els forming inlets, safe only for native boatmen,
as the winding course of the blue waters covers myriads of sunken
rocks. On the southern side, opposite the Isle of Pines, there are
some beautiful reaches of beach, over which the gentle surf rolls
continuously with a murmur so soft as to seem like the whispered
secrets of the sea. Yet what frightful historic memories brood over
these deep waters of the Archipelago, where for nearly two centuries
floated and fought the ships of sea-robbers of every nationality, and
where the cunning but guilty slave-clippers, fresh from the coast of
Africa, loaded with kidnapped men and women, made their harbor! With
all their dreamy beauty, the tropics are full of sadness, both in
their past and present history.

The occasional hurricanes, which prove so disastrous to the Bahamas
and other isles in the immediate vicinity of Cuba, rarely extend their
influence to its shores, but the bursts of fury which these usually
tranquil seas sometimes indulge in are not excelled in violence in the
worst typhoon regions.

The nearest port of the island to this continent is Matanzas, lying
due south from Cape Sable, Florida, a distance of a hundred and thirty
miles. Havana is located some sixty miles west of Matanzas, and it is
here that the island divides the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico, whose
coast-line, measuring six thousand miles, finds the outlet of its
commerce along the shore of Cuba, almost within range of the guns in
Moro Castle. Lying thus at our very door as it were, this island
stands like a sentinel, guarding the approaches of the Gulf of Mexico,
whose waters wash the shores of five of the United States, and by
virtue of the same position barring the entrance of the great river
which drains half the continent of North America. Nor does the
importance of the situation end here. Cuba keeps watch and ward over
our communication with California by way of the isthmus. The peculiar
formation of the southeastern shore of this continent, and the
prevalence of the trade-winds, with the oceanic current from east to
west, make the ocean passage skirting the shore of Cuba the natural
outlet for the commerce also of Venezuela, New Granada, Costa Rica,
and Nicaragua. It is not surprising, therefore, when we realize the
commanding position of the island, that so much of interest attaches
to its ultimate destiny.

Cuba seems formed to become the very button on Fortune's cap. No
wonder that the