question of an ample and wholesome supply of
water judiciously used for cleanliness, internal and
external. There is one effect of the elements upon
health and comfort which cannot be averted or
avoided, if once it takes to the war-path. Hurricanes
sometimes afflict the island of Cuba, though
not so frequently as they scourge Jamaica, and the
Caribbees. In 1846, one swept furiously over the
very city of Havana, destroying 2000 houses and
damaging 5000 more, and cutting a swath of desolation
across the country twenty miles wide.
There is a popular territorial division of Cuba
which relates rather to its physical than its political
aspects. T h e western end is called the V uelta
Abajo, or the “ bend below,” designated with reference
to the trend of the coast-line from Havana.
Eastward of that to about the meridian of Santa
Clara is the Vuelta Arriba, or 1f bend above. ’ ’ Then
comes the Cinco Villas section, so called from the
five ancient towns— Trinidad, Santo Espiritu, San
Juan de los Remedios, Santa Clara, and Sagua la
Grande. The large section from Puerto Principe
east is the Tierra Adentro, or “ land within.”
C H A P T E R X I I I
HISTORY AND SPANISH GOVERNMENT OF CUBA
CO L U M B U S visited the southern coast of Cuba
twice, subsequent to his first discovery of the
island from the other side. Both in 1494 and in
1502 he explored westward, but only persevered to
the Isle of Pines, which he called Evangelita, and
then struck south; and he died in the belief that
what he had discovered was a peninsula projecting
from the Asiatic continent. In 1508, Ocampo, who
set out to examine the land with more care, in view
of the early exhaustion of Hispaniola, persisted in
his exploration until he rounded Cape Antonio and
returned by the northern coast. I t was in 1511, as
we have already noted, that Velasquez and his three
hundred men came to make a permanent settlement
and landed near Baracoa. In 1515, they founded
the towns of Santiago de Cuba and Trinidad, and a
little later San Juan de los Remedios and Santo
Espiritu. Among the companions of Velasquez, as
we also know, were Bartolomé Las Casas, the champion
of the natives, and Hernando Cortez, who after
being a cruel slave-driver in the Cobre mines, sailed
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