pile. On top of that, or
rather on top of us, there poured a constant rain of cinders from the
locomotive puffing away a few cars ahead of us. The road-bed was rough, and
at times we had to hang on for our very lives. We can laugh about it now,
but, at the time, it was no joke. At last we reached the end of the line,
somewhere in a hot Cuban forest, but there were no horses. We watched the
operation of railway building, and took turns in anathematizing, in every
language of which we had any knowledge, the abandoned ruffian who failed to
appear with those horses. Before night, we were almost ready to wish that
he had died on the way. At last he came. Our baggage was loaded on a
pack-horse; we mounted and rode gallantly on our way. We had about thirty
miles to cover by that or some other means of locomotion. Before we had
gone a mile, we developed a clear understanding of the reasons for the sale
of those horses by the Government of the United States, but why the United
States Army ever bought them for cavalry mounts we could not even imagine.
There was no road. Most of the way we followed the partly constructed
road-bed for the new railway, making frequent detours, through field or
jungle, to get around gaps or places of impossible roughness. Before we had
covered two miles, we began to wish that the man who sent those horses, a
Spaniard, by the way, might be doomed to ride them through all eternity
under the saddles with which they were equipped. We were sorry enough for
the poor brutes, but sorrier still for ourselves. For several days, I
limped in misery from a long row of savage blisters raised on my leg
by rawhide knots with which my saddle had been repaired. An hour after
starting, we were overtaken by a heavy thunder-shower. At nightfall, after
having covered about fifteen wretched miles, we reached a construction camp
where an American nobleman, disguised as a section-boss, gave us food and
lodging in the little palm-leaf shack that served as his temporary home. It
was barely big enough for one, but he made it do for three.

[Illustration: STREET AND CHURCH _Camaguey_]

Early in the morning, we resumed our journey, plodding along as best we
could over a half-graded "right-of-way." A couple of hours brought us to
a larger construction camp where we halted for such relief as we could
secure. We then were some twelve or fourteen miles from our destination. We
discussed the wisdom of making the rest of the way on foo