196 SUNSHINE AND SPORT IN 



natives. Quaint carts, drawn by teams of bullocks, 

 toil patiently along the scratches that men here- 

 abouts call roads. Breedy little cobs, with traces 

 of barb ancestry in the head and neck, but with 

 coats seemingly ruined by ticks, are drawn up at 

 every siding, and the Cuban in the saddle has all 

 the opera-bouffe picturesqueness of the Dore Don 

 Quixote. Horsemen and footmen agree in a liking 

 for the machete at the hip, a serviceable weapon 

 invaluable in cutting down jungle or anything 

 softer that may be in its owner's way. I under- 

 stand that the Cubano is less ready with this knife 

 of his than some friends of mine in the south of 

 Europe. Possibly the enervating Caribbean 

 climate may have dulled his lust for blood. At 

 intervals along the line comes the unmistakable 

 smell of raw sugar, soon after which warning the 

 train draws up beside a busy mill and puts down 

 passengers or machinery. The finest of these mills 

 is one erected by the Cuba Company, and round it 

 stand the substantial dwellings of the English and 

 American overseers. 



Agriculture, producing chiefly tobacco, sugar 

 and fruit, is the mainstay of the island, but cattle- 

 breeding, with stock from Texas and the 

 Argentine, flourishes in the neighbourhood of 

 Santiago, and guinea-grass waves high and strong 

 beside the track, its luxuriance seriously hampering 

 the upkeep of the permanent way. The one evil 

 that the railroad engineer in the tropics dreads 

 perhaps even more than heavy rainfall, in his care 

 of a lightly ballasted line of not very modern con- 

 struction, is the invasion of grass, for it makes the 

 rails slippery and causes the engine to race. Such 



