rt! After a while we became so fond
of the hotel joke that I think we should have been sorry to see the
building completed.

[Illustration: "THE HOTEL."

_Photograph by V. K. Van De Venter, Jan. 23, 1900._]

The bad road to the port also cut off all chance of getting the sawmill
up to La Gloria, and it daily became more evident that we should
continue to dwell in tents for some time to come. We were destitute
enough during those first days in the colony. Our trunks had not come,
and did not for several weeks, and many of us were without change of
clothing or even a towel. We washed in a small creek which ran through
the Cuban camp, wiping our hands and faces on handkerchiefs. This and
other creeks served us well for drinking water, and there was also an
excellent spring on the company's reserve north of the town. Very little
freight could be brought up from the port, and hence it was that we were
not over-well supplied with provisions. There was usually enough in
quantity, but the quality was poor and there was a painful lack of
variety. The engineer corps' cook house was hastily enlarged into a
public restaurant upon our arrival, and did the best it could to feed
the hungry colonists. Some of the latter boarded themselves from the
start--purchasing what supplies they could get at the commissary--and
perhaps had a shade the best of it.

I shall never forget my first supper in La Gloria. It was at the
company's restaurant. We were crowded together on long, movable benches,
under a shelter tent. Before us were rough board tables innocent of
cloth. The jejines (gnats or sand flies) swarmed about us, disputing our
food and drink and even the air we breathed. The food was not served in
courses; it came on all at once, and the "all" consisted of cold bread
without butter, macaroni, and tea without milk. There were not even
toothpicks or glasses of water. Amid the struggling humanity, and
regardless of the inhumanity of the jejines (pronounced by the Cubans
"haheens"), my gentlemanly friend from Medfield, Mass., sat at my right
and calmly ate his supper with evident relish. He was fond of macaroni
and tea. Alas! I was not. At home he had been an employe in an insane
asylum. I, alas! had not enjoyed the advantages of such wholesome
discipline. Of that supper I remember three things most distinctly--the
jejines, my friend's fondness for macaroni and tea, and the saintly
patience and good-humor of our waiter, Al Noyes.

It