The History of Cuba, vol. 5

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

There are many reasons for believing that the entrance to this harbor was the place where Columbus spent several days scraping and cleaning the bottom of his caravels, while a few of his companions made a journey into the interior, finding very agreeable natives but no indications of gold. From Nuevitas is shipped nearly all of the sugar made in the Province of Camaguey, together with a great deal of fine hardwood, cut in the Sierra de Cubitas Mountains.

The north shore railroad, beginning at Caibarien some 300 kilometers distant, has its eastern terminus on Nuevitas Bay, and will, when completed, greatly increase the trade of splendid sugar and vegetable land, as well as the mining zone, rich in iron and chrome, that lies just south of the Sierras.

Thirty miles further east we have the harbor of Manati, with a narrow but comparatively deep and easy entrance, which soon opens out into the usual long pouch shaped bay, on the shore of which are the sugar mills of Manati. This harbor, although not ranked among the largest, nevertheless can accommodate a large fleet of merchant ships or tramp steamers waiting for their cargoes of sugar and hardwood timber.

Malageta, some ten miles east of Manati, cannot be properly ranked as a harbor of the first class, although it furnishes protection for vessels of moderate draft.

Puerto Padre, 20 miles east of Manati, is another large pouch-shaped deep water harbor like nearly all those of the north coast, and owing to the location on its southern shore of two of the largest sugar mills in the world, Chaparra and Las Delicias, with a combined production of over a million bags a year, it may be justly ranked as one of the most important harbors of Oriente.

Fifty miles further east we have the open roadstead of Gibara, a deep indentation of the sea that gives, unfortunately, but little protection from northerly gales, but since Gibara is the exit for the rich Holguin district of northern Oriente, its commerce is extensive.

Sixty miles further east, after rounding Lucrecia Point, where the coast for the first time faces due east, we have another fine deep water harbor known as Banes, on whose shores is located a large sugar mill known as “Boston,” with an annual output of 500,000 bags.

Some ten miles southeast of Banes we enter the Bay of Nipe, the largest landlocked harbor in Cuba. Nipe is a beautiful sheet of water, whose southern and western shores are low, although mountains can be seen in the distance in almost any direction. Nipe contains forty square miles of deep water anchorage, with a width from east to west of twelve miles and from north to south of seven to eight miles. The Mayari River, one of the most important streams of the north coast of Oriente Province, empties into Nipe. On the north shore of the bay the little town of Antilla forms the northeastern terminus of the Cuba Company’s railroad, connecting Orient with Havana and the western end of the Island. The land surrounding the bay is exceptionally rich and is owned largely by the United Fruit Company. Here they originally cultivated large fields of bananas, but owing to their extensive plantations in Costa Rica, and to the high price of sugar brought about by the war, their Cuban properties have been converted into sugar plantations. The splendid mills of Preston are located on Nipe Bay, from which a half million bags of sugar are shipped every year to the outside world. The rich mines of the Mayari district belonging to the Bethlehem Steel Company are located back of Nipe Harbor and contribute considerably to the commerce of this port.

Some five or six miles east of the entrance of Nipe we have the deep double harbors of Cabonico and Levisa; the latter large and circular in form, while Cabonico is comparatively small, and separated from Levisa by a narrow peninsula that extends almost into the single entrance of the two bays. The lands around this harbor are largely covered with forests of magnificent hard woods, while the soil is rich enough to produce cane for a quarter of a century or longer without replanting.

Some 15 miles further east we have another fine large bay with a narrow entrance on the Atlantic, known as Sagua de Tanamo. This bay is very irregular in form, with many ramifications or branches reaching out towards the east, south and west, while into it flows the Tanamo River, draining the forest covered valleys and basins that lie between the mountains of eastern Oriente and the north shore.