304 



humboldt's cuba. 



goods re-exported, we are surprised to find how 

 great is the domestic consumption of a country, 

 containing only 325,000 white, and 130,000 free 

 colored population. Estimating the several articles 

 at their current prices, we find a consumption of 

 two and a half or three millions of dollars in linen 

 goods, one million in cotton goods, four hundred 

 thousand in silks, and two hundred and twenty 

 thousand in woolen goods. The demand of Cuba, 

 through the port of Havana alone, for the woven 

 fabrics of Europe, has exceeded four, or four and a 

 half millions of dollars yearly, for the last few years. 

 To these imports at Havana, through licit channels, 

 we must add for furniture, glass ware, &c, &c. 

 $500,000 ; iron and steel, $380,000 ; lumber, 

 $400,000 ; and castile soap, $300,000. 



The importations of provisions and liquors at 

 Havana, seem to me, worthy the attention of those 

 who wish to ascertain the true social state of those 

 communities called the sugar colonies. Such is the 

 composition of society in those communities, inha- 

 biting the most fertile soil that Nature has offered to 

 the use of man ; such the direction of agricultural 

 labor and industry in the Antilles, that in the bene- 

 ficent climate of the tropics the people would fail to 

 obtain subsistence, if it were not for the freedom and 

 activity of their foreign commerce. 



