The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-07-11

anu country WHICH loONs as u NAS angry gods had subjected it to the teeth of harrow; and the nearer sandy slopes, covered with ohapparel- up which our soldiers stormed, under broiling sun, few weeks later-the same which our brave boys climbed that fateful morning, many of them to their death, singing the Star Spangled Banner in the face of fearful odds. To all Americans, these blood-baptized slopes will hence forth be sacred soil. Then the shoreward vision is bounded by interminable gray cliffs, surround ed by screaming seabirds and beaten by the restless Caribbean; backed by hills that might be the Blue Ridges of Pennsylvania, if they were only lit tie higher and were there more of them. Their gentle slopes are bathed in the same blue haze, and their flat tops, with white-clouds floating over look like Titan punchbowls. Gradual ly the hills taper down until lost in the sandy mainland; an indication that the eastern tip of the island is nearly reached and Cape Maisi may soon be sighted. Rounding the island in this direction you are almost certain to en- counter boisterous pillows that cause the most hardened sea-goers to cast their bread upon the waters, hanging in limp bundles over the rail; and when a crowd of passengers, decided- ly mixed as to color and previous con- dition' are all doing the same thing with or more or less vehemence, mules praying and cattle believing in sym pathy-even the historic interest of the region for the moment fails to charm. Just beyond is the island of Haiti, separated from Cuba by the swift and narrow channel marked on the map as the "Windward Passage" It was at Point Maisi, you remember, that the word West Indies, was first applied When Columbus sighted it, he believed it to be the extreme east ern end of Asia-the border-land of the Grand Khan, whom Marco Polo had so graphically described. Hence he named the Cape, now known as Maisi, Alpha and Omega" and going ashore, dispatched an embassy to the imaginary potentate, with gifts and conciliatory messages. As we know, there was no Grand Khan at all, nor any city of mighty proportions, such as that colossal liar, Polo, had describ- ed. But Columbus found some Indians at Maisi differing from any he had seen before. They had palm-leaf huts, built in pyramical shape, and when first seen were smoking tobacco-a plant with which the Spaniards were unfamiliar. Says the historian, Las Casas, in his narrative called 'El Pri- mera Viajo do Colon.'' The first voy- age of Columbus.) He beheld several of the natives going about with fire brands in their hands and certain dried herbs, which they rolled up in leaf, and lighting one end put the other in their mouths, and continued exhaling and puffing out the smoke. roll of this kind they called 'tabac,' name since tranferred to the plant of which the rolls were made" Another his torian says that the aboriginal method was to inhale smoke through two cane stalks, forked and hollow, inserting the forked ends into the nostrils and applying the other end of the cane to the burning leaves, and he adds: 'It is a very evil and pernicious habit, pro- ducing insansibility" Near Maisi are some very extensive and curious cav erns, which must have been much ire quented by these old time smokers, for petrified crania and many strange rel les are found in their recesses,
 Soon after rounding the cape you come to Baracoa, tiny town on lit- tie harbor whose entrance is extreme ly narrow and difficult of access. When once inside the land-locked bay, whose tranquil waters mirrors the bluest skies and ereenest hills and tallest palms imaginable, you no longer wonder at the glowing report which Columbus gave of it to his Sovereign. Having named it Puerto Sante, he wrote this quaint description which is as true to- day as then: '"The amenity of the riv- CTS, through which the sand at the bot tom may be seen; the multitude of palm trees of various forms, the high est and most beautiful have met with and an infinity of other great and green trees the birds in rich plumage and the verdure of the fields, renders this country, Most Serene Prince, of such marvellous beauty that it surpass- es all others in charms and graces, as day doth the night in luster. I have been so overwhelmed at the sight of so much beauty that have not known how to relate it Nto your Gracious Ma jesty." The appreciative visitor of to- day finds himself similarly "over- whelmed," for in no part of the world can a lovelier view be found than that of Baracoa, whether seen from the sea, or from the hills that rise behind it.
 Graceful palms fringe the shores and adorn the slopes, and mountains rise like islands in a sea of forest, which seems to retain all it's primeval fresh ness and majesty. And this is the port which few years ago was the great est banana-shipping place in the world! There is no sign of such an in dustry now-and in their palmy days the banana plantations were not seen from the sea. They were back in the interior, beyond the three remarka- ble terraces which rise abruptly from the coast line to height of 2,000 feet, and then gradually ascend to the mountains, 6000 feet higher. In the old days of activity, the arrival of a fruit steamer in the port was announc- ed by telephone to central points be- yond the mountains. From these points, horseback riders conveyed the news to the banana plantations. Then the bananas were cut, with all possible speed and transported in paniers on the backs of mules and cows to the