the troop-ship Yucatan, and as we were given
twelve days' travel rations, we of course fell short toward the end of
the trip, but eked things out with some of our field rations and troop
stuff. The quality of the travel rations given to us was good, except
in the important item of meat. The canned roast beef is worse than a
failure as part of the rations, for in effect it amounts to reducing
the rations by just so much, as a great majority of the men find it
uneatable. It was coarse, stringy, tasteless, and very disagreeable in
appearance, and so unpalatable that the effort to eat it made some of
the men sick. Most of the men preferred to be hungry rather than eat
it. If cooked in a stew with plenty of onions and potatoes--i.e., if
only one ingredient in a dish with other more savory ingredients--it
could be eaten, especially if well salted and peppered; but, as usual
(what I regard as a great mistake), no salt was issued with the travel
rations, and of course no potatoes and onions. There were no cooking
facilities on the transport. When the men obtained any, it was by
bribing the cook. Toward the last, when they began to draw on the
field rations, they had to eat the bacon raw. On the return trip the
same difficulty in rations obtained.--i.e., the rations were short
because the men could not eat the canned roast beef, and had no salt.
We purchased of the ship's supplies some flour and pork and a little
rice for the men, so as to relieve the shortage as much as possible,
and individual sick men were helped from private sources by officers,
who themselves ate what they had purchased in Santiago. As nine-tenths
of the men were more or less sick, the unattractiveness of the travel
rations was doubly unfortunate. It would have been an excellent thing
for their health if we could have had onions and potatoes, and means
for cooking them. Moreover, the water was very bad, and sometimes a
cask was struck that was positively undrinkable. The lack of ice for
the weak and sickly men was very much felt. Fortunately there was no
epidemic, for there was not a place on the ship where patients could
have been isolated.

During the month following the landing of the army in Cuba the
food-supplies were generally short in quantity, and in quality were
never such as were best suited to men undergoing severe hardships and
great exposure in an unhealthy tropical climate. The rations were, I
understand, the same as those used in the Klondik