. Flowers were thrown in great
profusion, and wild shouts went up from men, women, and children;
especially from children, as, in some way, they seemed to know that
a severance of their country from Spain meant more for them that
it did for the older people. The Cubans are of mixed races, though
they are not to be despised. Some have pure Castilian blood, some
are from other European countries, and some are of pure African
descent, many of the latter having once been in slavery; but many
of the Cubans proper are of a mixed blood, including the Spanish,
African, some Indian, and a general admixture of the people who
early settled in the American tropics. There do not seem to be
any race distinctions where Cubans alone are concerned. The African
and those of mixed blood mingle freely together; and in the insurgent
army officers of all ranks were chosen from the pure or mixed-blood
African as freely as from others. The Cuban colored people seem
to be exceptionally intelligent and energetic, and have a high
reputation as brave soldiers. The typical Cuban does not belong
to the coast cities, the inhabitants of which are more distinctly
Spanish, especially the dominant class. These cities did little
towards the insurrections, and their inhabitants, as a mass, can
claim little of the glory in making Cuba free or independent. Many
of the principal officers of the Cuban army were educated men, and
some were of a high order, capable of deeds, on the theatre of war,
worthy of the best soldiers of any age. When our war with Spain
broke out, the latter had over 200,000 regular soldiers, besides
volunteers, on the island, and the insurgent bands were few in
number, without good arms, with little ammunition and no quartermaster,
commissary, or pay department. Cuba had no permanently located
civil government, and the insurgents owned no ship on the seas,
nor did they possess a single coast city, or a harbor where supplies
could come to them from abroad. They having held the Spanish army
at bay for years, and often confined large parts of it, almost in
a state of siege, within cities and fortified lines, all circumstances
considered, forces us to conclude that talent, skill, endurance,
and bravery were possessed by the Cuban officers, and that the
ranks were filled with devoted soldiers. The insurrections were
of long duration (ten and four years), yet Spain, in 1898, had made
no substantial progress in suppressing the last