The Republican journal., 1898-07-28

Gays begin-570 of them, by actual count,
stretching all the way between Nuevi-
tas and Havana. Uniformly long and
narrow, their glistening silver sands
fringed with cocoa palms and mangrove
bushes, they are of all sizes, from few
yards to miles in extent. The largest is
Cayo Romano-a second ''Long Island''
containing 172 square miles, but as yet I'M
occupied and entirely unused. Cayo del
Sal, the next in size, supplies half Cuba
with salt from it's primitive salt works.
A few of the islets have an excellent
anchorage, while others are surrounded
by inaccessible reefs. Nothing more
delightful can be imagined than cruise
among them. Not ripple disturbs
the mirror like surface of the sea.
and through the crystal water the
bottom, with burrows made by currents
on the sand, can be distinctly seen. Look
ing over the bows, the boat seems to be
suspended, as by magic, above the pellu-
cid fluid, the ea-garden below illuminat-
ed by sunbeams in prismatic colors. And
the living creatures in the vast gardens
the conchs with their cleft openings up
wards, extending long feelers to catch the
passing prey; fish of various forms and
colors, startled by the boat from their re-
pose among tufts of weeds and some
times an overgrown turtle, aroused from
his mapping, padding away amid a milky
cloud of coral sand. There are star fish
too foot III diameter, lying motionless
on the bottom; sponges with concave tops
like big bowls; coral in globe like forms
with myriad branches and their world of
zoophytes, interspersed amid thousand
marine growths standing erect on the
ocean floor. What is called the Boca
(mouth) de Sagua is four leagues distant
from the real mouth of the river. strewn
thick with islets On some of them are
tishermen's huts, with their nets driving
on long poles in the sun and their boats
at anchor near the beach, The channel
through the shoal water is intricate and
marked by stakes, the most important of
the latter Surmounted with broken hot
tie or t1uttering rag tied to it. Finally
the ''Boca" proper is reached. amid a
dense mangrove swamp; dangerous bar
is passed and you emerge into what seems
continuous cane field, far as the eve can
see, with the narrow river running
through.
Sagua is the best place l know of in
which to study the prospects of Cuba. 1t
has prosperous past, a depressed pres
ent and unbounded possibilities for the
future. Before the war, Sagua, With its
20, 900 inhabitants, was called the most
progressive town on the island. Its streets
are wider and better paved, its buildings
fresher, and there is less the air of decay
than in other Cuban cities.
Most of the sugar raised in Santa Clara
province was exported from the port at
the mouth of the river, L miles distant.
Time was, not SO long ago, when this was
the stronghold of ultra loyal Spanish senti-
ment-when its citizens declared that
they would rather see the red and yellow
standard of CASTLE and Arragon floating
over an ash-heap, than have the island
given over to independence. America rs
We're frequently insulted here, and at
times the consulate barely escaped mob
bling. But all this is changed now. The
flower of many Sagua families are in the
insurgent army, and if loyalists remain
they have the good sense to keep quiet.
FANNIE BRIGHAM WARD.