The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-07-22


service. Here a great guajiro or Crack
En-" with a beard ike a thicket bare
footed and riding a straw saddle. Next a
little boy of u or 10, naked to the waist.
but with a big rife on his pommel and a
proud look in his eyes. Then a huge ne
gro, stark naked except for his breech-
clout of rags Great Cod What a force
with which to have bafied Spain so long!
Not one man in a hundred with a whole
suit of clothes-ail torn and worn, with
stomachs swollen from long subsistence
on green fruit; YET men and. boys who
could ride forty miles after three days
without food and go on picket duty imme-
diately after with the utmost alacrity and
cheerfulness
And when the outlying brigades and reg
iments began TO come in! Colonels, lieu
tenant cO,onels and majors with the rem
nants of uniforms torn and patched; young
men with fine, open faces, men of educa-
ton and society doctors, lawyers engin-
GERS, former residents of cities, who with
a smile spoke of their privations-how they
had lived on green mangOes-which arc
worse than green peaches and taste OF
turpentine-paim nuts, horses mules don
keys, snakes! No complaints. They joked
about il, felt in their pockets for little
picadura, rolled it into cigarettes with the
inner leaf of the palm for paper, shrugged
their shoulders and smiled. Many of the
starving men before the green fruit came.
and they had left from one to seven car
tridges In their belts
But there came the worst spectacle Of
all, the remnant of a negro regiment Of
infantry commanded once by Jose AIaceO
eighteen months dead. These men were
without hats or shoes and many of them
had only a rag about their loins. They
had made a forced march of sixty miles
in obedience to the summons, over fearful
roads, but with wonderful hardihood took
up their camp duties Immediately, without
rest or food. Naked but with rifles and
cartridge boxes. 1 noted one whose rifle
had worn great sore on his shoulder and
his cartridge box another on his hip. An
other, a mulatto who had returned from
New York to fight at the beginning of the
war, had been two years without hat or
shoes. He had come all the way from
Havana province, 400 miles, to so on with
the fighting.
Remember, that these were all men to
whom Spain had offered terms-amnesty,
food, positions in her army-if they would
content themselves with autonomy and
give up their struggle for independence.
We at home speak with pride of Marion
and his men; let not withhold our need
of justice to the Cubans of all classes who
have undergone in the same cause of lib
erty sufferings tenfold as great, and con-
tinued in two wars, for thirteen years
Oh, 1t was a pleasant thing 10 see them
get square meal out of Uncle Sans tins
of corn and beef, and it was as pleasant
to see them this morning putting over
their burned backs the brown canvas
blouses which came from the same kind
hand!
And the women. We have seen two
families here, of the guajiro or small far
mer type. The first came in the evening
OF our arrival, out of their hiding in the
swamps, and were cared for. Next day
old Maxine Gomez looked after them at
his own tent awning. They would have
been good looking in health but were an
aemic from disease and starvation, spotted
with the marks of boils With some
brother officers l took coffee Yesterday
with some of the better class, who for
years had been living in the woods 10
AVOID the Spaniards. One of the girls was
very pretty, with fine blue eyes and an
irish type of face. Blue eyes are plenh-
ful in Camaguay, where the original set
uers We're mainly from the north of Spain.
These ladies sat in the shade of a palm
shack on the bundles of clothing and
bedding which We're all their belongings.
Smoked and dried jutias-and animal PEE
GUITAR TO Cuba and closely resembling a
DIG muskrat-hung on the poles and re-
Vealed their previous means of subsist-
enee. Coffee was served to the guests
one by one in the single cup of the family
after it had been boiled in an old can. We
sat about and smoked and listened to a
young surgeon of the army-who had rid
den his fifty miles with a case of paludlc
malaria) fever on him TO our campbell
Of his devices TO cure the sick and wound
ed without the aid of store" (drugs) He
was Habanero, this DIR. Duque and he
was peculating as to what ne could have
when he got back TO civilization" IT
think l will take a long drink of cool GER
vega" he said, of cold, foaming lager
beer"