l the Powers have kept separate accounts with Cuba,
and the statistics of the Cuban Republic have been reasonably full and
accurate."

[Illustration: IRON GRILLE GATEWAY _El Vedado, Suburb of Havana_]

Cuba's recorded imports in 1894 show a total value of $90,800,000, and
exports show a value of $102,000,000. Writing about the year 1825, Humboldt
says: "It is more than probable that the imports of the whole island, licit
and contraband, estimated at the actual value of the goods and the slaves,
amount, at the present time, to fifteen or sixteen millions of dollars, of
which barely three or four millions are re-exported." The same authority
gives the probable exports of that time as about $12,500,000. The trade at
the beginning of the century must have been far below this. The official
figures for 1851 show total imports amounting to $34,000,000, and exports
to $33,000,000, but the accuracy of the figures is open to question. The
more important fact is that of a very large gain in population and in
production. The coffee industry, that assumed important proportions during
a part of the first half of the century, gradually declined for the reason
that sugar became a much more profitable crop. Now, Cuba imports most of
its coffee from Porto Rico. Because of its convenience as a contraband
article, there are no reliable figures of the tobacco output. Prior to
1817, the commodity was, for much of the time, a crown monopoly and, for
the remainder of the time, a monopoly concession to private companies. In
that year, cultivation and trade became free, subject to a tax on each
planter of one-twentieth of his production.

As we shall see, in another chapter, Cuba at last wearied of Spanish
exactions and revolted as did the United States, weary of British rule and
British exactions and restrictions, more than a hundred years earlier.

III

_THE COUNTRY_

Description of the physical features of a country seldom makes highly
entertaining reading, but it seems a necessary part of a book of this kind.
Some readers may find interest if not entertainment in such a review. The
total area of the island, including a thousand or more adjacent islands,
islets, and keys, is given as 44,164 square miles, a little less than the
area of Pennsylvania and a little more than that of Ohio or Tennessee.
Illustration of its shape by some familiar object is difficult, although
various comparisons have been attempted. Some old Spanish geog