The Medical Record, in an article on the subject, says:
"There is no evading the fact, however, that the landing of a large body of more or less raw, unacclimatized men in the lowlands of a reputed unhealthy coast at the beginning of the rainy season is an experiment that must from the very nature of things be attended with much risk."
But the danger to our own soldiers must also from the very nature of things, be much less than it has proved to the Spaniards. Our army is composed of a much higher class of men intellectually, and besides that, they will be infinitely better taken care of.
The next point to be considered is the population of Cuba. There has been no official census taken since 1887. Then the entire population was estimated at 1,631,687. Of these about one-fifth were natives of Spain, 10,500 were whites of foreign blood, 485,187 were free negroes, about 50,000 were Chinese and the rest native Cubans.
It may be interesting to note the percentage of whites and blacks, and to see how the negro element has been decreasing both relatively and absolutely during late years. At the present time the negroes are in all probability not more than one-fourth of the entire population.
| Year. | White. | Negro. | Per Cent. |
| 1804 | 234,000 | 198,000 | 45.8 |
| 1819 | 239,830 | 213,203 | 47. |
| 1830 | 332,352 | 423,343 | 56. |
| 1841 | 418,291 | 589,333 | 58.4 |
| 1850 | 479,490 | 494,252 | 50.75 |
| 1860 | 632,797 | 566,632 | 47. |
| 1869 | 797,596 | 602,215 | 43. |
| 1877 | 985,325 | 492,249 | 33. |
| 1887 | 1,102,689 | 485,188 | 30.55 |
The island is divided into six political divisions, each province taking the name of its capital city: Havana, Matanzas, Santa Clara, Puerto Principe, Santiago de Cuba and Pinar del Rio.
The figures in the following table give the population by provinces, as well as the density of population (number of inhabitants per square kilometer.)
| Provinces. | Inhabitants. | Square Kilometers. | Density. |
| Pinar del Rio | 225,891 | 14,967 | 15.09 |
| Habana | 451,928 | 8,610 | 52.49 |
| Matanzas | 259,578 | 8,486 | 30.59 |
| Santa Clara | 354,122 | 23,083 | 15.34 |
| Puerto Principe | 67,789 | 32,341 | 2.10 |
| Santiago de Cuba | 272,379 | 35,119 | 7.76 |
| Totals | 1,631,687 | 122,606 | 13.31 |
In Cuba, under Spanish rule, the Roman Catholic is the only religion tolerated by the government. There are no Protestant or Jewish places of worship. A decree promulgated in Madrid in 1892 declares that, while a person who should comply with all other requirements might be permitted to remain on the island, he would not be allowed to advance doctrines at variance with those of the established church. As Catholicism is a state religion, its maintenance is charged to the revenues of the island, and amounts to something like $400,000 a year.