ceded them on the road by some nine hours, and which had camped at this point awaiting forage. At Siboney the detachment stopped to look after the detail from the

nd after inquiring about the orders on the subject, he directed the detail to report immediately. All the membe

ched hither and thither upon this important and very difficult business, a Cuban officer was sent with instructions to furnish a guide who could conduct the detachment to Gen. Wheeler's headquarters at the front. In the course of some twenty minutes, a dirty slouchy, swarthy, lousy-looking vagabond was pointed out as the desired guide, and was said to know every

g Gun Detachment during their campaign in behalf of Cuban independence, in the name of humanity; a

ell-groomed, superbly mounted ones in "khaki," who loaf around headquarters with high-ranking shoulder-straps. These are all imported from the United States. They comprise the few wealthy ones of Spanish descent, w

ion: San J

it something of that of the Apache, the same soft moccasined tread, noiseless and always stealthy. Your impressions as to their honesty can be instantly confirmed. Leave anything loose, from a hea

sometime in her history. But as to his lordship, the proud male citizen of Cuba libre, you would utterly and bitterly insult him by the intimation that a man of his dignity ought ever to bathe, put on clean clothe

ying rations, or for any other purpose. His manly chest swells with pride and he exclaims in accents of wounded dignity, "Yo soy soldado!" Still his pride does not by any chance get him knowingly under fire.

o more capable of self-government than the Hottentots that roam the wilds of Africa or the Bushmen of Australia. He can not be trusted like the Indian, will not work like a negro, and will

s of American energy and capital, governed by a firm military hand with even justice, it will blossom as the rose; and, in the course

an an hour at noontime, and the wet, fetid soil was tramped into a muck of malarial slime under foot of the mules and men. The jungle became ranker, the Spanish bayonets longer and their barbs sharper in

s on horseback. He very seldom travels in Cuba at all, because he is not often there. Consequently the roads in Cuba, as a rule, are merely small paths sufficient for the native to walk along, and they c

rs. The road was rarely level and frequently the upland parts were washed out. Sometimes it was only the boulder-clad bottom of a ravine; again the water would have washed out the gully on one side so deep as to threaten overturning the guns. The portions of the road between the valleys and the top of these foot-hills were the worst places the detachment had

Cuban Soldier

ing in the quid of tobacco calculated to withdraw the poison or neutralize its effects, so the doctors may characterize this as a very foolish proceeding; but country people skilled in simples and herb remedies might tell some of these ultra scientific surgeons that the application of a quid of tobacco or of a leaf of tobacco to the sting of a wasp or the bite of a spider, or even the sting of a scorpion, is nearly always attended by beneficial results. In fact, when Jones was stung there was a surgeon, a medical officer, who turned up even before

s and carry him from fifty yards to a mile if necessary, to a dressing-station or hospital shack. The medical field-case No. 1 weighs about sixty pounds filled, and field-case No. 2 weighs about forty pounds. These two cases contain all the medicines necessary to run a division hospital; the case of emergency instruments does not weigh above ten or twelve pounds, and would not be a burden for a child to carry. It is therefore difficult for the small-minded officer of the line to see why the Medical

s of any army in the world. A summons of an ordinary practitioner would bring with him his saddle-bags of medicines; no physician in the city would pretend to answer even an ambulance call without having a few simple rem

ital men carry it?" To which surgeon No. 2 replied, "No; my men are not beasts of burden." Both of these medical officers went ashore; one of them had his field case carried; the other did not. Both of them were up at the firing-line, both did good service in rendering first aid. Both of them worked heroically, both seemed deeply touched by the suffering they were compelled to witness, and bo

tion: Wag

iness, with a little more devotion to the duty of relieving suffering humanity-in short, a little less insistence

eir lives upon the very firing-line. These men are the very "salt of the earth." The escape of even a "frazzle" of the 5th Corps

oldiers were heard to exclaim that they would be glad to find a scor

halted for dinner. The mules were unharnessed, coffee prepared, and, just as the detachment was about to begin this noonday meal, two of the peripatetic newspaper

porting that fight, in hopes of making another "scoop," and were now on their way to Siboney, hoping to buy some provisions. Poor devils! They had worked for a "scoop" at La Guasimas; they had gone up on the firing-line and had sent back authentic accounts of that little skirmish; but they did not make the "scoop." The "scoop" was made by newspaper men who had remained on board the transports, and who took the excited account of a member of the command who had come back delirious with excitement, crazed with fear, trembling as though he had a congestive chill-who, in fact, had

g around from two miles and a half to three miles in rear of the firing-line, and never by any possibility got closer to the enemy than that. The members of this guild of the newspaper fraternity were necessarily nearer the cable office than their more daring comrades; in fact, there were a few who were known to have been eight or nine miles nearer to the cable office during battles, a

manes of their long-eared chargers, and apparently lift them down, or up, as the case might be, always landing on their feet and always safely. It was merely a question of good driving and will to go through. The worst places were repaired by the detachment before these reckless attempts at precipice-scaling were made. At one place there was a detachment of the 24th Infantry engaged in an alleged effort to repair the road. They did not seem to work with much vim. Chapla

. Springer, for example, collected wood and made coffee for all on the firing-line, within 400 yards of the block-house at El Caney; and Swift was equally conspicuous in relieving suffering, binding up wounds, and caring for the sick. There were probably others equally as daring; but the author knows of the deeds of these men, and desires to pay

be infested by the enemy, and a blockhouse which stood out against the sky-line was thought to contain a Spanish detachment. A high hill to the left at a distance of about 1000 yards had not yet been explored, and it was thought probable that some of the enemy was concealed on this hill also. The detachment commander was directed to report, after posting his battery, in which duty he was assist