t we fortunately had with us,
as chief of transportation, a man who was familiar with boats and who
had had large experience in handling them in circumstances and under
conditions similar to those that prevailed on the Cuban coast. In
proportion to our facilities, therefore, we got more stuff ashore in a
given time than the army quartermasters did, and with fewer accidents.
Mr. Warner, I think, was the first man to use, at Siboney, an anchor and
a stern-line to prevent a boat or a lighter from broaching to in the
surf. It was a simple enough expedient, but nobody, apparently, had
thought of it. By dropping an anchor astern, just before the lighter
reached the outer edge of the breakers, and then slacking off the line
until the boat was near enough so that thirty Cubans could rush into the
water, seize it, and run it up on the beach, a landing was effected
without difficulty or risk. Then, when the supplies had been unloaded,
the stern-anchor line could be used again as a means of pulling the
lighter off through the surf into smooth water and preventing it from
swinging around broadside to the sea while being launched. The best time
for this work was between five and ten o'clock in the morning. After ten
o'clock there was almost always a fresh breeze from the southeast,
which raised such a surf on the beach that unless the landing of
supplies was a matter of extreme urgency it had to be temporarily
suspended. We succeeded in getting ashore on Wednesday food enough to
satisfy the wants of the refugees at Firmeza, and Mr. Elwell was sent
there to superintend its distribution.

Wednesday evening, as there seemed to be no prospect of an immediate
engagement at the front, I decided to go to Port Antonio, Jamaica, with
Mr. Trumbull White, on the Chicago "Record's" despatch-boat _Hercules_,
to post my letters and the letters that had been intrusted to me by
Colonel Wood and Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt, and to get some articles
of camp equipment which I had ordered in New York, but which had failed
to reach me before the _State of Texas_ sailed from Key West.

We reached Port Antonio at eight o'clock on Thursday, spent the day
there, and returned the next night to Siboney. Early Friday morning, as
we were approaching the Cuban coast, the captain of the _Hercules_ came
down into the cabin with the astounding news that the blockading fleet
had disappeared. "The jig is up, boys!" he exclaimed excitedly. "They've
taken the city, a