not own the land. Coffee is happily well suited to the soil that is unfitted for sugar and rice, and the Hawaiian coffee is particularly fine, combining the strength of the Java with a delicate flavor of its own. Diversified farming is coming more into vogue. Fruit raising will undoubtedly become one of the most important branches when fast steamers are provided for its transportation. Sheep and cattle raising must also prove profitable, since the animals require little feeding and need no housing. Almost all kinds of vegetables and fruits can be raised, many of those belonging to the temperate zones thriving on the elevated mountain slopes. Fruit is abundant; the guava grows wild in all the islands, and were the manufacture of jelly made from it carried on, on a large scale, the product could doubtless be exported with profit. Both bananas and pineapples are prolific, and there are many fruits and vegetables, which as yet have been raised only for local trade, which would, if cultivated for export, bring in rich returns. Of the total exports from the Hawaiian Islands in 1895, the United States received 99.04 per cent., and in the same year 79.04 per cent. of the imports to the islands were from the United States. The total value of the sugar sent to the United States in 1896 was $14,932,010; of rice, $194,003; of coffee, $45,444; and of bananas, $121,273. THE CHIEF CITY Honolulu, the capital city, is to Hawaii what Havana is to Cuba, or better, what Manila is to the Philippine Islands. Here are concentrated the business, political and social forces that control the life and progress of the entire archipelago. This city of 30,000 inhabitants is situated on the south coast of Oahu, and extends up the Nuuanu Valley. It is well provided with street-car lineswhich also run to a bathing resort four miles outside the city-a telephone system, electric lights, numerous stores, churches and schools, a library of over 10,000 volumes, and frequent steam communication with San Francisco. There are papers published in the English, Hawaiian, Portuguese, Japanese, and Chinese languages, and a railroad is being built, of which thirty miles along the coast are already completed. Honolulu has also a well-equipped fire department and public water-works. The residence portions of the city are well laid out, the houses, many of which are very handsome, being surrounded by gardens kept green throughout the year. The climate is mild and even, and the city is a delightful and a beautiful place of residence. Hawaii is peculiarly an agricultural country, and Honolulu gains its importance solely as a distributing centre or depot of supplies. Warehouses, lumber yards, and commercial houses abound, but there is a singular absence of mills and factories and productive establishments. There are no metals or minerals, or as yet, textile plants or food plants, whose manufacture is undertaken in this unique city. The Hawaiian Islands are, without question, on the threshold of a great industrial era, fraught with most potent results to the prosperity and development of that land. Its climate is delightful and healthful, and its soil so fertile that it will easily support 5,000,000 people. CUBA, "THE CHILD OF OUR ADOPTION." Although Cuba is not a part or a possession of the United States, it has since the war with Spain, in 1898, come under the protection of this government, and is, therefore, entitled to a place in this volume. In the hand of Providence, this island became the doorway to America. It was here that Columbus landed. In 1494 Columbus visited Cuba a second time, and once again in 1502. In 1511 Diego Columbus, the son of the great discoverer, with a colony of between three and four hundred Spaniards, came, and in 1514 he founded the towns of Santiago and Trinidad. Five years later, in 1519, the present capital, Havana, or Habana, was founded. The French reduced the city in 1538, practically demolishing the whole town. Under the governor, De Soto, it was rebuilt and fortified, the famous Morro Castle and the Punta, which are still standing, being built at that early date. After the extermination of the natives, Cuba rested without a struggle in the arms of Spain. The early settlers engaged almost wholly in pastoral pursuits. Tobacco was indigenous to the soil, and in 1580 the Cuban planters began its culture. Later, sugarcane was imported from the Canaries, and found to be a fruitful and profitable crop. The beginning of the culture of sugar demanded more laborers, and the importation of additional slaves was the result. In 1717, Spain attempted to make a monopoly of the tobacco culture, and the first Cuban revolt occurred. In 1723 a second uprising took place, because of an oppressive government; but these early revolts against tyranny were insignificant as compared with those of the last half-century. CITY OF HAVANA CAPTURED BY THE ENGLISH In 1762, the city of Havana was captured by the English, with an expedition commanded by Lord Albemarle, but his fighting troops were principally Americans under the immediate command of Generals Phineas Lyman and Israel Putnam of Revolutionary fame. By the Treaty of Paris, 1763, Cuba was unfortunately restored to Spain, and it was afterward that her troubles with the "Mother Country," as Spain affectionately called herself to all her provinces, began. The hand of oppression for one and a quarter centuries relaxed not its grasp, and year by year grew heavier and more galling. In the spring of 1898 the United States intervened. The story of our war with Spain for Cuba's freedom is elsewhere related. Spain has paid dearly for her supremacy in Cuba during the last third of the nineteenth century. Notwithstanding the fact that the revenue from Cuba for several years prior to the Ten Years' War of 1868-78 amounted to $26,000,000 annually-about $18 for every man, woman and child in the island--$20,000,000 of it was absorbed in Spain's officlal circles at Havana, and “the other $6,000,000 that the Spanish government received," says one historian, "was hardly enough to pay transportation rates on the help |