The administration of General Marin lasted only a few weeks, but it was marked with strenuous doings. His first effort was to do what Campos had failed to do, namely, to maintain an impassable barrier between Pinar del Rio and Havana. He massed troops on the line between Havana and Batabano, and took command himself at the centre, hoping to draw Maceo into a general engagement. But Maceo sent Perico Diaz with 1,400 men from Artemisia to create a diversion just north of the centre, which was done very effectively, Diaz and General Jil drawing a large Spanish force into a trap and inflicting terrible slaughter with a cavalry machete charge. Taking advantage of this, Maceo with a small detachment easily crossed the trocha at the south. At once the Spanish forces all rushed in that direction, to head off Maceo and to prevent him from joining Gomez, whereupon the remainder of Maceo's troops crossed the trocha at the centre and north. After raiding Havana Province at will, and capturing fresh supplies, Maceo returned to Pinar del Rio, fought and won a pitched battle at Paso Real, won another at Candelaria, where the Spanish General Cornell was killed, and captured the city of Jaruco and its forts with 80 guns. By this time the new Captain-General had arrived. This was General Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau; the man most of all desired--and indeed earnestly asked for--by the Volunteers and other extremists among the Spanish party in Cuba, the man most undesired by the Autonomists, and the man most hated by the Cuban revolutionists. He had made himself unspeakably odious in the Ten Years' War as the chief aid of Valmaseda in his savage outrages, and he was confidently expected to renew in Cuba the horrors of that campaign; as he did. Upon the announcement of his appointment the Autonomists largely abandoned hope of any amicable arrangement, and those of them who were mayors or other officers promptly resigned their places, being unwilling to serve under him. Many of them left Cuba altogether, dreading the horrors which they knew were impending. As for the masses of the Cuban people, they flocked to the standard of the revolution in greater numbers than before. Within a month after Weyler's arrival at Havana, more than 15,000 fresh recruits were following the banners of Gomez and Maceo. [Illustration: GENERAL WEYLER]