The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-02-11
OLD ROADS IN CUBA.
With the Building of the Present New
 Line.

Line.
 Brooklyn Eagle.
 The most interesting of the transverse railroads east of Santa Clara was the one which crosses the Island from San Fernando to Juoaro. It was built Dy the Spanish Government solely for mill tary purposes. IL has block house at each kilometsr and the historic clearings fenced with baroed wire is between. It is ffty-seven miles long and the Cuba Company leased 1t from the provisional government after the war. In order to oD- tain connectionwith the harbor Of Jucaro. Next in interest is the old Puerto Prtn- cipe-Nuevitas Road. already alluded to. which, as 1t has undergone very few changes since it's construction, may fairly be called one of the oldest railroads In the world It was private concern. built without stock or bond issues, and had no debt. At the end of every month, after the bills had been paid, all the re- maaning cash was ralxed into heap on the table and eQuitably divided Into eight shares. Each shareholder pocketed his dividend and the books were closed for another month Primitive, but satisfac- tory! Particularly as 1t was the best kept up of any of the Cuban roads at the time of the war, and earned about b per cent. on the capital invested It was forty-sdx miles long.
 Then there was the road running from Gfbara on the north coast not far from the eastern end of the Island to Hoiguin, twenty miles south, which Is distinguish ed by possessing tunnel of 1b0 feet long, the only one on the island. To a native, particularly one from any other part of Cuba, to go through thds tunnel was quite an adventure, one requiring both courage and adventurous disposition East of Puerto Principe there was a very old road known as the S8wantla and Marota, which ran from Santiago to San Luis, not even approxtmating the points named in its title. It has in Its possession some curi- ,NA DAlA I clined cylinders. buiat more than thirty years ago. and even at this day doing better service than any others on the road. By buying the thirty miles of this road, the Cuba Company completed the last lap of its journey and obtained ac- cess to Santiago by the only really ac- cessfble route through the Sierra Maestro Mountains.
 Another short road of perhaps fifteen or twenty miles runs through a rich su- gar district to Guantanamo Bay, and will eventually connect the ports of Guantan- amo and Manzaniuo with the main line and Santiago. All these are practically branch lnes-short roads that existed be- fore the war and have been utilized in the Cuba Company's plan of supplying trans portatton facilities to the larger and rich CT part of the island, which was almost devoid of them.
 The road has been in contemplation for some time past, the first steps having been taken under the Spanish regime. According to Miller A. Smith of Brooklyn, who did much of the surveying and plan ming. as an engineering problem it was comparatively simple. There were four ports available for supples-Sagua, Ju- caro, Cienfuegos and Santiago. So that the landing and hauling of material was not matter of serious difficulty. In per- haps forty miles of the entire route there were engineering difficulties to overcome At the Santa Clara and for about twenty miles the work was heavy. and again between San Luis and Alto Pedro on the east. but for the most part the road runs through flat country with long stretches Of prairie There was one important crossing, that of the Guanicum River, branch of the ,Cauto, the largest river in Cuba It is crossed by two 15O feet spans, two 80 feet spans and about 100 feet o6 trestle. In some places on the route canyons from sixty to 100 feet deep had to be spanned. and allowance made for a rise Of from thirty to forty feet in the water. between flood time and the dry season.
 porary wooden trestles which will grad ually be filed in, but all the permanent work is Of heavy character. And it has been necessary on the old roads to replace wooden treStle work with steel in many places, though the timber known as caguaran. which Cuba produces In abund- ance, Is particularly well adapted for rail road work. It seems to be almost inde- struot1ble and stands, as some of the older roads bear witness, for thirty years and more without rottfng. It has been used for small oulverts along the line, As excellent gravel for ballastinR and plenty of dtsintegrated limestone, whIch makes good compact roadbed, is found in various places along the line, it seems to have been case of road building made easy, and one only wonders why 1t was not done long ago.
 It is expected that during the winter A branch road aIbont thirty miles long will be built connecting Santiago with Man opilon. on Nipe Bay. It Is expected thai Uncle Sam will locate one of the naval stations to be selected by the United States Government on the Bay of Nipe- It Is wonderful Bay, with a harbor thirty mikes long and perfectly protected and a wide entrance from 200 to 300 feet deep. One of the Cuba Company's pro Jects includes the improvement of this harbor, and the clearing of a channel in what Is practically an inland waterway between the Bay of Nipe and Banes, on the North. At present this is only ob- structed by few patches of marshy land. which could easily be cleared, and an inn portant fruit traffio which centers about the very unsatisfactory harbor of Banes could be diverted to Eipe Bay.
 One of the prettiest girls in town is so dull in her talk that people scream and