lly satisfactory to an observer. As fast as the wounded
arrived, they walked, or were carried on stretchers, to two or three
large tents, pitched end to end and opening into one another, where
hospital stewards and nurses placed them on the tables, and the
surgeons, some of them stripped naked to the waist, examined their
injuries by candle-light, and performed such operations as were
necessary to give them relief. They were then taken or led away, and, as
far as possible, furnished with blankets and shelter; but as the supply
of blankets was very short, and all the available houses and tents were
soon filled, the wounded who came in after midnight were laid in a row
on the ground and covered with a long strip of canvas. Fortunately, the
night was clear, still, and warm, and a nearly full moon made it almost
as light as day, so that it was not so cheerless and uncomfortable to
lie out on the ground without a blanket as it would have been if the
night had been dark and cold, or rainy; but it was bad enough.

Most of our Red Cross surgeons and nurses were assisting in the
operating-tents, and I remained on shore until after three o'clock in
the morning. There was little that I could do beyond looking up the
wounded, who frequently came into the village on foot, after a painful
march of ten or twelve miles, and were so weak, hungry, and exhausted
that, instead of coming to the hospital, they lay down anywhere in the
street or under the wall of a house. Some of these men I found, with the
assistance of a friendly and sympathetic Cuban, and had them carried on
litters to the operating-tents. All of the wounded who came back from
the front that night ought to have had hot tea or coffee, and some such
easily digested food as malted milk, as most of them had eaten nothing
since the early morning and were worn out with pain and fatigue. But of
course no provision had been made for supplying them even with hard
bread and water, and when taken from the operating-tables they were
simply laid on the ground, to get through the night as best they could
without nourishment or drink. We all understand, of course, that, in the
oft-quoted words of General Sherman, "war is hell"; but it might be made
a little less hellish by adequate preparation for the reception and care
of the wounded.

I went off to the _State of Texas_ between three and four o'clock, and
threw myself into my berth just as day was beginning to break over the
hills east