a galaxy
of stars that never greets us in the north. At midnight its glittering
framework stands erect; that solemn hour passed, the Cross declines.[33]
How glorious the night where such a heavenly sentinel indicates its
watches! Cuba is indeed a land of enchantment, where nature is
beautiful, and where mere existence is a luxury, but it requires the
infusion of a sterner, more self-denying and enterprising race to fully
test its capabilities, and to astonish the world with its
productiveness.

We have thus dilated upon the natural resources of Cuba, and depicted
the charms that rest about her; but every picture has its dark side, and
the political situation of the island is the reverse in the present
instance. Her wrongs are multifarious, and the restrictions placed upon
her by her oppressors are each and all of so heinous and tyrannical a
character, that a chapter upon each would be insufficient to place them
in their true light before the world. There is, however, no better way
of placing the grievances of the Cubans, as emanating from the home
government, clearly before the reader, than by stating such of them as
occur readily to the writer's mind in brief:--

She is permitted no voice in the Cortes; the press is under the vilest
censorship; farmers are compelled to pay ten per cent. on all their
harvest except sugar, and on that article two and a half per cent.; the
island has been under martial law since 1825; over $23,000,000 of taxes
are levied upon the inhabitants, to be squandered by Spain; ice is
monopolized by the government; flour is so taxed as to be inadmissible;
a Creole must purchase a license before he can invite a few friends to
take a cup of tea at his board; there is a stamped paper, made legally
necessary for special purposes of contract, costing eight dollars per
sheet; no goods, either in or out of doors, can be sold without a
license; the natives of the island are excluded entirely from the army,
the judiciary, the treasury, and the customs; the military government
assumes the charge of the schools; the grazing of cattle is taxed
exorbitantly; newspapers from abroad, with few exceptions, are
contraband; letters passing through the post are opened and purged of
their contents before delivery; fishing on the coast is forbidden, being
a government monopoly; planters are forbidden to send their sons to the
United States for educational purposes; the slave-trade is secretly
encouraged by government