when we meet nowadays we have a laugh over
that breakfast at Jucaro. I don't know, and really don't care, what the
place is now. After some hours of waiting, we secured passage in an
antiquated little car attached to a freight train carrying supplies and
structural material to Ciego de Avila, for use by the railway then being
built in both directions, eastward and westward from that point. The line
that there crosses the island from north to south was built in the time
of the Ten Years' War (1868-1878) as a barrier against the revolutionists
operating in eastern Cuba. It was restored for use in the revolution of
1895, but its blockhouses at every kilometre, and its barbed wire tangles,
were entirely ineffective against Gomez and Maceo and other leaders, all of
whom crossed it at their own sweet will, although not without an occasional
vicious little contest. We reached Ciego de Avila soon after noon, and had
to wait there over night for a further advance. The place is now a thriving
little city, but it was then a somewhat sprawling village with a building
that was called a hotel. But we got food and drink and beds, all that is
really necessary for experienced campaigners. For the next two days, Old
Man Trouble made himself our personal companion and did not lose sight of
us for a single minute.

Through personal acquaintance with the railway officials, we obtained
permission to travel over the line, on any and all trains, as far as it was
then built, some forty miles or so toward Camaguey. Through them, also, we
arranged for saddle horses to meet us at railhead for the remainder of the
journey. There were no trains except construction trains carrying rails,
ties, lumber, and other materials. We boarded the first one out in the
morning. We had our choice of riding on any of those commodities that we
might select. There was not even a caboose. We chose a car of lumber as the
most promising. For four or five hours we crawled through that country,
roasting and broiling on that pile of planks, but the ties and the rails
were even hotter. The only way we could keep a place cool enough to sit on
was by sitting on it. I once occupied a stateroom next to the steamer's
funnel. I have seen, day after day, the pitch bubble between the planks of
a steamer's deck in the Indian Ocean. I have been in other places that I
thought plenty hot enough, but never have I been so thoroughly cooked as
were my companion and I perched on the lumber