hopeless, Cespedes, with the consent of the inhabitants, set the city on fire, rather than see it fall into the hands of the enemy. An awful massacre ensued, in which the Spanish soldiers spared neither man, woman, nor child. On the other hand, the rebels, it must be confessed, were guilty of the most horrible atrocities. In vain did Cespedes and his lieutenant, Ignacio Agramonte, implore their followers to remember that those who fought for liberty and progress must set the example of mercy. The rebel bands were not men like unto their leaders, gently born and carefully educated, but a horde gathered together out of every social class and every race, indeed, for thousands of plantation hands had fled their burning hovels, and taken up arms in a cause which they believed would lead them to liberty. Words fail to describe the scenes of horror which ensued. The dogs of war were let loose upon the unhappy island. Up and down it, from one end to the other, the plantations flamed. Towns and villages were laid in ruins, and to add to the terrors of the situation, famine and pestilence stalked the land, even as at the present moment. Hundreds of young Cubans, suspected of favouring the revolution, were arrested on the most flimsy pretexts. A jest, the wearing of a certain coloured flower, the whistling of a popular tune, were sufficient to work a man's ruin. The prisoners were shot in dozens, and shipped off by hundreds into penal servitude. By the end of 1868, the Spanish garrison consisted of not less than 80,000 men, all well armed, and whose officers, in their mad desire to stamp out the rebellion which had now assumed formidable proportions, laid no restraint on their subordinates' licence. In April of the following year a proclamation was issued by the Spanish Commander-in-Chief at Bayamo, which decreed that any individual over fifteen years of age found beyond the limits of his property and unable to give an account of himself, should be forthwith shot. All deserted houses, or all houses over which a white flag of truce did not float, in sign of peace and devotion to the Government, were to be immediately reduced to ashes. This order only increased the horrors of the situation. Scores of planters who were ignorant of its existence, and who were going peaceably on business intent between their plantations and the neighbouring towns, were shot by the soldiers, who were only too delighted to display their zeal and rob their victims, and hundreds of houses were pillaged.