The San Francisco call., 1898-12-25
PREVAILS
 IN P|NAR DEL RID Reconstruction of the
 Province. GENERAL DAVIS WELCOMED
GENERAL DAVIS WELCOMED
PATRIOTISM DISPLAYED BY THE
 CUBANS.
Great Demonstration of Insurgents, Women and Children Upon the Arrival of the American
 Force.
Correspondence of the Associated Press.

PINAR DEL RIO, Dec. 19.-The re- construction of this great tobacco raising, sugar-growing province has begun. Absolute peace exists, and the people are at work. General Davis, be- fore he left for Havana, was told that brigands probably would overrun the province; that petty dictators were taxing the villages; that insurgents had occupied the towns and would not yield paramount authority to the Americans, and that he would be in finitely vexed by obstacles in every step of restoration of civil order among a restless people.
 When General Davis, with his staff, battalion of the Two Hundred and Second New York Regiment and a sig nal corps company, reached the bor- ders of the province in the journey by train from Havana they were received at Santiago de las Vegas by colonel and 150 Cuban horsemen, aligned near the station. Afterward, behind them, were 125 young Cuban women on horse- back. Around and behind this caval- cade townspeople gathered, shaggy haired old men, women in black, troops of children with flowers and small Gu ban and American flags. AS General Davis and his staff appeared on the platform there was a passionate burst of "Vivas" 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. self and his men at General Davis dis posal. The Alealde of the town made an address. The general, who knows some conversational Spanish, but not enough for a public speech. said, through an interpreter, that the Cuban people had been through great trials and .sufferings and that the Americans were there to aid in securing their lib- erty.
 Surgeon Major J. J. Kneedler had be- come separated in the crowd from Gen. eral Davis and one of a committee of priests began to read him an address of welcome, thinking the doctor was the general. Major Kneedler, who at 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, through a Cuban, who could speak English and Spanish, said that as one of the American ships with General Davis he regarded 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 tall chimney of a ruined sugar centrale At each of the towns the senior Cuban officer made known his allegiance to the proposed order of things under the American protectorate.
 Pinar del Rio City gave a reception as enthusiastic as that given at Santi- ago de las Vegas. The Cuban com mander turned over the municipal and provincial belongings. General Davis has communicated by letter or by mes senger with the important towns in the province. Not an incident of brigand- age or injury to personal rights has resulted. The most fragrant crime has been the disappearance of some chick ens 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 oc- cupation unharmed.
 The people near Pinar have torn the wire from the troche and have inclosed yards and fields with it. The principal storekeeper has painted advertisements on two of the forts.
 The town is well fed on chickens. fresh beef, fruit and vegetables The