havior. The
plaza was very pretty, with its royal palms and ornamental flower beds.
It was flanked by one of the several ancient Catholic churches in the
city. While in Puerto Principe I was in receipt of unexpected courtesies
from Mr. C. Hugo Drake, the American lawyer alluded to in an earlier
chapter of this book.

[Illustration: AGRAMONTE PLAZA, PUERTO PRINCIPE, CUBA.

_Photograph by V. K. Van de Venter, Jan. 28, 1900._]

After spending four delightful days in Puerto Principe, I took the train
to Las Minas, twenty miles to the eastward. There I joined my
companions, who had preceded me by twenty-four hours. Here we boarded
the private cane train of Bernabe Sanchez and rode to Senor Sanchez'
great sugar mill at Senado, six miles away. Senor Sanchez has a pleasant
residence here, surrounded by fruit trees and shrubs. We saw ripe
strawberries growing in his garden. Scores of Cuban shacks in the
vicinity house his workmen and their families. We went all over his
immense, well-appointed sugar mill, then in operation, and in the early
afternoon rode on the flat cars of the cane train through his extensive
plantation for nine miles, the land on either side of the track for all
this distance being utilized for the growing of sugar cane.

The end of the track left us about eighteen miles from La Gloria. We set
out to walk home, but late in the afternoon the party accidentally
divided and both divisions got lost. Murphy and I spent an uncomfortable
night in the thick, damp woods, and taking up the tramp early the next
morning, found ourselves, two or three hours later, at the exact point
near the end of Sanchez' plantation where we had begun our walk the
afternoon before. We had walked about fifteen miles and got back to our
starting point without realizing that we had deviated from the main
trail. Stranger yet, the other division of the party had done exactly
the same thing, but had reached this spot late the night before and was
now half way to La Gloria.

Murphy and I made a new start, and after getting off the track once or
twice, finally reached the Maximo river, crossed it on a tree, and got
into La Gloria at 5:30 that afternoon, nearly worn out and looking like
wild men. I had had nothing to eat for forty-eight hours save two
cookies, one cracker, and half a sweet potato.

CHAPTER XVI.

IN AND AROUND LA GLORIA.

A very good Book that I wot of contains an Apocrypha. This will have no
Apocrypha, but I wi