Cuba has wisely placed a heavy fine for unnecessarily cutting the stately royal palms which are so useful to its' economy and social needs. Cutting is allowable only where the trees stand' in the way of needed ditches, highways and other improvements. Within the glades are frequent pools of clear water starred with pink and white lotus. Here and there are clumps of shimmering palmettos, known as palma cana and vana prieto. These give variety to the otherwise monotonous stretches of treeless marsh. Near the margin are belts of mixed hardwoods and royal palms. This is true tropical wetland forest, with lianas, climbing vines, and trees bristling with parasitic growth, including beautiful pink orchids. A vinelike plant, pendalata, covers acres of ground in the marginal forest, forming a wreathing, serpentine mass, utterly impenetrable except where a trail is hewn out with a machete.
For generations the Zapata has been a favorite district for the burning of charcoal. Numerous small canals have been dug into the swamp through which to bring the product of the kilns out to sea, where it is put on small schooners and carried to market. The burners live in palm-thatched shacks for long periods of complete isolation, coming out only to market their product. Charcoal is the national fuel for cooking in Cuba. Large operators working many crews of men, and maintaining commissaries in the swamp for their convenience have made fortunes in the business. The small fellows, working singly or with a partner or two. usually make about the average daily wage for the island.
The charcoal burner is sometimes condemned as a waster of forests. The accusation is largely unjustified, for he operates chiefly in the coastal wastes, where tree reproduction is rapid. Compared with the wholesale cutting of the magnificent interior forests to replace impoverished cane fields, the damage done by the charcoal burner is trivial indeed. That more cane might be planted millions of feet of mahogany, cedar and scores of beautiful woods have been burned, while abandoned fields needing only cultivation for restored productivity have lain idle.
During the Spanish regime revolutionists often found sanctuary within the confines of the vast swamp. Once inside, the Cuban was about as easy to find as the proverbial needle of the haystack. Pursuing Spanish troopers would go no farther than the edge, knowing that one unfamiliar with the region could easily be lost within a few yards of the margin. Then, too, there was the extreme difficulty of travel through the miles of peat bog and soft marl, and the ever-present possibility of abrupt demise by a blow from a machete suddenly flashed from some mysterious hiding place.
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