The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-07-28

1 NueVitaS now stands the sad looking l port at the extreme southern end of
 the immense sheet Of water. After ! wards, owing to the saVages of some l local calenture, tho Spaniards moved | on, to the Indian village Caonao; and l later to Camaguey, now Puerto Prin- cipe, 45 miles inland. The original l Santa Maria, however, was never quite ! deserted, though in course of time 1t | took on several aliases, and Is now | known as San Fernando de Nuevitas | Seen from afar its white-walled houses | shiping in the sun against the gentle | slope of a palm crowned hill, it looks
 like the city of dream. But like oth- | CTS in neglected Cuba, "'Tis distance | lends enchantment," and nearer view | discloses abounding filth and poverty.
 It's population numbers perhaps 5000, | and it's only importance is on the port
 of entry for Puerto Principe and the ! place of shipment for large quantities ! of hides, sugar and molasses. A 43 mile railway connects the two places-when | moving bands of patriotc do not tear
 it up as they have done dozen times | within the last three years. Puerto
 Principe, capital of the province of the lsame name, is in the heart of the cat tie fields-one of the richest and most
 interesting cities of Cuba, as well as | the quaintest and fartheSt behind the
 times. Within it. old Tempus seems to
 have forgotten his fugiting and been
 standing still since Columbus day. | With population of 0,000 or more, 1t
 has never boasted of hotel-nothing
 better than posadas, as poor as that in
 which Joseph and Mary found refuge.
 However, the Cubans are so hospita-
 bly, inclined that they never allow
 friend to put up at a public house, and
 even strangers may be sure of enter
 tainment. The narrow, crooked streets
 are mostly unpaved, and the low hous
 es of antiquated architecture and
 shabby in the extreme.
 There are several old churches, num-
 Der of convents, a theatre, bull ring,
 and group of more modern buildings for government offices; but on the
 whole, you are inclined to think that it's high sounding tftle-Santa Maria del Puerto Principals rather 8 mis-
 fit, being too large for the place.
 Immediately west of Nuevitas bay the cays begin--570 of them, by actual , count stretching all the way between ; Nuevitas and Havana.
 : Uniformly long and narrow, their gistening silver sands fringed with cocoa-palms and mangrove bushes, they are of all sizes, from few yards to miles in extent The largest in Cay Romano second Long Island," con- taining 172 square miles but as yet un- occupied and entirely unused. Cayo del Sal, the next in size, supplies half l Cuba with it's primitive salt-works. A ) few of the islets have an excellent an- chorage, while others are surrounded by inaccessible reefs.
 Nothing more delightful can be imagined than cruise among them. Not a ripple disturbs the mirror like surface of the sea, and through the crystal water the bottom, with fur } rows made by currents on the sand,
 can be distinctly seen. Looking over the bows, the boat seems to be sus- pended as by magic, above the pellucid 5 fluid. the seagarden below illuminated by sunbeams in prismatic colors. And , the living creatures in the vast gar :, dens-the conchs with their cleft-open- 3 ings upwards, extending long feelers to ] catch the passing prey; fish of various t forms and colors, startled by the boat s from their repose among tufts of l | weeds, and sometimes an evergreen turtle, aroused from his mapping, pad Q ding away amid a milky cloud of l coral sand. There are star-fish, too, a foot in diameter, lying motionless on oj the bottom; sponges with concave tops r like big bowls; coral in globe-like l forms, with myriad branches and their l world of zoophytes interspersed amid s | a thousand marine growths standing sl l erect on the ocean floor. What is call . ed the Boca mouth) de Sagua Is four - leagues distant from the real mouth of - the river, strewn thick with isets. On - some of them are fishermenS huts,
 l with their nets drying on long poles in = the sun and their boats at anchor near ! | the beach. The channel through the v shoal water is intricate and marked a by stakes, the most important of the a | latter surmounted with a broken bot a tie or fiuttering rag to 1t. Finally the A 1 "Boca" proper is reached amid 8 :. dense mangrove swamp; dangerous a bar is passed and you emerge into l what seems a continuous cane-feld, fai |, as the eye can see, with the narrow river running through.
 . Saeua Is the best place I know of ir e | which to study the prospects of Cuba :, It has prosperous past, depressed n present and unbounded possibilities fol !, the future Before the war, Sagua = with it's 10000 inhabitants was called =, the most progressive town on the Is ; land. It's streets are wider and better . paved, it's buildings fresher and there :, is less the air of decay than in other VI Cuban cities.
 Most of the sugar raised In Sants = Clara province was exported from tht II port at the mouth of the river, 12 mile; s distant. Time was, so long ago, wher ' this was the stronghold of ultra-loya Y Spanish sentiment-when it's citizens U declared that they would rather see th' u red and yellow standard of Castle anC e Arragon floating over an ashheap thai 9 have the island given over to inde Is pendence. Americans were frequent. .' insulted here, and at times the consul - ate barely escaped mobbing. But al II this is changed now. The flower O
 many Sagua families in the insur 'I gent army, and if loyalists remain 'e they have the good sense to keep quiet .sI FANNIE BRIGHAM WARD. h
 ,e THE 0HESTI0N 0F pEACI