Etext transcriber's typgraphical corrections made:
[1] The island of Cuba lies between the Caribbean Sea on the S., and the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Florida, and Bahama Channel on the N., being nearly equidistant from the peninsulas of Yucatan and Florida and the islands of Hayti and Jamaica. It stretches in N. lat. from 19° 50' to 23° 9', and in W. long. from 74° 8' to 84° 158'. The rainfall at Havana is said to be 92.68 inches, or more than double that of the opposite coast of Florida. The atmospheric tendencies are less violent than in the other islands. Hurricanes are frequent, but not so terrible as elsewhere in the same zone. However, one of them, in October 1846, destroyed a third of Havana, while hundreds were killed and thousands injured. The north wind blows with more or less strength throughout the entire winter months. In summer, when the sun is at its zenith, torrential rains, lasting for days at a time, are frequent. Hail is rare, but, once or twice in this century, snow has fallen on the upper plateaus of the Sierra Maestra. According to the proverbial "oldest inhabitant," the rainfall has considerably diminished of late years through the burning down of some of the forests in the central district of the island. It has also been observed that in the past twenty-five years the rainy season begins much later than it did in the good old times--in June instead of April; and ends earlier--in July instead of in October.
[2] The American Racoon--_Procyon lotor_.
[3] The rainfall of Havana is said to be 92.68 ins., more than double that of the opposite part of Florida. Very heavy, and in certain districts, dangerous dews, fall immediately after sunset. The thunderstorms are of tremendous violence, the lightning being often so incessant as to give quite a steady light.
[4] Between the years 1512-15 the whole island had been explored, and the aborigines had already disappeared. The poor, timid, harmless creatures offered no resistance to their conquerors. One chief alone, the Cacique Hatuei, tried to escape. He refused baptism lest it might lead to his being condemned to spend eternity in heaven, in the company of his pious persecutors, who consequently tormented him to death. This anecdote, related as it is by the Spaniards themselves, gives the measure of their conception of Christian charity. There are, however, two sides to every question, and I remember to have read in a very old Spanish work, on the West Indies, an assertion that the aborigines of Cuba were afflicted with a certain fell disease which rendered their disappearance imperative. This may account for the persistence with which their extermination was carried out, and also for the recorded fact that in 1554 a number of native families were brought to Havana, and isolated in a Lazaretto built for their reception near Guanabacoa.