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Updated: June 5, 2025
News came to them at irregular intervals, and there by and by reached them the intelligence that, in order to isolate Maceo and prevent his return to the eastern provinces of the island, General Weyler was constructing a trocha, or entrenchment, with blockhouses and wire entanglements all complete, from Mariel on the north coast to Majana on the south that is to say, across the narrowest part of the island some sixteen or seventeen miles in length.
About a month later news came to the band that Antonio Maceo, having evaded the Spanish army in the province of Pinar del Rio, and got on the other side of Weyler's trocha, had been killed in a skirmish not far from Havana, which city he had proposed to threaten, with the object of causing the withdrawal of the Spanish troops from the western end of the island.
We owe everything to that kid; he's wonderful. I made Morin independent for life, but it wasn't the money, it was Jacket who induced him to bring us clear to Turiguano. He landed us one night, this side of the Moron trocha. Since then we've waded swamps to our armpits, we've fought the jungle and chewed bark but we're here." Johnnie heaved a deep sigh of relief.
In the east, where the Insurrectos were practically supreme, there was food of a sort, but beyond the Jucaro-Moron trocha the old one of Campos's building the country was sick. Immediately west of it, in that district which the Cubans called Las Villas, the land lay dying, while the entire provinces of Matanzas, Habana, and Pinar del Rio were practically dead.
I have therefore determined to endeavour to slip through the trocha and demonstrate against Havana, in the hope that Weyler will thus be induced to abandon his march and return to protect the city. So far as you are concerned, my advice to you is that you leave this place at once, and either accompany me or fly to some place of safety, whichever you please.
These three were skeletons, picked bare of flesh by Weyler's beak. The Jucaro-Moron trocha had been greatly strengthened since Campos's day. It followed the line of the transinsular railway. Dotted at every quarter of a mile along the grade were little forts connected by telephone and telegraph lines. Between these fortinas were sentry stations of logs or railroad ties.
He had made his way westward into the province of Santa Clara, and in November Maceo left the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba to join him. In his way lay the trocha, the famous device of the Spaniards to prevent the free movement of the Cuban forces. It may be of interest to describe this new idea in warfare, devised by the Spaniards to check the free movement of their rebel foes.
The word trocha means trench, but the Spanish trochas were military lines cut through the woods and across the island from side to side, and defended by barbed-wire fences, while the felled trees were piled along both sides of the roadway, making a difficult breastwork of jagged roots and branches.
Then, grasping his own machete, he joined in clearing a pathway. It seemed an interminable time ere they extricated themselves from the trap, but finally they succeeded and gained the welcome shelter of the woods, pausing inside its shelter to cut the muffles from their horses' feet. By this time the defenders of the trocha were pouring volley after volley at random into the night.
This was the sugar country, the heart of Cuba, whence Spain had long drawn her life blood, and from the first it had been the policy of the rebel leaders to destroy the large estates, leaving undamaged only the holdings of those little farmers whose loyalty to the cause of freedom was unquestioned. Food became a problem immediately after the travelers had crossed the trocha.
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