The mean annual temperature of Havana varies only twelve degrees throughout the year. During the winter the mercury plays between the two extremes of 58 and 78 degrees, with an average of about 70. During the summer the temperature varies from 75 to 88 degrees, although there are occasional records where the mercury has reached 92 degrees. Even at this temperature, however, no great inconvenience is experienced, since the cool, strong, northeast winds, that blow from the Atlantic, straight across the Island, sweep into the Caribbean the overheated atmosphere that otherwise would hang over the land as it does in the interior of large continents, even in latitudes as high as northern Canada.

This continual strong current of air, that blows from the Atlantic during at least 300 days in the year, with its healthful, bracing influence, tempers the heat of the sun that in latitude 22 is directly overhead, and probably prevents sun strokes and heat prostrations, which are absolutely unknown in Havana at any time of the year.

During the first Government of Intervention, American soldiers in the months of July and August, 1900, put shingled roofs on barracks and quarters built at Camp Columbia, in the suburbs of Havana, without the slightest discomfort. Officers who questioned the men with more or less anxiety, since they were not accustomed to the tropics, were laughed at for their fears, the soldiers declaring that, “although the sun was a little hot, the breeze was fine, and they didn’t feel any heat.” Of the thousands of horses and mules brought from Kentucky and Missouri not one has ever fallen, or suffered from heat prostration in the Island of Cuba.

The nights are invariably cool, so much so that even in July and August, during the early morning hours, a light covering is not uncomfortable. There is every reason to believe that in the near future summer resorts will be successfully established on many of the elevated plateaus and mountainous parks in various sections of the Island.

The Province of Havana, even during the times of Spanish rule, had three or four fine military drives radiating to the south and west of the Capital. Since the inauguration of the Republic, these highways, shaded with the evergreen laurel, the almendra, flamboyant and many varieties of palm, including the royal and the cocoanut, have been converted into magnificent automobile drives, to which have been added many kilometers of splendidly paved roads known as carreteras, which connect the towns and villages of the interior with each other as well as the capital with the principal cities of other sections of Cuba.

Along these highways every three or four miles, are found road repair stations supported by the Department of Public Works, in which laborers to whom the keeping up of the road is assigned, live, and which shelter the necessary rollers and road builders under their direction. These stations are well built, well kept, and sometimes rather picturesque in appearance. Their presence should be a guarantee of the permanence and extension of good road-building in Cuba.

The political, social and commercial heart of the Republic of Cuba centers in the city of Havana, hence the province shares more directly in the national life and prosperity than any other. Cables, wireless stations and passenger ships of various lines coming and going every day in the year, maintain constant touch with outside world centers.

The Presidency, the various departments of the Federal Government, the Army, Navy, higher Courts, Congress and Universities all pursue their activities at the capital. The surrounding province, therefore, although the smallest of the Island, will probably always remain the most important political division of the Republic.

CHAPTER V
PROVINCE OF PINAR DEL RIO

TOPOGRAPHICALLY, the Province of Pinar del Rio is perhaps the most picturesquely beautiful in the Island. Owing also to its variety of soils, mahogany red, jet black, mulatto or brown, and the grey sands of the south and west, Pinar del Rio offers marvellous opportunities for many agricultural industries. Tobacco, of which it produces over $30,000,000 worth annually, has always been the most important product of this section of Cuba.