The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1916-11-24
En- Route for Cuba.

The following are some extracts
from a letter written home by Mr.. +.
Harold Sasscer, who is now engaged
on ciA;l engineering work Tor the
Bethlehem Steel Company at their
wol ks in FELTON,, Cuba.
There were only about forty hrst-
class passengers abroad and OF all
classes and OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES,
Cubans, sugar plantation owners and
engineers, a crazy woman etc.
lone of the Cubans was leaving an
American girl behind who seemed
about Frustrated with grief, and he
rushed back over the gang-plank seve-
raj times just before it was pulled in
for one last embrace. 1t was pltliul
for her because these Cuban boys are
so lazy, good for nothing and tickle. "
1T was very exciting getting out OF
East river and New York harbor. |
felt pretty low spirited, but we had
very smooth voyage and | soon got &C
ouainted with some of the passengers
and with the captain, who was very jolly,
and | spent time up in his state room
and navigating room looking at ships
charts The run for twentY-four hours
was computed by observations on the
sun every noon.
81 had heard of the South seas being
blue, but never imagined they could be
such a dark blue. The sunset time of
the day was always most gorgeous and
from then on into the night it was
wonderful. The last two days we were
out the breeze was so soft and warm
and it was so fine on deck lying back
in a steamer chair with my feet up
that | didn't ever feel like going to
bed. The mornings were the unpleas-
ant times. Even with the fan going
the state rooms were sweltering hot.
We saw some whales blowing and shoot
ing streams of water up from their nos
es and also lots of flying fish. The
latter are about six inches long and fly
along over the water about foot up
for nearly a hundred feet to escape
prey1ng fish. The man in my stateroom
was Young fellow about my age on
his way back to Honolulu where he
works on pineapple plantation. He
has been out there five years and over
the seas a lot and was interesting COM
pany. Two of the people who were
very nice to me live over on the mountain
ten miles from here on cane planta-
ton. One was the superintendent of
irrigation for the United Fruit Com
pany. Their town of Preston where
the sugar mill is located is not far from
here, They own every thing there just
like the Spanish American Iron Com
pany owns everything at FELTON,. Some
Sunday, perhaps, l can get horse and
ride over to see them. They invited
me to visit them and l would like to do
so. Five miles further into the Bay
OF Nipe is Antilla, the first port our
ship made in the trip from New York.
FELTON, is only about two miles from the
ocean. Wednesday when | awoke, suf-
locating with the heat, we were an
chored off shore, and | was on deck in
time for the sunrise about which time
the pilot came aboard, and we started
into Nipe Bay. 1t was a wonderful
sight. The bright green fields of sugar
can and tropical trees fringed the shores
of the dark blue bay, and the brownish
blue Mayor mountains lay further back
against the sky"
when we locked at Antilla about
seven o'clock, the dock was covered
with all kinds of humanity-the black
est of all being the negroes from
Jamaica, then Cubans of all colors,
from dark brown to light yellow-cus-
suits and the Cuban Rurales in very
loud uniforms. 1t took about two
hours for the luggage to reach the GUS
tom house and another two hours to
get it then, and | went up to the hotel,
a concrete structure with tiled roof.
All about were people in white and
pongee suits drinking their breakfast
coffee or at tables in the bar room
throwing dice and drinking. Nobody
hurried at all, and out in front the
sanitation squad of about twelve buzz
yards scared around or gathered on the
ground in such numbers as would sug-
gest provender as large as horse in
across the bay in the Company's little
thirty-foot steamboat"