iving me an opportunity of becoming acquainted with a real
specimen of Plato's superior men, who were now and then, so Plato said,
to be met with in foreign travel. It is to him that I owe any knowledge
which I brought away with me of the present state of Cuba. He had seen
much, thought much, read much. He was on a level with the latest phases
of philosophical and spiritual speculation, could talk of Darwin and
Spencer, of Schopenhauer, of Strauss, and of Renan, aware of what they
had done, aware of the inconvenient truths which they had forced into
light, but aware also that they had left the most important questions
pretty much where they found them. He had taken no part in the political
troubles of the late years in Cuba, but he had observed everything. No
one knew better the defects of the present system of government; no one
was less ready to rush into hasty schemes for violently mending it.

The ten years' rebellion, of which I had heard so much and knew so
little, he first made intelligible to me. Cuba had been governed as a
province of Spain, and Spain, like other mother countries, had thought
more of drawing a revenue out of it for herself than of the interests of
the colony. Spanish officials had been avaricious, and Spanish fiscal
policy oppressive and ruinous. The resources of the island in metals,
in minerals, in agriculture were as yet hardly scratched, yet every
attempt to develop them was paralysed by fresh taxation. The rebellion
had been an effort of the Cuban Spaniards, precisely analogous to the
revolt of our own North American colonies, to shake off the authority of
the court of Madrid and to make themselves independent. They had fought
desperately and had for several years been masters of half the island.
They had counted on help from the United States, and at one time they
seemed likely to get it. But the Americans could not see their way to
admitting Cuba into the Union, and without such a prospect did not care
to quarrel with Spain on their account. Finding that they were to be
left to themselves, the insurgents came to terms and Spanish authority
was re-established. Families had been divided, sons taking one side and
fathers the other, as in our English Wars of the Roses, perhaps for the
same reason, to save the family estates whichever side came out
victorious. The blacks had been indifferent, the rebellion having no
interest for them at all. They had remained by their masters, and they
had bee