The Chilhowee echo. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1899-19??, 1899-12-02
A CUBAN WAR INCIDENT.
MoTAT.

kYE1 HE San Luis Valley is one of
SSc &V the most beautiful and most
@.0M fertile in all Cuba. From La
Barrall, near the Caribbean
shore on the South, to the base of the
Sierra del Cobre on the North, and
from the river San Juan on the West,
to La Bocas and beyond on the East, it
is a region of surprising fertility and
tropical beauty In the palmy, prosper
Gus days before the ten years war the
valley was veritable Garden Bounti-
full, and the smoke curled skyward from
the tall stacks of numerous sugar mills
which converted the fields of emerald
cane into sugar and brought many pesos
: e theic aWnars ---Rat ten years of gnerz
lila warfare wrought great havoc in the
valley. The sugar mills were in ruins;
the fields of cane were burned; the cof-
fee trees of the cafatales were destroyed;
the cattle were killed, and many fami-
lies were left homeless and penniless.
Though that war ended more than
twenty years ago the valley has not re-
covered from it's devastating Influences;
ruined mills like huge skeletons, de-
serted homes and desolate mansions
which once rang with music and laugh
ter stand here and there in their pecu-
liar grandeur of decay, monuments of
past glory and of wars decadent touches.
OF forty-four sugar estates in this valley
only four are now in cultivation, and
only one sugar mill in operation, the
other estates being merely "colonias"
of the mill known as La Central, owned
and operated by Americans. This es-
tate embraces many hundred acres lying
along the river Maniti and its affluent,
the River de Ay, and stretching away
toward the mountains beyond Magua
and Buena Vista.
The valley of San Luis was the theatre
of many insurgent raids and sharp en-
counters between the Cuban rebels
and the Spanish soldiers in the late
war. Many efforts were made by the
insurgents to destroy La Central, but as
often were they thwarted, for the place
was we'll guarded.
Pedro MARITIME had served with dis
tinction as an officer in the Spanish
army, but in an evil hour he became
involved in transaction which forced
his resignation. He left Spain and
went to Cuba, where he became Cad
ministrador" of La Central sugar estate,
where his ability and energy won the
confidence of his employers, who highly
valued his services, but among the dark
skinned wielders of the machete he bore
the reputation of hard task-master.
A Spaniard by birth and education, he
had no sympathy for the native Cubans
who sought to free their island from
Spanish rule, and he was one of the
most alert and active defenders of the
plantation against the repeated at
tempts Of the insurgents to burn the
fields of cane and valuable sugar plant
which stood on the green banks of the
Maniti. Old Pedro had a son, Ramon,
a young man who was the idol of his
heart, and in whom was centered all his
hopes. Great was the fathers grief
when one day it became known to him
that his son had joined an iusurgeni
band which had headquarters in the
mountains beyond Palavieja. He raved
and swore, beat his breast and wept
and his grief was pleasure to many O.
the cane-cutters and the oxen-drivers
and the mill hands. But Pedro's sor
row was turned to joy when one day
Ramon rode into La Central and begged
his fathers forgiveness, coupled with