Writing on December 5, Mr. Hyatt said:  “The reconcentration order is relaxed, but not removed; but many people have reached a point where it is a matter of entire indifference to them whether it is removed or not, for they have lost all interest in the problem of existence.  A census of the island taken to-day, as compared with one taken three years ago, I feel confident would show that two-thirds of the residents are missing, and the Spanish army would make no better showing.”

On December 14 Mr. Hyatt wrote:  “The order of reconcentration practically has been wiped out, and, so far as the Spanish government is concerned, men go about nearly as they please.  The insurgents and their sympathizers will unquestionably take advantage of the revocation to get from the towns and cities what they need and otherwise strengthen their cause.  The effects on agricultural pursuits will be disappointing, because the great majority of those who would or should take up the work joined the insurgent forces when compelled to leave their homes, and the portion which came within the lines of reconcentration are women, children, old and sickly people, most of whom seem to have little interest in the problem of life.  There is no one to take these people back to the fields and utilize their remaining strength.  Their houses are destroyed, the fields are overgrown with weeds, they have no seeds to plant, and, if they had, they could not live sixty or eighty days until the crop matured; which, when grown, would more than likely be taken by one or the other of the contending parties.”

Dying at his door.

“As I write,” Mr. Hyatt closes this communication, “a man is dying in the street in front of my door, the third in a comparatively small time.”

Mr. Hyatt’s letter of December 21 deals largely with the sickness and the death rate on the island, which he characterizes as appalling.  “Statistics,” he says, “make a grievous showing, but come far short of the truth.  The disease is generally brought on by insufficient food.  It is sometimes called paludal fever, and at others la grippe, and it is epidemic rather than contagious.  From 30 to 40 per cent of the people were afflicted with it.”

He also reported smallpox and yellow fever as prevailing, and said that out of a total of sixteen thousand soldiers recently sent to Manzanillo, nearly five thousand were in hospitals or quartered on the people.  He says that Dr. Gaminero, United States sanitary inspector, reported at that time that there were more than twelve thousand people sick in bed, not counting those in military hospitals.  This is at least 35 per cent of the present population.  Mr. Hyatt adds that quinine, the only remedy of avail, is sold ten times higher than in the United States.  He says that steamers coming into port give out soup once a day to the waiting throngs, and that fresh meat sells at from 50 cents to $1 a pound.