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PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS OF THE ISLAND, THE PEOPLE; OF THE GOVERNMENT, AND THE WAR FOR FREEDOM.

BY MAJOR-GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE,

Late Consul General of the United States to Havana.

Y information about Cuba and request I proceeded to Havana, Cuba, having the situation there to-day has been appointed United States Consul General. been gathered while perform- Resolutions recognizing the belligerent rights ing official duties, and of of the insurrectionary forces in Cuba had

3 course belonged to the gov- passed both houses of Congress, and were

ernment, and has been given lying upon the President's desk for his signature. Grave doubts existed in the mind of Mr. Cleveland whether the Cuban Government, then in arms against the Spanish authority on the island of Cuba, was properly entitled to such recognition. One of the

to it from time to time in official reports. This article necessarily traverses some of the ground gone over in detail in these reports. Nine months previous to the expiration of the presidential term of Mr. Cleveland, at his

Copyright, 1898, by the S. S. McCLURE Co. All rights reserved.

[graphic]

A BLOCKHOUSE ON ONE OF THE LINE OF FORTS BUILT ACROSS THE ISLAND OF CUBA BY THE SPANIARDS AND KNOWN AS THE TROCHA (i.e., TRENCH, OR TRAVERSE).

TION.

principal objects, therefore, of my mission A SWIFT INCREASE OF MISERY AND DESOLAwas to ascertain and report the exact political and military conditions existing at that time in Cuba. As the President expressed it at the time, he did not "want to go into the Cuban business bow on without knowing where" he was "going."

A few weeks after my arrival in Havana, I made a report to the Secretary of State (in substance) that, in my opinion, there was no immediate prospect of the Spanish soldiers suppressing the insurrection in Cuba or of the insurrectionary troops driving the Spanish from the island, and that, therefore, without outside interference, war, with its attendant horrors, would continue for an indefinite time; that the island was being devastated and gradually being reduced to an ash pile; that property was being destroyed everywhere, fields burnt, and human life taken by both contestants under the most aggravating circumstances; and that commerce was being extinguished, entailing great loss to the United States and to the American citizens resident on the island.

Should I write a report to-day of the conditions now existing on the island I would not change, in its essential features, the report written two years ago, except to say that the destruction of property and the loss of life have suffered of course a large increase, and that misery, poverty, desolation, and devastation exist now in greater degree only than at the former period. The United States, at this writing, has determined to intervene, and, with soldiers and sailors, compel the Spanish troops to depart from the island and the Spanish flag to be furled forever upon the "Gem of the Antilles."

It is most difficult to comprehend the cruelties and enormities of Spanish rule on the island-more especially within the last few years. Spain has been repeating her past history by continuing that policy which has heretofore humbled her pride and reduced her territorial possessions, and will now lose Cuba, Porto Rico, and very possibly

[graphic]

Fitzlings dee

From a recent photograph: copyright, 1898, by the International Society.

the Philippine Islands by that "barbarous persecution so atrocious that Motley says "it was beyond the power of man's ingenuity to add any fresh horrors to it."

Cuba, iying at the gate of the Gulf of Mexico, is, in some respects, the most fertile spot on the face of the globe. Its soil, in great part, is a rich chocolate loam, capable of producing everything that grows in tropical regions in the greatest abundance, while it stands unrivaled in the quality and quantity of its two great staple products sugar and tobacco. It is true that, as in all tropical regions, the sun during the summer months casts heated rays upon all parts of the island; but during that period the rainy season begins, and three or four afternoons

in each week, from July to October, there is a succession of rain showers followed by the sun again, a wise provision of nature, as it results in the continued growth of grass and all plants then in the ground. In consequence, the island is ever green; and there being no winter, as fast as a crop is reaped, the ground is available for the next. As is well known, sugar-cane, when once planted, does not have to be replanted for seven or eight years; so that when it is annually cut down and ground into molasses and sugar, the planter thereafter has only to wait for a corresponding period in the next year to perform a similar operation. From Santiago de Cuba, the most eastern province, to Pinar del Rio, the most western, there is a range

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