Page 318 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

296 Strategic Features of the Gulf of

Mujeres Island, however, has nothing to offer
but situation, being upon the Yucatan Passage,
the one road from all the Gulf ports to the
Caribbean and the Isthmus. The anchorage
is barely tolerable, the resources nil, and defen-
sive strength could be imparted only by an
expense quite disproportionate to the result
obtained. The consideration of the island as
a possible military situation does but empha-
size the fact, salient to the most superficial
glance, that, so far as position goes, Cuba has
no possible rival in her command of the Yuca-
tan Passage, just as she has no competitor, in
point of natural strength and resources, for the
control of the Florida Strait, which connects
the Gulf of Mexico with the Atlantic.
Samana Bay, at the northeast corner of
Santo Domingo, is but one of several fine an-
chorages in that great island, whose territory
is now divided between two negro republics
— French and Spanish in tongue. Its selec-
tion to figure in our study, to the exclusion of
the others, is determined by its situation, and
by the fact that we are seeking to take a com-
prehensive glance of the Caribbean as a whole,
and not merely of particular districts. For in-