 again and again parceled out; that the famishing mother
divided her little morsel with another mother's hungry child; that two
men sat down to one crust, and that the Spanish soldier shared, as often
seen, the loaf--his own half ration--with the eager-eyed skeleton
reconcentrado, watching him as he ate. In another instance the
recognition might have been less kind it is true, for war is war, and
all humanity are not humane.

The work was commenced in earnest. I still turn the pages of the diary,
which says: "We were called on deck to look at Morro Castle, which, grim
and dark in the bright morning sunlight, skirts the bay like a frowning
ogre."

We were met at the dock and driven to Hotel Inglaterra, where letters of
welcome awaited us. After paying our official respects, our first
business was to meet the committees appointed for the distribution of
food. We found them pleasant gentlemen. We were notified of the arrival
of the steamship "Vigilancia," with fifty tons of supplies, sent by the
New York Committee; took carriage and drove to the dock. It was a glad
sight to see her anchors dropping down into the soil of that starved
spot of the earth. We boarded her, met the gentlemanly officers, and saw
the goods being put on the lighters. This was the largest quantity of
supplies that had yet arrived by any one steamship. In returning to
land, we threaded our way through the transports and yachts--among the
latter the "New York Journal," that had just taken Julian Hawthorne
across from Key West--and grandest of all, the polished, shining
battleship "Maine." She towered above them like a monarch, or rather
like an elegant visitor whom all the household felt bound to respect. On
landing, we resumed our carriage and drove to Los Fosos, a large, long
building filled with reconcentrados,--over four hundred women and
children in the most pitiable condition possible for human beings to be
in, and live; and they did not live, for the death record counted them
out a dozen or more every twenty-four hours, and the grim, terr