ect to move up on Santiago the day after to-morrow, and it's
about time, for the trail will not be passable much longer. It rains
every day at three o'clock for an hour and such rain you never guessed.
It is three inches high for an hour. Then we all go out naked and dig
trenches to get it out of the way. It is very rough living. I have to
confess that I never knew how well off I was until I got to smoking
Durham tobacco and I've only half a bag of that left. The enlisted men
are smoking dried horse droppings, grass, roots and tea. Some of them
can't sleep they are so nervous for the want of it, but to-day a lot
came up and all will be well for them. I've had a steady ration of
coffee, bacon and hard tack for a week and one mango, to night we had
beans. Of course, what they ought to serve is rice and beans as fried
bacon is impossible in this heat. Still, every one is well. This is
the best crowd to be with--they are so well educated and so
interesting. The regular army men are very dull and narrow and would
bore one to death. We have Wood, Roosevelt, Lee, the British Attache,
Whitney and a Doctor Church, a friend of mine from Princeton, who is
quite the most cheerful soul and the funniest I ever met. He carried
four men from the firing line the other day back half a mile to the
hospital tent. He spends most of his time coming around headquarters
in an undershirt of mine and a gold bracelet fighting tarantulas. I
woke up the other morning with one seven inches long and as hairy as
your head reposing on my pillow. My sciatica bothers me but has not
prevented me seeing everything and I can dig rain gutters and cut wood
with any of them. It is very funny to see Larned, the tennis champion,
whose every movement at Newport was applauded by hundreds of young
women, marching up and down in the wet grass. Whitney and I guy him.
To-day a sentry on post was reading "As You Like It" and whenever I go
down the line half the men want to know who won the boat race-- To-day
Wood sent me out with a detail on a pretense of scouting but really to
give them a chance to see the country. They were all college boys,
with Willie Tiffany as sergeant and we had a fine time and could see
the Spanish sentries quite plainly without a glass. I hope you will
not worry over this long separation. I don't know of any experience I
have had which has done me so much good, and being with such a fine lot
of fellows is a great pleasure.