rities more or less serious trouble, leading them at
times to make serious attempts at their entire suppression. But the
mountains and half-inaccessible forests of the eastern department
still serve to secrete many armed and disaffected people, whose
frequent outbreaks are made public by the slow process of oral
information. The press is forbidden to publish any news of this
character. Thus it will be seen that, although the spirit of liberty
may slumber in the island, it is by no means dead, nor is the intense
hatred which exists between the home-born Spaniard and the native
Cuban growing less from year to year. Indeed, the insurrection of
Trinidad and Cienfuegos (1868) still smoulders, and any extreme
political exigency would be liable to cause it to blaze forth with
renewed force. The region where the insurgents have always made their
rendezvous, and which they have virtually held for years, is nearest
to Guantanamo and Santiago. This mountainous district is the resort of
all runaway slaves, escaped criminals, and those designated as
insurgents. These together form at the present time a roving community
of several hundred desperate men. These refugees, divided into small
bands, make predatory raids upon travelers and loyal planters, as we
have described, to keep themselves supplied with the necessities of
life other than those afforded by the prolific hand of Nature.
Occasionally they are organized by some fresh leader, some daring
native, stimulated by a spirit of patriotism, and possessing some
executive ability; then follows a systematic outbreak of just
sufficient importance to harass the government, and to form, perhaps,
an excuse for demanding a fresh regiment of victims from the European
peninsula. Such a guerrilla contest engages the worst passions of the
combatants, and quarter is neither asked nor given when they come face
to face. The bloodthirsty acts of both sides, as related to the author
during his late visit to the spot, are too horrible to record in these
pages. It is not legitimate warfare, but rather wholesale murder,
which characterizes these occasions, and there is no expedient of
destruction not resorted to by both the refugees and the pursuing
soldiers. The nature of the country favors the revolutionists, and
determines their mode of conflict. Thus far, when the irregular bands
have been strong enough to meet these detachments of regulars sent
into their neighborhood to capture them, they have n