The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1897-05-14
PIlNBIIA, N .. FRIDAY, MAY IL 1s97 -

81
gnano hut, in these four provinces, OUT
side Of the Spanish lines surrounding the
occupied towns.
In these four provinces, the western
halt Of the island. which has been reduc-
ed to mass Of gray and smoking ruins,
where not a single house remains stand
ing or single inhabitant following the
pursuits of peace, in this desert which.
was once the scene ofmarvelous fertility,
every green and growing thing has been
cut down, and every plant has been up
rooted; in this wilderness which they
have made, the Spanish guerrillas and
now and again column of regular troops
roam about in search Of the patriot Par
tidas, with whom, however, they very
rarely come in contact. The Spaniards
keep to the calzadas, orpaved highways,
the Cubans patronize the country roads
and the open country. And SO hostile
meetings are generally obviated, except
when one side or the other because the
Spanish forces have absolutely adopted
the Cuban tactics, forms an ambuscade,
or sees good opportunity for little
bushwhacking.
Close reading Of Weyler's proclama-
ton Of recommendation will show that
men and women and children who may
be found eight days after its publication
in this desert, which was once the garden
of peerless island, are to be regarded
as rebels and treated as rebels by the
officers Of Her Most Catholic Majesty's
army-that is, they are to be shot down
in cold blood. Though sometimes, as
an act ofparticular clemency, the women
and children are sent to the nearest re-
cogidas, or prison for prostitutes. The
proclamation authorizes this inhuman
conduct, and the authorization is streng-
thened and sharpened by the private in.
structions to chiefs Of guerrillas and
heads of columns to avoid taking prison.
ers.
The character ofthe operations carried
on by the Spaniards in the western pro-
vinces is quite different from the tactics
in the country beyond the eastern trocha.
In the west, Sprnish columns Of any size
move about with freedom, and are never
seriously attacked, but merely harassed
by dropping firefrom the hill-tops as
long as they remain on the great high
ways, which they invariably do. But be-
yond the trocha in Free Cuba, for the
last six months, there has not been an
operation or a movement from the Span
ish side which was not directly connect
ed with the now long sustained and most
exhausting effort to revictual the interior
garrisons which are being maintained at
such cost.
A PART OF THE PROCLAMATION.
"That all the inhabitants of the country
districts, or those who reside outside the
lines of Notifications of the towns, shall
within a delay of eight days enter the
towns which are occupied by the troops.
Any individual found outside the lines in
the country at the expiration of this
period shall be considered rebel and
Shall be dealt with as such.''
In obedience to these proclamations,
and at the very point of the matchete,
some fifty thousand Pacifcos have been
herded into the various stations selected
for that purpose in the province of Pinar
del Rio alone. There are ten thousand
in Mariel, five thousand in Guanajay, six
thousand in Artimisa, eight thousand in
San Cristobal, five thousand in Consola-
cion, and three thousand in the town Of
Pinar del Rio. From Artimisa to Pinar
del Rio, along the line of the Western
Railway, where perhaps thirty of the fifty
thousand Reconcentrados were station
ed, there have occurred, since the be-
ginning of December to the lst of April,
six thousand deaths, or aboat one-fifth of
the whole number. The deaths have
been occasioned principally by smallpox
and by starvation fever, calentura del
hambre as they callit, while dysentery,
yellow fever and tyyhus have done their
share