CUBA— THE SUGAR MILL OF THE ANTILLES 



19 



the other end free. The crescent is only 

 about a foot long and three inches thick. 

 A team of two players has to protect 

 an area of 7,500 square feet, and some- 

 times is forced to catch a ball on the re- 

 bound from the wall at the far end of 

 the court. To do this with such a narrow 

 instrument as the cesta requires the ut- 

 most agility, the closest calculation, and 

 the most astute judgment. 



"more exciting than baseball" 



Speaking of the game, a recent writer 

 says : "Jai alai, the national game of 

 Spain, is one of the most delightful things 

 Americans discover in Cuba. It is more 

 exciting than baseball, squash, and polo 

 combined. Resembling tennis, inasmuch 

 as it is played on courts by four men, it 

 carries the onlooker on the crest of a 

 wave of such suspense and thrills that he 

 is enervated at the end of each game from 

 sheer emotion. 



"Americans who have been content to 

 howl 'take him out !' and 'attaboy !' stand 

 on their feet and yell half an hour at a 

 time when they see the four players from 

 Spain in a contest that strains every mus- 

 cle and forces the perspiration from 

 every pore, so that the clothing is drip- 

 ping by the time the first round is played. 

 Not one frenzied spectator of the 4,000 

 ever sits down or stops yelling except in 

 the intermission. Jai alai is no place for 

 a contemplative attitude." 



SOME OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST CLUBS IN 

 HAVANA 



Havana has some of the largest clubs 

 in the world. There are no more clan- 

 nish folk anywhere than the people from 

 the several provinces of Spain. Those 

 who have come from Galicia and their 

 descendents have their club ; those from 

 Asturias have theirs, and so on. The 

 Centro Gallego, or club of Galicia, has 

 43,000 members, and its club - house, 

 which includes the National Theater, cost 

 nearly a million dollars. The Centro 

 Asturiano has a membership of 36.000. 

 The Clerks' Club has a membership of 

 30,000. The dues in each club are $1.50 

 per month, and each maintains its own 

 hospital and sanitarium. 



Cuba has six provinces, the largest, 

 Oriente, having an area somewhat larger 

 than the State of Maryland, and the 



smallest, Havana, being slightly larger 

 than Delaware. Yet each is so different 

 from the other five that it is hard to dis- 

 miss them with a word. The very at- 

 mosphere seems different. 



At the westernmost end of the island 

 is the province of Pinar del Rio. It pro- 

 duces less sugar than any other province, 

 and therefore is the least prosperous, 

 even though it does produce the finest 

 tobacco in the world. 



As one travels through the province, 

 all the intrusions of American civilization 

 are left behind, the terminal moraines of 

 Anglo-Saxon culture are swallowed up in 

 the plains of native life, and the only 

 thing that sounds or looks homelike to a 

 Washingtonian is the whistle of a loco- 

 motive and an occasional box-car. bearing 

 the name of a railroad in the States, 

 which came across Florida Straits on the 

 Key West-Havana ferry, loaded with 

 flour, and will carry a load of sugar back 

 to the Middle West. 



The towns are thoroughly Latin, and 

 the country districts, except for an oc- 

 casional tobacco plantation and a few 

 sugar centrals, seem entirely given over 

 to a black and mulatto population, which 

 appears content to live in thatch-roofed 

 shacks. 



PIGS, PONIES, AND GOATS 



The animal life of Pinar del Rio prov- 

 ince consists largely of dogs, chickens, 

 pigs, ponies, and goats, in numbers rank- 

 ing in the order named. Dogs one sees 

 everywhere — little dogs, big dogs, lean 

 dogs, fat dogs, but all of them lazy dogs. 

 Of chickens, each shack-hold has a few, 

 none of which would take a prize at a 

 poultry show, though some of them 

 might hold their own at a cocking main. 



There are many pigs to be seen as one 

 journeys through the country, but most 

 of them are of an architectural outline 

 that makes the Appalachian razor-back 

 seem a prosperous porker. Each one of 

 them is anchored fast to a peg in the 

 ground, tethered by a rope. This is made 

 fast to the pig in a fearful and wonderful 

 way. If the noose were fastened around 

 the neck only, his porkship could back 

 out without difficulty, since his head is 

 usually smaller than his neck. So it is 

 passed around the pig in front of one 

 shoulder, and behind the opposite leg, 



