.'!4 CUBA AND POllTO RICO 



tions are diversified; there Is a variety of economic 

 resources, l>oth agricultural and mineral, sonvenienl to 



an extensive littoral, with numerous harbors affording 

 excellent anchorage. 



Its essential geographic features are as follows: Area, 

 including 1300 adjacent keys, 45,000 square miles, slightly 

 less than that of the State of New York, of which ten 

 per cent, is cultivated, four per cent, forest-land, and the 

 remainder, for the most part, unreclaimed wilderness. 

 Its length is nearly seven times that of Long Island, and 

 stretches between the longitudes of New York and Cin- 

 cinnatia distance of 720 miles. Its width is every- 

 where less than 100 miles. As regards diversity of relief, 

 its eastern end is mountainous, with summits stand- 

 ing high above the adjacent sea; its middle portion is 

 wide, consisting of gently sloping plains, which form a 

 continuous field of sugar-cane, well drained, high above 

 the sea, and broken here and there by low, forest-clad 

 hills; and its western third is a picturesque region of 

 mountains, with fertile slopes and valleys, of different 

 structure and less altitude than those of the east. It is in 

 this last district only that the aromatic tobaccos which 

 have made the island famous are grown. Over the whole 

 is a mantle of tender vegetation, rich in every hue that a 

 flora of more than three thousand species can give, and 

 kept green by mists and gentle rains. Indenting the rock- 

 bound coasts are a hundred pouch-shaped harbors, such 

 as are but rarelv found in the other islands and shores 

 of the American Mediterranean, and resembling St. Lucia, 

 for which England gave up the rich islands of Martinique 

 and Guadeloupe, under the treaty of Paris. 



In area, in natural resources, in the number and char- 

 acter of its inhabitants, in strategic position as regards 

 proximity to the American and Mexican seaboards, Cuba 

 is by far the most important of the Great Antilles. It is 

 very near the center of the great American Mediterranean, 

 separating the Gulf of Mexico from the Caribbean Sea, and 



