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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by Walter RuKeyser 



CHICKEN COOPS AT THE HAVANA CITY JAIL: CUBA 



The average Cuban is as fond of cockfights as the average American is devoted to base- 

 ball. It would take a linguistic scholar to unscramble the bedlam of betting jargon one 

 hears at a Cuban cocking main. 



to what seemed a hopeless battle, hut a 

 necessary one, since no Spanish sailor 

 could prefer ignominious surrender to an 

 honorable, though losing, fight. 



PREPARING FOR THE TOURIST 



The raw material for making Cuba an 

 ideal land for the individual who seeks 

 sunshine in the winter is certainly present 

 in an abandon of richness. That much is 

 still lacking in the development of this 

 material is evident to any one who has 

 taken "pot luck" with the rank and file of 

 those who fled from the cold and the 

 snow of the north. 



Almost every person who visits Cuba 

 on pleasure bent lands in Havana, and 

 comparatively few get more than twenty 

 miles away from thai city's central park. 



If New York, Chicago. Philadelphia. 

 Boston, and Washington were consoli- 

 dated, the resulting metropolis would 

 hear about the same relation to the United 

 Stales that Havana bears to Cuba. The 

 capital city is the home of more people 

 than are embraced in the combined popu- 

 lations of all the other cities and towns 

 of the Republic that have more than 



4.000 inhabitants. Its closest rival is 

 Santiago, but that city has only one-tenth 

 as many people. 



All of the big business houses in Cuba 

 have their headquarters in Havana and 

 some of the banks have built skyscraper 

 homes. 



As half the country's urban population 

 is centered in Havana, so also is half of 

 its shipping. The city normally handles 

 a greater foreign tonnage than any other 

 port in the Western Hemisphere except 

 New York. 



THE COUNTRY'S WEALTH CENTERS IN 

 HAVANA 



Most of Cuba's wealthy families have 

 Havana homes. During the past four 

 years the net profits of the sugar business 

 have probably exceeded the gross returns 

 of any other four-year period in the his- 

 tory of the island. 



The result is that perhaps no other 

 city in the whole world has proportion- 

 ately as large a wealthy population as 

 Havana. Nor has that population reached 

 its climax. 



Out of these conditions has grown a 



