ch forms
the coast-line between Siboney and Morro Castle, and at the mouth of a
low, swampy, malarious ravine or valley extending back into the
foot-hills, and opening upon the sea through the notch. The site of the
village, from a sanitary point of view, was a very bad one, not only
because it was low and confined, but because in the valley immediately
back of it there were a number of stagnant, foul-smelling ponds and
pools, half overgrown with rank tropical vegetation, and so full of
decaying organic matter that when I passed them for the first time on my
way to the front I instinctively held my breath as much as possible
because the very air from them seemed poisonous. The houses of the
village, as a result of long neglect, had become as objectionable from a
sanitary point of view as the location in which they stood. They were
rather large, well-built, one-story frame houses with zinc roofs, and
were erected, if I mistake not, by the Spanish-American Iron Company for
the accommodation of its native employees. Originally they must have
been very commodious and comfortable buildings, but through the neglect
and untidiness of their later occupants they had become so dirty that no
self-respecting human being would be willing to live in them.

Such were the village and the houses of Siboney when the army landed
there on June 23. In view of the nature of the Cuban climate during the
rainy season, and the danger of infection from abandoned houses whose
history was entirely unknown, and within whose walls there might have
been yellow fever, it was obviously somebody's duty not only to clean up
the place as far as possible, but to decide whether the houses should be
burned to the ground as probable sources of infection, or, on the other
hand, washed out, fumigated, and used. The surgeons of the blockading
fleet recommended that the buildings be destroyed, for the reason that
if Siboney were to be the army's base of supplies it would be imprudent
to run the risk of infection by allowing them to be used. Instead of
acting upon this advice, however, the army officers in command at
Siboney not only allowed the houses to be occupied from the very first,
but put men into them without either disinfecting them or cleaning their
dirty floors. Chlorid of lime was not used anywhere, and the foul
privies immediately back of and adjoining the houses were permitted to
stand in the condition in which they were found, so that the daily rains