Our men were in a rough part of the country. Steep hills were everywhere, the valleys were narrow, the roads were more like ditches. Thick underbrush, prickly bushes and tall grasses grew in many places. A number of men were set to work making roads, so that the wagons with the army supplies could push on. It was the wet season, and rain fell every day. Sometimes the streams would rise quickly and flood the new roads. When the rain was not falling the air was hot, and a steam seemed to rise from the ground. It seemed as if our men had no chance at all.
Spanish soldiers had been sent out from Santiago, and were now busy building log forts on hills a few miles from our camps, and piling up stones and branches of trees to make mounds, and putting up fences of barbed wire. In such places of shelter the Spaniards waited for our troops to march forward.
You must understand that the city that our troops wanted to reach was Santiago, but between them and it lay this rough country, where marching would be so hard, and where the Spaniards had forts on some of the hilltops.
Landing Troops at Daiquiri.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BATTLE OF LAS GUASIMAS.
A Number of our officers thought it would be best not to go forward till some roads had been made, so that the army wagons could be sent on; but General Shafter thought it would be best to march on at once. He feared that after a week or ten days in that climate many of our men might have fever and be unfit for service. So, even before all the men had landed, General Shafter ordered the first ones to go forward and drive the Spaniards from a place near Siboney. Thus, some of our troops began their march just after landing from the boats. About two hundred Cuban soldiers went with them, to lead the way and watch for the hiding places of the Spaniards.