. The storied West Indies . old, Cuba stillhas most beautiful and commodious harbors with-out trace of town or settlement on their shores, andyet capable of containing half the navies of theworld. Lying open to the adjacent Bahamas, Haiti,and Jamaica, as well as to the keys of Florida, theseunoccupied harbors have long been the resorts of buc-caneers and filibusters, who early learned their secretpasses through the coral reefs. While the south coasthas many good harbors, the north coast has more, andthese latter have been more often the landing placesof Cuban relief expeditions in recent years
. The storied West Indies . old, Cuba stillhas most beautiful and commodious harbors with-out trace of town or settlement on their shores, andyet capable of containing half the navies of theworld. Lying open to the adjacent Bahamas, Haiti,and Jamaica, as well as to the keys of Florida, theseunoccupied harbors have long been the resorts of buc-caneers and filibusters, who early learned their secretpasses through the coral reefs. While the south coasthas many good harbors, the north coast has more, andthese latter have been more often the landing placesof Cuban relief expeditions in recent years, owing totheir proximity to Florida and its semicircle of reefsand islets, some of which are not more than one hun-dred miles distant. From Cape San Antonio, the western end ofCuba, the north coast runs easterly and southeasterlyfor perhaps a thousand miles of tortuous of the cape a curious phenomenon, describedby Humboldt at the beginning of this century, hasbeen noted, in the shape of a spring of fresh water. 16 THE STORIED WEST INDIES of vast volume bubbling up from the depths of thesea, at which vessels may replenish their casks. An-other peculiarity of this region, according to the same Off Cape San Antonio, Cuba. authority, is that the currents of the ocean run eastone half the month, and west the other half. The conical and table-topped hills, such as Colum-bus noted as he approached Jibara, are frequentalong this north coast, the first to be mentioned, goingeasterly from Cape San Antonio, being those back ofBahia Honda, a port of the Pinar del Rio region,where the insurgents for a long time held the countryand obtained supplies. Fifteen miles farther east-ward is the harbor of Cabanas, to which the cele-brated Pan de Cabanas, or Sugar Loaf Hill, givesguidance to the mariner. Another of these table-topped hills is the Pan de Mariel, twelve miles far-ther, and the approach to the harbor of Havana ismade known to the sailor by a remarkable isolatedhill seven
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Keywords: ., bookauthoroberfrederickafrederi, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900
