The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1898-12-25
PEACE BRINGS PLENTY
Pinar Del Rio Not PeopIed by
Brigands.
WELCOME TO AMERICANS
What General Davis Found on
His Tour to the West.

Correspondence OF the Associated Press')
Plnar Del Rio, Dec I9.-The reconstruc-
tim If this great tobacco raising, sugar
growing province has begun. Absolute
peace exists. and the people are at work
General Davis, before he left Havana, was
toId that brigands would probably overrun
the province; that petty dictators were
taxing the villages; that insurgents had
occunied the towns and would not yield
paramount authority to the Americans,
and that he would be infinitely vexed by
obstacles in every step toward the restor-
alton of civil order among restless peo-
pie.
When General Davis with his staff a
battalion of the 9G2d New York and a sig
nal corps company. reached the borders OF
the province in the journey by train from
Havana. they were received at Santiago
lie Las Vegas by a colonel and 15G Cuban
horsemen. aligned near the station. After
terward behind them were 125 young Cuban
women on horseback. Around and behind
this cavaIcade townspeople gathered,
troops of children with flowers and small
Cuban and American flags. As General
Davis and his staff appeared on the plat
form there was q passionate burst OF
..Vlvas." and bare machetes flashed in the
medley of colors. The cheering was so
prolonged and genuine that the Americans
were moved by it. The colonel placed him.
se.f and his men at General Davis dis
posaL The alcade of the town made an
address. The general, who knows some
conversational Spanish, but not enough
for a public speech, said through an in
terpreter that the Cuban people had been
through great trials and sufferings, and
that the Americans were there to aid in
securing their liberty.
Surgeon Major w. L. Kneedler had be-
come separated in the crowd from General
Davis, an done Of a committee Of priests
began to read him an address of welcome,
thinking the doctor was the general. Major
Kneedier, who al first did not perceive the
drift Of the address. was unable to find
an opening to stop the padre before the
welcome had been concluded.
The doctor then. through a Cuban, who
could speak Spanish, said that as one of
the Americans with General Davis he re-
garded the Cubans as men and brethren.
and that in all his travels he had not been
in so fine a country. The Americans then
swept on through wide spaces of deserted
country. From the train they could see
occasionally the blackened walls and tail
chimneys of ruined sugar centrales.
At each of the towns the senior Cuban
officer made known his allegiance to the
proposed order of things under the Ameri-
can protectorate.
Pinar. Del Rio city gave reception as
enthusiastic as that given at Santiago de
Las Vegas The Cuban commander turned
over the municipal and provincial be,ong-
ings. General Davis has communicated by
letter or by messenger with the important
towns in the province Not an incident
of brigandage or of injury to personal
rights has been reported. The most flag
rant crime has been the disappearance of
some chickens. The Spanish residents.
some of whom are the well-to-do men of
the city, had lived in the interior between
Spanish evacuation and American occupa-
ton unharmed.
The people near Pinar have torn wire
from the trocha and have enclosed yards
and fields with it. The principal store
keeper has painted advertisements on two
of the forts.
The town is well fed on chickens, fresh
beef, fruit and vegetables. The country
is exhausted. but the revivificatior has
begun. Palm huts are building on wasted
farms. The country people are now living
chiefly on radishes. sweet potatoes. sugar
zane and chicken or quail shot or trapped
in the thickets.
Pinar del Rio city has many pretty
houses. The population was 1900 Of
which number 1000 have been buried. The
women are all in black.
Following General Davis instructions.
the American officers and privatas are
careful to return the salutes OF the Gu
ban soldiers, who, armed and unarmeo,
are coming and going all the time
They suhsist largely on gifts OF food.
Some. forced by necessity have sold their
rifles. Mausers captured from the Span
isrds are selling for s. or s.. In Havana