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to adopt Greek insignia, causing the admirals to decline to hold communications with the delegates unless they abandoned their Greek programme. After many of the western delegates had gone to their homes the Assembly was adjourned by the autonomists, to meet again in Arkhanes. Meanwhile some districts voted in favor of autonomy. The Assembly convened at Arkhanes on July 31, and after recording a protest against the presence of Djevad Pasha in Crete and rejecting a motion to nominate a provisional government, as calculated to perpetuate the insurrection, appointed a committee to draft an administration and judicial organization of the country. The followers of the Ethnike Hetairia afterward gained the upper hand, elected Benizelos president, and nominated a provisional government, consisting of subsidized agents of the Athens committee. This action roused the people of the surrounding districts, whese Deputies returned to the Assembly, and on Aug. 26, by a majority of 60 to 12, adopted a memorandum declaring that the Assembly, acting in behalf of the Christian population, would abide by the decision of the powers, accepted the proffered complete autonomy, and emphasized the fact that no autonomy could be carried out if the Turkish troops remained. M. Benizelos was dismissed from the presidency of the Assembly.

Preparations for Autonomy.-The French Government on June 1 submitted to the powers certain proposals as to the measures to be taken toward the establishment of the new autonomy in Crete. They comprised the enrollment of a foreign gendarmerie, the arrangement of a loan for the expenses of this gendarmerie and of inaugurating the new administration, and the selection of a governor. These proposals had the support of the Russian Government and they were finally accepted by the powers as the basis of the new autonomy. Lord Salisbury, seconded by the Italian Government, expressed in August the view that it would be inexpedient to organize autonomy pending the conclusion of the peace negotiations between Greece and Turkey. M. Droz, of Switzerland, was invited to the post of Governor, for it was decided to have a European Governor; but he declined. It was decided to convoke the General Assembly on the inauguration of autonomy. The withdrawal of the Turkish troops was to take place gradually. The admirals decided on Aug. 12 to institute a military commission to administer justice in a summary manner. Against this the Porte protested as a violation of the sovereign rights of the Sultan. It was decided to maintain the blockade for the present to prevent the landing of volunteers or arms. The Turkish outposts were gradually called in and replaced by European troops. The Cretan representatives having accepted autonomy without making it conditional upon the departure of the Turkish troops, the Russian Government proposed to raise the blockade on Sept. 10, but the other cabinets would not consent. The Turkish-gendarerie were placed under the command of European officers, the powers agreeing to bear the expense of maintaining the force, in consideration of which they received half the customs revenues and the surtax. Suddenly the Porte made a demand that the powers should sanction the appointment of a Christian Turk as Governor with the title of Vali, and that the Turkish troops should be maintained in the chief towns. Outrages were still committed by insurgents in various parts of the island. Near Canea they fired upon Austrian troops on Oct. 3. The Mohammedans were not yet restored to their lands, although the seedtime was passing. The admirals extended indefinitely the delay of two months decreed for the restitution of land and houses. The Mohammedans in the cities,

who for a long time refused to deal with or work for Cretan Christians, and the Christians who had held them besieged and deprived them of food and water, began to fraternize once more: but where there were no European troops or gendarmerie to keep order collisions occurred. The insurgents declared that the Mohammedans were at liberty to return to their homesteads, provided they were not escorted by Turkish troops, but the admirals did not consider it safe until a large and efficient gendarmerie were organized to provide for their security. The Turkish gendarmerie were found to be useless, as they would not arrest their coreligion ists. European experts estimated the damage done to their property at 20 to 35 per cent. Col. Schaefer, of the Luxemburg army, was proposed in October as a provisional commissioner for the powers, to assume military direction for the restoration of order, but the Ottoman Government objected, and Germany supported the objection. CUBA, the long irregular-shaped island lying about 87 miles south of Florida. It is the largest of the West India group, and, with the exception of Puerto Rico, is the last of the Spanish possessions in the New World. [The condition of affairs in Cuba during the present insurrection has been such as to make it next to impossible to obtain accurate information of events there. The articles in this "Cyclopædia" have been compiled from the best available sources, but were necessarily liable to inaccuracy from the very nature of the case. This year we are enabled to present a consistent account, written by a gentleman who has followed the campaigns there for two years, has been in both camps, and has traveled widely through the territory affected by the military operations, and who, moreover, being simply an American citizen in search of information, may be trusted for a disinterested account.-EDITOR.]

Population. The latest census of Cuba, taken in 1887, gave the total population as 1,631,619. Of. these, 950,000 were white creoles, 500,000 were colored, and 160,000 Spaniards, emigrants from Spain. In addition, there were about 50,000 Chinese, imported originally to replace slave labor, which was freed ultimately in 1886. This population was very unevenly distributed in the several provinces, being to each square kilometre as follows: Santiago de Cuba, 775; Puerto Principe, 2:10; Santa Clara, 1534; Matanzas, 30-59; Havana, 52-49; Pinar del Rio, 15:09. To classify this population as white and colored creoles and native Spaniards seems insufficient. It is generally supposed that the Cubans are a mixed race, whereas the greater mass of them are pure whites, and the social lines between white and black are drawn very much as they are in our Southern States. The present insurrection has brought forth a strange and incomprehensible people known as the pacificos. Although little understood by the foreigner, the pacifico is rightly named by both his Spanish oppressor and his insurgent brother in the field. He is truly pacific. He represents fully half of the Cuban population, and his submissive character is reflected upon the rest of the Cuban people. It is this submissiveness, more than anything else, that has caused the Spaniards to appear as tyrants in the island of Cuba. The pacifico will not oppose, retaliate, or fight. The tax collector may come round with his exorbitant list, but the Cuban peasant has no word of protest. On the contrary, he orders his fattest pig killed and roasted, and not only serves it to the representative of an avaricious Government, but in all probability slips a coin into his hand. The pacifico seems incapable of hatred. Peace at any price, is his motto. The economic question is nothing to him, and he cares little whether the mill grinds or

not. A mere patch surrounded by a prickly hedge serves to supply his immediate wants of sweet potatoes and yams. The necessity of work and economy is incomprehensible to him, and his idea of happiness seems to consist in letting things run as smoothly as possible. Although professedly a Roman Catholic, he little understands the religion, and cares less. He is apt to look upon the priest and the guardia civil with an equal amount of fear, they both being Spaniards. His only vice besides indolence is his love for cockfighting and a mild form of gambling. He is fond of poetry and song, and, when not too indolent, he may be found composing verses of his own. Next to the Cuban peasantry in numbers comes the negro. The negro has been badly represented in Cuba, and as a real political factor he has counted for much less than is generally supposed. Neither the white creole nor the Spaniard has taken very kindly to him, and he looks on both with suspicion. Although many negroes had obtained their liberty long before the final abolition of slavery, in 1886, they do not seem to have followed the example of the Spanish colonists and taken to the occupation of the rural districts as small farmers; they have preferred to labor in the field for the sugar planter or have looked for employment within the towns and cities. Standing between the peasant and the negro is the mulatto, who usually lives in the towns and follows occupations that require skilled labor as the making of cigars, shoes, clothes, and carpenter work. The really industrious class of Cuba are the Spanish colonists. They are encouraged to immigrate from Spain under such inducements as exemption from military duty, and they come to Havana usually as apprentices determined to work their way to the front, and for a generation at least they form a small class of hard-working and industrious people. Then follow the intelligent, welleducated Cubans, who are mostly sons of rich families, not so far removed from Spanish ancestry as the peasants usually are. These are the Cubans mostly met with in the United States.

Resources. The agricultural resources of Cuba, though generally understood to be great, are really astonishing when it is considered how little they have been developed. While tobacco and sugar have been considered the great wealth producers of the island, little attention has been given to the other products of its abundant fertility. Of the 35,000,000 acres composing Cuba, it is estimated that only 2,000,000 ever have been under cultivation. There are 17,000,000 acres of virgin forest and 9,000,000 acres of fertile plains, which have only served as natural pastures. Of Cuba's commercial wealth, $68,000,000 worth of sugar and $9,000,000 worth of tobacco have been exported annually. Owing to the profitableness of the sugar industry, when it was practically destroyed in the English West Indies by the emancipation of the slaves vast sums were invested in the Cuban sugar estates, rendering many of them comparable to the abodes of Eastern princes. Extensive tracts of land were mapped out for the planting of the cane, which could be cut year after year without replanting, as is required to be done in Louisiana. In the center of these tracts were constructed the edifices constituting the ingenio (as they are termed in Spanish) for the manufacture of the sugar, the guarding of the slave help, and the business offices, as also the residence of the owner. On the larger estates the most elaborate and perfect machinery known for the manufacture of sugar from the raw cane juice was procured, and on many plantations a fortlike edifice forming an angle with the other buildings was constructed, in which were quartered the slave help before its emancipation. This edifice, built in

the form of a hollow square with cell-like apartments opening into the inner court, is termed the barricon. Since the abolition of slavery the cells or apartments are let out to the negro and Chinese laborers employed on the plantation. The owner's residence is often little else than a palace surrounded with gardens of tropical plants and fruit trees, and ornamented with marble statuary and fountains. Porcelain-lined baths contributed to the enjoyment of these abodes, and there were few of the luxuries of foreign civilization that did not add their share to the comfort of the wealthy planter. These estates were flourishing in Havana, Matanzas, and Santa Clara provinces at the beginning of the present outbreak, but during the insurrection of 1868-79 many of those in the extreme east and south of the last-named province were destroyed. In the valley of San Luis there were 40 of these estates, supplying a lucrative commerce with the city of Trinidad and the port of Casilda, the harbor of which was then alive with American ships. Although, after centuries of cultivation, there is no appreciable diminution in the fertility of this valley, only two of its estates are still devoted to the sugar industry, and these two have only been kept from destruction during the present war by the continual presence of Spanish soldiers. The tobacco industry has been confined almost exclusively to the western province of the island known as Pinar del Rio, although its cultivation had been taken up successfully in that portion of Santa Clara bordering the Siguanea mountains.

Coffee was at one time the principal source of Cuba's wealth. In the early part of the present century 91,000,000 pounds of coffee were produced in Cuba in a single year, representing a money value of $20,000,000. The industry was originally started by the French, who made their escape from the negro revolts and massacres in Santo Domingo in the latter part of the last century. With what they had been able to rescue from their shattered fortunes they established themselves in Cuba, resorting to the mountains, as resembling the spots previ ously cultivated in coffee by them in the other island. It was then supposed that coffee could be grown only on the mountains, but others found that it would grow as well on the lowlands, and extensive plantations were the result. The French planters were driven from Cuba while the Spanish Cortes was in power, but returned to their possessions when the ancient régime was restored. The expulsion of the French settlers has been given as the cause of the decline of the coffee industry, but careful research has revealed the fact that in 1828 plantstions of coffee extended within a few miles of Havana westward, beautifully laid out and in a high state of cultivation, where to-day nothing remains but vacant fields. These plantations were owned by Americans and Spaniards, those of the French being chiefly in the mountains. It was estimated that there were then six coffee estates to one of sugar, and the tobacco industry was in its infancy. One plantation of coffee is mentioned as having a million trees, and the writer has found an authentie account of a plantation containing 750,000 trees and 450 slaves in a part of the island where at present there is neither the vestige of a coffee plantation nor even a negro population. The price of coffee had begun to decline in 1828, and it was undoubtedly this decline in price, with the expense of carting over bad roads, which caused it almost to disap pear as an article of commerce from the island. At the outbreak of the last insurrection there still remained many plantations in the mountains of Santiago de Cuba and Trinidad, but these were destroyed during the ten years of war that followed.

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But little attention has apparently been given by the Spanish Government to the source of wealth in Cuba's 9,000,000 acres of natural pasture lands. Spain's political economy never has consisted so much in a direct land tax as in a tax upon industries and commerce, consequently the ranchman, or landed proprietor, may be the owner of extensive pastures over which roam countless heads of cattle, and yet his wealth not be considered by the Government until he negotiates his stock in the market. During the occupation of Pinar del Rio by the insurgents under Maceo, in the present insurrection, it was a strange oversight on the part of the authorities that in attempting to starve the rebels out of that province they did not take into consideration the fact that many heads of cattle roamed over the plains and the forest-covered hills and valleys were alive with hogs, which furnished the insurgent invaders with an abundance of food. The pasture lands north of Trinidad are so well adapted to the raising of horses that it was formerly a common phrase to say that even the beggars of Trinidad rode horsback. Yet one may search the Government records and find no mention of this source of wealth. In the vicinity of Sancti Spiritus, extending eastward to the province of Santiago, are extensive prairies which furnish grazing for great herds of cattle. Some of them are without natural water supply, but they have been provided with enormous wells at intervals. These sometimes reach a depth of 300 feet, and the water is drawn by a noria, a device employed by the Moors when they occupied Spain. This consists of a large wooden wheel made to revolve by animal power, over which passes an endless belt, to which buckets are fastened. The cattle ranges extend far across that part of Cuba termed Camaguey to Santiago province, which is mountainous and covered with dense forests. As an illustration of the internal wealth of Cuba may be cited a typical peasant's home and surroundings, visited in the interior of the island during the present insurrection. The family consisted of a mother and her numerous offspring and her invalid husband. She was de

pendent almost entirely upon the labor of her only grown son for subsistence, which was obtained from the land, scarcely more than an acre of which was under cultivation. Her possession consisted of 12 caballerias of land, and it supplied her with all the necessities of life except clothing and salt. Her products as enumerated at the time consisted of coffee, sugar, molasses, beans, rice, honey, wax, sweet potatoes, yams, yuccas, bananas, corn, poultry, pigs, a cow or two, several horses, and tobacco. In cases of emergency salt, or a fair substitute, could be obtained from the royal palm by a peculiar process of boiling, and the only reason for not raising her own cotton and making her own cloth, as was done by the aborigines, is that with the Cuban, cotton spinning and weaving is a lost art. Everything about the place had a slovenly and abandoned look. The children were either entirely naked or clothed in tattered garments, but what they lacked in clothing they made up in dirt. The bodies were literally covered with it, and the mother herself was not much neater in appearance. A huge wooden mortar, merely a section of a hollowed log, served as a mill in which to clean rice, grind coffee, thrash beans, etc. Cowhides were in use for drying coffee and beans and for making lariats. Receptacles made of the stem of the royal palm served for holding almost anything, from the morning's milk to the boiled dinner, and sections of the wild bamboo served in lieu of buckets to bring water from the river. Even the cups and saucers and spoons were furnished by a neighboring tree, whose gourdlike fruit was easily prepared in various shapes for this purpose. The pots were almost the only things seen in use that were not a product of the immediate vicinity. Even the large mill for the grinding of cane was constructed of timbers obtained in the neighboring woods.

Cuba produces a great variety of fruits and honeys. Oranges, pineapples, and bananas grow to perfection, almost without any attention, and their varieties are not surpassed by those growing in any other part of the world. There are many other delicious fruits which have not yet found their way

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