replaced by a Protestant. This viceroy had so many intimate relations
with the Catholic Church in which he represented the Catholic king
that it was absolutely necessary for whatever American happened to be
governor to play the game regardless of what his own religious
scruples might be. As an interesting example of how well this was
handled by Wood the story of Bishop Bernaba is a charming instance.

{124}

This bishop was elevated from priesthood while Wood was governor and
because of his affection and respect for the American officer he asked
him to walk with him daring the ceremonious procession from the
priest's little parish church, where he had served, to the old
cathedral where he was to officiate thereafter. It was a solemn
religious function and has been described, because of the terrific
surroundings of the hour, as not unlike the ceremony which took place
in Milan after the Great Plague.

The entire population of the city with some forty or fifty thousand
from the surrounding hills packed the streets along the route of the
procession. None of them had had a blessing from his own Cuban clergy
in many years. It was like a mediaeval scene. The old bishop bowed by
years, weakened by his recent grief at the suffering of his people and
by the excitement of the moment, and General Wood, the American
Protestant, walked together under the bishop's canopy. The people in
the streets, seeing this, cried: "Thank God, the General is a Catholic!
We didn't know it!"

{125}

From time to time the old bishop, tired with the exertion of swinging
the censer with the holy water, would hand it to Wood and ask him to
continue the function by his side until he could secure a slight
respite. Occasionally as he leaned forward to bless the thousands who
lined the way and who had come to feel his touch and kiss his hand his
miter would slip to one side on his head and the unperturbed American
general would lean forward and straighten it for him. Each time the
old bishop turned to him and murmured, "Thank God, you are here! I am
so old that I could not have made this journey, if you had not been
here to help me."

Wood told him that he was not a Catholic, that indeed from Bishop
Bernaba's point of view he was a heretic and bound for Hell.

"No," said the bishop, with a smile, "you are a good Catholic; only
you do not know it."

Small wonder that when he left Santiago in the spring of 1899 to visit
the United States Wood was