The third city in the Island is Puerto Principe, capital of the province of Puerto Principe, and known to the natives as Camagüey, the original name of the town and province. It is forty-five miles from the south coast and thirty-five from the north, although it is forty-five miles from its seaport, Nuevitas, with which it is connected by its only railroad. It is located in the midst of what once was the grazing district,—though the cattle are now destroyed,—and being on a plain seven hundred feet above the sea it is a healthful place. Camagüey is a back-number town, so to speak, having narrow streets with narrow sidewalks, or none at all, old houses, old fashions, and fewer foreigners than any of the other Cuban towns. It is distinctively Cuban, and the new era of Cuba will no doubt work a long time on the good people of Camagüey before they set aside the old things and step out into the procession of progress, clothed in the uniforms of the modern “hustlers.” In this city of over forty thousand people there is not a hotel, and the inhabitants are noted for their hospitality.
Of great commercial significance is Cienfuegos, one of the south-coast cities, and in some respects one of the best towns on the Island. It is situated on the landlocked bay of Jagua, with one of the safest harbours in the world, and though built only since 1819, and restored after a hurricane in 1825, it has developed a spirit of energy and progress rare in Cuban cities. It has an extensive and growing commerce, with numerous wharves and piers for its shipping; a railroad 190 miles to Havana and one to Sagua la Grande on the north coast; electric lights and gas-works; 25,790 people; 3000 stone and wooden houses; the famous Terry theatre and one of the finest plazas in Cuba; a good location for drainage, but with stagnant water in the streets, and no sewers; much bad health, and one of the finest opportunities on earth to take advantage of the new order of things and convert its energy and youth into a power that will make Cienfuegos the Chicago of Cuba. There is one good hotel. The only serious strike that ever occurred in Cuba took place in Cienfuegos among the longshoremen, and resulted in the sending of all the recalcitrants by the authorities to the Isle of Pines as criminals. The bay of Jagua is noted for its beautiful clear blue water with a bottom of the whitest sand. The climate is more variable than that of Cuban coast cities as a rule, the mercury marking as high as ninety-three degrees in summer and going down into the fifties during the night in the rainy season.
The Cuban city held to be the most healthful, though sanitary regulations are practically unknown, is Trinidad, in the province of Santa Clara. It is also one of the oldest, having been founded by Diego Velasquez in 1514. It is three miles in the interior from its seaport, Casilda, though coastwise vessels of light draft can approach it by the river Guaurabo. The town has a picturesque location, on the slope of La Vija (“Lookout”), a hill rising nine hundred feet above the sea. The harbour of Casilda is three miles long by one and a half miles wide, and has only about eleven feet of water. From this bay Cortez sailed for Mexico. There are several fine public parks and drives, and socially Trinidad in the winter season is one of the gayest cities on the Island. It is lighted by gas, and though it has no sewers, its location is such that the rains keep it washed clean. The population is eighteen thousand. In good times Trinidad has shipped to the United States $903,700 worth of sugar, mahogany, coffee, and honey in one year, but times have been poor in recent years, and Trinidad is one of the towns which will feel the reviving effects of the new era of prosperity.
Santa Clara, the capital of the province of that name, has a population of twenty-five thousand, and is popularly known as Villa Clara. It was founded in 1689, and was once known for its great wealth and beautiful women; its glory in this latter regard still continues. It has one excellent hotel, kept in modern fashion, and a fine theatre. Its railway connections are excellent in all directions; indeed, it is the terminus of the Cuban system of railways. It is 248 miles by rail from Havana, and thirty miles from the north and forty from the south coast. Its location is high, and a fine grazing country surrounds it. Minerals also abound, and ten thousand tons of a fine asphaltum have been shipped in a year. Silver yielding as much as $200 per ton has been found, but the mines have not been worked. Evidences of natural gas are present near the town. Santa Clara has wide streets, and despite its healthful location, it is, by reason of poor or no sanitary regulations, an unhealthful place, though there is never any yellow fever.
The capital of the province of Santiago de Cuba is Santiago de Cuba, generally known as Cuba to the natives and Santiago to foreigners. Owing to its war record it is the best-known town in the Island. It is situated on the south coast, one hundred miles from the west end of Cuba, and its harbour is one of the safest and finest in the world, having an opening into the sea only one hundred and eighty yards in width, extending back six miles into a beautiful bay, three miles wide at its greatest width. Santiago has a population of forty thousand (estimated sixty thousand in 1895), and is the second oldest city in Cuba, the capital having been removed thither from Baracoa in 1514 by Velasquez. It is historically the most interesting city in Cuba, and it promises to be for the future second in importance to none in the Island, except Havana. It became a bishopric as early as 1527 and is now the metropolis of the Catholic Church in Cuba, the Archbishop of Santiago being the Primate. The celebrations of church festivals are conducted with ceremonies more elaborate than those anywhere else in the Island, and the cathedral, in the Hispano-American style, is the largest in Cuba, if not the handsomest. It is said that in a Santiago theatre Adelina Patti made her first public appearance, at the age of fourteen years; Velasquez is buried in this city, and so is Antomarchi, the physician of Napoleon, who died, as his emperor did, upon a foreign island. Cuba’s greatest poet, José Maria Heredia, was born here, as were Milanes, Dona Luisa Perez de Montes de Oca, Dona Gertrudis Gomez de Avellanda; and Placido, next to Heredia in merit, passed several years here.
Although well located for drainage, Santiago is one of the most unhealthful towns in Cuba, and its beautiful bay is little better than a cesspool. Yellow fever and smallpox have been the prevailing epidemics for years, but under the new order a new condition will arise. Santiago, with very poor business houses and offices, does a flourishing trade, wholesale, retail, and in shipping. The surrounding country has many people employed not only in agriculture, but in mining as well, for Santiago is the centre of the mining district. Its railway facilities are practically nil, being located two hundred miles east of the last railway leading anywhere. The city is Moorish in its aspect. It is sufficiently ancient to be without hotels, though there are several clubs where civilised beings may be entertained comfortably. The fortifications about the city are interesting: the Morro,—which is one hundred years older than that of Havana,—La Socapa, La Estrella, and Smith Key—all these have received much mention during the late war. The mining interests of Santiago will be considered under a separate chapter.
Cardenas may be said to be the newest town in Cuba, and is known as “the American city,” owing to the fact that many Americans are located here in business, or make it their headquarters, with business interests elsewhere in the Island. It was founded in 1828, is a thriving town, with wide streets, numerous wharves, a plaza with a bronze statue of Columbus, and is a purely commercial city. The harbour is shallow, and the piers running into it are from three hundred to one thousand feet in length. Although without sewers and located on swampy ground, Cardenas is not unhealthful as the term is understood in Cuba. There are fine water-works, but many of the people still prefer to buy water of street vendors. Gas and electricity light the town. Its chief business is in sugar, but, unlike other Cuban cities, it possesses numerous and varied manufactures, producing liquors, beers, metal-work, soap, cigars, fabrics, etc. It has connection by steamer and rail with the chief points of the Island. The population is 20,505, over 15,000 of which is white. Cardenas exported goods in 1894 to the amount of $10,008,565, of which $9,682,335 was in sugar shipped to the United States, as against $10,000,000 the previous year. Her imports in 1892 were $4,900,000, and in 1895 the United States sent 32,283 tons of coal to this port. Situated in one of the richest agricultural sections of Cuba, Cardenas is also not poor in mineral wealth, notably asphalt. Peculiar mines of asphalt are found in the waters of the bay. The mineral is broken loose by bars dropped from ten to twelve feet through the water upon it, and the pieces are scooped up with a net. The supply of the mineral is renewed from some unknown source as fast as it is taken away. One of these mines has furnished as much as 20,000 tons, and the supply is inexhaustible. Asphalt of the first grade is worth from $80 to $125 per ton.
Sagua la Grande, twenty-five miles from the mouth of the river of that name, is almost wholly a sugar town. It has a population of 14,000, and is the northern terminus of the Havana Railway system. Its seaport is La Isabela, with a poor harbour; and its exports in 1895 reached nearly $5,000,000—with a great falling off since, as it has suffered as much as any town in the Island from the insurrection. As an indication of this it may be said that immediately before the insurrection there were 23,500 cattle, 4500 horses, 4000 hogs, 700 sheep, and 450 mules in the Sagua district, practically all of which have been destroyed or stolen. Sagua has an ice plant whose product has sold at $3 per hundredweight. The railway from Sagua to Cienfuegos marks the boundary between the western and eastern districts of Cuba.
Caibarien is another nineteenth-century town, having been founded in 1822. Its houses are of brick, and its warehouses of recent styles of architecture. Its population is fifty-five hundred, and it is said to be not unhealthful, though its general level is not much more than ten feet above the sea, and the country is swampy. Its chief industry is sugar, although recently an active business in sponges has grown up, principally of local consumption, the annual value approaching half a million of dollars. The harbour is extensive, but shallow and poor. A railway extends to San Andres, twenty-eight and one-half miles in the interior. Some waggon roads, unusually good for Cuba, connect it with various sugar estates. The future possibilities of Caibarien are numerous and great.