FEARFUL COST OF THE WAR.
At the close of the Ten Years' War (1878) Spain had laid upon the island a public debt of $200,000,000, and required her to raise $39,000,000 of revenue annually, an average at that time of nearly $30 per inhabitant. But Spain's own debt had, also, increased to nearly $2,000,000,000, and during this Ten Years' War she had sent 200,000 soldiers and her favorite commanders to the island, only about 50,000 of whom ever returned. According to our Consular Report of July, 1898, when the last revolution began, 1895, the Cuban debt had reached $295,707,264. The interest on this alone imposed a burden of $9.79 per annum upon each inhabitant. During the war, Spain had 200,000 troops in the island, and the three and one-half years' conflict cost her the loss of nearly 100,000 lives, mostly from sickness, and, as yet, unknown millions of dollars. The real figures of the loss of life and treasure seem incredible when we consider that Cuba is not larger than our State of Pennsylvania, and that her entire population at the beginning of the war was about one-fourth that of the State named, or a little less than that of the city of Chicago alone. Yet Spain, with an army larger than the combined northern and southern forces at the battle of Gettysburg, was unable to overcome the insurgents, who had never more than one-fourth as many men enlisted. But she harassed, tortured, and starved to death within three years, perhaps, over 500,000 non-combatant citizens in her attempt to subjugate the patriots, and was in a fair way to depopulate the whole island when the United States at last intervened to succor them.
THE FUTURE OF THE ISLAND.
What the future of Cuba may be under new conditions of government remains to be seen. Certainly, in all the world's history few sadder or more devastated lands have gathered their remnants of population upon the ashes of their ruins and turned a hopeful face to the future.
A SPANISH MESTIZA.
But the soil, the mineral and the timber not even Spanish tyranny could destroy; and in these lie the hope, we might say the sure guarantee, of Cuba's future. In wealth of resources and fertility of soil, Cuba is superior to all other tropical countries, and these fully justify its right to the title "Pearl of the Antilles," first given it by Columbus. Under a wise and secure government, its possibilities are almost limitless. Owing to its location at the entrance of the Gulf of Mexico, which it divides into the Yucatan and Florida channels, on the south and north, the island has been termed the "Key to the Gulf of Mexico," and on its coat of arms is emblazoned a key, as if to imply its ability to open or close this great sea to the commerce of the world.
Cuba extends from east to west 760 miles, is 21 miles wide in its narrowest part and 111 miles in the widest, with an average width of 60 miles. It has numerous harbors, which afford excellent anchorage. The area of the island proper is 41,655 square miles (a little larger than the State of Ohio); and including the Isle of Pines and other small points around its entire length, numbering in all some 1,200, there are 47,278 square miles altogether in Cuba and belonging to it. The island is intersected by broken ranges of mountains, which gradually increase in height from west to east, where they reach an elevation of nearly 8,000 feet. The central and western portions of the island are the most fertile, while the principal mineral deposits are in the mountains of the eastern end. In Matanzas and other central provinces, the well-drained, gently sloping plains, diversified by low, forest-clad hills, are especially adapted to sugar culture, and the country under normal conditions presents the appearance of vast fields of cane. The western portion of the island is also mountainous, but the elevations are not great, and in the valleys and along the fertile slopes of this district is produced the greater part of the tobacco for which the island is famous.
FERTILITY OF SOIL AND ITS PRODUCTS.