The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1899-05-11
the world is seen but that of Spain; and

| JIG Woilu Is Socu OuU tu&U OF Sp3lDs ana
outlining all, the ocean.
Here we were halted by other sentinels
and requested to stay while our passes
were sent forward to be approved by the
officers of the day. While waiting, we
turned into wide, canon-like passage,
formed by thrty-foot high walls of pink
growing along the middle Tread softly
for this is hallowed ground At glance
none can fail to recognize the gruesome
place Breast high, on both sides, the
walls are peppered with small, circular
indentations, and the grass beneath is
startlingly rank and green-watered by the
blood of martyrs. Here thousands upon
| thousands of men, whose crime was love
| of liberty, have met death-ther faces to
the walls, the firing squad with their
backs against the trees. "The dead
is called, is unmstakable, not only on both
sides of this long passage, but in
| others that diverge from it, and particu-
| larly in a small square known as Gel
/ Patio de los Muertas Court of the
Dead. They must have been excellent
marksmen, those Spanish soldiers. The
line of bullet holes is almost exactly a
| foot wide with hardly struggling mark.
At any rate, none brought to execution
lived to tell the manner of it. Tradition
says that when the first volley failed to
kill, the ever ready machete, OF bayonet,
made shambles of the place.
Presently permission to proceed came
| from the commander, together with
young soldier, who had been detailed as
guard not of ourselves, where no
danger threatened, but tocheck any curio-
acquiring propensities we might be prone
t indulge During the next two hours
that youthful defender of Uncle Sam kept
us on double quick" Preferring the
pleasures of cantina off duty, he trotted us
hither and yon, above and below, through
darksome dungeons and among ancient
guns, with a speed that made us dizzy, re-
turning an ntlexibe "Don know, ma am
to every query. Therefore the intrica-
cies of the great prison. viewed on the
run, recur to the mind as an endless laby-
rinth of cells and corridors, tunnels and
himself, to be found no more till the res
direction morning. There are enormous
vaulted chambers cut out of solid rock,
some in total darkness, others pierced by
feeble rays of light from small holes near
the top; cells without cells, far under
ground, and subterranean passages, leading
tod knows where. All the larger prison
rooms have rows of rings driven into the
walls all around at regular intervals, and
double rows of gibbet-lfk frame work
extending down the middle--the latter
forming two long benches of solid wood.
with beams five feet above them. and
from rings and beams heavy iron chains
are suspended. Here, we are told, prs-
oners yet announcement We're confined
those who were merely suspected of hos
tility to Spain, and held for examination
alternately chained to the benches by
day and to the walls by night-let us hope
with sufficient length Of chain to permit
the victims to lie down on the stone fl DOT.
Some of the inner cells dark as Erebus,
are hardly wide as grave; and in each
single short chain, riveted in tie clammy
stone tells its own sad story.
Uppermost in the minds of the beholder
is the thought, had these old walls ton
tongue? Over the portals of this awful pris-
on might well be inscribed, IAN hope aban-
don, We who enter here" 1t is a matter
of history that thousands of Cuban citi
zens met with mysterious deaths within
the walls of Cabanas. Suspected of sym
pathy with Cuba libre, they We're arrest
ed on the most trivial charges, often on no
charges at all, brought here, and never
heard of again. There is no doubt that
besides open executions, secret, bat au
thorized. murders were of frequent occur
ence The few prisoners who remained
to be released by Americans when the
war was over told blood curdling tales of
horror and despair. They said every night
each man was chained to his place against
the walls, and often in the morning some
comrades We're missing. Among themsel-
in the silent watches of the night, clapped
his hand over the mouth of the doomed
man, cut his throat or stabbed him to the
heart and dragged him forth. | have
talked with one of these lately liberated
prisoners, who is now living in the hotel
Roma-an educated man, under thirty,
whose hair is now white as snow. He