ry because it stays with me, of music in those waters. The
transport on which I went to Porto Rico, in the summer of 1898, carried,
among other troops, a battery of light artillery. It had an unusually good
bugler, and his sounding of "taps" on those soft, starlit nights remains
with me as one of the sweetest sounds I have ever heard. The shrieks,
squalls, and roars of those opera people were in a wholly different class.
About seventy-five miles east of Nuevitas is Gibara, merely a shipping port
for the inland city of Holguin. The former is only one of a number of such
places found along the coast. Most of them are attractive in point of
surrounding scenery, but little or not at all attractive in themselves,
being mere groups of uninteresting structures of the conventional type.
Holguin is perhaps two hundred years old, quite pleasantly situated, but
affording no special points of interest for the tourist. The city is now
easily reached by a branch of the Cuba Railway. It is worth the visit of
those who "want to see it all." Beyond Gibara is Nipe Bay, not improbably
the first Cuban harbor entered by Columbus. Nipe Bay and its near neighbor,
Banes Bay, are the centres of what is now the greatest industrial activity
of any part of the island. Here, recent American investment is measured in
scores of millions of dollars. Here, in the immediate neighborhood, are
some of the largest sugar plantations and mills on the island, the Boston
and the Preston. A little to the west of Gibara are two others, Chaparra
and Delicias. Hitherto, the western half of the island has been, the great
producing district, but present indications point to a not distant time
when the eastern district will rival and, it may be, outstrip the section
of older development. The foundation is already laid for an extensive
enterprise. Nature has afforded one of the finest land-locked harbors in
the world at Nipe, and another, though smaller, a few miles away, at Banes.
The region now has railroad connection with practically all parts of the
island. Around those bays are sugar lands, tobacco lands, fruit lands, and
a few miles inland are the vast iron ore beds that, as they are developed,
will afford employment for an army of workmen. Nipe Bay is the natural
commercial outlet for a vast area of richly productive soil. At present,
the region affords nothing of special interest except its industrial
activities, its miles and miles of sugar cane, its huge mills,