Vol. XXXVIII, No. 1 WASHINGTON 



July, 1920 



COPYRIGHT. 1920, BY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY. WASHINGTON. P. C. 



CUBA-THE SUGAR MILL OF THE ANTILLES 



By William Joseph Showalter 



FOR long generations the Spanish 

 people believed that somewhere in 

 the New World there existed a 

 land of gold and jewels, rarer and fairer 

 than any discovered country. 



Ill-advised colonial policies deprived 

 the Castilian Crown of the El Dorado its 

 subjects sought — for such Cuba has be- 

 come, because the world has developed a 

 sweet tooth that must be satisfied. 



The rivers of sugar flowing out and the 

 streams of gold flowing in are transform- 

 ing the island that Christopher Columbus 

 pronounced the fairest land he had ever 

 seen into a realm where prosperity runs 

 riot. 



They have made it the scene of a new 

 romance of a thousand millionaires, with 

 Havana as the Pittsburgh and sugar as 

 the steel of the story. 



THE IMMENSITY OP THE SUGAR INDUSTRY 



With a sugar production nearly doubled 

 and prices more than quadrupled since 

 1912, one can readily see why Cuba is the 

 world's El Dorado of 1920, and why 

 sugar is its king. 



The imagination is almost overpow- 

 ered in attempting to comprehend the 

 vast proportions of the sugar industry of 

 the island as it exists this year. 



The cane produced is of such tremen- 

 dous volume that a procession of bull 

 teams like those on page 13, four abreast, 

 reaching around the earth, would be re- 

 quired to move it. The crop would suf- 

 fice to build a solid wall around the en- 

 tire two thousand miles of the island's 

 coast-line as high as an ordinary dwell- 



ing-house and thick enough for a file of 

 four men to walk abreast on it. 



The sugar extracted from this cane 

 would load a fleet of steamers reaching 

 from Havana to Xew York, with a ship 

 for every mile of the twelve hundred that 

 stretch between the two ports. The 

 great pyramid of Cheops, before whose 

 awe-inspiring proportions millions of 

 people have stood and gazed in open- 

 mouthed amazement, remains, after five 

 thousand years, unrivaled as a monu- 

 mental pile ; but Cuba's sugar output this 

 year would make two pyramids, each 

 outbasing and overtopping Cheops. 



The wealth the outgoing sugar crop 

 brings in is not less remarkable in its 

 proportions. Four hundred dollars out 

 of a single crop for every human being 

 who lives on the island — a sum almost as 

 great as the per capita wealth produced 

 by all the farms, all the factories, and all 

 the mines of the United States ! 



What wonder, then, that Cuba today 

 is a land of gold and gems, richer than 

 Midas ever was, converting Croesus, bv 

 contrast, into a beggar! (See pages 12- 

 18, 20-30.) 



AN UNPRECEDENTED DEMAND FOR CIGARS 



Nor is sugar the only source of wealth 

 that our fair neighbor across the Straits 

 of Florida possesses. Wherever men 

 dine well, whether in Brussels or Bom- 

 bay, Sydney or Chicago, Rio or the 

 Riviera, Havana cigars follow the coffee. 



Never before was there such a demand 

 as now for fine cigars. The masses in 

 most countries may be impoverished as 



