The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-03-24
IN VERY DISTRESSFUL CUBA

Continued from Ninth Page.)
 within her knowledge have died this
 week for want of milk. It is impossi- ble to send too many boxes of it-bales,
 carloads, shiploads of it. If there were plenty of condensed milk now in Cuba and people to feed it judiciously to the sick and starving, the death rate would be lessened fully eighty per cent
 Last Saturday I accompanied the
 senatorial commission and the Red Cross family to Matanzas, to investi-
 gate the condition of affairs in that
 once fiourishing city of perhaps thirty
 five thousand inhabitants. First the three mile carriage ride from our su-
 burb, "the Cerro," to the ferry on the
 other side of Havana. Then nasty almuerzo of bread and chocolate in the water-side cafe la Luz. Then across the bay in the crowded boat, mixed up with ehattering Spaniards and Cubans, soldiers, servants and donkey-carts;
 past the melancholy wreck of the
 Maine" and the Montgomery" lately arrived, and Spain's war vessel "Al-
 phonso xII"-to the long rows of now
 empty sugar warehouses on the Regla
 side. And there three hours railway
 ride to Matanzas, capital of the ad- joining province of the same name.
 Everybody was somewhat uneasy that
 morning, and with considerable reason,
 Rumors were rife of insurgents near by o,,I y,i, ,+es of a 1nY I of soldiers fresh from Spain,l going to
 some station in the interior, increased the danger far more than it gave pro- lection. Accidents" are frequent along this line-obstructions placed on the track. bombs thrown upon the train, shots fired through the cars.
 My previous journey over the same
 road-when bound for sugar planta- tion forty miles beyond Cardenas-led
 me to believe the assertion of my Cu-
 ban friends that I am "mascotte." |"
 The day before, an exploding bomb
 killed one passenger and injured seve- ral; on the day of my return q train on another branch of the road was wrecked, and the day after three pas senger cars were pitched down into an arroyo. Every train that passes this way has it's strong guard of soldiers in an iron-clad car attached-a cattle-car covered with iron plates, in which are loop-holes for guns; each soldier stand ing at his gun, ready for instant ac- ton. On the day of our journey to
 Matanzas, burning cane-felds on eith- CT side told that the insurgents were not inactive nor far away At one
 time we counted seven fires within the range of vision. But we were also as sured that the rebels, whose secret sympathizers are in every house throughout the land, are all posted in all that is going on; and that the pres ence of so many Americans their sup posed friends), rendered the train safe | from attack. On the other hand, it
 was asserted that the greatest danger would come from Spanish treachery, | that soldiers in the forts might have l orders to fire at the hated Americans especially as out-spoken Senator Gall | lagher was of the party-and the action afterward attributed to the insurgents, l as so many Spanish atrocities have beep. But nothing happened. Tn per- 1 feet safety we persued the even tenor 1 of our way and arrived in due time at 1 Matanzas. The ladies of the congress sional party did not venture to make 1 the trip. There were Senators Money, Gallager and Smith, Representative | Amos c. Cummings, Editor Klopsch of | the Christian Herald---he who has | agreed to furnish the magnificent sum of ten thousand dollars month for | q he tn from the Christian Endeavorers of the United States; besides several secreta-
 ries, two photographers and the usual | contingent of reporters; the Red Cross | party included Miss Barton, five mem- i bers of her staff and her humble friend, ! your correspondent.
 | Matanzas is one of the oldest and l quaintest cities of Cuba, and before l the war was one of the wealthiest, but l is now most woefully down at the | heel Four centuries ago a populous Indian village, named Yucayo, occupied i the same delightful situation, between | the two rivers, with broad bay in front as blue as the sky above 1t, en- amphitheater. History tells us how in l lVoo I1oii IhduZdlfeud puTCHdSeQ one i hundred and fifty acres of land from
 King Carlos IT., including the then de- | serted Yucayo, whose original inhabi- | tants had long since been killed or en- 1 shaved by the thrifty Spaniards The new owner immediately settled there- on a colony of Canary Islanders, which perhaps accounts for the pecu- liar yellowish brown complexion of the l inhabitants of to-day The founding
 of Matanzas was completed with an I expedition unique in Cuban affairs and worthy of the builders of Chicago The Canary colonists arrived on Satur- l day afternoon in October The next morning Bishop Compospilla assem- | bled them and with mass and ceremony l solemnly changed the heather name of
 the place to san Carlosy San Se- l verino." On Monday, the third day
 the corner stone of the cathedral was
 laid and the site marked out for cas- i tie and fortress, the ruins of which still remain. The colonists were after
 wards given a considerable space in the I adjacent Yumuri valley for a cattle range, and for many years devoted l themselves to the raising of cattle for
 beef. Hence. in time, the place be-
 came known ts "El Metanzas de San
 Carlos y San Severino''-Matanzas
 meaning slaughter pen; but the name