From here to the fifth building, a distributing house, where American rations were given out on Sundays to great crowds of people who thronged the streets.
This finished, we drove to our warehouse, the San Jose, where our supplies were stored. Here was what remained of the several shipments which had preceeded us, the result of the tireless and well directed efforts of the New York Committee, only so recently established, and so new in its work. Possibly three hundred tons of flour, meal, rice, potatoes, canned meat, fruit, bacon, lard, condensed and malted milk, quinine, some of which had come by the first shipment, showing how difficult the distribution had been found to be; and it was not strange that a “warehouse man” had been asked for by the Consul General. Surely Mr. Elwell had not a sinecure.
Somehow the report got abroad that we had brought money for distribution, and a thousand people thronged the hotel.
We found among our supplies large quantities of flour, and the people had no way of cooking it. There are no ovens in these oriental countries except those of the baker. Consequently only he could make bread of flour. We found a baker with whom we arranged to take our flour and return bread in its place at a fair percentage.
“The Consul General has named a desire to have an orphanage created, and asked of me to find a building, and establish such an institution. I commence a search among the apparently suitable buildings of the town, but regretting always that I have not his knowledge of the city and its belongings. Up to this time the search, although vigilant, has been fruitless. Still there are only three days of it all since our arrival, and to-morrow will be Sunday.”
This hopeful entry ended the first half week of life in Cuban relief. Up to this moment no American food had ever entered Los Fosos, as the institution was under Spanish military and municipal direction. How to get our distributors into proper and peaceful aid there, if not into control, was a politic question.
The diary continues: “That Sunday morning, fine, clear and warm, brought three matters of interest to our attention:
“First. An interview with a householder concerning the orphanage—unsuccessful.
“Second. The visiting of all the various points, some nine in number, where American food would be distributed for the coming week to the waiting thousands and—
“Third. A bull fight.”