History of Cuba Author:Willis Fletcher Johnson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PREFACE It is my purpose in these volumes to write a History of Cuba. The title may imply either the land and its natural conditions, or the people and the na... more »tion which inhabit it. It in fact implies both, and to both I shall address myself, though it will appropriately be with the latter rather than with the former that the narrative will be most concerned. For it is with Cuba as with other countries: In the last supreme analysis the people make the history of the land. Apart from the people, it is true, the Island of Cuba is of unusual interest. There are few countries of similar extent comparable with it in native variety, charm and wealth. There are few which contribute more, actually and potentially, to the world's supplies of greatly used products. One of the most universally used and prized vegetable products became first known to mankind from Cuba, and there to this day is most profusely and most perfectly grown and prepared; while another, one of the most universally used and essential articles of food, is there produced in its greatest abundance. There also may be found an immense number and bewildering variety of the most serviceable articles in both the vegetable and mineral kingdoms, in noteworthy profusion and perfection, together with possibilities and facilities for a comparable development of the animal kingdom. Nor is the geographical situation of the island less favorable or less inviting than its natural resources. Lying just within the Torrid Zone, it has a climate which combines the fecund influences of the tropics with the agreeable moderation of the Temperate Zones. It fronts at once upon the most frequented ocean of the globe and upon two of the greatest and most important semi-inland seas. It lies directly between the two great continents of the ...« less