Poverty had been common in Matanzas, even before the war, but now there were so many beggars in the city that nobody undertook to count them. When the refugees began to pour in by the thousands, and when it became apparent that the Government intended to let them starve, the better citizens undertook an effort at relief; but times were hard, food was scarce, and prices high. Moreover, it soon transpired that the military frowned upon everything like organized charity, and in consequence the new-comers were, perforce, abandoned to their own devices. These country people were dumb and terrified at the misfortunes which had overtaken them; they wandered the streets in aimless bewilderment, fearful of what blow might next befall. They were not used to begging, and therefore they did not often implore alms; but all day long they asked for work, for bread, that their little ones might live. Work, however, was even scarcer than food, and the time soon came when they crouched upon curbs and door-steps, hopeless, beaten, silently reproachful of those more fortunate than they. Their eyes grew big and hollow; their outstretched hands grew gaunt and skinny. The sound of weeping women and fretting babies became a common thing to hear.
In the suburbs, just within the ring of guardian forts, an "area of cultivation" was set aside, and here the prisoners put up huts of yagua--comfortless bark shelters, which were well enough, perhaps, in fair weather, but sadly ineffective against wind and rain. Here, housed with hunger and crowded together in indescribable squalor, they dwelt, seeking comfort in their common wretchedness. Since they had no farm implements, no seeds, no means whatever of cultivating this ground apportioned to their use, it remained untilled while they grew hungrier day by day. Outside the lines there were yams, potatoes, edible roots and such, for the Spaniards' work of desolation had not been quite complete, and no hand can rob the Cuban soil of all its riches; but the pacificos were not allowed to leave the city.
Fish were plentiful in the harbor, too, but to catch them was forbidden. Sentries were on guard with ready rifles and bared machetes; every morning through the filthy reconcentrado quarter guerrillas drove pack-mules bearing the mutilated bodies of those who had dared during the night to seek food surreptitiously. Sometimes they dragged these ghastly reminders at the ends of ropes; this, indeed, was a favorite way with them.
Dogs and cats became choice articles of diet, until they disappeared. The Government did supply one quality of food, however; at intervals, it distributed yucca roots. But these were starchy and almost indigestible. From eating them the children grew pinched in limb and face, while their abdomens bloated hugely. Matanzas became peopled with a race of grotesquely misshapen little folks, gnomes with young bodies, but with faces old and sick.