Batabano.  At all of these, there are now cities or towns with trade either by steamers or small sailing vessels.  Among the interesting physical curiosities of the island are the numerous “disappearing rivers.”  Doubtless the action of water on limestone has left, in many places, underground chambers and tunnels into which the streams have found an opening and in which they disappear, perhaps to emerge again and perhaps to find their way to the sea without reappearance.  This seems to explain numerous fresh-water springs among the keys and off-shore.  The Rio San Antonio quite disappears near San Antonio de los Banos.  Near Guantanamo, a cascade drops three hundred feet into a cavern and reappears a short distance away.  Such disappearing rivers are not unknown elsewhere but Cuba has several of them.

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The Census Report of 1907, prepared under American auspices, states that “the climate of Cuba is tropical and insular.  There are no extremes of heat, and there is no cold weather.”  This is quite true if the records of a thermometer are the standard; quite untrue if measured by the sensations of the human body.  It is true that, in Havana, for instance, the thermometer seldom exceeds 90 deg. in the hottest months, and rarely if ever goes below 50 deg. in the coldest.  But a day with the thermometer anywhere in the 80s may seem to a northern body very hot, and a day with the thermometer in the 50s is cold for anyone, whether a native or a visitor.  There is doubtless a physical reason for the fact that a hot day in the north seems hotter than the same temperature in the south, while a day that seems, in the north, only pleasantly cool, seems bitterly cold in the tropics.  When the thermometer drops below 60 deg. in Havana, the coachmen blanket their horses, the people put on all the clothes they have, and all visitors who are at all sensitive to low temperature go about shivering.  Steam heat and furnaces are unknown, and fireplaces are a rarity.  Yet, in general, the variations are not wide, either from day to day or when measured by seasons.  The extremes are the infrequent exceptions.  Nor is there wide difference between day and night.  Taking the island as a whole, the average mean temperature for July, the hottest month, is about 82 deg., and for January, the coolest month, about 71 deg..  The mean for the year is about 77 deg., as compared with 52 deg. for New York, 48 deg. for Chicago, 62 deg. for Los Angeles, and 68 deg. for New Orleans.  There are places that, by reason of exposure to prevailing winds, or distance from the coast, are hotter or cooler than other places.  Havana is one of the cool spots, that is, relatively cool.  But no one goes there in search of cold.  The yearly range in Havana, from maximum to minimum, rarely if ever exceeds fifty degrees, and is usually somewhat below that, while the range in New York, Chicago, and St. Louis is usually from one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five degrees.