porous limestone
of which the houses are built greatly favors absorption.

The population of Matanzas and suburbs was about 50,000 at the
beginning of the war.

Porto Rico is not quite as large as Connecticut, but larger than
the States of Delaware and Rhode Island. The climate of the island
is delightful, and its soil exceedingly rich. In natural resources
it is of surpassing opulence. The length of the island is about one
hundred miles, and its breadth thirty-five, the general figure of it
being like the head of a sperm whale. The range of mountains is from
east to west, and nearly central. The prevalent winds are from the
northwest, and the rainfall is much heavier on the northern shores and
mountain slopes than on the southern. The height of the ridge is on
the average close to 1,500 feet, one bold peak, the Anvil being 3,600
feet high. The rainy north and the droughty south, with the lift of the
land from the low shores to the central slopes and rugged elevations,
under the tropical sun, with the influence of the great oceans east,
south and north, and the multitude of western and southern islands,
give unusual and charming variety in temperature. Porto Rico is, by
the American people, even more than the Spaniards, associated with
Cuba. But it is less than a tenth of Cuban proportions. Porto Rico
has 3,600 square miles to Cuba's 42,000, but a much greater proportion
of Porto Rico than of Cuba is cultivated. Less than one-sixteenth of
the area of Cuba has been improved, and while her population is but
1,600,000, according to the latest census, and is not so much now,
Porto Rico, with less than a tenth of the land of Cuba, has half the
number of inhabitants. Largely Porto Rico is peopled by a better class
than the mass of the Cubans. Cuba is wretchedly provided with roads,
one of the reasons why the Spaniards were incapable of putting down
insurrections. If they had expended a fair proportion of the revenues
derived from the flourishing plantations and the monopolies of Spanish
favoritisms that built up Barcelona and enriched Captain-Generals, and
in less degree other public servants, the rebellions would have been
put down. The Spanish armies in Cuba, however, were rather managed
for official speculation and peculation, were more promenaders than
in military enterprise and the stern business of war. With Weyler for
an opponent, Gomez, as a guerilla, could have dragged on a series of
skirmishes indefinitely. The s