some excellent qualities,
are yet ignorant, cruel, and passionate. The whole country is divided
against itself, the tottering throne being with difficulty upheld.
Even the elements have of late seemed to combine against her,
decimating whole cities of her southern possessions by earthquakes,
and smiting her people with pestilence.

This simple statement of her present situation is patent to all who
read and observe. It is not an overdrawn picture. In it the moralist
beholds the retributive justice of providence. As Spain in the
plenitude of her power was ambitious, cruel, and perfidious, so has
the measure which she meted out to others been in return accorded to
herself. As with fire and sword she swept the Aztec and the Incas from
Mexico and Peru, so was she at last driven from these genial countries
by their revolted inhabitants. The spoiler has been despoiled, the
victor has been vanquished, and thus has Spain met the just fate
clearly menaced by the Scriptures to those who smite with the sword.

CHAPTER VI.

Geographical. -- A Remarkable Weed. -- Turtle-Hunting. --
Turtle-Steaks in Olden Times. -- The Gulf Stream. -- Deep-Sea
Soundings. -- Mountain Range of Cuba. -- Curious Geological
Facts. -- Subterranean Caverns. -- Wild Animals. -- The
Rivers of the Island. -- Fine Harbors. -- Historic Memories
of the Caribbean Sea. -- Sentinel of the Gulf. -- Importance
of the Position. -- Climate. -- Hints for Invalids. --
Matanzas. -- Execution of a Patriot. -- Valley of Yumuri;
Caves of Bellamar; Puerto Principe; Cardenas.

Having thus briefly glanced at the historical and political story of
Cuba,--whose very name seems bathed in sunshine and fragrance, yet
bedewed with human tears,--let us now consider its peculiarities of
climate, soil, and population, together with its geographical
characteristics. The form of the island is quite irregular, resembling
the blade of a Turkish scimitar slightly curved back, or that of a
long narrow crescent, presenting its convex side to the north. It
stretches away in this shape from east to west, throwing its western
end into a curve, as if to form a barrier to the outlet of the Gulf of
Mexico, and as if at some ancient period it had formed a part of the
American continent; severed on its north side from the Florida
peninsula by the wearing of the Gulf Stream, and from Yucatan, on its
southwestern point, by a cur