whom they might be attacked.  It serves a more satisfactory purpose nowadays in that it affords one of the loveliest panoramic views to be found anywhere in Cuba.  Not far away, and accessible from the city, is the Pico de Potrerillo, about 3,000 feet elevation, the highest point in Central Cuba.  Northeast of Trinidad, and reached by rail from Villa Clara, is Sancti Spiritus, Trinidad’s rival in antiquity, both having been founded, by Velasquez, in the same year.  Here also are narrow, crooked streets in a city of no mean attractions, although it lacks the picturesque charm of its rival in age.  It is an inland city, about twenty-five miles from the coast, but even that did not protect it from attack by the pirates.  It was several times the victim of their depredations.

VII

AROUND THE ISLAND:  Continued

The next city, eastward, is Camaguey, in many ways doubtless the best worth a visit, next to Havana, of any city on the island.  It is a place of interesting history and, for me personally, a place of somewhat mixed recollections.  The history may wait until I have told my story.  I think it must have been on my third visit to the island, early in 1902.  On my arrival in Havana, I met my friend Charles M. Pepper, a fellow laborer in the newspaper field.  He at once informed me that he and I were to start the next morning for a three or four weeks’ journey around the island.  It was news to me, and the fact that my baggage, excepting the suitcase that I carried, had failed to come on the boat that brought me, led me to demur.  My objections were overruled on the ground that we could carry little baggage anyway, and all that was needed could be bought before starting, or along the way.  The next morning saw us on the early train for Matanzas.  We spent a week or ten days in that city, in Cardenas, Sagua, Santa Clara, and Cienfuegos, renewing former acquaintance and noting the changes effected by the restoration from the war period.  That was before the completion of the Cuba Railway.  To get to Camaguey, then known as Puerto Principe, we took the steamer at Cienfuegos and journeyed along the coast to Jucaro.  There, because of shallow water, we were dropped into a shore boat some four or five miles from the coast, and there our troubles began.  Fortunately, it was early morning.  We got something to eat and some coffee, which is almost invariably good in Cuba, but when we meet nowadays we have a laugh over that breakfast at Jucaro.  I don’t know, and really don’t care, what the place is now.  After some hours of waiting, we secured passage in an antiquated little car attached to a freight train carrying supplies and structural material to Ciego de Avila, for use by the railway then being built in both directions, eastward and westward from that point.  The line that there crosses the island from north to south was built in the time of the Ten Years’ War (1868-1878) as