Pioneering in Cuba

the hill. To the right a green-covered promontory projected far into the bay, dotted with occasional native shacks and planted in part with sisal hemp. The colonists on shipboard, ignorant of the appearance of this tropical product, at first took the hemp for pineapple plants, but soon learned their mistake from one who had been in the tropics before. Viewed from the harbor, Nuevitas looks pretty and picturesque, but once on shore the illusion vanishes. Mud meets you at the threshold and sticks to you like a brother. The streets, for the most part, are nothing more than rain-furrowed lanes, filled with large, projecting stones and gullies of no little depth. Sticky, yellow mud is everywhere, and once acquired is as hard to get rid of as the rheumatism. The houses, in general, are little better than hovels, and the gardens around them are neglected and forlorn. When a spot more attractive than the others is found, Nature is entitled to all the credit. The shops are poor and mean, and not over well supplied wi