As to the climate, I have no doubt that in the interior, especially on the red earth, it is healthy and delightful, in summer as well as in winter; but on the river borders, in the low lands of black earth, and on the savannas, intermittent fever and fever-and-ague prevail. The cities have the scourge of yellow fever; and, of late years, also the cholera. In the cities, I suppose, the year may be divided, as to sickness, into three equal portions: four months of winter, when they are safe; four of summer, when they are unsafe; and four of spring and autumn, when they are passing from one state to the other. There are, indeed, a few cases of vómito in the course of the winter, but they are little regarded, and must be the result of extreme imprudence. It is estimated that twenty-five percent of the soldiers die of yellow fever the first years of their acclimation; and during the year of the cholera, sixty percent of the newly-arrived soldiers died. The mean temperature in winter is 70°, and in summer 83° Fahrenheit. The island has suffered severely from hurricanes, although they are not so frequent as in others of the West India islands. They have violent thunderstorms in summer, and have suffered from droughts in winter, though usually the heavy dews keep vegetation green through the dry season.
That which has been to me, personally, most unexpected, is the industry of the island. It seems to me that, allowing for the heat of noon and the debilitating effect of the climate, the industry in agriculture and trade is rather striking. The sugar crop is enormous. The annual exportation is about 400,000 tons, or about 2,000,000 boxes, and the amount consumed on the island is very great, not only in coffee and in daily cooking, but in the making of preserves and sweetmeats, which are a considerable part of the food of the people. There is also about half a million hogsheads of molasses exported annually. Add to this, the coffee, tobacco and copper, and a general notion may be got of the industry and productions of the island. Its weak point is the want of variety. There are no manufactures of any consequence; the mineral exports are not great; and, in fact, sugar is the one staple. All Cuba has but one neck—the worst wish of the tyrant.
As to education, I have no doubt that a good education in medicine, and a respectable course of instruction in the Roman and Spanish law, and in the natural sciences, can be obtained at the University of Havana; and that a fair collegiate education, after the manner of the Latin races, can be obtained at the Jesuit College, the Seminario, and other institutions at Havana, and in the other large cities; and the Sisters of the Sacred Heart have a flourishing school for girls at Havana. But the general elementary education of the people is in a very low state. The scattered life of planters is unfavorable to public day schools, nay, almost inconsistent with their existence. The richer inhabitants send their children abroad, or to Havana: but the middle and lower classes of whites cannot do this. The tables show that of the free white children, not more than one in sixty-three attend any school, while in the British West India islands, the proportion is from one in ten to one in twenty. As to the state of education, culture and literary habits among the upper classes, my limited experience gives me no opportunity to judge. The concurrent testimony of tourists and other writers on Cuba is, that the habits of the Cuban women of the upper and middle classes are unintellectual.
To return to the political state and prospects of Cuba. As for those persons whose political opinions and plans are not regulated by moral principle, it may be safely said, that whatever their plans, their object will not be the good of Cuba, but their own advantage. Of those who are governed by principle, each man’s expectation or plan will depend upon the general opinion he entertains respecting the nature of men and of society. This is going back a good way for a test; but I am convinced it is only going to the source of opinion and action. If a man believes that human nature in an unrestrained course, is good, and self-governing, and that when it is not so, there is a temporary and local cause to be assigned for the deviation; if he believes that men, at least in civilized society, are independent beings, by right entitled to, and by nature capable of, the exercise of popular self-government, and that if they have not this power in exercise, it is because they have been deprived of it by somebody’s fraud or violence, which ought to be detected and remedied, as we abate a public nuisance in the highway; if a man thinks that overturning a throne and erecting a constitution will answer the purpose;—if these are his opinions as to men and society, his plan for Cuba, and for every other part of the world, may be simple. No wonder such an one is impatient of the
