Nueva Bermeja, which has a population of about
6000.
A s we reach the province of Santa Clara we find
the industrial and commercial activity shifted to the
southern side of the island, with its chief outlets at
Cienfuegos and Trinidad. Cienfuegos is on a splendid
harbour, which was visited by Columbus, and
surveyed by Ocampo, and of which Herrera said it
was “ unrivalled in the w o r l d a n d y e t no town was
established there until 1819, when a French planter
named Louis Clouet from Louisiana came with
about forty families, partly from Gascony and the
Basque country, and partly refugees from Santo
Domingo. T he name was that of a Cuban governor,
and the place has grown to a flourishing city of
27,000 inhabitants, altogether outstripping the ancient
port of Trinidad, on account of the superiority
of the harbour and the position of the town directly
upon it. Trinidad is a little back from the coast,
some forty miles farther east, and is approached
through three small bays. Between the two towns
is a district where fine tobacco is grown, nearly
equal to that of the V uelta Abajo. Santo Espiritu
and San Juan de los Remedios in the interior are
chiefly noted as two of the old Cinco Villas. The
latter was originally established on the north coast,
near where the port of Caibarien now is, but the
settlers were driven inland by the buccaneers and
founded Santa Clara in 1690, the present capital of
the province, which has a population of 35,000 and
is the centre of a region of considerable mineral
wealth. Sagua la Grande, one of the “ five cities,