construction being in charge of Mr. Alfred Cruger,
an American engineer. Ten years later there were
nearly three hundred miles of line. At the beginning
of the American occupation, in 1899, there were about
nine-hundred and fifty miles. There are now more
than 2,000 miles of public service line in operation,
and in addition there are many hundreds of miles of
private lines on the sugar estates. Several cities
have trolley lines. For some years after the
American occupation, as before that experience, there
was only a water-and-rail connection, or an all-water
route, between the eastern and western sections of
the island. The usual route from Havana to Santiago
was by rail to Batabano or to Cienfuegos, and thence
by steamer. The alternative was an all-water
route, consuming several days, by steamer along the
north coast, with halts at different ports, and around
the eastern end of the island to the destination.
It is now an all-rail run of twenty-four hours.
The project for a “spinal railway” from
one end of the island to the other had been under
consideration for many years. The configuration
lent itself excellently to such a system, and not at
all well to any other. A railway map of such
a system shows a line, generally, through the middle
of the island along its length, with numerous branch
lines running north and south to the various cities
and ports on the coast. The plan, broadly, is
being carried out. A combination of existing lines
afforded a route to the city of Santa Clara. From
these eastward, the Cuba Company, commonly known as
the Van Home road, completed a through line in 1902.
In its beginning, it was a highly ambitious scheme,
involving the building of many towns along the way,
the erection of many sugar mills, and the creation
of a commercial city, at Nipe Bay, that would leave
Havana in the back-number class. All that called
for a sum of money not then and not now available.
But the “spinal railroad” was built, and
from it a number of radiating lines have been built,
to Sancti Spiritus, Manzanillo, Nipe Bay, and to Guantanamo.
About the only places on the island, really worth
seeing, with the exception of Trinidad and Baracoa,
can now be reached by a fairly comfortable railway
journey.
[Illustration: THE VOLANTE Now quite rare]
In most of the larger cities of the island, a half
dozen or so of them, the traveller is made fairly
comfortable and is almost invariably well fed.
But any question of physical comfort in hotels, more
particularly in country hotels, raises a question
of standards. As Touchstone remarked, when in
the forest of Arden, “Travellers must be content.”
Those who are not ready to make themselves so, no
matter what the surroundings, should stay at home,
which, Touchstone also remarked, “is a better
place.” If the standard is the ostentatious
structure of the larger cities of this country, with
its elaborate menu and its systematized service, there
will doubtless be cause for complaint. So will