ed for its fertility. A large
quantity of asphalt has been taken from the bed of the harbour. A flow
of fresh water from the bed of the harbour is another peculiar feature;
it comes presumably from the outlets of subterranean rivers. There is a
large United States business element, which has been, indeed, prominent
in the city ever since its foundation. At El Varadero, on a peninsula at
the mouth of the bay, there is fine sea-bathing on a long beach, and El
Varadero is a winter resort. Cardenas was founded in 1828, and in 1861
already had 12,910 inhabitants. In 1850 General Narciso Lopez landed
here on a filibustering expedition, and held the town for a few hours,
abandoning it when he saw that the people would not rise to support him
in his efforts to secure Cuban independence. On the 11th of May 1898 an
American torpedo-boat and revenue cutter here attacked three Spanish
gun-boats, and Ensign Worth Bagley (1874-1898) was killed--the first
American naval officer to lose his life in the Spanish-American War.

CARDIFF, a city, municipal, county and parliamentary borough, seaport
and market-town, and the county town of Glamorganshire, South Wales,
situated on the Taff, 1 m. above its outflow, 145-1/4 m. from London by
the Great Western railway via Badminton, 40-1/2 m. W. of Bristol and
45-1/2 m. E.S.E. of Swansea. Cardiff is also the terminus of both the
Taff Vale and the Rhymney railways, the latter affording the London &
North-Western railway access to the town. The Barry line from Barry dock
joins the Great Western and Taff Vale railways at Cardiff, and the
Cardiff Railway Company (which owns all the docks) has a line from
Pontypridd via Llanishen to the docks. The Glamorganshire canal, opened
in 1794, runs from Cardiff to Merthyr Tydfil, with a branch to Aberdare.
The increase of the population of Cardiff during the 19th century was
phenomenal; from 1870 inhabitants in 1801, and 6187 in 1831 it grew to
32,954 in 1861. The borough, which originally comprised only the
parishes of St John's and St Mary's, was in 1875 and 1895 extended so as
to include Roath and a large part of Llandaff, known as Canton, on the
right of the Taff. The whole area was united as one civil parish in
1903, and the population in 1901 was 164,333, of whom only about 8%
spoke Welsh.

Probably no town in the kingdom has a nobler group of public buildings
than those in Cathays Park, which also commands a view of the castle
ramparts and the ol