e familiar with the views, character, and
worth of each, and remembered. The seeds planted in those
half-obliterated trenches have borne greater results than ever will the
kitchen-garden.

The kitchen-garden is immediately on the crest of the hill, and near it a
Cuban farmer has built a shack of mud and twigs and cultivated several
acres of land. On Kettle Hill there are three more such shacks, and over
all the hills the new tenants have strung stout barbed-wire fences and
made new trails and reared wooden gateways. It was curious to find how
greatly these modern improvements confused one's recollection of the
landscape, and it was interesting, also, to find how the presence on the
hills of 12,000 men and the excitement of the time magnified distances
and disarranged the landscape.

During the fight I walked along a portion of the Santiago road, and for
many years I always have thought of that walk as extending over immense
distances. It started from the top of San Juan Hill beside the
block-house, where I had climbed to watch our artillery in action. By a
mistake, the artillery had been sent there, and it remained exposed on
the crest only about three minutes. During that brief moment the black
powder it burned drew upon it the fire of every rifle in the Spanish
line. To load his piece, each of our men was forced to crawl to it on
his stomach, rise on one elbow in order to shove in the shell and lock
the breech, and then, still flat on the ground, wriggle below the crest.
In the three minutes three men were wounded and two killed; and the guns
were withdrawn. I also withdrew. I withdrew first. Indeed, all that
happened after the first three seconds of those three minutes is hearsay,
for I was in the Santiago road at the foot of the hill and retreating
briskly. This road also was under a cross-fire, which made it stretch in
either direction to an interminable distance. I remember a government
teamster driving a Studebaker wagon filled with ammunition coming up at a
gallop out of this interminable distance and seeking shelter against the
base of the hill. Seated beside him was a small boy, freckled and
sunburned, a stowaway from one of the transports. He was grandly happy
and excited, and his only fear was that he was not "under fire." From
our coign of safety, with our backs to the hill, the teamster and I
assured him that, on that point, he need feel no morbid doubt. But until
a bullet embedded itself