BITERS OF CUBA. 171 



bear a small fruit, are probably anterior to the arrival o! 

 Europeans*, who transported thither the agrumi of the 

 gardens ; they rarely exceed the height of from ten to fifteen 

 feet. The lemon and orange trees are most frequently 

 separate ; and the new planters, in clearing the ground by 

 fire, distinguish the quality of the soil, according as it is 

 covered with one or other of those groups of social plants ; 

 they prefer the soil of the naranjal to that which produces the 

 small lemon. In a country where the making of sugar is 

 not sufliciently improved to admit of the employment of 

 any other fuel than the bagasse (dried sugar-cane), the 

 progressive destruction of the small woods is a positive 

 calamity. The aridity of the soil augments in proportion 

 as it is stripped of the trees that sheltered it from the 

 heat of the sun ; for the leaves, emitting heat under a sky 

 always serene, occasion, as the air cools, a precipitation of 

 aqueous vapours. 



Among the few rivers worthy of attention, the Bio 

 Guines may be noticed, the Bio Armendaris or Chorrera, 

 of which the waters are led to the Havannah by the 

 Sanja de Antoneli ; the Bio Canto, on the north of the town 

 of Bayamo ; the Bio Maximo, which rises on the east 

 of Puerto Principe; the Bio Sagua Grande, near Villa 

 Clara ; the Bio de las Palmas, which issues opposite Cayo 

 Galiado ; the small rivers of Jaruco and Santa Cruz, 

 bi-tween Guanabo and Matanzas, navigable at the distance 

 of some miles from their mouths, and favourable for the 

 shipment of sugar-casks ; the Bio San Antonio, which, like 

 many others, is engulfed in the caverns of limestone rocks ; 

 the Bio Guaurabo, west of the port of Trinidad ; and the 

 Kio Galafre, in the fertile district of Eilipinas, which throws 

 itself into the Laguna de Cortez. The most abundant 

 springs rise on the southern coast, where, from Xagua -to 

 Punta de Sabina, over a length of forty-six leagues, the soil 

 is extremely marshy. So great is the abundance of the 



* The best informed inhabitants of the island assert, that the cultivated 

 orange-trees brought from Asia, preserve the size, and all the propeities 

 of their fruits, when they becotiie wild. The Brazilians affirm that the 

 small bitter orange which bears the name of " loranja do terra," and ig 

 found wild, far from the habitations of man, u of American origin. 

 'Caldcleugh, Travels in South America.) 



