a fierce heat and leaves little ashes. In some places
it softens to an asphaltic pitch, almost to petroleum.
Near Havana there are quarries of slate from which
thick slabs are taken that are of value in building,
and there are specimens of marble and jasper which
take a high polish.
But in nearly four centuries of Spanish possession
there has been no systematic exploration, no surveys
or careful examination of mineral resources, no encouragement
of enterprise, but every obstruction;
and the mountains and gulches of Cuba are in their
interior composition an unknown land. Tw en ty
million acres of its area are unreclaimed territory,
and 13,000,000 are said to be “ virgin forest,” whatever
virginity in a forest may signify. Among the
virgins of the wood are huge trees of mahogany,
cedar, and ebony, and the sabicu and grandilla
peculiar to the American tropics. It was the rich
verdure of the forests, and the rank luxuriance of
vegetation, which includes flowering plants to the
number of more than 3300 actually recorded as indigenous
to the soil, which gave Cuba the title of
th e " Pearl of the A n tille s .” Perhaps her pride and
glory are the “ feathery palm-trees,” of which thirty
varieties rise “ o ’ er the smiling land ” ; but she has all
the varied shrubs and herbs that belong to a rich soil
under tropic suns. Fruits there are in great variety,
of which the orange and the pineapple are the chief;
pepper and spices are not wanting, and farinaceous
plants like the yam, the potato, and cassava are plentiful;
while maize, the Indian corn that waves so
luxuriantly in Au gust over our continent, was the
chief crop of the modest agriculture of the Arawak.
T ha t enticing narcotic, tobacco, w ith which the gentle
aborigines were wont to soothe their nerves when
first intruded upon by the restless white men, has
captured the conqueror, and wide fields of it now
draw his wealth to the plundered island. T he soil,
far the greater part of which still reeks with its own
richness without cultivation, has been generously
receptive of exotic plants, and the sugar-cane and
coffee of the East have flourished in it as hardly in
their native ground.
In quadrupeds Cuba was poor when first surprised
into a consciousness that it had been an undiscovered
country. Guaquinaji ” is what the natives
are said to have called that " dumb dog ” which so
puzzled the Spaniards, now conjectured to have
been the raccoon, and they had a ‘ jutia, which
was much like a big rat, but black of colour and resident
in holes and clefts of trees. The dogs and cats
introduced by the first colonists ran wild, and still
infest the woods, and there are some specimens of
deer of European origin. Our domestic animals
and fowls have no trouble in thriving, but none of
their like were indigenous. T he island does somewhat
better in reptiles. There is a crocodile, or cayman,
of respectable size, and many lizards; one large
but harmless serpent, twelve or fourteen feet in
length sometimes, and several smaller members of
the family from which even paradise was not exempt.
I t is commonly said that none are venomous, but a
vicious red asp has an ugly bite. T he hideous but
harmless iguana and the inconstant chameleon are