The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-05-24

l ruff1ed beds, and senoritas idling be-
 hind the window bars. Another odd
 thing is that the shabby little depots
 are provided with the low, swinging
 doors of stained glass, set in patchwork
 patterns, which form such distinctive
 and highly ornamental feature of Gu
 ban casas of the better class-beauti-
 ful to look, but much too frail, one
 would think, for everyday hard usage in
 public places
 Catalina shows the ravages of war
 much more plainly than the larger cit | ies, having had, until now, no outside
 assistance. It Is typical interior
 town, and one of the cleanest I ever
 saw. Its low houses of unplaned boards l set close together in struggling rows. are whitewashed inside and out, and
 each is faced by rude veranda. The
 streets, with grass and weeds growing
 thickly among the stones, have broad,
 deep pitch along each side The veran- | das come up even with the ditches, and
 each house-door is reached by large,
 flat stone, or plank, which answers to | the drawbrldge across a moat. Streets
 and verandas are swept scrupulously
 clean, though chickens wander in and out at will, and occasionally fat, black mother-pig leads her interesting | family across the bridge to pay so- cial visit. The terra cotta colored earth 1 is a brighter red than the sacred soil' of Virginia, and the empty, grass
 grown streets sometimes remind ore of down-at-heel old Alexandria. near Washington, D. c. Three years ago Catalania had something over 5000 in-
 habitants and to-day has barely 1900.
 This calculation does not include the re-
 concentrate influx, but reckons only the normal population. Where are the rest,
 do you ask? Gone to glory, my friend,
 by the slow but sure route of starva-
 tion, assisted for a time by smallpox. During the latter scourge the authori- ties thought to stay it's ravages by com pulsory inoculation; with the result that hundreds of poor creatures'died of it, being too feeble to endure vaccina- tion.
 The quaint old village church, with it's stone stairs leading up to deapi- dated tower full of rusty bells, is in a
 more deplorable state than most of its neighbors, having longer stabled the Spanish horses. The interior is total wreck, floors entirely gone and altars broken into kindling-wood Of all it's sacred belongings, but one thing is left "a painting of the Virgin and Child, placed too high upon the wall to be cas- fly reached; and as we entered the drea- ny ruin ray of sunlight from the open door illumned the infant Christ as with a halo--an omen, let us hope, of bles- sings to come. From among the debris of human bones, bits of harness and broken horse"shoes scattered under foot, I picked up a skull-evidently that of a half-grown youth, one side gone cut smoothly off by a sabre or machete stroke.
 Later we walked down the weedy road to the Campo Santo, at the edge of the village. It is tiny Gods acre, with walls of plastered stone and larger and later annex fenced with split palm trunks set upright in the red earth. row of black vutures, perched above the arched gateway, gazed at us with spec ulative eyes, but did not stir, having probably made too many hearty meals on the human species not to regard them with favor. The gate to this poor little Field of Saints" was tied with bit of rope, and it's red soil. without a blade of grass or green thing growing, has been rounded up into regular mounds. It was swept as clean as all the rest of the village, barring an occasional scat tered rib or marrow-bone. There are a few rather pretentious graves, each sur mounted by a glass-faced box containing the hideous wreaths of black and white beads which find such favor in the eyes of mourning Spanish Other graves were marked by black-painted wooden crosses but the great majority had only two sticks, tied together cruci- form fashion, laid on top or stuck in the earth at the head. Vagrant breezes and passing footsteps soon disarranged this symbol of the Christians hope, which some stricken heart has placed above its beloved dead; and though the emblem means personally. little to me, I have hundreds of times stopped to re- place it and tie the cross-piece more se- curely.
 The alcaldi, or village mayor, who &C., companied us to the cemetery, pointed out two rough boxes, one long, the other shorter-whch stand on end inside the gateway--and remarked that in them more than six thousand of his friends and neighbors had been brought to their eternal rest within three years. Out among the weeds of an unfenced field, few rods away, stood heavy, two- wheeled ox-cart huge tongue high in air the village hearse, in which the six thousand had taken their last short jour- ney. Across one corner of the cemetery second wall is placed, enclosing a tri- angular space. which is filled to the brim with human bones, partially burned, but by no means reduced to dust. In front of this was the most ghastly sight of all--a fresh lot of mis- cellaneous bones, skulls coffin-boards, shrouds, shoes, ct cetera, lately evicted from rented graves and made ready for the semi-annual burning. Many of the skulls had hair clngng to them. One, noticed, was thin and gray, as of an old man; another was almost a chestnut brown; and on top of the heap close by the trunk of a body still wrapped in a half-decayed blanket, lay mass of shining jet-black hair loosened from the | head to which it had belonged. but yet l confined in coil by rusty pins. To us it | seems strange indeed that our Spanish | American neighbors attach so little sa- credness to the "earthly tenement after the soul has left it. As may readily be | mi q oined Dr IJuhbe1l md !, ie i.+o oy,te