rable scene, General Wood telegraphed to the President
of the United States:

"I have the honor to report that, in compliance with instructions
received, I have this day, at 12 o'clock sharp, transferred to the
President and Congress of the Republic of Cuba the government and
control of the island, to be held and exercised by them under the
provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba."

One other incident remained. As soon as the brief ceremony with the
palace was completed, the American flag was hauled down from that and
all other public buildings and the Cuban flag was raised in its place.
It is not known whether the American Senator who had predicted that
"That Flag will never be hauled down!" was there to see the sight.
Certain it is that the people of Cuba were almost--and most
pardonably--wild with joy to see their own beautiful emblem at last
float in token of sovereignty over their island's capital. The Cuban
flag flying over the Palace and over the Morro Castle was the supreme
consummation of their patriotic dreams and visions.

[Illustration: FLAG OF CUBA]

The red, white and blue flag of Cuba, though then first raised in
unchallenged sovereignty, was then by no means a new thing. It was
already more than half a century old, and had been the guidon of brave
men in three bloody wars. It was designed by the first great Cuban
revolutionist, Narciso Lopez, and by his comrade, Miguel Teurbe Tolon,
of Matanzas, a gifted poet and ardent patriot, and it was first
displayed by Lopez in his raid upon and capture of the city of Cardenas,
on May 19, 1850. The five bars, alternately blue and white, represented
the five provinces into which the island was at that time divided; the
red triangle represented the blood of patriots which was being shed in
the cause of liberty; and the white star was the star of Cuba's hope.
After the death of Lopez the flag disappeared. But when the Ten Years'
War began many flags of that same design were made, the workroom being
in a house on Warren Street in the City of New York, and thereafter it
remained familiar to every Cuban patriot.

[Illustration: COAT OF ARMS OF CUBA]

The coat of arms of the Republic of Cuba displays the colors of the
flag, and by their side the Royal Palm, perhaps the most notable of the
trees in Cuba. The tree springs from a grassy plain, at the back of
which is a mountain range; agriculture and mining being thus typified.
Across the top of the shi