guerrilla warfare against the Spanish
forces for ten years, fighting in the forests and bravely resisting all
the efforts of Spain to subdue them--there was not one great power in
the world willing to extend to the patriots the recognition of
belligerent rights. The cruelty of the Spaniards toward the soldiers
they captured, and to all inhabitants who sympathized with the patriots'
cause, was equaled only by the courage, fortitude, and exalted
patriotism which animated their victims. The following instances,
selected from scores that might be cited, are given in the Spaniards'
own words, translated, _verbatim_, into English:

SPANISH TESTIMONY OF HORRORS PRACTICED.

Jacob Rivocoba, under date of September 4, 1896, writes:

"We captured seventeen, thirteen of whom were shot outright; on dying
they shouted, 'Hurrah for free Cuba! hurrah for independence!' A
mulatto said, 'Hurrah for Cespedes!' On the following day we killed a
Cuban officer and another man. Among the thirteen that we shot the
first day were found three sons and their father; the father
witnessed the execution of his sons without even changing color, and
when his turn came he said he died for the independence of his
country. On coming back we brought along with us three carts filled
with women and children, the families of those we had shot; and they
asked us to shoot them, because they would rather die than live among
Spaniards."

Pedro Fardon, another officer, who entered entirely into the spirit of
the service he honored, writes on September 22, 1869:

"Not a single Cuban will remain in this island, because we shoot all
those we find in the fields, on the farms, and in every hovel."

And, again, on the same day, the same officer sends the following good
news to his old father:

"We do not leave a creature alive where we pass, be it man or animal.
If we find cows, we kill them; if horses, ditto; if hogs, ditto; men,
women, or children, ditto; as to the houses, we burn them: so every
one receives his due--the men in balls, the animals in
bayonet-thrusts. The island will remain a desert."

These atrocities were perpetrated not alone by the common soldier. In
fact, the above reports come from men who were officers in the Spanish
army, and they show that such actions were approved by the highest
authority. A well-authenticated account assures us that General Count
Balmaceda himself went on one o