The agriculturists of the island confine their attention almost solely to the raising of sugar, coffee and tobacco, almost entirely neglecting Indian corn (which the first settlers found indigenous here), and but slightly attending to the varieties of the orange.[31] It is scarcely creditable that, when the generous soil produces from two to three crops annually, the vegetable wealth of this island should be so poorly developed. It is capable of supporting a population of almost any density, and yet the largest estimate gives only a million and a half of inhabitants. On treading the fertile soil, and on beholding the clustering fruits offered on all sides, the delicious oranges, the perfumed pine-apples, the luscious bananas, the cooling cocoanuts, and other fruits for which our language has no name, we are struck with the thought of how much Providence, and how little man, has done for this Eden of the Gulf. We long to see it peopled by men who can appreciate the gifts of nature, men who are willing to do their part in reward for her bounty, men who will meet her half way and second her spontaneous efforts.[32] Nowhere on the face of the globe would intelligent labor meet with a richer reward,--nowhere on the face of the globe would repose from labor be so sweet. The hour of rest here sinks upon the face of nature with a peculiar charm; the night breeze comes with its gentle wing to fan the weary frame, and no danger lurks in its career. It has free scope through the unglazed windows. Beautifully blue are the heavens, and festally bright the stars of a tropical night. Preëminent in brilliancy among the constellations is the Southern Cross, a galaxy of stars that never greets us in the north. At midnight its glittering framework stands erect; that solemn hour passed, the Cross declines.[33] How glorious the night where such a heavenly sentinel indicates its watches! Cuba is indeed a land of enchantment, where nature is beautiful, and where mere existence is a luxury, but it requires the infusion of a sterner, more self-denying and enterprising race to fully test its capabilities, and to astonish the world with its productiveness.
We have thus dilated upon the natural resources of Cuba, and depicted the charms that rest about her; but every picture has its dark side, and the political situation of the island is the reverse in the present instance. Her wrongs are multifarious, and the restrictions placed upon her by her oppressors are each and all of so heinous and tyrannical a character, that a chapter upon each would be insufficient to place them in their true light before the world. There is, however, no better way of placing the grievances of the Cubans, as emanating from the home government, clearly before the reader, than by stating such of them as occur readily to the writer's mind in brief:--