Produced by Julia Miller, Jane Hyland and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) [Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE HARBOR OF HAVANA.] SIXTH THOUSAND. HISTORY OF CUBA; OR, Notes of a Traveller in the Tropics. BEING A POLITICAL, HISTORICAL, AND STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE ISLAND, FROM ITS FIRST DISCOVERY TO THE PRESENT TIME. BY MATURIN M. BALLOU. L'ILE DE CUBA SEULE POURRAIT VALOIR UN ROYAUME. _L'Abbé Raynal._ ILLUSTRATED. BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY. NEW YORK: J.C. DERBY. PHILADELPHIA: LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO & COMPANY. 1854. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. Stereotyped by HOBART & ROBBINS, New England Type and Stereotype Foundery BOSTON. TO His Friend, FRANCIS A. DURIVAGE, ESQ., As a small Token of Regard for HIS EXCELLENCE IN THOSE QUALITIES WHICH CONSTITUTE STERLING MANHOOD; AS A TRUE AND WORTHY FRIEND; AS A RIPE SCHOLAR, AND A GRACEFUL AUTHOR, This Volume IS CORDIALLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR PREFACE. The remarkable degree of interest expressed on all sides, at the present time, relative to the island of Cuba, has led the author of the following pages to place together in this form a series of notes from his journal, kept during a brief residence upon the island. To these he has prefixed a historical glance at the political story of Cuba, that may not be unworthy of preservation. The fact that the subject-matter was penned in the hurry of observation upon the spot, and that it is thus a simple record of what would be most likely to engage and interest a stranger, is his excuse for the desultory character of the work. So critically is the island now situated, in a political point of view, that ere this book shall have passed through an edition, it may be no longer a dependency of Spain, or may have become the theatre of scenes to which its former convulsions shall bear no parallel.