The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-09-25


j ing so far inland, had received no re-
lief for months. Upon this city Wey-
| lers, recommendation edict fell as heaV-
/ lily as upon any of the seacOast towns.
\ FiftyN thousand recOncentradOs were
/ gathered here i'll an area of five miles
surrounding the city, called the zone OF
/ cultivation. Fortunately. this was high
ground. Deaths harvest in Santa
Clara was much smaller than in Man
/ tanzaS or Cienfuegos. Spains sol
| dierS still dawdled through the
/ they seemed cheerful. They were pre-
! pairing to evacuate; and to every Span
ish soldier in Cuba the word evacuate
/ means home. We saw no SurlmeSS,
| from the conscript to the commandante
every man of Spanish blood seemed
delighted with that significant word
evacuation. Business was at stand
still, though business men were trying
to effect a rally. Americans. with large
interests in outlying estates, had ar
rived to look over their property.
Throughout the city we saw a surpris-
ing number of negroes. After a glimpse
of the black faces in the Cuban army
and look at the black faces in Santa
Clara, no one would have difficulty in
believing that a full half of the native
population of New Cuba is of African
descent. The negroes in Santa Clara
had drifted there from the sugar es-
tates in the outlying province. When
we learned that each of the large eS-
/ tateS in question used to employ from
1000 to 5000 negroes at a time, their
great number was not so surprising.
These Cuban negroes are mostly I'M
educated labOrers, untitled of course,
for holding government positions. Yet
many of them are growing OminOusly.
They did the fighting, and now that
independence has come, they want a
voice of their own in the law-making.
CubanS. however, laugh at the idea of
a negro problem" These niggers,"
said the Cubans in Santa Clara, will
go back to the cane fields and work
just as peacefully as ever
SPANIARDS WANT ANNEXATION.
Many of the estates, through perse-
cutiOn and confiscation, have fallen
into Spanish hands. The mere sugges-
RtiOn that Cubans may now govern
Cuba fills these S0aniards with terror.
Scores of them are in Santa Clara.
awaiting the issue-Cuban independ-
ence or annexation. And how they
pray for annexation This is one of the
many things Americans will have to
investigate in helping new Cuba Cap
ital Will not rush in hand. In the
south it was not until years after the
civil war that fortunes were made. In
Santa Clara the Cuban merchants I'M
y
They hken Cuba to an ill-used indi-
vidual, who has been rescued, by a
powerful friend, from persecution and
poverty, and told to go ahead and be-
gin life anew, with the promise of
every possible assistance from the
benefactor.
From Santa Clara to Santiago the
journey included the crossing of the
oft-described trocha- Once beyond this
mass OF barbed wire that formerly
marked the line between Spaiu's Cuba
and Cuba'S Cuba, we were practically
in jungle. The desert we had left
behind wast really a civilized country
compared to the country which we now
entered, this Cuba Libre which the in
surgents have held during the war.
Here, in the province of Puerto Prin-
cipe We're not only no. railroads, but no
roads for wheeled vehicles. Excepting
in the vicinity of the town of Puerto
Principe, there is no road over which
a carriage or wagon can pass. Here is
most important field for engineering
enterprise-the development of trans
portation facilities. What is now
known as the Royal Road is merely a
broad strip of country, sometimes
fenced by cactus and barbed wire, and
pasSabie only on horseback. Two days
of heavy rain practically stops traffic
in all directions. Here is a great OD-
portunity for building common roads.
There is plenty of stone for the pur-
pose. Such roads as now exist cross
rivers and streams by fordS, which are
impossible soon after the rains set in.
The necessity for bridges is great. Our
progress was uneVentful, monOtonOuS.
Heat and mosquitoes were the only en-
emieS encountered. In desperation,
we hurried on to the coast. through
miles and miles of virgin forest, where
the finest mahogany was in evidence,
where rich iron mines were merely in
dictated, to the valley of Guantanamo.
Here is the coffee district of Cuba.
The plantations were deserted, but not
in ruins. Coffee in great quantities
than ever will soon be raised here, just
as the cultivation of tobacco, in the
province of Pinar del Rio, west OF Ha-
vana. will soon again be a thriving in
duStry. 1t will take more than war to
deprive Cuba of her natural wealth.
Every foot of the ground over which
we journeyed is capable of cultivation,
and that without hard work There
were no untillable dechvities or rocky
areas as in Connecticut: no fields of
sandy land as in Florida. The islands
area is about equal to New York state,
and only 10 per cent of this resource
full area has ever been under cultiva-
ton.
At last we reached a hamlet, a place
of adobe houses only. All the inhabit-
ants were gone. But small patches OF
ground, here and there, were planted
with coffee, or sugar-cane or tobacco.
just like the dooryardS in the suburbs
of Havana. We knew now that we We're
nearing the end of our journey, for all
the people had left their dooryard
farms to go to Santiago City.
gibson WILLETS.