"San Domingo is little more than a railroad station in times of peace, but at present it has a considerable population, living in cabins thatched with the tops of royal palm trees, composed of the survivors of the reconcentrados. The huts are arranged close together in a little clump, and the concentration order required and apparently still requires these people to live within a circle of small block houses, commonly dignified in the dispatches by the name of forts. They had no work to do, no soil to till, no seed to plant, and only begging to live on. I do not know the exact measure of the dead-line circle drawn around them, but there was certainly nothing within it upon which a human being could subsist. Practically they were prisoners. At every one of the numerous stopping places along the road a similar collection of huts could be seen, and at most of them beggars, often nice looking women and beautiful children, invaded the cars. Between the stations, although I traveled always by daylight, as the trains do not run at night, and I was observing as carefully as possible, I saw no signs of the reconcentrados going away from the forts. If they had gone, it takes seed, instruments, land, and three or four months to raise the vegetable which could be soonest produced, and nowhere away from the block houses was there any sign of vegetables growing. Near the larger towns the circle of concentration seemed to be somewhat larger, and some planting of vegetables, tobacco, etc., seemed to be going on. At this a very few persons, possibly some of the reconcentrados, found employment. DESERTED FIELDS AND FARMS. "All along the railroad, as far as could be seen, were stretches of the most fertile and beautiful country, with very few trees, even on the low mountains, and most of these royal palms. I saw many dozens of burned canefields, and one evening, going from Guines to Havana, saw the sky all lighted up along the road with fires, principally of the tall grass of the country, but partly of cane. The whole land was lying perfectly idle, except that I saw two or three or four sugar mills where cane was growing, but in all such instances the mill and cane were surrounded by forts, manned by soldiers, who are paid, I was told, by the owners. Except in the cities, I saw no indication that any relief whatever was being afforded to the starving people. Neither in Havana nor elsewhere did any priest, religious woman or other person seem to be paying any attention to the wants of the starving, except that at the Fossos, and some other places, charitable Cubans were nursing the sick. The Church, being a state institution, was, so far as I could see, leaving the victims without either bodily or spiritual relief. In fact, the general air of indifference to suffering which seemed to prevail everywhere was astonishing. A FEARFUL MORTALITY.