the seat of wha | government there is on the island, being a dependency of the province O Havana, has a tolerable hotel, som, shops and at one time maintained I T a1>Jo nfC1 apx,;t.