The Republican., 1899-04-06

creatures will haunt me forever. |
saw her in Los Fossos, Havana's re
concentrado pen of nameless horrors,
She was young, probably about 90,
and must have been exceedingly |
beautiful a short time before; but her /
emaciated face already wore the
strange majesty of death and only a
slight fiuttering of the breast showed
that life yet fingered. Lying all
around were what looked like heaps
Of rags, hundreds of them-each a
human being, young or old, living or
dead. Such a sight. All were vic
:; Of starvation. Bones appeared
fo6 aje pricking through the skin;
deep sores covered them; feet and
limbs were swollen out Of senblance
of human members, puffed like bags
and cracked in places with water ooz-
ing out-scurvy and dropsy from
long continued hunger, the blood
haying actually turned to water
Amid such surroundings lay this
girl, who had manifestly been deli
cately bred, having been picked up
unconscious in the street the day be-
fore and carried to Los Fossos by the
Spanish police. While stood beside
her, wondering where were her
friends, where the loving hands that
once caressed that wealth Of shining
hair-the breast ceased to move and
kindly Death released the suffering
soul. Persistent inquiry revealed a
glimpse of her history. She was the
daughter of well-to-do planter in
the adjoining province, betrothed to
captain in the iusurgent army.
When father, brother and lover were
away in the field, a troop Of Spanish
soldiers arrived one day, burned the
house, murdered the mother and
younger children, and kept this girl
a prisoner at their mercy. In the
night she strangled the brutal lieu
tenant who held her in his tent, man
aged to elude the guard by creeping
on her hands and knees through the
underbrush, and thus escaped. Hid
ing by day and wandering by night,
hopeless, hungry, half craZed by grief
and fear, she finally reached Habana
/ and the merciful end Of a grave in the
reconcentrado corner of the great
4 Cemetery where our Maine boys lie,
amid the gruesome collection Of un-
cof1lned bones Of more than 10000
other unfOrtunates.
Nearly all the officers under Gomez
had their wives with them in the field
because they dared not leave them at
home. Antonio Maceo also had more
than hundred females in his regi
ment-not coarse and shameless
Amazons, who chose the wild life fOl
the love of adventure, but mostly hon
est wives and mothers. They dressed il
masculine attire, carried Mauser rifles
and machets, marched with the men
endured all the hardships Of camI
and field and made as intrepid anC
accomplishing soldier as any.
1 Among many well authenticated
stories, space forbids the telling o
but two or three. One of the mos
romatic incidents of the war was {
marriage cermOny, performed a
dawn in the mountains of Puerto
Principe. The groom was Captain
Robau, a handsome, well educated
and once wealthy young planter; tn,
bride, the runaway daughter of on
of his tenants Robeau had Ions
loved the young lady, but as she wa
in humble circumstances the rigi(
!. rules of Cuban etiquette kept then
apart. AT the beginning of the wa
i neighborhood, composed entirely 0
his personal friends, all well-breI
: young men. When they started TO
r the field-their horses tails braide
/ with ribbons, each man wearing
) wreath of palm around his hat in hon
? or of the Captains sweetheart, the
rode direct to the girls house an
saluted her as she stood on the ba
cony with her mother. Robeau wen
! inside and asked that he might MARI
g her at once and take her with hin
v fearing that some evil might BETA
her in his absense. The parents re
e fused, and he rode away broker
S hearted. Two days later when tn
: company had gone many miles, tn
e girl, mounted on horse, dashed t
t the Captains side. She had run ava
e from home in order to join her loYe
!. Without an hours delay Robeau SCI
t two men with an extra horse and a
n empty saddle, to fetch the neare'
! priest. The good padre, mutterin
II Ave Marias all the way, expecting
J. be killed, arrived with his escort jul
T. as dawn was breaking in the Eas
:. So the young people were marie,
If Sonora Robeau followed her husban
d all through the war, and now, wit
5, her little boy, is at home on the R