unattainable as if the ship were in the Bay of
San Francisco.

Siboney at that time was a wretched little hamlet containing only ten or
fifteen abandoned and incredibly dirty Spanish houses, most of which
were in use either as hospitals or for government offices. None of them
contained sleeping accommodations, even of the most primitive kind; all
of them were crowded; and if one arrived in the village, as we did, at a
late hour of the night, there was nothing to be done but bivouac
somewhere on the dirty, flea-infested floor of an open piazza, or lie
out on the ground. One of the largest and most commodious buildings in
the village, a one-story house with a high front stoop or porch, had
been used, apparently, during the Spanish occupation of the place, as a
store or shop. At the time of our return from the front it sheltered the
"United States Post-Office, Military Station No. 1," which had been
transferred from Daiquiri to Siboney two or three days before. In front
of this building our army wagon stopped, and we men went in to inquire
for mail and to see if we could find a decently clean place for Miss
Barton to sleep. She was quite ready to bivouac in the army wagon; but
we hoped to get something better for her. Mr. Brewer, the postmaster,
whom I had met in one of my lecture trips through the West and more
recently in the field, received us cordially, and at once offered Miss
Barton his own cot, in a room that had not yet been cleaned or swept,
back of the general delivery department. By the light of a single candle
it seemed to be a gloomy, dirty, and barn-like apartment; but the cot
was the only thing in the shape of a bed that I had seen in Siboney,
outside of the hospitals, and we accepted it for Miss Barton with
grateful hearts. The employees of the post-office were all sleeping in
camp-chairs or on the counters and floors. Where Mr. Brewer went when he
had given his own bed to Miss Barton, I do not know. I left her writing
orders and telegrams by the light of a flaring, guttering candle at
about eleven o'clock, and went out on the piazza to take a more careful
survey of the premises and make up my mind where I would sleep.

Lying across the high stoop was a long white object, which appeared, in
the darkness, to be a woman in her nightgown, with her head raised a
little on the sill of a disused door. I stepped over her once in going
down-stairs to the street, and wondered what calamity of war had reduced
a woma