secretaries in the Autonomist Cabinet. The last regiment that Blanco
formed was of Negro volunteers, to whom he paid--or, rather, promised
to pay, which is quite another matter, considering Blanco's habit--the
unusual hire of $20 a month, showing his appreciation of the colored
man as a soldier. If General Weyler evinced any partiality in Cuba,
it was for the black Creole. During the ten years' war, his cavalry
escort was composed entirely of colored men. Throughout his latest
reign in the island he kept black soldiers constantly on guard at the
gates of the government palace. While the illustrated papers of Spain
were caricaturing: the insurgents as coal-black demons with horns
and forked toe nails, burning canefields and butchering innocent
Spaniards, the Spanish General chose them for his bodyguards.

[Illustration: CUBAN WOMAN CAVALRY.]

ONE OF THE GREATEST GENERALS.

One of the greatest Generals of the day, considering the environment,
was Antonio Maceo, the Cuban mulatto hero, who, for two years, kept
the Spanish army at bay or led them a lively quickstep through the
western provinces to the very gates of Havana. As swift on the march
as Sheridan or Stonewall Jackson, as wary and prudent as Grant
himself, he had inspirations of military genius whenever a crisis
arose. It is not generally known that Martinez Campos, who owed his
final defeat at Colisea to Maceo, was a second cousin of this black
man. Maceo's mother, whose family name was Grinan, came from the town
of Mayari where all the people have Indian blood in their veins. Col.
Martinez del Campos, father of General Martinez Campos, was once
Military Governor of Mayari. While there he loved a beautiful girl of
Indian and Negro blood, who belonged to the Grinan family, and was