essive, and it is
adorned with the names and the labors of wise men, statesmen and
scholars, who gave of their best for the welfare of the insular republic
for which so many of their kin gave willingly their very lives.

The account which we shall have of the opulent charms and resources of
Cuba may be regarded as a volume of contemporary history. It will reveal
to us some of the consequences of that narrative of the past which
forms the major portion of our story. But it will be more and will do
more than that. It must serve as an intimation, a suggestion, almost
perhaps a prophecy, of what the future of the Pearl of the Antilles will
be. Grateful as is the work of recalling and rehearsing the story of the
past, from the days of Columbus and Velasquez to the present, the
historian finds it more pleasant and more welcome to dwell upon the
present scene. If these volumes, laboriously produced and with a
consciousness too often of falling short of the high merits of the
theme, shall serve their intended purpose of introducing Cuba, past and
present, more fully and most favorably to the knowledge of the world, I
shall be more than abundantly repaid. But the supreme and most enduring
satisfaction will come from some assurance that I have brought to the
appreciative attention of the world not merely the Cuba of four
centuries past, with all its legends of adventure and romance, and too
often of cruelty and crime, and with its fluctuating though still
persistent progress toward the "foremost files of time," but also and
still more the Cuba of this present moment and, we may hope, of
unmeasured future time. It is a Cuba that is beautiful for situation,
opulent in resources, entrancing in charm, illimitable in
potentialities; a land of "fair women and brave men," upon which
recollection fondly dwells; a land which justifies the latest writer
concerning it to repeat once more the estimate of the first who ever
wrote of it--"the most beautiful that the eyes of man have ever seen."

WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON.
New York, U. S. A., June, 1919.

CONTENTS

PAGE
CHAPTER I 1

"In Cuba the Annals of America Begin"--The First Landing Place of
Columbus--Theories Concerning Various Islands--His Expectation of
Reaching the Coast of Asia--Cuba Supposed to be Cathay--The Physical
History of Cu