was not long before there was an improvement in the fare, although no
great variety was obtainable. We usually had, however, the best there
was in camp. The staples were salt beef, bacon, beans, and sweet
potatoes or yams, and we sometimes had fresh pork (usually wild hog),
fried plantains, and thin, bottled honey. We often had oatmeal or corn
meal mush, and occasionally we rejoiced in a cook whose culinary talent
comprehended the ability to make fritters. The bread was apt to be good,
and we had Cuban coffee three times a day. We had no butter, and only
condensed milk. It was considerably later, when I ate at the chief
engineer's table, that we feasted on flamingo and increased our muscular
development by struggling with old goat. If it had been Chattey's goat,
no one would have complained, but unfortunately it was not. Chattey was
our cook, and he kept several goats, one of which had a pernicious habit
of hanging around the dining tent. One day, just before dinner, he was
discovered sitting on a pie in the middle of the table, greedily eating
soup out of a large dish. Chattey's goat was a British goat, and had no
respect for the Constitution of the United States or the table etiquette
which obtained in the first American colony in Cuba. The soup was
dripping from Billy's whiskers, which he had not even taken the trouble
to wipe. It is certain that British goats have no table manners.

[Illustration: THE SPRING.

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

But I am getting ahead of my story. The condition of the road to the
port was so bad for some time after our arrival that it was barely
possible to get up sufficient provisions to supply the daily needs of
the camp, to say nothing of other freight. We were in need of almost
everything to furnish our tents or to begin agricultural operations.
There was, to be sure, the "commissary," where the company had
confidently assured us in its advertising literature "every necessary
article from a plough to a knitting needle" would be on sale "at the
most reasonable prices." As a matter of fact, the commissary was almost
as bare as the famous cupboard of old Mother Hubbard, and of the
commodities that were stored there, very few seemed to be for sale to
the colonists. After several ineffectual attempts to get what I wanted,
I entered the commissary tent one day to make a test case. Of Mr.
Richardson, the man in charge, I blandly inquired:

"Can I get a tin pail?"