“The island border on the north presents a low cliff topography, with a horizontal sky-line from Matanzas westward, gradually decreasing from five hundred feet at Matanzas to one hundred feet on the west.  The coast of the east end is abrupt and rugged, presenting on both the north and south sides a series of remarkable terraces, rising in stair-like arrangement to six hundred feet or more, representing successive pauses or stages in the elevation of the island above the sea, and constituting most striking scenic features.  About one-half the Cuban coast is bordered by keys, which are largely old reef rock, the creations of the same coral-builders that may now be seen through the transparent waters still at work on the modern shallows, decking the rocks and sands with their graceful and many colored tufts of animal foliage.”

Mr. Hill summarizes the general appearance of the island, thus:  “Santiago de Cuba (now called Oriente) is predominantly a mountainous region of high relief, especially along the coasts, with many interior valleys.  Puerto Principe (now Camaguey) and Santa Clara are broken regions of low mountain relief, diversified by extensive valleys.  Matanzas and Havana are vast stretches of level cultivated plain, with only a few hills of relief.  Pinar del Rio is centrally mountainous, with fertile coastward slopes.”  The notable elevations of the island are the Cordilleras de los Organos, or Organ Mountains, in Pinar del Rio, of which an eastward extension appears in the Tetas de Managua, the Arcas de Canasi, the Escalera de Jaruco, the Pan de Matanzas, and other minor elevations in Havana and Matanzas Provinces.  In Santa Clara and Camaguey, the range is represented by crest lines and plateaus along the north shore, and finally runs into the hill and mountain maze of Oriente.  In the south-central section of the island, a somewhat isolated group of elevations appears, culminating in El Potrerillo at a height of nearly 3,000 feet.  In Oriente, immediately along the south coast line, is the precipitous Sierra Maestra, reaching its greatest altitude in the Pico del Turquino, with an elevation of approximately 8,500 feet.  Another elevation, near Santiago, known as La Gran Piedra, is estimated at 5,200 feet.  All these heights are densely wooded.  From the tops of some of them, east, west, and central, the views are marvellously beautiful, but the summits of most are reached only with considerable difficulty.  One of the most notable of these view points, and one of the most easily reached, is the height immediately behind the city of Matanzas, overlooking the famous Yumuri valley.  The valley is a broad, shallow bowl, some five or six miles in diameter, enclosed by steeply sloping walls of five to six hundred feet in height.  Through it winds the Yumuri River.  It is best seen in the early forenoon, or the late afternoon, when there come the shadows and the lights that are largely killed by the more vertical rays of a midday sun.  At those hours, it is a scene of entrancing loveliness.  There are views, elsewhere, covering wider expanses, but none, I think, of equal beauty.