The physical history of Cuba indicates that in some remote period the two mountainous ends of the island were two separate and distinctly different islands, separated by a considerable stretch of sea, and that they were afterward united by a rising of the bottom of the sea, to form the central plain of Cuba. It is observed that the two ends are unlike each other on geological structure and composition, in soil, and in indigenous flora. Indeed, they have ever differed from each other radically in their cultivated crops. At what date the union of them occurred, and by what means it was effected, we can only guess. But it is a reasonable assumption that the raising of the sea-floor to form the central plain of the island was caused by one of the seismic disturbances to which this general region of the earth's surface has from time immemorial been subject. There are, moreover, reasons for suspecting that this occurred at a time subsequent to the creation of man, and indeed after both of the original islands had become inhabited. That is because the two ends of the island appear, in Columbus's day, to have been occupied by different races. Of the inhabitants of the western end we know comparatively little, save that they were more warlike and adventurous than those at the east, and several authorities have likened them either to the Caribs or to the Mayas of Yucatan. That they were Mayas seems, however, doubtful, since they left no traces of the high degree of civilization which formerly prevailed among that distinguished race in Yucatan. The people of the eastern end of Cuba, when the island was discovered by Columbus, were doubtless of Antillan stock, or "Tainan" as some have called them, with possibly a slight admixture of Carib, though not sufficient materially to affect them in any respect. They were physically a handsome, stalwart people, of a light reddish brown color, somewhat lighter than the North American Indians. They wore no clothing, with the exception of the married women, who wore breech clouts, and confined their adornments to slight necklaces and bracelets. They lived in neatly constructed cabins of cane or bamboo and thatch, rectangular or circular in form and generally of two or three rooms each; equipped with furniture of cane or of handsomely carved wood. For beds, however, they used hammocks, of woven cotton or plaited grass; the name, hammock, being of Antillan or Carib origin. These houses were, according to early Spanish testimony, kept scrupulously clean and neat. They were grouped in villages, around a central square which served as a market place and playground.