the port was commenced under the supervision of Chief Engineer Kelly,
and before October 1 the work was well advanced. The chosen route was
along Central avenue.

The colonists celebrated the Fourth of July with an appropriate
entertainment. On July 3 the colony witnessed a tragedy in the killing
of a youth named Eugene Head by a stone thrown by a young Spanish boy.
The coroner's jury decided that young Head's death was accidental. Both
boys were residents of La Gloria. The fifth of July was marked by the
death of a valued colonist, Mr. F. H. Bosworth, a veteran of the Civil
War. Mr. Bosworth was seventy-one years old, and had not been in rugged
health for a long time. He was an enterprising colonist, and performed a
great deal of work for a man of his years and enfeebled physical
condition. His wife, also a resident of La Gloria, survived him. The
general health of the colony through the summer was excellent. There was
but little rain, and the weather was delightful beyond all expectation.
The temperature ordinarily ranged from about 78 deg. to 90 deg., and never
exceeded 94 deg.. The colonists came to believe that the summer season was
even more agreeable than the winter. It was heartily voted that Cuba was
a good all-the-year-round country.

[Illustration: SCENE ON LAGUNA GRANDE.]

The end of the first year of the colony--reckoning from October 9, 1899,
when the surveyors began operations--saw much progress toward
extensive colonization, not in La Gloria alone, but also in the
surrounding country. The Cuban Colonization Company, organized with Dr.
W. P. Peirce of Hoopeston, Ill., as president and treasurer, and W. G.
Spiker of Cleveland, Ohio, as vice-president and general manager, had
acquired two excellent tracts of land, known as Laguna Grande and Rincon
Grande, to the eastward of the La Gloria property. These are being
subdivided and sold to colonists in small holdings. In the Rincon Grande
tract, on the bay front, the city of Columbia is being laid out, and
doubtless will soon be settled by thrifty and progressive colonists from
the United States. It is claimed that this is the exact spot where
Columbus landed in 1492, and it certainly does answer well the
historical description. Other colonists had purchased the Canasi tract,
southwest of La Gloria and adjoining the Caridad property, and Hon.
Peter E. Park was said to have secured an option on the Palota tract. It
is understood that these two tracts are to