Going with Puerto Rico are two small islands called Culebra and Vieque, mainly inhabited by fishermen, but with fine forests of dye and cabinet woods to be exploited.  The commerce of the island is mainly with the United States.  We gained $1,000,000 a year in exports to this island for the last ten years, and nearly $3,000,000 in imports.  With a staple government and under wise control, Puerto Rico will more nearly attain to its full productiveness.  The annual sugar yield is estimated at near 70,000 tons; that of coffee, 17,000 tons; bananas, nearly 200,000,000; cocoanuts, 3,000,000, and tobacco, 7,000,000 pounds.  Gold was originally abundant here, and copper, iron and lead have been found.  With enterprise and protection to life and property they will be profitably exploited.

Colonial possessions of Spain.

The loss of Cuba and Puerto Rico did not leave Spain without colonial possessions, as the subjoined table will show: 

Area—­English
Possessions in Asia square miles.  Population.

Philippine Islands 114,326 7,000,000
Sulu Islands 950 73,000
Caroline Islands and Palaos 560 36,000
Marianne Islands 420 10,172
                                                 ------- ---------
Total Asiatic possessions 116,256 7,121,172

Possessions in Africa

Rio de Oro and Adrar 243,000 100,000
Ifni 27 6,000
Fernando Po, Annabon, Corsico, Elobey, San Juan 850 30,000
                                                  ------- -------
Total African possessions 243,877 136,000

The Sulu archipelago lies southwest of the Island of Mindanao, and directly south of Manila and the Mindora sea.  The chief island gives its name to the group, which extends to the three-mile limit of Borneo.  The area of the whole is estimated at 950 square miles; the population at 75,000 Melanesians.

The Caroline and Marianne, or Ladrone Islands, are more numerous, but scarcely as important or as populous as the Sulu group.  They belong to what is sometimes known as Micronesia, from the extreme diminutiveness of the land masses.  The two groups are east and northeast of the Philippines, and in easy sailing reach from Manila.  From east to west they are spread over 30-odd degrees of longitude, and from north to south over 20 degrees of latitude.

The inhabited islands are of coral formation, generally not over ten or twelve feet above high water mark.  They are, in fact, heaps of sand and seaweed blown over the coral reefs.  Most of these islands are narrow bands of land from a few yards to a third of a mile across, with a lagoon partly or wholly inclosed by the reef.  Cocoanuts and fish are the chief reliance of the natives, who are an inferior species, even for Polynesians.