HAVANA HARBOR.
CAPTAIN C.D. SIGSBEE.
I saw no house or hut in the 400 miles of railroad rides from Pinar del Rio Province in the west across the full width of Havana and Matanzas Provinces, and to Sagua La Grando on the north shore and to Cienfuegos on the south shore of Santa Clara, except within the Spanish trochas. There are no domestic animals or crops on the rich fields and pastures except such as are under guard in the immediate vicinity of the towns.
In other words, the Spaniards hold in these four western provinces just what their army sits on.
Every man, woman and child and every domestic animal, wherever their columns have reached, is under guard and within their so-called fortifications. To describe one place is to describe all.
To repeat, it is neither peace nor war.
It is concentration and desolation. This is the “pacified” condition of the four western provinces.