T he cavernous structure of the limestone formation
produces some remarkable effects upon the water-
flow. There are rivulets that lose themselves in
dark underground reservoirs, and after winding
about and joining with subterranean affluents,
emerge upon some declivity, to tumble down in
picturesque cascades and possibly to sink out of
sight again. Twen ty miles south-west of Havana
there is a beautiful lake of six square miles’ area
among the green ridges, called the Ariguanabo,
from which flows the Rio San Antonio. When this
stream reaches San Antonio de los Baños, it sinks
under a large ceiba, or “ silk cotton,” tree and disappears,
to make its way to the coast unseen.
T he Rio Mayari, which flows into Nipe Bay from
the cuchillas in Santiago province, has a series of
three splendid falls, and the Moa has on one of its
branches a cataract three hundred feet high, and
not far below this it plunges into a cave to reappear
farther down. T h e Rio Jatibonico del Norte also
runs part of its course through underground channels,
and another part over a series of cascades.
There are few surface lakes in the uplands, on
account of this propensity of the water to run away
through caves and gorges, leap down steep declivities,
and hurry away to the sea. But in the low
parts of the island, in several places these vagrant
streams are checked and forced to spread out into
tranquil ponds and lagoons, or to be lost in weltering
swamps in which the turtle and the alligator loaf
their lives away. Some of these marshy districts
along the coast contain impenetrable morasses and
thickets of mangrove, with winding passages and
mysterious grottos, amid the weird decorations of
luxuriant tropical verdure and bloom. The Rio San
Diego in the west flows through that series of natural
arches called Lo s Portales, and several come down
from wild gorges through verdant plains and afford
a few miles of navigation.
F u lly one half of the Cuban coast is fringed with
keys and reefs, which constitute a perilous barrier
to navigators who are not acquainted with the channels.
These are the work of those incessant builders,
the coral polyps, whose whole process of construction
consists in unconsciously growing and dying off
age after age, leaving a calcareous deposit that ever
climbs toward the light. Their structures take a
thousand forms, strange and grotesque, beneath the
waves, and spread and coalesce above; and in the
sun and air take on the vesture of plants and flowers.
From the peninsula of Sabinal, just west of Nuevitas,
there is an outer coast-line of one hundred and
twenty miles, formed of islets, keys, and reefs, coral
banks and shallow basins in which salt deposits are
formed by evaporation in the tropical sun. Here
was what Columbus called the “ Gardens of the
K in g .” T he Cayo Romano in this series is an isle of
one hundred and eighty square miles with three small
hills among its sand-dunes and salt basins. This
outer coast-line is almost continuous, the land areas
being considerable and the intersecting channels
narrow; but extending beyond it nearly to Matan-
zas, a distance of one hundred and eighty miles
more, there is a more broken and irregular chain of