After a brief rest on the south slope of the mountains, we resumed our march, a wearisome one for all of us and exceedingly painful to me with my disabled feet. They seemed even sorer after a halt. My ankles were now very lame from unnaturally favoring my pinched toes. The midday sun was hot, and we suffered a good deal from thirst. There were no longer any houses where we could procure water. We had not seen a stream of any sort in the last twenty miles. I staggered along as best I could, a straggler behind my companions. A little after noon we came suddenly upon two or three little water holes directly in our path. It seemed like an oasis in the desert. We could not see where the water came from nor where it went, but it was clear and good, and we were duly thankful. We ate dinner here under a small palm tree, and enjoyed a siesta for an hour.
In the afternoon we met only one person, a Cuban produce pedler on horseback. He treated those who cared for liquor out of a big black bottle. That afternoon's tramp will linger long in our memories. I thought we should never get across that seemingly endless savanna. At last, when it was near six o'clock, we reached an old deserted open shack which stood on the plain not far from the trail. Here we spent the night, cooking our supper and procuring in a near-by well tolerably good water, notwithstanding the dirty scum on top of it. We were within four miles of Puerto Principe, and my ears were delighted that evening with a sound which I had not heard in more than three months—the whistle of a locomotive. Our night was somewhat disturbed by rats, fleas, and mosquitoes, but we were too tired not to sleep a good part of it. The breeze across the savanna was gentle and soothing.
The next morning we walked into the time-scarred city of Puerto Principe—that is, the others walked and I hobbled. If possible, my feet were worse than ever. In the outskirts, our party divided, Franklin, Murphy, and Carpenter branching off to the left to go to the camp of the Eighth U. S. Cavalry two miles east of the city near the railroad track, and Crosby and I going directly into the heart of the town in search of a hotel. We had a long walk through the narrow and roughly paved streets before we found one. There is no denying that we were a tough-looking pair of tramps. We were unshaven and none too clean. Our clothes were worn and frayed, and soiled with mud and dust. We were bent with the packs upon our shoulders, and walked with very pronounced limps. Everywhere we were recognized as "Americanos," although it seemed to me we looked more like Italian organ-grinders. To the day of my death I shall never cease to be grateful to the people of Puerto Principe for the admirable courtesy and good manners exhibited to us. They did not stone nor jeer us; they did not even openly stare at the odd spectacle we presented. Even the children did not laugh at us, and the dogs kindly refrained from barking at our heels. At all times during our stay of several days we were treated with perfect courtesy and a respectful consideration which our personal appearance scarcely warranted and certainly did not invite. The Spaniards and Cubans seem to associate even the roughest dressed American with money and good-nature. The humbler children would gather about us, pleading, "Americano, gimme a centavo!" while little tots of four years would say in good English and the sweetest of voices, "Good-by, my frien'!" It was the soldiers who had taught them this. Their parents rarely spoke any English whatever.
We stayed at the Gran Hotel, said by some to be the best in the city. It was none too good, but not bad as Cuban hotels run. The terms were moderate, $1.50 per day, for two meals and lodging. A third meal could not be obtained for love nor money. I bought mine at street stands or in a café. Not a word of English was spoken at this hotel.
I cannot describe Puerto Principe at any length. It is an old Spanish city in architecture and customs, and might well have been transplanted from mediæval Spain. As a matter of fact, it was moved here centuries ago from the north coast of Cuba, near the present site of Nuevitas, the change being made to escape the incursions of pirates. It has a population of about forty-seven thousand, and is the third largest city in Cuba, and the most populous inland town. Many of the residents are wealthy and aristocratic, and the people, generally speaking, are fine-looking and very well dressed. I several times visited the chief plaza, which had lately taken the new name of Agramonte, and watched with interest the handsome men and beautiful señoritas who promenaded there. I was told that late in the afternoon and early in the evening the young people of the best families in the city walked in the plaza. They were certainly elegantly dressed and most decorous in behavior. The plaza was very pretty, with its royal palms and ornamental flower beds. It was flanked by one of the several ancient Catholic churches in the city. While in Puerto Principe I was in receipt of unexpected courtesies from Mr. C. Hugo Drake, the American lawyer alluded to in an earlier chapter of this book.
After spending four delightful days in Puerto Principe, I took the train to Las Minas, twenty miles to the eastward. There I joined my companions, who had preceded me by twenty-four hours. Here we boarded the private cane train of Bernabe Sanchez and rode to Señor Sanchez' great sugar mill at Senado, six miles away. Señor Sanchez has a pleasant residence here, surrounded by fruit trees and shrubs. We saw ripe strawberries growing in his garden. Scores of Cuban shacks in the vicinity house his workmen and their families. We went all over his immense, well-appointed sugar mill, then in operation, and in the early afternoon rode on the flat cars of the cane train through his extensive plantation for nine miles, the land on either side of the track for all this distance being utilized for the growing of sugar cane.
The end of the track left us about eighteen miles from La Gloria. We set out to walk home, but late in the afternoon the party accidentally divided and both divisions got lost. Murphy and I spent an uncomfortable night in the thick, damp woods, and taking up the tramp early the next morning, found ourselves, two or three hours later, at the exact point near the end of Sanchez' plantation where we had begun our walk the afternoon before. We had walked about fifteen miles and got back to our starting point without realizing that we had deviated from the main trail. Stranger yet, the other division of the party had done exactly the same thing, but had reached this spot late the night before and was now half way to La Gloria.
Murphy and I made a new start, and after getting off the track once or twice, finally reached the Maximo river, crossed it on a tree, and got into La Gloria at 5:30 that afternoon, nearly worn out and looking like wild men. I had had nothing to eat for forty-eight hours save two cookies, one cracker, and half a sweet potato.