THE ISLAND OF CUBA 35 



in close proximity to our Southern seaboard, the coast of 

 Mexico, the Bahamas, Haiti, Jamaica, Central America, 

 the isthmus, and the coast of South America. 



The island commands three important maritime gate- 

 ways: the Strait of Florida, leading from the Atlantic 

 Ocean into the Gulf of Mexico ; the Windward Passage, 

 leading from the Atlantic into the Caribbean Sea ; and the 

 Yucatan Channel, connecting the Caribbean Sea and the 

 Gulf. The first and last of these completely command 

 the Gulf of Mexico. It is less than 96| miles from Key 

 West to the north coast of Cuba. From the east end of 

 the island Haiti and Jamaica are visible, 54 and 85 miles 

 distant respectively. From the western cape (San Anto- 

 nio) to Yucatan the distance is 130 miles. 



The outline of the island, commonly compared by the 

 Spaniards to a bird's tongue, also resembles a great ham- 

 mer-headed shark, the head of which forms the straight, 

 south coast of the east end of the island, from which the 

 sinuous body extends westward. This analogy is made 

 still more striking by two long, fmlike strings of keys, or 

 islets, which extend backward along the opposite coasts, 

 parallel to the main body of the island. 



The longer axis of the island extends from the seventy- 

 fourth to the eighty-fifth meridian, while its latitude, 

 between 19 40' and 23 33' N., embraces nearly four de- 

 grees. Its length, following an axial line drawn through 

 its center from Cape Maysi to Cape San Antonio, is 730 

 miles. Its width varies from 90 miles in the east to less 

 than 20 miles in the longitude of Havana. Cape Maysi, on 

 the east, lies directly south of New York, and Cape San 

 Antonio, on the west, is situated nearly south of Cin- 

 cinnati. 



At the outset the reader should dispossess his mind of 

 any preconceived idea that the island of Cuba is in any 

 sense a physical unit. On the contrary, it presents a 

 diversity of topographic, climatic, and cultural features, 

 which, as distributed, divide the island into at least three 



