yards in every village and town, some idea of the horrors of the kind of war that was practised in Cuba came to his mind. I must have seen seventy-five graveyards on my trip in the various provinces, and I remember only. one that was not enlarged because of the famine of the war. Major-General James H. Wilson told me that the story of the horrors of reconcentration had been only partly told. It was far worse than the people of the United States had believed. The pen of a trained historian alone can do that story of death by famine and military wantonness justice. Competent judges asserted that the island was nearly 200,000 men short. In most of the provinces the birthrate was less than one-half of what it was before the war. The island was stripped of cattle. In Matanzas, a province chiefly given to the cattleraising industry, there were 298,000 cattle, according to a census, in 1894. When the war ceased there were fewer than 9000 cattle in the province-a region that could support 1,000,000 cattle with ease.

And yet the sunshine of prosperity was breaking through the clouds. One could see in the distances, especially in the provinces of Pinar del Rio and Matanzas, the smoke of numerous charcoal-burners. These pillars of smoke had taken the place of the smoke of war. They suggested only by contrast the burning of towns and villages and plantations. At railroad stations children and women held out their hands in mute appeals for charity, but that was a vast improvement upon the scenes of burials by the hundreds and thousands because of starvation. Here and there, through the blanket of devastation spread by war, the crops were springing up. This

was especially true for a dozen miles around the city of Santa Clara, almost exactly in the centre of the island, and in the district immediately surrounding the town of Pinar del Rio, the centre of the tobacco-growing in

dustry. Although railroad stations and bridges were destroyed, and in many cases entire towns were burned, and although the tangled wrecks of twisted iron and charred timbers of sugar factories confronted one frequently, gaunt spectres of the war and companion pictures in the scene of ruin to the enlarged graveyards, here and there could be seen late in February the smoke of returned business activity pouring from the chimney of a sugar-central, preserved from destruction only by bribing both Spaniards and Cubans, or by the vigilance of an armed force raised to protect the central at enormous cost, in many cases of considerable bloodshed as

well. On many freight sidings carloads of sugar-cane could be seen, their destination being the grinding-mills. Fields of tobacco were spreading their beautiful green mantle in the western end of the island. It was estimated that about one-half of a normal crop was being raised of sugar and tobacco, upon which, especially sugar, the life of Cuba depends. Although it was dreary to see the great stretches of unoccupied fertile country, land as rich as can be found anywhere, it was a satisfaction to realize that the worst was over and that the upbuilding process had actually begun. The country was in a passive state. There was practically no crime and no disorder in the land. The condition of Cuba was that

of a person restored to consciousness after being stunned, but with scarcely more than enough strength to totter about.

The irresistible conviction was soon forced upon the student of the situation in Cuba that what the isl

and needed most was men and money. Involved in the problem of securing them was the larger problem of the political future of the country. The normal increase. in the population cannot supply the island's need of men

THE CUBAN SOLDIER AS HE WAS AFTER THE WAR

for many, many years. Immigrants, such as can endure the climate and can work to advantage in it, must come probably from the Canary Islands, or from Italy, rather than from the Southern States of this country. The tide of needed immigration, however, cannot set towards Cuban shores until there is reasonable assurance of the protection of human life; and capital, always timid, will not seek investment there until there is a full guarantee from destruction or from serious injury.

The passive state of Cuba was due in some degree to its commercial and political prostration, but to a greater degree probably to the military occupation there. In all the large cities the United States army was in control. In every small town and in every village the Cuban soldiers were in charge. Whatever may have been the actions of the Cuban soldiers in and about Santiago during the campaign there, little reasonable fault could be found with them after the Spaniards went home. They moved into the towns and villages, preserved the peace invariably, and brought about a condition of order. They worked in perfect harmony with our forces after these arrived, and their commanders detailed their men in accordance with suggestions from our generals and military governors. They worked without pay, and they got their food and clothing as best they could. They practised no tyranny, and showed no spirit of hostility to American occupation.

Many were the complaints because they did not throw down their arms and go to work when the island needed laborers sorely, but there was another side to that. They had been fighting for three years, with little food and clothing, in their own peculiar kind of warfare—a warfare that our rank and file could neither understand nor appreciate and they were still under orders from their superiors. To throw down their arms would have been a form of desertion, and at a time when there was prospect of receiving a gift of money from the United States -money that was absolutely necessary to start most of them in life again. If there was any fault to be found with the Cuban army, it was with the mysterious in