_Of the inhabitants there are in the city of Santiago and other
towns of the island,--the character of the soil and of the
fruit._
The city of Santiago consists of about eighty spacious and
well-contrived dwellings. Some are built of stone and lime, covered
with tiles: the greater part have the sides of board and the roofs
of dried grass. There are extensive country seats, and on them many
trees, which differ from those of Spain. The fig-tree bears fruit as
big as the fist, yellow within and of little flavor: another tree
with a delicious fruit, called anane, is of the shape and size of a
small pine-apple, the skin of which being taken off, the pulp appears
like a piece of curd. On the farms about in the country are other
larger pines, of very agreeable and high flavor, produced on low
trees that look like the aloe. Another tree yields a fruit called
mamei, the size of a peach, by the islanders more esteemed than any
other in the country. The guayaba is in the form of a filbert, and
is the size of a fig. There is a tree, which is a stalk without any
branch, the height of a lance, each leaf the length of a javelin, the
fruit of the size and form of a cucumber, the bunch having twenty or
thirty of them, with which the tree goes on bending down more and
more as they grow: they are called plantanos in that country, are of
good flavor, and will ripen after they are gathered, although they
are better when they mature on the tree. The stalks yield fruit but
once, when they are cut down, and others, which spring up at the
butt, bear in the coming year. There is another fruit called batata,
the subsistence of a multitude of people, principally slaves, and
now grows in the island of Terceira, belonging to this kingdom of
Portugal. It is produced in the earth, and looks like the ynhame,
with nearly the taste of chestnut. The bread of the country is made
from a root that looks like the batata, the stalk of which is like
alder. The ground for planting is prepared in hillocks; into each are
laid four or five stalks, and a year and a half after they have been
set the crop is fit to be dug. Should any one, mistaking the root for
batata, eat any of it, he is in imminent danger; as experience has
shown, in the case of a soldier, who died instantly from swallowing
a very little. The roots being peeled and crushed, they are squeezed
in a sort of press; the juice that flows has an offensive smell; the
bread is of little taste and less nourishment. The fruit from Spain
are figs and oranges, which are produced the year round, the soil
being very rich and fertile.
There are numerous cattle and horses in the country, which find
fresh grass at all seasons. From the many wild cows and hogs, the
inhabitants everywhere are abundantly supplied with meat. Out of the
towns are many fruits wild over the country; and, as it sometimes
happens, when a Christian misses his way and is lost for fifteen or
twenty days, because of the many paths through the thick woods made
by the herds traversing to and fro, he will live on fruit and on
wild cabbage, there being many and large palm-trees everywhere which
yield nothing else available beside.
The island of Cuba is three hundred leagues long from east to
southeast, and in places thirty, in others forty leagues from north
to south. There are six towns of Christians, which are Santiago,
Baracoa, the Báyamo, Puerto Principe, Sancti Spiritus, and Havana.
They each have between thirty and forty householders, except Santiago
and Havana, which have some seventy or eighty dwellings apiece.
The towns have all a chaplain to hear confession, and a church in
which to say mass. In Santiago is a monastery of the order of Saint
Francis; it has few friars, though well supported by tithes, as the
country is rich. The Church of Santiago is endowed, has a cura, a
prebend, and many priests, as it is the church of the city which is
the metropolis.
Although the earth contains much gold, there are few slaves to seek
it, many having destroyed themselves because of the hard usage they
receive from the Christians in the mines. The overseer of Vasco
Porcallo, a resident of the island, having understood that his slaves
intended to hang themselves, went with a cudgel in his hand and
waited for them in the place at which they were to meet, where he
told them that they could do nothing, nor think of any thing, that he
did not know beforehand; that he had come to hang himself with them,
to the end that if he gave them a bad life in this world, a worse
would he give them in that to come. This caused them to alter their
purpose and return to obedience.