The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-09-21

| they would soon become the Sanitariun
 of the western hemisphere, beside whict
 Las Vegas in New Mexico White Sul
 phur in Virginia, Saratoga and other
 ot our northers spas would hide theil
 diminished heads. As it is, the life car
 be endured, though lacking many ot
 the ordinary creature comforts which
 render it desirable. Here peasure-seek.
 CTS would better stay away, but one
 whose precious health is at stake car
 afford to fight abounding vermin for a
 season and put up with fleas, reaches
 spiders, scorpions and a thousand wrig-
 gllng, crawling and stinging creatures
 which constantly beset the dweller on
 the Isle of Pines. You find the pests between the sheets and in the food They pre-empt your shoes at night and
 the garments you are wearing by day;
 and if they do not take bodily posses
 sion of you, whole colonies of them set
 ting down comfortably in your hair,
 ears, nostrils, while you are catching
 forty Winks" of troubled sumber in | intervals of the eternal warfare, you
 are exceptionally fortunate. Even Eden
 had it's serpent, you know; and doubt
 less more advanced state of civiliza- | ton here will evolve some means of di-
 minishing the plague of vermin. Ex-
 penses at this resort are very moderate.
 The best hotel charges $2.25 day,
 American money, for its choicest ac-
 commodations. Saddle horses may be hired at S1.50 per diem, and carriages at | proportionate rates. There are many
 charming walks and drives in the | neighboring hills and interesting all-
 day excursions may be made to sugar.
 estates and pineapple plantations,
 The natives of Isla de Pinos seem to
 be simple, kind hearted folk, who find l their greatest pleasure in chatting with | strangers and listening to accounts of the outer world To them all beyond the horizons rim, or at most beyond 1 the limits of Cuba, is a terra incognito of more than Munchausen wonders,
 The young children go about entirely naked and the universal innocence,
 combined with the utmost dignity and
 punctitious courtesy, is charming to behold
 Nueva Gerona, on the river Casas, backed by green hills and fronted by an emerald plain dotted with royal
 palms, is delightfully."- situated and
 beautiful to behold from a distance,
 either approached by sea or by the eX-
 cellent natural road to Santa Fe. But
 it is another illustration of Iris dis
 tance lends entertainment to the view"
 Though the capital of the island and
 the seat of what little government
 there is, it's population has never ex- ceeded three hundred, not including the Spanish garrison which in times past helped to make some third-rate gaiety. It is a healthy place, however, all the water used coming from magnesium spring, said to be very beneficial Tn cases of stomach trouble. Baths nave been built into which water from the spring is conducted The barracks oc- cupy an open plateau just outside the town limits and are large stone build ings with interior courts, capable of accommodating three hundred soldiers. Nueva Gerona was the birthplace of Evaugelina Cisneros, the Cuban hero- inc so much talked of last year in the United States, and here her life was spent until the age of nineteen, when the persecutions of would-be Spanish lover sent her to the dreadful RecoaJ- das prison of Havana, from which, as all the world knows, she was subse- quently rescued by an American jour nalist, assisted by several young Gu bans Among the latter was Carlos Carbonell, wealthy bachelor banker of Havana He drove the carriage in which the escaped damsel was con ducted from prison, and he drove it di- rect to his own house, in crowded quarter of the city, right under the nose of the Spanish officials. There the l fair Evangelina remained several days, until the time came for her to board | an American steamer, disguised as a boy, Everybody knows the rest, The | pretty romance ended Cor ought we to | say it begun?) in her marriage to Sen | or Carbonell, some months later, from | the house of Mrs. John A. Logan, in | D. C., and now MT, and 1 Mrs. Carbonell, at home in Havana, are the proud parents of bouncing boy | who was lately christened "Fitzhugh | Lee" The Cisneros family, though eminently respectable, was poor and obscure: therefore in Cuba the alliance of the daughter with an arfstocrat is long step upward for the young lady.
 The natural resources Ol lHc ISlt II Pines are just now attracting consider able attention and not long ago our as- sistant secretary of war made public report concerning them rom Colonel Bliss, the United States collector of customs at Havana. The soil is extremely fertile, but only a small portion of the island is under cui- ivation. A few of the green valleys ire used as cattle ranges, Tobacco and sugar are grown to a limited extent md pineapples are perhaps the staple product There has been some trade in pine and cedar, and night be a great deal more. Spirits of , pitch, tar, sulphur, tortoise hell and crystals are also among the possible exports. Silver, quicksilver { md iron exist in the hills, and the mar ,le uuarrles are practically exhaustless. ; The mountain ranges that cross the is and in several directions arc almost { ntirely composed of beautiful marbles ] if every variety known and in all the 1 olors of the rainbow, piled as by art in strata, varying from black, { 'rown and gray to palest tints of pink, $ lue and green Another low moun- ( ain. called Los Cristalas, is even more urious, its steep sides being literally s oated with rock crystal of exquisite C a-green tint, Though none of these { are of great height, all are q