From The Cuban Camps

A private letter from Lieut. John Haarer written Feb. 24, from Amaro, to a friend in this city conveys the following information : "In a few days Co. A, will leave the regiment. We have been ordered to Placetas, a town somewhere in the eastern portion of the province of Santa Clara. We will be the only company there and have everything to ourselves. How long we will stay we do not know but we have been ordered to take rations up to March 31."

Speaking of the people he says: "As a rule the people seem to take life easy. Nearly everybody indulges in tobacco, cigars and cigarettes. Mauy of the Cnban women smoke and they generally have a preference for big cigars. None of us have any fondness for the Cubans."

 "The only inhabitants at Amaro," he says, "are a family of Cubans, who live in a little thatched hut. All the poorer class of Cubans, live in small thatched huts about 15 feet square. Many of the smaller children run around naked."

Sid M. Bangs in writíng from Amaro says that he did not expect to find the Cubans in the starving condition they seem to be in. "They will come around the camp and beg for morsels of food, even pick up pieces of broken hard tack which fall to the ground. The country around us has been completely destroyed by the Spanish soldiers but things begin to look differently. Men are employed by the owners of plantations to fix the machinery in the sugar milis and the railways are being cleared up. " Mr. Bangs continues: "I wish you could enjoy listening to a Cuban band. It is something terrible and reminds one of the descriptions of a Zulu orchestra at an African pow wow. I have been, with Mr. Fischer, appointed one of the trumpeters of the regiment." The newspaper correspondents state that Placetas is a town of 10,000 in the mountains 15 miles from Santa Clara city and is said to be very healthy. Dr. Farmer, of Louisville, a contract surgeon, accompanies Company A.