Frequently the valleys are enormous sinks apparently caused by the falling in of the roofs of caves 



possessed by us. I then started for the 

 east end of the island in order to visit 

 Mr. Charles T. Ramsden and to get an 

 idea of the conditions east of Havana. 



Dr. de la Torre is convinced from his 

 study of the land shells that Cuba is 

 really three islands or groups of islands 

 which have been joined either by an 

 uplift or by the filling in of the separating 

 channels. The mountains of Pinar del 

 Rio are the remains of one, the province 

 of Havana being the site of the channel 

 which separated it from the middle 

 island or group of islands and the Oriente 

 or Santiago province is the third. 



The run from Havana to Santiago 

 takes at least twenty-four hours and 

 since it was desirable to make as much 

 as possible of the journey by day I 

 stopped off at Zaza del Medio in the 

 middle "island." The first night was 

 spent in Zaza contrary to the advice of 

 the station agent. Collecting was good 

 the next day but that night I took a 



104 



train on the branch road to Sancti 

 Spiritus and came back in the morning 

 for the east bound train. I do not wish 

 to disparage the accommodations at Zaza 

 but the station agent was right. It is 

 better to go to Sancti Spiritus to sleep. 

 Waking moments there may be pleas- 

 antly spent listening to the band in the 

 pretty plaza or viewing the several old 

 churches, one of which is said to have 

 been built early in the sixteenth century. 

 The ride to Santiago de Cuba had an 

 interest, not met with previously, in 

 that much of it was over a narrow way 

 cut through liana-draped forests of 

 mahogany and other tropical trees. 

 Here and there are clearings almost all 

 of which contain saw mills prophetic 

 of the forest's doom. The train stopped 

 at most of these clearings but occasion- 

 ally an isolated homestead would flash 

 by. At one, four men playing as nearly 

 a real cricket game as four can, reminded 

 the New Yorker that his countrvmen 



