th interest, not only for
the returning volunteer, but for any casual tourist. As it is, the
history of the fight and the reputation of the men who fought is now at
the mercy of the caretaker of the park and the Cuban "guides" from the
hotel. The caretaker speaks only Spanish, and, considering the amount of
misinformation the guides disseminate, it is a pity when they are talking
to Americans, they are not forced to use the same language. When last I
visited it, Carlos Portuondo was the official guardian of San Juan Hill.
He is an aged Cuban, and he fought through the Ten Years' War, but during
the last insurrection and the Spanish-American War he not only was not
near San Juan, but was not even on the Island of Cuba. He is a charming
old person, and so is his aged wife. Their chief concern in life, when I
saw them, was to sell me a pair of breeches made of palm-fibre which
Carlos had worn throughout the entire ten years of battle. The
vicissitudes of those trousers he recited to me in great detail, and he
very properly regarded them as of historic value. But of what happened
at San Juan he knew nothing, and when I asked him why he held his present
post and occupied the Block-House, he said, "To keep the cows out of the
park." When I asked him where the Americans had camped, he pointed
carefully from the back door of the Block-House to the foot of his
kitchen-garden. I assured him that under no stress of terror could the
entire American army have been driven into his back yard, and pointed out
where it had stretched along the ridge of hills for five miles. He
politely but unmistakably showed that he thought I was a liar. From the
Venus Hotel there were two guides, old Casanova and Jean Casanova, his
languid and good-natured son, a youth of sixteen years. Old Casanova,
like most Cubans, is not inclined to give much credit for what they did
in Cuba to the Americans. After all, he says, they came only just as the
Cubans themselves were about to conquer the Spaniards, and by a lucky
chance received the surrender and then claimed all the credit. As other
Cubans told me, "Had the Americans left us alone a few weeks longer, we
would have ended the war." How they were to have taken Havana, and sunk
Cervera's fleet, and why they were not among those present when our men
charged San Juan, I did not inquire. Old Casanova, again like other
Cubans, ranks the fighting qualities of the Spaniard much higher than
those of