Throughout his latest reign in the Island he kept black soldiers constantly on guard at the gates of the government palace. While the illustrated papers of Spain were caricaturing the insurgents as coal-black demons with horns and forked toe nails, burning canefields and butchering innocent Spaniards, the Spanish General chose them for his bodyguards.

ONE OF THE GREATEST GENERALS.

One of the greatest Generals of the day, considering the environment, was Antonio Maceo, the Cuban mulatto hero, who, for two years, kept the Spanish army at bay or led them a lively quickstep through the western provinces to the very gates of Havana. As swift on the march as Sheridan or Stonewall Jackson, as wary and prudent as Grant himself, he had inspirations of military genius whenever a crisis arose. It is not generally known that Martinez Campos, who owed his final defeat at Calisea to Maceo, was a second cousin of this black man. Maceo's mother, whose family name was Grinan, came from the town of Mayari where all the people have Indian blood in their veins. Col. Martinez del Campos, father of General Martinez Campos, was once Military Governor of Mayari. While there he loved a beautiful girl of Indian and Negro blood, who belonged to the Grinan family, and was first cousin to Maceo's mother. Martinez Campos, Jr., the

future General and child of the Indian girl, was born in Mayari. The Governor could not marry his sweetheart, having a wife and children in Spain, but when he returned to the mother country he took the boy along. According to Spanish law, the town in which one is baptized is recognized as his legal birthplace, so it was easy enough to legitimatize the infant Campos. He grew up in Spain, and when sent to Cuba as Captain-General, to his everlasting credit be it said, one of his first acts was to hunt up his mother. Having found her, old and poor, he bought a fine house in Campo Florida, the aristocratic suburb of Havana, established her there and cared for her tenderly till she died. The cousins, though on opposite sides of the war, befriended each other in many instances, and it is said that more than once Captain-General Campos owed his life to his unacknowledged relative.

HIS BROTHER CAPTURED.

The latter's half-brother, Jose Maceo, was captured early in the war and sent to the African prison Ceuta, whence he escaped later on with Quintin Bandera and others of his staff. The last named Negro Colonel is to-day a prominent figure. "Quintin Bandera" means "fifteen flags," and the appellation was bestowed upon him by his grateful countrymen after he had captured fifteen Spanish ensigns. Everybody seems to have forgotten his real name,

and Quintin Bandera he will remain in history. While in the African penal settlement the daughter of a Spanish officer fell in love with him. She assisted in his escape and fled with him to Gibraltar. There he married his rescuer. She is of Spanish and Moorish descent, and is said to be a lady of education and refinement. She taught her husband to read and write and feels unbounded pride in his achievements.

The noted General Jesus Rabi, of the Cuban Army, is of the same mixed blood as the Maceos. Another well-known Negro commander was General Flor Crombet, whose patriotic deeds have been dimmed by his atrocious cruelties. Among all the officers swarming Havana none attracts more admiring attention than General Ducasse, a tall, fine-looking mulatto, who was educated at the fine military school of St. Cyr. He is of extremely polished manners and undeniable force of character, can make a brilliant address and has great influence among the masses. To eject such a man as he from a third-rate foreign restaurant in his own land would be ridiculous. His equally cele

brated brother, Col. Juan Ducasse, was killed in the Pinar del Rio insurrection.

COLORED MEN'S ACHIEVEMENTS.

Besides these sons of Mars, Cuba has considered her history enriched by the achievements of colored men in peaceful walks of life. The

memory of Gabriel Concepcion de la Valdez, the mulatto poet, is cherished as that of a saint. He was accused by the Spanish government of complicity in the slave insurrection of 1844, and condemned to be shot in his native town, Matanzas. One bright morning in May he stood by the old statue of Ferdinand VII. in the Plaza d'Armas, calmly facing a row of muskets, along whose shining barrels the sun glinted. The first volley failed to touch a vital spot. Bleeding from several wounds, he still stood erect, and, pointing to his heart, said in a clear voice, "Aim here!" Another mulatto author, educator and profound thinker was Antonio Medina, a priest and professor of San Basilio the Greater. He acquired wide reputation as a poet, novelist and ecclesiastic, both in Spain and Cuba, and was selected by the Spanish Academy to deliver the oration on the anniversary of Cervantes' death in Madrid. His favorite Cuban pupil was Juan Gaulberto Gomez, the mulatto journalist, who has been imprisoned time and again for offences against the Spanish press laws. Senor Gomez, whose home is in Matanzas, is now on the shady side of 40, a spectacled and scholarlylooking man. After the peace of Zanjon he collaborated in the periodicals published by the Marquis of Sterling. In 1879 he founded in Havana the newspaper "La Fraternidad," devoted to the interest of the colored race. For a certain fiery editorial he was deported to Ceuta