n in one year. You will say, Why
do not the people grow them? They have no bread to eat while they
labor, nor have they any oxen or mules,--horses are out of the
question and not suitable to till land here,--or seed, or implements,
or anything. They die in the midst of the most extraordinary
riches.

"Owners of much of the land in the interior districts, who have
survived, are as helpless as the poorest laborers.

"The exceptions are confined to remote little valleys, and mountain
places where the insurgents held constant control, and there too
they are poor, having in the past, and still, to maintain the Cuban
soldiers, regular and irregular.

"Only provisions for food for a short time and means to get animals,
farm implements, etc., will end the present conditions and put the
people of the island on the road to prosperity. Spasmodic issues
of army rations give only temporary relief and tend to encourage
idleness.

"Another race of people might come, but they could not soon get
titles to lands, if ever.

"There is no civil government here, not even in form. Gomez and
his insurgent followers are still in their mountain fastnesses,
and whatever of organizations they have are irregular, and military.
They are biding their time for something, not yet fully developed.

"Our government here is military, disguise it as we may. If it
were anything else, it would soon fail. All attempts at a
hermaphroditical government here must also fail, as it has everywhere.
It must be all American or all Cuban. The Spaniards here, though
they predominate in the principal cities, do not yet count as a
factor, although they are for annexation; this to save their estates
and for personal safety. Any attempts to build up a Cuban government
by the use of a few Cubans and Spaniards in Havana and other cities,
no matter what their character for intelligence and peaceableness
may be, must end in disaster, and a little later, in a wild repetition
of war and bloodshed. Those who organized and maintained, through
the dreadful years of the past, the insurrection against Spanish
power and suffered so much in their estates and families, are going
to have a say in the future control of this island, and if it is
to be annexed to the United States, they will have to be consulted
or a bloody guerilla war will ensue. They are now exhausted, and
tired and sick of war, but they are used to it, and familiar with
death, and already they are pre