s the legs to pull on your back, and
tuck under your knees. In the total absence of bed covering, beyond
a thin night shirt, the three red rolls are not to be despised. The
object of the bed is to keep cool, and if you do find the exertion
of getting onto--not into--the bed produces a perspiration, and the
mosquito bar threatens suffocation, reliance may be had that if you
can compose yourself on top of the sheet (which feels like a hard wood
floor, when the rug gives way on the icy surface and you fall) and
if you use the three rolls of hard substance, covered with red silk,
discreetly and considerately, in finding a position, and if you permit
the windows--no glass--fifteen feet by twelve, broadcast, as it were,
to catch the breath of the river and the park; if you can contrive
with infinite quiet, patience and pains to go to sleep for a few
hours, you will be cool enough; and when awakened shivering there is
no blanket near, and if you must have cover, why get under the sheet,
next the Manila mat, and there you are! Then put your troublesome and
probably aching legs over the bigger red roll, and take your repose! Of
course, when in the tropics you cannot expect to bury yourself in
bedclothing, or to sleep in fur bags like an arctic explorer. The
hall in front of your door is twelve feet wide and eighty long, lined
with decorative chairs and sofas, and in the center of the hotel is
a spacious dining room. The Spaniard doesn't want breakfast. He wants
coffee and fruit--maybe a small banana--something sweet, and a crumb
of bread. The necessity of the hour is a few cigarettes. His refined
system does not require food until later. At 12 o'clock he lunches,
and eats an abundance of hot stuff--fish, flesh and fowl--fiery
stews and other condolences for the stomach. This gives strength to
consider the wrongs of Spain and the way, when restored to Madrid,
the imbeciles, who allowed the United States to capture the last
sad fragments of the colonies, sacred to Spanish honor, shall be
crushed by the patriots who were out of the country when it was
ruined. It will take a long time for the Spaniards to settle among
factions the accounts of vengeance. One of the deeper troubles of the
Spaniards is that they take upon themselves the administration of the
prerogatives of him who said "Vengeance is mine." The American end of
the dining room contains several young men who speak pigeon Spanish,
and Captains Strong and Coudert are rapidl