The San Francisco call. [volume], July 03, 1898, Page 20, Image 20

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20
AMERICAN SOLDIERS
IN CAMP AND BATTLE
Poultney Bigelow Compares Our Regulars
and Volunteers With Those of the
Other Crack Nations of the World.
This Article is Covered by General Copyright.
/"T"\ HE American regular is differ
.■•|:;-.:- ent from anything I have yet
•:'". I encountered in the armies of
:•:■ :|-- ..'Europe; . ! Th" : Russian ' .has
: :.Tr-' abundance :. of courage; ; the
jV •':•"■;•■: German is : . : urM?qualed'. for dis
cipline; the •Frenchnmn- is. a. lusty an
• tagonist when /.-•■'.gpea .' w.eil, : and • •of
them all,, the. Hungarian has the' most
of . dash . and pluck cDiirblned'.-. .'.I; leave
out Tommy AtkinS; f 6r\ he', is . our -first
cousin. The .American soldier is .of a'
different coni po t ion froilv any. of these.
To get : an ldes ot. the; Am.erfca.n regular
.'the ■;Kuropean w0u1.4 ; ' have.'.'.to make -a
.composite ; .pic.turie.;.. containing :'some
thing of the" Boer of 'South Africa, and
■Bomething of the Eiigiirfi Jbfficer who
has seen rough' work in. India,-. ■'
The ground c t the ".European
soldier is the peasant. . In America
HUMORS OF THE NEWSPAPER BLOCKADE AROUND CUBA.
there are not nor ever have been peas
ants, and consequently our- enlisted
znen have wholly larked the nlement of
docile servility' which makes discipline
in Continental ; armres comparatively
easy.
= The American . regular gets a mini
mum pay of $13 a month— small enough,
to be sure, considering the average rate
of wages in civil life! .Yet-not, only io It
sufficient to attract' good men to the ;
service, but it holds them practically |
for' life. • " . ".'
The quality which impressed me most !.
in the regulars at Tampa .was the
average intelligence and • good sense. f
Of course I do not compare them here
with picked volunteers but .with the
troops of European armies. In Amer
ica there are no guard or elite troops
in the European-, 'sense, .and one regi
ment of regulars is presumably Just a3 i
good as any other, at. lea.st (rota the '
commanding general's point of view. 1 1
have never heard- a regular officer curse j
a man or ey*n- use offensive, language j
to him; on. the contrary, "1" have been ';
Struck by .the /wholesome; ; nation be- j
tween officers and men. I cannot say '
as much for certain, . yoluiueur .. i egi- •
ments at Camp'jtl'ger. . .'.'. './..
It is frequently imagined "that men
accustomed' to mUch liberty and a high
Standard, of personal .comfort are there- '
. fore. . mare -'' difficult. to control than i
troops like- those, .-of" -Russia;- who are , ■
accustomed' aft- home- to be' treated !
much ' like -cattle. '.-■'.. '.'.•■■
My • .experience, does not tally- with
this yie/wl .. I could -give' several illus- '
tratipus -from the- little that "has hap- ! -
pened to the United. ,States in : this. war. I.
•For instance, I -doubt' if any. troops of
Europe wer.e ever "for so long a' .time !
compelled, to -.H.ve-- in discomfort so ex-, j
treme 'and ••so. unnecessary as. the bulk
of the regiments' about Tampa. I have
already detailed much of what I saw
while living in camp,' and do not pro- !
pose Co reopen '..that .painful chapter.
During" that.tlme,.h'owerver.- 1 did not .
hear of any ..serious breach of disci- i
pline. There, must have been- plenty of ;
muttering' among' the- men. but no- at- l
tempt -was- made to influence headquar- i
ters. 'I. moved .freely, among the compa- !
nies in the regiment' whose guest I was '
and the men had ample opportunity of
ventilating the grievances they. felt, but
they preferred t'-o suffer like men. rather i
than 'expose themselves to the charge
of worrying about 'matters of mere'
comfort. In. some of the regiments •
where: I' happened .to- have the oppor
tunity -of noting the matter," I found
the average height of the men decidedly
higher than wHat prevails in Europe. ■
I have- seen guard mountings where!
. every man appeared, to be above & feet i
9 in. height... ' Both officers" and men
seem to -.be' decidedly superior in this i
respect to .average foreign regiments I
have Been. ' The Russians have perhaps
the largest, proportion pf tall men, but \
outside, of the- guards I doubt if any j
regiment -of the Russian army has so j
large "a .proportion .of well-built, tall
men- as say the' First- or Twenty-first
United States. regular infantry. -'•
I made the reference to the composite i
picture- of ' Boer- and Englishman be- j
cause the English officer represents
the spirit of the enterprise, courage and
high breeding. The Boer, on the other
hand, typifies the element of silent,
dogged, unpolished, clear-eyed home
spun, who does not care much for rul
ing others, and cares less still for be
ing governed against his will. The
American soldier is worried by very
few rules, and these few are such as
he can thoroughly understand. I wae
so fortunate as to accompany the first
American expedition which had right
ing with Spaniards on Cuban soil. The
transport used carried two companies
of the First Regular Infantry, and we
were gone about nix days. The men
during that time had apparently
as much liberty us though on a picnic.
Guard was mounted at night, for rea
?(ins that all c-ould understand, but
during the day officers and men were
•at liberty to t»eek rest and recreation
much as they chose. The harshest rule
FROM SKETCHES MADE BY A CALL-HERALD ARTIST WITH ADMIRAL SAMPSON'S FLEET.
was that no one should smoke be
tween decks. This was ordered not
from any precedent in the navy,
but for the very "nod reason that our
cargo was largely made up of hay
bales, which were on the same deck
as the sleeping quarters of a large por
tion of the men.
During the whole of this trip I did
not hear o-f a single man being drunk,
nor did I hear of any complaints on ac
count of the necessarily hard life they
Were compelled to lead.
. Not a single man had - bunk or a
hammock during the entire trip. There
was room for very few down below.
Host of th<; two companies had to
sleep on the two upper decks, which
in this particular craft were open to
the weather. Thus when it ra'ned —
and it did rain very hard off the Cuban
coast — the men clee-ing on the decks
had to get up and stand huddled to
gether through the night— at least un
til the rain was past. Most of them
were drenched through several times.
However, all of them were so glad
to get away from Tampa and sue some
thing of actual service that they had
no fault to find.
The same men had traveled some
three or four thousand miles by rail
before reaching Tampa, and had been
twelve days on the journey, during
which they had been treated worse
than cattle. This I mention here only
in parenthesis to Illustrate how men of
so much intelligence and familiarity
with good living are able to submit to
treatment which would be regarded as
barbarous by officers in the Russian
army.
On the afternoon of Maj' 11, at 3
o'clock, ihese two companies of United
States infantry were ordered to disem
bark from the transport and go ashore
to fight anything that happened to pre
sent itself. Our expedition had been
coasting along the Cuban shore from
Havana all the way to Cabanas, some
thirty odd miles westward. To meas
ure the courage of the men who went
ashore we must understand just how
rmioh danger there was in the under
taking.from their own point of view.
Presumably the Spanish garrisons
from Havana all the way to Cabanas
knew of our presence. If they did not
4t was their fault, for we coasted near
to shore the whole day on a very con
spicuous paddle steamer painted red.
We anchored within half a mile of
shore and disembarked a dozen reyu
lprf on a beach of which we knew
nothing excepting that it was about a
mile from Cabanas, in which, accord
ing to our Cuban guides, there was or
had been a garrison of 2000 Spaniards.
According. to all the probabilities, a
Spanish force would be on hand to dis
pute our landing. Those flFst few men
who landed through the surf went as
coolly. as though by special invitation
of friends on shore. There was no pa
rade of fine sentiment, no handshak
ing, no address from the commanding
officer, no serving out of stimulating
drink, which sometimes makes men
careless of danger.
Thick tropical bushes lined the beach,
and behind these we felt confident that
Spanish sharpshooters must be lying
In ambush, with possibly a small piece
THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JULY 3, 1898.
of artillery that would open upon our
crazy transport so soon as we should
have got the bulk of our landing party
under way for the shore.
Every private who went on this trip
knew the situation as well as his offi
cers. There was an ominous silence on
shore, and no unnecessary talk on
board.
We had no bluejackets on board and
i had, therefore, to make use of the civ
j Ulan crew of the transport, four men,
with a cockswain named John Dono
van. This same John Donovan knew
well that if he were caught ashore he
would be treated as an insurgent or
pirate along v h the rest of the crew
of ununiformed filibusters. But John
Donovan never bothered his head about
International law more than to remem
ber that he was a thoroughbred Irish
man, with a coating of citizenship, and
a profound contempt for the "dago"
and all others not of his own skin and
kidney.
John Donovan was a splendid pic
ture of manhood as he stood up in the
stern of the whaleboat, steering with
his long sweep, and guiding his crew
to where he thought the surf the least
dangerous. That was not saying much,
for the transport was anchored off a
coral reef, extending as far as the eye
could reach in each direction. The
waves broke high on this reef, and the
j men had to spring out of the boats and
I drag thorn for a distance of perhaps
a hundred yards. Some of the
boats capsized c-utrlght, and in each
case there were many minutes when
th<- different crews were up to their
! necks in the breakers, holding aloft
i their rilics and wondering why the
; Spaniards did not seize this opportuni
| ty of shooting them to pieces.
Ah there were not enough deck-hands
on the transport to row more than one
Bma.U boat at a time, the commander
I called for volunteers. There was no
lack of them from the privates. One
was my German friend, Buerger, who
had served in the Franco- German war,
had then served in the United States
navy, hud then been transferred to
the army, und had already served Un
cle Sam eighteen years. I had many
a ohat with him during the trip and
found hin; one of the few happy men
I have ever met. He loved the service,
had no idea of bring anythingelse than
a regular soldier, spoke English with
a Ftrong native accent, was proud of
the German Emperor, but thought. Ger
many was going to the devil from too
much government.
Uue-ger stepped into his seat, picked
up his sweep und pulled for the Cuban
shore with mt'chanical ease and ain
phibiousness. There were iOG soldiers
altogether on board and about half of
them went ashore, while the other
half lin^d the bulwarks of the trans
port—their rilles ready.
It was hard to say wl. h was the
most dangerous, to remain on the
transport or go ashore. Both were bad
enough as picnic grounds. One shot
from shore could send the rotten old
paddleboat to the bottom In five fath
oms of water, witl- no means of saving
life except by swimming amid sharks
and break*
There was a moment when about a
dozen regulars stood alone upon the
Cuban beach while the small boats
were struggling through the surf to
take off more men. But never was
there among these or any of those who
followed the s. ghtest hesitation to fol
low the orders given by the officers.
The woods had not been reeonnoltered
previous to lanaing. They had not even
been fired into by way of precaution.
Nevertheless, this handful of s ddiers
at once commenced skirmishing into
the unknown, and Boon enough the bul
lets commenced to sing about our ears.
These were not picked m . They
were taken as they happened to come.
The commander did not ask _for volun
teers to start from Tampa or even for
the first landing party. He had to se
lect men to puli tho sweeps not because
any were more brave than the rest, but
Kply for knowledge of rowing. Ev
man who was In that fight on that
was intelligent enough to know
t his chances of seein o home again
c hopel'sely small. The mere Idea
landing fifty men on an unknown
beach In the neighborhood oi a strong
£ -rrloon was enough to stamp the en-
I prise as equal in danger to that of
lutenant H< bson, who corked the
•bor of Santiago by sinking the Mer
iac Jn the channel undor fire from
Spanish forts.
Ty secret of this peculiarly Ameri
1 attitude toward danger is in the
Dit our men have of acting Individ
ually. The American hatituai.v takes
care of himself where the Euro-- in is
Ie apt to invoke the aid of a police
i. The American of the T'estern
t of this country is not pr.ne to risk
rights to the slow and iickle justice
he law courts, especially where the
ge is suspc "ed of political ambition,
.sequent lv the American type in
les a mtn who venerates the con
ution of the United States In tb.«
abstract but carries a sixshooter in
case of accident.
This forlorn hope of flf:y men was
attacked from in ambush by a .orce
estimated at several hundred. It might
have been several thousand for aught
these men cared. They hr.d a splendid
opportunlt for running away in a pan
ic. They were In a thick forest, where
they could see but little of the enemy
ana still less of their fellows. They
had reason to think they might be cut
off from their boats, and they knew
that if they reach the beach alive
the boats on ;and were not .nough to
hold them all. They were not fighting
elbow to elbow, and the rattle of the
enemy's bullets was painfully sharp
and continuous.
If I heard It once I heard it . dozen
times amon the regulars in and about
Tampa, "What is this war about, any
way?" The idea of liberating Cubans
or negroes did not to them seem to be
a very good one.
There was not, so far as I could dis
cover, any particular enthusiasm for
the cause in which they were nominally
enlisted. But it was grand sport and
they went at it with the same gusto
that they woijJ have exhibited if or
dered to exterminate Apaches or grizzly
bears. And he c lies the essential dif
ference between the professional and
the volunteer in this war. The regu
lar is invincibly brave from sheer force
of habit. He is incapable of panic, as
he is incapab!^ of vulgar pacsions. lie
kills his Spaniards as his surgeon am
putates a lep, but he does not neces
sarily hate the man he kills. He loves
the Spaniard who shoots straight. On
the contrary he despises only the
enemy who gives him an easy job. He
fights for the sheer iove of fighting.
i'he regular West Point officer is at
the bottom of this holy joy of warfare.
He is a man who soldiers adore. They
know that he knows lots of mysterious
things about theodolites, transit ma
chinory, sextants and cube ro.'ts. He
looks like a dandy when he arrives
fresh from the "Point," but for all that
he cannot be humbugged. The same
men who shirk their work under old
political coKmels sudd nly straighten
up when they have to do with a young
West Point lieutenant. That landing
near Cabanas could not have been
made had the leaders been other than
West Pointers. This does not mean
that other men may not have exhibited
equal courage under other conditions.
Here, however, panic an 1 massacre
were averted solely because each sol
dier knew that his offices was to be
trusted, and each officer knew that he
had complete moral ascendency over
the men under him.
Now, "West Point does not graduate
either cowards or fools, and soldiers
have consequently conceived a groat
respect for officers from tbat school.
It is a very unpopular school with pro
fessional politicians, for there is no
room there for the exercise of political
favoritism. We notice that there is
just now a disposition to weaken the
regular regiments by drawing away
from them the younger officers to serve
on the staff of volunteer organizations.
This is a cruel injustice to the regular
army, and it is done in order to weaken
it and to make it appear as though the
volunteers could accomplish Just as
much as the old seasoned regulars.
The regular army needs all its West
Pointers in this hour of national strain,
for the courage of the re.ular private
is the confluence he feels in the 6fncer
who leads him In battle. Take the
same men who behaved so nobly in the
fight I have just referred to and place
them under political captains and lieu
tenants and I doubt if they would have
stood their ground. They might have
shot their officers in the back, and I,
for one, could not have blamed them
very seriously. We are doing a very
dangerous thing In tampering for po
litical purpos with the organization
of the regular army. We are forgetting
that the efnoL-.icy of troops is based
upon the respect of men for their offi
cers and the corresponding confidence
of officers in their men. Once weaken
this bond and you produce a state of
things t' at can be compared only with
a ship whose crew has lost confidence
in the men on the bridge.
POULTNET BIGELOW.
WILL STARTLE THE BIRDS
ON LONELY
CLIPPERTON ISLAND,
LIVING as we do In the midst of
daily din of battles, both by
war's alarms many things now
adays get overlooked which at
a more peaceful time would ex
cite great public interest. The
land and sea, leaves the newspapers
little room to chronicle the minor
| events of business life. So while thou-
I Bands crowded the sea wall and the
! docks to cheer the third expedition on
: its way to Manila, but few noticed an
I innocent, little steam schooner, which
j lay, as if to escape observation, at the
i furthest end of the Vallejo-street
j wharf.
She is not a pretty boat, this Alice
Blanchard; her round heavy stern sits
low in the water, her -white painted
spar deck gives her a top-heavy ap
pearance, her battered sides and chafed
planking show that she has been noth
ing but a marine drudge, a humble un
obtrusive cargo boat. But probabaly
she is good enough to make Clipperton
Island and load guano, as that is all
she is required for. There are many
signs of her mission to be seen about.
The upper deck is being fitted with
bunks, exactly after the not too luxu
rious fashion of a United States trans
port. The wharf is crowded with mis
cellaneous stores, boxes and barrels of
all kinds are scattered about, and two
huge flat-bottomed surf boats, heavily
planked and built to stand hammering
on a coral reef, have just been deliv
ered by a local builder. But most prom
ient of all is a couple of huge iron
mooring buoys, looking exactly like the
boilers of a large steamer. There are
enormous rings round the buoys, car
rying heavy shackles to 'hich a vessel
may make fast, and the mooring cable
stretched alongside is of the heaviest
make and best quality.
All these things mean the expendi
ture of much money, but the enterprise
has been taken in hand by men of mil
lions, accustomed to dealing in large
sums. Clipperton Island, in the next
few years, will have more money spent
' upon it than during the whole of its
I barren existence. Its fortune has
i turned, the rock hitherto deemed val
! ueless is to be a busy place, and will
; doubtless put much gold into the pock
1 ets of its English owners.
During the past year a good many
! peo-ple have heard of Clipperton, be
: cause of the curious dispute as to the
1 island's ownership. In fact, the mat
| ter la still shrouded in the mists of
: doubt, though as far as the guano seek
: ers are concerned, nationality is a sub
ject of indifference. The island was
discovered by an Englishman, Captain
Clipperton. therefore some say it should
| be English.
It is believed that the United States
i Government does not intend to contest
i the Mexican claim, at any rate all the
I negotiations for the present enterprise
! have been carried on with Mexico. The
; Pacific Islands Company, which has ac-
I quired the right to strip Clipperton of
I its rich guano deposits, is a very
| wealthy London corporation. Titled
! men are on Its board of directors, as
well as members of some of the wealth
; lest shipping firms in the citj\ Its af
; fairs here have been managed by a
I well known traveler of the South Seas,
; Mr. J. T. Arundel, who has spent the
i last few months going to and fro on the
| Pacific, looking after the vast interests
I which his company holds in all parts
iof the ocean. Naturally, the Clipper
ton enterprise concerns San Francisco
chiefly, as the nearest commercial cen
ter, though some of the guano may be
shipped to Honolulu, and some even
j sent to Europe in sailing vessels.
The water front, which is always cu
rious in matters of this kind, has seen
nothing of the men who are to do the
; hard work of this expedition. Eighty
1 Japanese laborers were Imported from
'■ Honolulu. They came up in the Peru,
; and as soon as the steamer arrived,
! were hurried off to quarantine at Angel
j Island. It is risky work bringing these
men here, because under tho United
: States law their contracts are worth
i less. The company, even though it paid
I the passages, hart no legal claim on the
services of its laborers, and if the men
had been landed in San Francisco no
; one could have preseventcd their walk
! ing away at their own sweet will.
Fortunately the action of the medical
l officers In placing the Japs in quaran
1 tine relieved the company from this
| difficulty, and when the Alice Blanch
1 aid moved out into the stream the la
j borers were quietly put on board with
| out even having set their foot in San
j Francisco. Only three or four white
men accompany the expedition.
Captain Freeth, who is in command,
1b an experienced guano seeker. "With
| him goes a young Englishman, Mr.
Burleigh, who has yet to learn how mo
notonous life can be on a desolate coral
I rock. For the task before these men
is not a pleasant one to contemplate.
; Clipperton is merely a desert rock, an
annular coral isle, without even a
fringing reef to protect its shores from
| the thundering Pacific breakers. There
; is no fit anchorage for ships, hence the
i huge mooring buoys, which are to be
i put down outside the reef to enable
j vessels to hang on while the guano Is
i being sent out in small boats.
NEWSPAPER LIFE
AT THE SEAT OF WAR
Lively Experiences of the Correspondents
With the Spaniards, the Rations and That
Terrible Creature, the Press Censor.
From The Call Special War Correspondence.
CERTAINLY as far as numbers
go, we war correspondents at- :
tached to the headquarters of |
the American army for the in
vasion of Cuba are an uncom
monly strong lot. There are over
seventy of us here already, and it is
said that passes have been issued by
the War Department to as mt-y mure
who are still to come. Even . all of us
do not go to Cuba— and as things look
now it is possible that senile decay may
thin our ranks somewhat before the ex
pedition finally sails— still there may j
survive a hundred or so of us; and a
solid phalanx of a hundred war corre
spondents ought to be enough to
achieve all tha^ any general can rea
sonably desire in th 2 way of flowing
celebration of his exploits.
There can be no doubt that there will j
be quite enough of us for the work.
The only fear is t. at when the fighting
begins it will be impossible to see the |
battle for the war correspondents. As
to our many great talents, they re
main to be proved, but it has already
been clearly established that nothing
in the way of facts will pass unre
corded. We shall clear the battle
ground of facts as clearly as a patent
carpet sweeper.
Here, while we are waiting to begin,
nothing — not the smallest incident — es
capes us, however secret it may be.
The other day one of the series of little
expeditions for the carriage of stores
and ammunition to the Cuban insur- |
gents left here on a steamer called the
Gussie. It was, of course, most secret
ly despatched. The first essential to its
success was that Its going shn"M be
known only to those on board and to
the insurgents who were to meet it.
But, close secret as it was, it did not
escape us.
Sixty odd war correspondents scooped
it up, and on the morning of the day
upon which the Gussie sailed every i
newspaper in America contained a dou- j
ble column headline account of it, de-
Bcribing the purpose of the undertak
ing, the time at which it would prob
ably start, the spot on the Cuban coast
at which the stores were to be landed,
with complete particulars as to the ar
mament of the ship and the strength of
the force she carried.
The Spaniards may not be able to
I shoot very well, but some of them can
; read. And when the Gussie reached
the Cuban coast and prepared to land
her cargo she was surprised to find
that a considerable force of Spanish
j soldiers had been posted there to wait
i for her. She had a very narrow escape
i from a very tight place.
It Is quite clear that whatever may he
| our competence \,>r dealing with them,
! the facts will w 1 escape us. When after
! the crestfallen • -.turn of the expedition
, we were reproached with having caused
Its failure we replied with great dignity
that since the le ader of the expedition
! had been guilty of the unwarrantable
! favoritism of giving permission to two
j only of our number to accompany him
I it was the manifest duty of the rest of
! us to knock the stuffing out of the out
' fit. When in reply to that it was? urged
| that this did not justify our disclosing
1 secret movements of the army to the
I the enemy we contemptuously inquired
| whether any one thought that we were
out here for our healths.
The outcome of this was the estab
i lishment of a censorship. All news dis-
I patches have now to be aprr°ved and
j Initialed before they will be accepted
lat the telegraph office. The censor has
jmy sincere sympathy. Tliere is only
one of him. With sixty edd ravenous
newspatherers on the spot five censors
■would have been no mor«J than a fair
allowance. But only one has been ap
pointed. He is Lieutenant Mylie, a
ant and courteous young officer, who
acts as one of General Shafter's aids.
Since he began to carefully read line
by line sixty odd dispatches a day a
look of gloomy despondency has been
fettling on his oountenance, the bright
glow of soldierly enthusiasm which ne ;..
wore a week ago has disappeared,. : ahd
he pathetically' murmurs that this' is-,
magnificent, but it is- not war.. ;
I do not know whether tr> he sorry,
most for the censor or for the trans
port officer. Every one of the author
ized correspondents is entitled to trans-,
port for himself, his baggage and his.,
horse, and with regard to baggage
every one of us is a complete little,
military expedition in • himself- There
are only about a dozen transport yes- . .
dels waiting down at the portl After.,
we have been accommodated' 'l really
cannot imagine how the army : Is .going
to manage. We should not have-been
so heavily equipped, if It; had. not been .
for the time, we have had in -which to
think of things we could, not Jjc^sibly ■
do without. ' • . : . ■
You see, we have Just been sitting.;
here day after day for three- ...weeks: .
among the palm trees with nothing- in ;
the world to do except to wait for- meal
times and to-morrow's n;ivai .engage.-/
ment which never comes off. : In fact,
we have been leading, ladies' .11 ves,.:.and •■'■
naturally enough. we have sought tha;.;
feminine solace of shopping. ■'■'■."'.■■
It is a pity that some great.philoso
pher has not been here to observe us.
We should have supplied him with ma
terials for a convincing chapter, oft. the
enervating influences of Idleness.
When we first came here, alii in dusty
eagerness, from the North, -we Vied
with one another in a severe Spartan
simplicity. The O'Shaughnesgy, from
Chicago, took us up to his room and
proudly exhibited his kit— another .pair
of socks, another shirt, two handker
chiefs, a cake of soap and a blanket,
all wrapped up in a water-proof sheet;
tied with rope; that, in addition to
what he stood up in and what he car
ried in his pocket, constituted his outfit.
The waterproof sheet, h-e explained, .
not only served as a wrapping for his
kit but in combination with a heap of
brushwood which he would cut with
his jackknife would constitute his bed .
and his canopy when the rainy, season
in Cuba should set in. He rather apolo
gized for the soap; it would be handy,
he explained, for washing his clothes,
in case such a proceeding should be
come desirable; moreover, he confessed
shamefacedly that on the day upon .
which we made our triumphal entry
into Havana he had a dandified notfon
of washing himself. But he put himself
right with us on this point when Some
one tauntingly said:
"Anyway, what's the good of soap
unless you carry a towel along?"
"Towels!" said the vVShaughnessy,
contemptuously — "towels! Did ever
any one hear of a man needing a towel
when he'd got another shirt?"
I was secretly conscious of the. pos
session of a kitbag with all Borts of
wildly absurd things in it, such as a
comb and brush, and a patent safety
razor, and— shall I admit It?— a folding
shaving mirror; so next morning I
severely edited my outfit and packed a
big parcel back to New York.
But Sparta was not the starting point .
of the Gulf Stream, and I doubt
whether the Spartan warriors had their
headquarters in a pleasure : resort
hotel, with table d'hote three times- a
day and nothing to do for long, lang
uorous ..eeks. One morning Rathom
of San Francisco, who had been
stretched out in a rocking chair, wear
ily fanning himself with his hat,,
jumped up suddenly and said, With de
termination:
"Say, boys, I can't stand this any
longer. I am going out somewhere to
do something." .
He strode out fiercely,, and in an hour
or two came back looking very hot and
dusty and said, "I've been for a ride."
"On the trolley car?" we asked jeer
"Trolley car be hanged," he sa,ld.
"I've bought a horse.
A horse. We pricked up our ears.
Rathom has bought a horse. That
was an Incident— an adventure,, if you
like. And, after all, a horse was a very
suitable thing for a war correspondent
to possess. The cavalry had horses,
and most of the officers, too, and to
keep pace with the officers or to prop
erly observe the conduct of a cavalry
charge a horse was desirable, and in
fact necessary.
Some of us thought a well acclimated
Cuban mule would be more reliable, es
pecially for mountain fighting, but the
balance of opinion was that the horse
was the nobler animal and much more
useful when it became a question of
getting down to the coast with the first
news of a victory.
So we rose with resolution and went
out buying horses.
That afternoon there was a grand
collection of horses standing- in charge
of long-faced horsecopers under
the chade of the grove of palm trees
in front of the hotel and market prices
went up with a bound. It was not long
before the horse dealers began to be
ashamed of their earlier moderation.
They grew very independent, and the
appearance of some of the horses they
brought al>ng was nothing less than an
insolence. At first so long as the local
stock held out the favorite description
of a horse was that he wag "accli
mated."
"Say, mistuh." said the dealers, with
their languid Southern drawl, "yo doen
wawnt er hawse as is suah ter pull
himself ter pieces In er week; yo
wawnt er hawse er is acclimated.
Heahs one raised right heah suah, and
es good es he waws Cuby bawn."
The word "acclimated 1 ' captured us
all. and we Jed our prizes to the livery
stable, where rates Jumped up fifty per
cent in two hours.
After the surplus supply had been
exhausted they began to fetch horses
out of milk carts — gentle, contempla
tive chargers, which, when you were
riding them, would stop from force of
haMt whenever they came to a house.
Then they began to import horses from
gradually ascending Northern lati
tudes, first from Jacksonville, then
from Middle Georgia and Tennespee
and Kentucky — "the blue graws coun
try, mlstuh," they explained, "where
de racehawses i* raised."
THE DEFENSE OF HONGKONG.
!Lord Charles Beresford, speaking at
York at the beginning of last month,
very appropriately drew attention to
the unsatisfactory condition of Hong
kong from a military point of view.
There Is no subject on which her Maj
esty's Ministers, to whichever party
they belong, speak more freely than on
the defense of our coaling stations, and
year after year large sums have been
voted for the Improvement of our mili
tary works at Hongkong. Year after
year the same statement is made, too,
that owing to some unexpected Inter
vention the works had not been com
pleted as Intended, but the Government
now had them in hand, etc. Still, little
or nothing has come of this and Hong
kong Is practically dependent on the
fleet for its defense. This Is becoming
a more serious matter than ever, now
that Russia has been put In poasgasion
of Port Arthur, and Is there in her own
Interest taking similar precautions