The Province of Havana, even during the times of Spanish rule, had three or four fine military drives radiating to the south and west of the Capital. Since the inauguration of the Republic, these highways, shaded with the evergreen laurel, the almendra, flamboyant and many varieties of palm, including the royal and the cocoanut, have been converted into magnificent automobile drives, to which have been added many kilometers of splendidly paved roads known as carreteras, which connect the towns and villages of the interior with each other as well as the capital with the principal cities of other sections of Cuba. Along these highways every three or four miles, are found road repair stations supported by the Department of Public Works, in which laborers to whom the keeping up of the road is assigned, live, and which shelter the necessary rollers and road builders under their direction. These stations are well built, well kept, and sometimes rather picturesque in appearance. Their presence should be a guarantee of the permanence and extension of good road-building in Cuba. The political, social and commercial heart of the Republic of Cuba centers in the city of Havana, hence the province shares more directly in the national life and prosperity than any other. Cables, wireless stations and passenger ships of various lines coming and going every day in the year, maintain constant touch with outside world centers. The Presidency, the various departments of the Federal Government, the Army, Navy, higher Courts, Congress and Universities all pursue their activities at the capital. The surrounding province, therefore, although the smallest of the Island, will probably always remain the most important political division of the Republic. CHAPTER V PROVINCE OF PINAR DEL RIO Topographically, the Province of Pinar del Rio is perhaps the most picturesquely beautiful in the Island. Owing also to its variety of soils, mahogany red, jet black, mulatto or brown, and the grey sands of the south and west, Pinar del Rio offers marvellous opportunities for many agricultural industries. Tobacco, of which it produces over $30,000,000 worth annually, has always been the most important product of this section of Cuba. This Province, with its area of 5,764 square miles, owing to the fact, perhaps, that it lay west of Havana, the capital, and thus outside of the line of traffic and settlement that began in the eastern end of the Island, has played historically and politically a comparatively small part in the story of the Pearl of the Antilles. Its capital, Pinar del Rio, located about one hundred and twenty-five miles west of Havana, on the Western Railroad, was founded in 1776, and claims today a population of 12,000 people.