112 
THE STANDARD GUIDE. 
bluffs, decked with a profusion of vegetation, and now through 
level reaches filled with palms, bamboo and bananas, and bright with the 
flaming blossoms of the majaguay. The San Juan, watering a fertile coun¬ 
try of sugar plantations and cattle ranges, is of the same picturesque 
character. On the lower reaches it bears an extensive commerce; one of 
our illustrations shows the characteristic sugar boats in which the cargoes 
are lightered to the vessels in the harbor; and another picture shows the 
Venetian character of the San Juan waterfront. 
In commercial importance Matanzas ranks sixth in imports and fifth 
in exports; it is a large shipping point for sugar and honey. 
The lines of the town were laid out October io, 1693, and the name was 
given of San Carlos Alcazar de Matanzas. The Spanish word “matanzas” 
means slaughter, and various explanations are given of the application 
of the name to the place. One is that in the early days of the Spaniards 
in Cuba, a vessel bound from Santo Domingo to the Luccas (Bahamas) 
was shipwrecked near this harbor; there were thirty Spaniards and two 
Spanish ladies; and the Indians in carrying them across the river treacher¬ 
ously upset their canoes and drowned all except three men and one woman 
who escaped to tell of the matanza. Another explanation is that the town 
took its name from the slaughter of the last unfortunate remnants of the 
aborigines, who had fled to the caves of the vicinity for refuge and con¬ 
cealment. A third and more prosaic theory is that the town was estab¬ 
lished on the site of a slaughter house owned by Havana butchers. In the 
long years of the struggle for liberty, the Cubans called the city “El Suelo 
Natal de Independencia”—Birthplace of Independence—because of the 
activity .of the revolutionists of Matanzas. 
IN THE BELLAMAR CAVE. 
