the officers are men who have been detailed to duty in the territory only because the government has some reason for wanting to get rid of them. Quintana Roo is the most unhealthy part of Mexico, but the soldiers die from five to ten times as fast as necessary because of the grafting of their chief, General Bravo. During the first two years I was there the death rate was 100 per cent a year, for in that period more than 4,000 soldiers died of starvation and sickness induced by starvation!
"For month after month," said this physician, "I have known the deaths to average thirty a day. For every soldier killed by a Maya at least one hundred die of starvation or sickness. General Bravo steals the commissary money and starves the soldiers with the connivance of the federal government. More than 2,000 have died of acute starvation alone during the past seven years, since General Bravo took command. Not only that, but Bravo steals the cremation money. The soil of the peninsula, you must know, is rocky, the hard-pan is close to the surface and it is not practical to bury the dead. The government appropriates money to buy oil for cremation, but Bravo steals this money and leaves the bodies to lie in the sun and rot away!"
Because it would result in his imprisonment I cannot publish the name of this authority. I feel perfectly free, however, to name Colonel Francisco B. Cruz, chief deporter of Yaquis. Colonel Cruz told me that in three years General Bravo had saved $10,000,000 from money grafted off the army in Quintana Roo. The fact that nearly all the deaths of soldiers was the result of starvation was proven in the year 1902 to 1903, when General Bravo took a vacation and General Vega, had command. General Vega stole no food or medicine or oil money
