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.
Of course disease became epidemic, for in the leaky hovels, dirt-
floored and destitute of any convenience, there could be no effort
at sanitation. Conditions became unspeakable. The children died
first, then the aged and infirm. Deaths in the street were not
uncommon; nearly every morning bodies were found beneath the
portales. Starving creatures crept to the market in the hope of
begging a stray bit of food, and some of them died there, between
the empty stalls.
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