HE SCARCITY OF FOOD. 401 talk about our destitution, and quite another to have seen and experiencedit. As the town was left completely bareof provisions, we have been feeding on herbs, horse,dog and cat, and that at a very high price. Tasajo, bacalao, rice, bacon, beans, or bread were not to be had at any price; and those who had any concealed it, so much were the houses searched by the military authorities. Even doors, fences, and were nearly all cut off. Prices of food were rising rapidly in the island capital, and the people were beginning to feel the pinch of suffering. In Matanzas the misery was even greater; for in Havana itself the presence of Bianco's army had led the authorities to make special efforts to victual the city. The state of affairs in the Havana province may be judged from a letter published in the Westminster STRINGING TELEGRAPH HIK I RING IHK Gazette, and written from Matanzas just after the war, when relief was beginning to come in. It is a terrible picture of those horrors of war of which nothing is heard if the narrative of a campaign deals only with the scenes of the battlefield. And it must be noted that the writer belonged to the wealthier class of citizens. The poor must have suffered even more. Here is theletter:— " We would have all died of starvation had the blockade lasted longer. It is calculated that more than half the population in this provincehave died or are missing. It is one thing to planks from the wooden houses were torn down and taken by force to serve as fuel to cook for the troop.-. Ihave never heard anything like it before. Such inimoralisedpeople the Spaniards are when they are in any way in a fix. If it had not been for the bad fix they were in as regardsobtaining food, they wouldhave resisted longer. Iwould have tared verybadly during the blockade, and would probably have been one of its victims, had it not been for the kindness of Mr. D'Acosta, the British Consul, who, seeing my misery, favoured me once and awhile with cash and provisions, which the 26