BITERS OE CUBA. 
171 
T)ear a small fruit, are probably anterior to the arrival o! 
Europeans*, who transported thither the agrwni of the 
gardens ; they rarely exceed the height of from ten to fifteen 
feet. The lemon and orange trees are most frequently 
Separate ; and the new planters, in clearing the ground by 
fire, distinguish the quality of the soil, according as it is 
covered with one or other of those groups of social plants ; 
they prefer the soil of the tutranjal to that wdiich produces the 
small lemon. In a country where the making of sugar is 
Uot sufficiently improved to admit of the employment of 
any other fuel than the bagasse (dried sugar-cane), the 
progressive destruction of the small woods is a positive 
calamity. The aridity of the soil augments in proportion 
it is stripped of the trees that sheltered it from the 
heat of the sun ; for the leaves, emitting heat under a sky 
slways serene, occasion, as the air cools, a precipitation of 
aqueous vapours. . 
Among the few rivers worthy of attention, the Bio 
Guines may be noticed, the Bio Armendaris or Chorrera, 
cf which the waters are led to the Havannah by the 
Sanja de Antoueli ; the Bio Canto, on the north of the town 
of Bayamo ; the Bio Maximo, which rises on the east 
oi Puerto Principe; the Bio Sagua Grande, near Villa 
Clara ; the Bio de las Palmas, which issues opposite Cayo 
Galiado ; the small rivers of Jaruco and Santa Cruz, 
between Guauabo and Matauzas, navigable at the distance 
of some miles from their mouths, and favoimable for the 
shipment of sugar-casks ; the Bio San Antonio, which, like 
uiany others, is engulfed in the caverns of limestone rocks ; 
the Bio Guaurabo, west of the port of Trinidad ; and the 
Eio Galafre, in the fertile district of Pilipinas, which throws , 
itself into the Laguna de Cortez. The most abundant 
springs rise on the southern coast, where, from Xagua to 
Eunta de Sabina, over a length of forty-six leagues, the soil 
extremely marshy. So great is the abundance of the , 
* The best informed inhabitants of the island assert, that the cultivated 
orange-trees brought from Asia, preserve the size, and all the pr(yeities 
of their fruits, when they become wild. The Brazilians affirm^ that the 
ttnall bitter orange which hears the name of “ loranja^ do teiTa, and^ is 
round wild, far from the habitations of man, is of American origin. 
Caldcleugh, Travels in South America.) 
